Life isn’t Fair

Since I commented on the whole Biles saga, I figured I might as well add an editorial missive on the Lia Thomas one as well. Why not?

And my title is “life isn’t fair”. Let us begin;

While trying to avoid hints of trans-phobia and mental and physical health issues, etc, we seem to find ourselves in an interesting crossroad of society and political pressure. Lia, a male to female trans-person, is competing in a female class of swimming and apparently doing well or setting records in female swimming. At a meet, she was 40 seconds ahead of her competition. This is a fact. Lia began her transition while in college, and competed as a male for at least a year of college swimming. Lia has also been doing testosterone therapy for years to regulate her hormones and has been cleared by a regulatory body to swim in the female class. This upsets female born swimmers, as well as other people who find it unfair. And while they support the trans journey, from all accounts I see they are mostly just complaining about the unfairness of the situation. I haven’t seen anything other than calling for regulatory bodies to enforce aspects of the definition of the trans journey and the limitations of what is considered “fair”. Many people have stepped in an offered half hearted explanations, but none have gone so far as to suggest what Lia is doing is patently illegal.

Now, in sports and athletics in general, any advantage is sought after for those crucial wins and gains. Lia having hormone therapy doesn’t take into fact that she has a trained male body and frame, which is significantly different than a female. Combine that with the aspect that she’s still a competitor, and while reducing testosterone is closer to leveling the playing field, she is already at an advantage. She’s eating and possibly taking supplements that are still increasing her athletic rate, so while she may have changed the engine in the Ferrari, it’s still a Ferrari frame with the chassis and suspension significantly upgraded, and the gas is still the same. That’s a fact, no matter how fair and unfair it may be. It could possibly be less damaging if she had transitioned before puberty, but that’s unfair to her to assume we know what’s best for her life. We do know that she had competed as a male in swimming before transition to female and basically started at the top of the brackets when she did.

You could argue Michael Phelps had a genetic disadvantage, however his competitors-one of his main one competitors Ryan Lochte-were only an inch or two shorter and the same weight as him. This advantage is decidedly less so, since he’s swimming against people basically the same size as him with all the same advantages that he can find, food, training and more. Women Olympic swimmers vary in height, but are shorter than men swimmers and typically lighter. An average of less or just over 6 feet and 130-160 pounds is given. The estimated height and size of Lia is 6 foot 1 and around 170-180 pounds. This would still indicate that she’s still larger than female swimmers, most likely due to that frame and muscle mass.

Which brings us to the next part. Assuming that Lia is aware of these aspects, and still made the decision to switch regardless, one would have to assume that she knows she has a advantage. IF you assume that she knew she would be a high level female swimmer if she transitioned, that would be incredibly dishonest. Contemptible, if true. However, you also have to take into account that someone loves the sport enough that they could continue to do it even as a new transitioned person under their true selves. But that brings us back around to the fairness aspect of sport. An honest athlete would know that competing against a lower division isn’t the same as competing against the best. Don’t we reward those who overcome the challenges to win against all odds? America loves a winner, but we especially love an underdog. We loved the dominance of Biles, but the emergence and Championship of Lee immediately took the pressure and attention away as we rightly celebrated the “next one up”. Even the celebrated underdog hockey team has found mythical levels of affection in our ethos.

And so here we are, looking at this situation with the progression of society, and yet the underpinning of our athletic values. We can celebrate the transition of Lia, while still decrying the fact that it’s not fair that she competes in the women’s division. It isn’t fair that Lia is bigger than her competitors, but it is what it is. Life isn’t fair, but we’ve decided that it’s legal. And we can also celebrate those who DO compete against her, as they continue to do while know that the competition isn’t fair. And if they decided to not let her compete, it wouldn’t be fair to Lia in that sense, but it would be fair to the women who are in the division. Where do we draw the line for where it’s for and where it’s against? Society typically says for the good of the masses, which in this case to me means, for the women in the division that DON’T have her advantages. Do we hand out participation trophies for showing up in this event? Do we put an asterisk by her name?

Life is unfair. And if I were her, I’d simply not compete. It’s something that you might have to give up to be your true self-and swimming against less competition means less value to me, personally. I guess only society will tell whether or not we accept that challenge, or we reject it based on “fairness”.