What does playing according to "sex" mean?
Do you think male heavyweight boxers should be competing against male bantamweights, for example?
(, Tue 29 Jun 2021, 9:52, Reply)
No. Of course not.
But you can have weight classifications within sex classifications.
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Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Tue 29 Jun 2021, 9:53,
Reply)
My point is that boxing already recognises that a single category of "male" is not sufficient to categorise competitors. Perhaps "playing according to sex" is also too simplistic for other sports, and they need to consider ways of categorising competitors in a more granular fashion.
(, Tue 29 Jun 2021, 10:37, Reply)
Simply because sex isn’t sufficient
As the *only* category, does not mean that it isn’t the most important initial category. And in fact, as everyone who hasn’t lost their minds knows, it is.
I’m not meaning this to sound hyperbolic, it’s simply the truth of what you’re suggesting; if boxers were separated by weight class and not sex, what you’d have is this; lots of dead female boxers.
(, Tue 29 Jun 2021, 10:42, Reply)
It's perfectly sufficient in most contexts.
In some, it's not. That's why we divide boxers by weight.
But the natural range of abilities within sex classes is dwarfed by the differences between them; and that's why competition within sex classes is (by and large) fair, and between them is (by and large) not.
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Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Tue 29 Jun 2021, 10:45,
Reply)