Good News, Bruce Jenner: You can still make a comeback in the decathlon!
If, like me, you’ve been among the millions of people around the world complaining that #OlympicsSoBiGendered, this is a proud day in history. Maya Rhodan, Time:
The International Olympic Committee will now permit transgender athletes to compete in the games without having to undergo sex reassignment surgery first.
“To require surgical anatomical changes as a pre-condition to participation is not necessary to preserve fair competition and may be inconsistent with developing legislation and notions of human rights,” the IOC says.
The new guidelines, however, still require those transitioning from male to female to adhere to a more strict set of rules: they must declare they are transitioning from male to female at least four years before competing in the new category, according to documents published by the IOC. These athletes must also have low levels of testosterone in their system.
“Low levels of testosterone”? This is great news for all the fellows at Vox and BuzzFeed.
It’s a good start for the notoriously problematic Olympics, of course. But why even segregate events by “male” and “female” in the first place? If there’s one thing I’ve learned by being on the Internet all day, every day, it’s that gender is a social construct. So is race. If you disagree, you really need to shut up because you’re probably just a white male.
And for that matter… why even have gold medals? Are the Olympics saying that an athlete who doesn’t run as fast as another athlete somehow isn’t as good? If a gymnast stumbles and falls, does that make xer less of a human being? If one team scores more points than the other team in the time allotted, in what real sense have they “won”?
What’s the obsession with pointing out the differences between things? Male. Female. Gold. Silver. Bronze. Enough. How about some diversity?