Nancy Hilton
Nancy Hilton is a senior at St. John’s College. Originally from Connecticut and soon to graduate, she plans on attending a premedical post-baccalaureate program to prepare for medical school and a career as a physician. She loves to be outdoors, cook Italian food, read everything under the sun, and travel to new countries. In her spare time, she captains the women and non-binary intramural group Kunai. Being a kunai captain has made her grow in her leadership qualities, capacity for fun, and provides an important opportunity to think about the intersection between gender, sex, and athletics: the topic of her TEDx Talk!
Last summer I had the opportunity of watching the crossfit games not in person unfortunately but on YouTube In particular event swim paddle swim the men and women started and play together this is where my second thought moment begin what if man and woman always play together or even against each other. I am a woman and athlete and alongside five other woman I captain sports group here at St John's college called kunai. Kunai is available to women trance and non binary athletes now some of these terms might be new for us so I am going to define some of them the term trance is used to describe somebody who has transitioned from one gender or sex into another.
The term non binary which you will hear
me say a lot is used to describe somebody who moves between genders
freely or has no gender at all Kunai has recently had to expand its definition
of who can participate because this gender paradigm is in trouble beyond
Saint John's college we separate men and women boys and girls into this categories
when they play but this doesn't work for everybody we cannot separate
athletes into men and women as we have so strict define them because there are
people who do not fit into these categories.
I want everyone regardless of their
gender or sex to experience the
transformative challenging healthy and fun aspect being an athlete the fourth
pillar of Olympism in the Olympic charter states that the practice of sports is
a human right we all need to be active be might not all become Olympians but we
all need to be active however if we don't change our conception about who
can play and where we will continue to deny crucial part of being human so this
is such a problem why haven't men and women always play together.
I
think there is an unexpected reason for men to be aggressive with men and women
with women Is one thing but for men and women to be aggressive together is
another people like we are trading into dangerous territory violence between
men and women is a serious issue we are trying to combat in our culture why am I
characterizing sports as violent or aggressive a minute ago I wasn't just
talking about how competitive and one they could be at I am 4 years at St
John's college I have played many different sports but I was raised in
basketball I have played for almost over a decade and when I tell people this they
have to reactions they either say I love basketball let's play some time
or they wish I had never mentioned it. Why is sports polarizing this way when I
am playing basketball I am doing things I generally wouldn’t do I can invaded
somebody's personal space I can swap the ball out of their hands I can be
bombastic and loud and gloat general I am given license to defy our social rules
and inherent to the design of many games is this violent of our culture
norms no wonder it bothers as so much.
Sometimes athletes come to kunai I am thinking
that it won't be as rough as our co-ed sports here at St john's college they
are wrong we think that by playing with people who have the same physicality as
us or the same bodies as us that we are less likely to get hurt but this is not
the case either what It depends on most is the relative skill of the athletes
on the court are field around you risk of getting injured is inherent to sports
whether it would be a man woman a trans or non-binary athlete.
So before I move on to my next point I
want to address some of the emotions that might be coming up gender dynamics is
really difficult to talk about it's quite uncomfortable and ultimately I am not
wedded to any of the ideas I am telling you but this conversation needs to
happen it is incredible important but I want all of you to challenge your ideas
on gender what have you been told about man woman trans and non binary people
that is not useful or true.
If some of these ideas bother you as
that might I want all of you to reflect on them because they or
intelligent once these feelings will tell you a lot about yourself so as I was
preparing for today and having conversations with many different athletes one
issue kept coming up the concern about the uneven playing field will it be fair
for people of all gender expressions to play together is it fair that everyone
will be judge together through selective media we are led to believe that
people with more testosterone and more male characteristics will perform better
end of story this is not always the case there are so many more factors that go
into an athlete’s success or failure then just there hormones they are not the
be all end-all there are trance and non binary athletes who with these
testosterone differences who perform average. Average among their peers though
disgruntled parents athletes and media would have you believe differently athletic
organization try to control for these individual variances ultimately they fail
because none falls have ever been equal athletes have never been equal competition
is designed to highlight this some people will win some people will come really
close and some will lose the issue really with the idea that there is an even
playing field at all we are trying when we are mirroring athletic competition
what we are trying to control for hand make sure that we are measuring Is
athletic performance and not some other ability but what does it mean to have
an even playing field what we are really concerned with is fairness wouldn't we
are.
How to control for all of the variables make
sure nobody is getting an unfair advantage should we mandate that coaches train
all of their athletes the same all athletes should diet the same protein powder
and supplements should be outlawed should athletes with prodigious high weight
or muscle mass be barred from competition because of their genetics If you take
the idea of the even playing field to its logical extreme.
Everyone becomes the same and the
purposes of sport like excellence achievement and fun become relevant and
meaningless when a trans athletes perform and does well maybe even when it's
because of their hormones but when a trans athlete losses or performs average nothing
is said about it I think doctor Rachel McKinnon Put it best she is professor
and a trans athlete In her recent article in the New York Times called I
want a world championship some people aren't happy about it she writes if you
think I have an unfair competitive advantage considered this I lose most of my
races How can I have an unfair advantage over her if She beats me most of
the time and why should my right to complete be contingent on not winning there
are now and in the future we will continue to be really excellent and talented trance
and non binary athletes but as things stand there is not enough room for them
to compete so instead of giving our exclusionary system what If we create a new
inclusionary system no gender necessary instead of a separating athletes by the
gender we can separate them by them skills and goals the people who want to be
really elite and work their bodies and be highly
competitive they played together and the
people who want to be active and have fun through competition but not necessary
become elite they can play together by putting people of the same goals and
skills together we can create better teams that work for everyone Earlier I
asked you what it might look like For men and women to play together I also
want to ask you what it means to be a great athlete think about some great
athletes you might have heard of or know are the great because the score a lot
of points are the run really fast that could be part of it but I think it's
only part I think what we really mean Is something like this athlete inspire this
athlete looks like me and they have show me the wealth of potential In human
being this athlete has emboldened me to try harder In my life many more people
than we think can be that if they are given the chance to show it
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