Fairness is at the heart of sport and without separate categories for the sexes there would be no women in Olympic finals
What is fairness? In sport, everything. From childhood, we come to see the head start in the playground race, the shove in the goalmouth, a rogue thumb on the egg (and spoon) as unjust, and quickly, loudly, “Oi!” object.
The same sense of probity works its way up into professional sport. Sandpapering a cricket ball: not fair. Boxing with loaded gloves: not fair. Intentional misrepresentation in Paralympic classification: not fair. Colluding with betting syndicates to fix a result: not fair. Doping in sport: not fair. We classify our sports in order to pitch like against like and to keep people safe. Heavyweight boxers never fight flyweights. From puberty, the sexes compete separately in most sports most of the time. These are long accepted norms. Or were.
Written by Tanya Aldred
This news first appeared on https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2021/jun/22/by-conflating-gender-and-sex-we-undermine-sporting-competition under the title “By conflating gender and sex we undermine sporting competition | Tanya Aldred”. Bolchha Nepal is not responsible or affiliated towards the opinion expressed in this news article.
