Battle of the Sexes (Not)
“Do they really believe they are showing off their skills and competing in a fair match?”
As I observe the current transgender movement, I'm reminded of my own experience competing athletically against a male--in 1981. To say it was a fiasco might be an understatement.
I attended a small private school for my senior year of high school. I joined the tennis team to fulfill a physical education requirement and for fun. I'd been playing tennis for years, although not competitively. I knew I wasn't a star player, but I decided it didn't matter. I'd run track in the 8th grade, and I wasn't a star on that team either, but nobody cared and it was a lot of fun. Even if I was defeated in a race, I wasn't defeated by much. It had been exhilarating to speed toward the finish line, my competitor no more than a pace or two ahead of me. I enjoyed the locker room camaraderie, and traveling to other schools on the bus.
My track experience had been in a large-ish public school. My private high school, however, didn't have enough students to form boys' and girls' tennis teams, so they made the team co-ed. We competed in a league of schools that also had co-ed teams. One day, I guess someone was sick, so I was drafted to play a singles match against a boy from another school. I figured I would lose, but I imagined it would be something like my 8th grade races--I would be defeated, but defeated honorably.
Within 15 minutes of starting our match I realized it was going to be much worse than I had imagined. I couldn't return my opponent's serves. What I had thought was my own decent serve and backhand slice didn't seem to amount to much. I wasn't just going to be defeated, I was going to be annihilated. I began to feel like I was being publicly humiliated. Why were we doing this? I could see the stony expression on my opponent's face. He obviously was trying to hide whatever emotion he was feeling. I wondered if he was bored, but years later I realized he was probably angry--he'd probably signed up for his team to show off his skills, and he was being denied an opportunity to do that. He may have felt embarrassed at being forced to humiliate me. He was probably a normal boy, and that's how a normal boy would feel.
I didn't think I could forfeit the match, because it would be unsportsmanlike. So I continued the absurdity, and none of the adults did anything. I shook hands with my opponent at the end of the match. I realized I was angry, but I wasn't sure who I was angry at.
I think the schools might have been confused by the fairly recent "Battle of the Sexes," in which tennis superstar Billie Jean King defeated has-been pro Bobby Riggs. What they should have paid attention to was that King was a 30-year-old phenomenon at the time and Riggs was an out-of-shape 55-year-old. Now that I'm in my 50s, I realize that there's a sharp decline in athletic ability after age 50. That's why you don't see 55-year-olds compete in real matches.
As I watch male athletes such as Lia Thomas competing against women, I wonder what they are thinking. They don't seem to be embarrassed. Do they really believe they are showing off their skills and competing in a fair match? It seems like an almost psychotic level of denial. Either that, or they are deliberately making a mockery of their sport, for reasons that we can only guess at.
- Anne R
Letters From the Front is a series from WoLF curating stories from women about how “gender identity” ideology has impacted them. We’ll share new letters, submitted anonymously, each week. Write in to share your own story!
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