-having a job

-not having a job

-applying for jobs

-the job market

Men should not be allowed and encouraged to have their own leagues separate and apart from half the population. Siloing women and trans people into a completely separate space is not equality, it's fully giving away the plot.

To take a small tangent, I wanna talk about a sport-like activity I used to be heavily involved in: Drum Corps International (DCI for short). DCI is a highly competitive marching band league (that's an oversimplification, but enough info for the purpose of this comparison). DCI has two main divisions, World Class and Open Class. Think of these as a major league and a minor league. The main differences between WC and OC are the average age of the members of the corps, the cost of enrolling in the corps, and the amount of time dedicated to training and rehearsal during the season. World Class costs more, has an older average age, and rehearses far longer and more rigorously. Open Class has it's own competitive circuit, and is judged at a slightly lower standard than World Class. OC has its own seeding shows and its own semifinals/finals competition. There is an Open Class Champion named every summer at the end of the season.

And then every Open Class corps also competes in World Class finals week. Every corps in DCI, regardless of division, competes in World Class Prelims, and then the top 24 corps regardless of division advance to World Class Semifinals, and then the top 12 regardless of division advance to Finals. The Open Class champions also get to perform at WC Finals as "the thirteenth corps". When DCI started formatting it's finals competitions like this, Open Class corps got better on average. Having the opportunity to compete at the highest level raised the overall quality of the activity for everyone. Some OC corps regularly make semifinals, some WC corps get knocked out of contention in the process. It's not perfect, but the fact that every corps is allowed to compete in the same competitions is something to be lauded. This isn't a perfect one-to-one with a lot of competitive sports, but I think it's a decent analogue when discussing the effects of economic disparity.

I think, until all of the economic disparities have been addressed (which is as much of a class issue as a gendered issue), women and girls need a space where they can be developed and celebrated. But I don't think that necessitates the existence of Men's Leagues at all. The NHL should not be allowed to bar women and trans people from playing hockey full stop. The NBA should not be allowed to bar women and trans people from playing basketball full stop. There are already women and trans people who play well enough to be in these leagues. The continued existence of Men's Leagues speaks to the misogyny inherent in the culture, and I think the rise of women's sports (the PWHL, the WNBA, the NWSL) is both something to be celebrated but also needs to be understood as a compromise position, not the end-all-be-all of gender equality in sports.

If we degender sports, there will be no way to keep trans women out of sports. Men and women, cis or trans, can all compete on the same level when given the same time, energy, and space. That should be the end goal of any talk of sports advancement.

@lucky-deergirl I want to put this here, because you're completely right. I'm in know way trying to say that DCI is perfect. I marched in the BD organization for 9 years and taught there for 4 (BDC/BDB for marching and BDB for teaching specifically) so while I can't speak to everything that went on at the world class level, I can say that DCI has huge problems with how it handles sexual assault and gendered issues. The last two years I taught there after I came out as trans were a nightmare. Even on staff, I was sexually harassed and eventually let go because I was a trans woman. But I think the competition structure of finals week is worth highlighting as an example of what more equitable competition might look like while the social and economic inequalities get addressed with player/member protections and robust systems that punish abuses of power.