Juno News - November 24, 2024


Why are girls missing out on sports？


Episode Stats

Length

10 minutes

Words per Minute

167.43674

Word Count

1,824

Sentence Count

87


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 our next panel now, I will be joined by Megan Murphy, a feminist author, and Linda Blade. She
00:00:06.880 is the former president of the board of Athletics Alberta, and she is a advocate for women. We're
00:00:13.420 going to be talking about why young girls are not participating in sports at the same rate as young
00:00:20.380 boys. So Linda, how prevalent do you think this issue is of young girls not wanting to play in
00:00:27.580 sports because of the possibility that they might be competing against a biological male?
00:00:33.360 Well, I don't have statistics because we're not allowed to ask, and this is the biggest problem
00:00:37.560 in Canada, but I know it's a massive problem at the ground level. A lot of girls feel very
00:00:43.160 uncomfortable with possibility. I've had private connections with people who've been struggling
00:00:49.980 with it. I would say it's not the only reason, of course, not the only reason why, you know,
00:00:57.220 a girl would feel uncomfortable or not want to do sports anymore, especially going into the teenage
00:01:04.480 years. It's very common that girls would, some of them want to drop out. You know, even just even if
00:01:11.100 it's a sport of figure skating, for example, you get a little heavier in the hips for a while,
00:01:15.540 maybe your jumps don't go as well, and then you quit because you feel like it's all over when it's
00:01:20.260 not really. You could just work your way through it, but there's a lot of different reasons.
00:01:24.200 So, Coach Linda, when you look at these numbers, the disparity between men and women's sports,
00:01:29.580 is this something that you're personally concerned about, or you think it's pretty normal just given
00:01:32.860 how women's bodies change?
00:01:36.300 You know, when I read the article on the survey and the survey results, I was quite surprised
00:01:42.080 that it was even that close. I would have thought that it might be, you know, boys at 68% and girls
00:01:49.860 at 40%. So, the fact that girls are in the 60 percentage points, even though they're slightly lower
00:01:56.080 than the guys, I mean, that's not necessarily great, but I mean, it's not out of the range of, you know,
00:02:03.820 marginally acceptable. There's still a lot of dropout that'll always happen when girls become teenagers
00:02:09.420 and start to menstruate and have other interests in life. Sport is just not as accepting of girls
00:02:16.220 in general, and it's even harder now that boys are allowed to self-identify into girls' sports. So,
00:02:22.760 I would say that it's not an alarming percentage that I looked at, but I care deeply about the fact
00:02:32.000 that whoever's remaining in sports as a female athlete into their teens is, has a double
00:02:38.820 discouragement of having, you know, having to deal with the fear of boys coming into their sport and
00:02:45.980 having to compete with them. Megan, I want to go to you on this topic next. So, the government of
00:02:52.100 Alberta, you know, is introducing legislation that would make it, so that would basically create safe
00:02:57.720 spaces for women's sports. It'd be woman-oing sports. Biological men could not play in women's
00:03:02.840 sports. They've talked about maybe creating a third division for, that would be co-ed, so that
00:03:07.560 people who identify as transgender could play in sports as well. Do you think that this type of
00:03:11.840 legislation is necessary? Yeah, I mean, absolutely. I don't, I think that the idea of a separate category
00:03:20.820 for, you know, trans-identified people is fine. I don't think that it'll be populated by anyone.
00:03:26.260 I don't think that the point is actually, as they say, exclusivity. You know, there's always been
00:03:34.080 sports categories for males and not always been sports categories for females. That's relatively
00:03:40.820 new in our history, I suppose. But yeah, I mean, girls and women's sports are important for a wide
00:03:48.820 variety of reasons. It's so empowering for girls, as I'm sure Linda has spoken to and has spoken to
00:03:55.980 many times. It's so empowering for young girls to be able to compete as athletes. And I just, you
00:04:04.340 know, the idea of letting males compete in women's sports will lead inevitably to the erasure of women's
00:04:12.160 sports completely. And I've seen some people, you know, Democrats and in Canada, you know, liberals and
00:04:19.900 progressives say, Oh, this is such a small issue. You know, there's hardly any trans athletes who cares. It's just a few,
00:04:27.760 you know, what they would refer to as trans girls or trans women, and what I would refer to as men and boys, who are
00:04:35.120 wanting to compete, so just let them but I mean, it's not women's sports are for women, girls sports are for girls. And
00:04:42.980 I think it's as simple as that.
00:04:46.180 Yeah, I think to your point, you know, in the CBC article that we were talking about, Linda, there was one female
00:04:51.480 athlete that was referenced, her name is Hannah Pilling, she was 18 years old. And in the article, she said, you know, I
00:04:57.080 didn't make, I didn't make it to provincials last year, because a biological male also was able to
00:05:03.560 compete in the women's division, and you know, ran faster than me. So after years of training, I wasn't
00:05:08.080 able to compete. And the article kind of really beat on the fact there didn't seem to be a lot of
00:05:13.120 biological men competing in women's spaces in Alberta. But I'm sort of left with the impression that even if
00:05:18.140 one woman has her spot stolen by a biological male, isn't that in and of itself an injustice that we should
00:05:24.980 create policy that would protect those women isn't even that one girl who lost her spot because of
00:05:30.440 a man and what should be a woman's space? Isn't that a bit of a disgrace? Linda, what are your thoughts?
00:05:36.020 Yeah, absolutely. Like, you have one person involved, one boy self identifies into a girl's race, you've
00:05:44.820 affected every single girl in that race. So it's not about oh, so few, it's about it only takes one to be
00:05:52.160 the fly in the ointment that makes it difficult and, you know, interferes with the entire female
00:05:59.960 sector in that particular event. And can I just say, with Hannah Pilling, I literally went to the track
00:06:05.860 because there had to be a petition file for her to actually get to the provincials anyway, even though
00:06:10.660 she got beat out. So she did appear. So I went over there to see how it was going. And what I found
00:06:18.120 was appalling, I found that it wasn't just restricted to her rights being, being somehow
00:06:24.040 undermined. When I went up to the stands after her race and looked up for her dad, because I wanted to
00:06:30.380 say, well, good for you guys that you stood up and stood your ground. I found her dad, she told me where
00:06:35.900 her dad was in the stands. I find her dad being completely berated with profanity by the aunt of the
00:06:41.940 boy saying, oh, you shouldn't have said anything. So you know what, it's not just, I mean, the things
00:06:47.400 that people don't know, it's not just that the girl was somehow replaced. Now the dad is being yelled
00:06:54.220 at by somebody because he's transphobic. It's like, it's ruining the experience for every single person
00:07:01.140 in that whole realm. And, you know, there are parents who have told me when I was president of
00:07:06.060 track and field in Alberta, you allow this to happen. Boys in our sport, I'm taking my girls
00:07:11.300 out because I don't want my family to deal with this. And I saw it firsthand. I actually had to
00:07:16.040 get between the two of them and tell the woman to back off. I didn't even know the man. I was even
00:07:21.080 going to introduce myself to him and she was just out of control. So we can't have this happening in
00:07:27.200 the stands while the children are on the track competing.
00:07:30.060 No, absolutely not. One of the criticisms that was levied in the CBC article was that now some
00:07:38.740 Alberta sporting organizations are concerned that youth sports won't be able to bring championships
00:07:44.480 to Alberta because of these regulations that might not fit with regulations, with regulations rather
00:07:50.220 elsewhere in Canada. Megan, what would your response be to that?
00:07:53.660 I mean, I don't think that, I think that they're looking at this backwards. I mean,
00:07:59.560 we're supposed to be protecting girls and women. It's not about fitting girls and women into these
00:08:04.720 new regulations that have changed to accommodate transgender ideology and boys who want to cheat
00:08:13.360 essentially. So I, you know, I don't, it's like Linda says, this is affecting all girls and all women
00:08:23.500 in sports, even if it's just one boy. And it's so ironic to me that we think about it as though
00:08:30.320 it's these girls and women or the girls' parents, for example, who are causing trouble and just like
00:08:36.860 leave these poor trans girls alone. When in reality, it's one boy or one man who's ruining the entire
00:08:46.560 sport or the entire race or the entire event, the entire competition for all of the girls and women
00:08:52.940 who are competing there and, you know, and their parents and their coaches and the idea of a future
00:09:00.880 in sport for girls and women and the idea of a future in terms of whether or not they can access
00:09:06.300 these scholarships and go on in their careers. You know, we should be changing regulations to push
00:09:14.100 other provinces to also change regulations and push other countries to also change regulations and to push
00:09:20.140 the Olympics to change regulations. I think the more provinces and the more organizations and the
00:09:28.460 more countries and, you know, the more coaches and universities, for example, that push back,
00:09:34.920 everyone else will follow along. And I think that we're seeing that happen. You know, we just saw
00:09:40.780 Trump win an election in the U.S. And a big issue for a lot of people was this issue of girls and women
00:09:47.460 in sport. And I think it will be a big issue in the next Canadian federal election as well. And it
00:09:55.220 appears to me as though Pierre Pogliere is paying attention. Certainly the conservative parties
00:10:03.540 provincially are paying attention. You know, this was an issue in the B.C. election. And I think that
00:10:10.340 the majority of the population is speaking and those who aren't listening are falling behind the time.
00:10:17.300 Well, you answered my last question. I was going to ask you, where do you think this goes from here?
00:10:24.820 And you said the majority of the population is speaking and those who are not listening are falling
00:10:29.700 behind. So I will give that to my audience as encouragement about where things are headed
00:10:35.940 in North America at the moment. Ladies, thank you both so much for being here today and for your insight.
00:10:40.100 Thank you. Thank you.
00:10:49.620 Thank you.