Yesterday the US Supreme Court made an expected yet devastating decision about the future of trans people and their right to exist in this country, and they did it through an argument based upon sports.

Supreme indeed. Supremacist through and through. That's what hierarchy gets you.

I'm not going to rehash the same old arguments defending the right of trans people to exist, my own right to exist, because that's what this is about, that's what this has always been about, and it's never had anything to do with sports, and we all know it, and so do they.

Admittedly, I appreciated much of Justice Sotomayor's dissenting opinion, found on page 10 of the ruling, little good that it does. Here's a link to the ruling, and also a good breakdown and analysis by Erin Reed. Note: I typically hate sharing Substack links for ethical reasons, but Erin Reed does some of the best reporting on trans-relevant politics in the US, by far, so I regrettably make some exceptions.

The ruling allows states to ban trans people, especially trans-feminine people, from participation in sports and use of school bathrooms, and defines us all in a way that erases our existence from the law.

After dissecting the ruling a bit, I attempted to gauge how much hotter the water in the pot has gotten as a result of this ruling. Is it boiling yet? It's difficult to tell when they only turn up the heat a few degrees at a time.

And after that, I went to go watch my son play soccer.

We often tell our kids, "remember, the only thing that matters is winning." The kids always roll their eyes. They know we're being ironic. We don't give a fuck about winning.

As I sat watching, I thought the same thing I always think about when I think about sports, and it's not a bunch of arguments for trans inclusion in sports. Yes, trans people deserve to be included everywhere cis people are included. But there's something else that has nagged at me for so terribly long.

Admittedly, I've intentionally avoided writing on this topic for quite some time, and for good reason. I have something a bit thorny to say. Here it is.

Competitive sports are inherently supremacist. They are sexist, racist, ableist, classist, and perhaps above all, they are eugenicist. Moreover, they are a tool that indoctrinates and reinforces these reactionary ideals.

Just.

Hear me out. I know how it sounds.

To be honest, I've been meaning to write on this topic for a year or two. But I haven't for two reasons. Firstly, I don't want to argue about trans people in sports because it's not about sports, it's about trans genocide, and the only reason the topic is broached is never in good faith, but only ever to drive a wedge against us. Why would I even deem their bad faith with a response?

Secondly, people will likely think I'm not fun at parties after a statement like that, and even many fellow radicals roll their eyes and act like I've gone off the deep end when I bring it up. What can I say? People love their sportsball. Even radicals.

Nonetheless, let me lay this out for you, but first, let's back up a moment, because I want to be clear about what I'm critiquing here.

I am not criticizing play or exercise. I'm not criticizing teamwork or extracurricular activity.

I'm criticizing an institution of specifically competitive sports that reinforces specific reactionary ideals.

I am also not criticizing you for enjoying sports. That's not the point at all. I'm a queer woman and I'm keenly aware that I would never be allowed in a lesbian bar again if I criticized every person who enjoys sports. Please don't kick me out.

Systemically and culturally, though, there's a massive elephant in the room when it comes to sports. It's the systemics and the culture that lead to this issue that I'm critiquing here.

Let's start here: every argument against trans people in sports is an argument about the supremacist core of what competitive sports truly are.

Trans people with suppressed testosterone do not have an inherent biological advantage in sports. Science doesn't matter to our oppressors, though, so let's meet them where they're at. Even if trans feminine people did maintain an advantage in sports after suppressing testosterone, what are we actually saying about the nature of sports?

Every person who has ever won a sports competition had a "biological" advantage over someone else.

Despite the fact that 9% of all people throughout human history over 7ft tall have played in the NBA, and there are only about 2800 people over 7ft tall alive today (far more rare than trans people), yet we don't ban people over 7ft tall from playing basketball. We don't ban them in the NBA or in schools, anywhere else, or at any age. Not in women's or men's sports. Instead, their height is celebrated and rewarded.

Strong people? Fast people? Michael Phelps has double the lung capacity and produces vastly less lactic acid, he has long wingspan and double-jointed flexibility, but he still has his Olympic gold medals.

It's all about biological advantage. It's about finding, identifying, and celebrating the best bodies. The supreme bodies. It's about the super-man and the übermensch. It's about cutting the bad bodies from the team, and making the mediocre bodies sitting on the bench, watching the supreme bodies play.

What is the purpose of sports? A well-meaning person may say it's about teamwork and overcoming adversity, about learning life lessons to become better people, about community and supporting each other.

Anyone who has ever been on a sports team, especially anyone who has warmed the bench on a sports team, let alone not made the cut, knows that's not the case.

Sports are not about working together, they are about competition. Obviously about beating the other team, but even within a team, a player competes just to make the cut. They compete just to get the position they covet, or to get more playing time.

As my son's soccer coach has said, with no hint of irony, what is the point of playing if you're not trying to win?

The entire purpose of institutionalized competitive sports is to win, but it's more than that.

It's about domination.

It's about domination of team against team, but it's also about player against player. Adversary against adversary, but also teammate against teammate.

Look, if sports really were about overcoming adversity, about community, and about supporting each other, about working together and becoming better people, then what argument is there against trans girls playing sports with other girls? Because if that's what sports were about, then this would be one of the best arguments for including and encouraging trans girls on girls teams. Trans girls need community with other girls, they're desperate for it, I would know. They need support, especially with overcoming adversity. In what way is a team learning to become better people by excluding such a marginalized girl from their team and throwing her to the wolves?

Even if you're skeptical of my argument, go back and read the decision handed down by SCOTUS. Then read what Justice Sotomayor wrote.

They all said the same things I'm saying here. Justice Sotomayor has rose-colored glasses on, imagining the mythical idea of our institutionalized competitive sports, and I think we would all love to believe in that idyllic fantasy. However, the majority states the reality that we all know. Sports are "zero-sum" as they say. It's not about the ideals, it's about winning.

It's about domination.

It always has been.

Have you ever noticed that relatively very few people play sports as adults, and they're almost always people who started playing very young? There's not an easy inroad for people who were rejected from sports when they were young, or who were pushed to the bench. Because mostly the ones that were afforded opportunities to continue were the ones "gifted" enough, by body or by class. And eventually, adults hit an age where most of them realize that their body isn't good enough to be supreme, and so they feel they age out, and don't play anymore. What use is it if your body isn't supreme and you can't win? This is all despite the fact that games can be fun, and fun should not be reserved only for the young, and that exercise is good for all ages, and for that matter, fun makes exercise more motivating to do.

I'm not a sports historian, so feel free to dig into this more on your own, but to give a brief overview, the history of sports in a general sense pre-dates written record, but for much of human history, it has mostly been associated with war training, which will shock no one.

But furthermore, institutionalized competitive sports are primarily a very recent phenomenon. The thing that seems to come closest to it throughout history that I can find are the Olympics, the original ones in Greece, and maybe gladiators in ancient Rome.

And I find this so telling, because I may be reaching here by recognizing a correlation between the rise of institutionalized competitive sports in the late 19th and especially into the 20th century, but the timeline and growth, as well as the participating societies, seem to very much match with the rise of eugenics and fascism. And who loves the patriarchal and imperialist societies of ancient Rome and Greece more than proponents of eugenics and fascism?

This speculative mini-history aside, there's one point I would like to make to really nail this down.

If our idyllic perspective of sports were really true, and it wasn't about winning, about domination, about eugenics and a supremacist ideals, and the indoctrination thereof, then ask yourself this:

Why are sports, as an institution, more sacred than the lives of trans people?

Again, I'm not saying you shouldn't play games and have fun with your friends. I started this piece by letting you know I attended my son's soccer game. I cheered him on. I try to go to all my kids' games.

For that matter, I love to watch Jeopardy, which isn't sports, but everything I said about supremacy could in some ways be applied to the competitive nature of the game.

Because at heart, competition really is the problem.

I would happily sacrifice the ability to watch Jeopardy if I thought that would make the difference, but also, you'll notice, Jeopardy doesn't really have a cultural issue of supremacy, let alone eugenics. And I think the vast majority of contestants would be able to quote Socrates well enough to recognize that wisdom comes from knowing that you know nothing. I know it's Socrates that said it, but I know it from Bill & Ted.

What do we do with all of this?

I make no secret that I don't like competition, and it's not even the competitive part of Jeopardy that I enjoy. I just like the puzzles. I think that's mostly the same for the contestants.

We are better when we cooperate, and better still when we collaborate. This is the basis of mutual aid, and if I may say, as an anarchist, the basis of any form of anarchism worth a damn.

There is no reason why sports must be competitive except that it's the way it's always been. Teamwork isn't about competition, and yet, we pretend that it is in the case of sports.

I'm reminded of The Landlord's Game, or as you know it, the board game Monopoly. The game was originally created to demonstrate the fucked up nature of Capitalism. But there were originally, before Hasbro took it and exploited it, a different set of rules to play after having played the fucked up version we all know. A cooperative game.

One of my favorite video games is Portal 2 when playing in cooperative mode. There's no competition, but there are opportunities for all of the fun things about playing together as a team.

We can build better worlds, y'all. We don't have to stick with what the fash give us.

So, about yesterday's ruling.

I'm devastated, but I'm not surprised.

A state built on hierarchy has its top justices hand-picked by a fascist regime decided that I don't exist, that my trans siblings don't exist, and never have, and that they wish the world to be worse for us. I'd have been shocked if they had sided with us.

This sports issue I'm highlighting isn't about the game. It's about the indoctrination. Indoctrination is about building something bigger, about systems and societies.

As pervasive as sports are throughout USian society, the sports issue is merely a microcosm.

Sports were chosen as the primary on-ramp for genocide against trans people for a reason. It's a microcosm for our entire society.

So what do we do with all of this?

I have some ideas, but it's really up to you to decide.

Are you going to sit with this quietly, leaving politics out of sports (cough), for the sake of letting kids be kids? (except for trans kids, of course, whose childhoods are stolen from them anyway)

Or maybe you can speak up. Or yell.

Or maybe you can also work to dismantle the cultures of supremacy within your and your children's sports teams and communities– to dismantle the idea that winning matters at all, or that some bodies are inherently superior to others, even in sports, and that it's a game that everyone deserves to enjoy, not just sit the bench, let alone be excluded from.

Or maybe you can imagine that we can build other worlds where we don't keep remaking the same systems, perpetuating the same practices that indoctrinate us to the same problems time after time.

Maybe we could have cooperative sports in place of competitive ones.

Trans people should be able to do anything cis people can do. Trans kids should be allowed to play sports. Trans athletes should be allowed to compete at professional levels. Because cis people are allowed to. Because trans people deserve joy and community and all of the purported ideals that people have about sports.

More than that, this is the most important part. It's not just that we deserve to exist in sports.

It's that we deserve to exist.

It's a strange thing to have such conflicting feelings about sports, and then to need to defend trans participation in sports while also cheering for my kids in sports and also deconstructing the inherent harmful nature of sports. Life, people, and society are complex. I contain multitudes.

It's just that I also want us to consider that we can create other worlds than the ones we inhabit, because the worlds we perpetuate leave no room for me, or for any trans people, and for that matter, these worlds leave no room for any marginalized person at all.

I want us to be able to do more than perpetuate worlds of supremacist and fascist fuckery.

And in every world we build, I just want us to be allowed to exist.

no ends, only means