on the subject of britta curl-salemme's active participation in trans exclusion in sports, i want to reiterate from this post: britta curl-salemme could probably compete solidly against NHL players, if they let her and she wanted to.
women's sports exist largely because of sexism. even very recently there have been cultural ideas and jokes about things like the WNBA essentially boiling down to "who would care about that." i want to look through the lens of esports for a moment because i think that shift in perspective crystallizes something traditional athletics might be able to obscure.
on the subject of the lack of women in extremely high-end professional world of warcraft, the leader of the current reigning champions (liquid max/maximum if you wanna look him up) said on his podcast that the reason there are not more (or currently really any, though there have been a couple notable players in the past) women competing in the game is men. men in the game treat women poorly, do not understand that they need to be respectful, etc. women get filtered out if they want to join because they just are not treated well, and over time this has created an actively exclusionary culture. and that's in this century on the internet.
there are actual women's esports teams. women's chess organizations. there is no fucking shot anyone can justify to me that there is any "biological advantage" in fucking chess. like, okay, hormonal composition does affect the way certain body systems function, but the most notable example i can call to mind is depth perception, not overall strength or whatever. the reason for women's esports and women's chess tournaments is because of systematic exclusion from the "main" stage.
going back to what max said, i think it shows us exactly why so many people can hold onto this myth that women (read: people running on primary-E endocrine systems) are "weaker" or "slower" or "more fragile" than men (read: primary-T etc) is because the money and resources and support are not there for women to reach the potential that men do. the badgers (a powerhouse NCAA women's hockey team) have existed since 1999. i am older than the wisconsin badgers women's hockey team. (ofc other sports, men's sports, etc have had wisconsin badgers teams a lot longer than that.)
this ties into salaries as well, which the pwhl anonymous player survey this year showed was the biggest issue players in the league are dealing with. marie-philip poulin, arguably the greatest player in the league, took a pay cut this year so that her team's budget had more room at the lower end for player pay. there are still players in the pwhl working second jobs during the off-season, according to commentary from that survey.
do you think ANY nhl players have to do that shit? fuck no! men's game players have all the best practice schedules for ice time at their rinks, they have all the best trainers, they make enough to never think about anything but hockey. across every sport, every game, and so on. men are "better" at what they do because as a society we want them to be, so we do not entertain the necessary mechanisms to raise women to that level. the difference between the men's game and the women's game isn't fucking. body chemistry or some shit. it's time and effort and MONEY. you cannot rise to your fullest potential on $36k/year.
if britta curl-salemme is truly worried about fairness in women's sports, i want to hear her talk about THAT.
