Political correctness taken to absurd extremes has reached the world of sports and fitness.
On a related note the IAAF, the world governing body of track and field wants to handicap Castor Semenya, a South African woman.runner.
The fitness training industry has also tried to wade into the transgender issue. I proudly possess a Certified Personal Trainer Certificate (CPT) from the Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology. (CSEP). CSEP is the gold standard for national fitness trainer credentials. However in a recent e-mail Communique there was an article entitled 'Recommendations on a Client Centered Approach to Training and Gender. An interesting quotation caught my attention.
Gender identity is not always binary; if a client has identified as a particular gender, the Qualified Exercise Professional should assess that client using the protocols specific to that gender
I have some issues with this quotation.
The article does follow-up with a more logical statement.
For all clients, program design should be based on current fitness, activity level, and health and fitness goals.
If you have transgender clients, why not just go straight to this step and skip the cross gender comparison of scoring charts.
If a Fitness Trainer even thinks of venturing there, remember the final lines from the movie 'The Bridge on the River Kwai' "Madness! Bloody madness!"
Keep Fit
Little Bobby Strong
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- A few years back a transgender (male turned female) MMA fighter broke the skull of her female opponent. How was such an event even allowed to happen? Mixed Martial Arts isn't a basketball game or a tennis match. Somebody could get severely injured or killed!
- Transgender (male turned female) track and field athletes at the high school level in the USA have been winning women's events by huge margins.
- It is not a matter of discriminating against transgender athletes to oppose such occurrences. It is a matter of fairness to the natural gender females. Someone born a male will have physical advantages. That is just a fact! No amount of being offended by exclusion can change that.
- If people identify with another gender let transgender men compete with other transgender men and transgender women compete with other transgender women. It may take organization and funding but that would be the cost of fairness! I'm all for that and if some transgender MMA competition site has a craft beer concession I would be there cheering them on.
- By the way, tennis legend Martina Navratilova, an avid LGBTQ supporter, shares this opinion but got cat called in social media for saying so.
- In many events such as 10 kilometer road races and marathons everyone runs the same race in a mass start anyways. Most participants don't win anything except a t-shirt and a participant medal along with the entry fee. Where is the exclusion that everyone is whining about?
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| Bruce Jenner Olympic Decathlon Champion |
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| Caitlyn Jenner (formerly Bruce) Time for a crack at the women's Heptathlon crown? Or not! |
On a related note the IAAF, the world governing body of track and field wants to handicap Castor Semenya, a South African woman.runner.
- Semenya was born female and does not identify as a male. However, she is classified as 'intersex' because she naturally produces more testosterone than the average woman.
- Semenya was born this way and is not deliberately cheating!
- The I.A.A.F. knowingly turned a blind eye to many 'state sponsored doping programs' so as not to tarnish the sports reputation.
- The I.A.A.F. wants to only allow Semenya to compete if she takes testosterone suppressing hormones.
- Why not make Usain Bolt take some sort of marathoner slow twitch muscle hormones to suppress his unnatural abundance of fast twitch muscle fiber.?? Let's level the playing field for everybody! If that sounds like nonsense, then I've made my point.
- Castor Semenya is only truly dominant in the 800 meters. If she drops to the 400 meters she is vulnerable to the sprinter body type women. If she moves up to the 1500 meters, the slighter built distance running women have beaten her.
- Where is the politically correct brigade, in the defense of a female athlete naturally born with a physical advantage? It is okay to switch genders for an advantage but if you are born with a physical advantage it is unfair! I'm confused. Where is the common sense?
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| Castor Semenya winning an 800 meter race. |
The fitness training industry has also tried to wade into the transgender issue. I proudly possess a Certified Personal Trainer Certificate (CPT) from the Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology. (CSEP). CSEP is the gold standard for national fitness trainer credentials. However in a recent e-mail Communique there was an article entitled 'Recommendations on a Client Centered Approach to Training and Gender. An interesting quotation caught my attention.
Gender identity is not always binary; if a client has identified as a particular gender, the Qualified Exercise Professional should assess that client using the protocols specific to that gender
I have some issues with this quotation.
- A male identifying as a female will will likely score abnormally high in the female scoring charts, especially in any test requiring strength and power.
- A female identifying as a male will likely score abnormally low in the male scoring charts, especially in any test requiring strength and power.
- Any comparison to the Health Benefits Ratings charts will be so skewed as to be useless!
The article does follow-up with a more logical statement.
For all clients, program design should be based on current fitness, activity level, and health and fitness goals.
If you have transgender clients, why not just go straight to this step and skip the cross gender comparison of scoring charts.
- Determine the client's results.
- Forget the gender identity issue. Do not even bring it up.
- Establish baseline fitness levels for gauging future progress.
- Create an exercise program that is tailored to the client's goals and objectives.
- Base the initial intensity level on the fitness level score that the client would achieve with the gender they were born with.
- Just don't tell them! Use it for your reference only!
If a Fitness Trainer even thinks of venturing there, remember the final lines from the movie 'The Bridge on the River Kwai' "Madness! Bloody madness!"
Keep Fit
Little Bobby Strong
Links
