myMagazine/ April, 2013 9
Letter To the Editor
"Do you believe that transgander individuals should be allowed to participate in the Olympics?"
I believe that it would be unfair for athletes who are transgender to compete in the Olympics. I say this because of the physical changes that occur to the body during the process of altering genders. Because of these changes, it would be unfair to other participants, because there have been alterations to the transgendered persons hormone levels, making it quite plausible for that athlete to easily beat the competition. Testoterone leads to the developement of larger muscles, which make many sports easier to that individual. If transgender people were allowed to participate, I believe that some individuals would change genders, only for the benefit of the hormonal changes, so that they could excel at a sport. If this began to happen, there would be an unfair advantage, because some athletes are not able to, or do not want to, become transgender.
This being said, I do not believe that transgendered people's abilities should be overlooked. I propose that there is a second olympics mad for transgendered athletes, similar to the Parolympic Games. Although I realize that these events would have few participants to begin with, popularity may begin to increase gradually over time, as more transgender people are able to have operations, due to advancements in science.
A second suggestion would be that the transgender athletes can compete, but their results and broken records are recorded seperately from those of people who are not transgender. In this way, the transgender people are not being discriminated agaisnt as heavily, but they are not given an upperhand agaisnt their non-transgender competition.
This is a very difficult issue to make a decision on, and I believe that the best approach is to use trail and error to see which will work best. I think that as technology increases, many issues similar to this will begin to arise. However, I do not believe that everyone can get what they desire, and that a decision must be made that benefits the greatest number of people, but not necessarily everyone.
Thank you for your concern,
Yours truly,
Wes Klages