Transgender athlets who compete

on women's teams are again in discussion. The football people have just cleared a transgender person to play on women's teams. There were, and still are, concerns because this person is considerably larger and stronger than others on the same team or the teams they play against.

Comments are now being made by well known figures and not just those who are required to play on the same or on opposing teams. I have also heard a good many other comments from local people. The general consensus is that this person should not be allowed to participate if others are at risk.

Some clubs are now saying they would prefer to forfeit rather than play on or with teams who include trans players. Those at the top are demanding they continue playing.

Somewhere along the line we seem to have lost something called "common" sense.  This is something which would say, "some people are different" and "it is not always possible to be inclusive". It would recognise potential harm to the majority. 

There are some things it is not possible to be inclusive about. Is the exclusion of this person really any different from excluding a blind person from driving a car on the roads? The blind person may want to drive but the safety of others demands they do not. 

I am a short and not very mobile person. I have a poor sense of balance. It would not take much to knock me over. If I had wanted to play basketball in my childhood I would have been told I could not. This would not simply have been because I was hopeless at such things but because it was considered "dangerous". I would have been knocked over. There were some rare occasions when the team did include me. I would be the person with the ball at the very start of the match. My instructions would be to "throw the ball to X... and then get off the court". Even so there would be an adult there ready to grab me and get me off safely. The opposing side was pretty good about it too. They knew the game was going on safely without me. It was the team and the game which mattered.

Now it seems that the individual matters more. In this case it is an individual who has all the characteristics of a sex with whom that individual does not "identify".  Teams are being asked to consider the individual before the group. That can be important but in this instance the individual does have alternatives. They are not barred from playing. It is just more appropriate and safer for everyone else if they do not play with that group. Is that exclusion or is it something else?