I've always been a Dodger fan. Growing up in LA, dreaming of Sunday afternoon Dodger Dogs, I grew up in Dodger Blue. In fact, when I went to go see the Giants play up north, I had to grit my teeth a little bit because well—they're the Giants.
My other favorite baseball team is the Lions. Not the football team, but a Japanese baseball team: the Saitama Seibu Lions.
If you're ever going to be in Japan, you need to check out the spectacle of Japanese baseball. Japanese Pro Yakyuu has key differences from American Major League Baseball, both on and off the field.
Yakyuu fandom is like ritual, choreographed warfare. Each team has set chants and fighting songs—with their oendan (basically, their fan militia) wearing headbands, waving towels and fans—slinging well-choreographed performances across the stadium at one another.
Glorious stuff!
**
However, another feature of Japanese Yakyuu might not seem so glorious: the limit on foreign players.
Each team can only have four foreign born players per 25-man roster.
Whatever the truth behind it, foreign born players are perceived as bigger and stronger. Should a team stack its roster with foreign players, the thinking goes, it would dominate the league. Other teams would have to either get used to losing or follow suit.
Eventually, Japanese athletes would be disenfranchised from their own league. And what would happen to Yakyuu culture? Would people still root for fervently for players they did not know, who were only there for a few seasons? Who did not speak their language, go to their schools and so on?
Pro Yakyuu allows some foreign players out of fairness to the athletes, both letting foreign athletes have some presence, and allowing their home-grown athletes some exposure to global baseball.
As far as fan support? A few foreign players can give the game an international flavor—and maybe a few foreign folk heroes—but not so many that teams would be accused of selling out their own, or threatening Japanese-ness.
**
I was thinking about this, and transgender athletes. Here again are arguments about body size and unfair advantage. Here again are fears of disenfranchisement, of threats from outside.
But in Japanese Pro Yakyuu, gender has nothing to do with it.
Questions about fairness in sports usually encompass two questions: “What is fair to the athletes?” and “What will fans and society support?”
Most everything else is detail, even when that detail is as polarizing as trans identity.
Fairness is tricky. Some might embrace the cozy illusion of fair play, but athletics is inherently unfair.
Lebron James didn’t become 6’9” with incredible reflexes and strength through diligent training. A chess player can train forever and still not have the genius of Magnus Carlsen.
How is that fair?
**
Ultimately, “fairness” usually means having a sort of contract, a negotiated set of rules that works well enough that everyone—fans, athletes, society—abides by it.
What the rules are is far less important than everyone agreeing (more or less) upon them.
Thus, a club golfer can play, and even beat Tiger Woods—because of his handicap.
In boxing, the middleweight world champion would not stand a chance against the heavyweight world champion—or any top heavyweight contender. But that middleweight is still a “World Champion.”
So, with trans athletes, what could be negotiated as fair?
**
Again, “What is fair to the athletes?” and “What will fans and society support?”
Should we ask fans and society?
At the moment, I do not believe we are going to get many clear and reasoned discussions about trans people at the typical local pub.
Seriously, can you think of any subject less likely to result in a thoughtful discussion than transgender identity? Everyone seems to think that the answer is bumper-sticker obvious.
The only problem is they are different bumper stickers.
What about athletes themselves?
**
Athletes—cisgender or transgender—will be athletes. Elite athletes compete to win—in fact, some cheat to do so.
Even the ones who don’t “cheat” can be ruthless. If an athlete can convince her opponent that she has no chance to win? Say things that get in her mind, mess up her focus? Or even intimidate her so badly that she doesn’t show up?
Hardcore, yes. Sometimes, even offensive—but all is fair.
How many Major League Baseball players stood up for their Negro League counterparts because segregation wasn’t fair? We praise the moral character of icons like Christy Mathewson and Lou Gehrig—but regardless of their own beliefs, they played in a segregated sport.
Change did not come from them.
**
Ultimately, the changes come from those bodies who make the rules. I look at the Winter Olympics this year, at how fairness is framed.
A female skater from the Russian Olympic Committee (not “Russia” because Russia has been banned from the Olympics for doping) has been caught doping. Five female ski jumpers were disqualified because their uniforms were too baggy.
“Fairness” becomes a list of drugs that cannot be taken. Uniform guidelines that must be obeyed. None of this is perfect.
Fans can complain. Athletes can cry. And referees will always get yelled at.
However, as long as they recognize the winner as the winner and go with the result—even begrudgingly—then the rules work, and it’s fair enough.
**
That’s the challenge right now with trans athletes. Doctors and trans activists might have scientific data to back up the current rules, but many of the other athletes, fans, and society still do not agree.
To many spectators and athletes, a trans woman winning an event—following all the existing rules—is a still seen as a cheater, not a winner.
Trans issues aside, athletes and fans will resist any change to the sports that they love and have sometimes dedicated their lives, and transgender inclusion—not just in sports, but in society overall—is a very big change.
But do we really need to solve transphobia to get to “fair enough?’
Anti-Black racism in this country is alive and ugly, but Major League Baseball integrated. Maybe one day, Japanese Pro Yakyuu will evolve, as well—especially if it produces players like Shohei Ohtani.
As with all other changes, over time either the rules will be modified, or society will change, or something in-between, or out of left field—who knows?
Still, I am hopeful that a consensus will emerge.
**
Determining how transgender athletes compete is not so much about transgender identity as it is about making a contract.
The rules don’t need to be perfect, just good enough—for athletes, for fans—for all of us.
What will “good enough” look like? I have no idea.
There will always be those who do not accept trans people. There will be competitors who will say that’s not a real woman or a real man—even play “Dude Looks Like A Lady” to get into a competitor’s head.
But I would love a day when I could see trans woman running or swimming or playing chess or softball with her teammates.
And perhaps on that day, we would get angry with the referee. An athlete on the field would play their mind games, protest a call. And I might even put on a headband and lead a cheer or two.
Yes, there would still be transphobia in the world—and racism, sexism, and xenophobia.
Yet on that day, perhaps even on a Sunday afternoon, wouldn’t it be great to enjoy the game anyway?
--