Most Sports Should Not Be Segregated By Gender: Here's Why

As a child, I sat on the floor in front of the TV. Summer sunlight streamed through the windows as I watched my professional baseball team, the Seattle Mariners, play during their record-breaking and epic seasons in the early 2000s. I would go to my first Mariners game on my seventh birthday, and I kept a poster of Bret Boone up in my bedroom until I moved out after college. This period instilled a love of baseball that I still have today.

At some point during these early baseball-loving days, I remember asking my family, "Why aren't there any girls on the team?" I do not remember what they said, but I remember not being satisfied with it. I then asked, "Well, is there a professional women's baseball team?" This question was much easier for them to answer: "No."

To me, this felt unfair and odd. I played co-ed T-ball, so why couldn't fully grown women play professional baseball? What about the sport requires it to exclude women? Especially considering that women's baseball (or softball as it is popularly called) is played on the collegiate level. But, unlike men's baseball, there's nowhere for these athletes to go if they want to have a professional career.

Of course, professional women's leagues exist for other sports, including soccer and basketball. But, my childhood questions of why this segregation is even necessary remain.

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Soon after taking office in 2025, President Trump released an executive order that declared that a person's gender and sex assigned at birth—at least in an official government capacity—are the same. The executive order claimed to protect women and uphold "biological" truth. While both of these claims can and have been refuted, the executive order has cleared the way for states to introduce stricter control over youth sports and gender identity within public spaces.

This article is not going to address locker room concerns because I am a cisgender woman, and I feel other voices are better suited for that discussion. However, this article will examine whether the separation of gender in sports is even necessary.

Firstly, there are a few sports that do not have major gender separation: figure skating (at least in doubles), equestrian, and certain tennis events. Also, many co-ed recreational leagues exist outside of schools and colleges. I think it is important to note that the aforementioned sports often require some level of privilege to participate in. The barrier to entry often requires more money, starting at a younger age, and access to specialized facilities.

Sports without major barriers to entry are often separated by gender. The philosophy behind this is that men and women are so biologically different in size and strength that it would be dangerous to have men and women compete against each other. While I do think this argument may hold water in certain sports or in some situations, it breaks down when you consider the gender separation that continues to exist in sports such as archery, shooting, and even chess.

With some research, a Reddit thread cited increased bow strengths and men's higher average score in comparison to women. The Olympics only uses recurve bows for both men's and women's events. These bows tend to have a heavier drawback than the average compound bow. Having experience in archery, my compound bow had a drawback of about 25 pounds, but could be adjusted up to 50 pounds. Even in men's events, the drawback of a recurve bow used in the Olympics rarely exceeds 50 pounds.

Women are more than capable of competing with a drawback of 50 pounds. While it does require acquiring strength in a specific group of muscles, this is achieved through training that serious athletes will already do.

Other sports or events, such as shooting and chess, are almost entirely skill-based, with little to no physicality necessary to be successful in the sport. Therefore, there is no logical or scientific argument to continue the gender separation in these competitions.

Now, on the other end of the extreme, there are a small handful of sports that may have a good reason for gender separation in competition. The most notable is gymnastics. While it may seem like this has to do with bodily size or strength, the two sports are actually more different than they are similar. Men's gymnastics focuses primarily on the upper body, while women's gymnastics primarily focuses on the lower body. This does rely on the typical strength differences between men and women: women being stronger in their lower body, while men tend to have a stronger upper body. Still, I think there is an argument for allowing all genders to participate in these sports based on their individual strengths, which will naturally vary regardless of sex, gender, or identification.

What about the most popularly played sports in high schools, such as football, basketball, or baseball? In my opinion, there is little reason to keep these sports separate or homogeneous. More high school girls are playing football than ever before, and there are high school boys who play football who weigh less or about the same as the average teenage girl. Should they be barred from playing due to their smaller stature and supposed inferior strength?

While differences exist between softball and baseball, there is no reason that boys or girls must play one over the other. Basketball, on the other hand, does not vary at all in the actual rules or gameplay. While I understand concerns about the differences in the strength of men and women when it comes to basketball, but have played basketball as a fairly small and not strong ten to twelve year old, I was just as likely to get hurt by a girl as my brother or boy cousins I played with at home. In fact, any injuries I sustained that involved another person while playing basketball would've been possible playing with anyone and had little to do with size or strength (and probably more to do with the fact that I was very, very bad).

Women deserve more representation in sports and representation that does them justice. Transgender women—who have declined muscle mass due to hormone treatment in many cases—should also compete on whatever team they feel is best. Gender does not need to be in the rulebook, but instead, competing in a sport they love and excel at.