There are plenty of sports where gender divisions basically dont exist until you hit the college level. Hockey is a prime example. There are all-girls select youth teams, but all teams that arent exclusively for girls are open to anyone that can hang. There are plenty of girls that play competitively with boys through highschool hockey. There are plenty of women who play with men at the adult level in beer leagues and the like. But at the juniors, college, pro, and olympic levels they are gender divided.

Realistically at the highest levels of play some division does make sense, as that is where the highest level of physicality is allowed, and generally that is the reason why it can be less safe for women to be playing alongside men. As well as the fact that few women would be playing college or pro hockey if there were not gender divisions.

That said however, I see no reason why the odd woman that can hang in upper levels hockey shouldnt be allowed to play, nor would they be barred from doing so if they could. Likewise I can see how forcing womens upper leagues of the sport to accept cis men who cant hang in the upper levels of mens hockey would push women out of the sport. So it makes sense that they have exclusivity there.

Its one of those issues where I have no issue with gender divisions at the highest levels, in the interest of allowing a professional level of womens sport to exist, but at the same time trying to apply that same logic to youth sports completely falls apart. All youth sports should be just be open gendered competitions. If you see open-gendered hockey at the 12-14 year old level the girls are often 1-2ft taller than any of the boys and physically the more dominant group, and yet no one says the boys’ safety is at risk over it.

Not to mention that lost in all of the trans fear-mongering is the fact that when people take hormones their bodies significantly change. If someone born male starts hormone therapy to transition, their feet will shrink, they will lose muscle mass, so on and so forth. So at the end of the day they truly have zero physical advantages over cis women they would compete with in sport. Women’s leagues in the upper levels of a sport make sense, but it also makes perfect sense to allow transwomen to play with them. People dont seem to understand that male physicality is the result of a continual supply of hormones making you look as you are, not solely the result of past hormonally influenced growth. If you cut off the hormones making you a big strong man, you will no longer be big nor strong