#it's building to the berlin olympics in 36 so probably | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

variousqueerthings · 2 months ago

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reading a book rn called "the other olympians" and lemme tell you, i knew that women's sport was segregated because of misogyny and i knew there was always a fear of women being "too masculine" by participating in sports and that this was wrapped up in intersexism and racism but. the extent. to which this was embedded from the olympics earliest days (that is, utterly and completely).

trust that the issue has never been and never will be a trans woman who's good at swimming, or shotput, or running, or anything else, she's a handy dandy scapegoat. it's always been about diminishing women's capabilities and access by denying women who are too good at sport the right to be a woman in the first place. because a woman who is too good at anything has lost the right to be a woman. and by that i mean she's lost the right to be a human being.

#which is ofc what happens to trans women and intersex women and women of colour. god forbid you're all three #and im still getting to the part about trans men (some of whom may also have been intersex)#at the end of the day it's a declaration of who is and who isn't allowed to participate in humanity #and the olympics has had a big hand in that since the beginning of the 20th century #1920s shaping our current day politics about gender once again? shocking #anyway one of the wackier ideas was that women doing too much sport would literally spontaneously change sex #the book didn't say what the counterpart of that might be... needlepoint causing an influx of estrogen? who knows #the other olympians #history #queer history #trans history #intersex history #womens history #the first women to be speculated about were intersex women women of colour and trans men.#i wonder if this will write about dora ratjen as well tho #it's building to the berlin olympics in 36 so probably

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