You brought up several very interesting points. As far as accepting the transgendered female onto a female paddling team, I think it depends on the reasons why the sport is segmented in the first place. Is there a men's paddling group, a women's paddling group, and perhaps a mixed paddling group? I don't know anything about your sport, but if that's not the case, the transgendered person has a dilemma.

As far as football, if you're not a man, you're not playing. period. There's no question that the transgendered person would be excluded by their own definition of themselves as female. In paddling, all you have to do.... is paddle. There's no chance that a middle-linebacker's going to smash some woman and paralyze her, causing a backlash against the NFL as inhumane. I think the question would be where the transgendered person fits in, physically, amongst the women.... I mean, if the surrounding society were willing to accept "him" as a female just because "he" says so.

Physically, men have advantages because of the production of testosterone. Advantages in strength. Advantages in size. Advantages in aggression..... However, there are lots of guys that don't produce a lot of testosterone and/or aren't athletic at all. There are also a lot of women who are better at whatever given sport than A LOT OF MEN are at that sport... including football. That's where I think the line "should" be drawn... "Does this person fit the physical (sports-wise, not genitally) makeup of these paddlers?". Again, that assumes that the people who make the decisions are willing to look past the transgender-thing.

You're right also about competition in divisions. Someone transgendered is not going to be seen as a member of either the male or female division. Whose "problem" is that, though? Should the men have to accept someone that says they're a woman into their division... a division the transgendered person doesn't want to be in, anyway? Should the women have to accept someone that they consider to be a man into their division, just on her say-so that she's a woman? At this point, American society isn't set up to accommodate anomalies.

Let's say someone gets arrested, and considers themselves to be female. Maybe they even had their license changed to F from M. If they're still "physically male" then they're going to be thrown in the men's jail. period. They might get some kind of protective custody, but they are NOT going to be thrown in the women's jail, and there probably isn't a special jail set up for transgender/transvestite/hermaphrodite people. Same thing with sports. There's the WNBA. I'm sure that many of the women that play in the WNBA are better players than some of the players currently in the NBA, ESPECIALLY the benchwarmers! I don't know what the reason is for not accepting a woman that can play better than the "worst" man in the NBA, but there must be one. Either someone has decided there NEEDS to be a separation between the genders in sports, or they really don't believe a woman would make it in the NBA. Regardless... if a woman in the WNBA decided to announce that she had been born a male, I think she would be immediately discharged, since she no longer meets the qualifications of participation in this division.

I don't know that paddling is that serious..... but maybe it is!