Boys will be Boys

“God damn mother fucking femmes,” George said as he read the article on his phone, “Why do they always get all the goddamn attention.”

The article was about Lia Thomas, the American swimmer who had set off a storm of controversy by winning a race once and having a fairly average sporting career outside of that. The controversy was, of course, that Lia was trans. There was a constant stream of articles these days about trans femmes being such a threat to women’s sport, that their inherent maleness would make them destroy any cis female competition. George hated this. Yes, it all stunk of misogyny and transphobia, and trans women deserved to be treated like women, and all of that. But what really annoyed him was how trans men don’t get any press.

Here he was, having his own incredibly average sporting career, and no one cared. Here he was, never having had testosterone until recently, and he was competing with men who had it all their lives. Shouldn’t that spark something? If not outrage, at least some sort of awe or respect? But nothing. Just another article about some 13-year-old trans girl who wants to play in her school’s girls’ soccer team.

George didn’t understand trans femmes. How could you willingly give up all your wonderful natural testosterone? And for what? A pair of horrible chest huggers? Insanity. Testosterone gives you so many beautiful things. George’s muscles had become amazing since they got their natural performance enhancer. Their voice had become deeper and more powerful. And, of course, there was the glorious facial hair.

George loved his moustache. From the moment it had first started growing, he had tended to each hair as it sprouted, the same way a starving man would tend to his vegetable garden. No expense was spared. He bought the finest oils that he would rub in each follicle. A cut-throat razor shaped it, the shaving choice of a real man, sharpened to perfection. Ever since he had grown it, misgendering had pretty much disappeared. Nobody ever thought of him as anything but a man, which he loved. He knew that, technically, he should shave it during competitions, as it probably added a small bit of wind resistance that could prove fatal in a tight contest. But he just couldn’t bring himself to ever shave it off fully.

George had chosen his name as he thought it was unmistakably masculine. Then, people pointed out George Elliot. Of course, George responded that it was a pen name, not her real name. Then people pointed out George from Seinfeld, at which point George would just walk off in a huff.

It didn’t matter what people thought of his name; he proved his manliness through his athleticism and sporting prowess. Sure, some people would say ballet was a girl's sport. Some would say it wasn’t a sport at all. George hated that. He had only started doing ballet because it was the only sporty thing his mum would let him do during his childhood. But he soon came to love the mix of art and motion and peak physical fitness. Runners just had to be good at running, swimmers just good at swimming, but ballet demanded more. You needed balance and grace but also strength. Yes, George did sometimes wish there weren’t so many pink tights involved. But there were far worse costumes in the history of sports, like Cathy Freeman at the 2000 Olympics.

George put down his phone; it was getting close to the start of the contest. Today was the National Ballet Championships, and he was competing in the men’s solo dance competition. He was currently ranked 54th in Australia and was hoping to improve upon that today. His career had stalled a bit when he transitioned. It had taken some time to readjust to the change in his centre of gravity after he had top surgery, and his body fat had redistributed after starting testosterone. But he was feeling confident today. He had been assigned the first spot and was determined to make it count. George’s name was called, and he strutted onto the stage and took his starting pose while waiting for his chosen backing song to begin. He nailed a few sauters and some pirouettes and even managed a grand adage without an unforced error. He walked off stage sweating and panting. His score was good. Not good enough to come out on top, but definitely an improvement over his last performance. He sat down to rest and watch the rest of the competitors.

The first performer after George started strong, a couple of good leaps, then out of nowhere, there was a loud crack and a scream of pain, and he collapsed to the floor. Several people rushed to the stage to discover he had broken his ankle in a freak accident. George felt bad for them, but on the plus side, he was still technically in first place.

The next performer was Allen Beloc, who had snatched 43rd place from George at the last contest they were both in. George gave him a death stare as he nailed a sauter, followed by a pirouette, which was followed by an ear-piercing scream as he, too, collapsed on the floor. By another fluke, he had broken his ankle and was carried off stage.

Everyone laughed nervously about such a bizarre coincidence, and the contest continued. There was no laughter when the next contestant also broke his ankle. There was only stunned silence when the one after that also broke their ankle. A fifth terrified performer made their way onto the stage, built up their confidence after landing a sauter, and then once again broke their ankle. After that, no one else would dare go onstage. Everyone eyed George suspiciously. The stage was examined closely. The broken ankles were scanned for any signs of interference. But no foul play could be found. There was nothing to do but declare George the winner.

George wasn’t sure if he should accept the win at first. But, he figured, his ankle didn’t break. He wasn’t too scared to go on stage. He had earned the win through years of diligently building up calcium by maintaining his dairy intake. It wasn’t his fault the others weren’t putting enough milk in their morning cereal. Besides, he would prove that he deserved it in the next contest. So, he became the first trans man to win an official ballet competition.

At first, little attention was paid to Geroge’s win. A small article in the local paper in his hometown. One or two small queer magazines reported it. Very few people had any idea of George’s victory, despite him furiously posting it on Instagram every day. But then, a few days later, somehow, it wound up on 4chan. George never figured out who Qfan420 was or why they hated trans people so much, but they posted a link to an article about his win to the notoriously vile forum. From there, it started making its rounds through the usual sort of TERFs on X (formerly Twitter) before it got picked up by some News Corp columnists on a slow news day and broke into the mainstream. Then, suddenly, it was everywhere.

At first, many were confused by the idea of a trans man in sport. The idea that trans women were just men dressing up as women to cheat at sport was a straightforward narrative for simple conservative audiences to grasp. But the far right didn’t become the epicentre of conspiracy theories for nothing, and soon, the mental gymnastics started.

The fact that women were, on average, smaller, slimmer, and less hairy just meant that they had less wind resistance. TV news reports started putting men and women in wind tunnels to show the difference.

“Women’s bodies are obviously just built to be stronger,” one alleged sports scientist testified, “I mean, they can go through the trauma of giving birth and keep going. How can we think letting women compete in men’s sport is fair?”

“Women are more likely to undergo osteoporosis,” another sports scientist word vomited in an attempt to gain attention, “This means their bones are, on average, lighter and thinner, like birds. Giving them an advantage in any sport where being aerial is needed. Diving, gymnastics, ski jumping. I’m surprised women are ever able to stay on the ground, quite frankly.”

Conservatives started claiming that the old consensus on men being better athletes due to their testosterone and bone structure had clearly been a false flag operation by the left and their crazy diversity and inclusion policies. They started slamming the laws that had ever allowed trans men into men's sports, “How could we put our boys at risk by letting these perverse women into male change rooms!”

“Look at the Russian team”, said one conservative senator, “See how feminine their men are? Not like our good old-fashioned manly boys! It’s not fair to pit their frail masculine bodies up against these brutish girls!”

J.K. Rowling continued her descent into madness by somehow twisting things into a series of tweets explaining that what George was doing was misogynistic and that women should feel free to do things like ballet without feeling like they have to transition gender.

Steven Bradbury was forced to send out a media release stating they had never supported George and didn’t want the phrase “Doing a Bradbury” associated with him.

Soon, athletes were trying to score Estrogen shots on the black market. At first, it was just people in dancing-related fields. But then people started pointing out sports where women had outperformed men, such as Billie Jean King beating Bobby Riggs in Tenis. And so then men of all sports started clamouring for estrogen. Pseudoscientific articles were deployed by major news outlets explaining how the conventional wisdom of testosterone improving athletic performance was wrong and estrogen was actually much more valuable. Soon, estrogen became a much more controlled substance. Menopausal women were accused of secretly being professional athletes in disguise, trying to get a score.

Some cyclists, who had once shaved their legs to reduce wind resistance, stopped doing this in order not to be called out as too femme or possibly secretly a woman. This just meant that the hairy cyclists started losing racing due to their increased wind resistance, and the still-shaved ones started winning, adding further proof to the sporting benefits of femininity.

People started looking for mastectomy scars on any athlete, so many male competitors started wearing shirts. Even in swimming, which caused their times to lag so much that women’s times took over men’s, further fueling the idea that women were better athletes than men.

George was not the sort of person to take all of this sitting down. Yes, attention was what he had wanted all this time, but he was more after glowing admiration rather than demonisation. The idea that he had transitioned to somehow gain an advantage or cheat was insulting. So he went on the offensive. He took interviews with as many news outlets as he could. He would give a newspaper a passionate plea for trans rights, and the headline would read: “This woman thinks they have the right to steal from biological men”.

He would go on TV news panels, and somehow, his talking about sports science would quickly descend into questions about their genitals, and sports would be left in the dust while the panel would start a long conversation about bathrooms.

His posts on social media would just be flooded by right-wing trolls saying he was not a real man and someone making out that they were a pedophile.

Eventually, George realised there was nothing they could say or do. The story was more than him now. Whatever he told a journalist asking for a quote would be twisted beyond recognition.

George went on a walk to think over his next move. As he wandered, head down while trapped in terrible thoughts, a stray soccer ball landed in his path.

“Hey!” someone shouted from an adjacent soccer field, “Little help?”

George obliged and carried the ball over to the group.

“Thanks,” the stranger said. “Wanna play? We’re short on people, so you’d even up the teams.”

George didn’t have anywhere to be, so he thought, why not? So he played soccer for an hour or so, and something magical happened: he stopped caring. He was just able to enjoy sport again and not obsess over what was happening to his career, or trans rights, or any of that big-picture stuff.

The next day, he resigned from professional ballet and signed up for a local community soccer team. The emails and phone calls trying to bring him back into the debate about trans men in sports continued. Eventually, they moved on to the next trans athlete or some other story, and everyone forgot about him. Meanwhile, George just played sport for the love of sport, and stopped caring about ranks or careers or anything like that.