By Jagdesh Singh | Opinion |
My heart dropped a beat. For just short of a second. I’ve witnessed my eldest girl rough it out on the football pitch with boys who can be as robust as you can imagine. She’ll pick herself up, brush it off and carry on playing. But this was one of the first few games after a long period recovering from a torn PCL ligament, and she didn’t seem any more careful than before her injury. Naturally, as her father, I can’t bear to see her getting injured again. She got up, looked at me with her eyes conveying a little worry without uttering a single word.
I’m extremely proud of my girl. I consider her an elite sportswoman, her having trained with boys most of her life. I’ve been advised before by many that playing with boys at the later stage of her footballing development was a risky gamble. To a certain extent, it was always risky, but it made her stronger and quicker than most girls her age. She is now a young woman, a teenager no more, her mental capability on the pitch is as sharp as ever. But her strength is no more as strong as the young male footballers her age. The physicality between her and male teammates is a chasm that takes a lot to bridge. It’s not impossible though. Training with them enables her to practice sharper reflexes that avoids her getting injured, quicker thinking to make the right decision at the right time, and better reading of the game in front of her.
Everybody knows that playing in a competitive game is far more intensive than normal training with teammates. The physicality and speed more than doubles. The emotions and ego soar higher. When a girl outperforms the boys on the field, things can get ugly fast. My daughter and I have made the conscious decision to avoid playing competitive football with boys for now until she gets stronger and faster. The point is that we recognize and acknowledge the dangers of intensive physical games that can potentially hurt a player for a long time, sometimes for years.
There is a raging debate for many years in the western countries regarding equal treatment of transgenders, particularly in the field of sports. The more liberal argue that every human, no matter background or sexual preferences, should be treated equally and allowed to live as how each identify their selves. So, a transgender person, who was male before but now identifies herself as female should be given opportunity to participate and compete in sports meant for females. On the other side of the argument, conservatives argue that humans are strictly and naturally either male or female, not acknowledging the struggles of the LGBTQ+ community, of which transgenders belong to.
I’ve written a few articles stating my support for the LGBTQ+ community having many personal and emotional experiences around them. I inherently and strongly believe in the fundamental principle of equality among all humans, and that our differences in culture and background shouldn’t matter to us being kind to each other. This is, in my understanding, the core teachings of all ten of our True Kings.
While I believe all this, the fact that I’ve experienced with my own being, is that the difference in physicality (when in competitive and intensive situations) can be dangerously harmful.
While I want to be as liberal as possible, and want to practice what I preach about equality, the safety of my daughter is paramount. The safety of everybody’s daughter or sister is paramount.
This puts me in a sticky situation, and more in the grey area between being liberal and being conservatively cautious.
If I’m forced to take a stand, I’m of the believe that safety of our loved ones trump everything else including philosophical ideals. While it doesn’t keep me awake at night grappling with internal debates within my mind, it does bother me that I cannot unequivocally support the transgender community. I have caveats, of which do not help the ever-struggling community that are being hounded and treated as second class citizens in most countries in the world. I still believe they should be afforded more equality, at least not be demonized as non-humans. But I draw the line when I see my daughter getting tackled by a larger, stronger, rougher person that really should be competing in a fairer competition.
Jagdesh Singh, a Kuala Lumpur-based executive with a US multinational company, is a father of three girls who are as opinionated as their mother
* This is the opinion of the writer, organisation or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Asia Samachar.
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