This is a particularly malicious case of pretending not to understand things, so I'm going to explain this.... When I was in high school a girl played on our football team. No one had a problem with it because nobody thought the girls had an unfair advantage, and the girls were willing to accept being at a disadvantage if it meant they got to play. We didn't have a girls football team and the wrestling teams were small, so if girls wanted to play football or wrestling they had to go against boys (at least in practice). None of this was controversial because the wrestling teams were small, and there was no girls football team, so everyone agreed to make do. HOWEVER.... Under absolutely no circumstances would a male athlete be allowed to join a girls team when boys teams were available. No one would have allowed a boy to leave the boys basketball team in order to join the girls team. Sometimes a very good female athlete would be allowed to join a boys team (if she was good enough) but never EVER were boys allowed to join girls teams. What lies underneath all of what was going on back then was the implicit underatanding that boys have an inherent biological advantage over girls in sports. Everyone understood that men have a huge biological advantage when it comes to sports, so if a girl who could keep up joined a boys team it was seen as something to be admired and everyone was cool with it. Nobody pretended that just because one girl joined a boys football team, that the natural advantage that boys have over girls in sports went away. Nobody pretended that a couple of girls on the wrestling team all of the sudden meant putting a boy on the girls basketball team was fair. Nobody pretended that having one girl who was good enough to play on the boys baseball team meant that it was all of the sudden fair to let boys join the girls softball or volleyball teams. Everyone recognized what was going on: the occasional spectacular female athlete can sometimes keep up with boys, and sometimes girls join boys teams when there is no girls team. We were willing to make exceptions when there were no girls teams or when a girl managed to keep up with the boys, with the understanding that those *exceptions* were not binding *precedent*, and that having one girl on about team doesn't dissolve the need for boundaries between the boys and girls team. Everyone knew what was going on, and everyone was willing to make exceptions so long as it didn't create an unfair advantage for whoever wanted the exception, or disadvantage the rest of the players. Everyone knew exactly what was going on, and everyone acted in good faith; nobody tried to take advantage of the situation by using the girl on the football team as an excuse to let boys play on girls teams. In other words, nobody pretended not to understand things...and that's why there wasn't an uproar. The only reason there is an uproar today is because people are pretending not to understand that we separate boys and girls teams for reasons of fairness (with exception for when there are no girls teams, or for spectscular female athletes) and then giant throwing tantrums when we tell them "no, we will not make an exception because you feel like a girl on the inside." The problem isn't the rules, the problem is leftists pretending not to undestand things so they can use reasonable good faith exceptions as an excuse to demand that if the fair exceptions are made, that the obviously unfair exceptions must be made as well. When you see this type of framing, the simple point is: "For the same reason a highschool kid can jump to the NBA, but NBA players can't join highschool teams....it's not cheating if a girl joins a boys team, but it's absolutely cheating if a boy joins a girls team." I hope that helps.