Alberta's Bill 29: government can't compete with us

I was a competitive athlete. I kicked so much ass and I didn't really have to try.

As the Alberta government and its official opposition debate Bill 29 Fairness in Sport, I was reminded that I was once a competitive athlete.

I grew up in rural Alberta, in a town of 2,200. I know what the population was because I was also a Miss. Town Name.

In my defence, this dress was given to me by a person who was older and much more 80’s than I ever could have hoped to be.

Obviously, that title didn’t come from the soccer field, or the track; where I won medals and trophies and all of that jazz.

I grew up in a small town in rural Alberta. I was athletic.

Every year, for our track and field days, I showed up and won all the red ribbons. I didn’t really have to try that hard — I was the fastest girl.

And now that I see it in writing, I’ll say that’s the only reason my younger sister was able to beat my records — I didn’t have any competition. (Love you!)

I remember sitting away from the events during counties one year, smoking a cigarette, and hearing my name called. My adrenaline was pumping so hard by the time I got to the field. Who smokes a cigarette at a county track and field event?!

Angie (definitely her name) asked me if I was “fast”. I shrugged and told her I was “okay”. The gun went and I was off like a lightning bolt. My coach used to say I started like Ben Johnson — I actually leaped out of the blocks.

Anyway. The point is that I always won when I competed against the girls in my age group in rural Alberta. The only person I ever actually tried to beat was Allan D. (His real name but respecting some privacy here).

Allan was the fastest person in my K-9 school. I was second, but I really, really wanted to be first. The problem is that I never got to race Allan in a real race. Maybe it’s because he had a penis. Maybe it’s because I had a vagina. All I know is that I would have tried harder if I could have seen whether Allan was beating me.

Allow me to digress about my first speeding ticket, when I got pulled over because I was racing a Dodge Neon. (The cop said we were pulled over because he almost hit me. Potato potahto). I had a 1978 Volkswagen Rabbit. It was a standard and I felt like I could really move off the line, even if I didn’t really have any staying power. Long story short, the cop asked me something that I responded to with “I could see peripherally that I was beating him.”

In my experience, competition makes people try harder.

I joined the soccer team in my town of 2,200, too. It was co-ed because it was a town of 2,200. I know the UCP hasn’t said they’re going to ban women/girls from being able join men’s/boy’s teams, but with Bill 29, they’ve opened the door to that.

I can’t help that no one took a picture of me actually being athletic.

I was good. I was one of the fastest people on the team, aside from Allan, of course. I played right wing, he played centre. Brett played left wing. I was the only girl on the team.

I was drafted for the girl’s team for provincials. There weren’t that many of us. Red Deer had their own team of people with vaginas, but we wouldn’t have managed to make one in my home town. Or Kriscinda’s. She was from Bawlf, Alberta. We were the only two on the provincial team who weren’t from the Red Deer team and neither of us would have had the chance to play if not for the fact that we were allowed to play on “boys” teams during the regular season.

The point is that maybe this exclusionary legislation works in big cities because enough people with vaginas are already available to play team sport. Not that it matters to people like me who were the best in our events. Where do we go from there? I showed up, I ran, I won. There was no competition for me.

Except Allan.

Maybe I would never have beaten him, but I bet my times would have been better if I’d have been able to compete against him. I would have had to actually try.

There is no such thing as “fairness in sport”. It’s a competition. Either you are the best or you’re the second best — but I’d have given anything to compete.

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