Ichiro [Suzuki] was on the mound in an annual All-Star Game against the best high school girls baseball players in Japan. And he dominated. Ichiro pitched a complete game shutout on 127 pitches with a whopping 17 strikeouts to steer his team to victory.
Ichiro has participated in similar exhibitions since at least 2021, helping to spotlight girls’ and women’s baseball in Japan. That’s fantastic, and a laudable goal.
Less fantastic are the predictably misogynistic responses to his appearances; see, for example, the comments on X/Twitter to the original (paywalled) Seattle Times article. Apparently some SportsBros are epically excited about an aging former professional baseball player dominating high school girls in a sport he played at the highest level for longer than most of his opponents have been alive.
What I’m seeing surprisingly little of from these SportsBros in this age of virulent transphobia is pushback against a “biological man” playing in “women’s sports.” I’ve been told this is the reason why we must ban transgender people from participating in sports.
This lack of pushback might lead one to believe that banning transgender players is about something other than “protecting our vulnerable girls.”