what defines a peer

Something happened last week that sparked this question in my mind.

A local bouldering competition series, the Triple Crown, announced that they were doing away with gendered categories for beginner, intermediate, and advanced abilities (but open would remain gendered).

This meant that all genders would be competing in the same difficulty range.

There was immediate and significant pushback to this change.

While the intent behind this change 'seemed' benign, the impact would be undeniable: we would see mostly male sweeps of each category.

In the Facebook comments, women expressed their disappointment. They felt discouraged from competing at all.

After the extensive dissent, the Triple Crown reinstated gendered categories for this upcoming competition season.

As you may know, I won the Open Women's category at last year's Triple Crown.

I wanted to reflect on my own experience competing before commenting. And to be 100% honest, I didn't love my experience.

My main frustration came from the fact that the other women I was competing with were... well, girls. The 2nd place Women's Open finisher was 14 years old, and the 3rd place finisher was 12 years old.

I'm not saying any of this to discredit the accomplishments of these girls - I think it's super impressive that they are already climbing at such a high level.

My discomfort comes mainly from the fact that I didn't feel like I was competing with my peers.

While climbing ability is one way to categorize and make things "fair", the fact is that my life and experience as an adult in the working world is much different than one of a child in middle or high school.

This is where I believe the pushback to the non-gendered categories came from.

While, "theoretically" a male, female, or non-binary person all climbing V4 could be considered peers, the fact is that their experiences in life and climbing all vary.

We're just not there as a community, yet. Next week I want to talk through more about diversity/"equalizing" the playing field/and if these two things are at odds with each other.

In the meantime, I'm curious your thoughts on what happened with the Triple Crown. If you'd like to see the original announcement, comments, response post, etc. here is the Triple Crown Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/triplecrownbouldering/