Date: May 12, 2023
The WSSA has always done its best to foster a welcoming and inclusive community with fair competition. It was in this spirit that separating records by age division and gender was first enacted. It is in this same spirit that the WSSA has decided to require stackers to register for tournaments according to their birth gender.
While there is obviously a large range of ability within the community, there is no question that the male divisions have faster times. If you match up the top 100 times for every age division and every individual event, and compare the male and female times in those positions, the female time beats the male time in only 3% of those instances. Not a single one of those instances occurs under the masters 2 division. To look at it another way, if times were no longer separated by gender, 70-77% of females would be wiped off of the leader board entirely, depending on how many places you go down to.
While the reasons for this difference are not understood, the results are clear.
The WSSA believes in meaningful competition. It is why we have special stacker divisions. It is why we have age divisions and tailor them to each event we run. And it is why we have male and female divisions. While we understand the benefits of other sports and organizations choosing a different approach that focuses on prioritizing identity, we do not believe that those benefits extend to our sport. The reality of our sport is that it is a largely individual activity that focuses on setting records. Our team events have been, and will continue to be, gender agnostic. For our individual events, we have let the data guide our decisions regarding how to group stackers into groups that create meaningful competition.
As for community, we always have, and always will, welcome all stackers who are interested in being a part of what we do. This decision is in no way a challenge to anyone's identity, only a reflection of our ability to track data and use that data to group stackers of similar ability. As with our other division criteria, this one is far from perfect, but it is the best we have. As any of you who have been to our events will know, your division does not direct or restrict your experience at our events. We strive to foster a SINGLE community at our events, while providing the most fair competition possible.
There is no popular decision to make regarding this issue but we hope you have taken the time to understand the reasons behind the one we have made.
The updated rulebook with the new rule can be found on page 19, "Division Rules" section, item #3.
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The WSSA