What Should a Gay Parent Impart to His Kids About Sports? – Slate Magazine (blog)

Today, swimming has more gender mixing than ever, and most people associated with the sport embrace it. At many colleges (including my own, William and Mary), the men’s and women’s teams now compete at meets together, with the sexes alternating events. Mixed-gender relays—two men and two women—were added to the 2015 swimming world championships, and there’s talk about making them part of the Olympics. And you won’t find a sport where the elite men are more supportive of their female teammates. Their admiration for the impossibly fast Ledecky borders on reverence, and Rowdy Gaines—the greatest, most enthusiastic sports commentator I’ve ever heard—has both condemned the dusty rule that keeps women out of the 1,500-meter freestyle at the Olympics (they swim the 800, while men do the 1,500) and offered this perfect comment about Ledecky’s swimming: “A lot of people think [she] swims like a man … She swims like Katie Ledecky, for crying out loud.”