It’s almost time to delete my account so I am sticking my neck out to potentially getting blasted.
I will preface by stating that gender identity is not an issue for me. Be who you want, use whatever bathroom you want. Just wash your hands/paws/tentacles.
My ignorant question is: for transgender athletes in competitive sports, should records be categorized differently or asterisked? Isn’t it kind of like using performance-enhancing drugs?
I don’t mind about actually competing, however if someone had 5-10 years of hormonal growth advantage during puberty, even if they no longer have that advantage, it seems like a big gray area. Yes, someone could naturally have that chemical makeup. Similarly, some exceptionally elite athletes have genetic variations that give them natural physical advantage.
When I was in school I was decent at swimming, in the top 5% of men. If I competed against women I would be like top 0.01% and making a career out of it. Though, if I started setting records I don’t know how I’d feel about it, given my advantage.
Honestly, writing these thoughts down is giving me some existential dread. What does it mean to be human, and why? Does anything even really matter?
I hope everyone has a nice day and is kind to each other.
I don’t speak for trans people or make any decisions but here’s my thoughts:
No, because the people who hold records are already freaks of nature. The common example is Phelps who is biologically built different.
Or cyclists with a VO2 max that is literally unattainable by normies.
Or quarterbacks with vision better than everyone else.
Or, or, orWe’re already allowing people with unfair advantages to win everything, why would allowing trans people to compete suddenly change things—especially when they aren’t even winning everything?
You know what I’m fine with? A playerbase that is regulated to only accept those who are biologically average.
Them’s some sports i might actually watch, tell yew whutI’ll add, as a trans person with the athleticism of a rock, about 75% of the sports debate is coming from transphobes. I’d be more ok with discussing the nuance if most discussions weren’t laden with a dump truck full of transphobia. The proof of this is that they’re fighting to get trans people banned from darts and chess. Also most people who claim that it’s about protecting women spend all their spare time attacking women (both cis and trans)
about 75% of the sports debate is coming from transphobes.
Not everyone you disagree with is a “transphobe”. In fact, I don’t think there’s a single person in the world who has an “intense and overwhelming fear” of trans people. Most just want them to stay out of the opposite sex’s spaces.
The proof of this is that they’re fighting to get trans people banned from darts and chess.
Have you stopped to investigate why this might be? Darts has a very obvious reason - males have, on average, significantly better hand-eye co-ordination than females. That’s pretty much the biggest component of darts.
As for chess, again - have you looked it up? Why do you think there are so many more chess grand masters who are male than female? You know how trans advocates are always saying things like “trans women have the brain makeup and chemistry of a female!”? Well that is essentially saying that males and females have different brains and as such are better and worse at different scenarios that use their brain. Isn’t it possible that what makes people good at chess is “better” in males?
I know you’re not going to read it. But what the hell.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jnr.23953
https://www.webmd.com/brain/features/how-male-female-brains-differ
Many differences in performance have more to do with culture. There are smaller talent pools of women for previously male dominated sports because fewer women are interested/supported/encouraged to get into them.
Not everyone you disagree with is a “transphobe”. In fact, I don’t think there’s a single person in the world who has an “intense and overwhelming fear” of trans people. Most just want them to stay out of the opposite sex’s spaces.
Just a hunch, you’re cis aren’t you?
Wow good one sherlock! Just like 99.9% of the worlds population, yes, my “gender identity” is the same as my sex. Well it would be if I had a “gender identity”.
Yeah you don’t sound like a transphobe at all. Is there any other discrimination that you’re incapable of experiencing for yourself that you also don’t think exists?
Do you actually think people are scared of trans people?
The “issue” seems moot to me, personally. Between the facts that no one is transitioning in order get an upper hand in the sports world and that there are plenty of documented incidents of cis women athletes being falsely flagged as trans women due to their high testosterone levels… I just don’t think it really matters. It isn’t like there are record breaking trans women dominating the sports world. This “issue” mostly feels like an overt attack on trans people in general than genuine concern over the alleged purity of sport.
The people spearheading these attacks on trans people aren’t interested in some nebulous notion of sports integrity, they simply want to further denigrate and attack an already maligned minority. They are concern trolling on a national scale and that I find deplorable and transparent.
I might be biased here, as I really couldn’t care less about some Olympic notion of athletic purity, the idea itself feels somewhat eugenic adjacent, but I also think the impact of accepting trans women in sports is ultimately very minimal on the sport world, but huge for the progress of trans rights, something that I think is very important, especially in this day and age.
Furthermore, I think people outside of the propagandists trying to make this into an issue who care about this idea of purity in sports are being taken advantage of by malicious actors (aforementioned propagandists) who do not care about sports purity, but do care about repressing a maligned minority.
The question is fair, but so very few people are affected, who cares? Yes, I can care about more than one thing at a time, but using trans athletes as a political football (heh) is ludicrous. And yes, I know it counts for the people involved, I’m not a total ass.
I’ll never find it again, but recently someone tallied how many times this came up on Fox News over the course of a single week. I think it was 100+ if not 150?
The question is fair, but so very few people are affected, who cares?
The vast majority of people are never murdered, either. But I’m sure it matters to them and their loved ones.
It’s an extreme example for the analogy, but the point stands: it doesn’t follow that a bad thing being rare makes it less bad. This is not a valid argument against.
Thanks for admitting that was a crazy analogy, made to prove a point! So many people on here take that kinda thing at face value and argue.
And my point was meant to convey; We cannot win every fight out there, not for so few people. I am sympathetic, but we gotta choose our battles. At this point the right has Americans running around in circles on trans sports, brainwashing their own and enraging the rest. We have to aim high, the most good for the most people, work our way down.
Kinda like gay marriage. I never thought we’d see it in my life! Starting to look like our energy needs spent on defending even that. And fuck me, I had thought that a settled issue. Against that particular backdrop, trans sports is a small-scale affair.
I will maybe get destroyed for this comment, as I have in the past, but oh well…
The trans in sports topic shouldn’t be considered this binary issue that defines your political alignment or morals.
It undeniably seems more complicated than some make it out to be. Use silly over exaggerated examples: if a man becomes a steroid popping powerlifter professionally, then decides to transition to being a woman, should he then be allowed to compete in women’s powerlifting competitions? Over exaggeration, but there’s a point isn’t there? I don’t really know, but it seems like in this thought experiment, she would easily beat out all other competitors. Insert any other sport where men dominate over women due to biology. Is this a bad way to think? If so, why? You made the example in swimming.
I will forever support and vote politically to protect all minorities, including the LGBT community. I will always reject bigotry. But saying this is not a complicated issue, just doesn’t seem right. And questioning it in this way, doesn’t make me a bigot. Let trans athletes compete in any sport? Categorize them differently? I don’t know, Im not sure it’s that easy.
At the end of the day, this stuff really is a distraction that creates infighting to shift focus away from more important things. The oligarchy likes this distraction because we’re not talking about how they’re exploiting all of us. This is the kind of thing where I say “I honestly don’t know, but why aren’t we taxing the billionaires?”
Thank you so very much. Yes, it’s a tough question. No, the question in and of itself does not imply hate. Yes, it’s been used as a political football.
And the dumbest part? There are so very few trans athletes, and let’s be real, we’re only talking about MTF trans athletes. Nobody gives a flying fuck if FTM trans folks get whipped at a competition.
“Our state has proudly passed a law banning the 3 MTF kids in the entire fucking state!” 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
It’s not even a real issue. The number of trans athletes is extremely small, and none of them are out there setting crazy records.
The fact that the University of Pennsylvania swimmer [Lia Thomas] soared from a mid-500s ranking (554th in the 200 freestyle; all divisions) in men’s competition to one of the top-ranked swimmers in women’s competition tells the story
In the 100 freestyle, Thomas’ best time prior to her transition was 47.15. At the NCAA Championships, she posted a prelims time in the event of 47.37. That time reflects minimal mitigation of her male-puberty advantage.
During the last season Thomas competed as a member of the Penn men’s team, which was 2018-19, she ranked 554th in the 200 freestyle, 65th in the 500 freestyle and 32nd in the 1650 freestyle. As her career at Penn wrapped, she moved to fifth, first and eighth in those respective events on the women’s deck.
It may not be an issue to you, but it’s an issue to every woman whose ranking is lower as a result. I imagine it especially hurts if you’re pushed out of first place in that way.
Wow, the 200m freestyle, the 500m freestyle, and the 1650m freestyle, huh? Did she ever compete in anything else, or were those numbers perhaps cherry-picked to make the situation look more dramatic than it actually is? Because if you look at her results holistically, she’s a very good swimmer, but she’s clearly not dominating 100% of the time the way she’s been portrayed.
At the NCAA competition where Thomas won one (1) race that conservatives cried and shit their pants over, a cis woman named Kate Douglass set 18 new records. Lia Thomas set zero new records. And crunching the rest of the numbers bears this out: she was a good swimmer before and after transition, but she’s not some unbeatable powerhouse that cis women have no chance at winning against.
It should also be noted that a college athlete’s times and rankings would presumably improve every year. Freshmen competing against seniors are just less likely to win (in most sports at least). IIRC I saw an analysis of her rankings that indicated the jump was within normal bounds for year-over-year improvement.
No one goes from 500th to 1st year over year competing against the same people lol.
She swam for the men’s team 2019-2020 while undergoing hormone therapy. Then there was a year break because of COVID. Then she swam for the women’s team 2021-2022. The difference was over two years.
EDIT: Actually, the 500th place stat was from 2018-2019, so it was over three years.
EDIT 2: Also, she went from 554th to 5th. The other two are basically not even worth mentioning since she went from 65th to 1st and 32nd to 8th over three years.
EDIT 3: Also, regarding your “the same people” bit, a large chunk of the people she’d have competed against would have graduated and been replaced by underclassmen. This is how college works.
Incorrect.
Before transitioning, Thomas was nationally ranked #462 in the NCAA men’s official swimming competitions. After transitioning, Thomas jumped to #1 in the NCAA women’s category.
Lia Thomas jumped up from around 500 in mens to 1 in womens while having slower times than when ranked ~500 in the mens. That says all that needs to be said.
The numbers you are using I’ve only seen from that letter made by people complaining about her, frequently posted everywhere by conservative sources. Also, it’s fucking obvious she’d have slower times. That is the entire purpose of requiring trans atheletes to be on hormones for a couple years.
EDIT: I’ve looked into the 462 number more, and I’m further convinced it’s either made up or not an official ranking (i.e. from some practice run). Also, if you’re gonna pull some random quote, give your source. One of the very first results when I search “lia thomas 462” is the Daily Wire, which does not inspire much confidence in your sources. The other results are a Wikipedia quote from the letter I mentioned, and a random comment on the site for a swimming magazine.
were those numbers perhaps cherry-picked to make the situation look more dramatic than it actually is?
If anyone can go from 554th to 5th in any sport/event just by competing among the other sex, nothing else changing, then that obviously indicates something. You can’t handwave that away.
Her personal 100m freestyle time dropping less than a quarter of a second post-transition is honestly a bigger indicator that transition is not making a substantial difference, because that angle completely removes the ‘chance’ element in your opponents being different people.
It may not be an issue to you, but it’s an issue to every woman whose ranking is lower as a result.
Really? “Every”? You asked every single one of them, did you? Or are you just talking out your arse on the behalf of hundreds of people you don’t even know?
The very fact that their ranking is lower than what it should be is an issue in and of itself, your disingenuous mockery notwithstanding.
Former competitive swimmer here. I’m fine with it.
But they’re placed exactly where they should be? If they should be placed higher, that’s where they’d be… seems like you’re the one getting mad over a skill issue on other people’s behalf tbh. It’s weird.
You’re acting as though Lia Thomas didn’t have every right to compete as she did, despite fulfilling all the eligibility criteria that were in place at the time, so your argument at this stage seems equally applicable to all the cis women who outperformed her, too, but you’re not whining for the benefit of all the poor womanses that were denied the opportunity to place higher than they did by them, are you?
No, we absolutely should not mark the records of known transgender athletes in any way. Because once you start down that road you wind up asterisking cisgender athletes whose development is outside the norm.
We could get into a long discussion of transgender persons who do or do not undergo HRT, or how there are already rules against transgender women competing professionally if they aren’t on HRT, or whether or not such rules or gendered sports at all are justifiable.
But all of that is just a distraction. The elite in any competitive sport are ALREADY several orders of magnitude beyond the norm, to the point where any advantage a trans woman might have for going through male puberty is essentially a wash with “are you just naturally well-formed for this sport”.
It’s worth noting, by the way, that there ISNT broadly an athletic benefit to having gone through wrong-gender puberty before medically transitioning. Plenty of athletes have done exactly that, and as far as I know exactly none of them wound up being relatively better among their true gender peers post-HRT than their standing among birth-gendeR peers pre-HRT.
And there have been more instances of cisgender women being wrongly accused of being trans than there are transgender women athletes at all.
I tend to agree but it’s an interesting angle.
Like, were not about to tell NASCAR fans that Dale Earnheart Jr needs asterisks because, you know, his dad. He had quite the leg up!
Two
indyDaytona 500 wins is no joke. Daddy’s help or not.I’m not trying to shit on Dale Jr by any means, the man is a legend. But he did not win two Indy 500s, he won two Daytona 500s. Indycar racing is a completely different sport, it’s like comparing hockey and fútbol.
Oops! Fixed.
And yeah I’m not a big NASCAR fan (can you tell)? But recognize a feat is a feat.
But it’s not different in that we’re talking about athletes with unfair advantages. Trans athletes have never shown their ‘leg up’ helped the dominate the field. The same cannot be said for Dale. That’s why I tease, do we take that accomplishment (that I got wrong 😳) away with an asterisk?
Of course not. Same goes for a trans athlete.
Not an expert, but have read news long enough to notice a few things get overlooked
there are cases where it would be a disadvantage. If the athlete went through full male puberty their skeleton is going to be larger and heavier than someone who went through female puberty, after enough time at typical female hormone levels muscle mass generally decrease to be inline with cis women. It would take more energy to haul your own bones. On the otherside of the coin, more recent transwomen may not have gone through male puberty due to the use of blockers, why should they be penalised
People also tend to focus on transwomen, but conceivably there are sports where transmen might be at an advantage, where a typically lighter smaller frame may be a win. There are also so few trans people competing at a competitive level that as someone who lives outside the american culture wars and tends not to give a shit about sport, it always seems like an such a waste of effort to make a drama out of it
after enough time at typical female hormone levels muscle mass generally decrease to be inline with cis women.
Muscle mass != strength though. Also someone that is physically larger isn’t going to have their muscle mass shrink to that of someone that is a foot shorter.
but conceivably there are sports where transmen might be at an advantage, where a typically lighter smaller frame may be a win.
The complete abscense of trans men in male sports competitions says this isn’t a thing.
There are also so few trans people competing at a competitive level that as someone who lives outside the american culture wars and tends not to give a shit about sport, it always seems like an such a waste of effort to make a drama out of it
“Drama” needs to be made out of it before it becomes the norm, and by “drama” I mean it needs to be assessed properly based on science, biology, and reality and have a decision reached for the future. Make no mistake - if trans women are allowed to compete with women in professional sport, and even at a high school level, eventually it will be just all trans women in the womens divisions with no “cis” women with the rate at which people are coming out as trans.
Weight and height classes exist
The near absence of trans people in sport, tends to indicate this really isn’t much a of a thing to begin with
hyperbole much?
Weight and height classes exist
Not in every sport. Are there weight and height classes in track and field? Football? Soccer?
Also would you be ok with a man and a woman facing off in Boxing or MMA just because they’re the same weight?
The near absence of trans people in sport, tends to indicate this really isn’t much a of a thing to begin with
It’s becoming more and more prevalent, don’t pretend like it isn’t. If it isn’t stopped there will be no women in the womens divisions of sports, only trans women.
WASHINGTON (TNND) — The U.N. says transgender athletes competing in women’s athletic events have won nearly 900 medals over their competitors, according to the results of a study obtained by The National News Desk (TNND).
The 20-page document examined “violence against women and girls in sports” and claims more than 600 biologically female athletes have lost at least 890 medals to transgender competitors. These defeats occurred in over 400 competitions in 29 sports, though authors did not specify specific events, levels of competition or time periods.
IIRC this is the study that counted medals multiple times
But I’m glad you have your culture wars to fill in your day
You act like you’re not participating in this “culture war” as much as I supposedly am lol.
You said it’s barely affecting anyone. I posted evidence that it affects hundreds/thousands of people. You dismiss it based on you thinking you remember something lol Even if it did count every medal twice, which you’ve provided no evidence to show it even counted a single one twice, it’s still thousands of women affected.
Even if it did count every medal twice, which you’ve provided no evidence to show it even counted a single one twice
Pretty clear the study is flawed
do you remember the part where I said I’m not an expert, not invested or care about sport?
Who has the energy to care? assuming you’re a seppo, your country has a shit tonne more to worry about than how good someone’s chromosomes make them at putting a hockey stick in a basket from the other end of the pool
You unironically posted John Oliver and expected people to take it seriously lol
Who has the energy to care? assuming you’re a seppo, your country has a shit tonne more to worry about than how good someone’s chromosomes make them at putting a hockey stick in a basket from the other end of the pool
Yet here you are, caring.
Not american, and that is a pathetic way to try and kill a discussion. Just because something more important might be happening everything else should be ignored?
The National News Desk - Wikipedia https://share.google/bWMrVg9ftYvQVwbK6
My understanding is that there is absolutely no evidence that trans women have an advantage. Once hormone therapy has been going for a while performance shows no statistical difference from women assigned female at birth. I was listening to a report on the radio just yesterday.
Additionally the number of trans athletes is incredibly small.
I’ve heard that the greatest correlation with Olympic medal tally is the amount of state funding for sports and sport sciences. If we’re going to asterisk any records, it should probably be for everyone from wealthy countries.
That’s a really salient point - there are a lot of other impediments to “fairness” which are much more relevant.
Yep, the “fairness” argument is a transparent figleaf for intentional persecution.
My understanding is that there is absolutely no evidence that trans women have an advantage.
Your understanding is very incorrect.
Lol back up your refutation with some facts, bozo
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Nice way to just throw insults without addressing the actual post.
My understanding is that there is absolutely no evidence that trans women have an advantage.
Going from 554th place pre-transition to 5th place post-transition doesn’t line up with that claim.
Your link is just to this post, but after searching I believe you’re talking about Lia Thomas. That’s a single example so not necessarily representative.
"FACT: Trans athletes do not have an unfair advantage in sports.”
"After one year of hormone therapy, trans women performed better in sports than cis women. After two years, their performance was largely equalized.”
“…finding that trans women athletes are at a relative disadvantage in many key physical areas relating to athletic ability… than their cisgender counterparts.”
So, as an elder Millennial, the whole trans thing was foreign to me, and still is to many people my age. We just didn’t talk about it like we do now, and when we did, it was always a joke, so the idea made us uncomfortable. I’m not saying it’s right, I’m saying that’s what a lot of people my age and older were raised on.
My default response to this was to agree that men should not play women’s sports.
It was a Reddit conversation that made me change my mind. One person had said If we are banning people who were born with a penis from women’s sports because they were born with an unfair advantage over other competitors, why aren’t we banning people over 6.5’ tall from the NBA? They were clearly born with an advantage that the rest of us don’t have. Some people are born smarter, faster, stronger than others, that’s just the way it is. There are a disproportionate number of black professional athletes, is that evidence that they were all born with an advantage? Would nearly as many people agree with banning black athletes from professional sports because of this apparent advantage? Of course not. They would call it out as a blatant hate crime, which is exactly what they are doing with trans people.
I think that argument only really works well if you eliminate gender categories entirely, which brings its own problems. But maybe more sports could use a class system like the weight classes in boxing?
Did you mean to say “I’m not saying it’s right,…” at the end of your first paragraph?
Oh shit. 🤦🏻♂️ Thanks. Better fix that.
One person had said If we are banning people who were born with a penis from women’s sports because they were born with an unfair advantage over other competitors, why aren’t we banning people over 6.5’ tall from the NBA?
Because womens sport divisions and leagues were specifically created because women physically cannot compete at the same level as men. Biologically they’re built differently - they’re not as strong, as fast, as tall, etc.
What you’re saying is “why even have womens divisions at all?”. If that’s what you want then fair enough, but just know that it basically eliminates female athletes altogether apart from a few select sports like gymnastics.
No one is calling to BAN trans people from sport - just to have them compete with others of their SEX, not their self identified “gender identity”. That’s not a “hate crime”, that’s just fairness in sport.
After 2 years HRT, any advantages a trans woman may have had are statistically gone. Most sports require 2 years of HRT to compete in the women’s category.
After 2 years HRT, any advantages a trans woman may have had are statistically gone.
Does HRT shrink your height? Reduce your lung capacity? Shrink your arms? Change your bone structure? Muscle density?
Nope! Does none of that, and those are only 4 of the obvious differences between men and women that give men physical advantages.
You guys don’t seem to understand that the effects of testosterone and other things don’t just disappear when you no longer produce testosterone. If you give a 25 year old man testosterone blockers, does he shrink and revert back to a 10 year old boys size and physical stature? No.
The question is, what really is different between a woman or a short man in basketball? Both can not compete because of their genetics.
But many, many short men have competed in the NBA and other basketball competitions to great success.
Did you know that there is no rule saying that the NBA is male-only? Women can play in the NBA. Why do you think there has never been a single female NBA player?
Women actually aren’t as inferior to men as you seem to think.
You pick any female athlete. I’ll challenge her at her preferred sport, and I’ll bet against myself 99/100 times.
Anyone who’s going through transition would have far less testosterone than I, and what I have isn’t going to help me beat a female athlete.
What it’s really doing is dehumanizing people. How would you feel if you tried out for a team and they said YOU had to play on the other genders team? No matter what you said, you could not convince them that you were what you know you are. Would you still play? No, you’d do exactly what they want you to do, just go away. Stay out of our sight because you’re strange and you don’t belong here.
Women actually aren’t as inferior to men as you seem to think.
Physically yes, they are. This isn’t new or controversial. It is the entire reason why we have womens categories in sports in the first place. There are countless videos and stories of things like the USA womens olympic soccer team playing against boys high school soccer teams and getting thrashed. Not just losing, oh no - getting annihilated…by high school boys. Any average boys high school basketball team would win the WNBA championship without losing a single match. The worst college male college basketball player would win the MVP of the WNBA unanimously (if the judges were fair of course, which we know they’re not since someone voted for Angel Reese as the rookie of the year lol).
You pick any female athlete. I’ll challenge her at her preferred sport, and I’ll bet against myself 99/100 times.
That says more about you than anything else. I would absolutely beat many olympic womens athletes at their sports with the minimal training I’ve done, because well we can see how fast they are, how much they can lift, etc - and their records and performances are way behind the mens, and I would bet my life savings on me beating them.
For example, in the USA in 2024 alone, the 10 fastest high school boys 100m sprinters ran faster than the Womens Olympic gold medalist from 2024 (https://trackandfieldnews.com/2024-high-school-boys-absolute-top-10-lists/, https://www.olympics.com/en/olympic-games/paris-2024/results/athletics/women-100m ). Not by a tiny amount either - the 10th fastest male high school athlete was half a second faster than the womens gold medal winner lol. I don’t know if you know much about athletics, but half a second in the 100m sprint is an eternity. It’s bigger than the gap between 1st and last almost all of the time.
There are just so many examples. Back in their prime, Serena and Venus Williams both played a set of tennis against the 206th (iirc, he was just over 200) ranked male tennis player. He smoked in between points. He played them back to back. He beat them both without raising a sweat, I think it was 6-0 against one and 6-1 against the other. Each set only took like 15 minutes because they could barely even get to his serve to return it. At the time the Williams sisters both said something along the lines of womens and mens tennis basically being completely different sports because of the performance gulf between them.
What it’s really doing is dehumanizing people.
No it’s not. Accepting that there are differences between sexes is just accepting reality.
How would you feel if you tried out for a team and they said YOU had to play on the other genders team?
Sports aren’t based on gender, they’re based on sex due to all of the reasons listed above. Gender is irrelevant since it’s just an “identity”, a feeling.
Every organized sport has some sort of governing body, and that body is concerned with making sure competition is fair. (And taking bribes, right, FIFA?) The people who organize the sport should be able to determine what is fair for their sport. Often, there will be some scientific basis for allowing some people and not allowing others, based on hormones or something like that.
The decisions should be made by people who know the sport and decide what fair competition might look like, not by asshole politicians looking to push an agenda.
The decisions should be made by people who know the sport and decide what fair competition might look like, not by asshole politicians looking to push an agenda.
So they should be able to do whites-only competitions? Most of the NBA and NFL are black, so that’s not “fair” to white people is it? So they should be able to do whites-only competitions by your logic.
I think you missed the sarcasm in my words, and the point I was making. Your use of that gif however is hilarious, because you unironically thought what I was saying was serious.
In all honestly I don’t think amateur sports records matter and the people who say it does are only pretending to care about it to push their worldview.
I’ll buy “Sanctity of Sport” arguments when pro ports stops being a blatant gambling, alcohol, and exploitation ring. Nevermind the fact that PED use is prolific at the top levels of sport.
I agree, and the ways in which it could materially matter (in the US, admission to and/or scholarships for better universities, for example) should be mitigated by making things like education available to all.
Honestly, writing these thoughts down is giving me some existential dread. What does it mean to be human, and why?
Ha. You got to the core of the issue, my friend!
The only way I see things working out is to get rid of seperations. Its just Bathrooms with floor to ceiling stalls or just multiple single person bathrooms, sports just have multiple leagues based on ability.
Locker rooms aren’t the only issue with trans athletes. Most of the real debate is about having people who lived half their lives as men, having a distinct athletic advantage over women.
thats the multiple leagues. not mens and womens but just leagues and you move up and down like baseball but maybe with more.
What you’re describing would very, very quickly end up with essentially what we have now - mens and womens sports. The men would be in all the top ones, and the women would all be in the bottom ones, with the trans women at the top of the womens ones at the lowest, with many much higher since they have the physical ability to compete with men.
Did you know that there is no rule stating that all NBA players have to be male? Same with the NFL. Same with the NHL. Same with almost every professional sporting competition in the world that is thought to be a “male” competition. When you understand why you’ve never seen a single female compete in any of those competitions, and notice that some of those have their own separate “female only” competitions, maybe you’ll have a lightbulb moment.
categorizing sports between women and men separately always seemed weird to me. Why is it not a global ranking? A global ELO system that makes sure every athlete fights other athletes in the same ELO range, doesn’t matter man woman because it’s based on performance/skill instead.
Men would still on average out perform women in most categories, making it very difficult for women to get to the top of the chart. High ELOs would almost exclussively be men and thats where the media focus and attention would be on, drowing out some of the top women atheletes in lower ELOs. In a system where the highest ELO wins a medal or something i think it would be less fair than having gendered ELOs. Something like amateur or beer league sports might benefit more from genderless ELO but i think it would be controversial for pro athletes.
That’s precisely why we have sports separated by sex now though - because otherwise it’s all men up the top and all the women down the bottom.
Would you be ok with, for example, mixed sex boxing or mma?
Good question. I just don’t give enough of a shit about sports to have an opinion here. Especially a negative one. Not only that but I’ve literally seen no trans athletes perform in a televised physical sport ever. So they should go for it and if it’s like a clear difference. Idk. Address it then.
I see a lot of people in my town talk mad shit about trans people and immigrants when the extent of their experience outside of media is seeing them one day living life and doing nothing disruptive. This issue always feels the same. Like if a ton of immigrants showed up and started doing… something bad? Fill in the blank here. I think that would be the time to deal with it and have strong opinions that could negatively impact them.
I think having a strong positive opinion that doesn’t negatively impact people is great but when it comes to excluding people or hurting people let’s see the damage they deal first.
So they should go for it and if it’s like a clear difference. Idk. Address it then.
This is what’s happening, and this is why trans women are being banned from competing in womens sports more and more the world over. Watching a alleged man beat up women with ease in the olympic boxing seems to have been the tipping point for most people that were still on the fence.
Yeah I mean, I see what you’re saying, but isolated incidents don’t really make a good basis for decisions. It seems like on some cursory research that there are just a handful of trans athletes across all of college athletics (like less than 10/500000) and they’re not exactly record breakers. I’m no data analyst but that’s a pretty awful sample size if we’re talking about. Your boxing example seems like a good argument to take these on a case-by-case basis in case someone against all odds is trying to game the system until there are enough examples to make it clear that there’s a problem.
It started as isolated incidents, but it is now a huge issue because the current wave of people identifying as trans has all the makings of a social contagion and it’s spreading like wildfire.
With things like these you have to stop them before they become a massive problem. Why wait until it becomes a gigantic issue when it’s clear that it will already?
We play sports for fun. Let whoever organizes the event decide.
We play sports for fun. Let whoever organizes the event decide.
This completely ignores competitive sport.
The organizing body for the competitive sport can decide
As long as it doesn’t break any laws, sure, they can do what they want. Unfortunately for trans women who want to compete in the womens sports, there are protections for sex-specific places and things.
