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.
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.
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?