Sport is such an unfair world, trying to find equality and justice in it is futile. We don’t want kids taking growth hormones to boost their chances of making it into the NBA. But that also means we crush the dream of plenty of people. Athletes with asthma can’t use their inhaler under certain circumstances. A few years ago an UFC fighter with Asthma got his win overturned because he used an inhaler inbetween rounds.
There was a huge discussion about allowing prosthetics in “regular” competition. Turned out at the time that proshetics weren’t advanced enough to give an advantage. But I think we all know that this is only a matter of time. And eventually a hard ruling needs to be made that dictates in which direction sport goes.
Banning athletes who take as many hormones, hormone blockers, and other mediaction as transwomen usually take is 100% something that needs to happen. Especially considering that in certain leagues the usage of these substances is the only reason that transwomen are allowed to compete. That feels against the spirit of sport and TUEs. But untill more data exist, I doubt a useful ruling can be made.
What I don’t like about the whole discussion is going for the “They aren’t real women” argument. That feels degrading and hurtful for everyone involved. I don’t want cis or transwomen to have to undergo inspections to determine their gender.
Banning athletes who take as many hormones, hormone blockers, and other mediaction as transwomen usually take is 100% something that needs to happen.
Those hormone blockers block testosterone and the hormones they take are estrogen. Those are not exactly performance enhancing actions. In fact, they do the opposite. If anything, we should be making sure that trans women competing in sports should be taking hormone blockers and estrogen.
You need to re-examine your take because it is truly baffling.
Why do transgender athletes have such a problem with competing in the all-comers category instead of the women’s category, which is reserved for XX born females who have been producing all of the hormones you describe above since birth?
You just made up those requirements. Are XXX and XXY women not allowed to compete in your sport that you made up the requirements for? What about women with Swyer syndrome?
As for why women would prefer competing in a women’s competition, that question kind of answers itself.
Thankfully we can test for which mutations of sex chromosomes produce hormonal profiles that are equivalent to XX born females. In fact, we do that already! :)
But the “hormones” you generically refer to, aka fucking estrogen lol, and hormone blockers Trans women take aren’t an advantage. Ask any trans women, they make you weaker…
Like why point out trans women when trans MEN are taking a hormone that actually promotes strength and athleticism? TERF vibes
They make you weaker, perhaps, but are you at the same level as a cis woman who was never exposed to that level of testosterone?
And trans men are just competing against men that naturally produce those same hormones.
It is simply a complex issue that defies a simple answer.
There are plenty of cis women that have higher natural t levels than men, that’s why many sports already required people stay under certain t levels before trans sporting rights were even in the question.
The effects of increased testosterone last a long time, even if it’s being blocked. And how exactly are testosterone levels being monitored? When? When, if ever, do the athletic advantages of male puberty and testosterone wear off?
People have reasonable and legitimate concerns beyond accusations of transphobia. Sweeping those concerns under the rug and acting like they are unfounded will earn the trans community little support.
So you’re threatening your support of the trans community based on whether or not people agree with your sports opinions. Or, at least you’re implying it’s legitimate that people would do so. L take. Transphobic vibes.
Not agree, but willing to at least engage in a good faith discussion of issues rather than resorting to accusations of transphobia.
This is not a good faith discussion on your part and the fact that you don’t realize that is why I’m calling you transphobic.
Anyone who disagrees with me is transphobic! It’s obviously not possible for me to be wrong!
Every woman has variations in their hormone makeups and history. Besides, the pool of trans women athletes is just so small, and the amount of vitriol is so disproportionate and obviously rooted in transphobia.
The variations between biological men and women are larger and more significant than those between women.
And it isn’t that insignificant. Lia Thomas won an NCAA title, beating an Olympic silver medalist. Laurel Hubbard went to the Olympics. She lived as male 35 years before transitioning. She had given up weightlifting decades earlier. But at that age with little training, she suddenly qualified for the Olympics.
So cool you know about all the accomplishments of trans women!!!
With your passion and drive, you would absolutely be a force to be reckoned with and a wonderful asset. It is such a shame that you are struggling so much with petty name calling and insults because instead of helping the trans cause, the actual effect you have is absolutely the opposite. You hurt it tremendously. You 100% come across as someone who is uneducated, childish, and mindlessly mean. You lack the ability to respond to anyone in a way that encourages them to see things from your point of view.
I’m sure that deep down you have some good points, you are just currently utterly unable to convey them. This is not a reason to give up though, just a reason to spend some time self reflecting. You can be so much better and more useful than you currently are. Not only will that help your community, but it will also help you enjoy your life more on a personal level.
The trans community is full of so many unspeakable incredibly amazing individuals. I’m sure you can find some to look up to and learn from. Good luck. I know you’ve got it in you!
lmao I’m not here to convince transphobic people of anything. take your smug tone-policing and shove it up your damn ass
boohoo waaaaa I said someone has terf vibes 😭😭😭😭
Then maybe ask yourself this - Why are you here?
Put another way, what do you think that you have accomplished with this last comment? Do you think you hurt my feelings? If so, do you think my feelings being hurt benefited you in some way?
If you aren’t here to help other people understand your point of view, and you’re not trying to understand other peoples point of view, then what are you accomplishing by spending your time here?
Does it make you feel better by treating people like this? Do you leave this app feeling better or worse?
I hope you feel better soon, it hurts to see you struggling so hard. Your current way of trying to deal with things isn’t working, so maybe a big change would be a good idea. Only you can make that change though.
From one internet stranger to another: You’ve got this, and you are so much stronger than you are currently realising!
oh my God my life has been changed
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Many sports have two divisions: Open and Womens. This even includes ones like Chess and various e-sports. The NFL, NBA, and MLB all allow women, or at least have no rule banning them (In the former two cases, ever, in the latter, any more, the 1952 ban was rescinded in the 90’s.)
So to answer your question: Everyone can already compete in one division.
The NFL, NBA, and MLB all allow women
They may technically allow them, but do you think most women, even very skilled ones, would want to face the abuse they would get from players, coaches and fans if they decided to do it?
Just because it is allowed doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be a major hardship. And I think the vast majority of women in sports are smart enough to understand that is what they would face.
Replace women with black people and your argument sounds exactly like the enlightened individuals arguing that baseball shouldn’t be integrated even if there were black men out there good enough to play ball with white men.
Jackie Robinson absolutely understood that he would face unyielding discrimination. So did the flood of black ballplayers that followed him in the years to come. Hardship didn’t deter any of them.
I didn’t say anything about ‘shouldn’t.’ I’m explaining why it generally doesn’t happen. If a woman things she can handle all of that discrimination and feels she’s athletically capable, I’m not going to be the one to tell her not to.
Plenty of women in shooting sports. Turns out shooting is one of those sports where men don’t seem to have a significant biological advantage. None of them complain about abuse.
So you’re saying all male athletes except in shooting sports have a biological advantage over all female athletes? The worst NBA player is still better than the best WNBA player?
I don’t follow NBA but I do casually watch some hockey (including women’s hockey) and I’d be surprised if even the very best women’s hockey players could beat a team made up of lower ranked NHL players. The men will have better puck handling, higher speed, more weight, and they shoot more often opening up more plays.
My anecdotal sports experience, for what that’s worth: when I was 14-15 playing soccer, women’s university teams would play against us for training. The women were taller than us on average, ran a bit faster, used more vocal communication, and were much more physically aggressive. The men had better endurance, ball-handling, and positioning. We never lost, and no one seemed surprised by this.
It’s not just the obvious height and weight advantages at play, and I’m not sure how much socialization matters but I’d wager less than our biology in sports and other extreme athletic endeavours.
Britney Griner is probably on par with a second-stringer in the NBA. She’s one of the few that there were mutterings she might be the first woman in the NBA, but instead she set a single game record and tied a career record in her first game in the WNBA.
The Williams sisters in tennis used to claim they could beat any man outside the top 200 when they were near the top of women’s tennis, so they were challenged by the 203rd ranked male player and just destroyed. He claimed at one point that he was playing closer to someone ranked 500th to keep the game fun. They later amended their claim to being able to beat any man outside the top 350.
I never said those were your words. I’m telling you how it comes across, and I’m letting you you’re wrong about the reason “why it generally doesn’t happen”.
At least in baseball, a sport where intelligence, reaction time, skill, and experience matter a lot more than raw strength, the barriers for little girls who dream of playing in the Majors are a lot more than just the discrimination they might face if they make it that far. It’s the deeply rooted cultural barriers that prevent women from even getting a shot, and in a sport where even 1st round draft picks spend years in the minors getting their reps in, lack of experience is a death sentence no matter how much raw talent you have.
At every level of play, girls are heavily encouraged to switch to softball or outright denied the opportunity to play. They’re excluded from youth travel ball teams because “the boys will be bigger in a few years and need the reps”. A lot of high school teams won’t let them try out because Title IX considers a softball team equivalent. It took a lawsuit for Litttle League to allow girls to play baseball. Young women playing baseball at smaller colleges are often lured away with softball scholarships at big universities (not that there’s anything wrong with pursuing better educational opportunities).
Every woman playing college or minor league baseball says the same thing; they faced far more discrimination as kids just trying to play than they ever have in the locker room once they got the chance.
Okay, so what is your explanation for why there aren’t women playing major league baseball or in the NBA or the NFL?
I think I’ve already pretty thoroughly answered the question of why women haven’t played baseball at the major league level since Toni Stone, Mamie Johnson, and Connie Morgan played in the Negro Leagues in the early 50s; women have been systematically shut out of baseball for decades, and while those barriers are slowly being torn down, their effects will continue to be felt for a long time. We’re only just now beginning to see women play at the collegiate and minor league level, so I would imagine we’re still a few decades away from women playing at the Major League level.
The NBA and NFL are entirely different stories. Those are sports where brute strength is absolutely required and being huge helps a lot. It’s definitely not some fear of discrimination that’s keeping women out of those sports though.
Edit: Because I’ve seen your other responses, and I can tell you’ve been waiting for me to say something about how men are stronger than women so you can have your gotcha moment, I’ll also say that trans women are women, not men. That male testosterone advantage doesn’t exist for someone who has to suppress theirs for at least a year before competing to a level below what many cis women naturally have. Trans women have competed alongside cis women for decades and it’s never been a problem. Republicans just needed a new boogie man.
Right, but no women? Not one since the introduction of the rule? I’ve know many female athletes and all of them would and could handle the abuse if they wanted to compete with male athletes.
At the same time, can you make an evidentiary argument that there is not one WNBA player that is more skilled than the worst NBA player?
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And having competitors with insane testosterone counts won’t end “female” sports?
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Who has insane testosterone counts? Most trans women have <1nmol/L. The boundary at the olympic level is 10nmol/L
You say that as if it’s true for all trans women. It isn’t. I agree with you however that the IOC’s solution introduced in 2003 works fine. The only reason it’s coming up now is because of politics.
I explicitly said “most” and I stand by that. It is absolutely true for most trans women that their T levels are far below average cis women.
Ok so we limmit the testosterone do we limmit the muscle growth from when the testosterone wasnt limmitted? Do we limmit the bone structure? Do we limmit the brain chemistry? How far do we go trying to define what is a woman and by doing that are we not excluding people?
We if we have people who are men in all but name competing in womens sports that wont kill female athletes? There are undenyable differences when it comes to sport and i doubt trans athletes are getting surgery to change their bone structure are they? Either eliminate all female athletes and let trans athletes compete as women or dont u cant have both its called doublethink.
Then you’d have people cry because most men would dominate most of those sports, leaving most women in the dust and with no chance of winning them.
Ding ding ding
Really wow i never though of this is suprising nobody has complained about this in womens leagues yet?
Agreed honestly, the division of any thing by gender seems out of date these days. Go based on skill, age, or weight/height, something… just leave gender out of it.
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Oh thank you. I needed a laugh, there is always someone that has to go full triggered keyboard warrior in these threads. Bunch of comments, all of them intentionally ignorant, purposefully bad faith and I suspect you just LOVE feeling like the only smart person in the world.
Well, you are being a downvoted for a reason. And that is most people are bored of these little edgelord takes. But good on you for keeping sticking to your guns in the face of context, reason and public mockery, you sure are “brave” for being the only person with “the truth”, pity not everything brave is also smart.
😂
Wow u got downvotes as well so i guess we are both brave. How about u address any of my points instead of just being distrespectfull.
In general, and I’m sure some people here will be incensed at the suggestion, people do not give a shit about women’s sports and the only time many of them do is when they find out a “man” is competing in them.
Women care about women’s sports.
A lot of them don’t. Just like a lot of women are against subsidized pre and post-natal care. Just because you’re a woman doesn’t mean you care about women’s issues.
And, based on what I’ve seen, the vast majority of complaints about this come from men anyway.
Most of the women in women’s sports who are asked support trans inclusion (somewhat sport dependent, some sports are historically more queer friendly than others) and find equal pay to be a much bigger issue for women’s sports. For some reason nobody who is “concerned” about women’s sports wants to hear that, though. 🤷♂️
The reason for women getting paid less in sports is due to advertisement revenue. Not as many people watch women’s sports, so advertisers pay less. This results in female athletes getting paid less. I know that economics is not everyone’s strong point, but you really don’t have to get very deep into it to understand this concept, all it takes is an open mind and the willingness to learn something new.
“Female athletes are more concerned about equal pay than trans people in sports.”
“Ah yes but you see, nobody watches or cares about women’s sports so equal pay is impossible.”
Yes, thank you for illustrating why female athletes are more concerned about that than a manufactured hysteria from the right, lmao.
Many female athletes understand why the pay is less, and so for them, it ceases to be a concern. This is a simple economics/demand issue that many people have no problem grasping. Some people struggle to understand the basics of economics, and for them, they think there is injustice in the pay for women’s sports. This same mentality would argue that every meal everywhere on the planet should always cost the same amount. However, the vast majority of people are able to understand why this wouldn’t make sense. It is just when emotional issues get mixed in with this basic concept that some people lose their ability to reason logically.
A separate and unrelated group of female athletes would prefer to compete with other people who are genetically similar to themselves so they can see how they rank amongst their peers, and for them transwomen in sports is a concern.
These two issues are not directly connected, and there is no solid reason to bring up one issue to try to downplay the other. While it may feel like changing the subject is a way to win an argument because it moves the focus elsewhere, it doesn’t actually work against people who are paying attention. This is the sort of tactic that can be used on children or people who don’t really care about a topic, but it does nothing against fully mentally developed people who are genuinely interested in understanding.
Hi! You seem to be under the impression that I’m going to engage with your argument fetish, but you’re going to have to find someone else to take the bait. I do not engage in debate in which minorities are fine to remove from sports, and unfortunately for you since I have been on the internet for more than five minutes I am not swayed by claims of “just wanting to understand.” If you’re so concerned about understanding the issue of trans people being singled out for exclusion from sports you can RTFA ❤️
Well, no worries, before you are at any danger of having an argument or productive conversation with someone, you will first need to learn how to form a coherent point of view. Nobody has said anything about excluding minorities from sports. Sorry if that’s not what you are claiming, but I read your last comment several times but was unable to figure out what you were hoping to convey. I’m not sure if the issue was a poor combination of mistyping and autocorrect or what, perhaps you’re just sleep deprived or otherwise inebriated. 🫶
People know the “why”, but that doesn’t mean that female athletes are happy with it and don’t want to be paid more. They absolutely do, it’s something that high ranking athletes talk about all the time. But I guess you pay more attention to the headlines hating on trans women.
“economics is not everyone’s strong point” GTFO with your condescending attitude. Wow. If you’re so interested in telling other people to be open minded, maybe listen to what female athletes actually have to say.
You are right. There are professional female athletes who want to earn more money. Many of them are extremely smart, and they find things they can do that will make them more money. A vocal minority gets stuck trying to fight reality. These are the ones you see and imagine are the majority. This is not the majority by any stretch of the imagination.
If you think it is unfair that women athletes get paid the amount the market pays them, then you have every right to go pay them more. Trying to force other people to pay them more is a waste of time.
The “market” is doing a notoriously great job at distributing wealth right now. How much money do the 1% have now?
Well, unfortunately, lots of people like to complain about what the market does while simultaneously encouraging it to do it with their wallets/purses. For instance, they say the market should give female athletes more money while simultaneously not buying their cards, jerseys, or going to their events.
.
Wow, I honestly thought Lemmy would be less transphobic. This totally rational comment downvoted for no reason. If most women in sports aren’t concerned about trans women being there, why are all these assholes concerned about it.
You misunderstood. Us not wanting to compete against genetic men is absolutely not transphobic. I support transwomen whole-heartedly, they should absolutely have equal rights, and it is rude to intentionally mis-gender them. This has everything to do with wanting fair competition in sports. Men’s bodies are built differently than women’s bodies. This is not a human issue. This is an animal issue. It is across all species that the bodies of males and females are built differently. If this were not the case, then we never would have had male/female segregation in sports.
Just gonna point out historically most male/female segregation in sports is actually due to sexism, and a lack of women’s rights, not due to an “animal issue”.
Sexism against who? Do you mean against men since they were not historically allowed to play women’s sports sports, while women were allowed to play men’s? Correct me if I’m wrong, but women are allowed in nearly all of the world’s major leagues. They just don’t perform competitively enough to be drafted.
To be clear, I was saying sexual dimorphism goes much deeper than just humans. In most animal species, there is a huge difference in size and strength between males and females. Humans are not unique in this, that’s all I was saying.
the word “genetic men” is a terf phrase fyi
Then give a label for someone who is born with a penis. If your goal is clear communication, then clear labeling should be your friend, not something to try to attack into extinction.
You say you want clarity but you’re missing clarity yourself. Why is it important to exclude people born with penises from women’s sports? You don’t know what that person may have experienced hormonally over the years, and you definitely don’t know their gender. Someone being born with a penis doesn’t actually give you the information you’re claiming to want with your terf-phrase. If you want to find inclusive language, maybe look at what some trans orgs have suggested.
I don’t think most women are into sport for the pay
I have said it before and I’ll say it again: this issue exists to stir up controversy. Very few people can ever be professional athletes, but lots of people suffer as a result of the hostility generated by this debate.
Also, very few people talk about trans men in sport. There’s no real justification for excluding trans men from sport other than fragile egos of male athletes being scared of being outperformed by an afab athlete.
Also also, if we’re making the argument that people with higher exposure to testosterone for a short duration in their life have increased athletic performance (which to be clear is kind of true but not actually relevant for all trans women), then I have to remind you that anabolic steroids can benefit athletes for up to a decade, which is exactly much fucking longer than these drugs remain detectable in an athlete’s system.
Also also also, professional sport is stupid and doesn’t deserve this much attention. It certainly shouldn’t be allowed to stir up this much hate toward regular ass trans folks just wanting to live their damn lives, but it does have that effect.
Also, very few people talk about trans men in sport.
Very few people talk about trans men in general. Virtually all the defense for anti-trans policies and laws is built around rhetoric about protecting women from “men in dresses” or the like. One thing trans men succeed at is gaining the social invisibility cis men tend to have.
Which is weird, because if you believed the usual progressive rhetoric about gender you’d think trans men would be viewed as women trying to steal men’s patriarchal privilege for themselves and would be treated as even more of a problem than trans women. Rather than anti-trans rhetoric being mostly concerned with maintaining protected spaces for women.
The narrative around trans people, whether it’s bathrooms or sports, is always around cis men pretending to be trans women to invade women’s spaces.
I agree with you except for your last point. Even if you don’t have a personal interest, it’s a massive industry with hugely influential celebrities.
If you’re position is excluding trans women from sport because of vibes you’re just a transphobe.
There is no rabid hoard of transwomen waiting to overrun sport and sweep the awards. Until recently this wasn’t even an issue, the Olympics has allowed trans women to compete from like 2000. Where are the medals?
We’re a tiny population who generally perform worse than natal women because our T is lower. Despite all the contrived “just asking questions” about skeleton size or whatever nonsense there is no clear picture of advantage. At any rate tall women aren’t banned from sport. Even women with PCOS aren’t banned from sport.
We don’t have seperate leagues for people raised in stable households on good diets and yet that’s got performance benefits that swamp anything from having a slightly higher forearm to middle finger ratio or whatever insane thing people bring up.
This whole thing is completely drummed up and is just an acceptable way for the general unease cis people feel about trans people to be voiced.
It is interesting that you bring up the fact that not many transwomen are winning medals. Would it be a problem if they were? If so, what percent of women’s medals going to transwomen would make you decide that transwomen shouldn’t be allowed in women’s sports?
The point of all leagues/divisions/brackets is to foster community and competition. Consistent domination of any one group of people stifles that.
If people with green eyes started winning every single javelin competition it would be a reason to consider making a green eyed javelineer league assuming their was the numbers and interest to support it (otherwise you’re just banning green eye’d javelineers de facto).
Fascinating! This is a take I think I’ve never come across. Am I right in assuming that you think there should be light-skinned and dark-skinned events in the Olympics then? There are many events that almost always go to dark-skinned individuals. The same thing holds for many professional sports.
This is a really interesting idea. I doubt it will happen, but if it did, I wonder if we would see the same people claiming that female athletes dont get paid enough claiming the same for white male athletes.
I have to say, I am quite surprised by your response. I really appreciate that! Thank you very much!
I don’t really know enough about ethnicity and sporting performance. Crude divisions like melanin levels seems obviously flawed because I’m not sure what a Kenyan has in common with a Fijian in terms of athletic propensity.
Idk if like white marathon runners feel like they can’t compete in their sport because of whatever advantages the people written about in that born to run book are supposed to have.
I’ve only heard claims about stuff like white people and swimming and sub Saharan African people and sprinting at the Olympic level and I’ve never bothered to look into them because that’s basically irrelevant. Olympic athletes are a tiny minority, it’s not what funds careers and it’s not what most athletes do. Almost all athletics is on a much more local level where difference like this should they be real, again I’ve never fact checked this, don’t manifest.
Like all sport is unfair, that’s inherently the point of it. When I run a race I’m seeing how well my arthritic ruin of a body compares to spry athleaisure mums. We only divide stuff if it’s preventing people from playing because of insurmountable (or the perception thereof, e.g. women’s vs open chess) barriers.
Realitically wealth and support have much larger effects than any of the weird things I’ve seen highlighted, so it’s all Pearl clutching at this point.
Well, just to give you an idea, in the NBA about 16% of players are white. In the NHL, about 90% are white. Both of these numbers get a bit more extreme if you count who actually spends time on the court.
I think most people are still willing to acknowledge that the advantage men have over women in sports in considerably greater than anything having to do with skin color. I know there are people that talk about how much greater the Williams sisters are than any man at tennis, but Serena herself says that not only are men much better at tennis, but that men’s and women’s tennis are two distinct sports and that she wouldn’t score a single point against a professional male tennis player.
This all begs the question of why all the women’s medals/success aren’t going to transwomen. This is a good question, and it has an equally good answer. Biological men have, until recently, been excluded from biological women’s leagues. Even still, transwomen are largely looked down on in society if they participate in and perform well in women’s leagues. The more this changes, the more we will see them compete and dominate until, I predict, we hit a breaking point where even the trans community will, like yourself, begin advocating for a separate league for biological men who want to take hormone blockers. Whether or not it will require claims of identifying as a woman, I have no idea. I just think it will not be the case that we have 2 main divisions, effectively one for men and transwomen without a place for biological women to compete.
I don’t advocate for a separate league for trans athletes, we have been allowed to compete in the Olympics for 20 years and there have been no medals awarded to trans people.
Trans women are not “biologically male” and trans men aren’t “biologically female”. A trans man on T therapy becomes heavily muscular, experiences organ enlargement etc. Trans women get the opposite effect, my fucking q angle changed with musculature changes ffs. Yeah I probably have a Y chromosome although I’ve never been sequences, it isn’t do much these days. The bodies we end up with are not identical to natal men/women but then no man or women is identical to another, even identical twins are different. We end up within the normal ranges of performance, yeah there are jacked trans women, there are also jacked cis women. I go to the gym 4 days a week and run 40 km a week and I can’t even do a pullup lmao after 2 years of this. All aggregate studies to date find no evidence of advantage to trans women.
Unless there is evidence of trans domination in sports there is 0 reason to ban us. Besides, as treatments improve and early intervention becomes more normal there will be fewer and fewer differences, a process which is heavily hindered by discriminatory bullshit stoking hatred and fear.
This actually would have been true 5 years ago, but in 2020 Quinn became the first transwoman to get an okympic gold medal in a women’s event. There are expected to be more this year.
I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to put words in your mouth. I took your green eye comment to mean that you would support a separate trans league in sports. I guess I just don’t understand your point about the green eye thing then. If trans women begin to dominate women’s sports you will be OK with it? and are you willing to have non-trans women to have no way to compete against solely each other? Is that a price you are willing to pay for the sake of inclusivity?
I understand your point about transwomen being biological women. Do you believe that there should be no words or way to refer to someone who has been born with xx or xy chromosomes? Is it just best to not have language to quickly and simply convey that?
I know I have a lot of questions, feel free to ignore them as you like, really, no problem whatsoever. I am curious where you feel like the line should be drawn though. For instance, if an NBA player says they are a woman should that be enough to join the WNBA or should they have to pass a lie detector test or is there some physical characteristics that should determine if they are allowed to be included?
I appreciate your time and this conversation. A good friend of mine was told that she had to wrestle against a trans girl athlete(17 years old, no hormone blockers) or be removed from the league. She chose not to be humiliated and pinned down by someone who clearly belonged in a different league and that basically ended her interest and future in the sport. Ever since then, this has been an especially interesting subject for me. It is hard to say how different her life may have been, scholarships and colleges, and such.
We don’t have seperate leagues for people raised in stable households on good diets and yet that’s got performance benefits that swamp anything from having a slightly higher forearm to middle finger ratio or whatever insane thing people bring up.
This is actually a really good point. There’s no much natural variation in body types and hormone levels.
If this is all drummed up, then why do transgender athletes have such a problem with competing in the all-comers category instead of the women’s category, which is reserved for XX born females who have all of the disadvantages you describe above since birth?
The same fucking reason why people resented segregation you idiot.
You are not this stupid, this is entirely bad faith. Just say “I find trans women gross and I don’t give a shit about trans men” instead of pretending you have anything principled to say.
Except skin color does not affect athletic performance whereas sex does. There is a huge difference in segregation and this topic.
Please provide evidence that trans women’s performance in athletics competitions is favourably outside of the expected range for cis women.
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This article isn’t a moral panic. Did anyone even look at it? It’s talking about four athletes and their experiences, some of them positive.
I don’t disagree with you, necessarily. It’s an incredibly grey issue and one of the few issues that the left shouldn’t be as absolutist about and have a conversation. And beyond that, it’s so low on the list of priorities. Even for trans people themselves I can’t imagine this is high on the list.
But your Protip makes you look like a tool. Why preemptively try to act like you’re some kind of martyr?
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“Sort by controversial” is just complaining about being hidden due to downvotes. It also doesn’t make sense for multiple reasons. They’ve already seen your comment, you’re upvoted, you’re not necessarily going to get downvotes due to a nuanced conversation, Lemmy isn’t usually busy enough to be buried in comments, etc.
You can say it’s a controversial subject without victimizing yourself.
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Sorry you’re offended. I hope you get better.
Agreed 100%. Sports are entertainment. This is a distraction. Get people upset about trans women in sports and they might get less upset about things like healthcare costs. Or at least not upset enough to stop voting for bigots.
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Why though? Why these categories and not others? Why is being transgender meaningful for sport?
Artificially altering your hormones should exclude you from competing with people who aren’t.
Why though? Also you are aware that every woman on hormonal birth control gets excluded using that criteria. Or undergoing treatment for PCOS (which amusingly makes them more fair competition).
you do know things about womens’ health right, you’re not just talking from a position of ignorance are you? That would be a pretty silly thing to do.
You know what, I agree. Screw it. Let anybody dope however they choose and get rid of gender categories. Doesn’t bother me honestly.
Peter Thiel is working on it. Steroid olympics.
I’m just saying that there is no clear answer and there’s always going to exceptions. You either allow drugs or you don’t - for health reasons or cheating it doesn’t matter if the end result changes your performance. Again, there’s exceptions, and that’s why we’ll always have this discussion.
Don’t feed the trolls/bigots. Just ignore them, nothing good will come from interacting, trust me
Yeah it’s a fairly standard grift now, they point at again random trans women winning (or make them up) and say it’s not fair because obviously trans women are just dudes in wigs, and because that’s what a lot of cis people think (or at most - they know that breast implants are a thing despite the fact trans women avoid them like the plague) and they screech about muh biomechanical males and females and whatnot.
You can explain and show a million times how most trans women have lower Testosterone levels than cis women do (weak biological loose regulation vs the cold perfection of medicine) and it will do fuck all because it’s all pretense, if trans women were wizards who changed completely including genetically they’d still just wanna brand us for it.
So tiring and exhausting. All just screaming into the void. So much bloodlust. Can’t wait for the civil war at this point.
EDIT: ah the bloodthirsty have come here
Trans women are biologically female btw in all ways that aren’t literally just the presence of the Y chromosome, from gonads, to their blood, to gene expression :3
Sports are inherently unfair, and trans women’s strength advantage is lost with transition.
Puberty blockers for minors are the compromise. (this would also eliminate the stupid sport shit hence why they wanna ban it)
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Name names, please. I’m not aware of any trans women setting multiple world records, and if it’s happening, I’d like to know.
Most of those articles are either disingenuous, if not outright false. How? Glad you asked.
The whole issue is disingenuous to begin with. Sports is a competition of genetic freaks and is fundamentally unfair.
The reason you see black women win at athletics is also because they have more T on average lmfao.
In fact, restrictions on trans women’s T levels often end up banning black women. https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2021/07/two-cis-black-women-banned-olympics-natural-testosterone-levels/
https://www.aclu.org/news/racial-justice/the-international-olympic-committee-is-failing-black-women
I have lower T than them btw so as a trans woman I’d actually be fine, and probably at a disadvantage to them
These are the latest rules if I’m not wrong:
https://www.iaaf.org/news/press-release/eligibility-regulations-for-female-classifica
The limit is reducing to 5 nmol/L to enter.
I have 0.5 nmol/L as a trans woman and have had this level for 10 years since my teens, because I’m trans and suppressing T and raising E is literally what medical transition is.
I’d likely have lower strength as a result and would not be able to win, no matter how much I trained.
https://academic.oup.com/jes/article/5/Supplement_1/A792/6241278
The reason Usain Bolt wins the run is because he’s got long legs, someone else could train all their life - and they will never win if they don’t have a bigger advantage.
I want to make this bit crystal clear:
I don’t really give a shit about sports.
If you’d like to just ban all trans people completely and fully then please do so.
But the right-wing think-tanks behind it won’t do any such thing, because then their golden goose - the wedge issue that awakens the bloodlust in the average cis person - kicking a thing in a thing - is what they’re using as a stick to beat trans people with and take our rights to healthcare (this includes minors btw) etc.
I think the truth of the matter is that trans women are seen as just blokes in wigs by the vast majority of cis people and because of weird societal shit that makes it bad, and the reality that human bodies are fairly malleable and vague is hard or undesirable to accept, therefore the easiest solution is to hate trannies, if possible while maintaining the pretense of a moral high ground ala “fairness in sports” despite the fact it’s almost a comtradiction in terms.
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The eleven paragraphs are a pretty light explanation all in all, but that’s life, shit’s pretty complicated.
Roadblocks? What are you even on about?
Odd that you would focus on testosterone levels instead of muscle mass. It’s certainly true that trans women have testosterone levels comparable with cis women, and also true that they would lose some amount of muscle mass due to that. However, they still retain more muscle than a cis woman would have, in general.
I think it’s legitimate to ask if that’s fair.
Ah, because testosterone levels hugely influence muscle mass and resultant strength and performance. The longest study on the matter actually ended up with trans women having on average LESS muscle strength than cis women.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8090355/
I don’t actually give a single shit about sports btw.
But this is a good example, this issue brings out the inherent bloodthirst many cis have towards trans people.
I suspect that this study should be repeated on the athlete subpopulations, because I imagine many trans women are actively trying to not be muscular in order to aid transitioning, which is a different goal from those participating in athletics.
…bloodthirst?? Because somebody disagreed with you? How about you calm down instead of being such an extremist. And no, your single study with like 8 people in each group is not more convincing than all of the other studies that you’re deliberately choosing to ignore.
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How about you listen to trans women rather than tell someone to “calm down” when addressing one of the main transphobic talking points? And doing so with a ton of evidence and personal experience? Asshole.
Calm down. And no, there has not been a “ton” of evidence. So far I’ve seen a grand total of one actual study, and it’s a very small one.
Telling someone to calm down twice is like the definition of trolling lmao
Are you admitting that you’re the same person on two accounts? That’s really pathetic you know. Can’t your ideas stand on their own?
Real talk though what was bloodthirsty about that comment?
I am not the person who said bloodthirsty, but this whole thread is pretty intense. If you’re not trans maybe it’s hard to see, but people get disproportionately worked up about this topic when they otherwise don’t give a shit about women’s sports, and most female athletes aren’t worried about it. It’s cringe that people are so invested in kicking trans women out of sports.
I really don’t know enough about who has when an advantage, but when that whole drama broke out about that swimmer who won by a landslide that used to be a man, i was browsing some trans/lgbtq boards. Most of them said that it’s more than fair, because men have denser bones and a lot of convincing arguments for her. But then it had me thinking, why are men so dominant in swinning then? (I assume they are, i think professional sports are pretty pointless and shit)
With all that being said, i feel like if you go through a sex change, which should he the most important and dearest thing one could ever do, maybe it’s time to just drop a silly sport for it. Because one of these things is surely more important than the other.Before HRT, she was a top ranked men’s swimmer. After hrt, on the men’s, she dropped into the 400s. When she had been on HRT long enough to compete as a woman, she was a top ranked women’s swimmer, but was still beaten by several cis women. What’s the issue, exactly?
There isn’t one and they know it.
HowWho are we talking about?Edit: autocorrect
I can’t parse this sentence as written. I predict that you actually meant, “Who are we talking about?”, and to answer that, Lia Thomas, the trans swimmer who the right focused on as their primary hate figure with respect to their campaign against trans people being allowed to exist.
Thank you. I’ve corrected my question, and yes, I meant “who.”
Man, the right sucks.
When you transition, you often lose everything. Family, friends, work, support networks. You name it, every single one of them is impacted, even if they’re not lost completely.
It’s not a “silly sport” it’s community, which can be life saving if you’ve lost most of the rest of it…
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cisoids
Ah the classic “fight bigotry with bigotry” approach. Let me know how your hate is working out for you.
Incidentally also, Lia Thomas set a school record. Not a state record, not a national record, not a world record. Her performance just was not that out of line than one would expect from any other woman.
Believe me when I say that I support my LGBTQ+ peeps.
And I concede that I don’t know much about the subject of trans people in sports and physical capabilities.
But in my view, trans women have higher probability to be stronger than most cis female athletes. I’m not saying it happens all the time. But it happens. There is a reason there are competition categories. Even in the same gender, for example, in boxing, there are weight divisions.
So, I don’t know what the solution is. Measure the amount of strength and categorize accordingly? Having an extra “transgender” category? I tell you - I would watch this! Not in a morbid way, but a genuine one, no different from watching women’s soccer or men’s tennis, for example.
Believe me when I say that I support my LGBTQ+ peeps.
No, I don’t believe you.
Because you literally admitted that you don’t know much about this topic, but still came out to argue for the exclusion of one of the most marginalised parts of the LGBTQ community.
Your understanding is one that comes from the talking points of people trying to use sports as a wedge tactic to further ostracise trans folk, and you completely disregard or simply fail to look for the experiences of trans people and the impact these exclusions have on them.
So if you genuinely do support LGBTQ folk, and that sentence wasn’t just a salve for your own conscience, it might be time to stop stepping on the people you claim to support. If you don’t know enough to form a supportive opinion, that’s fine, but stop adding to the voices trying to pull us down…
Friend, I understand your struggle. I’m also part of a marginalized group. I’ll stand schooled and say that I must inform myself more, sure. But don’t characterize me as someone who is trying to put you down.
You’re speaking in absolutes, though. To “completely disregard or fail to look for the experiences of trans people” would mean to say bullshit like “I fail to see how they’re suffering for not being women because trans women are NOT women” - that is to completely disregard it, like you put it. And friend, you don’t know how many heated discussions I’ve had with people, even childhood friends, to defend trans rights, simply because it’s the natural and right thing to do.
So, I’m here to discuss, to be taught, to learn, to gather tools and help to continue defending everyone’s rights, yours and mine.
I’m not talking about excluding anyone. I’m discussing different options that allow inclusion. Are they right or wrong? I don’t know, that’s why I’m asking! But again, don’t accuse me of doing something I’m not doing.
Can you share your knowledge now?
Don’t characterise you as someone trying to put me down?
You’re quite literally arguing to take away my rights from a position of self confessed ignorance.
And when called on it, you ignored literally everything I said to highlight how the biggest problem that needs addressing is about the way you’re being treated.
If you were here to learn, you’d be asking questions, and you’d be listening to what I, a sports playing trans woman has to say. But you’re not asking questions, you’re arguing, and volunteering to exclude folk like me, without even knowing enough to understand why, let alone the impact it has.
Trans people have no track record of consistently out performing cis people in any sport at any level. Literally every example you can think of is a misrepresentation by a media more interested in controversy than fact. Those are your facts.
If your response to that is to argue about it so as to validate the position you’ve already staked out, rather than listening, asking more questions, or simply backing off, then you know what you can do with your support. People calling themselves allies but then arguing to take away our rights hurt more than bigots ever can…
Girl, you’re just too angry to see beyond what you want to see. I’m a good listener, and I know I’m not perfect. Being “hurt” and telling me to “show your support up yours” because we’re not 100% aligned just tells me that you and I could not be friends in real life - not that you care. But that’s okay. Plenty of other friends more open to educate me out there, and I’ll gladly stand corrected before them without being called “worse than a bigot” without knowing my full story (the irony.)
Again, you’ve acknowledged literally nothing that I’ve said, to focus on how you are the hard done by one.
You also mispresented me. I didn’t say you were worse than a bigot, I said people like you hurt more than bigots do. A bigot can’t let me down, because all they know is hate. But when the people that are meant to be allies call for you to lose rights? It hits harder than bigots do.
I could give a shit whether we would get on in real life. Us getting on should have nothing to do with your support. What I care about is that you’re arguing for exclusion of trans folk. The fact that your support relies on education from trans folk that you perceive as more reasonable simply means that your support is conditional. And conditional support isn’t really support
I disagree with you when you say you didn’t imply that I was worse than a bigot. Because if bigots hurt on purpose, and I hurt more than bigots, then what does that make me? “I’m not saying you’re a killer, I’m just saying that your actions murder people.” Semantics.
What should I acknowledge? That I am arguing for the exclusion of trans people? Did I say “hey, trans folks must be banned because of this or that”? I stated my views and I said I’m open to being schooled. But you’re acting like when Trump says “that was a nasty question” to reporters who ask questions, instead of freaking answering the question. Or what did I miss?
And hopefully you’ll hear out my reasons when I say this, but yes my support for trans folks is conditional, just like with the support I give to everyone else. Here is why: I support the inclusion of gay people. But some gay people think that trans people are not part of the community (TERFs, they are called?) So my support ends there. If someone says “I can’t believe your support for gay rights is conditional” I’ll just tell them to pound sand - because I won’t tolerate anybody who tells me that trans people should not exist, not even gay people.
So you have my full support. But that supports ends where the right of others to peacefully co-exist is threatened. If you don’t think this is okay, that’s your problem.
Your inclusion ends where others are excluded. I think cis women may be excluded from a sport if some trans folks participate in it. Where are their rights? That’s the argument. Let’s discuss. Is that bigotry? Absolutely not. Is it ignorance? Possibly! Am I wrong? Tell me so without berating me! Others have done the same and provided me with study materials in this very thread, and I’ve been reading.
But in my view, trans women have higher probability to be stronger than most cis female athletes. I’m not saying it happens all the time.
If they are on hormone blockers and HRT, they honestly do not have a higher probability. That said, it would be pretty fucking invasive to make sure they are taking those consistently.
But then, what’s the solution? If an athlete says “hm, I’ll stop taking this hormone to have a competitive advantage over everyone else,” how’s that different from doing the opposite? (e.g. taking hormones.)
I really don’t have answers to these questions. It’s an important topic, though.
I don’t have a solution and I doubt a perfect one exists but did want to add in info to make sure people are not under the assumption that people on HRT have done support of significant advantage.
For me to have an informed solution, I would have to know how long it takes for muscle to come back once HRT is stopped, what the side effects are of starting and stopping HRT repeatedly, and probably a host of other questions that I do not have the answer to. Trans people are not quick to simply stop taking their hormones and hormone blockers. Considering almost all of them went through years of struggle to transition, stopping them destroys years of progress and some of that can be irreversible. I do recognize that money can convince some people although there is not a ton of money in women’s sports.
The Olympic Committee used to test testosterone levels but had to shelve that because, while rare, cis women occasionally have higher testosterone than the threshold that was set. So they went back to inspecting genitals for a while. They could go back to testosterone level testing for trans women but that is a little discriminatory since it targets them. I don’t have a perfect solution and I’m not sure one exists that isn’t going to piss at least one group off.
It is indeed a complicated subject.
Thank you for your insight.
Decades ago, when leg prosthetics started to improve to the point that amputees could beat non-amputees in races, I heard people say that athletes would chop off their legs to get prosthetics installed and dominate the competition. Obviously that has failed to happen, despite prosthetics getting better all the time.
In general, trans people don’t stop taking their meds for the same reason runners don’t chop off their legs even if it could theoretically give them an edge.
I’m sorry. I don’t think this is a good analogy. (And I didn’t downvote you.)
For your analogy to work, it has to be the other way around: Abled-body athletes wanting to participate in paralympics competitions and therefore they would “disable” themselves to do so.
Then, some of those athletes would say “you know what, perhaps I could still use one leg against these guys who have no legs from the waist down.”
I’m on Blahaj, I don’t see downvotes and don’t particularly care if people downvote me. Especially if it’s because they’re mad that I do not compromise on trans inclusivity in sports and don’t entertain paranoid fantasies about trans athletes sabotaging their own medical care to allegedly get an edge in sports—something that has not happened. There simply are not many elite trans athletes and those that exist usually perform at a level below their cis competitors. Evidence: trans people have been eligible to compete in the Olympics since the 2000s, and it took until 2021 for a trans person to qualify.
IMO the analogy works when you come at it from the perspective of the hypothetical trans athlete in question. HRT isn’t a placebo, it has real effects and a lot of those effects vanish when you stop taking it. For a trans person that is on HRT for dysphoria, you are going to get all the negative effects of dysphoria anywhere within 24 hours to a week of stopping HRT, which is FAR too short a time for someone’s natal gonads (assuming they even still have them) to come back online and get your hormones back to a level that isn’t “currently in menopause.” It is going to take even more time after that (months, if not years) to get anything that could be considered an advantage. All while suffering from dysphoria.
It sucks. Nobody is going to do it for the same reason an athlete won’t cut off their fucking legs: it’s their body that they have to live in.
Indeed. I didn’t want to suggest that that scenario was real - just a thought experiment. But of course you have a point. Thanks for the insight.
On the other hand, if you put a transman with the women, he will have a clear advantage and it wouldn’t be fair.
But in my view, trans women have higher probability to be stronger than most cis female athletes. I
Given this belief, is there a reason trans women have never taken Olympic medals despite having nearly 20 years to do so? That would seem to be evidence against that perspective. If any trans women are more capable at sport than cis women shouldn’t at least one have been world class?
Theres a trans female weightlifter Laurel Hubbard who made it to the Olympics in 2020. Passed every Olympic requirement for trans women to compete. Big hubbub about biological advantage and all that from the critics. She was in the competition one would most expect dominance from someone assigned male at birth. She had three lifts. She failed three lifts. Placed last in her group. So much for that.
Yup. Quietly dismissed by so-called “skeptics” tho
How many trans women compete in olympic sports in women’s categories? Genuine question.
Really very few, I think it’s only in the last few years that any have qualified. Which, again, is a pretty solid argument against, “Trans women are driving cis women out of sport!”.
That’s a good point, but for the sake of the argument, can trans women compete in women’s Olympic sports? As in, are they really allowed? Given your previous comment, I’m going to say yes, but I’d like to be sure…
Yes, since the early 2000s.
Thanks. Today I learned.
They are allowed. As Stern@lemmy.world pointed out, Laurel Hubbard competed in weight lifting and failed all three lifts and placed last in her category. She was expected to medal.
Thanks. Good to know.
Anything you say followed by “but” is completely meaningless, know that all the “LGBTQ+ peeps” here you claim to support now know to avoid you like the plague
Anything you say followed by “but”
Jesus. What a weak, generalizing argument.
You’re going to make me go full godwin. Imagine saying “I support my Jewish friends and what happened to them at the Holocaust was heinous. But what Israel is doing to Gazans is inexcusable” then someone telling you “anything after the ‘but’ is meaningless, and all the Jewish community here will avoid you like the plague.”
I just hope you’re a troll.
Can’t wait for the civil war at this point.
EDIT: ah the bloodthirsty have come here
I guess the hypocrisy is lost on you. Frankly I’m inclined to believe you’re a right wing troll trying to make trans people look bad at this point.
I was with you until that last part lol. I’m not ready for a war.
But yeah, no evidence will persuade people. They have super intense beliefs about trans people because they saw something on Fox News or their social media feed. Confirmation bias and whatnot
It’s not hard to find evidence to support the skepticism about trans women in sports:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33648944/
I’m curious what evidence you’re talking about?
Yeah. I went from being a fairly progressive trans liberationist to a bit more conservative transmedicalist arguing that sports and healthcare are issues best settled by science and attempt to focus on dysphoria and the physical literal aspects of everything but even that does not work.
No matter how much evidence cis people simply do not believe you, no matter what you say: trans women = bio men or maybe have even more testosterone and thus muscle mass, no matter what they think everyone transitioned because trauma or some psychological social bullshit they made up in their stupid fucking battle of the sexes.
They mostly are either too evil, or too stupid to understand us and I don’t really give a shit which is which anymore. It’s not always true, but it’s a safe assumption.
And yeah I don’t want a war either ofc, but I see no other end to society in general as it is now.
We need a fucking trans-ethnostate.
They mostly are either too evil, or too stupid to understand us and I don’t really give a shit which is which anymore. It’s not always true, but it’s a safe assumption.
You have become what you hate, congrats on your bigotry.
If you don’t understand why a trans person would need to assume that cis people don’t understand trans people, you’re really just proving the point
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It’s obvious who has won here. You have evolved from someone who didn’t want to be mindlessly hated to someone who is obsessed with mindlessly hating others. You have 100% switched teams because they beat you into it, and you lacked the strength to resist them. Get back to who you once were, it was undoubtedly much better than this vile bigot you’ve become. It’s sad to see people collapse onto the other team, I hope you manage to make it back.
LMAO they took down my meme comment
Why the new account? Did you get banned for being a vicious bigot on your last one?
It won’t help. Bigotry doesn’t get better for separation, it gets worse. People need exposure to the other, to see that trans people aren’t some kind of media trope monster, just people. Being an out trans person is one of the best things that people who have passing privilege can do, to reduce the stigma of being trans in society and remove trans people from the scary caricature the media loves to sell.
