Current Events > UK Prime Minister "trans women should not compete in women's sport"

(+) Yeah! (+)

eaglei3 posted...

This is the part the sports and medical world are still trying to identify. What percent drops of physicality and stamina occurs? How long must someone sit out after transitioning and what level of testosterone they must be at? These are questions still being researched with for what will be defined as "fairness" in women's competition.

Exactly, that was ultimately the point I'm getting at. It's certainly not clear, however much people on either side of the debate are sure that it is.

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To be honest, I don't think how an advantage is defined should ever be on whether medals in top competitions are being won or not. You could jump on a bike with a 60 watt electric motor and you'd still be demolished by every rider at the tour de france, but no one would say that therefore how you competed was fair.

Ultimately it stems from whether you think we should err on the side of inclusion until we know more, or exclusion until we know more. That's more of a social politics question than a scientific one.

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This Is such a bad argument

"Wait until you've ruined the sport/event, /records completely. THEN intervene "

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This is a message board, discussing things is what you do here

And that's a crazy appeal to authority

Especially for something this unprecedented

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I think (as I said above, but posted it after you wrote this) the question ultimately has nothing to do with data. I think the vast majority of people on either side of this question could be shown all the data in the world and it wouldn't change their stance. For many people on the pro-trans inclusion lobby, it literally doesn't matter if there's any scientific proof of an advantage or not - what matters to them is that this is a human right's issue, and sport fairness is an immaterial concern.

I think male/female sports categories themselves no longer make sense, but I can't think of what you'd replace them with. I don't agree that qualification/relegation would work out well for women at all, cis or not.

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iv>

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because they're bigoted as fuck

And advantage doesn't mean automatic victory

Anti LGBT Russia isn't going to force people to transition to try to win a track medal

They will slip athletes they like roids

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1) they are now, and 2) there just aren't enough of them to really make a dent. But if I was one of the people kicked out of the olympic pool over this, I'd want to know that it was definitely fair.

Let me posit another scenario..

There are countries who have been willing to slip their top athletes performance enhancing drugs. These countries have been known to bribe officials to turning the other way allowing these athletes in.

Why aren't these countries pushing for more trans athletes if they have some massive net advantage? Why are they still relying on their old tricks?

Countries like Russia and China generally aren't super progressive on trans acceptance and medals are all about clout for them, I suspect their stance on LGBTQ sits at odds with their desire to clean up medals.

Also I think they simply don't need to - their drug programs are so sophisticated, they can just dope the top talent rather than looking for the odd trans person. In other words, their old tricks are still working extremely well. Look at the rankings/records for weightlifting, you'll see china flags all the way down the list.

However you bring up a point I would address - do I think it's possible that these corrupt organisations would take advantage of relaxed rulings to win medals? Absolutely.

Right now I feel like there isn't enough data to suggest transwoman have this massive advantage over non-trans woman. As more trans woman qualify maybe it will come to light that they do but that is purely speculation. Right now it iust isn't happening.

i think there's every reason to believe there is a huge advantage, and the more compelling question would be how could they not have one? Is transitioning so complete and sophisticated now that a person who goes through male puberty has every androgenising effect erased, germane to sports performance? Maybe the actual reason we don't have trans people cleaning up medals in the olympics because there just aren't many elite tier trans athletes?

it is speculation, I'll agree on that.

Oh, and never reply to unfairrepresent, the guy makes it very clear how much he hates trans people at every opportunity

another reminder that Boris Johnson is a dick.

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We're already seeing records being broken and trans athletes catapulting rankings after transitioning

As well as research showing trans athletes in NFL and rugby have a much higher risk of injuring biological female athletes than biological female athletes do

And this on top of the fact women's division's only exist because no female athlete can even compete in the men's leagues.

And this is a tiny amount of people in a tiny amount of time

Testosterone, chemical balance, bone density, pain receptors, muscle mass

You can't ignore this because you don't like it.

Not this BS again:
https://twitter.com/ErinInTheMorn/status/1505344682351550467

Gist of the thread is simple: Lia was a top swimmer in the men's division in 2018, then started HRT in May of 2019, which rendered her entirely uncompetitive in the men's division. She didn't race again until the '21-22 season, when she competed with the women and was a top swimmer.
It's almost like she's a fantastic swimmer?
But fuck all this dancing around what this is really about: https://www.si.com/college/2022/03/03/lia-thomas-penn-swimmer-transgender-woman-daily-cover

If you're going to rob us of this, look us in the damned eye and be honest about what you're doing. Be honest about the dreams you're crushing, the children you're ostracizing, and the torrents of trans misogyny you're unleashing against us and even against cis women.

This is going to remain a contentious issue until there is actually a high profile case of awards being taken by a trans athlete. The pool of competitive athletes is already a small fraction of the population, the male->female portion is even smaller.

I think if a Michael Phelps caliber athlete transitioned and ruined women's swimming records forever, and ruined the competitiveness of the sport during the duration of their career, then people would quickly change their tune. It's just going to take an arbitrarily long time before someone like that even exists. It would be less messy to just settle it now.

Ultimately I don't give a rat's ass about what goes on in the sporting world. But people in general do need to come to terms with limitations on things they can do in their life. You can't have everything.

Frostshock posted...

This is going to remain a contentious issue until there is actually a high profile case of awards being taken by a trans athlete. The pool of competitive athletes is already a small fraction of the population, the male->female portion is even smaller.

I think if a Michael Phelps caliber athlete transitioned and ruined women's swimming records forever, and ruined the competitiveness of the sport during the duration of their career, then people would quickly change their tune. It's just going to take an arbitrarily long time before someone like that even exists. It would be less messy to just settle it now.

Ultimately I don't give a rat's ass about what goes on in the sporting world. But people in general do need to come to terms with limitations on things they can do in their life. You can't have everything.

Easy to say that when you're not having your rights eroded. It's never ever been "just" about the bathrooms or the legal name changes or the corrections to birth certificates or about sports. It's about using each of those proving grounds to further erode the rights of trans people. So anyone saying "just let the bigots have this" needs to shut the fuck up forever unless you'd revoke your own rights on the spot.

gunplagirl posted...

Easy to say that when you're not having your rights eroded. It's never ever been "just" about the bathrooms or the legal name changes or the corrections to birth certificates or about sports. It's about using each of those proving grounds to further erode the rights of trans people. So anyone saying "just let the bigots have this" needs to shut the fuck up forever unless you'd revoke your own rights on the spot.

I gree with the rhetoric here

Conservatives are using prisons and sports as an excuse to justify being dicks to transgenders

Don't let them off the hook for that

Agreed

ElatedVenusaur posted...

Not this BS again:
https://twitter.com/ErinInTheMorn/status/1505344682351550467

This is super interesting and her record is impressive prior to transitioning too, but you have to be honest about the levels of league being discussed here.

In 2018 she had a top 8 finish at ivy league championships. Her recent wins are at the NCAA division 1. Totally different divisions.

pinky0926 posted...

This is super interesting and her record is impressive prior to transitioning too, but you have to be honest about the levels of league being discussed here.

In 2018 she had a top 8 finish at ivy league championships. Her recent wins are at the NCAA division 1. Totally different divisions.

Shut the hell up

gunplagirl posted...

So anyone saying "just let the bigots have this" needs to shut the fuck up forever unless you'd revoke your own rights on the spot.

That is putting way more words in my mouth than what I said.

I don't have a horse in this race and I never will. I don't watch sports, I don't care about sports, but it is an interesting discussion to follow. Public opinion is divided and I don't think it's as black and white as you're painting it. It's certainly not straight down political lines.

My heart goes out to transgender athletes. Like damn, you just want to partake in humanity and when youre remotely successful, even marginally so, and despite everything you had to put your mind and body through, youre derided and sneered at.

_HayleyWilliams posted...

Imagine thinking sports are important enough that we need to oppress vulnerable minorities over it.

Wat?

Ehh, I mean setting aside the trans debate, you do realize there are billions of dollars exchanging hands through sports employment, school scholarships, advertising revenue and so on, right?

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I did miss this part, that's true.

UnfairRepresent posted...

This the pattern conservatives do

They shit all over Transgender rights and equality

Then when backlash forms they go "Womens sports and prisons!" and pretend thats the only concern that they raised the entire time

This is not a conservative thing. Lots of liberals are against this, but are more hush about it. It's not an easy fix.

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Some sort of promotion & relegation system would fix this, as well being a fix for trans men, older athletes, and getting dumpy people to become athletes.

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I think this is it really.

Is it a situation that should be watched carefully? Sure. It's a fairly new situation and the science behind decisions might be quite young. At some point the parameters will almost certainly need changing, but as long as that discussion continues to be on the table, I don't see the problem.

Arcanine2009 posted...

This is not a conservative thing.

Yes it is