Support NeoGAF

[TheFuzz]

The male/female sports distinction ought to be dissolved anyway.

This is one of the stupidest ideas I've read on this forum.

 

[Future]

No, while there are clear cases on way or the other that show exceptional cis males or females. without eliminating male/female leagues, and letting everyone compete together (like some poster suggests), you have to deal with averages. On average males do have physical advantages.

Puberty, and when/if they do HRT are variables outside of those averages. A 4'9"-5'3" born male is extremely rare compared to born female

Again I ask:




And Im asking from a general overall perspective. Not ever person who transition is 4'9", and has been on HRT for 5 years (or before puberty).

Im fine with the IOC guideline, but not everyone can/does meet that who may want to compete (especially at a High School level) so where do they fit in?

Olympic rules seem to work for me. If you havent been on hormone therapy then you have all the advantages of male biology and cannot compete in female leagues. You can compete in male leagues of course

It's not about identity really for this. It's about whether you fit the biology of the gender whose league you went to participate in to ensure fair competition and results

It is not scientific fallacy that male biology is stronger and faster in the sports people typically compete in. Hearts and muscles grow bigger and stronger, body's are more resilient, andhave lower fat percentage allowing for more muscle in lighter weight individuals. Whether or not women should compete in the same leagues as man shouldn't even be part of the debate

That said, Even with Olympic guidelines there are some potential edge cases that would cause issues. For instance, what of shaquille O'Neal actually transitioned. His body type is so far off the scale that I'm not sure hormone therapy could equalize the field in anyway that wouldn't cause uproar

 

[jmizzal]

Parents get mad when a kid is much bigger then the other kids in youth sports, they have that right, I have no issue with this unless they are being hateful then its a up to how to council whats to handle it.

 

[Cindi Mayweather]

Do the people who bring up the bone structure argument want to argue that cis women who have large bone structures also shouldn't compete? Or are we just lumping all girls into one pile here?

 

[Greddleok]

I think if the Olympics have no problem with it, then it's not a big deal, like, at all. I'm no expert on transgender transitions, so I'll defer to the scientists who work for the biggest athletic competition on earth to see if it's OK or not.

 

[IceCold]

Depending on when her transition took place (post/pre puberty) or her hormone therapy progress she would have certain advantages from being biologically male. Don't know enough to know for sure though.

But men are simply better at women at most sports. This is biology, no amount of social progress will change that. Men are typically faster, stronger, taller, heavier, have better reflexes and hand-eye coordination, stronger bones/joints/ligaments, better stamina, etc. You can see this in action by simply watching a game of a top female soccer team (such as a WC winning one) get completely wrecked by U-17 soccer teams. They'd likely get beat by sunday league teams too. You can also compare NBA to WNBA as well. So I don't understand the people who think it's a good idea to to disregard gender in sports. If that happened, you wouldn't see women in pro sports.

 

[Camp Freddie]

IMO the Olympic committee's view seems to be as fair as possible.

You have to have a "women's" class in athletics or else women would rarely be able to compete in high-level competitions.
Once you acknowledge that, someone has the shitty job of having to define "woman".
Whichever way you do it, some people will be disadvantaged.
A qualification criteria based on testosterone levels sounds to me like it will allow both trans and cis women to compete.

 

[excelsiorlef]

If you've read the research on this subject, it's clear that someone that is male to female trans has an unfair advantage in athletics due to inherent physical developments prior to transition.

Yes, it does matter when the transition took place, but in my eyes it's a losing game trying to make an ultimate determination and as a result, any participation of theirs will always be unfair to some degree.

I have much less of a problem with it in traditional sports like track and field as opposed to the situation with Fallon Fox in MMA, but I'm still against that advantage and I think you can logically come to that conclusion while still supporting trans people.

Do they have to resign themselves to never competing in sports as a result of their situation? I would personally never want to compete athletically when I know I have some kind of unfair advantage because that is not true competition, but that's my own personal stance.

I feel for them, but there's no good solution.

If you actually read the research you'd know that the IOC found that after two years of hormone replacement therapy those trans woman advantages go away.

Trans women can compete at the Olympic level after 2 years of HRT.

So maybe you should read the research

 

[Justified]

Maybe she has an advantage? But it doesn't seem to be bigger than the advantage from other naturally tall/better built girls. Hell, it doesn't seem to be bigger than the advantage from other not as tall girls; individual variance here is more important, and what are you gonna do against individual genetical variance? That is, by definition, unfair.



She is not cleaning up -which is what you said-. She has had some success in the 200m race, but that advantage got erased as she moved to state wide competition, where she is performing on female level. On female level on Alaska.

Unless your standards for "cleaning up" is third place. In which case, lol.

So what do you want? That she performs as an _average_ girl? If you look at her record, she is indistinguishable from other girls that perform well.



At the high school level is more complex because not everyone starts treatment at the same time, the school may not want to enter a dispute on who is or not trans, who is under treatment, etc. Of course, it is still also complex if you take out transgirls from the competition, since different girls will have different rates of growth, height, weight, muscle mass. Individual variance is p great even without trans people in the equation, but somehow you don't see the parents in the news complaining against taller girls.

Which is why the school ain't entering that discussion and is just saying "if she is registered as female, she can compete as female". There are legal ramifications they don't want to enter which do not apply to the olympics committee.

In time, as there's growing acceptance of trans people, more girls will start transition earlier, and thus advantages like height, bone structure, etc, will be reduced. There may be some corner cases, at the high school level, but again, it is not what we are seeing here.

Thanks

 

[Fixed2BeBroken]

It's not like we have 100 million misplaced transgendered athletes. There's only a handful of times this has ever been and will ever be an "issue." Tell the parents to suck it up and treat this as a learning moment for their children.

LOL WUT?

is this a serious reply? Learning moment for their children?

ridiculous

 

[Justified]

Do the people who bring up the bone structure argument want to argue that cis women who have large bone structures also shouldn't compete? Or are we just lumping all girls into one pile here?

But those are natural exceptions, which are accepted as they are not outside variables used to allow you to compete (HRT, Steriods, etc).

No one is saying that Shaq, Serena, and Misty May-Treanor/Kerri Walsh shouldn't compete in the leagues because they are so dominant

 

[trixx]

This is one of the stupidest ideas I've read on this forum.

Yeah what? Either that guy is way to forward thinking or something because it makes no sense to me at all

 

[Fixed2BeBroken]

I'm sorry but it's exactly how it DOESN'T work.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XY_sex-determination_system

If you have XY chromosomes, your sex is male. If you have XX chromosomes, your sex is male. sex is a biological trait.

LMFAO..

this Octavianus guy refuses to acknowledge basic science.

We are not entitled to k know anyone's biological sex. Are you advocating athletic programs force these people to disclose which set of genitals they were born with?

And the higher frequency... You're not going to see millions of new competitive transgendered athletes entering the arena every year. This is a non issue except for a few small pockets of people who just need to deal.

jeez, what is wrong with your brain?

I can't believe this is a real opinion. It's incredibly ignorant.

 

[Ms.Galaxy]

LMFAO..

this Octavianus guy refuses to acknowledge basic science.

Not really. There can be errors in gonosomes that doesn't make it so basic. There are, for example, XX males or XY females. I myself was born with XX male syndrome and am transition to female. Then there's other gonosome disorders that leads to XXY, XXXX, XXYY too. Those are rare, sure, but there is a possibility that this girl might have it. Truly, you nor I know.

 

[Anura]

Right now just anything really, as someone who has very little knowledge but try's to keep an open mind on issues I may not understand it's difficult to even know where to start.

Things like proper terminology would probably be a good start other then calling a transgender individual by the gender they associate with, I slip sometimes I won't lie about that but it's something I try to correct myself on when I do.

Problem is I spent most of my youth on a reservation so there is a lot to these issues that are honestly foreign to me,I'd like to try and change that.

It might not be best to hold the conversation here as its a little hectic and off topic in this thread. If you want to PM me I can answer some thing to the best of my ability. I would however, recommend asking the off topic thread. Not only am I'm actually pretty bad at explaining things even though I'm trans, but different people have different ideas on different things and it would be best to ask trans topic to get multiple opinions.

 

[MrPressStart]

I think you should look at the fairness of what is going on. I don't blame the parents...

Look at the Olympics. They don't allow it as it is considered an unfair competitive advantage.

 

[Morrigan Stark]

Look at the Olympics. They don't allow it as it is considered an unfair competitive advantage.

Wrong.

 

[Audioboxer]

Not really sure this should be an issue in high school sports. Cmon. It's mostly time for kids to be having fun, learning and competing with respect. I can accept some of the biological arguments at pro athlete levels but even then I'm sure they can legitimately discuss hormone levels and other things with doctors and trainers.

All peoples bodies within the same sex aren't even the same anyway. Strength, speed and so forth all vary as it is.

Feel bad for the teen this has blown up and became an issue.

 

[Alienous]

This is one of the stupidest ideas I've read on this forum.

I hope you can one day get over it.

 

[Ms.Galaxy]

I think you should look at the fairness of what is going on. I don't blame the parents...

Look at the Olympics. They don't allow it as it is considered an unfair competitive advantage.

We've been over this already, but the IOC does allow transgender people to compete in their respective genders. They just have to follow a set of simple rules, really.

Secondly, we now know that this girl has been taking HRT for awhile now, very likely just as puberty started or earlier. Any chances of her body being given an advantage because she was born male is little to none.

 

[Team Alucard]

Not really sure this should be an issue in high school sports. Cmon. It's mostly time for kids to be having fun, learning and competing with respect.

Except College Athletic Scholarships are a thing.

 

[sammyCYBORG]

I hope you can one day get over it.

Sorry buddy, but you're just plain wrong here. Females and males are very different, and merging the two would be disastrous for female athletes. It's not sexist to acknowledge that when it comes to sport, men are usually built more for it and will have a natural advantage.

Obviously this doesn't apply to absolutely all sports. Motor racing, for example, should never have gender leagues.

 

[Henkka]

What do you guys think of Fallon Fox, the transgender MMA fighter? It's a bit different than this case, since it's actual professional competitive sports and fighting as opposed to just running. Here's a video of her fighting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=av9MJCBvhp4

 

[ClayKavalier]

Except College Athletic Scholarships are a thing.

Yeah, for the kids winning state level events sports aren't "fun and games."

I get that's it's not fair that someone won due to a biological advantage no one else had, but how far do you take that reasoning? If there's a kid significantly taller than all of their peers in a small town should they be banned from playing basketball since they'll hog the spotlight? Should a huge kid be told they can't be a lineman because the skinny kids deserve a chance? Stars in every sport rely on biological advantages.

It does seem weird to think that if transgender women kept competing that they'd probably be shut out from setting world records and stuff like that, but is being born a woman in a man's body any less likely than being born with Michael Phelp's physique?

Having people compete with their biological sex seems like the best solution here but as someone who doesn't really care about sports it's interesting seeing a bunch of people freak out over the fairness of the situation.

 

[Koyuga]

An mtf competing in athletics with cis girls is not going to have an advantage whatsoever. If anything, they might have a disadvantage due to many factors that hrt brings including increased difficulty focusing and general fatigue among other effects. Mtf athletes don't typically dominate in women's spaces, as some would assume.

 

[Alienous]

Sorry buddy, but you're just plain wrong here. Females and males are very different, and merging the two would be disastrous for female athletes. It's not sexist to acknowledge that when it comes to sport, men are usually built more for it and will have a natural advantage.

Obviously this doesn't apply to absolutely all sports. Motor racing, for example, should never have gender leagues.

I'm not saying I'm right. I'm just responding to Fuzz's reply. I don't mind being wrong, and having people tell me how and why. I'm not a fan of posts like Fuzz's, though.

And besides, I posted my initial much earlier in the thread. And it came from my perspective of having never liked a barrier placed based on the presumption of ability and further based on gender. More me advocating the right to try and fail than anything else. However posters who took the time to craft a response (like you're doing) explained the infeasibility of it, such as with the NBA, and I'm more knowledgable now for it.

 

[ClayKavalier]

An mtf competing in athletics with cis girls is not going to have an advantage whatsoever. If anything, they might have a disadvantage due to many factors that hrt brings including increased difficulty focusing and general fatigue among other effects. Mtf athletes don't typically dominate in women's spaces, as some would assume.

What kind of sample size do you have for that? Seems hard to believe this situation is common enough to say confidently one way or the other.

 

[Justified]

GAF whats your thoughts on this (interesting discussion btw. Thx to the sensible replies on both sides)

A 52 year old individual going back to play college ball with after transitioning.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DppKZAJDrDQ

http://espn.go.com/espnw/athletes-l...ege-basketball-player-enjoying-best-year-life

 

[NimbusD]

This isn't something that I think is going to be logically tackled for a while I think. We have to have trangender acceptance before we can, as a society, tackle issues of how transgender people differ physically from cisgender people. It's so hard to have that conversation at a point when a transgender person is fighting to be able to identify as their gender, that attenpting to separate that from issues involving how their physical sex affects their body I feel isn't going to really go anywhere, at least not in a constructive way.

I mean, sports are one thing I think MOST people agree are okay to keep sexes separate (in most sports at least, some are just pointless), because it's based on physical attributes to sex, and not gender. Of course that doesn't mean there aren't women who are physically much stronger then men, or vice versa, but it's an easy way to draw the lines. But then again the idea of forcing someone who fights for acceptance every day to just exist as their gender, to not be able to compete among their gender is sad and feels cruel. It takes the conversation back to saying a trangender woman can never be a 'real' woman and forcing them to be separate even if you're 'accepting' of the person.

So i dunno, again I guess, just like gender, it comes down to how we decide to draw lines. We don't allow the super strong cisgender women to compete with men regularly and we don't let physically weaker cisgender men to compete with women regularly. Those are arbitrary lines, even if the lines do make sense on a whole. So again, I don't know how you even begin to have THAT conversation without accepting that cisgender isn't the only default state of being and that's what needs to be catered to.

 

[Sho_Nuff82]

Shape has a pretty good write-up on the issue from last year, including testimonials from M->F and F->M athletes. However, there's very little citation posted from either side, just a lot speculation and anecdotes: http://www.shape.com/lifestyle/mind...ffect-transgender-athletes-sports-performance

 

[dragonzdogma]

SMH
I knew eventually this would happen.
I can't even image what will happen in boxing,MMA,wrestling, basically any sports where you get beat up.

 

[BigDug13]

Can and are hormone replacement therapy drugs tested in athletic sports? Can someone just skip some days of pill taking to gain an advantage and are they testing for that?

 

[Platy]

What do you guys think of Fallon Fox, the transgender MMA fighter? It's a bit different than this case, since it's actual professional competitive sports and fighting as opposed to just running. Here's a video of her fighting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=av9MJCBvhp4

Cyborg would eat her for breakfast.

A few pages ago I posted an article ABOUT HER with 3 doctors and 2 associations saying that she can compete normaly.

GAF whats your thoughts on this (interesting discussion btw. Thx to the sensible replies on both sides)

A 52 year old individual going back to play college ball with after transitioning.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DppKZAJDrDQ

http://espn.go.com/espnw/athletes-l...ege-basketball-player-enjoying-best-year-life

I think every problem people might have with this has to do with an adult playing with kids, not a trans woman playing with women

Can and are hormone replacement therapy drugs tested in athletic sports? Can someone just skip some days of pill taking to gain an advantage and are they testing for that?

After a long exposure to anti testosterone drugs, your testicles kinda "forget" how to produce it so skiping a day or two does not mean any considerable change.

And yes, they can (and always do) measure the amount of testosterone and other enhancing hormones

This isn't something that I think is going to be logically tackled for a while I think. We have to have trangender acceptance before we can, as a society, tackle issues of how transgender people differ physically from cisgender people. It's so hard to have that conversation at a point when a transgender person is fighting to be able to identify as their gender, that attenpting to separate that from issues involving how their physical sex affects their body I feel isn't going to really go anywhere, at least not in a constructive way.

The funny thing is that after we reach trans acceptance, it will be ridiculously common to give child puberty blockers and start hormone therapy next to puberty .... so there will be ZERO arguments in favor of any possible diference for sports. So basicaly when we will be able to tackle this more logically and discuss it .... it will not be needed anymore xD

 

[Kinokou]

I haven't changed my opinion on the issue and the Olympic guideline that was posted earlier seems just fine, but how would this be for a solution:

If we identify the most relevant measurable markers of unfair genetic advantages, and make two cut off levels and have male, mixed middel (some appropriate name I cannot think of that is inclusive towards all gender identities) and female division in sports?

Then maybe some MtF athlethes would get in the female division, others in middle and maybe a few cases still would make it into male (which can happen already, see the Olympic guideline) as well as both women and men qualifying into the middle section.

Could it be considered fair and would the public be able to balance three divisions of sports soppurting in this way?

 

[Platy]

Could it be considered fair and would the public be able to balance three divisions of sports soppurting in this way?

 

[ActWan]

So being a woman is a handicap?

Yes, it is, and that's exactly what I said in my post.

Spoiler

/s. jesus christ wtf is wrong with you dude

 

[Aske]

Yeah, for the kids winning state level events sports aren't "fun and games."

I get that's it's not fair that someone won due to a biological advantage no one else had, but how far do you take that reasoning? If there's a kid significantly taller than all of their peers in a small town should they be banned from playing basketball since they'll hog the spotlight? Should a huge kid be told they can't be a lineman because the skinny kids deserve a chance? Stars in every sport rely on biological advantages.

It does seem weird to think that if transgender women kept competing that they'd probably be shut out from setting world records and stuff like that, but is being born a woman in a man's body any less likely than being born with Michael Phelp's physique?

Having people compete with their biological sex seems like the best solution here but as someone who doesn't really care about sports it's interesting seeing a bunch of people freak out over the fairness of the situation.

The bolded is exactly my view.

Shaq dominates men as a man, and if he transitioned, he'd dominate women as a woman.

If we want sports to be more fair, we need to create new divisions within the existing gender divisions. Until that happens, I'd say trans women are just very fortunate women if they have an edge in athletic competition.

 

[Butterfly Witch]

Does bone structure not matter in sports? I see a lot of hormone talks, but there is more to sports surely.

Even bone density changes. It's not unusual actually for trans women to develop osteoporosis when their hormonal levels aren't right.

The bolded is exactly my view.

Shaq dominates men as a man, and if he transitioned, he'd dominate women as a woman.

If we want sports to be more fair, we need to create new divisions within the existing gender divisions. Until that happens, I'd say trans women are just very fortunate women if they have an edge in athletic competition.

If Shaq were to transition he'd lose about 30% of his muscle mass and potentially even a couple of inches. His performance levels would go down to match a cisgender woman.


Are we going to start testing every woman just in case she has naturally high testosterone?

 

[Acerac]

people just want to have a little bit of transphobia and couching it in "but science!" for a completely artificially constructed human activity.

Or, possibly, people have a misunderstanding of how transitioning works.

It does nobody any good to picture those who lack knowledge as transphobic. I came in to this topic misinformed about the science, and leave a more educated person. Painting people who lack uncommon knowledge as hateful is going to do nothing but cause them to get frustrated.

 

[Greddleok]

Does bone structure not matter in sports? I see a lot of hormone talks, but there is more to sports surely.

Hormones affect a whole bunch of things, muscle, bone, fat mass, oxphos, inflammation. The list is probably endless...

This idea I've seen people bring up about basing competitions on testosterone levels is ludicrous. It's not like if one person has 1unit of testosterone, and the next person has 1.5 units that the 1.5 is automatically stronger, faster and better at sports.

Firstly you have to take into account that hormones work on a threshold level. A slight increase over normal (and with many hormones they fluctuate massively over the day, and likely massively over seasons too) won't do a lot. It's when you really pump yourself to a non-physiological level that it has a huge effect.
Then you need to think about all the potential polymorphisms in the receptors or the genes that control the receptor levels that people have. It's not like everyone has the same amount of the androgen receptor (AR). This will have a huge effect on the level of testosterone in the body, maybe those with high testosterone are mildly resistant to it, so it's higher to compensate for that.
There's also polymorphisms and individual differences in the genes that the AR and estrogen receptors (ER) regulate. Some may be more sensitive or less sensitive altering the potency of the hormone.
Finally you need to consider the environment that each and every person has developed in. There may be certain levels of DNA methylation for genes that regulate or are regulated by the AR/ER. There could be chromatin modifications to the same or opposite effect.

It's so incredibly complex, and no where as simple as "higher testosterone and lower oestrogen result in a better athlete." While my specialty is in endocrinology, I don't focus on sex hormones, and certainly never done any research on male to female or vice versa transitions, but from experience I know that ER and AR agonists have huge effects on animals, people and cells. I don't know if it removes competitive advantages at all, but I suspect it almost completely alters physiology, especially in teenagers and younger people in transitions. This may be different with fully developed adults, but again, I don't know.

Edit: It's also worth pointing out that SHE DIDN'T EVEN FUCKING COME FIRST.

 

[Justified]

Hormones affect a whole bunch of things, muscle, bone, fat mass, oxphos, inflammation. The list is probably endless...

This idea I've seen people bring up about basing competitions on testosterone levels is ludicrous. It's not like if one person has 1unit of testosterone, and the next person has 1.5 units that the 1.5 is automatically stronger, faster and better at sports.

Firstly you have to take into account that hormones work on a threshold level. A slight increase over normal (and with many hormones they fluctuate massively over the day, and likely massively over seasons too) won't do a lot. It's when you really pump yourself to a non-physiological level that it has a huge effect.
Then you need to think about all the potential polymorphisms in the receptors or the genes that control the receptor levels that people have. It's not like everyone has the same amount of the androgen receptor (AR). This will have a huge effect on the level of testosterone in the body, maybe those with high testosterone are mildly resistant to it, so it's higher to compensate for that.
There's also polymorphisms and individual differences in the genes that the AR and estrogen receptors (ER) regulate. Some may be more sensitive or less sensitive altering the potency of the hormone.
Finally you need to consider the environment that each and every person has developed in. There may be certain levels of DNA methylation for genes that regulate or are regulated by the AR/ER. There could be chromatin modifications to the same or opposite effect.

It's so incredibly complex, and no where as simple as "higher testosterone and lower oestrogen result in a better athlete." While my specialty is in endocrinology, I don't focus on sex hormones, and certainly never done any research on male to female or vice versa transitions, but from experience I know that ER and AR agonists have huge effects on animals, people and cells. I don't know if it removes competitive advantages at all, but I suspect it almost completely alters physiology, especially in teenagers and younger people in transitions. This may be different with fully developed adults, but again, I don't know.

Edit: It's also worth pointing out that SHE DIDN'T EVEN FUCKING COME FIRST.

Great post.

To the bolded, she did many times in the 200, Thats worth pointing out

 

[Greddleok]

To the bolded, she did many times in the 200, Thats worth pointing out

If transgender women become over-represented in sports then maybe it's worth looking in more detail. Right now it just seems like a pretext for people to make some poor girl feel like shit.

 

[GYODX]

Do the people who bring up the bone structure argument want to argue that cis women who have large bone structures also shouldn't compete? Or are we just lumping all girls into one pile here?

No, because we're talking about averages.

 

[Aske]

Even If Shaq were to transition he'd lose about 30% of his muscle mass and potentially even a couple of inches. His performance levels would go down to match a cisgender woman.


Are we going to start testing every woman just in case she has naturally high testosterone?

Exactly. I wasn't even going to get into the fact that the process of transitioning can itself come with changes that will negatively affect an athelete's performance.

Seperating men from women in athletic competition makes sense, and perhaps diving genders up by height or weight in more sports might too. But at some point we have to be willing to acknowledge that humanity's innate physical diversity will always ensure some people have advantages over others. This isn't a trans problem, it's the nature of our species. Trying to imply that trans women are so vastly beyond the diversity that already exists amongst cis women remains unreasonable, in my opinion.

 

[EmpressInYellow]

Or, possibly, people have a misunderstanding of how transitioning works.

It does nobody any good to picture those who lack knowledge as transphobic. I came in to this topic misinformed about the science, and leave a more educated person. Painting people who lack uncommon knowledge as hateful is going to do nothing but cause them to get frustrated.

I think there's a difference between "people who come in uninformed" (which I get) and "people who come in and repeat talking points that have already been debunked 20 times in the thread".

But ideally (and I know this is asking the impossible), when faced with a situation they're not well informed on, people might actually listen to other people with more experience with the issue rather than immediately rushing to insert their own (ill-informed) opinions.

IE: "I took biology in high school, so let me tell you all about the finer points of endocrinology and its impacts on the musculoskeletal system."

 

[Meus Renaissance]

"Genetics are unfair. Some men are born tall, some short. Others strong. Why should this be any different?"

I'm failing to understand this equivalence. Of course being a male does not inherently stronger, faster or taller than any/every female, but does that nullify the statement that males generally have these physiological advantages over women? Isn't this why we have gender segregation in competitive sports?

I'm not seeing the logic in this argument.

 

[EmpressInYellow]

"Genetics are unfair. Some men are born tall, some short. Others strong. Why should this be any different?"

I'm failing to understand this equivalence. Of course being a male does not inherently stronger, faster or taller than any/every female, but does that nullify the statement that males generally have these physiological advantages over women? Isn't this why we have gender segregation in competitive sports?

I'm not seeing the logic in this argument.

It's a response to the idea that, even after HRT, a trans woman might conceivably be taller/have a more "advantageous" bone structure/etc.

The point is that those differences tend to be within the normal variance for AFAB women, so if they somehow present an "unfair advantage" in and of themselves, then shouldn't you also ban AFAB women who possess those traits?

 

[Raiden]

Eh .. wow this is a tricky one and im glad im not on the de decision board. I kinda understand the frustration if scholarships and whatnot depend on this. But i think its cool they allowed this as well.

 

[KonradLaw]

The point is that those differences tend to be within the normal variance for AFAB women, so if they somehow present an "unfair advantage" in and of themselves, then shouldn't you also ban AFAB women who possess those traits?

It all depends on specifics. THere's such an enourmous performance gap between men and women in sports that it might be good idea to simply see where each transgendered person falls in that gap. If they're above the best in female league then it probably would be best to move them to male league. But as long as they fall below the top female athelees they're supposed to compete against, at least in some areas, there's really no harm in letting them stay there.

 

[MelliiDragon]

To make it clear first I will only talk about trans Woman who are on HRT in my post. The question of a trans Woman that went into male puberty and doesn't want or can't do HRT and still want to compete in Woman Sports is just so rare. And it would be a way harder topic too than with trans Woman that are on HRT. (and my opinion would be different in that case)

I think what makes this topic tough is we don't have a big sample size of trans Woman who are into compatitive Sports, so it can be hard to say where they fall on avarage compared to the avarage Person. She has most likely some advantages compared to the average cis Woman but on the other Hand some disadvantages too (like lower testosterone levels, what some posters already said). So we have no way of telling if a trans Woman on avarage has a better total perfomance or even a lower total perfomance than an average cis Woman. Not even talking about how big the difference is.

But what we at least know is even though trans Woman are allowed in Woman Sports so far we don't even have one trans Woman that is dominating any Woman Sport. I think at least most people agree the difference in performance between people that are male and female is pretty big. It is at least extremly likely that trans Woman fall somewhere around the female spectrum performance wise (and the olympics agree with that too).

So I think it's at least pretty clear it's as unfair to trans Woman as it would be to a cis Woman to say they are only allowed to compete against people that are male. And that that would be unfair is the main reason Woman Sports exist in the first place. So the question if we should ban trans Woman from compatitive Woman Sports leads to the same thing like with every other Woman, it would lead to trans Woman being banned from compatitive Sports in general.

I personaly believe we should only ban someone if we realy would have proof trans Woman have a big unfair advantage (in total performance not just a specific part like they are taller on average) and we don't realy have. Like I said before we don't realy know how the avarage trans Woman compares to the avarage cis Woman. I understand the fear that trans Woman could have a better perfomance than cis Woman, but so far we have nothing more than the fear that they could have a realy unfair advantage and i think banning someone just because of fear and without proof can lead to discrimination, so we need to be careful there. I understand the fear is not 100% without a basis but i think baning someone from something should only be done if it is 100% needed and supported by proof.

Even though I think it matters a lot how you think about the whole thing. It is either "should a person that was born with a male body be allowed to participate in Woman Sports if she is a trans Woman" or "should a trans Woman be banned from Woman sports because she was born with a male body.". Because if someone is thinking in the first way I can understand where they are coming from if they think there should be proof that they won't have an advantage if they want to participate. And of course i can't tell anyone to think about it in the second way if they don't do, but I would realy like to at least encourage people to try to think of it in the second way. It maybe doesn't change anything in your opinion and that is alright too, but I think to at least try to think it through in this way would be a realy nice thing to do.

At the end I would just like to say that I think how the olympics are handling it is pretty much how it should be done. And it is totaly enough for Schools too. The only thing different for young people is, that the timline of beeing on HRT for a specific time doesn't need to be strictly enforced with children that never had a male puberty in the first place. Because there is nothing there yet that developed in a male direction that needs to be changed back. And because that is totaly the case with the person the topic is about she should totaly be allowed to participate. The topic is pretty much about the perfect example when a trans Woman should be allowed to participate.