Ask them how often they think about women’s athletics when it’s not about trans women
That's way too generous. I call bs on trans women on HRT having any significant advantage in women's sports. If this were the case, trans women would have dominated sports for deacdes by now. There's just no empirical evidence to back up the transphobe fantasies about inherent advantages of trans skeletons. Instead, we see that performance is basically the same after just a year on HRT. Lia Thomas is the best example these people have, and it's not as if she won everything, she went from something like 60th place in the men's league to low 40s in the women's league - after postponing HRT for 3 years because she was (rightfully) afraid transphobia would ruin her career. You can't compete at your best when you torture yourself by delayed transitioning. It just doesn't work. That pain alone would be enough to explain her performance difference, and that difference isn't groundbreaking to begin with. But in our political climate, we have athletes who tied with her for second-to-last place complain how unfair it was to swim against her.
Don't take people seriously when they are silly enough to take claims about trans women being a threat to fairness in women's sports seriously. They do not deserve to be humored like this, they deserve nothing but ridicule.
I assure you I have no such advantage after having been on HRT for coming on 2 years. I've gone from being able to pick up almost 150 pounds to struggling to pick up a 40 pound bag of litter. I'm no longer being asked to move heavy shit because I simply can't anymore. So I'm curious where such an advantage lies.
Nine??! Well I hope trans people have the opportunities available to them to compete if they so desire, which is the only consideration which gives me genuine pause.
This makes me think, obviously the satanic panic was similarly NOT a legitimate threat to whatever it was that was considered worth protecting. How many 'satanic cultists' were there even? Like 11 in one state? Jeez, saying these fears are blown out of proportion in and of itself, and relative to the number of people involved is an understatement.
GUH that is awful, what a horrible experience!
I would think your friend wouldn't even be sure about any 'gains' or 'wins' because how would you know any kind of protection, benefit, or treatment like an equal human being could stay? Like anything could be overturned and any reliance on some positive might be setting one's self up for disappointment and further harm down the line! I feel so bad for her :'-(
Joanna Harper, a researcher based at Loughborough University in Britain who studies the effects of hormone therapy on transgender athletes, told The New York Times last year that out of 200,000 women in college sports at a given time, about 50 are transgender.
Would be interesting to read those papers, tho.
I actually do just tell these people to fuck off and die, Idk. Unproductive but I do not have to tolerate these fuckers
had a buddy who started debating me on this, telling me to read tHe SciEncE after I gave him the facts from actual studies, but HE had read an article from a tabloid so he was obviously the expert and I was too "emotionally invested". Called him a fucking liberal and told him to pound sand.
Good riddance to fake friends
the last message i got before i blocked him was him crying about how "liberals are progressive aktually" fucking amerikkka brain is a real thing
Trans women are women, right? And women compete in women's sports, right? So even if they did have an innate advantage, much like the innate advantage tall women, rich women, and able-bodied women have, why would that be grounds to stop them from competing if we don't stop any of the other advantaged subgroups of women?
rich women
This, so much! There was a story floating around about some pool players throwing a fit about trans women, because they had been "male socialized", as if being rich enough to own a pool table and having time to play isn't a million times more important.
A joke about genitalia and transphobia inspired by manscaped ad (is it in a bad taste? tell me pls)
Trans women playing billiard clearly know more about balls
Yes a great point. Unfortunately transphobes and bigots really couldn't care less. I think one can convince those who have not convinced themselves completely, or who have only passing familiarity with the 'controversy' by explaining that if there is a meaningful advantage, the focus on the advantage by the specific characteristic of whether a competitor is trans or cis, is one factor and with available evidence not a major factor.
I say it is a factor because I imagine a person who has successfully transitioned to the extent they wish barring any barriers (like availability of medication, whether gender-affirming surgery is available, etc.) and thus they have been 'treated' or rather have at their disposal the resources they need.
This would be in contrast to a trans person who was not given the resources they need, was unable to transition say due to lack of safety in their environment or medical resources, and thus have additional barriers to face. If a suburban amerikan woman of an ethnicity which is the plurality of her environment was transgender, I would expect them to have a considerable advantage over a disenfranchised minority ethnicity in a rural region which does not have adequate medical resources or a suitable community to provide needed support.
The disadvantage is not intrinsic to whether a person is trans or cis, it is due to the material resources available to each party, which is known to be palpable and insufficient for many if not most trans individuals.
"oh so you know more about this than the olympics?"
First, trans women are women.
Second, any artificial environment will select for some subpopulation. The more restricted the criteria, the more one can expect to favour particular groups of people.
What do I mean by artificial environment? Any environment which does not appear in nature without deliberate human action. A hospital is an artificial environment which selects for people who are sick and healthcare professionals. This is expected, the purpose of the hospital from the onset is to provide healthcare and therefore the inhabitants of the space reflect that. Does that mean one may not see, say, a clown? No, only the likelihood would be low, that is, one would not expect to walk in to a hospital and see clowns making a majority of the people. It certainly seems rather unlikely
Sports are artificially environments which select for the kind of athlete well-suited towards the particularities of the sport. This means minute average physiological differences which conventionally do not have much survival value (as in, survival in a natural environment, the kind humans inhabited exclusively prior).
If we accept that besides the ability to give birth, there is no meaningful difference between any genders or sexes, as survival is not contingent on 'muscular strength' or 'flexibility' or 'height' then we can see that in the patriarchy which obviously favors men in specific contexts, one would expect men to succeed. This is the case, and then the considered 'superiority' is then valuable.
The patriarchy is relevant because it squashes all similarities between individuals (of which there are more than differences) and highlighting the similarities necessarily decreases the 'perceived value' of the differences, again such as average height, muscle mass, etc. Note, there are differences, they are always present, the issue is with 'perceived value', not whether differences exist.
In short since survival and competition have largely been eliminated in contemporary human environments, it is reintroduced in a way to give meaning or satisfaction to the involved parties, a simulacra. This is confused with a genuine natural environment, which does not place importance on whether one is cisgender or transgender.
To give an example, it is uncontroversial to state that if I picked any two random people, one who is fit instead of out of shape, the fit person would likely be the winner in a 100m race. Ok, let us use what transphobes and bigots use as reasoning. We will say that the fit person is a trans woman and the out of shape person is cisgender. This distinction becomes moot when one thinks about management, that is does it matter what the gender–or whether a person is cis or trans–is for the purposes of winning? On the whole, and not only involving the observable competitors?
No, it does not. Once we accept that the argument is contingent on a narrow set of criteria which tend towards the result of transphobia then it can be accepted that any broadening of the environment, describing how it actually is, removes any 'perceived' differences in ability. A woman coach is equally capable as a man coach, as is a trans woman compared to a cis woman, and as is an intersex person to a non-intersex person, etc.
If coaching had a similar tendency towards one gender, somehow, one could move up the ladder. Is there a meaningful difference between the owner of a sports team, between a cis woman and a trans woman? No, there isn't, the differences mentioned above only matter in the narrowest sense. Bigots and transphobes work with the existing artificial competitive environments, sports, which do not have much meaning or value for most people in most situations. Neither did such artificial environments have a meaningful impact on survival in early human history. Obviously sports matter to those involved very much, and that is a subset of the population.
If having higher muscle mass, height, and arm span mattered; why did Homo sapiens outlive and outcompete Homo neanderthal, the larger and stronger hominin? The simple answer and one which can be well reasoned and understood with empirical evidence (empirical, rather than idealistic or fantastical) is that the emphasis on increased strength and height do not matter very much. Perhaps 'intelligence' or 'adaptability' or 'endurance' matter more. Or, perhaps strength really does matter more and Homo neanderthal went extinct for a different reason. The point is it cannot be the sole determinant or as important as conventionally thought, which is what is typically argued for. Human bipedalism, society, language, culture, 'intelligence' etc. are all apparent significant factors to our species survival and thriving. We are no longer in the same natural environment, thus the utility and value of characteristics have changed.
Focus on specific characteristics is good for thought experiments and to determine the limits and to break boundaries, and it is not nor will ever be the most important factor.
I thought there's actual studies that HRT and the like causes significant enough changes that any arguable grey area kinda just goes away after a year or two.
Too lazy to look these studies up atm cause I'm about to take a nap. Also transphobes aren't the kind to actually look at science, despite their claims. So like, peer reviewed articles wouldn't mean shit anyway to those assholes.
HRT should not be required for competing in womens sports, the whole natural advantage argument does not justify excluding transwomen from sports even if it were true which it is not. In an ideal world all sports and competitions would be coed or unisex, but because of the systemic inequalities facing women they need leagues of their own for the foreseeable future, mens leagues should be open leagues for everybody unlike womens leauge, womens leagues should exclude cis men because it sucks to be a woman in a male dominated field, it leads to less women participating, they are more discriminated against as the only one.
Womens sports are necessary and excluding transwomen (and non-binary and other queer folks who want to be in the womens leauge who I dont have time to cover unfortunately) hurts transwomen far more than it hurts to exclude women from mens leagues. Firstly transwomen are women so the psychological damage of being denied that could be outright fatal, secondly it shouldn’t matter how dominant transwomen are or might be if allowed in because they are women, thirdly ciswomen do not have the right to invalidate the existence of transwomen by refusing to play with them, either they join the league or there should be no league.
Now if transwomen wanted to make their own league and exclude cis people from it thats fine, but the existence of such a thing is not wanted in the same way women dont want to play in mens, some do but the vast majority dont and just want to stick to womens leagues, most transwomen dont want to play in mens leagues for the exact same reason. BECAUSE THEIR WOMEN. I think the most important thing we can say though as allies is that yes, there is contradictions, there’s contradictions in everything, ignore them if you feel them, dont let your lying eyes deceive you, your belief is stronger.
HRT should not be required for competing in womens sports, the whole natural advantage argument does not justify excluding transwomen from sports even if it were true which it is not.
What do you mean? Without hrt, amab people definitely have an advantage over afab people in a lot of sports. Testosterone is a hell of a drug.
I heard that testosterone makes keeping muscle gains much easier? Important part here is that without testosterone the additional gains are very easy to lose. So prolonged HRT should clear the effects. Would definitely like to see more scientific studies on this.
So prolonged HRT should clear the effects.
I absolutely agree with you here. From what I remember, it's about a year or two. I'm not even disagreeing that transwomen at all stages of transition should be allowed into women's leagues, especially considering school sports.
without testosterone the additional gains are very easy to lose.
Maybe I'm misreading his comment, but it sounds to me like he's saying transwomen with normal amab levels of T don't have an advantage over cis women (as further evidenced by him wanting all sports to be coed in the future, implying that maybe even cis men don't have natural advantages to women in some sports[?]). Which is just... really odd to me? Because amab levels of T definitely give someone an advantage over a cis woman.
It’s a tough pill to swallow for some who think the patriarchy is the only reason women don’t match the men in sprints. You’ve got people like Ira Murchison who was the fastest man in the world at 5’1. He would easily smoke even the best trained cis women at the same height and weight because of testosterone.
Counter point, all cisgender sports participants are tested for doping in the same way that transgender sports participants are tested.
Who you compete with is based on the results.
Depends on the claims being made.
For the most part, if a person wants to play a sport with other people... why does it matter? Is it a shower thing? Well, get some dividers up. I guarantee you that I don't feel comfortable being around other naked people (except for my spouse). Is it a changing room thing? Well fuck, throw up some more dividers if somebody wants/needs privacy. Using the toilet? Once again, single occupancy stalls, privacy dividers next to urinals, and designing the bathroom so that its more difficult to watch other people pee/poop.
Is it the stupid "bone density thing" that Rogan spouts? Fuck that nonsense, ask them about which sports divide up cis participants by their bone density. Whats that? Its fucking zero? Of course it fucking is. Sports tend to be divided up by things like "Team Wins/Losses", "Height/Weight", "Who has the most fucking money".
In all the sports where transgender/intersex athletes are ALREADY playing, what do we find? Are they dominating the sport? Nope. Of those that do "win", are they winning by so much that no cis gender competitor could hope to catch up? Nope.
Fuck... how many transgender people are even trying to get into sports right now? Not that fucking many I tell you what. And if a team is worried about an opposing team having a transgender athlete, and that somehow them being transgender is a huge advantage, you know what the answer to that fucking problem is? That team goes out and recruits their own transgender player to balance the teams.
How much do sports actually matter? Would you care who competed or not if there were no cameras? No stadium? It's escapism. You still have to work the same shitty dead end desk job during the week. And you don't like confronting the fact your sexuality is more complex than you thought. Also. Gladdy voting democrat does not make you a progressive.
This. The world warmed by more than it ever has last year, and "protecting" sports is somehow peoples #1 issue? Why can't sports be about personal best and having fun?
Reactionaries always pretend they know far more about an issue than they do. They also blow their issues out of proportion, without exception.
If some chud thinks he's the fucking expert on trans sports because he saw one Joe Rogan episode, and the guest was some famous transphobe, and also there was zero balance, that guy can go eat turd because he doesn't know shit about the issue.
Or depending on the person "I've known you for decades and you've never given a shit about women's sports and in fact you've repeatedly shit on them but now that it's an excuse to be transphobic you sure do care all of a sudden"
What even the fuck is that? It seemed like all my life, woman's sports have always taken a backseat to men's sports. None of these chucklefucks actually care about the sport itself. It's just an excuse for them to be bigots, as if they ever needed an excuse to begin with.
Ask them if Black people should be banned from playing sports with jumping in them because racists from the early 20th century think they jump higher.
(incase my wording is racist, I am sorry I have problems with making sentences please let me know)
Unfortunately, I think there are quite a few people who would be on board for that.
racists from the early 20th century think they jump higher
There's contemporary racists who still believe that
"Watching sports is stupid and you are a loser for caring about sports."
