if they were concerned about fairness in sports, they would be pushing for categories based on measurable metrics like height or weight, instead of gender, which if you think about it, doesn't make that much sense to begin with.
femboy football femboy football femboy football femboy football femboy football femboy football femboy football femboy football femboy football femboy football femboy football femboy football femboy football femboy football femboy football femboy football femboy football femboy football femboy football femboy football femboy football femboy football femboy football femboy football femboy football femboy football femboy football femboy football femboy football femboy football femboy football femboy football femboy football femboy football femboy football femboy football
that's a really simple, elegant solution ive never considered before
we should really be doing that. it's so obvious, it's already done in fighting sports. what the hell are humans thinking, buncha dumb fucking monkeys i tell you what
Weight classes exist in martial arts, boxing, and weight lifting, yeah. But men and women also differ by muscle mass as a percentage of total mass. Testosterone (whether endogenous or exogenous) during development and in general means more muscle, less fat. In other words, on average, men will still be significantly stronger than women in the same weight class.
Hypothetically, you could design some complex system controlling for hormones, muscle percentage, and total mass as a replacement for mere sex/gender... but that's overmedicalization. Professional sports are overmedicalized already, with tests for doping and the athletes taking every kind of supplement and drug that's not yet banned... but you're not gonna subject every kid in school to a series of blood tests. That'd be its own kind of fucked up.
I think whatever division exists in sports for most people should be based on social distinctions, not biological ones. Let trans women compete with cis women - trans people are under 1% of the population anyway. Let enbies be with whoever they want. Society shouldn't be segregated by gender, but locker rooms and certain medical practices are - people are more comfortable with their own gender sometimes. It's an exceptional circumstance, not total segregation.
Unless you're measuring people by say, every single measurement required to properly size a suit (hips, shoulders, ect) alongside things like muscle mass and weight then it's still difficult to properly group people.
At least all of the above is very relevant in sports like swimming, running, ect, although it would certainly make the sports more interesting with deeper classifications like this. A lot of people quit these sports because they don't have the right build.
don't quote me on this, gender skeletal difference are due to bone modelling during adolescence, it's not determined at birth IIRC, It is unkown to me how much remodelling is done during normal adulthood, nor during transition, certainly skeletal changes happen when someone transitions, you may have noticed this yourself, but whether this represents a significant advantage at sports or not is something that you may want to ask a real doctor and not me. i'm too busy making shit up at work to make shit up here.
Like, I don't get the point here. Professional sports are always going to be dominated by people who's bodies are extremely outside of the norm. Sports are like, 80% practice, 20% genetic lottery, and no matter what you do you can't really change that last 20%.
Seems extremely weird to me to go "this is fair, she's a foot taller than me, so she'll always be better at basketball than me, that's fine :)" but then immediately turn around and go "this isn't fair, she's a foot taller than me and also trans, so she'll always be better at basketball than me, that's not fine :("
It's basically legislating against a transphobic fantasy - "the trans athletes are coming and they will ruin Wimbledon and the Olympics" - even though there is literally nobody who is doing this, and this plays no role in anyone's decision to transition.
My personal opinion on all competitive sports is that they require public infrastructure to facilitate them which is not efficient use of the resources. Instead of building a stadium for competitive sports, I would ensure local neighborhoods have space for everyone to go play a pickup game or just some catch.
When I was in college our admin tried to raise tuition for the whole student body instead of increasing activity fees. The most effective argument to stop it was saying, "We're totally cool with the football team being disbanded and the community being allowed to use the facility". Ten years later and the football team is gone, now I can practice frisbee golfing in the Winter and chuds are mad their Div 3 team is no more.
You don't need to ban the whole sport - just change the rules/equipment. Rugby is more violent, but doesn't have the same rate of TBIs because they aren't ramming each other with their heads all the time. (Or so I'm told - I understand neither sport.) But ban its current version, yes.
Adults should be allowed to do whatever they like assuming everyone involved is fully informed on the consequences and consents regardless of them, no matter how stupid of a thing to do it is. Deffo agree that children's football should be banned tho.
It cannot change the way it operates and still be viable. This exploitation of labor and the melding of private interest and public funding is the very heart of the industry.
im sorry... but there are biological differences between sexes? That’s why we differentiate gender from sex no? Sports are about biological athletic competition, so the playing field should be as even as possible...
The reason this is a right-wing talking point is because it casts trans women as villains out to steal sports scholarships from innocent little girls, and implies that they are just pretending to be women to win at sports. Additionally it casts leftists as lunatics who don't believe in biological sex. It also makes rational people like you think maybe the transphobes have a point.
In reality this is a total non-issue. Maybe there's a debate to be had about trans women, sex segregated sports in general, etc. but that's not the point here. The point is that Tulsi is choosing to put forward this bill--which is a right-wing talking point and nothing else--as a lame duck during a fucking pandemic, to appeal to the transphobic, reactionary base she picked up on Tucker Carlson. That's transphobic.
why yes, i am a gigachad trans woman with 50 college scholarships and 8 olympic gold medals. my arms are bulging at a whopping 10in, im a heavyweight at 110 pounds, and im ready to MURDER
Trans women largely appear to be on an equal level as cis women when it comes to athletics.
Do you have any sources on this? Why would their biological advantages completely disappear?
If trans women really did have such an advantage we would expect them to dominate top-level play.
That depends on how many compete at the same level, how much support there is for them, and how many strive to compete at the highest level. The biological differences exist, and there is no way around this issue. It isn't a real problem yet, but that doesn't mean that it wouldn't be unfair competition and probably hurt the trans community more than it helps them. It is a shitty topic, but is there any way to allow trans women into female athletic competition without hurting the sport? There is a reason why competitions are separated by sex.
Even though it isn't a real problem (outside of right-wing brains), acting as if the differences wouldn't exist doesn't seem to be helpful either.
Trans women typically have less masculinized bodies to begin with, and almost universally report a decrease in muscle mass after at least a year on HRT. Barring them from women's sports is barring them from sports in general.
"Biological differences" exist in degrees. If you ban AMAB women who transitioned as adults, do you then ban AMAB women who blocked their male puberty? Do you ban XY women with pAIS? Do you ban XY women with cAIS? Very quickly, the act of policing trans women's bodies extends to policing all women's bodies.
Trans women typically have less masculinized bodies to begin with, and almost universally report a decrease in muscle mass after at least a year on HRT.
Yes, they are in a bad spot where male and female sports both are problematic.
Barring them from women’s sports is barring them from sports in general.
Only competitively, but yes, it sucks and I don't have a good solution to offer either.
If you ban AMAB women who transitioned as adults, do you then ban AMAB women who blocked their male puberty? Do you ban XY women with pAIS? Do you ban XY women with cAIS?
That is what I was getting at when asking if there is any way to allow them into female competitions, without hurting the women participating and facing a lot hatred for being successful. You can try to come up with some abstract rules of evaluating trans athletes' bodies, but that just sounds horrible. I don't see any good solutions for this :(
Competitive sports are inevitably problematic. Every which way you go, you run into quandaries; there are no good solutions that can maintain the "fairness" of it. We can, however, promote human rights and oppose discrimination.
I think the best way to be inclusive of trans women in sports is to allow them to certify themselves as women after being on hormones for X number (5?) of years. And have this be an honor system instead of subjecting all female athletes to extra scrutiny.
Do you have any sources on this? Why would their biological advantages completely disappear?
Because these advantages are driven basically 99% by testosterone and the strength advantage it gives. The olympics require one to have been several years on HRT and have their testosterone in female ranges before they would allow them to compete officially. Other sports have similar requirements.
And I can tell you that T changes a lot. Before transition I was average strength. After transition, even though I'm in the best shape I've ever been, and train a-fucking-lot I still have guys that are half my weight being completely able to pin me down. According to my fitbit device, my Vo2Max is within the top 25% of users, which might seem like a lot, but I also train 10-15 hours a week, sometimes more. The more advanced girls at my poledancing studios are usually much stronger and have more endurance than I do. In the martial arts that I participate, my advantage comes from being taller than a lot of the other girls, which gives me some extra range, but when I fight someone my own size its all down to skill and luck.
I understand where you are coming from with this, and it is a fair point in a vacuum. But unfortunately that is the point of it, to find something "reasonable" as a entry point for transphobic nonsense. A sitting fucking house rep doesn't actually give a shit about women's lacrosse, this is just a cudgel to beat trans people over the head with.
I am asking as delicately as I can, can someone explain why this is a bad thing?
if they were concerned about fairness in sports, they would be pushing for categories based on measurable metrics like height or weight, instead of gender, which if you think about it, doesn't make that much sense to begin with.
I'll take ya one step further.
If testosterone is a performance-enhancing drug, ALL athletes should be on T-blockers to ensure fair competition.
femboy football femboy football femboy football femboy football femboy football femboy football femboy football femboy football femboy football femboy football femboy football femboy football femboy football femboy football femboy football femboy football femboy football femboy football femboy football femboy football femboy football femboy football femboy football femboy football femboy football femboy football femboy football femboy football femboy football femboy football femboy football femboy football femboy football femboy football femboy football femboy football
:sicko-yes:
femboy football femboy footbaII fernboy footbaII fərnboy footbaII fərnboy footbaII
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Or, more realistically, every athlete should be taking testosterone, considering 40% of them already are
That just involves a testosterone arms race.
Better to mandate the level to 0 or near-zero.
that's a really simple, elegant solution ive never considered before
we should really be doing that. it's so obvious, it's already done in fighting sports. what the hell are humans thinking, buncha dumb fucking monkeys i tell you what
Weight classes exist in martial arts, boxing, and weight lifting, yeah. But men and women also differ by muscle mass as a percentage of total mass. Testosterone (whether endogenous or exogenous) during development and in general means more muscle, less fat. In other words, on average, men will still be significantly stronger than women in the same weight class.
Hypothetically, you could design some complex system controlling for hormones, muscle percentage, and total mass as a replacement for mere sex/gender... but that's overmedicalization. Professional sports are overmedicalized already, with tests for doping and the athletes taking every kind of supplement and drug that's not yet banned... but you're not gonna subject every kid in school to a series of blood tests. That'd be its own kind of fucked up.
I think whatever division exists in sports for most people should be based on social distinctions, not biological ones. Let trans women compete with cis women - trans people are under 1% of the population anyway. Let enbies be with whoever they want. Society shouldn't be segregated by gender, but locker rooms and certain medical practices are - people are more comfortable with their own gender sometimes. It's an exceptional circumstance, not total segregation.
Unless you're measuring people by say, every single measurement required to properly size a suit (hips, shoulders, ect) alongside things like muscle mass and weight then it's still difficult to properly group people.
At least all of the above is very relevant in sports like swimming, running, ect, although it would certainly make the sports more interesting with deeper classifications like this. A lot of people quit these sports because they don't have the right build.
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arent skeletal properties largely determined by sex? skeletal features is hugely important in determining performance potential.
Then measure those skeletal features instead of making drama over DNA.
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"100m sprint, class leg bone 50-60 cm" i dont know man. sure the trans-inclusive paradigm will reshape alot of this kind of stuff, but.. cmon
don't quote me on this, gender skeletal difference are due to bone modelling during adolescence, it's not determined at birth IIRC, It is unkown to me how much remodelling is done during normal adulthood, nor during transition, certainly skeletal changes happen when someone transitions, you may have noticed this yourself, but whether this represents a significant advantage at sports or not is something that you may want to ask a real doctor and not me. i'm too busy making shit up at work to make shit up here.
On average, sure. Professional sports don't give a shit about averages. Just look at basketball players all being like, 7 feet tall.
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Okay?
Like, I don't get the point here. Professional sports are always going to be dominated by people who's bodies are extremely outside of the norm. Sports are like, 80% practice, 20% genetic lottery, and no matter what you do you can't really change that last 20%.
Seems extremely weird to me to go "this is fair, she's a foot taller than me, so she'll always be better at basketball than me, that's fine :)" but then immediately turn around and go "this isn't fair, she's a foot taller than me and also trans, so she'll always be better at basketball than me, that's not fine :("
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It's basically legislating against a transphobic fantasy - "the trans athletes are coming and they will ruin Wimbledon and the Olympics" - even though there is literally nobody who is doing this, and this plays no role in anyone's decision to transition.
My personal opinion on all competitive sports is that they require public infrastructure to facilitate them which is not efficient use of the resources. Instead of building a stadium for competitive sports, I would ensure local neighborhoods have space for everyone to go play a pickup game or just some catch.
When I was in college our admin tried to raise tuition for the whole student body instead of increasing activity fees. The most effective argument to stop it was saying, "We're totally cool with the football team being disbanded and the community being allowed to use the facility". Ten years later and the football team is gone, now I can practice frisbee golfing in the Winter and chuds are mad their Div 3 team is no more.
People enjoy watching sports. Let them. But the way the professional sports industry is operating definitely should change.
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football should be banned in favor of touch football so i can watch all the right wingers cry
You don't need to ban the whole sport - just change the rules/equipment. Rugby is more violent, but doesn't have the same rate of TBIs because they aren't ramming each other with their heads all the time. (Or so I'm told - I understand neither sport.) But ban its current version, yes.
I agree. All "contact sports" that are so dangerous should be abolished.
Adults should be allowed to do whatever they like assuming everyone involved is fully informed on the consequences and consents regardless of them, no matter how stupid of a thing to do it is. Deffo agree that children's football should be banned tho.
It cannot change the way it operates and still be viable. This exploitation of labor and the melding of private interest and public funding is the very heart of the industry.
:yes-comm:
Essentially, we should have sports, but no sports industrial complex.
glorify the best soccer player in your neighborhood not the best soccer player in your country
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im sorry... but there are biological differences between sexes? That’s why we differentiate gender from sex no? Sports are about biological athletic competition, so the playing field should be as even as possible...
im not trying to be transphobic :deeper-sadness:
I gotchu comrade.
The reason this is a right-wing talking point is because it casts trans women as villains out to steal sports scholarships from innocent little girls, and implies that they are just pretending to be women to win at sports. Additionally it casts leftists as lunatics who don't believe in biological sex. It also makes rational people like you think maybe the transphobes have a point.
In reality this is a total non-issue. Maybe there's a debate to be had about trans women, sex segregated sports in general, etc. but that's not the point here. The point is that Tulsi is choosing to put forward this bill--which is a right-wing talking point and nothing else--as a lame duck during a fucking pandemic, to appeal to the transphobic, reactionary base she picked up on Tucker Carlson. That's transphobic.
why yes, i am a gigachad trans woman with 50 college scholarships and 8 olympic gold medals. my arms are bulging at a whopping 10in, im a heavyweight at 110 pounds, and im ready to MURDER
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Do you have any sources on this? Why would their biological advantages completely disappear?
That depends on how many compete at the same level, how much support there is for them, and how many strive to compete at the highest level. The biological differences exist, and there is no way around this issue. It isn't a real problem yet, but that doesn't mean that it wouldn't be unfair competition and probably hurt the trans community more than it helps them. It is a shitty topic, but is there any way to allow trans women into female athletic competition without hurting the sport? There is a reason why competitions are separated by sex.
Even though it isn't a real problem (outside of right-wing brains), acting as if the differences wouldn't exist doesn't seem to be helpful either.
Trans women typically have less masculinized bodies to begin with, and almost universally report a decrease in muscle mass after at least a year on HRT. Barring them from women's sports is barring them from sports in general.
"Biological differences" exist in degrees. If you ban AMAB women who transitioned as adults, do you then ban AMAB women who blocked their male puberty? Do you ban XY women with pAIS? Do you ban XY women with cAIS? Very quickly, the act of policing trans women's bodies extends to policing all women's bodies.
Yes, they are in a bad spot where male and female sports both are problematic.
Only competitively, but yes, it sucks and I don't have a good solution to offer either.
That is what I was getting at when asking if there is any way to allow them into female competitions, without hurting the women participating and facing a lot hatred for being successful. You can try to come up with some abstract rules of evaluating trans athletes' bodies, but that just sounds horrible. I don't see any good solutions for this :(
Competitive sports are inevitably problematic. Every which way you go, you run into quandaries; there are no good solutions that can maintain the "fairness" of it. We can, however, promote human rights and oppose discrimination.
I think the best way to be inclusive of trans women in sports is to allow them to certify themselves as women after being on hormones for X number (5?) of years. And have this be an honor system instead of subjecting all female athletes to extra scrutiny.
Could you test for testosterone level? Or is that also a grey area?
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Because these advantages are driven basically 99% by testosterone and the strength advantage it gives. The olympics require one to have been several years on HRT and have their testosterone in female ranges before they would allow them to compete officially. Other sports have similar requirements.
And I can tell you that T changes a lot. Before transition I was average strength. After transition, even though I'm in the best shape I've ever been, and train a-fucking-lot I still have guys that are half my weight being completely able to pin me down. According to my fitbit device, my Vo2Max is within the top 25% of users, which might seem like a lot, but I also train 10-15 hours a week, sometimes more. The more advanced girls at my poledancing studios are usually much stronger and have more endurance than I do. In the martial arts that I participate, my advantage comes from being taller than a lot of the other girls, which gives me some extra range, but when I fight someone my own size its all down to skill and luck.
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I understand where you are coming from with this, and it is a fair point in a vacuum. But unfortunately that is the point of it, to find something "reasonable" as a entry point for transphobic nonsense. A sitting fucking house rep doesn't actually give a shit about women's lacrosse, this is just a cudgel to beat trans people over the head with.
This.
It's introducing the concept of the sex police* through the sector of sports.
*And not the good kind. Sorry, @VolcelPolice .
We appreciate the clarification, however there is only one exception to ACAB :dorner:
Nah honestly it's good that you asked this because this was something that caught me too before I knew much about trans issues
Do you play the sport with your genitalia?
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On average asian men are shorter and smaller than black (african american anyway) men. Shouldn't we segregate sports by race?
the difference between men and women is much larger than the differences between two men.
https://quillette.com/2019/04/05/sex-differences-gender-and-competitive-sport/