To expand on what has been said on this point above:
…I recall being told repeatedly that the various “bathroom bills” would likewise result in men abruptly “declaring themselves women” so they could go into women’s restrooms for nefarious purposes. And in the aftermath of the furore (IIRC), exactly zero men declared themselves women for the purpose of molesting women but multiple “good Christian” men took it upon themselves to follow women they suspected of being men into women’s restrooms to challenge them (which is shitty and creepy on all sorts of levels).
The people who make the biggest noise about “protecting” others often turn out to be the ones we most need protecting from.
I know it is difficult sometimes to keep track of who has posted what but I think you are applying someone else’s comments or position to me. That was neither the content nor the intent of what I posted. The bill/executive order was mostly tangential to the point I was making.
Why would they (medically-defined restrictions, that is) be required? States were free to make such rules under Trump too. Some states already have such policies. Do you think the federal government should force states to adopt policies that forbid transgender participation in sports?
This EO changed absolutely nothing about state or federal law. All it did was tell federal agencies to consider the recent SCOTUS ruling regarding transgender protections when considering policies. If anything it slightly moves the burden of proof towards those that claim transgender inclusion policies harm them (or, put another way, makes it more likely that the federal government would question policies that are overly restrictive when weighed against the SCOTUS decision).
I understand recreational outrage is fun, but this is pretty weak sauce.
The Executive Order doesn’t have to contain that. This is not what the EO is for. It requires agencies to review policies to avoid discrimination and maximize inclusion, but that does not mean that there can be absolutely no conditions or limitations involved based on what is realistically doable.
I am delighted by the executive order. But I do expect that it will result in some number of transwomen who are currently barred from playing on women’s teams to be allowed to play on women’s teams.
I doubt it will result in “anyone who declares themselves female, no matter what else”, because I don’t think the regulators are blind idiots. But will there be more transwomen in women’s sports? Yeah, I assume so.
The EO simply eliminates discrimination in sports that receive federal funds. The OP begs the question - are gender categories in sports social discrimination? Unequal funding or quality of facilities may be, but are classes of competition discriminatory?
Sure, that seems clear enough. My point was simply that there was nothing explicit in the EO that would prevent agencies from interpreting it in a way that means no medical requirements would be set. I think that is probably where a lot of the concern is coming from. It keeps the field open for such policies to be put in place and I’d be surprised if some agencies did not interpret it in such a way.
It was an observation rather than a criticism of the EO.
Oh for sure. I suppose most of us just insist on assuming that criteria of reasonableness, compromise and realistic accommodation would naturally be part of it and it should be unnecessary to have to explicitly say that, lest that be seen as a wink-and-nod to continue unjust discrimination. I mean, sure, we know there’s going to be someone somewhere doing their best to make it into a battle of the perfect vs. the good enough. But that is always the case.
Problem is, they could have been doing that exact thing before the order. So their concern doesn’t make sense, similar to the whole bathroom thing, as men could have dressed up like women this whole time but didn’t.
There are real issues that need to be ironed out about trans athletes, so focusing on things that would have already happened if they could makes no sense to me.
And I think any actual solution will involve examining why we created women’s sports leagues in the first place.
Exactly. Who, at least among the supporters of the policy in this EO, is suggesting using transgender status to exclude transgender athletes from sports?
Perhaps. I have no confident predictions concerning the specific details of how the science and law on this issue will shake out in the long run in terms of competition category criteria.
Yes, that’s the point, and it doesn’t contradict the statement I made. The EO, AFAICT, forbids that kind of sweeping prohibition of transgender people from accessing the facilities of their identified gender solely on the basis of their transgender status. But that doesn’t mean, AFAICT, that all specific competition criteria, which may be met by some transgender athletes but not by others, are automatically disallowed.
Not all transgender athletes, whether male or female, are bigger and stronger than their cisgender competitors. So a blanket ban on all transgender athletes is discriminatory.
Nobody’s ever suggested that there aren’t problems, complications and conflicts in reconciling nondiscrimination principles with the issues posed by biological differences between cisgender and transgender people. All we’re saying here is that sweeping anti-transgender discrimination is not an appropriate solution to those problems, complications and conflicts, and we’re glad to see the Biden Administration recognizing that.
Your first cite by no means proves there is a problem, other than three bigoted entitled bitches suing, in theory for their daughters, but actually because they are bigots. Of course such bigotry and ignorance is a problem.
For the second cite - Good for CeCe Telfer , many congratulations! Again, I see no problem.
It’s not just bigotry. A valid issue is the difference in athletic performance. It’s similar to how age groups are setup so that 10-year-olds aren’t competing against 15-year-olds. It’s not from ageism that they are separated. It’s an acknowledgement that there are biological differences between age groups that greatly impact athletic performance.
With regards to gender, one aspect is that genetically XY people are generally faster, stronger, and more powerful than genetically XX people. This would tend to favor the genetically XY people in competitive contests. And there is also the issue of injuries in contact sports. With the size, weight and strength advantages typical with genetically XY people, they can more easily overpower genetically XX people. These issues can also be present in single-genetic groups, as some people will be bigger or smaller even if they have the same sex genetics, but the difference is significant enough between XY and XX that if they play together, the XY individuals will almost always end up on top.
Yup; there are also other physiological variations weighting the competition scales all the time even among cisgender people. For example, the Olympic medalist runner Caster Semenya, assigned female at birth and identifying as female throughout her life, was required to take some sex verification tests that revealed, IIRC, that she has XY chromosomes and naturally high testosterone levels. The results led to her being disqualified from some women’s competitions, amid quite a bit of controversy.
The sprinter Dutee Chand is likewise an AFAB cisgender woman who was disqualified from some competitions on the basis of hyperandrogenism, although there have been some rule changes and I think she’s been reinstated.
What sports organizations may end up doing (and I have no clue whether they actually will, I’m just spitballing here) is developing a sort of handicap system for competitive athletes in various sports, sort of like what exists now for golfers and racehorses. An athlete might be assigned a certain number of handicap points for chromosomal sex, for androgen levels, height, conformation, etc., based on the competitive advantage that each characteristic might be expected to confer.
Then in competition, athletes’ performance would be judged taking their handicap into account. So, for example, a less-advantaged athlete might finish a race behind a more-advantaged one but still officially win the race, due to the difference in handicap.
While what you say is true, since you wrote about “in general”, I really object to classifying people by their chromosomes. There are XY people who lack testosterone receptors who are phenotypically extremely feminine women. There are lots of other conditions that lead to ambiguous or intermediate sexual characteristics. We had an idea of “male” and “female” long before anyone knew about chromosomes, and while it correlates pretty well with the chromosomes, it’s not perfect. And couching the distinction this way gives the impression that biology is much more cut&dried than it actually is.
I much preferred the description “people who have gone through male puberty” or “assigned male at birth” or even just “with a male-type body”.
Modnote: This has been covered in other threads, lets not rehash it again.
This applies to Odesio’s post also and the next two posters too. Let’s drop this side issue.
This is just a guidance, not a warning. Nothing on your permanent record.