Connecticut parents angry over trans athlete

In My Humble Opinion
21

The case of Fallon Fox is interesting to me. Fox, a male-to-female transgender, beat their female opponent Tamikka Brents so badly they “suffered a concussion, an orbital bone fracture, and seven staples to the head in the 1st round.” Brents said “I’ve fought a lot of women and have never felt the strength that I felt in a fight as I did that night. I can’t answer whether it’s because she was born a man or not because I’m not a doctor. I can only say, I’ve never felt so overpowered ever in my life and I am an abnormally strong female in my own right”

Personally my opinion is no matter how you “feel”, if you were born a man and grew up with all that testosterone then you have an unfair physical advantage over those that grew up female without all that testosterone. They’ve been “doping” their whole life compared to those that grew up female.

22

I’d be angry too. IMO a transgender person should not compete in any sex-segregated competition period, unless it is their birth sex.

23

Weight classes exacerbate the problem, not help it. Women boxers run about 16 to as high as 20% body fat. Men run under 10. Some of that difference is made up for in bone density and larger extremities (but those are also things that help male boxers), but there is still the reality that male boxers are carrying 10 to 15 lbs more muscle than women in the same weight class. Even after hormone therapy, post-change transgendered persons still have more muscle mass than birth women. You’re talking about fighting someone with muscle weight two classes above you. I’m glad you think that’s not dangerous and I’m sure you can find someone desperate enough to agree with you, but I wouldn’t want my wife or daughter in that ring.

24

They need to make a ruling you should only compete as your birth gender. Now the athlete can present themselves with long hair or whatever they want but still only compete as their birth gender. Bruce Jenner competed as a man but seems being fine later being a woman so I dont see the problem.

End of story.

25

The question is, should sports be segregated by mental gender or by physical sex? But the competitions are physical in nature, and it’s the differences between the physical sexes that make the segregation necessary in the first place.

I don’t think that “birth gender” is the right way to frame the question, though. To the extent that there is such a thing as mental gender which is not necessarily the same as physical sex, what’s to say that it’s not already present at birth?

26

A lot of people (myself included, until recently) forget that there’s nothing new about this conversation.

I have a feeling it’s going to come down to one of two solutions: either (a) instead of “genders,” use “classes” - what I call “Class Y” (people with a Y-chromosome) and “Class X” (people without one) - although I have a feeling this will not go over well with the LGBTQ+ community (“that just reinforces birth genders!”), or (b) determine that the only “fair” solution is to drop interscholastic sports all together (and I have a feeling people who think this should already be the case are going to use this as a reason to do it).

27

What a bunch of whiners.
Could a transgendered athlete have an advantage in some sports? Maybe, but so what? There are all kinds of things that can give someone an “unfair” advantage in sports.
Having long appendages gives an advantage in sports like running, and swimming and basketball. Should people like Michael Phelps and Manute Bol be banned?
Being from certain parts of the world seems to give an advantage in endurance sports. Should Kenyans be banned?
Having access to elite training facilities and doctors gives an advantage. Should rich people be banned?
Hell, apparently even being a lefty can give someone an advantage in certain sports

All sports are inherently unfair to the vast majority of people; that’s kinda the point. And a person having some biological trait may give that person a head start in a certain sport but it doesn’t automatically make that person better at the sport. You still have to put in the time; study, train, and practice. And if a transgendered person wants to put in the time and effort to become a top athlete in their sport, then they deserve to win, just like anyone else.

Famously, in 1979 football player Lyle Alzado fought Muhammad Ali. Alzado was 7 years younger and 15 lbs heavier than Ali. Alzado was at the height of his athletic career, Ali was at the end. Alzado trained heavily for the fight. Ali did not, and was probably feeling the effects of Parkinson’s altho he would not be diagnosed until 1984. By all accounts Alzado took the fight seriously and Ali did not and yet Alzado couldn’t touch Ali, because he wasn’t a boxer and Ali was. It takes more than physique to make an athlete.

mc

28

Sure, but some advantages are so nearly universal that it becomes necessary to segregate the athletes according to that advantage. Which is why we have weight divisions, youth leagues, Special Olympics - and men’s and women’s divisions.

I think the point is that no amount of time and effort will allow a cis-female to overcome the advantage that people born male hold almost automatically.

Regards,
Shodan

29

I suppose some people absolutely will be assholes about it, but, with due respect, this is a legitimate concern and it has a lot of women really worried.

I find it pretty dubious that some guy will be allowed to declare himself a woman for the 17 days the Olympics are on and clean up. that’s not within the existing rules, and really couldn’t ever be since you have to qualify for the Olympics at preceding events.

But let’s be honest, there IS a history of men pretending to be women to win athletic competitions - sometimes with state support - and sports can bring out the ugliest in people.

Perhaps more relevant, though, is the fact that existing guidelines in use by most sports federations would allow transsexual women to just annihilate all the other women. A person who lives as a man for 25 years, gaining the massive athletic advantages over women conferred by being a man, who then for 366 days conforms to the reduced testosterone levels required (still way above what a woman would normally have) will have huge physical advantages.

I think it can sometimes be missed that there’s a reason we have men’s and women’s sports. The women cannot hope to compete with men in almost all sports; they’d be blown out of the water.

30

What I said was only in response to this nonsense:

and not to the general topic.

31

I’ll disagree here. At a high school level, which is where this is at play in this story, it is a big deal. Getting onto a lot of teams is tough. Participation in athletics counts when you apply to selective colleges - especially team sports where there are a limited number of spots. College scholarships are competitive. Even at a high school level - for those that are serious athletes - the stakes are high.

Women’s participation in sports when they are girls has been instrumental in bringing us out of the 1950s in terms of women’s rights, women’s self esteem, and women’s success. I don’t know that there is a good answer to the question. I do know that “lets not even bother to recognize that this restricts the availability, participation and success rate of cis-girls in sports” is not a good answer.

32

At sports requiring strength, speed, height, or endurance; world-class level, cream-of-the-crop women are at the level of high-school boys, maybe U19 on a good day.
For example. Serena Williams, maybe the best female athlete of all times, is at the level of a journeyman tennis player in the high 200s, those who are only known to tennis hardcore fans or in their countries if they come from a non-powerhouse one.

33

The U. S. boys high school record for the 100m dash is 10.00. The women’s world record for the 100m is 10.49.

34

High school can still be competitive and regional. I’m referring more to the leagues in college usually offered through the physical activities departments which are usually super casual and for fun, or very light competition, and often entirely within a single institution. It rarely rises above the level of “Your High School PE class” which usually plays traditionally segregated sports co-ed because of the low level.

Like, my university has a casual in-university doubles tennis league in the spring and while I guess someone could abuse it, everyone is playing at such a low level the biological differences aren’t really even meaningful because it’s mostly people who are at best vaguely not out of shape but still really bad form. You’d be more in danger of somebody who plays in league tennis coming in and stomping everyone to make themselves feel big (which is why people who play league tennis are banned from intramural).

Also, I feel like you guys are moving the problem a bit. A trans woman on HRT can never compete with cis men either in a competitive environment. You could propose a “trans league”, but at levels like high school, even arguably college, that’s effectively a no-compete statement because you’d need the school to have enough 1. trans women that 2. want to play one specific sport which is a real “stars align” situation.

I’m also not sure of the evidence here. There’s not super good science AFAICT, and naturally the news focuses on trans women who win, especially in a blowout. I see a lot of people asserting one way or anything “this is because they’re trans”, “muscle mass drops sufficiently after <X time>”, “but bones”, and so on, but little in the way of evidence besides anecdotally having seen a couple trans women compete in a specific competition. It’s entirely plausible that say, the bell curve of post-HRT (post-bottom surgery?) trans women slightly exceeds the bell curve of cis women at the tail but the means are very close, for instance. And it’s unclear what to do in that situation because, as mentioned, there are a lot of extreme deviations that can happen in women traditionally identified as cis too, such as Caster Semenya.

This is why I brought up the strength bracket solution as an analogy to weight class. It would also allow, say, intersex people, AFAB NB people on low-dose T, weaker men (until they train enough to get into men’s), and so on to compete as well. Again, not fully baked, but is a solution.

35

Yea. I understand the argument. I’m saying it’s crap.

First off, there are ALOT of people smarter than I who are studying this question in depth. I could give plenty of scholarly cites on both side of the argument. There is no consensus that trans gendered athletes enjoy an insurmountable advantage as a group. Sure you can find specific examples of where this is true, but you can also find specific examples of cis gendered athletes who have a biologically insurmountable advantage over their peers and no one is saying they shouldn’t play. (well, at least not in men’s sports - Serena Williams, and others, have been targeted)

Second, this is never considered an issue when it occurs the other way. There are certain instances when trans gendered athletes are at a disadvantage to cis gendered ones. And no one says that the cis gendered shouldn’t be allowed to compete. Or even that the trans gendered shouldn’t be allowed to compete when it’s clear that their chance of winning is greatly reduced. So, it’s ok to be a trans gendered athlete if you lose, but not ok if you win? Not cool!

And the idea of bracketed competitions is, likewise, crap. There aren’t women’s leagues because they couldn’t compete, but because they WEREN’T ALLOWED to compete. And there aren’t able bodied and handicap leagues because the able bodied had an unfair advantage over the handicapped and weren’t allowed to compete. And weight classes didn’t come about because big burly boxers had an advantage over the poor skinny chaps. It was so the promoters could could have more than just one fight at an event and be able to charge more money.

The idea that some may take advantage is also crap. Just because some guy MIGHT try to game the system and try to pass himself off as transgendered, isn’t good enough reason to not let transgendered athletes compete. Should we not let men compete because some have tried to take advantage thru PED’s. There’s always gonna be cheaters.

And. finally, if (and I do mean IF) trans gendered athletes sometimes enjoy an advantage, then that’s just too damn bad for everyone else. Just because you were competitive last year when there were no trans athletes doesn’t mean you deserve to be competitive this year.

mc

36

The point of brackets doesn’t really boil down to “trans women might be stronger.” It’s an idea, in fact, I stole from my nonbinary friends who don’t feel included by the current gendered brackets because they identify as neither women nor men, and oftentimes feel that due to the fact they take hormone regimens that are not as extreme as binary trans people in either direction they physically cannot compete in either because, if they’re taking T, they feel they’re basically doping, and if they’re taking low-dose anti-androgens they’re losing some muscle mass and other things but not as much as binary trans women.

It’s more concerned about making a gender-agnostic system so everybody feels comfortable competing, than it is not accepting gender identity. These discussions exclude and forget about nonbinary people a lot.

37

However, it still limits women’s involvement - do you do speed classes as well for track? Isn’t that sort of meaningless? How do you class hockey or basketball?

As I said, there aren’t good solutions that are fair to anyone, but one not fair solution is to tell cis-women that there isn’t room for them to be competitive because people with a Y chromosome are going to crowd them out yet again - but hey, by now, we should be used to it.

38

Jragon,
I was responding more to the people who point out that there are already male/female breakdowns as proof that trans athletes enjoy an advantage - “see we already acknowledge that women cant compete with men.” Which completely misses two points. That women weren’t allowed in sports regardless of whether or not they could compete. And, more importantly, that trans women aren’t men.

You idea of a skill level breakdown, (kinda like chess or whatnot) seems less odious to me at first glance. But it still has the smell of “participation trophy” to me.
mc

eta:

Dangerosa, Ill say again, trans women are not men, some dont have Y chromosomes.

39

Have a cite for that piece? I can’t find something that gives a good estimate of how much or how little the gap in muscle mass changes during HRT.

40

Just end all segregation in sports. Professional and collegiate men will hold 99.999% of a-q league spots. Women will be competing with high school and junior high school boys for basketball positions in the r,s, and t leagues. Not sure how well this reality will help people’s self esteem though.