I’m not sure what the “experiment” is that you are claiming has been done and what your conclusions are. Unless you know the medical status of any trans athletes competing then I don’t know what conclusions you are able to draw.
In any case, I’m sure we can all agree this isn’t actually an issue. There have been a literal handful of cases where trans athletes were as good as or nearly as good as cis athletes.
It’s a tempest in a teapot that right wing anti trans bigots use to get non bigots thinking there might be a problem.
Maybe some day there will be so many trans athletes dominating girls’ sports that we would have to think about doing something, but today is not that day.
Moderating:
Please remember this thread was bumped after 2 years and actually predates our new rules on Transgender discussions.
New discussion is fine, but please be careful in replying to posts over 2 years old.
Interesting, of course, because in this example of performance at the top levels, someone who was assigned female at birth beat another professional who was assigned male at birth, showing that there is an overlap.
I am able to conclude that in the entire state, all the trans girl athletes at the high school level who choose to participate in sports have been allowed to participate in the girls’ divisions, and girls’ athletic programs are doing fine, and continue to benefit cis girls as well as trans girls.
I honestly don’t see how a list of the medical status of every trans athlete would be relevant. I’m sure they are varied, because people are varied and have a variety of experiences.
Now, if you want my personal experience, rather than the experience of a whole state: I square dance every week with a number of trans women, and also know several other trans women, trans men, and non-binary people socially. Most of the trans women i dance with presented as men when i first met them. Nonetheless, I believe that i could best most of them in a wrestling match. While it’s obviously a self-selected group of geeky dancers, the vast majority of the men i dance with would beat me. As would every trans man i know. Trans women aren’t just men in skirts. It’s not appropriate to assume that they are like “average people who underwent male puberty”.
One of the unexpected things to come out of the transgender athlete debate is the idea that there’s no reason to segregate sports by sex. You make a valid point about girls not being encouraged to go into sports, and before Title IX public schools were free to fund sports for boys while ignoring girls, but it’s been more than 50 years since it passed. Arguing that girls haven’t had the same opportunities as boys isn’t as valid in 2023 as it was in 1970.
What we can do is look at the records and see that there’s still quite a disparity between boys and girls. Looking at my alma mater, Plano East Senior High, for many of the track & field events, the top girl record holders wouldn’t crack the top ten for boys in the same event. The #1 record for girls in the 100 meter dash is 11.4 seconds and the 20th record for boys is 11.06 seconds. For the shotput, the girls record is 38 feet 8 inches and the boy in last place is 41 feet 10 inches. The boy’s shotput weighs 12 pounds and the girl’s weights 8.8 pounds. There are a few categories where it looks like the girls can compete. The polevault looks close, but I don’t know if there’s a difference in how those events are run.
If you want to argue that boys don’t have an advantage over girls, well, okay, but you’re going ot have to provide some actual evidence to back that up. If we were ato abolish girl’s sports today in favor coed sports, I think you’d find very few cases where girls could compete in the long term.
On the contrary, if transphobes want to argue that trans girls have a nearly across-the-board athletic advantage over cis girls to the degree that their admission to girls’ teams will destroy girls’ sports, they are going to have to provide some actual evidence to back that up. Because so far that theory has not been borne out.
This is an assumption not backed up by fact. The gender gap in youth athletics persists (see below). And anyway this doesn’t address my larger point that the origin of gender segregation in youth athletics lies more in sexism than in some wholesome dedication to “fairness” or “giving girls a chance,” and that people should more closely examine their preconceived notions about it.
Yes, it is speculative. You know what’s not speculative? Trans kids have been allowed to compete in programs that align with their gender identity in multiple locations for multiple years, and trans girls are not dominating girls’ sports. That is reality. It is ridiculous to propose ways to “fix” a problem that is entirely imaginary, particularly when it has the potential to interfere with the well-being of children.
I am a cis guy. When I ran cross country in high school, every single cis girl on the team consistently outperformed me.
There are all kinds of boys and girls, with all levels of athletic ability.
I don’t think it’s doing any heavier lifting than “boys are typically stronger and faster than girls” is being made to do to support the conviction that trans girls are going to dominate girls’ athletics. One does not follow from the other so obviously as many seem to think.
And my point ultimately is that in the absence of any evidence that trans girls actually are dominating girls’ athletics, we would all do well to take this debate as an opportunity to examine the degree to which we use science to bolster our personal biases around gender. There is far more to actual youth athletic outcomes than how one group or another “typically” performs.
I do feel the need to state something here. While I am unsure what if any advantage transgirls might have over girls, I realize a significant number of people who bring this issue up aren’t so much interested in protecting girls as they are in hurting transgirls. I am not at all interested in using this as a club to hurt transgirls. While I’m not entirely sure what the best way to handle this is, I am not keen on blanket bans as I want all children to be able to participate in everything our public schools have to offer.
Regardless of the origins of segregating sports by sex, or that there’s a gap between boy’s and girl’s sports, the truth is if you were to integrate sports then girls would be the ones who lose. Just keeping to high school level sports, in track & field events, girls would rarely place in the top 5 of any event, and most team sports would be dominated by boys. If you have evidence to suggest that sex doesn’t matter when it comes to sports, that it’s all cultural, please present some evidence.
I appreciate that this is what currently passes as the compassionate viewpoint on this topic, but I find it problematic because it still relies on the premise that there is a problem to be handled in the first place, and that is all the wiggle room conservatives need to push this as an urgent issue that must be addressed. I don’t mean to single you out.
The supposed “fact” that sports are and always have been segregated by gender in the interest of “fairness” to girls has been mentioned at least a dozen times in this thread in support of casting trans girls as a threat to girls’ athletics. It is relevant to point out that it is untrue.
The topic of this discussion as I understand it is whether trans girls would dominate girls’ athletics, not whether girls ought to be forced to compete with boys. Any relevant evidence would address that point, and not the one that you raise here. Trans girls do compete with cis girls, and trans girls have not dominated girls’ athletics.
If and when they do, then let’s address whether it’s a problem, how big it is, and what’s to be done about it. Until that time, this debate is like the right-wing talking point version of that wasp that lays its eggs in a beetle’s brain and forces it to act in the wasp’s interest instead of its own.
“Sex doesn’t matter when it comes to sports” is not my position. My position (among others) is that its significance in the debate over allowing trans girls to compete with cis girls is overstated and misunderstood, and that the significance it is granted is more due to personal bias than, and not as purely based in infallible science as it is portrayed to be.
No, it relies on the premise that I don’t know if there is a problem or not. I remain open to the possibility that transgirls might have an advantage in certain sports. It’s further complicated because any advantage might be highly dependent on when they started gender affirmation treatment such as puberty blockers. A fifteen year old transgirl who just started gender affirmation care is different from a similar girl who never underwent male puberty. I’m not going to stick my head in the sand and ignore the possibility just because I’m afraid bigots will use it as an excuse to be bigots.
It’s a side issue to the overall discussion. But the primary reason sports are segregated by sex is because women would not be able to compete with men in head-to-head competitions. No matter how you slice it, that’s the truth. And concerns that transgirls and women might have an advantage over cisgirls and women is a valid concern.
What’s our sample size here? Out of the 7.9 million students participating in high school sports today, how many are transgender?
Sure, but let’s look at that on a case by case basis on professional levels.
There are too many folks who are proposing draconic shit to harass trans people. That is a bigger problem than trans athletes having an edge.
Discussing trans athletes without acknowledging the bigoted agenda of some people is disingenuous.
I don’t really care how they handle it on a professional level.
I agree, which is why I said I don’t support a blanket ban. I also specifically acknowledge there are people who use this issue as a club against trans individuals. So I don’t feel as though I need a lecture for ignoring the fact that those people exist.
It wasn’t meant as a lecture.
I’m sorry you feel that way.
Sure, that’s all very nice I’m sure but that’s not an “experiment” that says anything about relevant performance between males and females, the advantage gained and maintained by male puberty and mitigated by any medical transition.
These concerns are irrelevant to the debate unless they result in real-world performance gaps between trans girls and cis girls competing side by side in actual youth sports activity.
I don’t know what point you are making. What part of the male ability bell curve did you occupy? What part of the female ability bell curve did those females occupy?
If you were the 50th best male and they were the top ten females then I’d expect you to lose to them. If you were a top ten male runner then you would thrash them. As the records at every athletic event clearly show.
I disagree that it is a side issue, since a) it has been used repeatedly to justify scrutiny of trans girl participation in girls’ athletics, and b) as I have said, there is a parallel between the sexist notion that sport isn’t appropriate for girls (which was a major factor in the origin of gender segregation), and the notion that trans girls dominating girls’ athletics is somehow inevitable. Edit: by which I mean that there is more work to be done in separating personal bias from scientific evidence.
At any rate multiple people seem to have considered it relevant enough to bring it up repeatedly in this discussion.
Here’s our disconnect. You seem to think (and correct me if I’m wrong) that the fact that this question is currently impossible to answer makes it urgent that we address the issue of trans girls in girls’ athletics. I say that in the absence of any evidence that trans girls’ participation is actually creating a problem, there is no need to address it.