I am addressing the unfounded paranoia that girls’ sport is in danger of being overrun with trans girls who will inevitably outperform cis girls. This paranoia is based on a massive hypothetical that does not take into account real-world distribution of athletic ability, trans identity, and interest in sport.
And so far, your apparent certainty that trans girls will dominate girls’ sport is still not backed up by any real-world evidence.
Any post-pubescent male would thrash a female that occupies an equivalent relevant position on the athletic ability distribution. i.e. a 90th percentile male tennis player would thrash a 90th percentile female tennis player. That much is undeniable, I hope we agree on that.
If that 90th percentile male tennis player nominally transitioned but no medical intervention is required then the advantage remains and, to me at least, it seems questionable to allow them compete in the category of female.
Does that happen? How much and how often? Don’t know. In a perfect world it may never happen. I guess we’ll see. If we don’t see any males winning in female sport or otherwise denying females opportunities then it doesn’t seem like a problem that needs fixing but the possibility certainly exists and it is worth keeping an eye on.
I’ve said before that one solution is to simply have all categories as “open” and so everyone ultimately finds their level. Males will dominate of course.
Nope. But that’s irrelevant. And yes, no doubt one of the reasons it hasn’t been as issue is that there aren’t all that many trans people. And you know what, there’s no reason to expect a sudden explosion of trans kids increasing that number to overwhelm sports. Hell, to some extent that explosion has already happened. The barriers to saying you are trans at the local schools have already dropped, and a lot of my friends have an out trans child. I mean, it’s still a really small minority of kids, but it’s way more than when it was a huge stigma.
And even so, there’s been no problem for cis girls playing sports.
Because? I dunno, it’s not because boys and girls are magically equivalent at playing football. I think we all understand that boys have advantages there. But cis girls simply aren’t being forced out by trans girls. It’s just not a problem that needs to be solved.
Where have I said that?
It may well be that trans girls are inherently more likely to come from a point on the ability distribution where the puberty advantage would not allow them to dominate.
We don’t know, there is much we don’t know.
I agree that it’s a fun hypothetical.
“AMAB.” Try it out, you might like it. It will certainly make your posts easier to understand.
And if it is a “problem” that solves itself or doesn’t manifest in the real world and results in greater participation for all, then great.
I personally think a lot of advantages would accrue to women and girls if this were the case. Very few people of any gender make records. So what if that’s mostly men. Lots of people learn teamwork, develop camaraderie, learn skills, and take pride and joy in athletics, and most men as well as most women would find themselves in JV, not on the top tier, and they’d be competing together.
That being said, whether we should try this or not it’s totally separate from the issues of trans girls in sports, because it turns out there isn’t an issue with trans girls in sports.
Fair enough. And I mean that sincerely. But I’ve read this entire thread from start to finish and it certainly seems to be the argument to which you’ve devoted most of your energy.
Well it is mostly from two years ago, opinions vary, change and become refined.
I am however absolutely convinced that any post-pubescent male that is reasonably competetive, transitions and does not undergo any medical intervention will definitely occupy a higher relative position on the female ability curve.
That is simply undeniable. What is questionable is to what extent that actually happens and whether it is often enough and harmful enough to warrant changes to the relevant regulations.
I agree, there are huge benefits from having more people competing together, below the top tier, where the stakes are not so high and it is unlikely to matter at all what sex category is involved.
I also agree that a discussion on “open” categories is not necessarily the point here.
No. I don’t currently feel any overwhelming sense of urgency to prevent transgirls from competing in grade school athletics. I’m more concerned with them participating in public school programs without being discriminated against. I do think we need to establish guidelines for how best to go about allowing transgirls to participate in school sports. I’m even open to the possibility that there is absolutely no need to worry about this. But I don’t know if there’s a solution that will make every reasonable person happy. If a transgirl is finally able to begin gender affirmation treatment at age 17, I don’t know if it’s fair for them to compete against cisgirls.
I have a feeling I am grossly oversimplifying this. If so, I apologize.
However, it seems to me that this is answered in data. In women’s sports, do Trans-girls do better than they should if it was random? I.e. do they win more?
How about records? Are records being beaten by trans-girls more than they should if it was ‘random’? Are records being ‘shattered’ by trans girls?
I am one of those truly on the fence. I could go both ways but the data above is the only way to convince me one way or the other. If trans girls ARE winning/doing well proportionally and if they are smashing records or breaking records disproportionally then they should likely have their own league. If you don’t, then women’s leagues will be defacto trans-girls leagues. If not, well there you go. Nothing to be concerned about.
Lia Thompson would be example of the extreme. A former competitive male swimmer at Penn State who was never a top swimmer, she transitioned and then joined the women’s swim tournaments, where she crushed the competition.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/18/sport/lia-thomas-transgender-ivy-league-swim-championships/index.html
Before joining the women’s team, Thomas was ranked 89th for male college swimmers.
A transgender woman MMA fighter broke the orbital socket of a competitor and gave her a concussion.
Five fights, five first round knockouts. Knockouts are not that common in women’s MMA.
If you want more examples, just Google “trans athlete breaks record.”
Maybe it’s true that there aren’t enough trans athletes to ‘ruin’ women’s sports. But there are certainly some that are ruining sports for some women. How would you like to train your whole life for a position on a national swimming team, then lose it to someone who was 89th as a male but transitioned and took your spot? How would you feel if you had the swim of your life, beat everyone else by a good margin, yet lost by 4 seconds to a woman who was a muscular man just a year and a half earlier?
Maybe girls can still enjoy school sports with proper rules against hard contact, but which women are going to dedicate their lives to an Olympic run, knowing that no matter how hard they train they have no chance should a trans swimmer decide to compete?
I am very much in favor of protrcting trans rights. I am not in favor of giving them privileged positions over others, which is what we are doing if we allow late-transitioning males to compete in female sports. And in the case of MMA or Rugby (where a trans female in Britain has been hurting other players), real physical harm is happening to women.
It’s totally different if you transitioned before puberty. I’m not sure if everything physically is equal then, but at least the differences are not outrageous.
Moderating:
The clear instruction at the beginning of this thread is to keep in on subject of transgender girl athletes competing in girls’ sports.
While you are not getting a warning, I am hiding your entire post and ejecting you from this thread. Do not post in it again.
Actually looking over this thread since it restarted, it is a mess of people ignoring the mod instructions. Too much to clean up. This thread is closed.
Bumping contentious threads that are over a year old is usually a problem and this one is a problem.
Sam was far from alone in ignoring instructions.