J K Rowling and the trans furore

[YWTF]

@DemonTree

Women are not just small men. I guess that isn’t obvious enough for some people. There’s a huge list of differences, nearly all advantaging men, which a year or two of testosterone can never make up for. It’s not at all comparable to different races.

This is their internal inconsistency #83,291:

Gender ideologues: If you don’t let dysphoric males transition before they finish puberty, they won’t ever be able to pass as women and their life will forever be impacted by their big masculine appearance!

Also gender ideologues: A year on estrogen magically makes grown-ass males physically equivalent to women in all ways that matter.

Someone needs to make that make sense. And then they also need to explain why we’re supposed to believe a female who has been “on” estrogen for 2 plus decades should be considered physically equal to a male who has been “on” testosterone for the same amount of time but then took some estrogen pills at the last minute. If a year of estrogen is that goddamn powerful that it could obliterate male power just in 12 months, women shouldn’t have any strength in their bodies at all. We should have entered an invalid state shortly after this muscle-atrophying substance called estrogen started pumping out of our ovaries.

[Banquet_Bear]

@QuickSilver

The average women, premenopausal, measures 1.7 nmol/L. So not apples to apples.

@the Guardian

Bekker and Tannenbaum argued there were no clear lines in the sand about what a “male” or “female” level of testosterone was, pointing to one study in which 74 of 446 male athletes had testosterone levels below the “normal male” lower limit of 8.4 nmol/L while 32 of 234 female athletes had levels above the upper “normal female” limit of 2.7 nmol/L. Eleven female athletes had levels over 8 nmol/L.

I’m not sure the “average” really matters here.

@QuickSilver

That is interesting but I’m not sure it’s relevant. Unless the rugby league decides to exclude Polynesians from rugby, they will have to be permitted to continue to play as they have to date.

Unless the Rugby Football Union decides to exclude transwomen from womens rugby, they will have to be permitted to continue to play as they have to date.

@QuickSilver

More relevant is whether you see any issues with allowing transwomen to play in the mens league. If it’s about the love of the game, what’s the down side?

Because you are forcing transgender women to choose between “the love of the game” and their gender identity.

@QuickSilver

Tangentially, are transmen playing in mens sports leagues with the same frequency as transwomen are playing in womens leagues? If not, why not?

Does this matter? If you think “yes”, then why does it matter?

@QuickSilver

What specifically is controversial in the statement you are responding to that makes the claim below made by @filmore. Try to be less dismissive and more substantive, if you don’t mind:

Can you quantify “male level aggression” on the rugby field? What metrics do you use? How do you measure it? Is there an objective difference between the aggression seen on the field in a men’s game to a women’s game, and how is this displayed?

@QuickSilver

Non-sequiturs fly like a banana.

Not a non-sequitur.

[QuickSilver]

@Banquet_Bear

Unless the Rugby Football Union decides to exclude transwomen from womens rugby, they will have to be permitted to continue to play as they have to date.

No doubt. Their league, their call. I can have an opinion but I don’t make the rules.

@Banquet_Bear

Because you are forcing transgender women to choose between “the love of the game” and their gender identity.

Am I? In what way? We’re talking about sport, right?

@Banquet_Bear

Does this matter? If you think “yes”, then why does it matter?

What if I think “no”? More importantly, I asked you what you thought. You are being evasive. Why?

@Banquet_Bear

Can you quantify “male level aggression” on the rugby field? What metrics do you use? How do you measure it? Is there an objective difference between the aggression seen on the field in a men’s game to a women’s game, and how is this displayed?

I asked you if you ever played a competitive sport. You evaded the question. Fine. But you can’t pretend to have absolutely no frame of reference when you post a picture of a 114kg player running over an 86kg player. So I ask you: is there a difference?

[Banquet_Bear]

@DemonTree

What you are proposing is far more similar to a situation where polynesians were barred from playing in the main league, created their own league which received vastly less funding, recognition and respect, and as soon as they started to get a crumb of notice, white people insisted on joining and taking all the top spots, while still barring you from playing in their leagues.

…when the hell did this happen?

The Maori All-Blacks are still a thing that exists. They are funded well and have recognition and respect, white people haven’t insisted on joining and having all the top spots, and they haven’t barred anyone from any other leagues.

And I haven’t proposed anything.

@DemonTree

That is the closest analogue to what you are supporting.

The haka is a ceremonial Maori challenge. Here it is being performed by the New Zealand police in Auckland.

Auckland police officers perform haka at graduation ceremony

Men. Women. Maori. Pakeha. Asian. Indian. Genuine diversity. All together as one. Not appropriating, but embracing.

This is the closest analogue to what I am supporting. Inclusion. Not exclusion.

[JustSaying3]

So do you or do you not support the conditions required of your examples of transgender inclusion? Is requiring surgery, years of hormone therapy and years living in their gender a fair requirement? You mentioned boxing and the Olympics which require these things.

[Banquet_Bear]

@QuickSilver

Am I? In what way? We’re talking about sport, right?

Yep. Do you understand why most women choose not to play in the mens league, even though they love the game?

@QuickSilver

What if I think “no”? More importantly, I asked you what you thought. You are being evasive. Why?

I’m not being evasive. I just don’t give a fuck. Why should I care about the frequency of transmen playing in sports leagues? How is that relevant to anything?

@QuickSilver

I asked you if you ever played a competitive sport.

Yes.

@QuickSilver

You evaded the question.

Well you can’t claim that now.

@QuickSilver

But you can’t pretend to have absolutely no frame of reference when you post a picture of a 114kg player running over an 86kg player. So I ask you: is there a difference?

Is there a difference between what exactly? Can you restate the question? And are you going to answer the questions I put to you?

[QuickSilver]

@Banquet_Bear

Because you are forcing transgender women to choose between “the love of the game” and their gender identity.

Athletes, men and women, love what they do. But they can’t compete against each other because men have the overwhelming competitive advantage in virtually every sport. That is the only reason for the separation in sport based on gender/sex. Most transwomen are better suited for competition against men. More so than they are suited for competition against women. In fact, when competing against men they would not need to be monitored for testosterone levels and arguably would perform closer to their personal best. Isn’t that what “love of the sport” means?

[Banquet_Bear]

@JustSaying3

So do you or do you not support the conditions required of your examples of transgender inclusion? Is requiring surgery, years of hormone therapy and years living in their gender a fair requirement?

…your edited the question you originally posed to me and the edit provided your answer. I think that in most cases the criteria required by most sports, including the olympics, are fair.

[Banquet_Bear]

@QuickSilver

Most transwomen are better suited for competition against men.

…this a mighty big assertion to be dropping into the middle of the conversation here. I don’t believe that at all. Why do you think this is the case?

[JustSaying3]

@Banquet_Bear

your edited the question you originally posed to me and the edit provided your answer. I think that in most cases the criteria required by most sports, including the olympics, are fair.

Ok. Would you think anything remotely like that would be appropriate for access to women’s washrooms or shelters?

[Banquet_Bear]

@JustSaying3

Ok. Would you think anything remotely like that would be appropriate for access to women’s washrooms or shelters?

…for washrooms? Nope. Regarding shelters: Spice_Weasel, who has had extensive experience working in shelters has provided a nuanced view on this in this thread and I pretty much support her position.

[QuickSilver]

@Banquet_Bear

Yep. Do you understand why most women choose not to play in the mens league, even though they love the game?

Do you?

@Banquet_Bear

I’m not being evasive. I just don’t give a fuck. Why should I care about the frequency of transmen playing in sports leagues? How is that relevant to anything?

You might give a fuck if you thought that from a competitive standpoint, most transmen would not be able to perform nearly as well in highly competitive sports against men. See examples of women world cup soccer team losing to a team of boys.

@Banquet_Bear

Is there a difference between what exactly? Can you restate the question? And are you going to answer the questions I put to you?

In the photo I posted of the transwoman playing rugby with women, does size matter?

What questions did I not answer?

[QuickSilver]

@Banquet_Bear

…this a mighty big assertion to be dropping into the middle of the conversation here. I don’t believe that at all. Why do you think this is the case?

Physiological differences matter.

[monstro]

We should see transmen successfully competing in men’s sports, if a puberty awash in estrogen doesn’t confer a competitive disadvantage.

While looking for examples of transmen competing in professional sports, I just came across this article:

Trans athletes everywhere are the ultimate sports underdogs

I saw the summary and thought to myself, “Great! Finally an article about transmen in sports.” To my disappointment, most of the article is about transwomen. However, there is Harrison Browne, described as the first “out” trans man in professional sports. Which I think it is great, actually. Too bad the writer never asks the very obvious question: Why aren’t there more Harrison Brownes?

I have another criticism with this article.

It’s worth noting one of the cisgender plaintiffs, Chelsea Mitchell, beat Miller two times in eight days after filing the suit. One of the biggest arguments against allowing trans women athletes to compete against cisgender women athletes, and thus why they also wouldn’t qualify as “underdogs,” is the belief they’re biological superior. But there is no evidence trans women win competitions at higher levels than their cisgender counterparts, LGBT sports advocate Helen Carroll told Wired in a story last year. Our co-founder Cyd Zeigler profiled four trans athletes who work hard at their sports, but seldom win.

They are framing this in terms of winning rather than competing. If the top 10 runners are chosen to go to the finals and you’re a runner, you’re going to run so you can at least get the 10th fastest speed. If you are just an elite runner rather than the uber elite runner, you’ll be perfectly fine coming in tenth, since simply qualifying for the finals is a very big deal to you. So every nanosecond of a difference between you and your competitors will matter to you. What trans rights supporters are telling ciswomen is that they shouldn’t sweat those nanoseconds. They should only care about “winning”, whatever that means. But those nanoseconds might be the difference between a girl getting put on the JV team or getting on the varsity team. They might be the difference between getting an award at the end of the school year or not getting an award at the end of the school year. They might be the difference between getting a college scholarship or not getting a college scholarship. It is also interesting that the writer mentions that one of the three cisgender athletes filing lawsuit had a better time (I am assuming this is what they meant) than one of the trans athletes involved in the lawsuit. But there are two other plaintiffs and one other defendant. Why aren’t their wins/loses being reported? And the “winning” cis athlete is said to have been beaten her trans competitor twice, but the writer doesn’t say out of how many competitions. Two wins out of three or four competitions is one thing. But two out of six or seven is another. No one is saying that ciswomen will always lose against a trans woman athlete no matter what. Even top competitors fuck up occasionally. So this is an infuriating strawman that paints cis athletes as whiny brats.

One last thing that pisses me off about this article is this bit:

Because of the rejection they encounter, transgender people also face higher suicide rates than the general population, and sports can save lives. It’s not just about the competition, but the camaraderie, and that can only happen when everyone feels comfortable.

There it is again. The ole “people will kill themselves!” argument.

Sports are important for girls, too, including reduced suicidality. But then there’s other benefits that are female-focused, like reduced teenaged pregnancy rates, healthier menstruation, reduced obesity, and reduced risk of osteoporosis. Women are not evil harpies for wanting to keep sports opportunities restricted to females.

[RingsOfPylon]

@Banquet_Bear

Men. Women. Maori. Pakeha. Asian. Indian. Genuine diversity. All together as one. Not appropriating, but embracing.

No. This is obviously a male-based, pre-battle ritual. It’s an absurd caricature, and a throwback to primitive days when men gathered around the sacred object and chanted so that they could build trust with each other and go bludgeon their enemies together.

It certainly explains the overt contempt that is demonstrated against women. It’s more like a contempt of “not male”, and the desire to harshly penalize women for being not male. It’s barely contained.

I generally think that claims of misogyny are overused and many times made too casually, but it seems to apply here - the insistence that women should willingly compete against men and not complain about it, the convenient denial of real sex differences despite all evidence to the contrary, prizing men over women, waxing superior about male culture, trivializing women’s concerns - it’s pretty obvious.

[Banquet_Bear]

@QuickSilver

Do you?

…do you?

@QuickSilver

You might give a fuck if you thought that from a competitive standpoint, most transmen would not be able to perform nearly as well in highly competitive sports against men. See examples of women world cup soccer team losing to a team of boys.

And your point is?

@QuickSilver

In the photo I posted of the transwoman playing rugby with women, does size matter?

Okay lets be absolutely clear here. The photo you posted wasn’t from a rugby game. It was from the AFLW, and they play Australian Rules Football, not rugby. So you have to ask yourself why the article you cited decided to use an image from a completely different sport from a different country to illustrate an article about Rugby Union in the UK.

Secondly I’m a professional photographer. And I just don’t get why you seem to think a single photograph should be representative of anything at all really. With a subtle change of angle and a different lens I could make that photo look very different.

So this photo says nothing to me. I’ve photographed womens rugby games and this looks typical of photos I’ve taken. Different body shapes, different body sizes. Completely normal.

@QuickSilver

What questions did I not answer?

Can you quantify “male level aggression” on the rugby field? What metrics do you use? How do you measure it? Is there an objective difference between the aggression seen on the field in a men’s game to a women’s game, and how is this displayed?

@QuickSilver

Physiological differences matter.

But not as much as you seem to think.

[YWTF]

@monstro

Even top competitors we fuck up occasionally. So this is an infuriating strawman that paints cis athletes as whiny brats.

Remember that NCAA video I posted a few thousand of post ago? The transwoman who smoked her competitors clustered with the pack only until the last few minutes. Imagine someone pointing to that as if it meant anything.

[Banquet_Bear]

@RingsOfPylon

No. This is obviously a male-based, pre-battle ritual.

…kia ora.

You say this is a “male-based, pre-battle ritual.”

But could you tell that just from the video I showed you?

Because they don’t look like they are going into battle to me. And for a male-based ritual there sure looks like a lot of women performing that ritual to me.

I suspect you probably know more about the haka than just what was in the video. And if you do know more than you would know that the haka is more than just a “pre battle” ritual. That there are many different haka’s, that they are used for many different things, in celebration of life, to farewell the dead.

But to a certain extent I might probably agree. Misogyny in Maori culture is a very important thing to discuss. But that probably would be better for another thread if you want to open it. Ten years ago there wouldn’t have been women preforming the haka with men. Ten years ago it would have been unthinkable for women to sit in the front row of a powhiri. But things change. Things get more inclusive. Which was entirely my point.

@RingsOfPylon

It certainly explains the overt contempt that is demonstrated against women. It’s more like a contempt of “not male”, and the desire to harshly penalize women for being not male. It’s barely contained.

It does nothing of the sort.

@RingsOfPylon

I generally think that claims of misogyny are overused and many times made too casually, but it seems to apply here - the insistence that women should willingly compete against men and not complain about it, the convenient denial of real sex differences despite all evidence to the contrary, prizing men over women, waxing superior about male culture, trivializing women’s concerns - it’s pretty obvious.

Trans women are women. Its not about insisting women compete against men. Its not about prizing men over women, or waxing superior about male culture. There is simply a fundamental disconnect in the paradigm here. There have been many cis-women who have participated in this thread who disagree with the fundamental position you put forth here.

[monstro]

She wasn’t holding herself back. Her competitors were just dragged down by hateration and jealousy. Maybe they would start winning some races if only they would stop believing that sex is real.

[RickJay]

@Banquet_Bear

transwomen have been playing rugby for years. If the alleged disparity of physical strength, endurance and likely weight

There is no “alleged” disparity. The disparity is objective and real, and is plainly obvious to anyone who’s ever watched or played sports. No one seriously claims otherwise.

@Banquet_Bear

Trans women are women. Its not about insisting women compete against men

What does “woman” mean to you? If it doesn’t mean anything in particular - as I suspect it doesn’t - fine. Sports should be separated between “born male” and “born female.” Problem solved!