I hate to duck the question, but that specific question is unanswerable. It’s impossible to say how any individual would have changed.
My much-slighted article also admits there may be cases where inequality is present, such as fencing. In basketball, where height is a huge advantage, I admit that the greater genetic height of men is going to have a lasting advantage above and beyond hormone therapy.
While by no means proof, the Svengali theory of transgender persons in sports has not yet been shown to be true, despite more than 60 years in the post-Jorgensen era. If not yet, then when?
In other words, fewer transsexuals/transgender persons have used their “insurmountable and unfair advantage” to steal the top rankings of sport, than the single case of Lance Armstrong doping.
At what point does this become a solution looking for a problem?
I’m sorry, are you saying that doping with performance-enhancing drugs does not improve performance in sports? Or doping with recreational drugs? Or are you talking about hormones?
Yes, but isn’t some approximation of that questioned supposed to be address by standards that state two years of HT levels the playing field?
Well that is kinda of loaded and nonsensical question. First, you have artificially narrowed the issue to elite males callously gaming the system by transitioning in order to excel in sports. That by and large doesn’t happen IMO, even though I wouldn’t put it past men doing that given people have pretended to be mentally handicapped to compete in the special olympics. However, intentionality really doesn’t matter so this issue is largely a strawman.
Second, the idea of transgenderism and transitioning has not really been a thing you could do in the public eye for more than a couple decades or so. Gay athletes don’t even come out, so you are not going to see “Svengalis” emerging because they would have to admit to doing/being something that is relatable and socially acceptable to a minority of the public.
Third, this issue almost always affects men transitioning to female wanting to play women’s sports. The fact is that female sports were not really a viable full time pursuit until recently, and very few female athletes make a good living, or a better living that a less accomplished male athlete. The best female athletes in the WNBA makes around $100k, whereas the league minimum in the NBA is several times that. Even normal jobs pay more than female sports.
The point being that there is no incentive for a male to transition to female solely to dominate a sport because few see any honor or glory in doing so, and because there is almost no financial reason to do it.
That said, your question missed the essential issue: Does having genetics which differ from typical females help in competitive pursuits against typical female athletes?
We can answer that anecdotally give the numerous example you cite in your paper of women being accused of being men when they set female world records or dominate competition. Often times, as you noted, their atypical genetics were correctly inferred based on their superior performance. Now, obviously, this is not a well studied thing, so there could very well be many who do not benefit from their atypical genetics, but there is some reason to think they would.
But why do you assume the infrequency of this is due to a lack of conferred advantage rather than a reluctance of transpeople to want to live their life in the spotlight, or a hundred other reasons? Given we don’t see very many trans athletes at all, I don’t see how you can infer anything about advantage or lack thereof.
Well, the reality is that the progressive community led by the LGBTQ community are the ones looking for a solution (that’s not a bad thing). It’s not sports leagues raising the issue.
I am saying your standard of exclusion being positive proof of a conferred advantage is not used for anything else including drugs and surgeries.
I’m sorry, where has that been substantiated? I mean the hip bo e shape may be locked in, but bone and muscle density sure isn’t. Unless you can show how I’m in error. No links please. Everything must be posted directly in this thread. Lol.
So in the last 20+ years or so, by your estimate, how many times have transgender persons competed in a way which was judged to be unfair and where they reached the top levels of their sport?
Which omits the reasons of simple one-upmanship and competitiveness, celebrity endorsements, and simple fame. And it seems very male-centric to assume that there is little to no honor or glory to being at the top of a women’s sport.
Actually your initial question missed that, which is why we are clarifying now.
It’s an opinion. Renee Richards didn’t care about being in the spotlight once she was outed. Then again, Renee Richards is sort of a loon, so (shrug).
You just noted some people will fake disability to compete in the special Olympics. Until relatively recently there was little to no ability to compete as a female if you were genetically male.
But in the modern world this has changed and there is no doubt men have certain physical advantages over women that would aid them in many sports.
While I doubt a male athlete would “convert” to female for the sole reason to gain a competitive advantage in a sport (never say never though…athletes are known to go to extraordinary lengths for some small advantage) I see no reason why a man already inclined to being a woman would not take advantage of the sex change to gain an unfair advantage against women when competing in a sport.
You mean how many times has someone in the roughly .15% of people of the population who are transgendered male to female overlapped with the less than .001% of people who make a living as professional athletes? Probably not often. That in and of itself doesn’t mean much, and is missing the point. The issue has less to do with trans people and more to do with someone competing who has a genetic advantage related to gender. Some of those people may be trans, but others are just people who have odd genetics who many leagues have deemed unsuitable to compete in female competition.
Are you joking? There is almost no pecuniary motive here, and that is even if we assume such a person would be allowed to compete, and would be able to find competitors willing to play with him or her. As you noted, Fallon Fox could scarcely find people to fight.
And largely accurate in context. That context being, there is no honor or glory for a man to play against females for the sheer purpose of dominating the sport.
Okay, so address the point.
But it seem to be a pretty naive one given the suicide rates of transgendered people among other things. There are just not that many legitimately trans people who are both talented enough, and willing to put themselves out there to dominate a low-paid women’s sport while being treated like an outcast and a side show by the public.
Not really. The prerequisites to compete in the special Olympics are very different from those needed to compete in a female sport if you were born a man. That said, if WNBA made what NBA player make, it would happen at some point.
There’s no “ed” in transgender. But aside from that, it seems like you are only making my overarching point. Where is the problem?
Have you ever been a competitive amateur athlete? Honest question. I was once, and I certainly needed no money to drive my competitiveness. Nor did even the A-rated fencers I knew, who generally lost money each year with their sport, even at that level. It’s just an opinion and a sample size of one.
I really don’t think we are communicating completely here.
It certainly will not change the shape of the pelvis, and this is one of the (many) factors that make male and female athletic performance statistically different.
Renee Richards, who didn’t transition till her mid to late 30s, which well after most elite athletes’ skills have dramatically deteriorated has said "Had I started to transition at 22 and been done by 24 there’s no way any genetic woman would have been able to compete with me.
Certainly someone mentioned Bruce Jenner earlier. It’s interesting too wonder if she had transitioned in the early 70s and competed in the 1976 Olympics against women in the ten sports that make up the Decathlon just how many golds and how many records could she have won?
As it is, I doubt we’ll see a point where the minuscule percentage of the percentage of the population that’s trans overlaps with the even smaller percentage of the population that’s good enough to be an elite athlete just because of the unlikelihood but it’ll be interesting if it happens.
I can’t disagree with either of you! We’ll just have to wait and see how it turns out.
If there is a huge tidal wave of transgender athletes who come to dominate women’s sports, then some correction will come along. If it is a rare occurrence, then the system will probably just ignore it. (Possibly by the tried-and-true “asterisk” method. Gold Medal…with a footnote.)
Think of it as a market problem with a market solution. If enough people stop watching the Olympics because of this, a solution will be sought after. If the audiences (and sponsors) don’t care, then there’d be no impetus for change.
I’m a staunch supporter of the rights of transgender individuals, but I was never really sure what to think about their status in athletic competition. Una’s article, which I have now read in its entirety, is comprehensive in its discussion of the physical changes wrought by SRS treatments - in short, they are so dramatic and, frankly, debilitating that they easily eliminate any advantage in the vast majority of transgender athletes. Sporting organizations which allow transgender persons universally require that transgender competitors undergo these treatments, and that they have legally transitioned to their correct gender. These facts demonstrate the impossibly high bar an athlete would have to clear in order to “game the system”. It is a laughable proposition that a man could simply pretend to be transgender to achieve an unfair advantage.
I don’t think that GLAAD gets to single-handedly dictate the use of language.
In fact, I find that “cisgender” itself is off-putting at best, and offensive at worst. It was made popular by activists on one side of an issue, but applied to ~98% of the world’s population, literally none of whom use that word to describe themselves.
That would be the kind of event that would probably prompt the authorities to re-examine the matter critically. It would lead to public controversy, some degree of scandal, wariness and hesitancy on the part of the major sponsors, and so on.
I doubt they’d take the medal away, although that’s possible. Eventually a new consensus would come about. I don’t have a clue in hell which way the consensus would lean. I do have an opinion which way it ought to, but, shrug, I’ll never be a member of the IOC’s rules committee.
Sorry, stopped reading at post 48, so maybe this has been raised.
In the Summer Olympics of 1960 (or whenever), the East Germans entered “women” in various strength-intensive sports and won.
I wear a full beard. Frankly, those “women” looked about as female as I do.
When the “sex test” was introduced, those folks stopped entering.
IIRC, this was before a snip of hair, or even a swab of tongue - this test consisted of stripping from the waist down and walking past a panel of judges.
Maybe those individuals would not have tried the con, but a government certainly could make it an attractive option - especially in a country in which the few are MUCH better off than the masses.
So there will continue to be a little asterisk beside some names in some circumstances.
