Personally, I think the ACLU is (as usual) right. Thoughts?
Claiming that trans girls don’t have a physical advantage is utter bullshit.
However, I have no idea how to handle that problem. I don’t have a problem with a trans girl athlete and I don’t believe that teen boys claiming to be trans to gain an advantage is a legitimate worry.
California State Track Meet results.
Girls 1600 4:37-5:00 Boys 1600 4:11-4:19
Girls 3200 10:07-11:49 Boys 8:57-9:58
How many of those were trans?
In Connecticut, where cisgender girl runners have tried to block Andraya from participating in the sport she loves, the very same cis girls who have claimed that trans athletes have an “unfair” advantage have consistently performed as well as or better than transgender competitors.
So, while overall males may indeed have an advantage
“A person’s genetic make-up and internal and external reproductive anatomy are not useful indicators of athletic performance,”according to Dr. Joshua D. Safer. “For a trans woman athlete who meets NCAA standards, “there is no inherent reason why her physiological characteristics related to athletic performance should be treated differently from the physiological characteristics of a non-transgender woman.”
So, while overall males seem to have an advantage, there is nothing that has shown trans athletes have such an advantage.
It’s not a particularly persuasive article. The author writes that the myth of trans athletes reinforces stereotypes that women are weak and in need of protection. But doesn’t the fact that we segregate sports based on sex do the very same?
The author also writes that a trangender athlete who meets NCAA standards has no advantage and I’m willing to accept that as true for the purposes of this discussion. But I have heard people advocate that requiring athletes to have undergone hormone treatment for at least a year before participating is unfair.
In truth, I used to be on the fence regarding trans athletes. Well, let’s say what we all really mean, trans girl athlete because nobody is worried about trans boys in the boys lockeroom or on the basketball courts. But quite frankly, whatever concerns I have about whether or not trans athletes have an unfair advantage pales in comparision to what others wish to do in order to prevent trans girls from competing. Isn’t there legislation pending in one state giving authorities the ability to perform an exterior and/or internal exam of a girl’s genitals to determine her eligibility to participate in girl’s sports? That’s just barbaric and a far more harmful than trans girls participating in sports could possibly be.
I don’t think there’s enough transgender athletes at this point to make a final determination. The simple fact is that a mediocre athlete on a boys team would dominate on a girls team (depending on the sport). Maybe there will never be enough trans women athletes to make a difference in team sports. Individual sports like track are far different.
I agree. It think putting sports participation at the forefront of trans rights is badly mistaken. The very definition of being trans is that someone has an identity that is not in accord with the physiology that they were born with. And the fight is to get people to accept that. To then turn around and insist that a trans person’s physiology is no different from a cis person’s physiology just seems to contradict what we’re trying to get everyone to understand and accept about gender identity. If a trans woman blows away the competition in a sports event, it just seems to me to invite the bigots to protest that this proves she’s “really a man”.
Sports are about testing the limits of physiology, or aspects of mental fortitude that are universally human, they are not about affirming gender identity. I don’t know that there are any easy answers, but if you are going to have a restricted category it should be based on consistent scientifically established criteria, and it should probably not be called “women”.
Ah, well now I think you’re on to something. Is it really trans rights activists who have placed sports at the forefront, or is it anti-trans activists who see it as a useful wedge issue, to which the trans rights community may then feel obliged to respond? I suspect the latter is what really got us here. There are people out there who don’t even think trans people exist, and they are doing their damndest to bring the conversation around to sports because they see that as their best chance to win people over and be seen as “reasonable” rather than as transphobes.
I speak largely from ignorance, but isn’t a trans female more than just a male who chooses to present as a female? Isn’t there usually some hormone medication involved? If so, then I would imagine that this adds quite a significant variable to the male/female athlete comparison.
ETA: Take a male athlete. Then give him medication that blocks his testosterone. He’s going to perform worse, isn’t he?
Then I think something like this ACLU article that conflates the nuanced issue of sports participation with what’s really important and non-negotiable about trans rights is just helping them do this.
…we are so far beyond the time for “nuanced discussion of the issue of sports participation” that it isn’t even funny any more.
The conversation has shifted. We’ve gone from “nuanced discussion” six months ago to transition should “be illegal for doctors to do this to anyone of any age” as the benchmark now.
The Matt Walsh documentary has been so heavily promoted in social media spaces that advertisements have been popping up for it on the Youtube channels of transgender activists.
The ACLU article is about as milquetoast as you can get. It isn’t harmful to the cause.
And today the world governing body for swimming effectively voted to ban transgender people from participating in women’s swimming competitions.
"Transgender women must show that “they have not experienced any part of male puberty beyond Tanner Stage 2 or before age 12, whichever is later.”
This is the reality of what making participation in sports a “negotiable” position really means. This is the reality of why this is important thing to be talking about. They want to make transition illegal. There is official state government advice out there, right now, that doctors should not promote “social transition” (meaning not using prefered pronouns) . It won’t be long before that gets codified in law.
Its creeping authoritarianism. They are pushing back bit by bit. It took less than a year for the CRT panic to turn into cities actively banning books and principals getting fired.
This isn’t going to stop at sports.
Transgender activist Katy Montgomerie said this today:
https://twitter.com/KatyMontgomerie/status/1538620399944081408
This is where we are at right now. With one side still thinking that we still have time for a pleasant debate, while the other is actively considering genocide.
And there’s the problem. What proof do you have of this? Because there is no actual proof of this, as long as hormone levels are equalized. Every single time I’ve seen someone get upset about a particular trans athlete, I’ve found that there are cis women who did better than them at some point. Why would that be if trans women were physically the same as men, who clearly dominate as your statistics say? The difference would be plain as say, like it is for men vs. women.
No, there is just this assumption about trans women that just seems like “common sense,” and is being exploited by anti-trans factions.
And, given that, I see no reason that trans women should pull back and give those anti-trans factions an inch, allowing them to take the proverbial mile. They are right to insist that there is no evidence backing this up and to force their opponents to do more than just rely on bias and assumption.
And, yes, that’s also my response to @Riemann’s claim that trans activists err in fighting this. There is only room for nuance when the facts allow it. Those who push discrimination should be the ones who have to prove it is necessary.
Absolutely.
The ACLU is now past its prime. It no longer supports those “whose values are contrary to our values.” That is to say it no longer protects unpopular speech.
As Ira Glasser pointed out, “They just produced a couple of years ago new guidelines for their lawyers to use when deciding what free speech cases to take,” the ex-ACLU man explained. “This is a requirement now for the national ACLU employers, that before they take a case defending someone’s free speech they have to make sure that the speech doesn’t offend or threaten other civil liberties values."
Key people in the ACLU now want to ban books. Chase Strangio, the American Civil Liberties Union’s deputy director for transgender justice, tweeted, “Stopping the circulation of this book and these ideas is 100% a hill I will die on.”
So anyway, the ACLU is no longer a protector of unpopular ideas and the right to say them. It is a defender of politically correct ideas and wants to suppress other ideas.
…there is nothing “politically correct” about protecting the rights of transgender people. And protecting the rights of transgender people doesn’t involve the suppression of other ideas.
There is little about civil liberates in banning books. The modern ACLU would not defend the rights Illinois Nazis to march in the streets. Some ideas they deem worthy of free speech. Some ideas they have decided to suppress.
Good.
…the personal opinion on a now-deleted-tweet do not represent the policy position of a completely separate organization.
How will you feel when your speech is unpopular?
Bold of you to assume it already isn’t.
Nice sidestep.
There is now a broad movement of political correctness that chooses not to engage with those with whom it disagrees, but rather chooses to tell them to shut up. I would think this position is now very mainstream, if not a majority view.
I think you are advocating the popular position, and are claiming your opinion is suppressed.