# Those of you who are sick of us transgender people, what do you actually want us to do? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 23, 2019, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-of-you-who-are-sick-of-us-transgender-people-what-do-you-actually-want-us-to-do/831428 "2019-03-23T21:57:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![am77494](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d2c977/32.png) [@am77494](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/am77494)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2019, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-of-you-who-are-sick-of-us-transgender-people-what-do-you-actually-want-us-to-do/831428/61 "2019-03-25T02:28:37Z")
Rock on transgenders Although I am not a transgender, I am sure all of us have experienced bias in one form or other and to a more or lesser degree. When I have encountered bias, my personal thoughts have been to forgive and pity the person with bias. Often their own lives have miseries that they project as bias - I do not know the psychological term for it. Many times they also have a mental picture of “your kind” that they are reluctant to examine because they fear that their entire picture of the world may change. Anyways, your life is more precious than to let this effect your life. An audiobook that has really helped me is - You are not your mind by Eckhart Tolle. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2019, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-of-you-who-are-sick-of-us-transgender-people-what-do-you-actually-want-us-to-do/831428/62 "2019-03-25T04:38:15Z")
Pick a side, we’re at war! ---
**Author:** ![Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hilarity_n.suze/32/6223_2.png) [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hilarity_N.Suze)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2019, 7:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-of-you-who-are-sick-of-us-transgender-people-what-do-you-actually-want-us-to-do/831428/63 "2019-03-25T07:34:53Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > Pardon the hijack, but do men and women tend to have different shaped nailbeds? I can guarantee you that’s a detail I’ve never noticed. What’s the difference? I’m just here to tell you, as a person who has worked as a hand model, that there are a LOT of different shapes of nailbed, for men and women. Men’s fingers and nail beds seem to be squarer than women’s, in general. But they both have all kinds. I will also add that it’s a thing most people don’t notice consciously. If they do notice and they’re not somebody close to you, they’re probably manicurists. Or somebody hiring a hand model. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2019, 11:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-of-you-who-are-sick-of-us-transgender-people-what-do-you-actually-want-us-to-do/831428/64 "2019-03-25T11:22:53Z")
> [@am77494](#): > > Rock on transgenders > > Although I am not a transgender, I am sure all of us have experienced bias in one form or other and to a more or lesser degree. When I have encountered bias, my personal thoughts have been to forgive and pity the person with bias. Often their own lives have miseries that they project as bias - I do not know the psychological term for it. Many times they also have a mental picture of “your kind” that they are reluctant to examine because they fear that their entire picture of the world may change. > > Anyways, your life is more precious than to let this effect your life. An audiobook that has really helped me is - You are not your mind by Eckhart Tolle. That’s probably easier to do if those people’s biases aren’t stopping you from going to the bathroom and they aren’t beating the shit out of you. Biases against transgender people really do affect their lives, sometimes in violent ways. I don’t think transgender people really have a choice in whether anti-trans bias affects them. ---
**Author:** ![kleptomaniac](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kleptomaniac/32/466_2.png) [@kleptomaniac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kleptomaniac)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2019, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-of-you-who-are-sick-of-us-transgender-people-what-do-you-actually-want-us-to-do/831428/65 "2019-03-25T12:53:08Z")
Not to deviate off topic but can explain why transgender people who transition are very very rare? (for any who think I’m anti-trans, I’m not. I actually have a cousin who is partially transitioning. I don’t necessarily believe it’s a mental illness) Money and media influence aside which you can’t deny has influenced some, is it genetic? ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2019, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-of-you-who-are-sick-of-us-transgender-people-what-do-you-actually-want-us-to-do/831428/66 "2019-03-25T12:54:12Z")
> [@SmartAleq](#): > > Well, trans people can be just as annoying as cis people and nobody’s so amazing that everyone in the world likes them so I wouldn’t worry TOO hard about finding your trans coworker irritating. Sounds like it’s less a trans thing than just an annoying person thing and the dress issue is something their direct supervisor will need to address if necessary. > > I have an acquaintance who was super fucking annoying even before she decided to transition and she’s super fucking annoying now–I mean, to the point that, in private and speaking to good friends who also know her I will, once in a while, intentionally misgender her to convey just HOW annoying I find her. It’s mean of me but once in a while my irritation with her just gets away from me. I do try to find better ways of being insulting about her incredibly annoying ways though because misgendering her is such a cheap shot it makes me feel bad to be so fucking inept. This is a bit like referring to a specific black man with the N-word - you’re no longer simply talking about one person. You’re using a person’s identity as a cudgel against them, and that hurts _everyone with that identity_. In this specific case, you’re making it clear that their gender is not something implicit to them, but rather something you grant at your patience, and if _any_ trans person pisses you off, they can expect this kind of dehumanizing treatment. I hope I shouldn’t have to explain why this is kind of an awful thing to do. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2019, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-of-you-who-are-sick-of-us-transgender-people-what-do-you-actually-want-us-to-do/831428/67 "2019-03-25T13:11:04Z")
> [@Royal\_Nonesutch](#): > > The notoriously bigoted homophobe Martina Navratilova used to agree with you, but she has thankfully evolved and is now sufficiently Woke. Navratilova has stuck to her guns, actually, despite apologizing for the tone of one comment. She continues to be called a “TERF” and other nonsense, and continues to say women should have a shot at competitive sports. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2019, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-of-you-who-are-sick-of-us-transgender-people-what-do-you-actually-want-us-to-do/831428/68 "2019-03-25T13:24:31Z")
The other problem with “bathroom police” is that there are some cisgender folks who just plain don’t look like their gender. Should a woman who looks like a teenage boy (but whose birth certificate says “F”, has female organs, and considers herself a woman) have to use the men’s bathroom? What about a boy who looks like a girl? And then there are some folks who don’t really “pass” as either gender. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2019, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-of-you-who-are-sick-of-us-transgender-people-what-do-you-actually-want-us-to-do/831428/69 "2019-03-25T13:34:14Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Navratilova has stuck to her guns, actually, despite apologizing for the tone of one comment. She continues to be called a “TERF” and other nonsense, and continues to say women should have a shot at competitive sports. She continues to be called a “TERF” (Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist, a very kind and descriptive label for a group of people who are more accurately referred to as Feminism-Appropriating Reactionary Transphobes) because she continues to [act like a TERF](https://www.martinanavratilova.com/update-on-recent-transgender-debate). I attached the label to a notional case in which someone cynically changes gender, perhaps temporarily, to gain a competitive advantage. We should not be blind to the possibility and some of these rules are making that possible and legal. This doesn’t actually happen, and the IOC rules exist in no small part to ensure that this cannot happen, because competitive advantages tend to disappear after a while on HRT, but sound off I guess. These include height, weight, bone-density and muscularity. These advantages play a different role depending on the sport, with power-lifting being the biggest and most obvious advantage. Can we make sure those advantages are nullified so that women who have transitioned from men have the same level of physical capability they would have had if they been born female? Clearly, we can’t, because you cannot lose those extra inches of height (five inches on average) no matter what you do; some advantages of weight and muscle built up over time are also likely to remain, so to what acceptable degree should they disappear? She makes this sound like it’s a real problem, but since the IOC changed their rules to allow trans people to participate in the olympics, we’ve had hundreds of thousands of olympians, and _not a single one was a transwoman_. The list of transgender athletes people bring up is very short, usually starting with a minor-league MMA fighter with a decent but not spectacular record and ending with a powerlifter who was far from dominating her field, with maybe a tiny handful of names in between. There just aren’t very many trans athletes playing at a high level, and approximately zero playing at an olympic level. Well, there’s one - [he’s a transman](https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-sports/chris-mosier-on-making-history-as-first-trans-member-of-team-usa-250971/), exactly the opposite of what TERFs would expect. The correct time to be concerned about transwomen dominating womens’ sports is when it starts to look possible or probable, not when there are zero transwomen playing sports at the highest level. It is a solution desperately in search of a problem. It’s blatant transphobia - literally a fear of trans people not based in reality. It’s not a real or current concern that is reasonable to be have. Spend some time on her twitter feed and it’s hard to miss examples of this kind of transphobia. So yes. Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist. Hardly a complicated concept. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2019, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-of-you-who-are-sick-of-us-transgender-people-what-do-you-actually-want-us-to-do/831428/70 "2019-03-25T13:41:03Z")
> [@Royal\_Nonesutch](#): > > The notoriously bigoted homophobe Martina Navratilova used to agree with you, but she has thankfully evolved and is now sufficiently Woke. > > (meaning that after she went on record with this tidbit of common sense that 20 short years ago, 99.95% of all humans on Earth would have wholeheartedly agreed with, she got a panicked call from her agent telling her that she better change her tune toot sweet, as the Transgendered now outrank lesbians in the Oppression Olympics) I’m having trouble understanding this post, and parsing out what is literal and what is sarcastic and what is just plain obnoxious. Navratilova is openly lesbian. It would be surprising to me to see her described as a homophobe. May I as for a translation of this post in more literal terms? ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2019, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-of-you-who-are-sick-of-us-transgender-people-what-do-you-actually-want-us-to-do/831428/71 "2019-03-25T13:50:08Z")
My biggest quandary is what to do with sports. I am of the opinion that woman’s sports should be continuously female from birth to present day. While men’s sports be made a open category for anyone. Other categories also accepted. Not saying that is the way to do it, but it still needs to play itself out to see where the new balance point is ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2019, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-of-you-who-are-sick-of-us-transgender-people-what-do-you-actually-want-us-to-do/831428/72 "2019-03-25T13:55:23Z")
When I use the women’s bathroom, I am not going to ask the other women for proof they are double XX’s. Every public bathroom I use is either a single stall, or has individual stalls for more than one women. I’m there to do my business, wash my hands, and leave. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2019, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-of-you-who-are-sick-of-us-transgender-people-what-do-you-actually-want-us-to-do/831428/73 "2019-03-25T14:10:03Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > My biggest quandary is what to do with sports. I am of the opinion that woman’s sports should be continuously female from birth to present day. The problem with that is that there are people who present as female from birth to the day when they go to a gynecologist and discover they’re testosterone-insensitive XY. Or any of a bunch of other conditions. When we can’t even define biological sex, mixing sociological crap on top is just confusing for everybody involved. ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2019, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-of-you-who-are-sick-of-us-transgender-people-what-do-you-actually-want-us-to-do/831428/74 "2019-03-25T14:18:23Z")
A few years ago when North Carolina passed its bathroom bill, I was hoping someone well along in their F-T-M transition would go into the women’s room and when all the screeching started, whip out their birth certificate saying, “Sorry, ladies. The state mandates I use this one.” ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2019, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-of-you-who-are-sick-of-us-transgender-people-what-do-you-actually-want-us-to-do/831428/75 "2019-03-25T14:22:12Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > I’m having trouble understanding this post, and parsing out what is literal and what is sarcastic and what is just plain obnoxious. Navratilova is openly lesbian. It would be surprising to me to see her described as a homophobe. May I as for a translation of this post in more literal terms? The post is being sarcastic. Navratilova recently opined that transwomen playing women’s sports with all their male advantages was unfair, and she was ripped to shreds by critics saying she was a “TERF” and homophobic and awful. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2019, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-of-you-who-are-sick-of-us-transgender-people-what-do-you-actually-want-us-to-do/831428/76 "2019-03-25T14:28:20Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > My biggest quandary is what to do with sports. I am of the opinion that woman’s sports should be continuously female from birth to present day. While men’s sports be made a open category for anyone. Other categories also accepted. > > Not saying that is the way to do it, but it still needs to play itself out to see where the new balance point is I’m going to assume for the moment that the reason you say this is because you think trans athletes have an advantage. Given that, what percentage of olympic athletes are transwomen? How many have we had since the IOC allowed them to take part? How many might we expect? ---
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2019, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-of-you-who-are-sick-of-us-transgender-people-what-do-you-actually-want-us-to-do/831428/77 "2019-03-25T14:35:32Z")
All you should “do” is be yourself, because it is your inalienable right to be an individual with equal rights and an equal opportunity for “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”. However, that’s a lot easier to do in an urban environment which is far more acceptable of diversity in its many forms than some community in the Bible Belt. You didn’t mention where you live, so you many already be in the most optimum environment possible. If not, though, you might think about relocating. ---
**Author:** ![Royal\_Nonesutch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ecb155/32.png) [@Royal\_Nonesutch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Royal_Nonesutch)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2019, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-of-you-who-are-sick-of-us-transgender-people-what-do-you-actually-want-us-to-do/831428/78 "2019-03-25T14:41:55Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Navratilova recently opined that transwomen playing women’s sports with all their male advantages was unfair, and she was ripped to shreds by critics saying she was a “TERF” and homophobic and awful. And in the Straight Dope thread that originally discussed Navratilova’s candid, common sense comments, one of the Smartest, Hippest (a fine fellow who spends his time online bravely championing the downtrodden and outcasts of society and apparently also enjoys having sex with mentally ill, sexually confused teenagers) earnestly asserted that lesbians as a group are some of the most “Transphobic” people on Earth. The Ignorance Is On The Ropes! ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2019, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-of-you-who-are-sick-of-us-transgender-people-what-do-you-actually-want-us-to-do/831428/79 "2019-03-25T14:46:03Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > I’m going to assume for the moment that the reason you say this is because you think trans athletes have an advantage. Perhaps more to the meaning is that, as a generalization, females have a disadvantage in sports, which is based on biology. If transgendered women seems to compete well in this category (women’s sports), and don’t seem to hold a advantage, but are equally competitive then they should be allowed to compete as I see it. And we can go merrily along with mens and woman’s sports. Though I believe this is yet to be proven. > [@](#): > > Given that, what percentage of olympic athletes are transwomen? How many have we had since the IOC allowed them to take part? How many might we expect? I have no idea, and the Olympics is a very small, almost insignificant in itself, part of professional and amateur sports in general. Wouldn’t you agree? Add to that national pride, and while countries want to win, then don’t really want to be seen as cheaters, so they may not be so willing to enter a transperson. A above posting stated about biological ‘transgendering’ (for lack of a better term), where one person thought they were a certain gender and only found out later then were the opposite. It’s interesting in the case of sports and I wouldn’t be surprised if many super athletes have some biological anomalies that account for their ability. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2019, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-of-you-who-are-sick-of-us-transgender-people-what-do-you-actually-want-us-to-do/831428/80 "2019-03-25T15:06:37Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > Perhaps more to the meaning is that, as a generalization, females have a disadvantage in sports, which is based on biology. If transgendered women seems to compete well in this category (women’s sports), and don’t seem to hold a advantage, but are equally competitive then they should be allowed to compete as I see it. And we can go merrily along with mens and woman’s sports. Though I believe this is yet to be proven. The actual science surrounding this seems to indicate that within a year or two of hormone replacement therapy, there is effectively no significant competitive edge for transwomen. In reality, this is very much born out: > [@](#): > > I have no idea, and the Olympics is a very small, almost insignificant in itself, part of professional and amateur sports in general. It’s made up of tens of thousands of people each event. What’s more, it is undoubtably the highest-profile and highest-level sports available. If transwomen were able to compete on an even playing field with women, we would expect at least _some_ portion of olympic athletes to be transwomen. If transwomen had an unreasonable advantage, we would expect quite a few olympic athletes to be transwomen. But we don’t see that. We haven’t even seen _one_. Which would indicate to me that far from having a competitive edge, there’s something holding transwomen back from competing on the same level of women. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that the moment a transwoman has any degree of success in women’s sports, they become the poster child du jour of angry transphobes. (Hell, they don’t even need to be successful, it’s enough for them to look out of place - maybe you’ve seen pictures of Gabrielle Ludwig towering over teammates flying around as “proof” that transwomen don’t belong in women’s sports. Gabrielle Ludwig is not the tallest WNCA player - she barely cracks the top 10 - but more importantly, she isn’t even a player, she’s an _assistant coach_ for a team that is in no way noteworthy or spectacular.) But okay, moving away from the level of “olympic athletes”, maybe someone who shares your concern can let us know what percentage of professional female athletes are transwomen. Is it more or less than we would expect? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-of-you-who-are-sick-of-us-transgender-people-what-do-you-actually-want-us-to-do/831428.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-of-you-who-are-sick-of-us-transgender-people-what-do-you-actually-want-us-to-do/831428.md?page=5)