This is a warning for personal insults and harassment. You received a warning 2 weeks ago for making a similarly sarcastic but insulting post as well. I suggest you do not push your luck.
[/moderating]
Again if borne out then there is no issue. And going further if it was borne out wrong it is self correcting. If allowed to compete in their chosen gender class transgendered people compete unequally that will become obvious and then corrective steps will have to be taken.
I believe you are being disingenuous here and really stretching. We are talking about the athletes who compete in the Olympics.
And I say this is cherry picking. Comparing these numbers to all the professional and amateur sports leagues, including college and school teams, and the olympics is really a small elite niche sporting venue.
You state something as fact which is unprovable. I would say what you state logically can not be fact. Does it happen, yes I’m sure it does to many. But it is not a fact unless it happens 100% in the format you put forth. If you can prove that it always happens the exact ‘moment’ that a transwoman has any degree of success I would love to see that.
Now if you want to state that there is that sentiment, OK I’m fine with going with allowing them to compete in their chosen gender class as long as the option exists to make changes if there is a obvious competitive inequality. Either way it will be proven over time and life will go on.
…
Perhaps one will. If you are talking about statistically as part of the general population, I would say there would be many factors including childhood/school social environment, and other factors that would in itself lead to a different percentage of the population of transgendered in any field.
Exactly. There’s absolutely nothing stopping us from fixing this if and when it becomes a problem.
Okay, so not tens of thousands, just thousands.
2,952 is a lot of people. Statistically speaking, at least one of them should be expected to be trans, right? (Well, statistically speaking, if transwomen are on the level with ciswomen, 11 of them should be expected to be trans).
Well, I mean, you’re welcome to provide figures for professional or amateur sports leagues. I don’t have those figures, but maybe you can provide them. What I can say is that I have a useful anecdote: as said, any time a transwoman has some modicum of success, they become the focus of TERF discourse. And for some reason, you always hear the same handful of names. Fallon Fox, Laurel Hubbard, Rachel McKinnon, and… That’s about it. Kind of telling, right?
And, though her example is now old enough that she may not be widely known any longer: Renee Richards, who fought to compete on the women’s tennis tour in the 1970s. As the Wikipedia article notes, she didn’t start playing tennis professionally until her 40s, and she now believes that, had she transitioned to female in her 20s, she would have had a markedly unfair advantage over other female players.
(Also, ironically, after retiring as a player, she coached Navratilova.)
They don’t just show up for one week’s games. The Olympics are part of a huge, international system in which thousands (I’d easily believe tens or thousands) of athletes compete at multiple levels all over the world to achieve Olympic status.
I’m fine what that.
Major math screwup here
The word ‘Telling’ seems to be jumping to conclusions.
OK I miscalculated and deleted my reply but times out before I could get in the correction, so had to repost this section. OK if we take 0.6% of the world population as transgendered then statistically about 18 should be transgendered.
So yes, if there are no transgendered athletes in the olympics then there are none. Why is that IDK. Though again overall it is a very small percentage of the population who are olympic athletes and there are statsitical problems when dealign with small numbers
transgender people are like what 1% of the population? Less?
There’s really no reason why they should be so controversial. People will argue on facebook about why they shouldn’t have to call you your pronoun, when they probably will never be in that situation anyway. But really they don’t want to show you manners or extend respect. Cis people can feel their privilege slowly eroding and rudeness makes them feel like they’re holding on.
They pretend to be baffled about pronouns and restrooms and sports. It’s all an act. They see heteronormativity slipping so they double down on the “BUT WHAT LETTER WOULD WE PUT ON YOUR DRIVER’S LICENSE” bewilderment.
I’ve played competitive roller derby against two trans women and they absolutely beat the shit out of the rest of us. There really isn’t another woman that can go toe to toe with them. I’m essentially useless against either of them.
I don’t know what the ‘answer’ is for this ‘problem’, but I still would rather get flattened by them on the occasions we played against them than be yet another person that makes them feel like they don’t belong.
I don’t really understand what this has to do with the rather obvious fact that men are way better than women at sports, and a trans woman who has only recently gone on hormone blockers - or hasn’t at all - retains many/all of those advantages.
To answer your question, the IOC only began allowing trans athletes as of the 2004 Games and then only after full reassignment surgery. Only in 2015 was the surgical requirement dropped but the testosterone limit kept, leaving athletes an impossibly short period oftime to gear up and qualify for Rio, and almost impossible for Pyeongchang, and of course it’s still dependent on a sport’s governing body allowing trans athletes.
How many we might expect in the future, who knows. What we do know is that we are just beginning to see trans athletes winning manifestly unfair competitions; Rachel McKinnon and Laurel Hubbard, or the two kids who easily won the Connecticut track events, being the most famous examples. Maybe you’ll brand me a “TERF” for mentioning those names, but there’s a reason they’re mentioned; because they’re the examples, and with competitive events now even eliminating the requirement for testosterone blocking, we’ll see more.
I will say this; the capacity for people to take unfair advantage to win sporting events is without limit. You will always, always, always have people who will do whatever they can outside the rules of the sport or ordinary decency to win. Sports are involved in a neverending battle against that.
Some sports have different categories based on things like weight, others have a handicap.
I ponder about the words ‘sport’ and ‘sporting’ in this context as well. It would be a honor for me to play against Tiger Woods at golf or one on one with LeBron James at basketball, however it would not be sporting.
Again I say we can let this be and let the chips fall where they may. While I do suspect they will ‘fall’ in very unpleasant spots, but would be happy if they didn’t.
I personally can’t get too worked up over the idea that some people involved in sports may have an inherent physical advantage that allows them to succeed over their competitors.
You know, most of the scare tactics revolve around strained “what ifs”? :
*
What if* a Male decides to use the Womens restroom just to catch a glimpse?
*What if *males start to become female just to compete in Womens sports?
Etc, etc.
My answer is- IF those actually become a serious problem, rather than a “what if”, we can address those then.
But I think it is doubtful those will become a serious problem.
I mean," What If" men had their lower legs cut off to get those new “bionic” feet/legs?
The main reasons not to transition would be lack of money (it costs tens of thousands of dollars at minimum and is usually not covered by insurance; Caitlyn Jenner is estimated to have spent over $100,000), lack of resources (rural people who just don’t have the doctors available to do it), and physical ineffectiveness (some transgender women are just never going to be able to pass, and a lot of them live in an environment that be would extremely toxic to failure to pass). Transgender men find it easier to pass than women, and there are probably more men who have transitioned at least socially than you expect.
This is not a easy problem to address, as it would be churlish to accuse these people of “going trans” just to gain a competitive advantage. But that doesn’t change the fact that it IS an advantage.
This is the heart of the contention, even among some of those who are most accepting of transgender people (operational or otherwise): the insistence that a transgender woman should be considered “the same” as any other woman, in all contexts, to avoid making them feel “different”, as “gender is a social construct”, so let’s ignore the biological details as irrelevant. (And of course, the same for F2M transgenders.)
I have no problem at all - knowing several transgender people, some from before they “converted” and some who only mentioned it at some point after we were better acquainted - in considering them as the gender they prefer. If such a person were in a bathroom that I entered, so what?
What I do find irksome is the current push to “normalize” this - and I do NOT mean that they are “abnormal” in the sense of “should be corrected, fixed, demonized, etc.”, but the simple meaning of “this is standard/common”. Or that not making constant notes or expansions of ordinary speech to accomodate the full/expanded set of gender participants is “hateful”.
Here’s an example of something I had to roll my eyes over recently. Even as I admit to seeing how were I in that person’s position, I’d find it an everyday irritant, why does that make it mine (and everybody else’s) “problem” to have to acknowledge their unusual situation all the time?
In a feminist professional group discussion, someone raised a mostly-joking objection to the phrase “seminal work” for an influential scientific research paper (because “seminal” = “semen”).
Someone else then joined in, saying they should promote the term “uterine lab” for a place that took a theoretical “seminal work” but actually spent the time and energy to make a tangible result.
You’d think this comment would go over well with that audience, but feathers were immediately ruffled. “That is rude/inconsiderate/hateful: not all women have uteruses.”
Well, yes. That part (excuse the inadvertent pun) should be admitted. But in every context, even this one?
I understand the “silence = acquiescence, fight back against oppression wherever it happens!” platform; I just find it tiring and unnecessary, even as someone who sympathizes.
(I also am irked by the labeling of that “tired of constantly being recruited as co-combatant” as some kind of “privilege”, but that’s yet another rant.)
I agree.
Also, I do not think the people passing laws that force you to use the bathroom of the gender you were born as really thought it through.
Imagine a trans man using the women’s bathroom. They are abiding by the law but now the women in the bathroom are seeing what appears to be a man walk in. Fun times for everyone. :rolleyes:
My only “complaint” (quotes because that word is stronger than I want it to be) are trans people who put the onus on me to get it right with the gender thing where they are concerned. If someone wants me to refer to them in a particular way then tell me and I will happily oblige. If it is a chance encounter (like bumping into someone and saying, “Excuse me miss”) I think everyone should leave it be and go on their merry way.
I was in a coffee shop and the clerk had a sign on the counter admonishing customers to not assume their gender. That bugged me because they were telling me to not do the wrong thing instead of telling me how to do the right thing. Instead I wish they just wrote down how they would like to be addressed. Sir, Ma’am, Miss, Professor X, Suzie, George…whatever.
Another ally checking in.
Here in Philly, we have our first transgender candidate for city council. Deja (I cannot remember her middle or last name) has respectable credentials and made some points I agree with. But, there arer 33 candidates running for very few seats and I haven’t really done enough research to know for sure who I am voting for yet.
Here in Pennsylvania, we have a cis girl student filing a sexual harassment suit against a trans girl student. The trans girl is NOT accused of touching, saying anything, or even staring. The suit says the very presence of a trans girl in the locker room constitutes sexual harassment. I am disgusted and furious.
Re Bathrooms
In a perfect world, I have the bathroom all to myself. The presence of ANYBODY whilst I am trying to urinate makes me self conscious and nervous. If there is somebody in the next stall (it must be a stall. I am thoroughly unable to use a urinal), their gender is unimportant.
Re ‘Trick Photography’
I’ve learned not to use this argument. As has been said, it enforces strict standards of beauty
Re Asking For Pronouns
I’ve been informed by many trans, genderfluid, and non binary folk that being misgendered is more painful than being asked “What pronoun should I use for you?”
I agree that the biological details are important. They’re not important in the sense that I PERSONALLY care what someone’s biology is, but it’s important to how people define themselves. Gender may be a social construct, biological sex is not. Otherwise you could just say, “well, if it’s all abstract theoretical ideas, then why do you need to change your body to “match” your gender? If you feel you’re a woman, then just be a woman, regardless of what your body looks like or what genitals you were born with.” You could say “to hell with all the surgery and hormones and everything, there’s no point because your body is your body.” But that’s not how it works! Our bodies are part of our identities.
If you ask a bodybuilder “why do you make your body this way? What’s the point?” the answer would be “because that’s how I want it to be.” And I think 99% of the time, they wouldn’t just say “it’s because I want it to look like this,” they’d say “it’s because I want it to FEEL like this.”
A mind-body connection is an integral part of human existence.
As it pertains to sports, I would say that those who are worked up into a frenzy about the idea of trans-women invading women’s sports and demolishing everyone else with their unfair advantage, should just stop looking for a solution in search of a problem. It’s something that will have to be dealt with on a case by case basis with individual athletes. It’s not some sky-is-falling catastrophe.
I do agree that it presents some ethical quandaries. But let’s keep some perspective here.
I concur. Unless someone is doing it deliberately rudely, just correct them and move on.
These IOC guidelines allow transfeminine athletes who have undergone HRT, and the guidelines are based on various studies that have found that athletic advantages among women on HRT largely disappears. In the intervening time there have been thousands of olympic athletes. None of them are transfeminine. If this is ever going to become a problem, which the current evidence does not seem to indicate, it’s certainly not a problem now. Why not wait until there’s any indication it could become a problem?
Barring the kids in Connecticut, because I haven’t seen that case… They’re also painfully bad examples of anything resembling “unfairness”.
Laurel Hubbard was a world-class, record-setting weightlifter before transitioning, and is now again a world-class weightlifter. Y’know what she’s not? As dominant as one might expect a man to be in a women’s weightlifting field. This is the discipline where male-female discrepancy is the most apparent, and what do we see? Three regional wins, second place in an international competition, and a “did not finish” due to an injury. Yes, clearly this is someone whose built-in physical nature puts her head and shoulders above any competition. :rolleyes:
Rachel McKinnon has been biking competitively for over a decade. She was nowhere near “dominant” in her world championship victory, and before transition she was also a professional athlete. All available evidence indicates that she should have no or close to no advantage. Her actual stats? In line with ciswomen (her peak power is higher, but it’s what you’d expect given her figure, and because her figure increases drag, it’s a wash, competitively). Her other results? Again, she’s not dominating the field; she’s won one world championship in 10+ years of competition.
You can’t just point to individual anecdotes of transwomen winning competitions and say “that’s unfair”. That’s asinine; as if any trans woman winning any event ever is proof that post-transition transwomen have a baked-in advantage. The available evidence indicates that they don’t, and there is no evidence that generalizes from these wins to the general population. What do you want to bet that the next female cycling world champion is going to be a ciswoman? I’d reckon pretty good odds, seeing as Rachel is the only noteworthy trans track cyclist, and this is her first world championship victory. To quote McKinnon:
3rd place (Jennifer Wagner) claims it’s unfair for me to compete. At Masters Worlds, she beat me in the 500m TT. She beat me in 6 of 7 races at the 2017 Intelligentsia Cup. In 2016 she beat me in all 3 Speed Week crits. She’s won 11 of our 13 races.
…and it’s unfair? Excuse me?
This is what the double-bind for trans women athletes looks like: when we win, it’s because we’re transgender and it’s unfair; when we lose, no one notices (and it’s because we’re just not that good anyway). Even when it’s the SAME racer. That’s what transphobia looks like.
I do wonder - was it just as unfair the times Jennifer Wagner beat McKinnon, and she won through pluck and extraordinary effort? Or is this whole framing kind of nonsensical?
In fact, I just noticed something. Those victories? They actually don’t prove anything at all if you don’t accept the premise that it’s inherently unfair for these women to participate - the thing you’re trying to prove in the first place! The argument is painfully circular.
And you know what? If, ten years down the line, it turns out that some ridiculous number of olympic medals (if you want to nail me down to a number, let’s say 4% - about ten times the rate one would expect from the population) are going to transwomen, I’ll agree that we probably need to take another look at those rules, that there’s something wrong.
But right now? There’s nothing. We just don’t have any evidence that transwomen are going to dominate women’s sports. Even the cases you cite as anecdotal evidence don’t prove what you think they do. If transwomen were able to compete at approximately the same level as ciswomen, sometimes, transwomen would win. Hell, even if transwomen as a whole had a disadvantage (they actually often have lower T levels than ciswomen), you’d see them win sometimes! It doesn’t show an “unfair advantage” at all! Maybe, just maybe, Rachel McKinnon earned that world championship, and it’s actually really fucking shitty, disrespectful, and transphobic to act like she cheated, or didn’t deserve it, or that the playing field was tilted in her favor. Well, okay, let’s be honest here - no maybe about it. It’s just shitty, disrespectful, and transphobic.