I support Una Persson. I was gonna say more, but suddenly got very sleepy.
Yes. It results in trans women not being able to compete at all. Because the one thing we do know is that trans women can’t compete with men.
You can’t use the logic about cis women not being able to win, but then leave trans women unable to win and call it fair.
You’re no better off than when you started. You’re actually a bit worse, since you lump trans women in with men, adding to their discrimination.
Just because there are more cis women doesn’t mean that they have more pull than trans women. In fact, I’d say that the basic message for the entire Civil Rights movement: just because they are a minority doesn’t mean they are less important.
That’s what it means to not be discriminatory. The rights of the majority and the minority matter equally. You think things are unfair for cis women? Figure out a way to make it fair for cis and trans women.
Not just throw the trans women under the bus.
Trans “woman” wins weightlifting championship?? Cheating. Sorry but our bones are different. Our muscles are different! WAYYy different. A non-expert can see the difference of male and female skeletons, it’s pretty dimorphic. Well, you can google for examples anyway.
When will they start boxing matches between trans-women and women? Or will they allow that? They should- if they allowed the weightlifting thing - whomever “they” is.
Cite that these differences give a transwoman an unfair advantage? The IOC seems to be perfectly OK with letting transwomen compete as women, but what do they know, right?
And what’s with “women” in quotation marks?
It’s happened in MMA. The cis-woman won, Fallon Fox’s clearly superior bones notwithstanding.
That’s been done already. I can give you more cites that men overall have strength advantages women don’t have. Even differences that were hypothesized may not exist.
That’s a pretty good head start one has as having previously been a male. I’ll cite another advantage at the end of my post.
Suggesting that someone that has been a cis man until his mid thirties has lost all strength advantages of being a man a few years after becoming transgenedered is a bold statement.
This sounds a bit like a straw man. There is much more skill involved in MMA fighting than is in Olympic lifting, which is more reliant on pure strength. No one is suggesting that every cis man could win every fight with every woman, especially professional fighters. How did Fox fare fighting professional male fighters when she was a man? How successful was Hubbard as a male weightlifter when he competed against men? How many female to male transgenders are winning in mens weightlifting competitions or competing in mens MMA? If transitioning makes strength equal, is it just coincidence that we’re not hearing about FTM weightlifters and MMA fighters? It’s not just about who wins; it’s also about having an unfair advantage in qualifying.
Regarding Fallon’s “superior bones”, here is a quote from from a cis woman that lost and was badly hurt in an MMA fight with Fox:
I’ve fought a lot of women and have never felt the strength that I felt in a fight as I did that night. I can’t answer whether it’s because she was born a man or not because I’m not a doctor. I can only say, I’ve never felt so overpowered ever in my life and I am an abnormally strong female in my own right,” she stated. “Her grip was different, I could usually move around in the clinch against other females but couldn’t move at all in Fox’s clinch…
http://www.cagepotato.com/tag/fallon-fox/
Anecdotal, yes. Men having thicker wrists and bigger hands, bones and joints isn’t. The fighter above mentioned Fox’s strong grip and not being able to move around in the clinch. Hand and wrist size are factors in grip strength:
…and one neither you, nor anyone else, has proven with scientific citations to be false, nor even an unbalancing feature. Your cite to cisgender men is pretty meaningless from the context of this conversation.
Moreover the fact outside of the science that no one has shown an actual domination of any sport by transgender women. I’ve done my legwork on this with many citations.
There is no “proof” in science. My cites are not meaningless. Transgender women start off as cisgender men. Do their hands shrink when they become transgender? Their bone structure? Does all of the muscle and strength lessen to that of average cis women?
What besides hormones makes it so they don’t have an advantage in certain sports? If it’s just or mostly about hormones, shouldn’t that work in reverse also? Men and women professional bodybuilders pump themselves full of hormones. The same with men and women powerlifters and weightlifters. If you’re right, I would expect to see similar biceps, thighs, etc. measurements at the top level of male and female bodybuilders, similar bench press records in male and female powerlifters and similar records in weightlifting. But the comparisons aren’t even in the same ball park. I can show you those comparisons, but I’m sure you’d claim that those cites are meaningless also, so I won’t bother.
That’s been brought up in posts 51 and 52. Also not sure what your standards are for one to “dominate” a sport. Do they need to become the Michael Jordan of a sport?
The subject of the OP just won the Australian International weightlifting competition and set a national record in the process. When she was a man, she competed as a Gavin Hubbard. Where are the similar accomplishments when she was a man? Where is any transgender man winning weightlifting competitions? Where is the transgender man competing in MMA?
If it were a mediocre quarterback, and not Tom Brady, that was underinflating his footballs, would that quarterback have be catapulted to the top of the sport to prove an advantage in underinflated footballs? Your bias is showing when your level of proof for trans women having an unfair advantage is having to dominate a sport.
Her winning total was 268 kg combined for both lifts. The world record is 348 kg. 80 kg more. Not dominant at all.
Good thing I didn’t claim a world record. Nothing you wrote shows anything wrong with what you put in bold.
Not always. I didn’t. I don’t think you understand those words.
You haven’t shown any credible evidence that “bone structure” is contributing an unusual advantage, other than an anecdote about Fallon Fox’s “grip.”
Don’t you know? If not, why are you pushing the claim?
Um, first off not all hormones are the same.
Impressive strawman - you bring up people pumping chemicals and hormones (which are not necessarily the same as performance-enhancing drugs) illegally or in violation of sporting rules, then ask why we don’t see similar records between men and women…um, maybe because the vast majority of the records are set by people who aren’t using illegal hormones?
There’s always ouliers. One person wins a competition or two. And? Read my cites (they’ve been posted numerous times). I’ve done my legwork in the science and medical databases and I can’t find a bias. I mean you haven’t even mentioned things like the change in hemoglobin levels in transgender women, nor the measured change in muscle cross-section. These are things that have been studied.
And thankfully, the doctors, sports medicine experts, and researchers of the IOC and other sporting bodies agree with me.
They do in the examples in this thread. I don’t think you understand context. But you’re pretty good at snark.
Yes, I have. And I can show more. The “anecdote” also came along with a study I posted. Men have bigger hands and wrists than women. Those differences make for a significant difference in grip strength.
No, you’re pushing a claim, so why don’t you answer?
Um, first off, I didn’t claim they were.
Men and women bodybuilders, weightlifters and powerlifters have shown they will inject testosterone and synthetic versions of testosterone at any level it takes to win. Why aren’t females in those sports comparable to men in size and strength?
You don’t know what a straw man is. You definitely have no clue what goes on in mens and womens bodybuilding, powerlifting and weightlifting. The majority are using illegal hormones. Yes, there are other PEDs. So what? If our bodies are athletically equal aside from hormones, why such differences in size and strength in those athletes? Next I’m going to hear how it’s up to me to prove that height is advantageous in basketball and prove that there are size differences in the skeletons between men and women.
What do you mean “and”? You are the one who posted “no one has shown an actual domination of any sport by transgender women.” After being shown something you post “and”? Outliers? Would you be making that same claim if it were the other way around regarding a trans woman MMA fighter or weightlifter? You sure wouldn’t.
So how about answering:
The subject of the OP just won the Australian International weightlifting competition and set a national record in the process. When she was a man, she competed as a Gavin Hubbard. Where are the similar accomplishments when she was a man? Where is any transgender man winning weightlifting competitions? Where is the transgender man competing in MMA?
Fingers have no muscle. Grip strength comes from the forearms. Thickness of the wrist is primarily bone.
Also, the athlete in question has been tested for testosterone levels for over a year.
You’re the one insisting that the IOC and the sports medicine industry are all wrong and that transgender athletes should be barred from sports.
So if they’re taking illegal hormones, doesn’t competing with transgender people present a level playing field?
Why do you think it’s relevant that fingers have no muscles? You are aware that bone size and length is a factor in strength, right? In case you didn’t read the excerpt from the study I posted?:
What’s your point?
I didn’t do any of those things. I also haven’t been shown that the “sports medicine industry” has one opinion on the topic. Nor have I been shown that the IOC claimed that trans women have no advantages against cis women in all sports. Here:
Yes, it should…if it’s true that having been a man for years gives one no advantages over women other than differences in hormone levels.
You have been shown the conditions under which the IOC permits transgender women to compete in the women’s division. Shall I reiterate?
The IOC doesn’t seem to think “bone mass” or “wrist circumference” or “being a man for years” is important. Can you explain why they’re wrong?
That study has a few flaws.
Body fat %-Where do you find non-athletes that have such a low bodyfat? Average for that age is around 15%
The athletes are taller than the non-athletes.
The athletes are significantly heavier in lean body mass.
Forearm size is an unreliable measure. Strength is not only size but fiber recruitment.
A better study would look at athletes at the high and low levels of skill at a specific competition level.
The sports chosen are a strange mix. I would think grip would be much less a factor in volleyball or basketball than wrestling or weightlifting.
ETA: Hand size and finger length may improve hand grip but is it more strength or more surface area that increases total friction?
Fairness in sports is a highly subjective matter. Sometimes certain aspects offer a considerable advantage, but it somehow seems fair; other times, it’s the opposite. Putting aside this specific case for the moment, at a high enough level, sports really are a celebration of genes + training + luck. That is, why does it generally seem fair that one particular athlete is born with an atypical trait that gives then a specific advantage and they dominate a sport. As an example, I recall reading that Michael Phelps had a combination of several traits (hand/foot side, limb proportion, etc.) all of which gave him distinct advantages in terms of swimming, or the more typical example that someone is tall and it just gives them a natural advantage at Basketball (really, most sports for that matter). Hell, some seemingly innocuous stuff, like what time of year one is born can be a major determining factor in success at a sport–the oldest by almost a year in a given age bracket have a distinct advantage over the youngest.
But on the other side, to increase fairness in certain sports like weight lifting, wrestling, boxing, etc. we have weight classes because we inherently know that a 280 lbs man will destroy a 140 lbs man in any of those. But at the same time, if the weight classes were defined slightly differently, maybe we’d have different world champions in those weight classes. Maybe someone just so happens to be perfect for a 150 lbs class but they fall off JUST enough in favor of someone that’s ideal for 155, that if that was the weight class the second person would be the champion. These are fundamentally arbitrary divisions and yet they decide the very record books in many sports.
And then we get to division based on sex. It makes sense as, after all, in the overwhelming majority of cases, the world’s best women in a given sport just can’t compete with the world’s best men. And it’s a difficult question to apply to transgendered people. It seems to me that in some sports, the difference between a transgender and cisgender competitor, after sufficient time, will be negligible, where in others there will always be a distinct advantage that no amount of surgery or hormone therapy will overcome. The real question is whether or not those differences “should” count as more the Michael Phelps or “tall guy” type of thing where it’s different but it’s fair or if it’s more like punching down a weight class.
As someone who is interested in fitness, and is a gym rat myself, I’ve seen a lot of the arguments here and, really, it seems to me that weight lifting is among the sports where the advantages to a transwoman over a cisgendered woman will never reach parity. For example, leverages between men and women after puberty distinctly favor men, particularly notable by women’s larger hips which changes both the hip and knee angles to a disadvantage. Similarly, there can be differences in bone density, muscle fiber types, and distribution of muscles that may never reach parity, or would certainly take a long time.
In all of this, I’m totally behind transgender rights, but particularly in sports, it’s hard to really find any sort of solution that’s not seemingly just patently unfair to one group or the other, where both transgendered men and women would generally face a distinct disadvantage to cisgendered men and a distinct advantage to cisgendered women. The closest real world analogy I can really recall was an Olympic runner a few years ago who had two prosthetic legs and there was some concern that arose over whether those prosthetic legs instilled any meaningful advantage over natural lets. As I recall, this runner was eventually allowed to compete, and ended up not fairing well, but we can similarly imagine that he would have crushed if forced to compete in the Special Olympics, and had he won, there would have been an impossible dispel cloud looming over his victory about whether or not those prosthetic instilled any sort of advantage. In either case, we can’t really know, because we don’t and we can’t have a baseline for comparison.
No, you proved you don’t understand what cisgender and transgender mean. She could have never been cisgender, only physically transitioning later. These are actually important differences and indicate you don’t even understand the basic terminology. I doubt you even care, but others do.
Order of operations - you came in with the claims that transgender women enjoyed an unfair advantage. It’s up to you to prove it. You’ve failed.
That’s a bold claim. So there’s no doping testing? The “majority” in all events are doping with illegal hormones? How about some hard citations here before you continue on this vein, not more of your anecdotes? A “majority” can somehow escape all drug testing at all competition levels? Wow. I can’t wait to read your citations.
Proof you’ve refused to read my article, since I specifically called out height differences as a possible unfair advantage.
I freely acknowledge that height differences, for example, could create "unfair"situations in sports. But then there are very tall cisgender women, too. I work with a cisgender woman who is an honest 6 foot 4 inches. She plays basketball in a local league, and many times her competitors have claimed it’s “unfair” because she’s taller than almost all the other ladies by 4-6 inches. Mr. X-ray would likely never ban her from the sport, because she was born with ovaries. But a transgender woman who was the same height, or even shorter, well, she has BONES, giant BONES than make her stronger than the Incredible Hulk, more agile than Spider Man, with the sixth sense of Daredevil, and probably magic powers too like Dr. Strange, I don’t know.
Meanwhile, the fact that transgender men typically cannot compete with cisgender men gets a little swept under the rug (except by that one person recently who falsely claimed that HRT under medical care was “illegal doping,” despite the law, medical standards of care, and the sports rules not agreeing with them). Nobody cares about the transmen until one wins a competition. Then you can bet all the arguments of “(genetic) women are inherently weaker” will go out the window, and we’ll start to hear about how the hormones he took created BONES, giant brontosaurus-thick BONES… good grief.
Clearly it’s a developing field. A transgender woman also has a disadvantage in ANY women’s sport, because if she EVER wins, opponents and transphobes can claim that she “only won because she used to be a MAN, BAY-BE!” Regardless of her size, strength, cross-sectional muscle area, bone density, skill, training, whatever - the first ones who win will always face this attention and criticism. That psychological component of sport is pretty important, as anyone who’s competed would know.
But there is still no long-term evidence, let alone proof, that transgender athletes unbalance any sport as a whole, anywhere. For example, AFAIK no transgender person has ever won an Olympic medal, for example (only intersex women; we are not technically the same as an XY transgender woman). Does any transgender woman dominate at swimming, despite claims of broader upper musculature? Does any transgender woman dominate at basketball, soccer, track and field events? Has any transgender woman won a marathon (one came in first in her age division in the Jacksonville Marathon; not exactly world-status there)? Even Fallon Fox has had a less-than-spectacular record in MMA, despite claims to the contrary. Where is the flood of transwomen boxers? Field hockey champions? Curlers?
Some people on this message board have come right out and said the only final solution is to disallow transgender persons from competing, period - or to force them into a transgender Negro Leagues of sorts, or Special Olympics. Is that really the best solution? Maybe it will be an iteration process. Maybe the time on hormones will need to be changed. Maybe more competitions will have height and weight limits. I don’t know. But for right now this still looks a lot like a solution looking for a problem.