Fraud at Texas state wrestling championships

So what?

This person--beefed up on male hormones--wrestled against girls who weren't on steroids.

Can't you see how fundamentally unfair this was to those girls?

Your position seems to be the transgendered person was wronged, but that wrestling on the girls' team somehow balances the scale. It doesn't. It robbed the other girls of the chance to compete fairly.

No. My position is that both were wronged, no scales were balanced, but the boy was wronged worse, and it's certainly not his fault.

That's eight, and you're back to the point where my original question, which you've ducked out of eight times, answers your point here directly.

If you agree the girls were wronged--and the girls had nothing to do with this person not being allowed to wrestle on the boys' team--then how can you disagree with my position that this person should've either (1) been disqualified or (2) competed on the boys' team? What other solution do you have that would be better or fairer?

I think the argument K. is very clumsily trying to make is that this person should have been allowed to compete as a male. The problem is, this person is not biologically male and never will be, no matter how many hormones they take or surgeries they get. This person would have probably been horribly beaten because men are generally much stronger than women, particularly in the upper body (which is very important in wrestling). It also probably would have made anyone who wrestled against them very uncomfortable, and anyone who's wrestled would understand why.

(2) is the fair solution. The law made that impossible. So the main consequence here should be that the law needs to be changed.

Until that happens, excluding him from the sport altogether seems by far the greater wrong to me, for several reasons: One, if he can't compete at all, that's it, he's out, it's binary. Other competitors, however, still have a chance to beat him, and indeed even if they don't, they do get to win all other positions behind #1. Two, the whole bad law is based on denying his right to exist; and if resistance to his existence weren't so great, the law probably wouldn't exist; if it did, all the other girls would be clamouring to change it as well, and your main consequence from the story would have been the need to change this bad law rather than to blame him for being its victim -- nor, btw, would you have failed to understand plain English in your first attempt to read the OP. Three, since the law is bad and he already wants the law changed, settling on an interim solution that increases pressure on everyone else to have it changed is the best way forward.

And yet, even if it weren't the smaller damage to allow him to compete, we can't blame him for trying to deal as best as he can with a law that hurts him as well as other people.

I think you're saying disqualified on grounds he was taking steroids. I think these would have been doctor prescribed and not grounds for disqualification based on their rules, or he would have been disqualified. He was playing by the school's rules, obviously.

Well, gosh, Anna. Try a little empathy. Put yourself in the place of all the other girls.

You've trained hard, you've practiced, you've sacrificed, you've played by the rules...and then you find out you have to wrestle a roided-up girl who has the muscle mass of a boy in order to win.

Does that seem remotely fair to you? I mean, honestly, does it?

You're so concerned with righting a wrong done to the transgendered person that you completely overlook the injustice done to the girls in the sport.

Ding, ding, ding!

You're the one who actually overlooked the pertinent information when you read the article. @Anna hasn't said one syllable that remotely implies this is fair to the other girls.

Being bad at a sport you choose isn't unfair. Feeling uncomfortable is a life hazard, and all the other boys, if they are really as neurotic as you say, would only have to feel uncomfortable when they wrestle him, whereas he has to feel uncomfortable every time he now has to wrestle a girl.

Yes, the law needs to be changed. The solution should NOT have been letting this person wrestle non-roided girls.

And, given this person's highly exceptional situation, that would have been the fairest solution if wrestling on the boys' team was not an option.

Yes, all those girls wrestling what is, in effect, a boy have a chance at wrestling. Seriously? Seriously??

"We know you worked hard to be on the wrestling team, honey, and we know you were really good, and we know that it was unfair that you had to wrestle someone with much more muscle mass than you, but look on the bright side: second place ain't bad!"

The law needs to be changed so that if a student who takes steroids that can increase muscle mass can't compete on either team.

I can't speak for others, but the thing I've picked up on when it comes to stuff like this, is that none of the people sticking up for this person really gives a thought to anyone else and their feelings, and the assumption that their discomfort can only be derived from bigotry.

If they consider him to be male, why would they feel more uncomfortable wrestling him than any other male?

How is that a fair solution?

It's unfair for this person to wrestle with the girls because, y'know, steroids.

It's unfair for this person to wrestle with the boys because this person is a girl.

I know that sucks for this person, but they're the exceptional one with very special circumstances that (so we are told) derive from medical circumstances. Well, the kid in the wheelchair can't wrestle, either.

Because that person isn't actually male, and anyone who didn't know any better would find out soon enough that that was the case.

It's the same rule for everyone. If you have a medical condition that requires you to take muscle-enhancing hormones, you're ineligible to be a wrestler. Lots of medical conditions make one ineligible for sports.

I can thing of a few reasons.

All I know is that this trans person could definitely kick @The Flashlight 's ass

You know when you said we don't consider that you could have other reason for that stance than bigotry? That belief is the bigotry.

How mysterious!

Can you also think of an answer to the question you've been dodging for a full day?

So you have changed your mind again? You said he should have competed as a boy when you thought he was allowed to. What convinced you otherwise?

If this person was going to compete at all, it should be with the boys. But since wrestling with a girl is likely to be a problem for most boys, my preference would be that this person not be allowed to wrestle at all, like anyone else who has a medical condition that makes equitable competition (either for or against them) impractical.

I never thought this person was allowed to compete as a boy. I read the article. My objection is that this person was allowed to compete with the girls.

Acknowledging the truth is not bigotry. That person is not male and never will be. It's not that I lack empathy for a person who feels they are the wrong sex on the inside, it's just that their bodies are not, and that will not change.

I said early on my position, but you've yet to prove that he's being forced to wrestle girls.

If you're suggesting that I'd blame him for ruining my chances at a title in that situation...no. The idiot laws in Texas ruined my chances by being unyielding. Even in regressive Texas, I'm sure many of the kids there realise that, were he on hormone treatments for anything else, this wouldn't be an issue.

It's just what @K. said. There was no justice for anyone, but for the girls it's just a championship they lost out on; for this young man, it's him losing out on having a normal life.

As to X's claim about him not being able to compete against natal cis males...well, the jury's still out on that since this is the first generation of trans kids being allowed to transition at puberty and not retroactively decades later. All evidence points to there being minimal differences. But you look at that guy and tell me he'd get mowed over in the ring.

Also, Chris Moiser:
http://www.rollingstone.com/sports/features/chris-mosier-first-trans-team-usa-member-w432272

You're right. It doesn't all come bigotry. A lot of the time, it's just plain ignorance. Considering that trans people make up less than a percent of our population, most people likely have never known anyone to personally transition. Even in California, I've only ever met one trans woman that I know of.

But ignorance is nothing to hide behind. We're all entitled to our own opinion but not our own facts. If and when there is conclusive science that proves trans women who transition at puberty are at a significant advantage over natal women or that trans men are so disadvantaged at sports that it's a danger to compete, I will support such bans. I see little evidence of that so far.

Hard to beat biology. Not saying it's impossible, but it's very difficult. And given how things tend to get spun, I can't help but wonder what the story would have been if that's what would have happened.

As for transitioning per-pubescent kids, I have to say that it's something I'm really against. Kids don't really know who they are yet at that age, and I can't help but feel they're being used by people pushing an agenda to make some kind of a point. It could actually just be a phase, and it also could just be the kid is gay. It might be easier to do the transition by starting before puberty, but this is something that will drastically change them, and may rob them of having the normal life that they could have otherwise, especially if further on down the line it turns out that they weren't actually trans. Also, as it involves children, I can't help but feel that it fails to meet the standard of informed consent.

And the main area of disagreement is over the facts, and what constitutes facts. There seems to be very little reputable science behind gender dysphoria, and the arguments that are often brought forward to support it often fly in the face of established scientific fact, such as claims that sex is a social construct (in spite of numerous studies with both humans and primates), and that there is no difference between the structure of a male brain and a female brain (women tend to have more grey matter than men, plus there are plenty of studies about spatial recognition and the like), which do not hold up to long-known biological facts. I've seen far more compelling evidence that gender dysphoria is not unlike "amputee identity disorder," which are healthy people who think they should have their limbs amputated or be disabled in some other way, because in their minds that is how they feel they should be. The really sad part is that seems be getting recognized by the "progressive" camp who are now pushing for legitimizing what is a mental disorder. Another commonality between these two conditions is that often after one of these people is successful in disabling themselves, they still wind up committing suicide. These people need help, and if anything it's patronizing to be all like, "no, you should totally cut your arm off because that's how you feel inside." How is this any different from any other mental illness, like say, dissociative identity disorder, that might cause someone to think they have more than one person within their body, or to think they are a different person?