Trans activists failing to persuade people on the sports issue

As long as the guidelines are appropriate I'm fine with transgender athletes. The question is were the guidelines appropriate.

You guys don't like that question, though.

So what are you afraid of?

I believe your concern to be completely genuine and heartfelt, and I'm totally not crossing my fingers behind my back.

( )

To transition to male, you have to take testosterone.

Demi has pointed out that taking testosterone = bad from a sports viewpoint as it gives you an advantage.

So, either trans males are excluded or we set a limit on how MUCH testosterone you are allowed before they ban you.

Natural selection being what it is, there are gonna be natural-born males out there who exceed it - if not now, then soon.

So again, we're down to setting limits on who can compete in which category (if at all) on how much of a particular hormone they have in their system.

And again, all just because the majority think folk are changing sex solely for the purposes of winning at sports.

PS Demi - I am a biologist. And humanity has spent a very long time telling biology where to go fuck itself as far as society is concerned. Your argument is that guidelines should be based on biology.

That's nice Matt. My guess is you are very busy with other work because you don't know very much at all about how this is playing out in sport right now.

https://www.endocrinologyadvisor.co...-current-landscape-for-elite-female-athletes/

High-profile cases of female runners Dutee Chand of India and Caster Semenya of South Africa have brought to light the nuances of how the sexes are classified for elite athletic competition.2,3 Women with high testosterone levels do tend to significantly outperform women with lower free testosterone (fT) concentrations in track and field events such as sprints, jumping, and throwing.4 The International Association of Athletic Federations (IAAF) recognizes that women who identify as female yet have difference of sex development (DSD) have the same advantages that men would have competing with women. To ensure fair competition in women’s sports, the IAAF now requires elite women athletes with DSD to lower their testosterone levels.


And no, this is absolutely not 'just about people thinking that people will change their sex to win at sports.' At its base it's about fairness.

And no doubt at some point a transmale athlete will get a doctor to give them more hormones. That person should be barred from competition, and that doctor should lose their license to practice.

Because extremely high levels of testosterone can be dangerous, it's one of the primary reasons along with competitive advantage that they are banned.

No ethical doctor would do that to a patient they were treating.

But somewhere along the way, there will indeed by someone who tries. So at some point a new rule will have to be put in. But we haven't gotten there yet.

I know how it's playing out. I disagree. Humans disregard natural selection for the most part - elite athletes will not maintain current norms. Phelps was an example - doping aside, he was genetically favoured. If you start putting limits on testosterone levels in females because a minority of trans MAY break the game, then eventually you WILL unfairly target natural-born women. You'll have to keep moving the goalposts time and again.

And yet we're NOT discussing doing this for men's sports.

The reason why we aren't has nothing to do with science, or fairness, or any of what you have said. Those are distractions.

The reason is that transgenderism is a wedge issue for the Right. And you, regardless of whether you think you're an ally or not, are sitting there helping them hammer it into the crack.

Is there a record of testosterone levels dramatically increasing over time? I've seen no evidence of that. But if that does happen, yes, you can adjust the goalposts. Rules are changed in sport all the time for that purpose - to ensure competition is fair.

Because natural variability of testosterone is so much higher in men. The range in nmol/l for women is +/- 1.9. The range for men is +/- 25. It's literally more than a factor of 10.

But should that be exceeded, then that also can be addressed at that time. And there are more male contact sports, so it would be a question of safety.

So say you. The people who hate transgender people aren't going to care if my recommendations take place.

They hate transgender people period.

I'm also currently being yelled at by that cohort on a different board, because they hate the fact I think it's fine if transgender athletes compete in fair competition.

https://www.webmd.com/fitness-exercise/news/20210715/do-trans-women-athletes-have-advantages

Here's a balanced appraisal of the science. But again, I would argue the science is pretty meaningless since the numbers are so small as to be insignificant compared to doping, natural advantages, etc. It's only due to anti-trans shit this has become the deal that it is. The fact we're only hearing about it from one direction (male to female) is, like the bathroom bills, quite telling.

Well, I appreciate the research, but take a second to look at that in context of this case.

This trans athlete doesn't have reduced levels of testosterone, so she isn't disadvantaged by those features. The point is that her testosterone and muscle mass are still in the men's range.

And even with a slight decrease from her base as a male, that's still enough to make her an elite womens swimmer, as opposed to a mediocre mens.

The rest though you are absolutely correct on, and I have no problem with those athletes competing.

It also underscores the point that I don't think less of women, I simply recognize that it isn't fair to expect them to compete with men due to that reduced muscle mass and aerobic capacity.

And the NCAA is still giving considerable leeway among transwomen athletes, as their testosterone recommendation is still twice the high range of a normal woman's.

They will insofar as they get to take a mile after that inch.

Must be a sports themed board. There is nothing sporting about sports.

Then I will tell them to go fuck themselves. I'm certainly not going to vote for them or recommend anyone else does. I certainly am not going to give them the campaign donations I do the the liberals.

But you know what, once in a blue moon, the other side can be right about something.

In this case, still no, as they want to ban transathletes across the board. And that's in no way justified.

But if they were, I'd say they were - on that specific issue.

There's still hundreds of other things they are very, very wrong about.

I'll check the moon tonight.
Safe Vegas bet it won't be blue.

Y'know, early days of WF, I got sucked into some libertarian bullshit thinking.
Then, I snapped out of it.
At least, I thought I did.
I would have sworn to it on a stack of Necronomicons.
But, I look at Facebook posts from 8 years ago, and holy shit, there were still some residual dumbass libertarian beliefs crawling around in my head.
The infestation doesn't go all at once nice and cleanly.
It takes awhile to shit it all out.
How does this apply to this thread?
Oh, I can't imagine.

It applies in the same method as almost every other post of yours here. It's objectively wrong.

My stated position is literally increased regulation in the name of fairness.

What you guys can't believe is possible that I could be asking that for women, even though I'm a man.

When all it takes is to understand that fair competition was a huge point of emphasis when I myself played competitive sports.

I would have screamed similar 8 years ago.

Dicky, if you think increased regulation in the name of fairness is a core component of libertarianism, we are definitely back to checking on your head.

Libertarians have a word for me - statist. You know, because I want gun control, UHC, voting rights, federal research into climate change and green energy, etc ad nauseum.

Government is the power of the people manifest. It can be an incredible force for either good or ill. Given my druthers I'd install about 90% of the Democrats current agenda.

But sure, I'm libertarian.

Ignoring analogy with pedantic semantics.
Gee, I didn't see that coming.

Still true.

I don't think you're a bigot @Demiurge , but maybe you should consider whether or not this entire topic is beneath you. Don't let yourself become a useful idiot for actual bigots.

I think he's a sports bigot.

No one complained about Mike Phelps because he fit the criteria of historically accepted norms. People always expect there to be better athletes out there, that’s a normal part of sports - however they’re simply not used to this “girl who used to be a boy” thing that’s becoming more prevalent

It’s not all “insincere concern trolling”, there are people out there who are confused as fuck and aren’t understanding the matter at all because they have like zero frame of reference. This is all very new in terms of it being blasted all over the always helpful media and seeing these trans athletes blow away the competition

He really didn't, though.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/life...d08c8c-6c2b-11e9-be3a-33217240a539_story.html

https://www.biography.com/news/michael-phelp-perfect-body-swimming

The swimmer on the left certainly seems to be a big statistical outlier height-wise compared to the three samples of top-tier swimmers on the right.

Putting @Demiurge 's anti-trans obsession aside, I am going to go back to the problem with high school intramural sports being so commercialized. Maybe for schools we need to have participation be the primary reason for competition while we have private leagues deal with the money competition.

If the olympics or private pro-sports want to have limitations for fairness then you are starting to define an area where fairness might be a needed enforcement because of the financial gains that can come from competition. Putting that on school sports becomes a problem in many more areas than this. The problems with college and high school sports in football and basketball are insane. This is because you have commercial interests that can effect lifetime earnings being put on high school athletics and college athletic programs.

Look at the abuses that come for kids in football and basketball programs, and now we see trans competitors being part of those arguments. Make the leagues private and stop associating them with schools. If a private sports league wants to disqualify people based on certain criteria then they can deal with whatever civil lawsuits there are. If it is just some kids playing a game then the school does not have to worry about the effects of having students being scouted because the unnatural advantages would be regulated by the league.

Get this toxic bullshit out of schools. If it wasn't for money and opportunity no one would give a fuck if some trans girl swam faster than others at a school competition. If they want to get toxically competitive then they can try out for the pro and amateur leagues.

The Economist went all-in this week, saying that trans women don’t belong on women’s sports teams.

https://www.economist.com/leaders/2022/03/19/sports-should-have-two-categories-open-and-female (paywall unfortunately)

@Nova posts tl;dr articles post after post for several pages and and @Diacanu acts like an immature clown with no actual point in 5, 4, 3, …

The stand has three tiers. The other 3 are on the lowest. The difference isn't that much.

Nova has actual lived experience and a long history of informed posts on the subject. Hell, her reputation for such helped shift a lot of the board membership's perceptions of trans people to at least acceptance of "these are the people in your neighbourhood" if not at least recognition that trans rights are human rights.

Then we get guys like you and Bob and maybe to a lesser extent Anti-All who'll link to what ever bad faith, reactionary screed which parallels your intolerance.

@Nova 's posts are not TLDR. They are well cited and informative. Sometimes things do not fit in a tweet. Nova takes the time to provide sources and also boils it down to informative explanations without the vitriol and shit others do. The only reason it is TLDR to @Federal Farmer is that he is a simpleminded idiot who does not want to learn anything, and just wants to listen to Rogan grunting simple words because it does not hurt his brain. FF can watch long winded videos and even read long writings with simple words that reflect his world view.

This is why we all know FF sucks. When you get the proper explanation and you TLDR it then you are the dufus who cannot read. There is no helping that Trumpian stupidity.