Trans activists failing to persuade people on the sports issue

Two points coming in late on this shit show of a thread:

1. Why does this debate typically focus almost exclusively on transitioned females? What about transitioned males wanting to compete in men's sports?

2. Who honestly gives a shit anyway. We're talking about organized sports, which is tantamount to the mafia. You're either dealing with corrupt sports organizations like the IOC or paedophile coaches who like to molest their trainees.

My position: if transitioned females want to compete, fill your panties.

Because there is no competitive advantage for women transitioning to male if the doctors do their jobs correctly. There is the other way around, so a fair accommodation should be made to ensure the rights of the cisfemale competitors.

If you don't care, that's fine. Some people do.

And I'd wager that the defining line on that is people who have competed in organized sports vs those who haven't.

If the ancient Romans had steroids, they would have used them.
Just sayin.

on the lions!

Plus, NOW Gym Jordan cares about the well-being of athletes?

Correct. But you can't explain this to non-competitors. They're losers, unfortunately.

hey, if you don't compete you can't lose.

And you'd lose that wager.

I always wonder how much these ‘supporters’ of womens sports support them aside from attacking trans women.

How many have been to a WNBA or NWSL game in the last year? How many buy merch for their local or National teams?

Hell. How many were out there supporting the USWNT in their suit for equal pay?

And here I thought the accusation was the conservative side that only cared about things that directly impact them.

I also haven't been arrested by a racist cop. But I support BLM. I haven't had my voting rights taken away. But I support defeating voter suppression. I never went to a high school with a confederate name. But I support them being renamed. Care to go on? I can list hundreds of causes that I support that I personally haven't had issues with.

It's a silly argument.

All that is sufficient is what my sense of right and wrong is.

In my world, women also have equal rights.

And therefore a small change to the rules to ensure those rights is both fair and justified.

*DEEP SIGH*

The three posing for a photo together were Olympic teammates and that was the context of the pose, it had nothing to do with her.

Lia won one championship, by virtually the same time as last year's winner and over nine seconds slower than the record for the event.

She lost the championship in every other category, finishing well back in a couple of them. It's an absolute non-story that the Bigoted right wing moralists want people to focus on in order to advance their theocratic agenda.

Be smart enough to recognize what's actually going on.

Interesting history: at one time there was no such thing as gender segregated sports - until women started entering in direct competition with men and occasionally won. THEN men decided they needed to "protect women" by segregating them.

Fair enough. There was no context given, and specifically said that with context it may be something else entirely. Feel free to check.

So, Michael Phelps is a documented physical freak that can do things his competitors can't - should be be banned from the sport?

Some women are 6'9" - but we can't have them on the bascketball team because the vast majority of women are under 6'... right?

Also, Lia's performance DID drop. She started HRT before she switched teams and her performance against males dropped precipitously...and her performance against females taken in the aggregate is remarkably similar to her pre-HRT performance against males AND her times now as compared to pre-HRT are almost exactly as much slower as women's winning times in the aggregate are slower than male's winning times in the same events.

She's almost a classic model of the predicted results of HRT on performance playing out as typical and expected. She's not some outlier who didn't lose as much ability as most others. And even if she was, sports in general celebrate the outliers, it doesn't ban them (unless they are black women like Castor)

In any case, she just competed against the best in the country and did NOT dominate as the fear-mongers would like the public to believe. She narrowly won ONE and finished well back in several others. perfectly reasonable outcome, not dominance.

Now, one could argue that her height and reach give her a marginal advantage in long distance events like the one she narrowly won - but had she not been born with a penis but had the exact same height and reach (such women exist) no one would have said "well she shouldn't compete because she has a physical advantage"

I'm not saying - and do not think - that you intend bigotry... but the campaign to use her as the whipping girl to support the nationwide efforts to fuck over trans people IS bigotry and their arguments are bullshit. And I'm disappointed to have to explain this to someone who should no better.

I honestly just can't with this shit anymore.

I am not claiming you have to play women’s sports to care about women’s sports.

I am only saying that one needs to actually support women in sports in order to claim to support women in sports.

To wit

The rule was changed because of an astroturf moral panic.

The previous rule existed for over a decade and Lia was the first and only Division 1 national champion trans woman in any sport since the rule was instituted. There's also only one other at any level, a Division II track title.

The rule change was a pandering attempt to solve a problem that manifestly doesn't exist. Thousands of championships, TWO won by transwomen - clearly this dominance must stop, right?

At various times, I'd suppose. Though our earliest record of sports, such as the original Greek Olympics, did not allow any female competitors. That stayed true for the thousand year run of the games at Olympia. Examples of other ancient civilizations, from cuneiform tablets to bas lief carvings to artistic depictions on pottery to cave paintings in Lucerne show men, not women, competing.

We are literally at the height of recorded history in women's sport, with more female athletes competing than ever before by a large margin.

Stating that there is something nefarious or perfidious about allowing women to compete against peers in that it's somehow a misogynistic trick misunderstands the advances of the last 200 years to allow them to flourish.

I've posted the scientific studies that were put forward to show why it was considered necessary. But I guess because the PhDs involved aren't of the proper mind set, it's just 'astroturf.'

Let's take a look at that, shall we?

Transwomen competing under the old rules in the NCAA, which is the criteria you selected.

G Ryan, set the record for Women's 500 meter swimming at both her school and the Big Ten conference.
Juniper Eastwood, won the 2020 mile at the Big Sky Conference
Braeden Abrahmson, part of the 2018 national champion swim team at Vanderbilt, runner up in 2019
Cece Telfer, won the division II national championship at the 400m hurdles.

Natalie Fahey swam after transitioning, but as an unscored competitor. BS in my opinon, but that's the fact of the matter.

That's it for Div I and Div II. So 2 championships out of the 4 participants. A third won her her conference for her event, setting the record.

5 transmen competed, none of whom were dominant competitors.

Notice a discrepancy?

https://www.outsports.com/trans/2022/1/7/22850789/trans-athletes-college-ncaa-lia-thomas

At the Division III level there are 14 competitors, 4 of whom were transwomen, only 2 of whom competed individually.

So of the 6 transwomen who have competed in individual events under the NCAA guidelines, there are a disproporationate number of winners. Most swim meets have 8-12 competitors per event.

Let me reinforce this - if they were typical competitors, the expected number of championships out of that group would be zero.

Yes, actually. If the link above is correct, that's a hugely disproportionate share of victories for transwomen athletes competing in individual events.

Maybe that's why the IAFF, IOC, and WSA have made changes.

I support the women I know that play their sports.

If you have an issue with that I wonder about your true motives.

Here's a term - natural variability.

The question is when it's not - and transitioning is a scientific medical procedure.

Lia would absolutely not be allowed to compete with women before that procedure.

So the question is what does the science say about the fairness of competing after that point.

We are still learning and evolving, because the level of transwomen competing is incredibly small.

That's just wrong - if it did drop to comparable female times we wouldn't be having this dicussion because no one would know who she was. The 462nd rank male would be near the same ranked female, at least as a percentage in the sport.

The fact is her numbers did drop, but still were higher than ciswomen competitors across enough competitions that she scored the most points of any swimmer and was the #1 ranked women's swimmer prior to this meet.

I've already gone over the actual numbers in transwomen athletics. They do win disproportionately to this point.

And that's a bit disingenuous - after being an absolutely mediocre men's swimmer she did win a NCAA women's championship.

It's not the penis, it's the testes. That's what produces testosterone and is a naturally-occurring anabolic steroid.

No one is making you.

I'm willing to reconsider based on more data as it comes in, and I don't support arguments to ban transpeople from athletics. That's absolutely a matter of equal rights, as it doesn't allow people to even attempt to join a team.

I do think it's valid to have a discussion on the topic of fairness, and for that I've been called every name in the book.

No, what the standard is isn't an issue of human rights. Lots of reasons people can't compete in sports. No one has a human right to be on a team.

It is a matter of equal rights, but transrights aren't the only ones to be considered. Women's rights should be as well.

That you make a distinction between the two is a tell.

The 462nd rank male would be near the same ranked female, at least as a percentage in the sport.

That's not a pre-HRT rank.

some stats here ...
1650
Lia pre-transition: 14:54.765
Lia post-transition: 15:59.71 (lost 65 seconds)
Male record: 14:12.08 (Kieran Smith)
Female record: 15:03:31 (Katie Ledecky)
She was 40 seconds behind the male record, now she is 56 behind the female

500
Lia's best pre-transition, 4:18:72
Lia's current, 4:34:06
Female record (Katie Ledecky), 4:24:06
Male record (Kieran Smith), 4:06:32
She lost 15.34 seconds
The female record is 17.34 seconds slower than the male record.

200
Prior to transition 1:39.31
Male record, 1:29.15
After transition 1:41.93
Female record of 1:39.10

She seems to have lost less in this event than the others, but this weekend she won the 500 and finished poorly in the 200 so

There's a reason that with all the Trans Women competing in sports for years, she is one of the only top ranking ones, because she's always been one of the top ranking. Until HRT.

There are other extensive listings of her relevant times that have come to my attention but I just don't have the will-power to go looking for them.

I'm willing to reconsider based on more data as it comes in, and I don't support arguments to ban transpeople from athletics. That's absolutely a matter of equal rights, as it doesn't allow people to even attempt to join a team.

That's welcome, but consider. The upshot of your argument seems to be that equality demands trans people be allowed to participate, so long as the refrain from winning.

"So of the 6 transwomen who have competed in individual events under the NCAA guidelines..."

Wait, are you arguing that those who won the events you listed are the only trans people who have competed in NCAA events in the last decade-plus?

Yep. I've stated it openly several times now.

Gender and sex are not the same. I've even cited foremost experts in the field that share that distinction.

And in matters where sex is important, a distinction may be necessary.

This is the dogma I keep referring to. It's not backed by science.

Here's the World Health Organization on it:
Gender interacts with but is different from sex, which refers to the different biological and physiological characteristics of females, males and intersex persons, such as chromosomes, hormones and reproductive organs. Gender and sex are related to but different from gender identity. Gender identity refers to a person’s deeply felt, internal and individual experience of gender, which may or may not correspond to the person’s physiology or designated sex at birth.https://www.who.int/health-topics/gender#tab=tab_1

What's at question specifically is at what point in a transition is it fair for that person to engage in competitive athletics when sex based guidelines have been established for competition and safety.

The right is never, the left is at 1 year and 10 nmol/l testosterone, I'm at 3 year 5 nmol/l testosterone, and some people are get rid of women's athletics entirely.

That's on the further left of the axis, and is so far left it's a little bit to the right of most of the conservatives.

If the scientific consensus changes I certainly would take note and re-evaluate.

For the record, this is a complex topic about which our understanding is growing. In a vacuum it is certainly valid to say "let us refine the rules in an unbiased manner so that we can maximize the fairness of competition"

BUT

We're not operating in a vacuum, there's not even a fuzzy kinda-line between open and notorious (and proud) anti-trans bigotry organizations, be the religious or TERF or both, and folks such as yourself who are expressing genuine good-faith concerns. The real and present danger of doing nothing, or two little, is that on rare occasion a transwoman might win a race "unfairly"

The real and present danger of the moral panic prevailing is that an actual, legitimate, but low-impact concern is magnified into a wedge issue that is used by bad faith right wing activists and politicians to attempt to legislate trans kids - and eventually all of us - out of the public square.

Is "fairness" a laudable goal? Sure.
Do I trust that all decision making is or will be made in the interest of a narrow concern for athletic fairness with absolutely no bias towards "trans people bad" bullshit?

Not for one hot goddamned minute.

oh, and also?

If Bigotry Inc would get all the fuck out of the way and allow trans kids to access the medically appropriate treatment for their condition at the onset of puberty, this whole fucking debate vanishes into thin air.

At least as a future ongoing concern. Within a decade there would be essentially no examples to point to (notwithstanding the relatively few trans minors who do not accept their identity until after puberty)

But the SAME people who say "behold all the testosterone! Unfair!" are Generally the same people who also say "It is a sin to interfere with the holy work of God given testosterone!"

Reckon why?

Support noted.