Trans activists failing to persuade people on the sports issue

You have to remember Ron DeSantis graduated from Yale, he graduated from Harvard Law, he was an officer in the Navy, he was a Representative from the State of Florida, and he is currently the Governor of the State of Florida. So no matter what your policy disagreements are with him, he is still a piece of shit.

certainly not the first time a right winger employed pure fiction in support of the agenda of bigotry.
SOP really.

What I don't get is this: for those who oppose transitioned women competing in women's sports, what is their preferred outcome? Obviously, to keep transitioned women out of women's sports. But then what? Are they just banned from competing in sports altogether?

Or are they going to force these transitioned women to compete in men's sports? Do they not see the inherent difficulties in that too?

I strongly suspect that for many opponents, their preferred outcome is a complete ban, but if not, I would be interested to hear how allowing transitioned women to compete in men's sports would work (and vice versa, how transitioned men on male hormones would then compete in women's sports).

Driven into the closet like Caitlyn Jenner.

Caitlyn Jenner needs to be locked in the closet, never to see the light of day again.

(But that has nothing to do with her being trans...)

Not at all. They should just win at or near the same rate as the cisgender athletes they are competing against. That's not the case. Which is why I support the standard as adjusted.

According to outsports.com, that does seem to be the case, and it's the only list I've been able to find that appears in any way comprehensive. They acknowledge that there may have been more who have not come out, but there's no way to quantify those individuals. They list 31 athletes total, I pared my selection down to transwomen athletes competing in individual sports at the NCAA level, as that's the contention.

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

Outsports is a LBGTQ+ sports site.

If that list is anywhere near correct, then transwomen are outperforming ciswomen by a tremendous amount.

In any given year, there are around 15,000 NCAA swimmers. There are 3 levels, Div I-III, and 20 events to win at each championship, so 60 championships in play. Even if you ignore a decreased selection as many elite swimmers win multiple championships, the odds of any 1 cisfemale athlete winning a championship per year is 0.4%. The success rate of transwomen is at many times that. The odds of setting conference records is even lower.

Even if there are 25 times more transwomen athletes as that list (and IMO that seems very unlikely) it would still be disproportionate.

Well, thanks for that acknowledgment.

I'm not speaking of the politics, and have repeatedly said that I support transathletes as long as it's a fair competition. That's light years away from 'the Bible tells me you are teh Devil' which is such a popular mantra among the Evangelicals. The deSantos of the world are anathema to me.

But simply citing the relevant science will get you called out as a bigot or worse on most of these discussions, among people who can't differentiate between wanting to follow the science and those with far different motives, from religious to bigotry (though most of those two overlap).

I'm for reasoned discourse informing our outlook.

Too many on the left now view that as an attack, as the dogma is just as zealous as the right.

Utah governor goes rogue:

Free wapo article.

"Too many on the left now view that as an attack, as the dogma is just as zealous as the right."

Speaking for myself - I react poorly when I see arguments that I know to originate in Christian nationalist or TERF talking points. It's not about defending OUR "dogma" it's about recognizing THEIRS.

It can be difficult to try to assume a "just asking questions" position without unknowingly having your questions predicated on the arguments that the bigots have introduced into the discussion, whether or not you yourself harbor animosity.

"A bad person once said it" is a dodge, not a refutation.

I'm amazed by how self aware you are without realizing it.

Yet strangely I'm the only one putting forth scientific studies. And that isn't because they back my contention - it's because I've looked at them, digested them, and incorporated them into my understanding of the matter. They are my contention. That is why I hold these beliefs.

Christian Nationalists or TERFs have a very different stance than mine - they oppose all transathlestes from competing, period. They are just as upset at my rejecting their dogma, if not considerably more so, than you are.

I see dogma on both sides. Once upon a time, the left cared about the science of the matter. I'm seeing that go by the way side more and more.

So no, I'm not 'just asking questions.' I'm summarizing where we are with the science.

And the only arguments I've seen opposing that is 'I hate sports' and 'who cares about fairness.' And, of course, I choose not to believe what the science says.

This when the science is far, far closer to your POV than the Christian nationalists, just not 100% in alignment.

Which is pretty telling.

So yeah, dogma.

Because you just want to take potshots at everyone.
You're the same Demiurge I met in the 00's, only the sticker on the box has changed out.

Oh I know.

But wedges are wedges, and one of the best wedges is when the reasonable folks unwittingly give the ill-informed permission to indulge in sufficient doubt that they are open to what the bigots have to say. I'm not worried about YOU. You're largely informed, even where we disagree some at the margins.

But the poorly informed who, deep down, harbor animosity...maybe they dare not be hateful out loud...yet...but they need that permission, especially when it comes time to vote.

"Once upon a time, the left cared about the science of the matter."


Still does. Overwhelmingly so.

Again, is @Uncle Albert and @Federal Farmer's end game to ban transgendered people from sports altogether? And then from other equal protections?

Most of us already know the answer, but we're curious to see how they'll weasel out of it.

I am going to put this point out there again. For all of his supposed research he still is trying to claim this was not handled scientifically and fairly. He ignores the reality that the sport requires girls to test for levels of testosterone that fall within a female range, and that they are requiring trans girls to be taking T blockers for a period of time in order to compete. He ignores the reality that this trans girl had lost the advantage of T and was not even close to the record times as a female of the cis females. He ignores the reality that cis females can beat men in many sports due to skill ort superior athletics because there are ranges and T does not make you superior to every woman.

Even when informed of all of these things he still is posting debunked and intellectually dishonest hate info. He cvlaims to care about fairness when clearly shown the governing entity had a blood testing policy to limit participation to people who have a female range of T. This is so much so these rules might rule out a cisgender participant who had an abnormally high natural T level.

So I am still going to call all this for what I see as the reality @Demiurge is full of shit because a person who is just disagreeing with fairness levels would have to admit that there is a scientific attempt to create a limit that would address most of the issues when you consider that being on puberty blockers for years in this age range would stop the development of permanent gender traits which may give an advantage. These are not 20 year old competitors who did not take puberty blocking hormones during publerty and therefor developed male bodies. There are people who have female levels of developmental hormones during development.

So, demi's hatred is showing.

Look, I honestly don't know if Demi is stupidly and naively drinking TERF Kool-Aid trying to argue in good faith, or if he's a slippery bigot playing the "It's just sciiiiiieeence, maaaan!" game like Stefan Molyneaux, but....I just don't care anymore.
Evil and stupid do the same amount of damage.
If you're helping TERFs, and doing TERF harm, you're a TERF, and fuck off.
Richard Dawkins and Bill Maher are dead to me for less.

This comes down to the point MLK made about moderates that they hate. It is that they end up being worse than the outright racist because they make much more reasonable arguments for racism. You can call them justifications, excuses, or reasons but they all amount to the continuation rather than the open eradication of prejudice and racism.

@Demiurge has slipped a couple of times and given up his attachment to his prejudices. Though I give @Jenee shit about her dating life, I find that she actively speaks against prejudice. Her enabling of the racist UA is different from demiurge because she does not slip up and threaten to misgender people because they are not nice to her. She dislikes me because I have treated her badly, not because I am trans. By threatening to misgender @Amaris demiurge shows his willingness to use trans issues as an insult.

Oh, and I probably should say sorry to all the random callouts, but I do not like talking about someone without signaling that I am saying something about them. This way if I get something wrong about them they can respond. It is just the manners that I use and the onlu time I don't are with people who I am sure are ignoring me like WAB.

The “high” people get from religion and sports is due to the synergy that is created when a large group of people in a confined space all get energized by the same ‘end result’.

Some pastors/preachers are good because they know how to raise and channel that energy. Some sports commentators are able to do the same. Salesmen do as well, but on a much smaller level.

This is not a new phenomenon. This has been studied by psychologists for decades. It’s even explored in the TNG episode when Wesley Crusher is taking academy exams. It’s why a bar full of people watched and cheered several men openly rape a woman back in the 80s in New York. It’s why a group of people cheered for a suicidal man to jump to his death in ..San Francisco(?).

Large groups of people can be as much a danger as they can do good or just make everyone feel good.

This is why I avoid large groups of people.

That energy is endorphins.

Can @Demiurge explain the fairness here?

The Olympics et al. prioritize nationalist competition above fair competition. The disparity of pools of talent (vis a vis population size) and financial resources are also a salient reality. So this really isn't the best apples-to-apples analogy.

On the other hand, I don't know enough about volleyball to know that the Japanese team's smaller physical size necessarily represents a disadvantage.

I am not a volleyball expert, but as a tall person who has played and can block and spike it helps a lot. I have knocked a few shorter people on their asses while locking and spiking because you can get way over the top on them. If you cannot jump high enough to spike in the front row you are an anchor to your team. Due to court rotation a shorter person will always end up in the front.

Skill is n important factor in rec volleyball, which I have played a lot. A shorter female player with ball control will kill a team with a stupid guy who cannot control the ball when it comes to it. We had a high school tournament and the girls team just targeted the guy on our team who could not receive the ball. They knew how he played and every ball went right to him. It never mattered we could get over them because they could receive and then the ball goes to him again. But in rec play you have weak players which a skilled shorter player can exploit, and learns to do it. I would imagine on the elite level that does not exist as much and the height becomes a real example.

well, it's more that the critics are all about "so much bigger is unfair!" yet is only ever applied to trans people unless they can find a black woman like Castor to fuck with.

It is funny how the only other times these things seem to be an issue becomes when you have a lot of melanin. Then we need to eliminate those women for being too physically superior and having an unfair advantage.

It is amazing to me how people do not see that the only times they care about these disparities seem to be based on common prejudice. There are jokes about large nordic women dominating sports, but no one ever seems to ever look at fair skinned nordic cisgendered women and say they are too big because of their viking blood and they need to be kept out of the competition. Why is there no fairness for asians who tend to be shorter and smaller over all? I do not see white people refusing to participate because it isn't fair to asians, but they really care about fairness.

Seriously @Demiurge why are caucasian and african competitors allowed to dominate their asian counterparts in sports where size is an advantage? You care so much about fairness, how is that fair?

Maybe it is that life is not fair to begin with because all of our bodies are not prime, and all of our birth circumstances do not allow us to take advantage of them if they were.