Return of the Friday Thread: Transgender and sport
DonDaddyD
Posts: 12,689
Friday silliness thread debate time people. Let's put life back into this forum section.
*Disclaimer* If you are easily offended, cannot speak about contentious issues and think that people should simply ignore subjects like racism, politics,sex, sexism and a whole heap of other ism's as though they don't exist then you should probably not read below.
If a child (has happened) was born a male but it now lives as a female and decided to take part in sport, should they be allowed to and what gender for said sport would they be allowed to enter in?
Example male to female transgender individual wants to become a sprinter, enters into a female race and obliterates the competition. How much of that is down to their gender at birth?
Discuss.
[Background]
This all came about because I came across a petition to strip Bruce-now-Caitlyn Jenner of the gold medals won when she lived as a man. I think the petition is pathetic, I have no real thoughts about transgender/transexuals beyond "its something people do". But it did get me thinking.
I also think a real discussion and referendum needs to happen on the subject manipulating our DNA/RNA or we are heading to Star Trek Genetic Engineering scenario like the Eugenics war. Soon it will be a case that top athletes aren't enhanced through drugs but by adjustments of DNA at birth.[/Background]
*Disclaimer* If you are easily offended, cannot speak about contentious issues and think that people should simply ignore subjects like racism, politics,sex, sexism and a whole heap of other ism's as though they don't exist then you should probably not read below.
If a child (has happened) was born a male but it now lives as a female and decided to take part in sport, should they be allowed to and what gender for said sport would they be allowed to enter in?
Example male to female transgender individual wants to become a sprinter, enters into a female race and obliterates the competition. How much of that is down to their gender at birth?
Discuss.
[Background]
This all came about because I came across a petition to strip Bruce-now-Caitlyn Jenner of the gold medals won when she lived as a man. I think the petition is pathetic, I have no real thoughts about transgender/transexuals beyond "its something people do". But it did get me thinking.
I also think a real discussion and referendum needs to happen on the subject manipulating our DNA/RNA or we are heading to Star Trek Genetic Engineering scenario like the Eugenics war. Soon it will be a case that top athletes aren't enhanced through drugs but by adjustments of DNA at birth.[/Background]
Food Chain number = 4
A true scalp is not only overtaking someone but leaving them stopped at a set of lights. As you, who have clearly beaten the lights, pummels nothing but the open air ahead. ~ 'DondaddyD'. Player of the Unspoken Game
A true scalp is not only overtaking someone but leaving them stopped at a set of lights. As you, who have clearly beaten the lights, pummels nothing but the open air ahead. ~ 'DondaddyD'. Player of the Unspoken Game
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Comments
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You only have to look at the case of Caster Semenya to see that there is so much controversy even when someone is a biological female.
IMO rightly or wrongly you should only be able to compete against the gender of your birth.
Interesting line here"Newer rules permit transsexual athletes to compete in the Olympics after having completed sex reassignment surgery, being legally recognized as a member of the sex they wish to compete as, and having undergone two years of hormonal therapy (unless they transitioned before puberty)."
But the IOC still is allowed to check gender."If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got."
PX Kaffenback 2 = Work Horse
B-Twin Alur 700 = Sundays and Hills0 -
Gender counts because most Olympic sports are about physical ability. Lung capacity, muscle strength etc etc and men outperform women on that score.
Of course at the elite level they'll be unusual edge cases where (natural) chemical levels get some women nearer the male side of the equation, but on the whole gender keeps it workable.
As an unqualified lay person I'd question if it's fair for someone to grow up as a man and have a couple of decades of muscle growth and lung development that comes from that gender, only to change across after all that has happened. Being unqualified I'd need to leave that to biologists, but I do question whether a couple of years of hormone medicine really undo 20 years of physical development, and the advantage that confers?
All in all I suspect it's very rare, so the rules don't have to be that precise at the top level.0 -
I think stripping Jenner of medals won as a man by someone born as a man is utterly ridiculous. If someone has gender reassignment before competing it is different and I'm not sure what the answer is. I suspect it may give an unfair advantage in some circumstances, but I have no idea how you would work it out. But would there be some advantage in a man waiting to undergo reassignment as the earning potential of men in sort is higher?0
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Apparently she loses her 5.3 golf handicap though (earned as a man) and has to start again from the bottom as a woman.0
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Bizarre to retrospectively take wins off someone when they were won legitimately because later on they had a gender change.
That's just stupid for obvious reasons.
I would suggest though that if it is proven that former males who are now females still retain some of their male gender athleticism (and for the record, I don't know if that's the case), then it makes sense that the ability to perform in your preferred 'gender' sport is sacrificed when the gender change occurs.
Not ideal, but then being born a different gender to the one you prefer isn't either, and I'd suggest in the broader spectrum of issues that affect transgenders, their ability to perform in sports is probably fairly small fry.0 -
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Bigots and their fear of what's different to what they know and understand. Makes no sense to anyone but the idiots themselves.Rick Chasey wrote:That's just stupid for obvious reasons.
Very true.Rick Chasey wrote:I'd suggest in the broader spectrum of issues that affect transgenders, their ability to perform in sports is probably fairly small fry.0 -
In some ways it's similar to the questions thrown up by Oscar Pistorius competing at the Olympics with the able bodied athletes - there's a fairly strong argument that his blades gave him an unfair advantage. They were more bouncy than any human's achilles tendon, and he couldn't feel any pain in them from the effort.
The whole debate was of course somewhat mitigated by the fact that Olympic level athletes are such outliers in performance against the population at large that the odds of someone of similar ability losing their legs below the knee (or choosing to have them amputated in order to use blades) are so slim as to approach zero. I think the case by which Oscar Pistorius was granted permission to compete might have gone differently if there was any real threat of him getting on the podium or threatening world records.
By the same token, the odds of someone who happens to be transgender also having the ability to compete at the highest level of athletic competition seems to me unlikely, but still, it is fair to recognise that there are events that men have the genetic advantage in, and vice versa, and I would hope that someone who'd undergone gender reassignment would recognise that and either choose to compete only where a level playing field were available, or pursue other interests.
Given the rampant abuse of steroids and hormones going on in sport at the time that Jenner was competing, you do have to wonder if they were a factor in both the athletic performance and the subsequent gender change - there's also the East German shotputter Andreas (formerly Heidi) Krieger who was competing at around the same time.0 -
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it the case that the petition is really being put about to highlight what is really ridiculous - the idea that you must refer to the men's decathlon winner in 1976, even historically, as "Caitlyn" who was really a woman, and if you don't you will be forced to recant and apologise by everything from an automated bot to a howling twittermob.Veronese68 wrote:I think stripping Jenner of medals won as a man by someone born as a man is utterly ridiculous. If someone has gender reassignment before competing it is different and I'm not sure what the answer is. I suspect it may give an unfair advantage in some circumstances, but I have no idea how you would work it out. But would there be some advantage in a man waiting to undergo reassignment as the earning potential of men in sort is higher?0 -
I was going to say sex chromosomes is really the only answer, but reading up on it, its not that clear cut. I think they currently go on testosterone. At the end of the day. Men who go through puberty as men, will have had the benefit of testosterone building a bigger, stronger body than the equiv. female.
No amount of chopping, scraping and drugs can change that later in life.0 -
I have no idea why the petition was started, don't really care, it's still ridiculous. As far as I'm concerned HE won it as a male. Now he has undergone gender reassignment (what a horrible expression) HE is now a SHE. But whatever he did as a man he did as a man, so it was clearly done by HIM, a HE. You can change his sex but you can't jump into a tricked up Delorean go back in time and make it apply to 1976.bompington wrote:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it the case that the petition is really being put about to highlight what is really ridiculous - the idea that you must refer to the men's decathlon winner in 1976, even historically, as "Caitlyn" who was really a woman, and if you don't you will be forced to recant and apologise by everything from an automated bot to a howling twittermob.Veronese68 wrote:I think stripping Jenner of medals won as a man by someone born as a man is utterly ridiculous. If someone has gender reassignment before competing it is different and I'm not sure what the answer is. I suspect it may give an unfair advantage in some circumstances, but I have no idea how you would work it out. But would there be some advantage in a man waiting to undergo reassignment as the earning potential of men in sort is higher?
That's the way I see it and no amount of PC nonsense will change my mind. Much like DDD and Armstrong never doped perhaps.0 -
Right, let's add some controversy.Veronese68 wrote:HE is now a SHE.
I've considered this a bit and decided that I'd categorise someone who was born male, then went through surgery for an approximation of another genders sexual organs, to still be male.FCN 9 || FCN 50 -
Veronese68 wrote:
I have no idea why the petition was started, don't really care, it's still ridiculous. As far as I'm concerned HE won it as a male. Now he has undergone gender reassignment (what a horrible expression) HE is now a SHE. But whatever he did as a man he did as a man, so it was clearly done by HIM, a HE. You can change his sex but you can't jump into a tricked up Delorean go back in time and make it apply to 1976.bompington wrote:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it the case that the petition is really being put about to highlight what is really ridiculous - the idea that you must refer to the men's decathlon winner in 1976, even historically, as "Caitlyn" who was really a woman, and if you don't you will be forced to recant and apologise by everything from an automated bot to a howling twittermob.Veronese68 wrote:I think stripping Jenner of medals won as a man by someone born as a man is utterly ridiculous. If someone has gender reassignment before competing it is different and I'm not sure what the answer is. I suspect it may give an unfair advantage in some circumstances, but I have no idea how you would work it out. But would there be some advantage in a man waiting to undergo reassignment as the earning potential of men in sort is higher?
That's the way I see it and no amount of PC nonsense will change my mind. Much like DDD and Armstrong never doped perhaps.
Let's put it in another context - if Linford Christie (I couldn't think of another athlete) lost both his legs somehow and got fitted up with prostheses, would there be a petition to have his 100m wins recategorised as Paralympics medals?0 -
jds_1981 wrote:
Right, let's add some controversy.Veronese68 wrote:HE is now a SHE.
I've considered this a bit and decided that I'd categorise someone who was born male, then went through surgery for an approximation of another genders sexual organs, to still be male.
Then you are part of the problem, not part of the solution. Women shouldn't vote either, right? Times change, the world moves on.0 -
lost_in_thought wrote:Then you are part of the problem, not part of the solution. Women shouldn't vote either, right? Times change, the world moves on.
Solution to what? The world move on, but pigs are still pigs, cows are still cows, and I'm disappointed you've not told me why I'm wrong.FCN 9 || FCN 50 -
jds_1981 wrote:lost_in_thought wrote:Then you are part of the problem, not part of the solution. Women shouldn't vote either, right? Times change, the world moves on.
Solution to what? The world move on, but pigs are still pigs, cows are still cows, and I'm disappointed you've not told me why I'm wrong.
Amusingly, currently sat on a train reading Bertrand Russell's 'History of Western Philosophy' where he gives a synopsis of St Augustines confessions. In it be explains (In heaven) "Men will have male bodies, and women female bodies, and those who have died in infancy will rise again with adult bodies"FCN 9 || FCN 50 -
jds_1981 wrote:lost_in_thought wrote:Then you are part of the problem, not part of the solution. Women shouldn't vote either, right? Times change, the world moves on.
Solution to what? The world move on, but pigs are still pigs, cows are still cows, and I'm disappointed you've not told me why I'm wrong.
The general idea behind the convention of referring to a trans person's past and present using their preferred gender is that it really is no skin off your nose to do so. It's just good manners. To not do so is just mulish disrespect; causing offence for no other reason than to cause offence.- - - - - - - - - -
On Strava.{/url}0 -
The reason that you do not understand it is because it is because the premise is the epitome of ridiculous.Veronese68 wrote:
I have no idea why the petition was started, don't really care, it's still ridiculous. As far as I'm concerned HE won it as a male. Now he has undergone gender reassignment (what a horrible expression) HE is now a SHE. But whatever he did as a man he did as a man, so it was clearly done by HIM, a HE. You can change his sex but you can't jump into a tricked up Delorean go back in time and make it apply to 1976.bompington wrote:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it the case that the petition is really being put about to highlight what is really ridiculous - the idea that you must refer to the men's decathlon winner in 1976, even historically, as "Caitlyn" who was really a woman, and if you don't you will be forced to recant and apologise by everything from an automated bot to a howling twittermob.Veronese68 wrote:I think stripping Jenner of medals won as a man by someone born as a man is utterly ridiculous. If someone has gender reassignment before competing it is different and I'm not sure what the answer is. I suspect it may give an unfair advantage in some circumstances, but I have no idea how you would work it out. But would there be some advantage in a man waiting to undergo reassignment as the earning potential of men in sort is higher?
That's the way I see it and no amount of PC nonsense will change my mind. Much like DDD and Armstrong never doped perhaps.The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
I am not sure. You have no chance.Veronese68 wrote:PB is the most sensible person on here.0 -
lost_in_thought wrote:Veronese68 wrote:
I have no idea why the petition was started, don't really care, it's still ridiculous. As far as I'm concerned HE won it as a male. Now he has undergone gender reassignment (what a horrible expression) HE is now a SHE. But whatever he did as a man he did as a man, so it was clearly done by HIM, a HE. You can change his sex but you can't jump into a tricked up Delorean go back in time and make it apply to 1976.bompington wrote:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it the case that the petition is really being put about to highlight what is really ridiculous - the idea that you must refer to the men's decathlon winner in 1976, even historically, as "Caitlyn" who was really a woman, and if you don't you will be forced to recant and apologise by everything from an automated bot to a howling twittermob.Veronese68 wrote:I think stripping Jenner of medals won as a man by someone born as a man is utterly ridiculous. If someone has gender reassignment before competing it is different and I'm not sure what the answer is. I suspect it may give an unfair advantage in some circumstances, but I have no idea how you would work it out. But would there be some advantage in a man waiting to undergo reassignment as the earning potential of men in sort is higher?
That's the way I see it and no amount of PC nonsense will change my mind. Much like DDD and Armstrong never doped perhaps.
Let's put it in another context - if Linford Christie (I couldn't think of another athlete) lost both his legs somehow and got fitted up with prostheses, would there be a petition to have his 100m wins recategorised as Paralympics medals?
Woah#1: she's back!
Woah#2: it took a DDD thread to get her back
Big picture, people, big picture!!0 -
What on earth has that got to do with not allowing one gender the vote? Caitlyn still has the chromosomes of a male, so in that respect there is a valid argument that she is still a he, to just debunk it in the way you have gives you no credibility.lost_in_thought wrote:jds_1981 wrote:
Right, let's add some controversy.Veronese68 wrote:HE is now a SHE.
I've considered this a bit and decided that I'd categorise someone who was born male, then went through surgery for an approximation of another genders sexual organs, to still be male.
Then you are part of the problem, not part of the solution. Women shouldn't vote either, right? Times change, the world moves on.
I remember in an interview with Sue Barker, they discussed he playing Tennis with Cliff Richard and asked how close the matches were, she may not have been top drawer, but she was a pretty good player in her time and she was quite open that he, has a decent club level player, could beat her easily, someone who went through puberty as a man would have a big edge if allowed to compete as a women, is that fair, if not you may as well have all women and men competing together in all sports (not just the few they do now like horse riding events) leaving very few women a chance to win anything.Currently riding a Whyte T130C, X0 drivetrain, Magura Trail brakes converted to mixed wheel size (homebuilt wheels) with 140mm Fox 34 Rhythm and RP23 suspension. 12.2Kg.0 -
Not been in the SCR thread lately then. Nice tales about the lack of decent SCR in California.Greg66 Tri v2.0 wrote:Woah#1: she's back!
Woah#2: it took a DDD thread to get her back
Big picture, people, big picture!!0 -
Greg66 Tri v2.0 wrote:lost_in_thought wrote:Veronese68 wrote:
I have no idea why the petition was started, don't really care, it's still ridiculous. As far as I'm concerned HE won it as a male. Now he has undergone gender reassignment (what a horrible expression) HE is now a SHE. But whatever he did as a man he did as a man, so it was clearly done by HIM, a HE. You can change his sex but you can't jump into a tricked up Delorean go back in time and make it apply to 1976.bompington wrote:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it the case that the petition is really being put about to highlight what is really ridiculous - the idea that you must refer to the men's decathlon winner in 1976, even historically, as "Caitlyn" who was really a woman, and if you don't you will be forced to recant and apologise by everything from an automated bot to a howling twittermob.Veronese68 wrote:I think stripping Jenner of medals won as a man by someone born as a man is utterly ridiculous. If someone has gender reassignment before competing it is different and I'm not sure what the answer is. I suspect it may give an unfair advantage in some circumstances, but I have no idea how you would work it out. But would there be some advantage in a man waiting to undergo reassignment as the earning potential of men in sort is higher?
That's the way I see it and no amount of PC nonsense will change my mind. Much like DDD and Armstrong never doped perhaps.
Let's put it in another context - if Linford Christie (I couldn't think of another athlete) lost both his legs somehow and got fitted up with prostheses, would there be a petition to have his 100m wins recategorised as Paralympics medals?
Woah#1: she's back!
Woah#2: it took a DDD thread to get her back
Big picture, people, big picture!!
I noticed too, been a long time. welcome back LIT.0 -
Veronese68 wrote:
Not been in the SCR thread lately then. Nice tales about the lack of decent SCR in California.Greg66 Tri v2.0 wrote:Woah#1: she's back!
Woah#2: it took a DDD thread to get her back
Big picture, people, big picture!!
Yeah well SCR is another London-centric thread, not all of us live there!0 -
Accepted, but G66 does and that was mainly for his benefit.Arthur Scrimshaw wrote:Yeah well SCR is another London-centric thread, not all of us live there!0 -
Off topic but since people have been mentioning the oscar pistorius issue over the prostheses perhaps an interesting (to me) aside over the rules of prostheses might be in order. The bodies involved have a set of rules for working out the length of the prostheses allowed by a competing athlete. Apparently they are allowed up to a certain size which is determined based on height (original) and other things such as body sizes/shape. I do not know the exact rules but it does throw up some anomalies.
OP runs with the prostheses that matches his day to day legs for height. he is entitled to wear longer prostheses but that came in after his choice of running leg length. He had gone through loads of testing with those running prostheses in order to get clearance for racing in the main olympics. When he was able to increase the length, which gives him an advantage, he did not change because he would have to get them reassessed to race in the main olympics. never going to have time for that so he raced with a disadvantage against other pure paralympians such as the guy who beat him in IIRC all his paralympian races. That guy had longer legs in relation to his body which meant longer stride length and faster speed. That guy then takes his racing legs off and loses 2 or 3 inches in height when using his normal prostheses.
To put it another way the paralympian rules on prostheses gave OP a disadvantage due to his desire to run in the Olympics. At least there were rules set up for them. I wonder what they rules on transgender and post competition changes or pre-competition changes. My personal view is pre-puberty then no issue but post puberty I question the right to compete but that is based on my ignorant theory that puberty instills physical benefits that hormone treatment and gender reassignment can not negate.0 -
Arthur Scrimshaw wrote:
Yeah well SCR is another London-centric thread, not all of us live there!
:shock: :shock: :shock:0 -
Rick Chasey wrote:Arthur Scrimshaw wrote:
Yeah well SCR is another London-centric thread, not all of us live there!
:shock: :shock: :shock:
Its actually more SW London-centric than London centric."If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got."
PX Kaffenback 2 = Work Horse
B-Twin Alur 700 = Sundays and Hills0 -
G66 is in SW London :roll:rubertoe wrote:Rick Chasey wrote:Arthur Scrimshaw wrote:
Yeah well SCR is another London-centric thread, not all of us live there!
:shock: :shock: :shock:
Its acutally more SW London-centric than London centric.
If someone accuses the SCR thread of being Richmond-centric that would work too.0 -
Veronese68 wrote:
G66 is in SW London :roll:rubertoe wrote:Rick Chasey wrote:Arthur Scrimshaw wrote:
Yeah well SCR is another London-centric thread, not all of us live there!
:shock: :shock: :shock:
Its acutally more SW London-centric than London centric.
If someone accuses the SCR thread of being Richmond-centric that would work too.
I didnt want to say......"If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got."
PX Kaffenback 2 = Work Horse
B-Twin Alur 700 = Sundays and Hills0 -
rubertoe wrote:Veronese68 wrote:
G66 is in SW London :roll:rubertoe wrote:Rick Chasey wrote:Arthur Scrimshaw wrote:
Yeah well SCR is another London-centric thread, not all of us live there!
:shock: :shock: :shock:
Its acutally more SW London-centric than London centric.
If someone accuses the SCR thread of being Richmond-centric that would work too.
I didnt want to say......
It's like another language
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