transgender again ...

DeVlaeminck

Women's sport is for biological women (I realise there are some issues around defining biological sex) - it shouldn't be for men who have had their ability reduced by drugs - a woman isn't just a man on hormone treatment. If it was would it be ok for a female to take epo, steroids etc to compete against men ?

pinno

oxoman said:

Personally I don't care as I cannot possibly compete at a serious level where it would actually matter. I can see serious athletes being upset regardless of gender if someone had a huge advantage because someone had changed gender etc. Can we not add extra categories like with athletics and para athletics.

Yeah whatabout short people? You know - Olympics for the vertically challenged and then the people with IQ's less than 100?
And a category for people over 6 foot 4" 'cos they have an unfair advantage over the shorter people in certain events.
We could have categories for diabetics and people with under active thyroids, Piles etc
Eventually, the Olympics will last 1 year and cost so much no one will host it.

pinno

briantrumpet said:

First.Aspect said:

This is where PC collides with science I'm afraid, so sport has no option.

If trans women are allowed to compete in women's sport, every national federation of some sports will go on a trans woman recruitment drive and the top three steps of every podium would be a distillation of that.

I was actually thinking about this today. Given the extreme lengths some people will go to win sporting stuff at international level (one only needs to think of the wide misuse, over decades, in certain sports, of drugs that can affect gender identity), I would worry that some people might see it as a short cut to an elite level, or at least it might sway their thinking in a way which would be entirely inappropriate. Removing that incentive, and leaving the choice as one based entirely on gender identity (not sporting 'opportunities'), seems like a good thing, on a basic safeguarding level.

What they did to eastern European female gymnasts was diabolical.

pep.fermi

rick_chasey said:

pep.fermi said:

First.Aspect said:

pblakeney said:

me-109 said:

...

Let's reverse that and ask if a woman trans to a man could compete at an elite level against men? If they could then it would suggest no male advantage.

Simple.
Females compete against born females. Male event is open.

I think it could be heading that way. But then trans men and women will turn out to have a disadvantage. Is that better, or worse? Better than some third category, I suppose. is open.

Not really.
People with XX chromosome (born female) can compete in their category.
They can still compete against XY (born male) if they want. And if this is their preference (they can, but don't have to), then yes of course they will probably have a disadvantage.

So to be clear, this effectively excludes transgender athletes from competition in practice.

No.
If born male, compete against males.
If you are born female, and are transgender, you can compete against males or females. You choice.
In any case transgender always welcome to compete.
Do you think this would be bad?

pep.fermi

pinno said:

oxoman said:

Personally I don't care as I cannot possibly compete at a serious level where it would actually matter. I can see serious athletes being upset regardless of gender if someone had a huge advantage because someone had changed gender etc. Can we not add extra categories like with athletics and para athletics.

Yeah whatabout short people? You know - Olympics for the vertically challenged and then the people with IQ's less than 100?
And a category for people over 6 foot 4" 'cos they have an unfair advantage over the shorter people in certain events.
We could have categories for diabetics and people with under active thyroids, Piles etc
Eventually, the Olympics will last 1 year and cost so much no one will host it.

Mother nature is not equally generous to all.
Smarter healthier stronger people have better lives on many front. We should accept it.

rick_chasey

pep.fermi said:

rick_chasey said:

pep.fermi said:

First.Aspect said:

pblakeney said:

me-109 said:

...

Let's reverse that and ask if a woman trans to a man could compete at an elite level against men? If they could then it would suggest no male advantage.

Simple.
Females compete against born females. Male event is open.

I think it could be heading that way. But then trans men and women will turn out to have a disadvantage. Is that better, or worse? Better than some third category, I suppose. is open.

Not really.
People with XX chromosome (born female) can compete in their category.
They can still compete against XY (born male) if they want. And if this is their preference (they can, but don't have to), then yes of course they will probably have a disadvantage.

So to be clear, this effectively excludes transgender athletes from competition in practice.

No.
If born male, compete against males.
If you are born female, and are transgender, you can compete against males or females. You choice.
In any case transgender always welcome to compete.
Do you think this would be bad?

I don’t think you’re really understanding the issue if you can’t see your approach has the practical effect of excluding trans athletes.

pinno

pep.fermi said:

If you are born female, and are transgender, you can compete against males or females.

They can and do have an unfair advantage.









If there is a huge influx of trans gender female athletes, they may dominate. If they dominate, do you reverse the rules because female athletes are at a disadvantage?

First.Aspect

rick_chasey said:

pep.fermi said:

rick_chasey said:

pep.fermi said:

First.Aspect said:

pblakeney said:

me-109 said:

...

Let's reverse that and ask if a woman trans to a man could compete at an elite level against men? If they could then it would suggest no male advantage.

Simple.
Females compete against born females. Male event is open.

I think it could be heading that way. But then trans men and women will turn out to have a disadvantage. Is that better, or worse? Better than some third category, I suppose. is open.

Not really.
People with XX chromosome (born female) can compete in their category.
They can still compete against XY (born male) if they want. And if this is their preference (they can, but don't have to), then yes of course they will probably have a disadvantage.

So to be clear, this effectively excludes transgender athletes from competition in practice.

No.
If born male, compete against males.
If you are born female, and are transgender, you can compete against males or females. You choice.
In any case transgender always welcome to compete.
Do you think this would be bad?

I don’t think you’re really understanding the issue if you can’t see your approach has the practical effect of excluding trans athletes.

Well, if you listen to what Lord Coe said, if there's a choice...

rick_chasey

First.Aspect said:

rick_chasey said:

pep.fermi said:

rick_chasey said:

pep.fermi said:

First.Aspect said:

pblakeney said:

me-109 said:

...

Let's reverse that and ask if a woman trans to a man could compete at an elite level against men? If they could then it would suggest no male advantage.

Simple.
Females compete against born females. Male event is open.

I think it could be heading that way. But then trans men and women will turn out to have a disadvantage. Is that better, or worse? Better than some third category, I suppose. is open.

Not really.
People with XX chromosome (born female) can compete in their category.
They can still compete against XY (born male) if they want. And if this is their preference (they can, but don't have to), then yes of course they will probably have a disadvantage.

So to be clear, this effectively excludes transgender athletes from competition in practice.

No.
If born male, compete against males.
If you are born female, and are transgender, you can compete against males or females. You choice.
In any case transgender always welcome to compete.
Do you think this would be bad?

I don’t think you’re really understanding the issue if you can’t see your approach has the practical effect of excluding trans athletes.

Well, if you listen to what Lord Coe said, if there's a choice...

Eh? As per my previous post, you can choose to prioritise either fairness (and thus exclusionary to trans athletes) or inclusion (and thus unfair to cis women athletes), but not both.

Coe has made it very clear in his quote:

“My responsibility is to protect the integrity of women’s sport. We take that very seriously and, if it means that we have to make adjustments to protocols going forward, we will,” Coe said. “And I’ve always made it clear: if we ever get pushed into a corner to that point where we’re making a judgment about fairness or inclusion, I will always fall down on the side of fairness.”

First.Aspect

Aren't there analogies to the issues that they face in the paralymics? You occasionally get news stories of people who are re-classified because their conditions have changed or improved. And then there was the controversy about amputee athletes mysteriously getting taller.

Seems to me those get less attention because "meh", whereas the trans community has a much louder and stronger voice, but that it means just as much to those individual para athletes.

rick_chasey

First.Aspect said:

Aren't there analogies to the issues that they face in the paralymics? You occasionally get news stories of people who are re-classified because their conditions have changed or improved. And then there was the controversy about amputee athletes mysteriously getting taller.

Seems to me those get less attention because "meh", whereas the trans community has a much louder and stronger voice, but that it means just as much to those individual para athletes.

I'd separate the trans community from activists, who are a noisy and unhelpful minority.

The entire discourse is dominated by just abuse on both sides screaming at strawmen they've created.

The reality is in sport, there is no inclusionary route that is fair to cis women.

So you have to chose which you are more comfortable with.

I suspect the reason sports have taken different views is that the level of unfairness are different between sports, and so governing bodies and athletes will have a different decision to make between the level of unfairness vs inclusion.

But we need to be clear that if you are pursuing fairness, which is what everyone on this thread is suggesting, you are pursuing a trans exclusionary policy. That may well be fine as you think the alternative is worse, but don't ignore the downside.

DeVlaeminck

If we did allow trans women on hormones to compete should we also allow trans men to boost their athletic ability with steroids etc and compete ? If not why not surely they have as much right to inclusion as trans women.

First.Aspect

rick_chasey said:

First.Aspect said:

Aren't there analogies to the issues that they face in the paralymics? You occasionally get news stories of people who are re-classified because their conditions have changed or improved. And then there was the controversy about amputee athletes mysteriously getting taller.

Seems to me those get less attention because "meh", whereas the trans community has a much louder and stronger voice, but that it means just as much to those individual para athletes.

I'd separate the trans community from activists, who are a noisy and unhelpful minority.

The entire discourse is dominated by just abuse on both sides screaming at strawmen they've created.

The reality is in sport, there is no inclusionary route that is fair to cis women.

So you have to chose which you are more comfortable with.

I suspect the reason sports have taken different views is that the level of unfairness are different between sports, and so governing bodies and athletes will have a different decision to make between the level of unfairness vs inclusion.

But we need to be clear that if you are pursuing fairness, which is what everyone on this thread is suggesting, you are pursuing a trans exclusionary policy. That may well be fine as you think the alternative is worse, but don't ignore the downside.

I think sport will go for fairness, by and large. FINA and the IAAF have been brave enough to take the lead, and more sports will follow. They will each have a threshold of volume of scientific evidence that would be acceptable, although in reality it will probably be more about how many elite level trans athletes they have to worry about. That's just my prediction - fairness to cis women (who, honestly, it would probably be okay to refer to as "women") - will be paramount.

rick_chasey

Cycling has gone for a more inclusive approach so I don't think it's that cut and dried.

pblakeney

rick_chasey said:

Cycling has gone for a more inclusive approach so I don't think it's that cut and dried.

For now...

First.Aspect

pblakeney said:

rick_chasey said:

Cycling has gone for a more inclusive approach so I don't think it's that cut and dried.

For now...

Exactly. And the one relatively high profile athlete has now been prevented from competing by the UCI, because all of her competitors think it would be unfair. Which it would.

Dorset_Boy

If the competition isn't seen as fair to the majority, it soon won't be inclusive - what i'm saying is that women will stop participating and stop competiting.
Yes, it's tough on the trans athlete, and a category needs to be made available to them, but in most sports, they absolutely should not be competing against those born as female.

rick_chasey

This “create a new category for trans athletes” rather misunderstands the point of changing gender to begin with.

pblakeney

rick_chasey said:

This “create a new category for trans athletes” rather misunderstands the point of changing gender to begin with.

This won't go down well, but that is something for those changing gender to deal with, not the majority. Fair > inclusive.

shirley_basso

I think playing elite sport as trans should be low down your priority list - but competition is a natural part of being a human and therefore trans women should be able to compete in sport in a reasonable way in a non-exclusionary manner. Fark knows how that's done though

ugo.santalucia

Get rid of gender... The key is to reward participation in the most Decoubertinian sense. You could think of elite races where the winner is the most improved, against a benchmark that needs to be at least 2 years long or something. Basically you are competing against yourself and everybody has a fair chance of winning. You could have qualifiers where the time you set decides if you qualify or not, but then the race is about self-improvement over your 2 year PB.
For team sports, you could have a wild card, so a female team could have one male or one transgender athlete in their team... or two if the team is big.

First.Aspect

ugo.santalucia said:

Get rid of gender... The key is to reward participation in the most Decoubertinian sense. You could think of elite races where the winner is the most improved, against a benchmark that needs to be at least 2 years long or something. Basically you are competing against yourself and everybody has a fair chance of winning. You could have qualifiers where the time you set decides if you qualify or not, but then the race is about self-improvement over your 2 year PB.
For team sports, you could have a wild card, so a female team could have one male or one transgender athlete in their team... or two if the team is big.

It's like school sports day, everyone wins a prize.

First.Aspect

pblakeney said:

rick_chasey said:

This “create a new category for trans athletes” rather misunderstands the point of changing gender to begin with.

This won't go down well, but that is something for those changing gender to deal with, not the majority. Fair > inclusive.

Does inclusively include the right to compete at elite level sport, or just the right to compete per se?

surrey_commuter

ugo.santalucia said:

Get rid of gender... The key is to reward participation in the most Decoubertinian sense. You could think of elite races where the winner is the most improved, against a benchmark that needs to be at least 2 years long or something. Basically you are competing against yourself and everybody has a fair chance of winning. You could have qualifiers where the time you set decides if you qualify or not, but then the race is about self-improvement over your 2 year PB.
For team sports, you could have a wild card, so a female team could have one male or one transgender athlete in their team... or two if the team is big.

My mind is boggling at the thought of Calton Kirby figuring out who had just won a stage and where they were in GC.

It would be interesting to watch Messi play in a womens football match.

ugo.santalucia

In races against time, like triathlon, marathons, time trials you could apply some carefully worked out handicaps and keep all genders in the same race... we have handicaps for Veteran competitions in time trialling... they work quite well and nobody object them. It would also finally solve the issue of who is the greatest... is it Paula Radcliffe or Gebreselasie or whoever...

A thought: in very long races, gender seem to be irrelevant... TCR was won by a woman last time round and women have beat men in ultra running events... so maybe gender conscious sport needs to move away from the 10 seconds stuff and look at the ten hours or ten days stuff instead.

On the other hand, some sport will always have a gender problem to solve

rick_chasey

First.Aspect said:

pblakeney said:

rick_chasey said:

This “create a new category for trans athletes” rather misunderstands the point of changing gender to begin with.

This won't go down well, but that is something for those changing gender to deal with, not the majority. Fair > inclusive.

Does inclusively include the right to compete at elite level sport, or just the right to compete per se?

That’s a matter of opinion.

I think the challenge is you just see trans people as different to cis.

I think the trans community would feel that’s discrimination and misses the point of moving from one gender to the other - they want to be considered *fully* the destination gender. Why else go through all the trauma of surgery and hormones etc?

Hence the arguments going around that even sex is a social construct.

Now I’m not sympathetic to that argument and I also agree that fairness is really important in sport.

But to save the thread descending into just anti trans stuff I feel I ought to give their side.

The creation of women’s sport is a type of inclusion - as they can’t compete with men in most sports, so that is where the inclusion argument comes from.

First.Aspect

rick_chasey said:

First.Aspect said:

pblakeney said:

rick_chasey said:

This “create a new category for trans athletes” rather misunderstands the point of changing gender to begin with.

This won't go down well, but that is something for those changing gender to deal with, not the majority. Fair > inclusive.

Does inclusively include the right to compete at elite level sport, or just the right to compete per se?

That’s a matter of opinion.

I think the challenge is you just see trans people as different to cis.

I think the trans community would feel that’s discrimination and misses the point of moving from one gender to the other - they want to be considered *fully* the destination gender. Why else go through all the trauma of surgery and hormones etc?

Hence the arguments going around that even sex is a social construct.

Now I’m not sympathetic to that argument and I also agree that fairness is really important in sport.

But to save the thread descending into just anti trans stuff I feel I ought to give their side.

The creation of women’s sport is a type of inclusion - as they can’t compete with men in most sports, so that is where the inclusion argument comes from.

Trans people are biologically different from cis people, there is no escaping that and it isn't discrimination to acknowledge it.

And to correct you, 1. sex isn't a social construct, gender is. So I'm told. And 2. Not all people who have transitions have had surgical transitions.

You you see RC this is a minefield even for someone as well meaningly woke as you.

BTW, did you see anything on there that was anti trans? Or is that just a nasty little label you presume to apply to anyone who talks about it rationally?

morstar

Are we really conflating reasonable debate with anti trans?

More than happy for trans people to adopt their place in society. They can’t just expect to compete in womens sport if they are deemed to have an advantage over born females.

Personally, I don’t have the scientific evidence to say they do but, it seems fairly common sense that the advantages of average greater height and more powerful physiques do confer such an advantage.

Open or trans categories are the way to go imho. Alternatively, any career or lifestyle choice may require sacrifice. If an elite sport career is more important, wait to transition. If transition is more important, sacrifice the elite sport career if a trans category is not acceptable.

Nobody is entitled to have everything they want without sacrifice.

DeVlaeminck

morstar said:

Are we really conflating reasonable debate with anti trans?


Personally, I don’t have the scientific evidence to say they do but, it seems fairly common sense that the advantages of average greater height and more powerful physiques do confer such an advantage.

.

It's impossible to provide the counter factual what would be this person's level of athletic ability had they been born female. It's not just the physical aspect - which in itself is impossible to know for each I individual - at best we might come to some ball park average. There is also the social - most girls grow up competing against girls - they generally have a lower level of competition - how does that affect their sporting development?

The search for "scientific evidence" is just the search for some ball park average - if we give a man hormone therapy x for y years that will get them down to the kind of physiological outputs typical of women. That's not sufficient - a because it can never be individualised and b because it doesn't actually make the person a biological woman.

That's the core objection lots of feminists have here - women's sport is for women - not men who want to live as women. Having followed the debate. I think they make a fair point. If say Emma Pooley said she's a man nobody would say ok take a load of drugs until you can compete with elite men - it's a double standard because women's sport isn't valued equally.

davidof

ddraver said:

I had slightly hoped that a forum of straight, white, middle class men might have stayed out of this on the basis that it's a little out of our spheres of expertise....

You are making quite a few assumptions there but you are probably right. All I know is the women at work don't want my trans colleague pissing in their toilet but I don't care if he/she pisses in gents.