i always like to poke conservatives about how i dont believe in “overregulating”, and regulating this just seems like unnecessary “big government” involvement, to see how they react.
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This doesn’t seem like a great line of argument to me. You could say the first sentence about justice in general. But that doesn’t mean that it’s not worth trying to make the world more just.
As for the second sentence, I disagree that discussion of fairness in sports or otherwise is “complete arbitrary,” although many thoughtful people disagree with me on that point.
To me, another way of evaluating the question at hand is first asking whether it really is unfair to let trans women compete as women. It seems like the answer is clearly “no” here in virtually all cases.
Then if you want to go further, you could ask in the few cases where this is or conceivably would be unfair to other competitors, are there other concerns, such as promoting trans rights more generally, that outweigh these fairness claims. The answer here seems to be yes.
If we were at the point where rights for trans people were secure, it might be possible to have a safe and dispassionate discussion about how to tweak rules for certain special cases. Unfortunately that isn’t the world we live in.
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There were 2 trans athletes in the women’s 100 free final. 5th place was a trans man that hasn’t used hormone therapy.
For sports, it’s not really simple.
It is though! Five different women placed 1-5 … If that was the end of how you viewed it, it would be just that simple.
I’m bowing out of this thread. I really do think it is far, far simpler than people think. You just have to prioritize inclusion over keeping shit the same. And that might mean some things change, or look different. That could be something we embrace.
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Well, no a man finished in 5th.
I’m actually not trying to troll. I believe there’s a lot of uncomfortable decisions that have to made at various Governing bodies. And there will inevitably be lots of athletes put through the grinder regardless of how those rules play out.
Lia was a pretty bad ass swimmer in 2019 when she competed as a man. 4:18 in the 500, while not qualifying for ncaa championship, is still a major accomplishment. Like top 20 in the country.
And now, after hormone suppression and time, she’s gotten slower, but she’s the fastest in the country. So in her case, she hits the sweet spot of excelling from relative obscurity to champion. Were the rules strict enough, or did she just get much better once she was allowed to express her true gender? Can’t say.
I swam in college in the 90s, always supported my teammates on both teams, and always been a supporter of women’s sport in general, especially swimming.
I support Lia. I support the integrity of women’s sports. There is still a discussion to be had about the rules regarding trans athletes. It will continue to be ugly in the public sphere, hopefully less so here.
I again bring the example of Phelps. He was far and away the best competitor and his meets were foregone conclusions before the race started. Should he have not been allowed to compete?
Who woulda thunk champion of the underclass and “Both parties are exactly the same” Vict0ar would be just your garden variety bigot.
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To you, or anyone who wants to make these arguments. Please explain exactly what you think restricting female athletics to females means, and what steps you believe athletic governing bodies should take to ensure this that they aren’t currently taking. I want you to get really specific on exactly what changes you’re proposing and how you plan for them to be enforced.
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That’s a good question. It’s not uncommon for sports to have an “open” competition and a more restricted, separate competition. Arguably this is whole foundation of women’s sports - women meeting qualifying criteria do (rarely) compete against men. So the question isn’t really “should Phelps be allowed to compete”, it’s “against whom should Phelps be allowed to compete”. My gym has a pool and a swimming community that hosts club competitions. Hypothetically if Phelps wanted to compete, it would be fine in my opinion for organizers to say no thanks, we want to this to be a meaningful competition among peers. This is a messy and complicated thing to generalize and I think we just have to accept that it’s messy and complicated. I am in favor of trans women competing as women because, well, they’re women. But I am also open to reasoned, fact based organizing groups trying their best to organize the best competitions that they can. It’s very possible the that optimal outcome is absolutely no restrictions on trans women competing, maybe that’s the best possible version of women’s sports.
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This is all totally subjective which is why we need to accept that there is no extremely simple objective solution. Pro sports use things like salary caps to make the league more balanced in quality of teams, because it’s in their collective interest to do that. That’s an example of using the concept of meaningful competition to achieve a better outcome, without needing to have some ironclad mathematical formula for what it “means”.
Note that the concept of meaningful competition isn’t one I created, I got it here:
and it’s not necessarily going to be used as a mechanism to rule out trans women as competitors. As noted in the article, the fact that trans women are not currently dominating women’s sports all over the place is an argument in favor of their ongoing participation.
A more empathetic way to frame it (instead of saying “I don’t care”) might be to say that you would defer to the opinions of trans athletes, their advocates, and the sports organizers that are better informed on the matter than you are. That’s probably what I would say, and depending on who I was talking to I would more likely than not be inclined to say that we should be striving for inclusion of trans athletes and if someone wants to exclude them they’ve got to bring some very persuasive real world data to convince me.
How do we reconcile fluidity of sexuality?
Plus, way too much Is being made of that fraction of identity, especially in young people.
Why should someone’s sexuality come into play at all?
cis or trans, you can be straight, gay , bi, or queer, and still get to play in the sport with your gender.
I never said you expressed an opinion.
I was pointing out that “Who I do or do not want to fuck” is not appropriate in a thread about sports and trans inclusion in sport, and is something a bigot would use as some kind of stupid fucking gotcha in said thread
I dunno about that.
Be interested in hearing how many here would honestly date a trans woman and not just pretend they would.
I have. She’s in my travel pic.
It really isn’t.
Then make a thread for it (I advise against this, but whatever.) This is a thread about trans people in sports. I don’t give a shit who wants to fuck who in here
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Sure but the guy made a point that was relevant to the thread in my opinion.
No, it really is. Go read the 2+2 thread. They use the same argument every time they want to make a point about why we should exclude trans athletes. “Would you fuck a trans person? If not, then they shouldn’t be allowed in women’s sports.”
GTFOH, its a bigotted take to make a point that has nothing to do with the thread. We’re talking bout practice here, not who we want to stick our dicks into or have dicks stuck into us by.
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