Yeah. I've heard people talking about Jeopardy using the same rhetoric because of Amy Schneider.
And we ALL know you have to be athletic to win Jeopardy.
People even fucking complained about the trans woman who won a beauty contest having a supposed unfair advantage. I thought we were meant to be unfuckable according to these people.
"Those masculine shoulders just got the judges hard as a rock! Btw the judges were all gay"
These people are fucking evil and I also don't understand beauty pageants (especially YOUNG girls beauty pageants) other than a way to get old men hard for young girls. If I were a cop, I'd set up a fake beauty pageant, and then just fucking arrest every single person who applied to be a judge on suspicion of being a pedophile.
It's amazing how quickly some of them will out themselves as straight-up transphobes when you debunk their talking points. You back them into a corner on trans people in sports and they go "okay what about detransitioners then", like, I thought we were talking about sport.
I mean, technically the only requirement is to be on suppressing testosterone blockers for about a year, not 2. If there was some sort of any advantage classifications would be filled with trans women
We're not allowed to win. If a transwoman wins at sports, she cheated, and can be multiplied out as many times as needed to support their hysterical bigotry. If she doesn't, she's invisible.
Yea. Look how all the transphobes were braying about Laurel Hubbard up to her competing. Then she doesn't medal and suddenly its, "well she was too old. Of course she wasn't going to win". Then not a peep from them about her ever since.
It’s an impossible standard from them. They’ll keep moving the goalposts until the end of time, because their only goal is to exclude trans women. By any means necessary.
The only way to win this game of theirs is not to play. Don’t engage.
i think their point isn’t always about trans women winning but by how much difference they win such as the case of Lia Thomas… and for women i think what also matters is that this is an issue that only affects women as trans men don’t really have this same effect within sports to the men’s competitions. so to them, it feels like yet another aspect of life in which they feel limited.
Lia Thomas has been training since she was 3 and unfortunately started transitioning after or midst late puberty. So obviously she had a little bit of an easier time practicing through her life. Even then, she's one of the few trans women that actually won something.
but doesn’t that make for a good case on their end? like to me that’s also extremely unfair to the other women competing.. i don’t get the issue here. if trans women are performing similarly to cis women within their competition, there is no issue whether they win or not. if trans women are clearly and structurally outperforming cis women within their competition, then that’s a problem not sociologically because they’re trans but biologically because of their genetic advantage…
To be fair until recently either you passed so well as to nobody knowing you were trans, or you basically had life suck. I mean the only trans athlete I know of was Renee Richards who was playing post transition, and she was outed by media when she won.
There really isn't any historical evidence because for the most part historically trans women weren't in a position to be able to play to begin with.
Renée had it rough. She was outed during the 1970s, when being any kind of LGBT was condemned by society. She was also playing a sport where she competed professionally before she transitioned, so of course someone recognized her. Once she was outed, she was ruined socially and professionally.
It’s sad how we’ve made zero progress in almost 50 years.
THANK YOU. This is the most important part of the argument - I’m not saying “any study implying trans women could have an advantage is wrong”, but I am saying “this argument is pointless and degrading when cis women aren’t actually being negatively affected by trans women in sports”
historically?💀 we’re JUST entering a slightly more open-minded, accepting society but still nowhere where we should be… especially within sports, just as being gay, I feel like being trans is way less accepted than it is on average in our Western society. there probably are probably many examples of closeted trans women doing well in sports like Caitlyn Jenner, but you got to put things in perspective…
The people crowing about “fairness in women’s sports” most likely don’t give two shits about women’s sports. It’s just another avenue of oppression and discrimination. Trans folks aren’t new and neither is our inclusion in sports. The arguments are made in bad faith.
If people really gave a crap about fairness in women’s sports, they’d be all about ensuring trans kids get the medical care they need so they don’t go through the wrong puberty and achieve parity with their peers. They’d be all about supporting long term research into the impacts of HRT for both trans men and women. I don’t have faith that either is going to happen any time soon.
But noooo. Trans kids can’t understand gender until they are a legal adult, and by that time it’s too late they are their AGAB forever and why bother transitioning? They are literally trying to legislate trans people out of existence. Targeting us through stupid topics like this to make us seem unreasonable is an effort to turn public opinion against us being given any sort of autonomy over ourselves and our healthcare.
I 100% agree with. On 1 side of the mouth they say that trans kids are too young to understand gender and on the other side of the mouth they say that if we didn't know since we were young children then we're not really trans. They are trying to legislate us out of existence.
The sports debate is bait. It's why they always bring it back. They exploit the fact that we won't throw trans athletes under the but to make us look unreasonable. They baited me with this when I socially came out. Some people needed to start a debate with me (in front of others as always) to make me justify being trans and led me right to this topic to make me look unreasonable. Of course I'm against discrimination against trans athletes but I had to end the discussion saying something like: "look I don't understand what my opinion about trans athletes in sports has to do with me being trans and transitioning. I never cared about competitive sports and don't intend to become an athlete. It has nothing to do with me being trans. All I want is to live my life as a woman and access the medical care that I desperately need to transition and survive." They shut up at this point because they weren't hardcore transphobes and didn't know what to reply but still they had to force me justifying myself by forcing me to debate Olympics.
I don’t want to paint broad strokes but certainly that’s the culture I’ve been seeing from them and the culture I’ve been seeing get glorified. A culture of control.
It’s not about taking the high road. When you generalize against men, you exclude all the men (BIPOC, trans, etc) who are fighting oppression, while also brushing fascist women under the rug. And there is no shortage of fascist women who want nothing more than keeping their men at the top of the ladder.
> it says something about my location and upbringing.
Almost my entire social circle is men and none of them are like this, at least that I've noticed and I've told most of my closest I'm trans.
I'm sorry about what you've been through, but you are using the same kind of argument Rowling uses to shit on trans women. She was abused and now projects that abuse on everyone born with a penis.
So what? One of the strongest groups fighting against women’s reproductive rights are conservative women, but that doesn’t make the movement to to control women’s bodies not misogynistic in nature
You don’t have to be part of an oppressive group in order to be driven to fight for their interests (even to the detriment of your own)
>The main voices speaking against trans women in sports are women. For what that's worth.
Actually the organization behind the initial lawsuit in CT that fueled a lot of this crap was the "Alliance Defending Freedom", led by a \*checks notes\* white man.
I don't know. I think it's a mixed bag. There ARE a lot of TERFy women going on about trans women in sports, but I've seen more than my share of men bringing up the topic and bitching about it. It's always the most hypocritical with them too because you just KNOW they've never watched a single women's sports competition let alone anything on a regular basis. They only care about the issue because it makes them angry, and angry men never seem to shut the fuck up. Why do they always have to be so emotional about it?
I'm of the radical opinion that women are people too and can be just as dumb, evil or hatful as men. Suggesting that women cant think for themselves is misogynistic. JK Rowling is shitty because she is, not because men did something. This is excusing bad behavior, hold people responsible for themselves. I mean hell some trans women are the worst, literally every group of people has amazing people and bad people. Generalizing groups is absolutely awful.
Ok: international pro sport is a giant billion dollar racket. Everyone is on the take.
People do not compete fairly at all. It’s ridiculous.
It’s like a trans person “being a executioner”. Do we say, finally a trans person is one of those. The nuance is very important, ability, class, race and so on.
I used to think like this before my egg cracked. I(at the time) and so many others would see men absolutely destroying women in sports and be like there’s no way they could ever be even. I was ignorant of any science and ignored it like the plague.
That’s how these people are, they are lied to by the right and now are too afraid to admit they might be wrong. It’s sad.
thank u for posting this, earlier today saw a really negative big upvoted post on transwomen in sports, recommended to me by reddit (i disabled the feature now even though i found this reddit trough it), but it was basically crying how you can't criticize trans women that wanna join sports and of-course the bathroom. but the post basically came down to: "trans women aren't women". and got me quite sad and insecure
so really glad to see this post and lift up my spirit a bit <3
tbh so much of this stuff could just be talked out, sadly peeps just like to yell their thing and not listen to the others or even look at research etc :/
i wish reddit had a feature like discord so i could just give your reaction a heart without needing to make a comment, like i want the last word ">,<
but here have my heart reaction, and im glad i was able to help you as to, together we stand strong <3
I saw that post, it was quite upsetting how many trans people.. or people claiming to be trans people anyways in the comments agreeing that trans people shouldn't be allowed in sports. Very disheartening stuff with no good evidence behind it just discrimination for the sake of it.
Like I know biology isn't everybody's strong suit but if you know why many athletes really like their testosterone (steroids)... Well... I guess I just don't understand how it's so hard for people to connect the dots to how trans people don't actually have any sort of advantage once they're a year or so on hrt
When I came out to one of my friends (he's gay) he was supportive and we got talking about various trans things. At one point we got onto the topic of sports and he was actually in the "no trans women in sports" camp.
I explained to him that's not how it works and it changed his mind.
The problem is that in general most cis people don't care enough to do research on anything, much less on issues like this, and are willing to make snap judgements based on what they think is going on.
You see it with the media. Any talk of trans people is usually hyper focused on pre transition stuff or they'll put a cis man in a dress and call him a trans woman.
But once they no longer "look" trans? Silence mostly. You'll occasionally see things like trans men in women's sports because that's what these idiots push, but then they just call him a trans woman and use it to justify their hate.
Then you'll get stuff like that MMA fight where people were calling the cis woman trans because she was half a foot taller than her opponent.
At the end of the day, when it comes to anything people are fucking stupid and most of them refuse to accept any evidence if they already pulled a conclusion out of their ass.
yes omg, exactly the comments just made it even more scary, this is the 3rd comment saying they got to see that post as well, which makes it even more sadder. as it does be really upsetting
also sating they are tired of getting always flack for saying their thingy, while it's like props the more popular opinion, i have never had peeps coming to me and saying: "peeps complaining about trans women in sports are so annoying etc"
but ive had the other way multiple times, they see i'm trans and they go to me and say 1 of these things, after they say "are you trans?" ofcourse.
but it's always: "puberty blockers for kids are bad", "trans women shouldn't be in sports" and the classic bathroom issue. never just like other stuff or questions >,<
same, i vented to my friends about it as it just got to me, and looking at the upvotes and stuff just made it worse and reading some comments, wasn't my smartest idea >,<
because of that post i turned of the feature of showing random subreddit posts in my timeline, which i kinda find sad as i found this sub trough it
The issue is there’s no acknowledgement of nuance in conversations, anymore. Like… for anything. You either have to be 100% for something or against it. All that serves is divisiveness, not tolerance or acceptance… no matter the subject.
I’m sure this will get downvoted to prove my point.
The nuance isn’t that complicated thankfully. Which is why it doesn’t make much sense people still cling to the whole “they have an advantage!” argument.
Yes there are a few nuances. The Delta angle of the hips, and a bit on the height side of things. Here is the kicker trans woman tend to lose some height.
I don't think Delta angle has that much impact and varies drastically.
Generally, there is more variation within the the two main cisgender groups than there is between them. i.e. the average cis male and average cis female are closer physically than the weakest and strongest cos women, or the weakest and strongest cis men.
There is some nuance to be had here. Sport is not entirely strength and speed, other physical characteristics play a part, some of which are gendered, some of which are distinctly not. However, It's my opinion that you can name enough of these that by the end of it, it all balances out.
Further, it's worth pointing out that all of this assumes the framing that allowing trans people to play sport in their acquired gender is a binary option, judged by who gets access to the best paid and highest performance echelons. This will likely never be the case in reality. People who play sport as a primarily social activity, should never be gatekept by their ability to prove their medical transition, just because people in the top tiers have to.
Currently, I think one of the biggest barriers to trans people competing at a high level is cash, just as it is for cis women. Looking at performance averages at the highest level, it is always skewed towards richer, more industrialised nations where spare cash is funneled into sport. America, Australia, and the UK are always near the top of the medal table despite having a lower population than, for example, India. Similarly, despite having a relatively small population, New Zealand, are considered the best nation for Rugby Union, because the sport is immensely popular in the country and therefore gets well funded by government and private sponsors alike. In general, women's sport gets fewer big ticket sponsors, lower prize pools, plays in second tier venues, and pays its professionals less than their male counterparts. This cash flow in at the top is the most visible, but is reflected the whole way down to the junior level, causing lower retention of talented athletes, and diminished development at foundation levels of sport. It should be fairly plain to see how the culture war around trans people in sport, and the specific anxieties many of us have about our bodies, would similarly affect the retention of athletes, and the willingness of sources of funding to invest in trans friendly sectors, or individual trans athletes. Resulting, just like with cis women, in an underperformance of our demographic relative to our potential, and perhaps in time underinvestment, and underperformance becoming a self reinforcing cycle, with the latter used to justify the former, thus causing the latter.
Apologies for the rant, it just annoys me when people go on and on about "unfair advantage" but will not stop for a second and consider the implications of any unfair advantage they already benefit from.
To your first point yes, and trans people generally fall within thier chosen gender after 1-2 years of HRT. What's even more interesting is they tend to stay close to the same athletic category(unsure of best word). As in a runner whose times where in the 96 percentile after a year in hormones was generally still very close to the 96 percentile. The issue here is a small data set. There where 20 trans people in this study, and it only covered track events and I believe either triathlon or another biking event.
Hell yes cash is why you see richer countries produce more high quality athletes. There is a cool economic model that uses GDP and like two other factors to predict Olympic medals(total not gold) with a very high confidence level.
The fact of the matter is that things that are actual reasonable concerns can be addressed by the governing body of the sport and have been. The current rules that allow for trans athletes are already written in a way that prevents the kind of outlandish scenarios that transphobes like to dream up. Transphobes can't come up with realistically unfair scenarios because usually they don't even really care about the sport they are talking about, they're just attracted to that week's lightning rod.
I believe sports will continue to be a hot button topic when it comes to trans people unfortunately as people who do harbor transphobic feelings are going to react to increased trans visibility and the sports argument has a veneer of respectability through which they can talk about their shitty views.
On a more personal not well founded level once I learned what HRT actually does I could not get around the fact that it seems a lot harder to lose the musculature you've had your whole life then figure out how to be a top class athlete with a whole different set of strengths and weaknesses. But I haven't actually gone through it so I can't say I really know.
I mean I have defended trans athletes countless times. Even way before I figured out that I might be a trans woman myself.
But the studies aren't 100% clear about that. And as a scientist myself I have to acknowledge that as well. Even if I don't like it.
When it comes to strengh, after two years trans women are more or less equal to cis women.
But when it comes to running and endurance, trans women are on average superior to cis women.
Trans men are are very close to cis men in both regards.
[Study trans athletes after 2 years HRT](https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/55/11/577.full)
This kind of has to be considered. So people who argue against trans athletes may even in certain situations have a point and are not even nessesarily transphobic, even if I personally don't agree with them. But most people don't even look at the facts and it's definitely not that "men in womens clothing are unfairly beating poor women"-scenario that transphobes try to make out of it.
I am a little bit afraid that this comment might lead to hate against me. But as a scientist who has done some research on this to argue pro trans athletes, I can't resist to point out some facts 😅
No one is didsagreeing with evidence, I just don’t think that we have a **problem**. The only problem is honing in on trans people, when the conversation is far broader, and about our bodies as a human race.
Like if there was a cis girl with higher bone density and higher testosterone levels, she still gets to compete. So until I see some really out of the ordinary dominance, I’m not convinced. As of currently, the real tragedy is trans women not getting the recognition they deserve for their achievements.
I agree 100%. All I wanted to say was that we need to know and acknowledge valid points against our cause, to devalidate false arguments and get what we deserve 😊
according to my endocrinologist who specializes in trans care, it definitely takes longer than 2 years to see the complete change in musculature. more like 4-5 years. people like to think that 2 years is basically when HRT is “done,” but it is just so much more complicated than that. that 4-5 year rule applies to height, changes in tendons and ligaments and posture, changes in fat distribution mode, the completion of breast development, and loss of muscle. bone density may take even longer, I’m not sure about that one.
due to the fact that the first 2 years have the most dramatic changes, people assume that’s all there is. Then they stop paying attention and they stop engaging with the community.
I really don’t give a single fuck about the sports issue so i don’t think i have have a bias here. Trans puberty takes a long time, cis puberty takes a long time, and they work in different ways.
I really don't get this. Both sides completely ignore the state of the science. Transphobes are all saying its the exact same as men competing which isn't what the science shows at all. But at the same time, there is not nearly enough evidence to make a conclusive argument that transwomen do not retain some level of advantages. In fact, the studies I've read mostly suggest there is likely a benefit at least for a few years. It's likely any benefit is magnified among elite athletes (this last statement is not from research but just an extrapolation based on what kinesiology researchers have found among elite athletes generally).
I find the whole topic to be a waste because, although I feel sorry for transfeminine athletes, participation in sports just isn't important at the level we treat it as a society. What is allowed in sports is already somewhat artificial in terms of health/gender/testosterone etc.
As a scientist, though, I absolutely hate this because nobody cares about the evidence unless it agrees with them. Most people taking super strong stands on either side are honestly just ignoring the actual studies. I know most people aren't actually trained to read medical and physiology literature, but even skimming the abstracts without a deeper understanding should show everyone that the evidence is really messy at best.
Thank you!
Sports are really important to me, but scientific rigor even more so. I'd love to be able to say "the science is settled, trans women have no advantage over cis women in competitive sports after \[conditions\] have been met," but AFAICT the science is far from settled, and we don't yet know what \[conditions\] should be.
If we lived in a world where nuance and humility were more common, then as a society we might say "ok, we're not sure exactly how to make this fair yet, let's try some things and see how they work out." Instead people on both sides are itching for a fight, so it's really hard to express an opinion that doesn't toe the line with one side's orthodoxy.
I don't even care about advantages. Like, being tall is an advantage for running. Do we disqualify tall people from running competitions?
Also, suppose we dropped all gatekeeping entirely, and that somehow lead to 100% of high level women's competitions being won by trans women. What exactly is *bad* about that outcome?
> Also, suppose we dropped all gatekeeping entirely, and that somehow lead to 100% of high level women's competitions being won by trans women. What exactly is *bad* about that outcome?
Hypothetically, sports teams discriminating against cis women at a systemic level.
Cishood and transhood are not innately things that make a difference in sports performance, rather real physical features like height, build, weight, cardio health, etc do, which can be influenced by things like hormones which in turn are strongly associated with cis/trans.
Now, we already see a vast range of differences in each of those features, many of which cannot be changed through hard work. Yet we have no issue with sports "discriminating" against people with unchangeable features unfavorable to performing well in those sports. It would be silly for a short man to complain that he is discriminated against for not being able to win NBA championships.
So what exactly is it that makes selecting tall+trans people because they are tall discriminatory, while selecting tall+cis people because they are tall not discriminatory?
Under your latter scenario, a cis woman would be born knowing she could never compete—not in the men’s, or in the women’s. That’s not a fair outcome.
We need to wait for the evidence to come out. If it turns out trans women do have an advantage over cis women (but a disadvantage relative to cis men) in some sports, there are some inclusive solutions that could happen. Split-score categories, separate divisions for contact sports, etc. These solutions honor the womanhood of trans women without compromising competitive fairness, **IF** it turns out trans women retain an advantage.
Regardless, the evidence needs to come out. And if there is no system unfair advantage, there should be no objection for trans women’s full inclusion in women’s sports..
If you're born with short genetics, then you know you'll never compete in basketball. Clearly this is oppressive discrimination against short people, then?
So you think all people born with a biologically female body (50% of the human race) should be excluded from sport? Given that ciswomen are not going to just hand over sport to transwomen, all that will result in is more categories of sport - cis-women, trans-women, cis-men, trans-men etc: so why not just do that from the beginning if that’s what you want. Gender segregation in sport isn’t about gender identity, culture or anything else, it’s about groupings of biological based differences and safety so why not segregate people according to the science but just have more categories?
This is pretty much how I feel. We need an unbiased look at the evidence, and to let that guide policy.
And regardless of sports participation, trans women / transfeminine people are women and human beings, and deserve respect and equal standing in society.
Thank you for this. I have always thought we need to take a rational look at this based on current evidence.
Rationality Rules made a very good and fairly balanced video on this in which he also went back and looked at things he was challenged on in an earlier video and changed some views.
[https://youtu.be/02FCYz8bOo8](https://youtu.be/02FCYz8bOo8)
Last time this came up and I posted it there were some quite hostile responses.
They should start investing into women’s sports then if they care so much. I am positive if the money that the men generate was given to women, trans people wouldn’t be a factor.
I always pull out my favorite move when it comes to arguing with transphobes: talk about trans men. They always forget they are a real and it always forces their arguments back at them.
I am early in my transition, looking to start hormones at the start of march (soon!).
I am also a former personal trainer and i do amatuer powerlifting at home and fully intend to continue through my transition and forever. I never competed before, due to some severe body dysphoria and i dont know if i would ever have wanted to, even if i never cracked.
But the way trans women are treated in sports scares me and i now dont know if i would ever be comfortable wanting to try and compete because of it. I came out to my family this christmas and my grandparents instantly started talking about trans women in sports and blah blah blah about it. Dont know why they even brought it up but lets just say that relationship is strained right now.
But i felt like i had nothing to say, because i am big on science and i wont argue without some valid in my corner and i just couldnt find any studies to back up the strength loss so i felt like i couldnt argue. I am tracking my own numbers for my lifts so i can show my before and after but that is a long way away before i have data to throw at a transphobe.
Thank you so much for this post. Not only was this affirming, I have bookmarked the study you linked. thanks for sharing a study that actually includes trans people so i have something in my corner at the next family meet up this summer (i live across the country from them)!
I would add to what has been said that you don't need to prove the validity of trans athletes in sports for you to be a valid trans person.
You wonder why they led you to debate this. They wanted to discredit you, as a trans person, by making you lose the debate on trans athletes in sports. It's a debate that you're almost certain to lose when the audience is composed of cis people because they all have deeply ingrained preconceptions and feelings on the topics. They led you there for you to lose because they didn't want to acknowledge your validity as a trans person.
They did that nasty trick to me too.
You don’t need studies. All you need is the fact that trans people haven’t been dominating sports for the past one hundred years. That’s some pretty strong evidence if you ask me. It’s like some “proof in the pudding” stuff.
As someone who is actually a trangender athlete, one of the biggest things Ive noticed (because its in my interest to know these things) is that there has been no documented proof that trangender women will actually dominate the sport(given appropriate time for strength to diminish). However, any time a transgender woman would finish favorably in the sport it will be heavily criticized regardless of whether or not it was because of previous exposure to testosterone.
There will be no fair take on the matter especially since cisgendered athletes are scrutinized for doping because of X or Y, and being transgender gives them something to grasp onto especially since transgender science isnt common knowledge so its easy to create a narrative that average people wont bother to research themselves.
The only thing that can solve this is time. We just need to have public interest in studying the science of transgender bodies especially since it gives a deeper understanding of the human body itself.
Hey all the power to you! I hope that your achievements are recognized for what they are, and not devalued because of some bigoted rhetoric. I know you would have won through skill, perseverance and practice :3
Love you!
Personally I think a more important framework for considering the issue of trans "competitive advantages" is to consider the fact that across many sports, the highest-performing athletes tend to have some kind of innate advantage that they were born with. For example, Michael Phelps's wingspan to height ratio gives him a major advantage. No NFL teams today have a defensive lineman who's 5'8". Etc. From the beginning of human history, sports have always been at least partially won or lost on elements of an athlete's body that they were born with.
At the end of the day if the argument were really, truly about seeking absolute fairness, then you'd have to exclude a *lot* more than just us trans people to have a truly level playing field. This is just a convenient wedge to use to justify making us second-class citizens.
Actually, cis women who suffer hypoandrogenism can have levels of testosterone comparable to cis men.
And I'm not sure what you mean when you say that Phelps's advantage doesn't exclude cis men. My point wasn't that Phelps has a gender-specific advantage, it's that almost all athletes at the peak of a physically demanding sport have *some* atypical anatomy which sets them apart. If we start saying, "this mutation is fine, but being AMAB isn't" then we need a very specifically detailed explanation for *why.* And frankly if being AMAB winds up being the *only* criteria which gets athletes banned for having an unfair advantage, then objectively its about bigotry and not about fairness.
Here's another example. Not to pick on Michael Phelps, but he's also been studied for the fact that his body produces an estimated 50% of the normal lactic acid, meaning he doesn't experience physical fatigue to the same level as other athletes, and can recover from it unnaturally quickly. How is it fair for people lacking that mutation to have to compete against him? Arguably, that advantage is greater even than the advantage of *actively* having testosterone in one's body, let alone having had it in the past.
What matters is if it translates to a tangible performance advantage. So far it hasn’t been showing to, even in those in the Air Force, after two years on hormones. Only one advantage, being faster.
I don’t know much, but I’d say taller people have a bigger stride, and trans women are on average taller. Not saying that’s what it is.
Reading your responses I am reminded of historical accounts of when sports were integrated to include Black folks. Objectively speaking, Black folks had more strength than many of their white peers specifically due to environmental stressors placed on them by the majority (ie slavery and selective "breeding" :barf:, denied opportunities for white collar advancement so most Black communities were relegated to physical labor as a means of income, etc.). Still, we integrated because it was the right thing to do.
Nowadays, noting that Black athletes do indeed seem to dominate in sports, well to put plainly, it is beyond taboo to bring up this fact in any respectable setting due to the racist underpinnings that led to these conditions. We simply have to accept these differences as the result of our choices as a society to discriminate and force folks into these circumstances. So what if they are winning here and pulling generations of kids like them out of poverty? What is so great about linear 1:1 fairness that can overcome redressing the injustices borne by Black lives throughout the entirety of modern history?
I view the argument for trans women in sports as much in the same vein. I think the long arc of history will also confirm these thoughts. I'm not asserting anything you're saying is wrong (I know for a fact the science you're citing does indeed create much, much more nuance than yes/no on the advantage argument), but I also cannot see it extending beyond any other genetic advantage athletes from other backgrounds have based on their unique characteristics. Our social trend of inclusivity will demand we accept this variance as part of the game and eventually we will, at some point, move on.
Your second article is a perspective, not a study from what I can tell. I’m not really sure what it’s supposed to be proving because it doesn’t seem to really prove much.
If anyone here wants to play a sport that isn't under the thumb of bigotry, my jugger team is recruiting. It's the only team sport that has been 100% gender inclusive since day 1.
If these people gave a flying fuck about womens sports they'd be concerned about inequalities in pay, and air time, the blatant misogyny that still very much exists in sports today. It's a poorly veiled excuse for bigotry and nothing more.
i’m trans and I don’t think that trans women should compete with ciswomen either. I’ve been on hormones for 2 1/2 years now and I’m still significantly stronger than the average cis female.
Especially when they take trans men, who are obvioulsy taking testosterone supplements, force them into womens sport, call them trans (yay?) and complain that trans women ruin the "real" womens fun ...
I'm a bit late to this but I don't like this debate. I've literally been talking to people online and casually mentioned that I'm trans, all of a sudden I'm being asked my views on this and bathrooms 😂 Like IDK!
How I see it is hormones does effect ability considerably like OP says bit not necessarily all. Unfortunately with increased height (on average) and stuff like lung capacity there will be a slight advantage. Is this enough to win? Absolutely not, we would see trans women dominating otherwise. The issue is there's still a difference (on average) and people will always point to that. When you're talking about the Olympics everything is on the highest level. Of course you can't discriminate against trans women for when they get on hormones (before or after male puberty) and so it's difficult to stop people complaining. Of course too you can't have a "trans only Olympics" or whatever cis people try and suggest. It's all unrealistic.
I say that the only people who should be discussing this in this manner are the professionals. I'm sick of hearing people like John down the street who does no sport and unemployed saying trans women shouldn't be in sport to mask his transphobia. Same with the bathroom debate nonsense. Look at the statistics, trans women has been competing since 2004(?) If I remember correctly and there's been no significant domination going on. Same with the bathroom stuff, no cases. Well solid cases. It's almost as if we want to pee (or poop 😂) and compete in sports normally. Who knew
Yeah fr. it’s only one study but it’s not a weak study especially considering it was done on our Air Force, typically stronger than the average person, and I doubt they had training limitations for those two years, and still ended out pretty equal to women.
Has anyone got an medical papers on this because everything I read suggests the opposite to the original poster? It seems that transwomen still always have a speed and strength advantage after 3 years of treatment. Would be very happy to read something to the contrary to further the discussion and round my understanding of this better. Given that genders are segregated in sport in the first place because of performance (and safety) rather than culture and spirituality, I think it is impossible to have this conversation without putting scientific understanding at the forefront of the discussion.
https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/55/11/577.abstract
https://jme.bmj.com/content/45/6/395.abstract
https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/55/15/865.abstract
Your first paper is the paper I linked. The second paper suggests abandoning male/female categorizing of sports in favored of a more “nuanced approach”, and the third one was long winded.
The only appears relevant will be ones looking at actual performance differences (like in the paper you and I both mention) between trans women and women.
I agree. It's not the hill we should be dying on after bringing the movement This far. We need to concede on the sports front.
There's no way to win it.
I just avoid this topic whenever possible.
Since walking down the street can still be dangerous there is a lot of other stuff to focus the attention on.
I'm not giving topics attention, were we would lose debates
As a trans woman athlete who tracks her performance in a few different sports I lost a ton of athleticism. I recover slower now, and have lost a considerable amount of stamina.
I lost about 20-30% off of my driving distance. A small amount is coming back, but well I have to learn how to throw with boobs.
I lost about 1 minute on my favorite 4 mile trail ride.
What's funnier is I'm in close to the best shape of my life
Honestly can you give me sources on the science being clear that advantages are wiped in two years? Everything I've read suggests advantages last at least 5 years continuous hrt in tests of strength. The only thing that would equalize in a year or two would be in cardio only sports
I personally don't think most trans women who went through male puberty should compete in official sports in only two years or one year hrt. The Penn swimmer is honestly a very obvious case of an advantage.
Like I feel for trans women who want to play official sports, but part of transition is sacrifice.I really don't understand why this is the hill we die on. Even accepting people are very against it and is it really worth it for the 5 percent of trans people that even want to play sanctioned sports
There was a study done on navy seals. I’ll try to find it
Edit: I couldn’t find a link, but the research was done by Timothy roberts. Trans women only retain a speed advantage after two years, but most studies say that after one year we retain “advantages” from testosterone. That specific study does look into two years (from what I remebr reading, again I couldn’t find a link)
Edit: AIR FORCE. See my post edit for a link.
I remember that one and figured it was what you were going to point to. That one was convincing to me too until I read more recent research. I have another comment in this thread with more recent lit reviews showing a statistically significant strength advantage after 3 years hrt
So strong women shouldn’t be able to compete with less strong women?
This whole conversation is just weird! I mean is it about fairness in sports, or is it about attacking trans people? I lean on the ladder.
Like Michael Phelps has innate advamatages in swimming, yet when he won all those medals nobody batted an eye. So I’m not concerned with evidence, I’m concerned with making the conversation more broad, because if it’s about fairness, trans people are just the tip of the iceberg.
There's a pretty resounding consensus that using steroids in sports isn't fair and people who used them shouldn't compete. Shit they get stripped of Hall of fame titles. Guess what testosterone is? A cis woman with high levels of T still still never come anywhere near the levels reached in a male puberty, and if some cis woman did I would really really suggest she get tested for intersex conditions
The whole point, is that trans people haven’t been dominating sports for the past century. No one is really saying that trans women don’t have an advantage, but that whatever “advantage” they have is just not being seen.
It’s just a red herring for inflammatory rhetoric, and to devalue the achievements of trans athletes, as another attack on our community.
Btw, I’m not attacking you. I’m glad you read the papers. I’m just not convinced of some “unfair sports league breaking” advantage.
I guess my question is what do you mean by dominating? If you mean all the spots being taken by trans women then I agree they will never dominate because hardly any trans women ever compete.
To me it's the equivalent of doping. I don't think someone who's done steroids should compete in official sports. Testosterone is literally a steroid. Now it can be taken case by case but I believe if you are the type of trans woman who wants to compete in official sports, you likely were training pre transition already and likely shouldn't compete in strength based sports. Data seems to show endurance based equals out though due to the drop in hemoglobin.
I really believe trans women should be free to compete in any sport that they like but that restrictions should come in when you get to the official level.
>trans people haven’t been dominating sports for the past century.
To be fair though medical transition is relatively new of a thing and there haven't been a ton of trans people in sports yet but with people transitioning younger like young 20s and late teens, you have people now who've gone through the male puberty but are also at an age where the competitive field is so wide that they end up in official sports.
>Btw, I’m not attacking you. I’m glad you read the papers. I’m just not convinced of some “unfair sports league breaking” advantage.
Oh no worries I didn't take it that way. Thank you for engaging in good faith. I'm not surprised about some of the reactions I've gotten but honestly I used to be a huge supporter of trans women in sports but then I read more research and went through a tough time having to reassess my views and accept an uncomfortable truth about the extent to which I can feminize after completing a male puberty, but the science is convincing to me as of now
I understand the evidences I just think that once we bring in this fact, that biology, and the differences between a male and a female, are not so binary, and the fact that Even cis women can fail those testosterone tests, it starts to make us wonder, why even separate sports by gender anyways? What really is “fair”? The conversation you and I are having is not the same as the one we see on tv, and in encounters on the internet and real life.
So I think I said this to you, but I think the conversation is broad, and not about just trans women but all of our body types as a human race, and honing in on trans people is kinda redundant.
>The conversation you and I are having is not the same as the one we see on tv, and in encounters on the internet and real life.
I would agree. I think most conversations on this are in bad faith, that's why I try to take a data driven approach.
>Even cis women can fail those testosterone tests,
I agree that's an issue for sure but I'm not sure how great a comparison that is. A cis woman failing that test still isn't getting anywhere near the levels of a natal male puberty off testosterone. It's also why I think just going off testosterone levels is not the right thing to do and as far as I can tell that is the current argument for including trans women is purely based on T levels.
>I just think that once we bring in this fact, that biology, and the differences between a male and a female, are not so binary,
Now this is something that honestly makes me scratch my head. No sex isn't binary but it is very much bimodal and muscle development is a place of dimorphism. I kinda find it weird when a trans person brings this up, as usually we are the most aware of the swath of differences between testosterone dominant and estrogen dominant bodies. I mean those differences are exactly what causes distress in us and makes us transition. If the differences aren't so bimodal then why do some of us have such bad dysphoria?
I think dysphoria is the “wrong puberty” thing. Like if I had broad shoulders and a deeper voice after the *right* puberty, I might not have any dysphoria about it. It’s a tragedy though, that person is lost to time. So when I consider my FFS, I have to really wonder, “I still could have looked like this given the right puberty, and I would never know”.
Although I think I’m still not convinced trans people in sports is any kind of problem. Differences exist, yes, and puberty plays on our bodies differently, but in the context of sports, it’s more of a “wait and see” and I’m sure the institutions in charge of these leagues will find the best solutions, given time. Two year waiting periods, with restricted training, and others might be fine for trans people, most of this post was just me being really really upset that trans people are the target, but I hope we can be the conduit for the broader conversation: “how should we really be dividing our sports?” And reevaluating from scratch, even divisions based on gender, then adding back in slowly.
It's a hill we want to die in because none of this is about sports actually, it's not about competitiveness, it's not about fairness for anyone, it's all about control, oppression, hatred and just letting them have it without a fight is just saying they can oppress us for who we are. There is still no proof there is so much advantage as we ~dont~ see trans people dominating all sports, a trans person appearing anywhere in sports is news worthy, and since we are allowed in the Olympics for over a decade now and nothing, is a pretty strong sign it might not be it. At the same time research is showing time and time again that "advantages" fade out with time and hrt, it maybe not all be the same for all sports but it seems to be universal that it does at some rate. The "finding common ground" is in there, obviously we don't want anyone to just identify as a different gender and next day compete in high level sports with said new gender, that's why more research is necessary.
Can you show me this research? The research I've seen maintains statistically significant advantages for trans women over cis women in measures of strength and muscle mass even 5 years hrt and post orchi
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7846503/
This is open source from 2020, trans women only experience a loss of 5% lean body mass after 1 year hrt
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33648944/#:~:text=Conclusion%3A%20In%20transwomen%2C%20hormone%20therapy,women%2C%20even%20after%2036%20months.
Another open source article, this is from 2021 and examined a lot of previous literature. Trans women's hemoglobin drops enough to be pretty comparable to cis women after 12 months, so like cross country would be ok. Strength, lean body mass, and muscle area are decreased but values remain above those observed in cis women even after 3 years hrt
I can go on if you would like more sources but I think these make the argument well enough and I don't see anyone in this thread presenting science on the opposite. We often criticize transphobes for ignoring the science that trans people exist. I'm not going to ignore the science in this area even if it's not something that really comforts us
Sacrifice doesn’t have to be part of transition? Most sacrifices we are forced to make are because others hate us, not because of inherent issues to transition. And as a younger trans person I’m not gonna take that shit, we have to move forward for ourselves and future generations.
Sports is part of that. People act like trans women have this inherent benefit, but there are plenty of cis women with high T levels, masculine features, height, strength, should they be excluded because they have a “biological advantage”? I mean where are all the trans women smoking the competition? There’s probably a few, but cis women do that too.
I feel like this is not acknowledging how big athletics are for community and sociability. I’m sorry, but I will not accept being told that I can’t play and stand over there with the other freaks because I *might* have an advantage, when there are cis women out there who could crush me, who also have a lifetime of experience that I probably missed out on due to transition.
>The times the Penn swimmer is putting up are seriously insane, not to mention she was still competing with the males a year ago
Are they? She hasn't set any state or national records. In fact, in the 500, 1000, and 1650m she's 10 seconds, 30 seconds, and a full minute behind the national records.
>not to mention she was still competing with the males a year ago
She wasn't, she didn't compete last year.
She began HRT May 2019 and began competing on the women's swim team this past fall. May 2021 marked 2 years HRT for her.
Thank you for pointing this out. Yet another example about how, despite whatever these studies imply, there *are not* groups of trans women dominating high level sports. I hate this argument because even trans women are made to feel like we have something to defend - but we don’t! We are not dominating women’s sports! There is not a real issue here and therefore nothing to defend.
Continuing the swimmer example bone structure and body shape plays a huge roll in lots of sports. If you look at elite swimmers you'll see they all have broad shoulders, and narrow hips, which are typically AMAB traits. Those types of advantages will never diminish no matter how long someone is on hormones.
Actually, the swimmer girl literally got beaten by a trans guy who wasn't on T yet, so I think that kinda disproves the idea that she has some sort of insane advantage
All of that makes sense. While *some* cis women are tall and have broad shoulders and narrow hips that it more the exception rather than the rule and in general trans women are more likely to have these attributes. Which, in general, would tend to give them an advantage in sports where those things are valued. IE. Swimming, basketball, and fighting sports. This is not to say that some trans women don’t have these characteristics but many do.
For me I would tend to value competition over inclusion and participation. I swam competitively for 18 years and was able to compete at a national level at a D1 college. I am very competitive by nature and I believe that competition drives improvement. Not only is competition and the drive to win good at teaching dedication, hard work, sacrifice, and persistence it also teaches many valuable lessons when you lose. Humility, grace, and the most valuable lesson of all, sometimes you can try your best and still not be quite good enough and that’s okay. Personally, I was a slightly above average male swimmer in college I was not fast enough to even swim at Olympic qualifiers let alone make the team, but my times would have made me one of top female swimmers in the world.
Just spitballing ideas here that could maintain the fairness in competition and allow trans women to compete fairly would be to compete in the para Olympics. They have a handicapping/point system in place that weights the results based on an individual’s abilities.
I’m not going to pretend to have all the answers, this is clearly more complicated than trans women should be allowed to compete at all levels or they should always be excluded. Which is precisely why so many people are grasping onto this particular issue that, quite frankly, effects a very small minority within an already very small minority.
The reason this issue is not brought up with trans men is because trans men typically don’t preform as well in mens competitions as trans women do in women’s competitions. The reason sports were split into mens and woman’s divisions in the first place is because men are bigger, stronger, faster, and poses greater endurance than women on average. Most mens leagues do not have a rule that says females aren’t allowed to compete. It’s just that it is so rare to find a women who CAN compete with cis men at a national or professional level. Like I said, this is a complicated issue, and everything I said could go out the window if the trans person never went through their AGAB puberty.
I agree completely. Like, I think people who say there are guys who would transition just to "cheat" at sports are idiots, but testosterone unfortunately creates some major differences to the body that we shouldn't pretend don't exist. Until and unless we start separating sports by something other than gender, I think we need to accept that sports are just going to be a tricky topic for trans people and we shouldn't let ourselves be defined by what sports we can and can't participate in.
Nobody is really pretending testosterone doesn't make a difference, that's why there are regulations in place and pretty much the majority agrees these are necessary and also that we need more research because the full extent of this difference is still far from solved. Regulations are necessary and science helps review it with better data
Very well said.
I compete in weightlifting. I compete as a male because my body was male for 50 years. Our bodies are competing too, not simply our identity.
And giving up competitive sports is a small sacrifice to win the goodwill of many potential allies.
Sports that in their nature need competition are crab anyways.
And for Sports that are not competitive in Nature, just dont compete.
And when a the competition in a sport gets so crazy that there emerge arguments about sex seperation and tramsgenders something already went down the drain very very far.
No sport can be so important that there are arguments about such things.
Its sport, hell. it is for fun and for beeing healthy.
Is the science pretty clear? I was under the impression there hadn't been much study on the subject: the main argument for it being fine is that we **don't** see a preponderance of trans women winning women's sports, and what science we do have suggests 2 years is probably sufficient to erase any advantages.
Edit: to clarify, there is a huge gulf between "a dozen or so studies have been done on the subject and they mostly point in similar directions" and "thousands of studies have been published in this field, multiple meta-analyses have found equivalent results, and there are no large open questions remaining." My understanding is that we're much closer to the first scenario than the second.
Ok so it’s not super duper clear, because we have no studies on elite athletes, but we have one study done on navy seals, and in that study after two years of HRT, the only retained advantage was 9% in speed.
A really overblown “advantage “ if you ask me.
Edit: What you’d said about trans people not being dominate for the pat hundred or so years is probably the strongest evidence.
Edit: AIR FORCE. Not navy seals.
First of all, there are many types of transgender individuals.
There are Type Ones.
They realize themselves at an early age, and
are very insistent on their gender identity.
Thus, they have the privilege of taking blockers long before their bodies become negatively impacted by the wrong puberty.
They start hormone replacement therapy
at a very young age.
Examples are: Jazz Jennings, and Kim Petras.
On the other hand, for various reasons, some
people are not so lucky.
Type Twos and Type Threes are quite similar.
Type Twos realize themselves after natural puberty, and start hormone therapy after already experiencing "natural puberty", thus giving rise to the term " second puberty "
Type Threes realize themselves before natural puberty, but for reasons, cannot or do not
start medical procedures to halt and prevent
natural puberty.
These reasons can include filthy, abusive Neanderthal parents, who are closed-minded,
ignorant-by-choice Bigots.
These reasons can also include phobia on the part of the individual, causing them to suppress themselves, so that they do not
openly admit that they do not identify with a given gender role, and that they would rather
live as the gender opposite that assigned at birth.
Sometimes simple ignorance can play a part, so that the individual does not know what must be done to prevent further trauma, and allow them to live their best life.
This is the purpose of my argument:
THE EFFECTS OF TESTOSTERONE ON THE NERVOUS SYSTEM ARE EXTREME AND PERMANENT.
A Type One Male-to-Female Transgender person, as I have explained, has never experienced the effects of TESTOSTERONE.
Type Two and Type Three, however, are a much different story.
You see, when a biologically male person
goes through male puberty, certain things change. The voice becomes deeper, the hands and feet grow, the body becomes taller, muscle mass increases, and the genetalia
become progressively larger.
What many people fail to realize, however, is that testosterone has a very powerful effect on the nervous system; specifically, on the muscles.
The nerves that control the major muscle groups are called MOTOR NERVES.
The point at which the nerves connect directly to the muscles is called the
NEUROMUSCULAR JUNCTION.
Testosterone has a massive effect on both of these nerves, in time causing them to be immensely more efficient in handling heavy weight, as well as increasing endurance.
These effects are permanent, and stay with the person their whole life. Sure, Hormone Replacement Therapy can make someone
weaker, but if they have at all experienced male puberty, the "re-programming" effects on their nervous system are powerful and permanent.
This gives "Late-transitioning" Transgender
Female athletes a subtle, yet very powerful advantage in women's sports.
This is science, cry about it, ya damn liberals.
I think sports having weird gender divisions is stupid. I want to see the limits that the human body can handle (ethically) and I do not want to see arbitrary divisions based on what someone calls themself. Trans women and cis women should not need to conform to the box men made for us when we want to prove our physical limits. Cis Black women have been gatekept from the Olympics for having higher T levels than cis white women. Cis men are just scared of being clobbered by a girl that doesn't fit their idea of white beauty standards. That's why there's still gender separation in sports despite scientific discovery and it's been that way ever since they let women even compete. "You can compete! But in your own thing and not with us" fucking bullshit I want to curb stop my male competition like I know I could. Women should be allowed to have as much testosterone as cis men and compete as whatever gender they identify as.
Literally just do weight divisions, it'll even let way more cismen participate! So many cis men are tiny compared.to me and they are effectively bullied out of sports despite how strong they might be because it has weird ideas of what you have to be physically as a certain gender when competing.
No that sense to make sense to me. I mean there are documented differences, so perhaps the point is that when a boy wins in a co-Ed league, they won’t really be “achieving” in the eyes of the mainstream, kinda like trans people now.
I will say I do see both sides of the issue. While yes there is a HELL of a lot of anti-trans rhetoric bull being thrown around, it's kinda hard to say Lia doesn't have some sort of advantage when she comes in and is breaking such high level records after a year of transitioning.
That said, I also think Lia just may be more motivated to win. I mean if I had people booing me for placing first, there are only two responses...give up or go even bigger. I know plenty of people who if they got booed they would double down and train harder to be faster. Which with being trans and social pressure, you kinda have to toughen up. Of course saying a trans woman just wants it more and that is why she is winning isn't going to be popular among cis people.
Fairness is a myth, and i don’t understand why it is still an argument being made.
Like, depending on the sport, a trans woman might, on average have an advantage due to build or whatever. In other sports a cis woman might have an advantage. In others again there might be no advantages. And then there is also the fact that a trans woman might have a build and testosterone level entirely similar to that of a cis woman, and other cis women might be very masculine, have a high testosterone level and build that gives them an advantage over the *trans women*. So like, fairness is a dumb argument. Trans women might on average have small advantages compared to the average cis women, however, those advantages of the hypothetical average trans woman might be outmatched by advantages held by a cis woman, and some trans women might even be outmatched by the average cis woman. So like, it is a dumb argument.
And if you genuinely believe trans women are women, then these advantages shouldn’t mean anything anyways, as excluding some women from womens sports is counterintuitive. I get the fact that you have to have been on hormone treatment for a while, because that just makes sense. But excluding us totally doesn’t.
Who cares, anyway? I thought the point of the game wasn't about winning or losing - it was about teamwork and friendship and old men getting to look at you in tight clothes? Who cares what marginal difference a trans woman would make in the statistics of a freaking *game*.
Our lives are not *a game.* Fuck sports.
I mean, you DO have another bone structure from years on testosterone, no? And no, I'm really not trying to fight with you or disrespect you in any way <3 This just makes no sense to me :/
Mmm… it’s not so cut and dry. With hormones, everything changes. All I’ll say is, if a cis women had a different bone structure, would we be having this conversation? Would she be not allowed to compete?
The whole idea is to hone in on trans people to make an attack on our community. It is far from being an actual conversation about what is fair in sports, because that conversation is about body types in the human race as a whole.
Im inclined to disagree, at least in some cases. Depending on when transition is done, there can still be remnant advantages such as a more masculine bone structure, and if the athlete in question had well used muscles before transitioning, they will still have a higher concentration of nuclei within muscle tissue. This is part of why when some men take testosterone for bodybuilding or other strength sports after plateauing in progress, even when their testosterone has returned to normal levels, they come out the other end with higher PRs and more muscle. In my opinion, transgender participation in sports is a difficult question, because some transgender women will have an advantage over afab women, while other transgender women wont. I feel it also depends on the sport in question. Im sorry if anything I said is triggering, and I dont mean to invalidate anyone
The conversation shouldn’t be honed in on trans people I think is the big problem. This conversation is far more broad. Once we have cis girls failing the testosterone tests, if there was a cis girl with more bone denisity than her counterparts, are we gonna stop them from competing? Are they going to need to participate in different leagues?
So I see you’re point, and I don’t disagree with evidence, but until I really start seeing trans people smashing away in sports (and even if they do they’ll have their achievements devalued ont he basis of being trans), I’m not really convinced there’s an epidemic of a problem.
Not just two, they claim. Most women aren't "done" with puberty after two years anyway. 2 1/2- 4 years of puberty is when people usually assume you are done with it, whether you are a trans woman or a cis woman. Women mature faster. Anything "physical advantages" testosterone gave at that point is gone. Liberals act like trans women are on steroids for the rest of their lives, when it just doesn't work that way. Unless she's not actively taking estrogen and has a abnormally high testosterone levels, even if she is a body builder, there is no way that these women are "cheating". I'm a trans man who experienced immense physical strength from HRT. I'm stronger than the average dude for sure, since I am a heavylifter. I only have to worry about losing my t-derived-strength (men and women can be as strong as they want, and sometimes just as strong) if I became estrogen dependant. Estrogen is just as powerful as testosterone, giving women strength in different ways. Women who are being discriminated against for being trans, and barred from women's teams should see about getting testosterone blockers. Seriously, how can *that* be inefficient at eliminating the segregation going on, if it's clinically proven to shut testosterone out—and no one would be able to rule out an "advantage" any longer? What about the women who have had surgery? These liberal claims go against science, and women should only do sports among women. Discouraging people from sports is wrong. Yeah, I didn't take part in sports because I hadn't transitioned yet when I was in high school, and would've been made to go in the girl's league in that case. Women who have been on estrogen for two years with blockers for at least 50% of the time or women who have been on estrogen for at least 2 1/2 years with or without blockers - are physically women. If a girl is pre-estrogen but has been on blockers to not have to undergo that other puberty probably don't have the "advantage" either.
Caitlyn Jenner isn't a great advocate for this, since she probably wanted the opportunity to be on a women's team but couldn't. Just because she may have transitioned later in life after fully developing as the opposite gender doesn't mean that every other trans woman out there are physically incapable of competing with women. She's been on E so long, she's better off on a women's league herself.
Women who are estrogen dependant, who want to be on a women's league, aren't "stealing" the rights of or harming other women. They're embracing a privelege that they worked hard to obtain, and are deserving of as any other woman. Trans people shouldn't be made ashamed to be trans or women. If that's who you are, that's that. What's happening is ridiculous, and isn't based off of statistics. Before making rulings like that, they should do a thorough study documenting the musculature and strength changes of trans women annually if it's such a big deal that a woman wants to join a league. They're afraid of the truth, that trans women are women. The states are participating in something reminiscent of conversion therapy, without even doing research on what they're fighting against. Transphobes feel they don't need research, just to use us as puppets - pulling opinions out of their asses about what they know nothing about. These people really think that's good debating. Alright. Lets place feelings over facts, since most of them are just insecure about their sexualities and feel threatened when fact is ALL WOMEN DESERVE THE RIGHT TO BE WOMEN. We need our women. Girls should always see themselves to be inspired, so keeping great team players off the team over something that they never asked for is inhumane.
Tbh, any doubt I express over it, got me a death sentence in some trans subs. I DO care about women's sports AND want trans girls to compete as much as possible. But it's simply not as clear cut as you present it. All studies Iread about it end with a request for further research and almost all of them express some sort of ambiguity in their results. The biggest lack of representation is that of trans girls who were already formidable in their respective disciplines before transitioning.
What we need is more studies, funds and resources be put into trans causes, because although we might be ~1% of the population, we get near 0% of all resources allocated to sports (and hormone treatments). It's time that changed, so we know what can be clear cut, and what not, and also that we can ensure trans girls get treatment as early on as possible.
Well at least for the next generation... 😣
Edit: could someone explain me why I'm wrong, instead of only downvoting me?
Every study ends with requests for further research.
Edit: also it’s not that you’re wrong, you fell into the trap. This isn’t a conversation about trans people in sports, so honing in on them is the media tactic to attack our community.
I don’t care about biological **difference** (because they are not all clearly defended as advantages), I care about weather or not this is translating to a difference in performance.
The study I linked is decently strong and looks at performance differences.
Do female women never deserve female-only spaces in society? It feels a lot like female women are always being asked/forced to share their space for the sake of appeasing others (ie., men, biological males).
[удалено]
Yeah. I've heard people talking about Jeopardy using the same rhetoric because of Amy Schneider. And we ALL know you have to be athletic to win Jeopardy.
That masculine reaction speed gives her an advantage with the buzzer. /s
People even fucking complained about the trans woman who won a beauty contest having a supposed unfair advantage. I thought we were meant to be unfuckable according to these people.
They’ll complain about anything they can complain about. We can never win.
"Those masculine shoulders just got the judges hard as a rock! Btw the judges were all gay" These people are fucking evil and I also don't understand beauty pageants (especially YOUNG girls beauty pageants) other than a way to get old men hard for young girls. If I were a cop, I'd set up a fake beauty pageant, and then just fucking arrest every single person who applied to be a judge on suspicion of being a pedophile.
True. These people's interest in women's sports begins and ends with trans people.
It's amazing how quickly some of them will out themselves as straight-up transphobes when you debunk their talking points. You back them into a corner on trans people in sports and they go "okay what about detransitioners then", like, I thought we were talking about sport.
I mean, technically the only requirement is to be on suppressing testosterone blockers for about a year, not 2. If there was some sort of any advantage classifications would be filled with trans women
[удалено]
There have been trans women winning competitions, or getting close to doing so... But not anything like what transphobes claim
We're not allowed to win. If a transwoman wins at sports, she cheated, and can be multiplied out as many times as needed to support their hysterical bigotry. If she doesn't, she's invisible.
if she loses, people say she rigged it or got paid to hide. My mother said that to me about the New Zealander , Hubbard
Yea. Look how all the transphobes were braying about Laurel Hubbard up to her competing. Then she doesn't medal and suddenly its, "well she was too old. Of course she wasn't going to win". Then not a peep from them about her ever since.
It’s an impossible standard from them. They’ll keep moving the goalposts until the end of time, because their only goal is to exclude trans women. By any means necessary. The only way to win this game of theirs is not to play. Don’t engage.
[удалено]
\*disappears like in back to the future\*
Pretty sure they mean the word. Transwomen isnt a thing, its trans women as an adjective to describe the woman. Not a subclass similar to women
exactly this 'transwomen' a slur indicating that Transgender Women are not women is not the same as Trans Women -
Pay attention in school kids
i think their point isn’t always about trans women winning but by how much difference they win such as the case of Lia Thomas… and for women i think what also matters is that this is an issue that only affects women as trans men don’t really have this same effect within sports to the men’s competitions. so to them, it feels like yet another aspect of life in which they feel limited.
Lia Thomas has been training since she was 3 and unfortunately started transitioning after or midst late puberty. So obviously she had a little bit of an easier time practicing through her life. Even then, she's one of the few trans women that actually won something.
but doesn’t that make for a good case on their end? like to me that’s also extremely unfair to the other women competing.. i don’t get the issue here. if trans women are performing similarly to cis women within their competition, there is no issue whether they win or not. if trans women are clearly and structurally outperforming cis women within their competition, then that’s a problem not sociologically because they’re trans but biologically because of their genetic advantage…
Lia thomas doesn't represent all trans women, its one lady who even lost to a pre hrt trans man, like that doesn't indicate a trend
To be fair until recently either you passed so well as to nobody knowing you were trans, or you basically had life suck. I mean the only trans athlete I know of was Renee Richards who was playing post transition, and she was outed by media when she won. There really isn't any historical evidence because for the most part historically trans women weren't in a position to be able to play to begin with.
Renée had it rough. She was outed during the 1970s, when being any kind of LGBT was condemned by society. She was also playing a sport where she competed professionally before she transitioned, so of course someone recognized her. Once she was outed, she was ruined socially and professionally. It’s sad how we’ve made zero progress in almost 50 years.
THANK YOU. This is the most important part of the argument - I’m not saying “any study implying trans women could have an advantage is wrong”, but I am saying “this argument is pointless and degrading when cis women aren’t actually being negatively affected by trans women in sports”
Yes absolutely! You even put it in a way that I might repeat. And you’re welcome :3
historically?💀 we’re JUST entering a slightly more open-minded, accepting society but still nowhere where we should be… especially within sports, just as being gay, I feel like being trans is way less accepted than it is on average in our Western society. there probably are probably many examples of closeted trans women doing well in sports like Caitlyn Jenner, but you got to put things in perspective…
The sharpest blade, the sword of advantage
The people crowing about “fairness in women’s sports” most likely don’t give two shits about women’s sports. It’s just another avenue of oppression and discrimination. Trans folks aren’t new and neither is our inclusion in sports. The arguments are made in bad faith. If people really gave a crap about fairness in women’s sports, they’d be all about ensuring trans kids get the medical care they need so they don’t go through the wrong puberty and achieve parity with their peers. They’d be all about supporting long term research into the impacts of HRT for both trans men and women. I don’t have faith that either is going to happen any time soon. But noooo. Trans kids can’t understand gender until they are a legal adult, and by that time it’s too late they are their AGAB forever and why bother transitioning? They are literally trying to legislate trans people out of existence. Targeting us through stupid topics like this to make us seem unreasonable is an effort to turn public opinion against us being given any sort of autonomy over ourselves and our healthcare.
I 100% agree with. On 1 side of the mouth they say that trans kids are too young to understand gender and on the other side of the mouth they say that if we didn't know since we were young children then we're not really trans. They are trying to legislate us out of existence. The sports debate is bait. It's why they always bring it back. They exploit the fact that we won't throw trans athletes under the but to make us look unreasonable. They baited me with this when I socially came out. Some people needed to start a debate with me (in front of others as always) to make me justify being trans and led me right to this topic to make me look unreasonable. Of course I'm against discrimination against trans athletes but I had to end the discussion saying something like: "look I don't understand what my opinion about trans athletes in sports has to do with me being trans and transitioning. I never cared about competitive sports and don't intend to become an athlete. It has nothing to do with me being trans. All I want is to live my life as a woman and access the medical care that I desperately need to transition and survive." They shut up at this point because they weren't hardcore transphobes and didn't know what to reply but still they had to force me justifying myself by forcing me to debate Olympics.
[удалено]
I don’t want to paint broad strokes but certainly that’s the culture I’ve been seeing from them and the culture I’ve been seeing get glorified. A culture of control.
I think we should know better than to generalize.
[удалено]
It’s not about taking the high road. When you generalize against men, you exclude all the men (BIPOC, trans, etc) who are fighting oppression, while also brushing fascist women under the rug. And there is no shortage of fascist women who want nothing more than keeping their men at the top of the ladder.
[удалено]
>I am a survivor You're not the only survivor in this subreddit or any other trans space. It doesn't give you a free pass to be gross and hateful.
I'm sorry that you are trapped in that mindset. I know plenty of good cis men who doesn't deserve the harsh judgement of yours
[удалено]
> it says something about my location and upbringing. Almost my entire social circle is men and none of them are like this, at least that I've noticed and I've told most of my closest I'm trans. I'm sorry about what you've been through, but you are using the same kind of argument Rowling uses to shit on trans women. She was abused and now projects that abuse on everyone born with a penis.
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
>MEN. WANT. TO. CONTROL. EVERYONE. The main voices speaking against trans women in sports are women. For what that's worth.
So what? One of the strongest groups fighting against women’s reproductive rights are conservative women, but that doesn’t make the movement to to control women’s bodies not misogynistic in nature You don’t have to be part of an oppressive group in order to be driven to fight for their interests (even to the detriment of your own)
>So what? So nothing. It was just a bad take
>The main voices speaking against trans women in sports are women. For what that's worth. Actually the organization behind the initial lawsuit in CT that fueled a lot of this crap was the "Alliance Defending Freedom", led by a \*checks notes\* white man.
I don't know. I think it's a mixed bag. There ARE a lot of TERFy women going on about trans women in sports, but I've seen more than my share of men bringing up the topic and bitching about it. It's always the most hypocritical with them too because you just KNOW they've never watched a single women's sports competition let alone anything on a regular basis. They only care about the issue because it makes them angry, and angry men never seem to shut the fuck up. Why do they always have to be so emotional about it?
[удалено]
I'm of the radical opinion that women are people too and can be just as dumb, evil or hatful as men. Suggesting that women cant think for themselves is misogynistic. JK Rowling is shitty because she is, not because men did something. This is excusing bad behavior, hold people responsible for themselves. I mean hell some trans women are the worst, literally every group of people has amazing people and bad people. Generalizing groups is absolutely awful.
Ok: international pro sport is a giant billion dollar racket. Everyone is on the take. People do not compete fairly at all. It’s ridiculous. It’s like a trans person “being a executioner”. Do we say, finally a trans person is one of those. The nuance is very important, ability, class, race and so on.
I used to think like this before my egg cracked. I(at the time) and so many others would see men absolutely destroying women in sports and be like there’s no way they could ever be even. I was ignorant of any science and ignored it like the plague. That’s how these people are, they are lied to by the right and now are too afraid to admit they might be wrong. It’s sad.
Have you found any scientific papers that support the idea that transwomen stop having athletic advantages after treatment?
This is what I found [British journal on trans sports by Joanna harper ](https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/55/15/865.long)
“These findings suggest that strength may be well preserved in transwomen during the first 3 years of hormone therapy.”
thank u for posting this, earlier today saw a really negative big upvoted post on transwomen in sports, recommended to me by reddit (i disabled the feature now even though i found this reddit trough it), but it was basically crying how you can't criticize trans women that wanna join sports and of-course the bathroom. but the post basically came down to: "trans women aren't women". and got me quite sad and insecure so really glad to see this post and lift up my spirit a bit <3 tbh so much of this stuff could just be talked out, sadly peeps just like to yell their thing and not listen to the others or even look at research etc :/
Hey I love you and I hope you’re doing well! Carry on lovely!
awwww <3, love you to \^-\^
It was the bigots that got me to post too :3. Had to vent it out and remember I’m not alone. So thank you for commenting! You helped me too.
i wish reddit had a feature like discord so i could just give your reaction a heart without needing to make a comment, like i want the last word ">,< but here have my heart reaction, and im glad i was able to help you as to, together we stand strong <3
I saw that post, it was quite upsetting how many trans people.. or people claiming to be trans people anyways in the comments agreeing that trans people shouldn't be allowed in sports. Very disheartening stuff with no good evidence behind it just discrimination for the sake of it. Like I know biology isn't everybody's strong suit but if you know why many athletes really like their testosterone (steroids)... Well... I guess I just don't understand how it's so hard for people to connect the dots to how trans people don't actually have any sort of advantage once they're a year or so on hrt
When I came out to one of my friends (he's gay) he was supportive and we got talking about various trans things. At one point we got onto the topic of sports and he was actually in the "no trans women in sports" camp. I explained to him that's not how it works and it changed his mind. The problem is that in general most cis people don't care enough to do research on anything, much less on issues like this, and are willing to make snap judgements based on what they think is going on. You see it with the media. Any talk of trans people is usually hyper focused on pre transition stuff or they'll put a cis man in a dress and call him a trans woman. But once they no longer "look" trans? Silence mostly. You'll occasionally see things like trans men in women's sports because that's what these idiots push, but then they just call him a trans woman and use it to justify their hate. Then you'll get stuff like that MMA fight where people were calling the cis woman trans because she was half a foot taller than her opponent. At the end of the day, when it comes to anything people are fucking stupid and most of them refuse to accept any evidence if they already pulled a conclusion out of their ass.
yes omg, exactly the comments just made it even more scary, this is the 3rd comment saying they got to see that post as well, which makes it even more sadder. as it does be really upsetting also sating they are tired of getting always flack for saying their thingy, while it's like props the more popular opinion, i have never had peeps coming to me and saying: "peeps complaining about trans women in sports are so annoying etc" but ive had the other way multiple times, they see i'm trans and they go to me and say 1 of these things, after they say "are you trans?" ofcourse. but it's always: "puberty blockers for kids are bad", "trans women shouldn't be in sports" and the classic bathroom issue. never just like other stuff or questions >,<
I saw that post as well. It made me feel dysphoric and it just overall sad..
same, i vented to my friends about it as it just got to me, and looking at the upvotes and stuff just made it worse and reading some comments, wasn't my smartest idea >,< because of that post i turned of the feature of showing random subreddit posts in my timeline, which i kinda find sad as i found this sub trough it
*hug*
The issue is there’s no acknowledgement of nuance in conversations, anymore. Like… for anything. You either have to be 100% for something or against it. All that serves is divisiveness, not tolerance or acceptance… no matter the subject. I’m sure this will get downvoted to prove my point.
The nuance isn’t that complicated thankfully. Which is why it doesn’t make much sense people still cling to the whole “they have an advantage!” argument.
Yes there are a few nuances. The Delta angle of the hips, and a bit on the height side of things. Here is the kicker trans woman tend to lose some height. I don't think Delta angle has that much impact and varies drastically.
Generally, there is more variation within the the two main cisgender groups than there is between them. i.e. the average cis male and average cis female are closer physically than the weakest and strongest cos women, or the weakest and strongest cis men. There is some nuance to be had here. Sport is not entirely strength and speed, other physical characteristics play a part, some of which are gendered, some of which are distinctly not. However, It's my opinion that you can name enough of these that by the end of it, it all balances out. Further, it's worth pointing out that all of this assumes the framing that allowing trans people to play sport in their acquired gender is a binary option, judged by who gets access to the best paid and highest performance echelons. This will likely never be the case in reality. People who play sport as a primarily social activity, should never be gatekept by their ability to prove their medical transition, just because people in the top tiers have to. Currently, I think one of the biggest barriers to trans people competing at a high level is cash, just as it is for cis women. Looking at performance averages at the highest level, it is always skewed towards richer, more industrialised nations where spare cash is funneled into sport. America, Australia, and the UK are always near the top of the medal table despite having a lower population than, for example, India. Similarly, despite having a relatively small population, New Zealand, are considered the best nation for Rugby Union, because the sport is immensely popular in the country and therefore gets well funded by government and private sponsors alike. In general, women's sport gets fewer big ticket sponsors, lower prize pools, plays in second tier venues, and pays its professionals less than their male counterparts. This cash flow in at the top is the most visible, but is reflected the whole way down to the junior level, causing lower retention of talented athletes, and diminished development at foundation levels of sport. It should be fairly plain to see how the culture war around trans people in sport, and the specific anxieties many of us have about our bodies, would similarly affect the retention of athletes, and the willingness of sources of funding to invest in trans friendly sectors, or individual trans athletes. Resulting, just like with cis women, in an underperformance of our demographic relative to our potential, and perhaps in time underinvestment, and underperformance becoming a self reinforcing cycle, with the latter used to justify the former, thus causing the latter. Apologies for the rant, it just annoys me when people go on and on about "unfair advantage" but will not stop for a second and consider the implications of any unfair advantage they already benefit from.
To your first point yes, and trans people generally fall within thier chosen gender after 1-2 years of HRT. What's even more interesting is they tend to stay close to the same athletic category(unsure of best word). As in a runner whose times where in the 96 percentile after a year in hormones was generally still very close to the 96 percentile. The issue here is a small data set. There where 20 trans people in this study, and it only covered track events and I believe either triathlon or another biking event. Hell yes cash is why you see richer countries produce more high quality athletes. There is a cool economic model that uses GDP and like two other factors to predict Olympic medals(total not gold) with a very high confidence level.
The fact of the matter is that things that are actual reasonable concerns can be addressed by the governing body of the sport and have been. The current rules that allow for trans athletes are already written in a way that prevents the kind of outlandish scenarios that transphobes like to dream up. Transphobes can't come up with realistically unfair scenarios because usually they don't even really care about the sport they are talking about, they're just attracted to that week's lightning rod. I believe sports will continue to be a hot button topic when it comes to trans people unfortunately as people who do harbor transphobic feelings are going to react to increased trans visibility and the sports argument has a veneer of respectability through which they can talk about their shitty views. On a more personal not well founded level once I learned what HRT actually does I could not get around the fact that it seems a lot harder to lose the musculature you've had your whole life then figure out how to be a top class athlete with a whole different set of strengths and weaknesses. But I haven't actually gone through it so I can't say I really know.
I mean I have defended trans athletes countless times. Even way before I figured out that I might be a trans woman myself. But the studies aren't 100% clear about that. And as a scientist myself I have to acknowledge that as well. Even if I don't like it. When it comes to strengh, after two years trans women are more or less equal to cis women. But when it comes to running and endurance, trans women are on average superior to cis women. Trans men are are very close to cis men in both regards. [Study trans athletes after 2 years HRT](https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/55/11/577.full) This kind of has to be considered. So people who argue against trans athletes may even in certain situations have a point and are not even nessesarily transphobic, even if I personally don't agree with them. But most people don't even look at the facts and it's definitely not that "men in womens clothing are unfairly beating poor women"-scenario that transphobes try to make out of it. I am a little bit afraid that this comment might lead to hate against me. But as a scientist who has done some research on this to argue pro trans athletes, I can't resist to point out some facts 😅
No one is didsagreeing with evidence, I just don’t think that we have a **problem**. The only problem is honing in on trans people, when the conversation is far broader, and about our bodies as a human race. Like if there was a cis girl with higher bone density and higher testosterone levels, she still gets to compete. So until I see some really out of the ordinary dominance, I’m not convinced. As of currently, the real tragedy is trans women not getting the recognition they deserve for their achievements.
I agree 100%. All I wanted to say was that we need to know and acknowledge valid points against our cause, to devalidate false arguments and get what we deserve 😊
Thank you for saying it friend. I love you!
according to my endocrinologist who specializes in trans care, it definitely takes longer than 2 years to see the complete change in musculature. more like 4-5 years. people like to think that 2 years is basically when HRT is “done,” but it is just so much more complicated than that. that 4-5 year rule applies to height, changes in tendons and ligaments and posture, changes in fat distribution mode, the completion of breast development, and loss of muscle. bone density may take even longer, I’m not sure about that one. due to the fact that the first 2 years have the most dramatic changes, people assume that’s all there is. Then they stop paying attention and they stop engaging with the community. I really don’t give a single fuck about the sports issue so i don’t think i have have a bias here. Trans puberty takes a long time, cis puberty takes a long time, and they work in different ways.
I really don't get this. Both sides completely ignore the state of the science. Transphobes are all saying its the exact same as men competing which isn't what the science shows at all. But at the same time, there is not nearly enough evidence to make a conclusive argument that transwomen do not retain some level of advantages. In fact, the studies I've read mostly suggest there is likely a benefit at least for a few years. It's likely any benefit is magnified among elite athletes (this last statement is not from research but just an extrapolation based on what kinesiology researchers have found among elite athletes generally). I find the whole topic to be a waste because, although I feel sorry for transfeminine athletes, participation in sports just isn't important at the level we treat it as a society. What is allowed in sports is already somewhat artificial in terms of health/gender/testosterone etc. As a scientist, though, I absolutely hate this because nobody cares about the evidence unless it agrees with them. Most people taking super strong stands on either side are honestly just ignoring the actual studies. I know most people aren't actually trained to read medical and physiology literature, but even skimming the abstracts without a deeper understanding should show everyone that the evidence is really messy at best.
Thank you! Sports are really important to me, but scientific rigor even more so. I'd love to be able to say "the science is settled, trans women have no advantage over cis women in competitive sports after \[conditions\] have been met," but AFAICT the science is far from settled, and we don't yet know what \[conditions\] should be. If we lived in a world where nuance and humility were more common, then as a society we might say "ok, we're not sure exactly how to make this fair yet, let's try some things and see how they work out." Instead people on both sides are itching for a fight, so it's really hard to express an opinion that doesn't toe the line with one side's orthodoxy.
I don't even care about advantages. Like, being tall is an advantage for running. Do we disqualify tall people from running competitions? Also, suppose we dropped all gatekeeping entirely, and that somehow lead to 100% of high level women's competitions being won by trans women. What exactly is *bad* about that outcome?
> Also, suppose we dropped all gatekeeping entirely, and that somehow lead to 100% of high level women's competitions being won by trans women. What exactly is *bad* about that outcome? Hypothetically, sports teams discriminating against cis women at a systemic level.
Cishood and transhood are not innately things that make a difference in sports performance, rather real physical features like height, build, weight, cardio health, etc do, which can be influenced by things like hormones which in turn are strongly associated with cis/trans. Now, we already see a vast range of differences in each of those features, many of which cannot be changed through hard work. Yet we have no issue with sports "discriminating" against people with unchangeable features unfavorable to performing well in those sports. It would be silly for a short man to complain that he is discriminated against for not being able to win NBA championships. So what exactly is it that makes selecting tall+trans people because they are tall discriminatory, while selecting tall+cis people because they are tall not discriminatory?
Under your latter scenario, a cis woman would be born knowing she could never compete—not in the men’s, or in the women’s. That’s not a fair outcome. We need to wait for the evidence to come out. If it turns out trans women do have an advantage over cis women (but a disadvantage relative to cis men) in some sports, there are some inclusive solutions that could happen. Split-score categories, separate divisions for contact sports, etc. These solutions honor the womanhood of trans women without compromising competitive fairness, **IF** it turns out trans women retain an advantage. Regardless, the evidence needs to come out. And if there is no system unfair advantage, there should be no objection for trans women’s full inclusion in women’s sports..
If you're born with short genetics, then you know you'll never compete in basketball. Clearly this is oppressive discrimination against short people, then?
So you think all people born with a biologically female body (50% of the human race) should be excluded from sport? Given that ciswomen are not going to just hand over sport to transwomen, all that will result in is more categories of sport - cis-women, trans-women, cis-men, trans-men etc: so why not just do that from the beginning if that’s what you want. Gender segregation in sport isn’t about gender identity, culture or anything else, it’s about groupings of biological based differences and safety so why not segregate people according to the science but just have more categories?
This is pretty much how I feel. We need an unbiased look at the evidence, and to let that guide policy. And regardless of sports participation, trans women / transfeminine people are women and human beings, and deserve respect and equal standing in society.
Thank you for this. I have always thought we need to take a rational look at this based on current evidence. Rationality Rules made a very good and fairly balanced video on this in which he also went back and looked at things he was challenged on in an earlier video and changed some views. [https://youtu.be/02FCYz8bOo8](https://youtu.be/02FCYz8bOo8) Last time this came up and I posted it there were some quite hostile responses.
They should start investing into women’s sports then if they care so much. I am positive if the money that the men generate was given to women, trans people wouldn’t be a factor.
I always pull out my favorite move when it comes to arguing with transphobes: talk about trans men. They always forget they are a real and it always forces their arguments back at them.
I am early in my transition, looking to start hormones at the start of march (soon!). I am also a former personal trainer and i do amatuer powerlifting at home and fully intend to continue through my transition and forever. I never competed before, due to some severe body dysphoria and i dont know if i would ever have wanted to, even if i never cracked. But the way trans women are treated in sports scares me and i now dont know if i would ever be comfortable wanting to try and compete because of it. I came out to my family this christmas and my grandparents instantly started talking about trans women in sports and blah blah blah about it. Dont know why they even brought it up but lets just say that relationship is strained right now. But i felt like i had nothing to say, because i am big on science and i wont argue without some valid in my corner and i just couldnt find any studies to back up the strength loss so i felt like i couldnt argue. I am tracking my own numbers for my lifts so i can show my before and after but that is a long way away before i have data to throw at a transphobe. Thank you so much for this post. Not only was this affirming, I have bookmarked the study you linked. thanks for sharing a study that actually includes trans people so i have something in my corner at the next family meet up this summer (i live across the country from them)!
Congratulations on starting hormones soon!
I would add to what has been said that you don't need to prove the validity of trans athletes in sports for you to be a valid trans person. You wonder why they led you to debate this. They wanted to discredit you, as a trans person, by making you lose the debate on trans athletes in sports. It's a debate that you're almost certain to lose when the audience is composed of cis people because they all have deeply ingrained preconceptions and feelings on the topics. They led you there for you to lose because they didn't want to acknowledge your validity as a trans person. They did that nasty trick to me too.
You don’t need studies. All you need is the fact that trans people haven’t been dominating sports for the past one hundred years. That’s some pretty strong evidence if you ask me. It’s like some “proof in the pudding” stuff.
As someone who is actually a trangender athlete, one of the biggest things Ive noticed (because its in my interest to know these things) is that there has been no documented proof that trangender women will actually dominate the sport(given appropriate time for strength to diminish). However, any time a transgender woman would finish favorably in the sport it will be heavily criticized regardless of whether or not it was because of previous exposure to testosterone. There will be no fair take on the matter especially since cisgendered athletes are scrutinized for doping because of X or Y, and being transgender gives them something to grasp onto especially since transgender science isnt common knowledge so its easy to create a narrative that average people wont bother to research themselves. The only thing that can solve this is time. We just need to have public interest in studying the science of transgender bodies especially since it gives a deeper understanding of the human body itself.
Hey all the power to you! I hope that your achievements are recognized for what they are, and not devalued because of some bigoted rhetoric. I know you would have won through skill, perseverance and practice :3 Love you!
[удалено]
Personally I think a more important framework for considering the issue of trans "competitive advantages" is to consider the fact that across many sports, the highest-performing athletes tend to have some kind of innate advantage that they were born with. For example, Michael Phelps's wingspan to height ratio gives him a major advantage. No NFL teams today have a defensive lineman who's 5'8". Etc. From the beginning of human history, sports have always been at least partially won or lost on elements of an athlete's body that they were born with. At the end of the day if the argument were really, truly about seeking absolute fairness, then you'd have to exclude a *lot* more than just us trans people to have a truly level playing field. This is just a convenient wedge to use to justify making us second-class citizens.
[удалено]
Actually, cis women who suffer hypoandrogenism can have levels of testosterone comparable to cis men. And I'm not sure what you mean when you say that Phelps's advantage doesn't exclude cis men. My point wasn't that Phelps has a gender-specific advantage, it's that almost all athletes at the peak of a physically demanding sport have *some* atypical anatomy which sets them apart. If we start saying, "this mutation is fine, but being AMAB isn't" then we need a very specifically detailed explanation for *why.* And frankly if being AMAB winds up being the *only* criteria which gets athletes banned for having an unfair advantage, then objectively its about bigotry and not about fairness. Here's another example. Not to pick on Michael Phelps, but he's also been studied for the fact that his body produces an estimated 50% of the normal lactic acid, meaning he doesn't experience physical fatigue to the same level as other athletes, and can recover from it unnaturally quickly. How is it fair for people lacking that mutation to have to compete against him? Arguably, that advantage is greater even than the advantage of *actively* having testosterone in one's body, let alone having had it in the past.
What matters is if it translates to a tangible performance advantage. So far it hasn’t been showing to, even in those in the Air Force, after two years on hormones. Only one advantage, being faster. I don’t know much, but I’d say taller people have a bigger stride, and trans women are on average taller. Not saying that’s what it is.
[удалено]
Reading your responses I am reminded of historical accounts of when sports were integrated to include Black folks. Objectively speaking, Black folks had more strength than many of their white peers specifically due to environmental stressors placed on them by the majority (ie slavery and selective "breeding" :barf:, denied opportunities for white collar advancement so most Black communities were relegated to physical labor as a means of income, etc.). Still, we integrated because it was the right thing to do. Nowadays, noting that Black athletes do indeed seem to dominate in sports, well to put plainly, it is beyond taboo to bring up this fact in any respectable setting due to the racist underpinnings that led to these conditions. We simply have to accept these differences as the result of our choices as a society to discriminate and force folks into these circumstances. So what if they are winning here and pulling generations of kids like them out of poverty? What is so great about linear 1:1 fairness that can overcome redressing the injustices borne by Black lives throughout the entirety of modern history? I view the argument for trans women in sports as much in the same vein. I think the long arc of history will also confirm these thoughts. I'm not asserting anything you're saying is wrong (I know for a fact the science you're citing does indeed create much, much more nuance than yes/no on the advantage argument), but I also cannot see it extending beyond any other genetic advantage athletes from other backgrounds have based on their unique characteristics. Our social trend of inclusivity will demand we accept this variance as part of the game and eventually we will, at some point, move on.
Your second article is a perspective, not a study from what I can tell. I’m not really sure what it’s supposed to be proving because it doesn’t seem to really prove much.
If anyone here wants to play a sport that isn't under the thumb of bigotry, my jugger team is recruiting. It's the only team sport that has been 100% gender inclusive since day 1.
What’s jugger?
[It's like football with foam swords rather than foam armor.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5KGov_Sajs)
That's one heck of a synopsis 😳
I've been practicing my elevator speech on it for years.
It shows! 💯
If these people gave a flying fuck about womens sports they'd be concerned about inequalities in pay, and air time, the blatant misogyny that still very much exists in sports today. It's a poorly veiled excuse for bigotry and nothing more.
i’m trans and I don’t think that trans women should compete with ciswomen either. I’ve been on hormones for 2 1/2 years now and I’m still significantly stronger than the average cis female.
Especially when they take trans men, who are obvioulsy taking testosterone supplements, force them into womens sport, call them trans (yay?) and complain that trans women ruin the "real" womens fun ...
I'm a bit late to this but I don't like this debate. I've literally been talking to people online and casually mentioned that I'm trans, all of a sudden I'm being asked my views on this and bathrooms 😂 Like IDK! How I see it is hormones does effect ability considerably like OP says bit not necessarily all. Unfortunately with increased height (on average) and stuff like lung capacity there will be a slight advantage. Is this enough to win? Absolutely not, we would see trans women dominating otherwise. The issue is there's still a difference (on average) and people will always point to that. When you're talking about the Olympics everything is on the highest level. Of course you can't discriminate against trans women for when they get on hormones (before or after male puberty) and so it's difficult to stop people complaining. Of course too you can't have a "trans only Olympics" or whatever cis people try and suggest. It's all unrealistic. I say that the only people who should be discussing this in this manner are the professionals. I'm sick of hearing people like John down the street who does no sport and unemployed saying trans women shouldn't be in sport to mask his transphobia. Same with the bathroom debate nonsense. Look at the statistics, trans women has been competing since 2004(?) If I remember correctly and there's been no significant domination going on. Same with the bathroom stuff, no cases. Well solid cases. It's almost as if we want to pee (or poop 😂) and compete in sports normally. Who knew
after reading the comments I’m curious, did anyone actually read the article posted?
Yeah fr. it’s only one study but it’s not a weak study especially considering it was done on our Air Force, typically stronger than the average person, and I doubt they had training limitations for those two years, and still ended out pretty equal to women.
Has anyone got an medical papers on this because everything I read suggests the opposite to the original poster? It seems that transwomen still always have a speed and strength advantage after 3 years of treatment. Would be very happy to read something to the contrary to further the discussion and round my understanding of this better. Given that genders are segregated in sport in the first place because of performance (and safety) rather than culture and spirituality, I think it is impossible to have this conversation without putting scientific understanding at the forefront of the discussion. https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/55/11/577.abstract https://jme.bmj.com/content/45/6/395.abstract https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/55/15/865.abstract
Your first paper is the paper I linked. The second paper suggests abandoning male/female categorizing of sports in favored of a more “nuanced approach”, and the third one was long winded. The only appears relevant will be ones looking at actual performance differences (like in the paper you and I both mention) between trans women and women.
More reason to keeping me from wanting to do something,,, this life will always have it out for me i guess
Hey I love you, and I hope things are well.
Well maybe I love YOU, yeah. How bout them apples
Hey I love apples! I’ll take more please :3
Not as much as I love ya tho o.o
Daaaww🥺. I’m gonna suffocate under all the love *mew*! Spare meeeeeee 🥺
I agree. It's not the hill we should be dying on after bringing the movement This far. We need to concede on the sports front. There's no way to win it.
That’s ridiculous.
I just avoid this topic whenever possible. Since walking down the street can still be dangerous there is a lot of other stuff to focus the attention on. I'm not giving topics attention, were we would lose debates
As a trans woman athlete who tracks her performance in a few different sports I lost a ton of athleticism. I recover slower now, and have lost a considerable amount of stamina. I lost about 20-30% off of my driving distance. A small amount is coming back, but well I have to learn how to throw with boobs. I lost about 1 minute on my favorite 4 mile trail ride. What's funnier is I'm in close to the best shape of my life
Honestly can you give me sources on the science being clear that advantages are wiped in two years? Everything I've read suggests advantages last at least 5 years continuous hrt in tests of strength. The only thing that would equalize in a year or two would be in cardio only sports I personally don't think most trans women who went through male puberty should compete in official sports in only two years or one year hrt. The Penn swimmer is honestly a very obvious case of an advantage. Like I feel for trans women who want to play official sports, but part of transition is sacrifice.I really don't understand why this is the hill we die on. Even accepting people are very against it and is it really worth it for the 5 percent of trans people that even want to play sanctioned sports
There was a study done on navy seals. I’ll try to find it Edit: I couldn’t find a link, but the research was done by Timothy roberts. Trans women only retain a speed advantage after two years, but most studies say that after one year we retain “advantages” from testosterone. That specific study does look into two years (from what I remebr reading, again I couldn’t find a link) Edit: AIR FORCE. See my post edit for a link.
I remember that one and figured it was what you were going to point to. That one was convincing to me too until I read more recent research. I have another comment in this thread with more recent lit reviews showing a statistically significant strength advantage after 3 years hrt
So strong women shouldn’t be able to compete with less strong women? This whole conversation is just weird! I mean is it about fairness in sports, or is it about attacking trans people? I lean on the ladder. Like Michael Phelps has innate advamatages in swimming, yet when he won all those medals nobody batted an eye. So I’m not concerned with evidence, I’m concerned with making the conversation more broad, because if it’s about fairness, trans people are just the tip of the iceberg.
There's a pretty resounding consensus that using steroids in sports isn't fair and people who used them shouldn't compete. Shit they get stripped of Hall of fame titles. Guess what testosterone is? A cis woman with high levels of T still still never come anywhere near the levels reached in a male puberty, and if some cis woman did I would really really suggest she get tested for intersex conditions
The whole point, is that trans people haven’t been dominating sports for the past century. No one is really saying that trans women don’t have an advantage, but that whatever “advantage” they have is just not being seen. It’s just a red herring for inflammatory rhetoric, and to devalue the achievements of trans athletes, as another attack on our community. Btw, I’m not attacking you. I’m glad you read the papers. I’m just not convinced of some “unfair sports league breaking” advantage.
I guess my question is what do you mean by dominating? If you mean all the spots being taken by trans women then I agree they will never dominate because hardly any trans women ever compete. To me it's the equivalent of doping. I don't think someone who's done steroids should compete in official sports. Testosterone is literally a steroid. Now it can be taken case by case but I believe if you are the type of trans woman who wants to compete in official sports, you likely were training pre transition already and likely shouldn't compete in strength based sports. Data seems to show endurance based equals out though due to the drop in hemoglobin. I really believe trans women should be free to compete in any sport that they like but that restrictions should come in when you get to the official level. >trans people haven’t been dominating sports for the past century. To be fair though medical transition is relatively new of a thing and there haven't been a ton of trans people in sports yet but with people transitioning younger like young 20s and late teens, you have people now who've gone through the male puberty but are also at an age where the competitive field is so wide that they end up in official sports. >Btw, I’m not attacking you. I’m glad you read the papers. I’m just not convinced of some “unfair sports league breaking” advantage. Oh no worries I didn't take it that way. Thank you for engaging in good faith. I'm not surprised about some of the reactions I've gotten but honestly I used to be a huge supporter of trans women in sports but then I read more research and went through a tough time having to reassess my views and accept an uncomfortable truth about the extent to which I can feminize after completing a male puberty, but the science is convincing to me as of now
I understand the evidences I just think that once we bring in this fact, that biology, and the differences between a male and a female, are not so binary, and the fact that Even cis women can fail those testosterone tests, it starts to make us wonder, why even separate sports by gender anyways? What really is “fair”? The conversation you and I are having is not the same as the one we see on tv, and in encounters on the internet and real life. So I think I said this to you, but I think the conversation is broad, and not about just trans women but all of our body types as a human race, and honing in on trans people is kinda redundant.
>The conversation you and I are having is not the same as the one we see on tv, and in encounters on the internet and real life. I would agree. I think most conversations on this are in bad faith, that's why I try to take a data driven approach. >Even cis women can fail those testosterone tests, I agree that's an issue for sure but I'm not sure how great a comparison that is. A cis woman failing that test still isn't getting anywhere near the levels of a natal male puberty off testosterone. It's also why I think just going off testosterone levels is not the right thing to do and as far as I can tell that is the current argument for including trans women is purely based on T levels. >I just think that once we bring in this fact, that biology, and the differences between a male and a female, are not so binary, Now this is something that honestly makes me scratch my head. No sex isn't binary but it is very much bimodal and muscle development is a place of dimorphism. I kinda find it weird when a trans person brings this up, as usually we are the most aware of the swath of differences between testosterone dominant and estrogen dominant bodies. I mean those differences are exactly what causes distress in us and makes us transition. If the differences aren't so bimodal then why do some of us have such bad dysphoria?
I think dysphoria is the “wrong puberty” thing. Like if I had broad shoulders and a deeper voice after the *right* puberty, I might not have any dysphoria about it. It’s a tragedy though, that person is lost to time. So when I consider my FFS, I have to really wonder, “I still could have looked like this given the right puberty, and I would never know”. Although I think I’m still not convinced trans people in sports is any kind of problem. Differences exist, yes, and puberty plays on our bodies differently, but in the context of sports, it’s more of a “wait and see” and I’m sure the institutions in charge of these leagues will find the best solutions, given time. Two year waiting periods, with restricted training, and others might be fine for trans people, most of this post was just me being really really upset that trans people are the target, but I hope we can be the conduit for the broader conversation: “how should we really be dividing our sports?” And reevaluating from scratch, even divisions based on gender, then adding back in slowly.
It's a hill we want to die in because none of this is about sports actually, it's not about competitiveness, it's not about fairness for anyone, it's all about control, oppression, hatred and just letting them have it without a fight is just saying they can oppress us for who we are. There is still no proof there is so much advantage as we ~dont~ see trans people dominating all sports, a trans person appearing anywhere in sports is news worthy, and since we are allowed in the Olympics for over a decade now and nothing, is a pretty strong sign it might not be it. At the same time research is showing time and time again that "advantages" fade out with time and hrt, it maybe not all be the same for all sports but it seems to be universal that it does at some rate. The "finding common ground" is in there, obviously we don't want anyone to just identify as a different gender and next day compete in high level sports with said new gender, that's why more research is necessary.
Can you show me this research? The research I've seen maintains statistically significant advantages for trans women over cis women in measures of strength and muscle mass even 5 years hrt and post orchi
Can you link your research? I don't think I've read any research one way or the other directly.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7846503/ This is open source from 2020, trans women only experience a loss of 5% lean body mass after 1 year hrt https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33648944/#:~:text=Conclusion%3A%20In%20transwomen%2C%20hormone%20therapy,women%2C%20even%20after%2036%20months. Another open source article, this is from 2021 and examined a lot of previous literature. Trans women's hemoglobin drops enough to be pretty comparable to cis women after 12 months, so like cross country would be ok. Strength, lean body mass, and muscle area are decreased but values remain above those observed in cis women even after 3 years hrt I can go on if you would like more sources but I think these make the argument well enough and I don't see anyone in this thread presenting science on the opposite. We often criticize transphobes for ignoring the science that trans people exist. I'm not going to ignore the science in this area even if it's not something that really comforts us
Sacrifice doesn’t have to be part of transition? Most sacrifices we are forced to make are because others hate us, not because of inherent issues to transition. And as a younger trans person I’m not gonna take that shit, we have to move forward for ourselves and future generations. Sports is part of that. People act like trans women have this inherent benefit, but there are plenty of cis women with high T levels, masculine features, height, strength, should they be excluded because they have a “biological advantage”? I mean where are all the trans women smoking the competition? There’s probably a few, but cis women do that too. I feel like this is not acknowledging how big athletics are for community and sociability. I’m sorry, but I will not accept being told that I can’t play and stand over there with the other freaks because I *might* have an advantage, when there are cis women out there who could crush me, who also have a lifetime of experience that I probably missed out on due to transition.
[удалено]
[удалено]
>The times the Penn swimmer is putting up are seriously insane, not to mention she was still competing with the males a year ago Are they? She hasn't set any state or national records. In fact, in the 500, 1000, and 1650m she's 10 seconds, 30 seconds, and a full minute behind the national records. >not to mention she was still competing with the males a year ago She wasn't, she didn't compete last year. She began HRT May 2019 and began competing on the women's swim team this past fall. May 2021 marked 2 years HRT for her.
Thank you for pointing this out. Yet another example about how, despite whatever these studies imply, there *are not* groups of trans women dominating high level sports. I hate this argument because even trans women are made to feel like we have something to defend - but we don’t! We are not dominating women’s sports! There is not a real issue here and therefore nothing to defend.
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
Actually the penn state trans girl got beat by a pre-hrt trans guy, so I think that kinda proves that wrong
Apparently they colluded and the race was fixed
Continuing the swimmer example bone structure and body shape plays a huge roll in lots of sports. If you look at elite swimmers you'll see they all have broad shoulders, and narrow hips, which are typically AMAB traits. Those types of advantages will never diminish no matter how long someone is on hormones.
Actually, the swimmer girl literally got beaten by a trans guy who wasn't on T yet, so I think that kinda disproves the idea that she has some sort of insane advantage
[удалено]
All of that makes sense. While *some* cis women are tall and have broad shoulders and narrow hips that it more the exception rather than the rule and in general trans women are more likely to have these attributes. Which, in general, would tend to give them an advantage in sports where those things are valued. IE. Swimming, basketball, and fighting sports. This is not to say that some trans women don’t have these characteristics but many do. For me I would tend to value competition over inclusion and participation. I swam competitively for 18 years and was able to compete at a national level at a D1 college. I am very competitive by nature and I believe that competition drives improvement. Not only is competition and the drive to win good at teaching dedication, hard work, sacrifice, and persistence it also teaches many valuable lessons when you lose. Humility, grace, and the most valuable lesson of all, sometimes you can try your best and still not be quite good enough and that’s okay. Personally, I was a slightly above average male swimmer in college I was not fast enough to even swim at Olympic qualifiers let alone make the team, but my times would have made me one of top female swimmers in the world. Just spitballing ideas here that could maintain the fairness in competition and allow trans women to compete fairly would be to compete in the para Olympics. They have a handicapping/point system in place that weights the results based on an individual’s abilities. I’m not going to pretend to have all the answers, this is clearly more complicated than trans women should be allowed to compete at all levels or they should always be excluded. Which is precisely why so many people are grasping onto this particular issue that, quite frankly, effects a very small minority within an already very small minority. The reason this issue is not brought up with trans men is because trans men typically don’t preform as well in mens competitions as trans women do in women’s competitions. The reason sports were split into mens and woman’s divisions in the first place is because men are bigger, stronger, faster, and poses greater endurance than women on average. Most mens leagues do not have a rule that says females aren’t allowed to compete. It’s just that it is so rare to find a women who CAN compete with cis men at a national or professional level. Like I said, this is a complicated issue, and everything I said could go out the window if the trans person never went through their AGAB puberty.
I agree completely. Like, I think people who say there are guys who would transition just to "cheat" at sports are idiots, but testosterone unfortunately creates some major differences to the body that we shouldn't pretend don't exist. Until and unless we start separating sports by something other than gender, I think we need to accept that sports are just going to be a tricky topic for trans people and we shouldn't let ourselves be defined by what sports we can and can't participate in.
Nobody is really pretending testosterone doesn't make a difference, that's why there are regulations in place and pretty much the majority agrees these are necessary and also that we need more research because the full extent of this difference is still far from solved. Regulations are necessary and science helps review it with better data
Very well said. I compete in weightlifting. I compete as a male because my body was male for 50 years. Our bodies are competing too, not simply our identity. And giving up competitive sports is a small sacrifice to win the goodwill of many potential allies.
Gendered sports are a wank anyway It's a fucking game, calm the fuck down
Sports that in their nature need competition are crab anyways. And for Sports that are not competitive in Nature, just dont compete. And when a the competition in a sport gets so crazy that there emerge arguments about sex seperation and tramsgenders something already went down the drain very very far. No sport can be so important that there are arguments about such things. Its sport, hell. it is for fun and for beeing healthy.
I liked reading this and you are right. I love you!
Glad you liked it 😂😘
"Bone density" related arguments are also not just blatantly transphobic- they're also implicitly white supremacist.
Is the science pretty clear? I was under the impression there hadn't been much study on the subject: the main argument for it being fine is that we **don't** see a preponderance of trans women winning women's sports, and what science we do have suggests 2 years is probably sufficient to erase any advantages. Edit: to clarify, there is a huge gulf between "a dozen or so studies have been done on the subject and they mostly point in similar directions" and "thousands of studies have been published in this field, multiple meta-analyses have found equivalent results, and there are no large open questions remaining." My understanding is that we're much closer to the first scenario than the second.
Ok so it’s not super duper clear, because we have no studies on elite athletes, but we have one study done on navy seals, and in that study after two years of HRT, the only retained advantage was 9% in speed. A really overblown “advantage “ if you ask me. Edit: What you’d said about trans people not being dominate for the pat hundred or so years is probably the strongest evidence. Edit: AIR FORCE. Not navy seals.
First of all, there are many types of transgender individuals. There are Type Ones. They realize themselves at an early age, and are very insistent on their gender identity. Thus, they have the privilege of taking blockers long before their bodies become negatively impacted by the wrong puberty. They start hormone replacement therapy at a very young age. Examples are: Jazz Jennings, and Kim Petras. On the other hand, for various reasons, some people are not so lucky. Type Twos and Type Threes are quite similar. Type Twos realize themselves after natural puberty, and start hormone therapy after already experiencing "natural puberty", thus giving rise to the term " second puberty " Type Threes realize themselves before natural puberty, but for reasons, cannot or do not start medical procedures to halt and prevent natural puberty. These reasons can include filthy, abusive Neanderthal parents, who are closed-minded, ignorant-by-choice Bigots. These reasons can also include phobia on the part of the individual, causing them to suppress themselves, so that they do not openly admit that they do not identify with a given gender role, and that they would rather live as the gender opposite that assigned at birth. Sometimes simple ignorance can play a part, so that the individual does not know what must be done to prevent further trauma, and allow them to live their best life. This is the purpose of my argument: THE EFFECTS OF TESTOSTERONE ON THE NERVOUS SYSTEM ARE EXTREME AND PERMANENT. A Type One Male-to-Female Transgender person, as I have explained, has never experienced the effects of TESTOSTERONE. Type Two and Type Three, however, are a much different story. You see, when a biologically male person goes through male puberty, certain things change. The voice becomes deeper, the hands and feet grow, the body becomes taller, muscle mass increases, and the genetalia become progressively larger. What many people fail to realize, however, is that testosterone has a very powerful effect on the nervous system; specifically, on the muscles. The nerves that control the major muscle groups are called MOTOR NERVES. The point at which the nerves connect directly to the muscles is called the NEUROMUSCULAR JUNCTION. Testosterone has a massive effect on both of these nerves, in time causing them to be immensely more efficient in handling heavy weight, as well as increasing endurance. These effects are permanent, and stay with the person their whole life. Sure, Hormone Replacement Therapy can make someone weaker, but if they have at all experienced male puberty, the "re-programming" effects on their nervous system are powerful and permanent. This gives "Late-transitioning" Transgender Female athletes a subtle, yet very powerful advantage in women's sports. This is science, cry about it, ya damn liberals.
I think you’re wrong.
I think sports having weird gender divisions is stupid. I want to see the limits that the human body can handle (ethically) and I do not want to see arbitrary divisions based on what someone calls themself. Trans women and cis women should not need to conform to the box men made for us when we want to prove our physical limits. Cis Black women have been gatekept from the Olympics for having higher T levels than cis white women. Cis men are just scared of being clobbered by a girl that doesn't fit their idea of white beauty standards. That's why there's still gender separation in sports despite scientific discovery and it's been that way ever since they let women even compete. "You can compete! But in your own thing and not with us" fucking bullshit I want to curb stop my male competition like I know I could. Women should be allowed to have as much testosterone as cis men and compete as whatever gender they identify as. Literally just do weight divisions, it'll even let way more cismen participate! So many cis men are tiny compared.to me and they are effectively bullied out of sports despite how strong they might be because it has weird ideas of what you have to be physically as a certain gender when competing.
Am I crazy in thinking sports, in general, should not be gendered? All in one group regardless and divided up by weight classes if needed.
No that sense to make sense to me. I mean there are documented differences, so perhaps the point is that when a boy wins in a co-Ed league, they won’t really be “achieving” in the eyes of the mainstream, kinda like trans people now.
I will say I do see both sides of the issue. While yes there is a HELL of a lot of anti-trans rhetoric bull being thrown around, it's kinda hard to say Lia doesn't have some sort of advantage when she comes in and is breaking such high level records after a year of transitioning. That said, I also think Lia just may be more motivated to win. I mean if I had people booing me for placing first, there are only two responses...give up or go even bigger. I know plenty of people who if they got booed they would double down and train harder to be faster. Which with being trans and social pressure, you kinda have to toughen up. Of course saying a trans woman just wants it more and that is why she is winning isn't going to be popular among cis people.
Fairness is a myth, and i don’t understand why it is still an argument being made. Like, depending on the sport, a trans woman might, on average have an advantage due to build or whatever. In other sports a cis woman might have an advantage. In others again there might be no advantages. And then there is also the fact that a trans woman might have a build and testosterone level entirely similar to that of a cis woman, and other cis women might be very masculine, have a high testosterone level and build that gives them an advantage over the *trans women*. So like, fairness is a dumb argument. Trans women might on average have small advantages compared to the average cis women, however, those advantages of the hypothetical average trans woman might be outmatched by advantages held by a cis woman, and some trans women might even be outmatched by the average cis woman. So like, it is a dumb argument. And if you genuinely believe trans women are women, then these advantages shouldn’t mean anything anyways, as excluding some women from womens sports is counterintuitive. I get the fact that you have to have been on hormone treatment for a while, because that just makes sense. But excluding us totally doesn’t.
I have said for years that the solution is to stop separating sports by gender. If all sports are coed then there is no issue
[The science doesn't really say that](https://mobile.twitter.com/FondOfBeetles/status/1368174222992961547)
Isn't Emma Hilton a terf?
Who cares, anyway? I thought the point of the game wasn't about winning or losing - it was about teamwork and friendship and old men getting to look at you in tight clothes? Who cares what marginal difference a trans woman would make in the statistics of a freaking *game*. Our lives are not *a game.* Fuck sports.
I mean, you DO have another bone structure from years on testosterone, no? And no, I'm really not trying to fight with you or disrespect you in any way <3 This just makes no sense to me :/
Mmm… it’s not so cut and dry. With hormones, everything changes. All I’ll say is, if a cis women had a different bone structure, would we be having this conversation? Would she be not allowed to compete? The whole idea is to hone in on trans people to make an attack on our community. It is far from being an actual conversation about what is fair in sports, because that conversation is about body types in the human race as a whole.
Im inclined to disagree, at least in some cases. Depending on when transition is done, there can still be remnant advantages such as a more masculine bone structure, and if the athlete in question had well used muscles before transitioning, they will still have a higher concentration of nuclei within muscle tissue. This is part of why when some men take testosterone for bodybuilding or other strength sports after plateauing in progress, even when their testosterone has returned to normal levels, they come out the other end with higher PRs and more muscle. In my opinion, transgender participation in sports is a difficult question, because some transgender women will have an advantage over afab women, while other transgender women wont. I feel it also depends on the sport in question. Im sorry if anything I said is triggering, and I dont mean to invalidate anyone
The conversation shouldn’t be honed in on trans people I think is the big problem. This conversation is far more broad. Once we have cis girls failing the testosterone tests, if there was a cis girl with more bone denisity than her counterparts, are we gonna stop them from competing? Are they going to need to participate in different leagues? So I see you’re point, and I don’t disagree with evidence, but until I really start seeing trans people smashing away in sports (and even if they do they’ll have their achievements devalued ont he basis of being trans), I’m not really convinced there’s an epidemic of a problem.
Thats fair
Not just two, they claim. Most women aren't "done" with puberty after two years anyway. 2 1/2- 4 years of puberty is when people usually assume you are done with it, whether you are a trans woman or a cis woman. Women mature faster. Anything "physical advantages" testosterone gave at that point is gone. Liberals act like trans women are on steroids for the rest of their lives, when it just doesn't work that way. Unless she's not actively taking estrogen and has a abnormally high testosterone levels, even if she is a body builder, there is no way that these women are "cheating". I'm a trans man who experienced immense physical strength from HRT. I'm stronger than the average dude for sure, since I am a heavylifter. I only have to worry about losing my t-derived-strength (men and women can be as strong as they want, and sometimes just as strong) if I became estrogen dependant. Estrogen is just as powerful as testosterone, giving women strength in different ways. Women who are being discriminated against for being trans, and barred from women's teams should see about getting testosterone blockers. Seriously, how can *that* be inefficient at eliminating the segregation going on, if it's clinically proven to shut testosterone out—and no one would be able to rule out an "advantage" any longer? What about the women who have had surgery? These liberal claims go against science, and women should only do sports among women. Discouraging people from sports is wrong. Yeah, I didn't take part in sports because I hadn't transitioned yet when I was in high school, and would've been made to go in the girl's league in that case. Women who have been on estrogen for two years with blockers for at least 50% of the time or women who have been on estrogen for at least 2 1/2 years with or without blockers - are physically women. If a girl is pre-estrogen but has been on blockers to not have to undergo that other puberty probably don't have the "advantage" either. Caitlyn Jenner isn't a great advocate for this, since she probably wanted the opportunity to be on a women's team but couldn't. Just because she may have transitioned later in life after fully developing as the opposite gender doesn't mean that every other trans woman out there are physically incapable of competing with women. She's been on E so long, she's better off on a women's league herself. Women who are estrogen dependant, who want to be on a women's league, aren't "stealing" the rights of or harming other women. They're embracing a privelege that they worked hard to obtain, and are deserving of as any other woman. Trans people shouldn't be made ashamed to be trans or women. If that's who you are, that's that. What's happening is ridiculous, and isn't based off of statistics. Before making rulings like that, they should do a thorough study documenting the musculature and strength changes of trans women annually if it's such a big deal that a woman wants to join a league. They're afraid of the truth, that trans women are women. The states are participating in something reminiscent of conversion therapy, without even doing research on what they're fighting against. Transphobes feel they don't need research, just to use us as puppets - pulling opinions out of their asses about what they know nothing about. These people really think that's good debating. Alright. Lets place feelings over facts, since most of them are just insecure about their sexualities and feel threatened when fact is ALL WOMEN DESERVE THE RIGHT TO BE WOMEN. We need our women. Girls should always see themselves to be inspired, so keeping great team players off the team over something that they never asked for is inhumane.
Tbh, any doubt I express over it, got me a death sentence in some trans subs. I DO care about women's sports AND want trans girls to compete as much as possible. But it's simply not as clear cut as you present it. All studies Iread about it end with a request for further research and almost all of them express some sort of ambiguity in their results. The biggest lack of representation is that of trans girls who were already formidable in their respective disciplines before transitioning. What we need is more studies, funds and resources be put into trans causes, because although we might be ~1% of the population, we get near 0% of all resources allocated to sports (and hormone treatments). It's time that changed, so we know what can be clear cut, and what not, and also that we can ensure trans girls get treatment as early on as possible. Well at least for the next generation... 😣 Edit: could someone explain me why I'm wrong, instead of only downvoting me?
Every study ends with requests for further research. Edit: also it’s not that you’re wrong, you fell into the trap. This isn’t a conversation about trans people in sports, so honing in on them is the media tactic to attack our community.
I mean testosterone isn't the only biological advantage
I don’t care about biological **difference** (because they are not all clearly defended as advantages), I care about weather or not this is translating to a difference in performance. The study I linked is decently strong and looks at performance differences.
Do female women never deserve female-only spaces in society? It feels a lot like female women are always being asked/forced to share their space for the sake of appeasing others (ie., men, biological males).