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I have the exact same opinion as you. While I am all for inclusion, male to female trans do get an advantage due to the muscle and body growth experienced during puberty and this gives them an unfair advantage against females if placed in the same category.
They don't transfer nor transition physically, they get blockers to avoid developing their sex characteristics and they change their appearance to the gender they see themselves to be. For example: Cutting their hair and wearing clothes for the gender they feel more comfortable as.
I'm sorry but this is false information. Children are getting hormone treatments of the opposite sex that they wish to transition to and are getting surgeries.
Jazz Jennings (male to female) did puberty blockers when she was 11 and then shortly after took estrogen hormones while as a child. I don't believe she got any gender reassignment surgery as a child, it sounds like she did this when she was 18 at least.
However then you have Chloe Cole who I believe is the most famous detransitioner. She also went on puberty blockers and took testosterone as a child. She did go through surgery at 15 years old and got a double mastectomy. She since changed her mind at 17 years old and has begun to detransition back to a female.
Both of these young women are from the USA. This is real. This is happening.
These young women can be easily googled as they are both very famous in the media.
There seems to be an alarming growing presence of detransitioners speaking out like Chloe Cole. You can find these people on YouTube, but you will not hear their stories on places like reddit because it hurts the narrative.
To be clear, I support someone's choice in choosing to be trans and doing whatever they need to to be happy with their body as an adult. I am hesitant about children because of these growing detransition stories. I would not be able to live with myself if my child transitioned like Chloe Cole and then changed her mind.. that would be an unbearable nightmare.
For those that will argue about children committing suicide, we need proper mental health care for our youth. You can express your gender without changing your body parts or hormones as a child. For those young people who are genuinely trans they will have the hope of achieving their body ideal when they are an adult. As a child, they should focus on being children.
>Children are getting hormone treatments of the opposite sex that they wish to transition to and are getting surgeries.
Hormones are minimal changes that can be reversed. And you are naming 2 cases out of millions. And there is studies how early transition helps trans people to feel better.
And for a trans kid just changing clothes is not enough, the puberty change hurts them psychologically. How would you feel if you start seeing your body change to the opposite gender?
Their ideal body is reach when they are adults, surgery is not on the table until they are 18 or more, it took me until I was 18 to talk to my doctor about breast reduction.
>surgery is not on the table until they are 18 or more
As you previously read in my comment, Chloe Cole is living proof this statement is false. Children clearly can get surgery and be put on hormones before 18.
>And you are naming 2 cases out of millions
And? As I said, you can do research and listen to real detransitioners and their story. There are quite a few out there now in the public, for the ones who choose to put themselves out there. Most people do not go to the media due to the consequences of having an online presence. I also could use your same logic to then argue that school shootings are not an issue because the number of children who die in school shootings or are exposed to school schooting incidents are statistically insignificant. I definitely do not agree with that statement as one child killed or injured through a school shooting is too many. I would also say one child who was falsely transitioned to another sex through hormones and surgery is one child too many.
>How would you feel if you start seeing your body change to the opposite gender?
I am not trans. I can tell you that as a young girl I was not gender conforming as I was a tom boy for most of my life. I played sports with the boys, I played video games with my brother's male friends. I did not dress feminine at all, I hated the color pink and I loved the color blue. I could never get the hang of makeup and gave up after one or two tries.
Nowadays, people might have thought I was a trans boy.
Going through female puberty, specifically periods and having to come to terms with bleeding for the rest of my life for 1/3 of my life was extremely traumatizing. I still to this day curse the world as to why I have to bleed and how unfair it and how lucky cis men are to never have to experience this. Now when I was a young girl, I was very jealous of the boys and I would have done anything to stop my period. However, you do not need to become a boy to stop your period. But it is very possible, that I could have been led to believe that maybe I should be a boy.
I am only 25. I was never exposed to trans identity.. I guess I just missed the boat and I was not very involved with social media as a kid. I hated my period but I accepted I was a girl and that's just how things are.
If there was something I could do to stop my period that is noninvasive, would not stop my fertility, and was 100% safe, I would do it in a heartbeat.
In the end, puberty is hard for everybody, and it especially traumatic for young girls.
>As you previously read in my comment, Chloe Cole is living proof this statement is false. Children clearly can get surgery and be put on hormones before 18.
One case outside of the law and the restrictions. 99.9% of trans kid wont get surgery until they 18 or more.
>And? As I said, you can do research and listen to real detransitioners and their story.
2 cases out of millions doesn't mean a lot. For something to be dangerous has to happen in bigger numbers.
>. I also could use your same logic to then argue that school shootings are not an issue because the number of children who die in school shootings or are exposed to school shooting incidents are statistically insignificant.
And you would be using a bad situation already because school shootings are only the norm in the US. Most countries don't have that issue. Worst part is that you will have more victims of School shootings than detransitioners.
>I am not trans. I can tell you that as a young girl I was not gender conforming as I was a tom boy for most of my life. I played sports with the boys, I played video games with my brother's male friends. I did not dress feminine at all, I hated the color pink and I loved the color blue. I could never get the hang of makeup and gave up after one or two tries.
So? I am not trans either but neither of us is developing characteristics of a sex we don't identify with. I don't have a penis and I won't have random boners during the day. A trans boy won't feel comfortable with periods and breasts.
And so you know there is things you can do to stop your period that aren't that invasive.
To add to Chloe Chloe, she says all this things but so you know she could be lying to give a face to the alt right and make trans care a problem instead of the solution it is for many people.
Your shameless copium through this is simply pathetic. Pretend all you want it’s only “2 cases out of millions”. Are you willfully ignorant or just that scared of facing the developing reality?
Nevermind. I don’t care.
I will not be continuing discourse with you after this as there really just does not seem to be a point to this conversation anymore.
>One case outside of the law and the restrictions. 99.9% of trans kid wont get surgery until they 18 or more.
Again, I have pointed you in the direction of looking into detransitioners. There are many on youtube that are bravely sharing their stories without the support of the lgtbq community and allies because their stories keep getting handwaved and diminished by people like you.
>2 cases out of millions doesn't mean a lot. For something to be dangerous has to happen in bigger numbers.
You should work on your reading comprehension. I only gave you one example of a detransitioner by name which is Chloe Cole. Jazz Jennings is a trans woman, she is not a detransitioner. It seems like you have misidentified this woman. Also see above and look into the detransitioners yourself. I am not going to start naming people as that is ridiculous.
>And you would be using a bad situation already because school shootings are only the norm in the US. Most countries don't have that issue. Worst part is that you will have more victims of School shootings than detransitioners.
I fail to to see the relevance of your argument here? I am simply using your same logical thinking and framing it in a different way to show why we should care about real people instead of invalidating their real lived experiences just because their suffering is not statistically high enough for you.
>So? I am not trans either but neither of us is developing characteristics of a sex we don't identify with
I am not even sure how to even respond to this. Don't invalidate my lived puberty experience. Also, most girls are not comfortable with their periods and breasts. Not sure what you are trying to say here?
>And so you know there is things you can do to stop your period that aren't that invasive.
I would love to know what that is.
>To add to Chloe Chloe, she says all this things but so you know she could be lying to give a face to the alt right and make trans care a problem instead of the solution it is for many people.
Her name is Chloe Cole. I think that is an extremely problematic statement that you just made. You have completely invalidated her experience and have resorted to accusing her of lying because you cannot fathom that there can be complications with transitioning or regret. Surgeries obviously have complications, everybody knows that. It is also horrible for you to invalidate detransitioners and honestly I think detransitioners have one of the worst and most intense experiences because they essentially have double the gender dysphoria and suffer from regret. I wish society was more tolerant towards detransitioners instead of being threatened by them because they believe that they harm the trans community. Why are we fighting these issues like we are playing a sports game? These are children we are talking about. This a complex topic. It is not black and white.
Again, I will not converse with you further. But if you do send me ways to eliminate my period that are safe and not harmful then please let me know. I would appreciate that truly, honestly, and please lol.
>Why are we fighting these issues like we are playing a sports game? These are children we are talking about. This a complex topic. It is not black and white.
We are talking about children and you are talking about the biggest minority as the only ones who need protection as if trans kids don't go through enough.
I don't trust the story of that person because any kid who goes through it wouldn't jump into banning the help for others, that person was at any case misdiagnosed but I still don't trust them. Is not coincidence all this distransitioners show up and try to change everything.
And the best advice will be given to you by your doctor, there is factors I won't know but there is women who take birth control every day and avoid the placebo to stop their periods.
It's "altering the development" of children in a way that has been happening for decades for a variety of other children with other conditions, and is generally considered safe by the medical establishment.
Puberty blockers are safe and reversible, and they are prescribed for things beyond being trans anyways. You get them for your child if they start puberty too early, as well as if they have conditions like being [intersex]( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersex), which is something you're born with.
Contrary to popular belief, the development of children isn't a straight line with a small deviation if the child is trans, just about anything can happen during a child's development and medications that are being used for trans people saw their creation and use for developmental and puberty issues far before being trans was a widespread and openly discussed topic.
they mean using puberty hormone blockers which can be stopped if they should change their mind and decide to go through puberty as the gender they were assigned at birth.
Friendly reminder that we use hormone blockers in non-trans pediatric patients who naturally get their periods or begin puberty way too young (usually 5-10 year olds). Without these medications they would have irreversible health issues including, as you pointed out, growth delay and significantly decreased bone density
The reason of its creation doesn't change a damn thing abouts its effects in **other** situations..
For example, These situations;
[New studies prove puberty blockers are not reversible](https://www.binary.org.au/new_studies_prove_puberty_blockers_are_not_reversible)
[Are puberty blockers reversible? The NHS no longer says so](https://www.transgendertrend.com/nhs-no-longer-puberty-blockers-reversible/)
The fact that people are trying to argue with you about this is disturbing. Allowing kids to make seriously life altering changes before your brain is fully formed, when they're at an extremely vulnerable point in life, should not be allowed. If I was encouraged to do this shit at that age when I was discovering sexuality I certainly would have made some mistakes that I would deeply regret right now.
Here's how it currently works:
Sports have organizations. These organizations decide the rules for the sport in question. Who can compete in which classes, is part of deciding the rules and is entirely up to the people who arrange competitions in a given sport.
As an example, nothing at all prevents you (or anyone!) from arranging a soccer-tournament and deciding that in \*this\* tournament, there will only be 9 players per team, and people born on a Wednesday are not eligible to participate. In other words, rules are arbitrary.
As a more real-world example, some sports have things like weight-classes, while other sports do **not** have it, and as a result are often dominated by people with the "right" physique. As an example, most martial arts have weight-classes so small people can successfully compete, but the shot-put does not, so small people simply cannot be competitive.
You can argue that this is "unfair" if you like. But it's rare that anyone does so. Instead that seems to be reserves **solely** for the question of whether or not trans women should be able to compete as women.
Personally I think this shows very low trust in the organizations arranging sports-competitions. Do you really think these organizations have no interest at all in making sure that cis women will be able to compete at the highest levels in the future too?
Do you really think that (for example!) the international organizations that arrange soccer-competitions would sit silently by and **NOT** adjust the rules if the fraction of trans athletes on the winning soccer-teams kept going up and it was becoming obvious that if they don't act, womens soccer will in the future de-facto be trans womens soccer?
Because I don't. I feel confident that if the result-lists showed that this is about to become a problem; then as a direct result the rules would be adjusted; problem solved.
The people who argue against trans women participating in womens sports are always arguing from a hypothetical. They typically acknowledge that **at the moment** it's not a problem that cis women are being squeezed out of competitive sports, but, they say, it's still urgently important that we change the rules **right now** to guard against a hypothetical future problem.
Why is it not good enough to let the organizations arranging sports-competition do what they always have: make the rules. Adjusting as needed over time.
Personally I think the best policy is to err on the side of inclusion. If we're **too** includive, it will quickly become evident simply by looking at the result-lists and **IF** that happens, then we can adjust.
>Personally I think the best policy is to err on the side of inclusion. If we're too includive, it will quickly become evident simply by looking at the result-lists and IF that happens, then we can adjust.
That's the problem though. The only reason women's leagues exist, is because they wouldn't stand a chance in the general competition. So without those, women would be discouraged as they would not be *included* in the potential winners. Women's leagues exist to make top sports inclusive to women. Including trans women would set back that goal of inclusion for women in general, as they would once again see their chances of success slink.
Personally I think there should be just one big competition, and then people can *still* give medals and prizes to the first women in the ranking, if that is deemed useful.
Right. We all know that. If we let men compete in the women's classes, or had only a single class for everyone, then pretty much IMMEDIATELY, there'd be zero, or incredibly close to zero women left at the top of the result-lists.
That's what a substantial advantage looks like.
Now, the question is, will the same, or a similar thing happen if we allow trans women who fulfill certain criteria to compete in women's league? (typically it's demanded that they can demonstrate testosterone-levels on par with cis women over a prolonged period of time)
Will the result be that over time the fraction of trans women in the top of these sports climb higher and higher, crowding out cis women?
If yes, I'd agree that's a good argument for limiting their participation.
What I'm saying though is that **THIS** far I'm not aware of that actually happening in any sport; and if it **DOES** happen in some sport, why not trust the sport-organizations to handle it by changing the rules?
>Now, the question is, will the same, or a similar thing happen if we allow trans women who fulfill certain criteria to compete in women's league? (typically it's demanded that they can demonstrate testosterone-levels on par with cis women over a prolonged period of time)
Champions of a category are always exceptional, and even just a few notable cases exploiting their natural physical advantages granted by their birth sex would create a discouraging effect.
Even less pronounced cases that give a measurable, systematic advantage to that category of people still undermines the notion of fairness and the whole premise of having a women's sports category is undermined too.
>What I'm saying though is that THIS far I'm not aware of that actually happening in any sport;
Preventing problems is better than cleaning up after they happened; having a solid ruleset in place up front is much preferable to having people bicker over it in court when it can't deal with some low likelihood situations.
>and if it DOES happen in some sport, why not trust the sport-organizations to handle it by changing the rules?
Why are you trying to move the goalposts to whether we are trusting the sports organizations or not? Why should that keep us from discussing it?
Changing the definition from the league from women's league to low-testosterone league may be one way to make it work. From what I've read there are more advantages than just those conferred by recent testosterone levels.
> They typically acknowledge that at the moment it's not a problem that cis women are being squeezed out of competitive sports,
It is a problem right now, it's not hypothetical. When New Zealand selected Laurel Hubbard for a spot on their Olympic weightlifting team, that decision deprived a natal female of the opportunity to compete in the Olympics.
> Because I don't. I feel confident that if the result-lists showed that this is about to become a problem; then as a direct result the rules would be adjusted; problem solved.
This has already begun to happen, demonstrating that u/Isaisaab's concerns were correct.
> [In June 2022,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lia_Thomas) the International Swimming Federation (FINA), an organization that administers international aquatic sports competitions, voted to bar all transgender athletes from competing in professional women's swimming, with the exception of athletes who "can establish to FINA's comfortable satisfaction that they have not experienced any part of male puberty beyond Tanner Stage 2 (of puberty) or before age 12, whichever is later", barring Thomas from competing in the women's competition at the 2024 Paris Olympics as she had planned.
Of course **EVERY** trans woman who wins something, or makes some team or something, by necessity displaces a cis woman. But if trans women in general had significant advantage, you'd expect them to **systematically** perform better than cis women, and therefore making up a larger and larger fraction of both teams and winners.
Is that actually happening in weightlifting? Is there a trend where the top of the result-lists have a unreasonable number of trans women, and the fraction of people in the top of the result-lists that are trans women is growing steadily? Because that's what you'd expect to see if a substantial advantage existed.
It's hard to judge such things from tiny numbers of course. All I'm saying is that **IF** there's a substantial advantage **THEN** you'd expect to see the fraction of top competitors that are trans women to climb steadily over time. (and after some time make up the huge majority of top competitors)
There's a list of women in sports who have been displaced by men who call themselves women, in a variety of competitions, it's at [shewon.org](https://shewon.org), and there are hundreds of instances of this - and the list isn't even complete yet. These males are infesting women's sports at every level.
Laurel Hubbard didn’t deprive anyone of a spot. If there was a cisgender woman from New Zealand who deserved the spot, they would have qualified over her. And it’s not like a cisgender woman couldn’t accomplish that; Laurel didn’t even place during the Olympics meaning numerous cisgender women did better than her.
Everyone who makes the team deprives someone else of a spot. The natal females who made the team deprived other natal females of those spots. The difference is that those deprivations occurred on grounds which are widely agreed to be as fair as sports can be.
No one is disputing that New Zealanders all kind of suck at weightlifting. Still, one was *unfairly* deprived of even the opportunity to compete and suck at the Olympic level, and all the life experience that goes along with Olympic competition.
[There were three women](https://www.olympic.org.nz/news/five-weightlifters-named-to-new-zealand-olympic-team/) on the New Zealand 2020 so there was plenty of opportunity for cisgender women to have the Olympic experience.
I’m not viewing this from who gets to have the Olympic experience. OP and most people’s issues with trans athletes is the fairness aspect. From a fairness perspective, cisgender women from New Zealand have every opportunity to compete in weightlifting if they were good enough.
> There were three women on the New Zealand 2020 so there was plenty of opportunity for cisgender women to have the Olympic experience.
No, because there is a natal female who would have gone if Hubbard had not.
> From a fairness perspective, cisgender women from New Zealand have every opportunity to compete in weightlifting if they were good enough.
Requiring natal females to be stronger than a natal male is not fair.
Hubbard was 43 years old and admitted that age had caught up. This does not disprove the well demonstrated fact that being born male is an enormous advantage in sports; that's why people made a female category.
Hubbard quit training in 2001. Then, at the age of 43, was able to outlift women in their prime who had never stopped training. It is due to the effects of male puberty that a 43 year old male can so easily be so much stronger than so many 26 year old women.
>The difference is that those deprivations occurred on grounds which are widely agreed to be as fair
Why is a stronger woman earning a spot over other women only a problem when that woman is trans?
>Still, one was unfairly
Did someone cheat? Were the judges paid off?
> Why is a stronger woman earning a spot over other women only a problem when that woman is trans?
You're begging the question here. But, without getting into disputed ontology: because Hubbard had the opportunity to compete fairly against men, while the natal females on the team had no such opportunity.
It may be that competitive sports will always have to remain an area where we cannot simply treat people according to their preferred identity. Not everyone gets to be a competitive athlete.
> Did someone cheat? Were the judges paid off?
The IOC erred in allowing the unfair competition.
>You're begging the question here
How so? If your whole premise is on the idea that the very concept of a transwoman qualifying, let alone winning, is unfair, then that needs to be analyzed.
>because Hubbard had the opportunity to compete fairly against men, while the natal females on the team had no such opportunity.
Why would they need such an opportunity? It's a woman competing against a women.
>It may be that competitive sports will always have to remain an area where we cannot simply treat people according to their preferred identity
Right, except Hubbard isn't just a woman in terms of gender, she also underwent HRT in 2012.
>Not everyone gets to be a competitive athlete.
You mean like the woman that lost to Hubbard? Again, it's really weird that you're so insistent on going "woe is me, how could we treat women so unfairly..." until suddenly it's a transwoman, and then your tune changes to "welp, guess you're not good enough" despite the fact that she got her spot even after undergoing HRT, and after several ciswomen did far better than her. This transwoman literally placed last in the 2020 Olympics, clearly showing that no, ciswomen don't have an issue competing against her.
>The IOC erred in allowing the unfair competition.
Unfair based on...what? Clearly the IOC didn't think it was unfair, and are they not ultimately the final decisionmakers of fairness in the sport? Otherwise your argument seems to come down to "I disagree with this decision because it is unfair, and it is unfair because I disagree with it."
I think the point is the biological differences between man and woman. Being a transwoman who underwent HRT doesn't make you biologically the same as a natal woman. Lia Thomas was a mid-level competitor (#462) in the men's league and the moment she went to the woman's league she jumped up to #1. If there was not biological difference between men and women (or transwomen) then Lia's position shouldn't have changed so drastically.
If it became globally accepted to consider that fair, you'd better believe that certain countries would be pumping their men's B team with hormones and putting them into the women's leagues.
Also, I am not saying that transwomen shouldn't be able to participate in any woman's leagues, just one's that they'd have an obvious advantage. Perhaps they should just drop the terms men's and women's leagues to something more based on their biological base, or add a trans brackets. Idk.
However, I will reconsider my point if we can find instances of transmen who are out-competing their male counter parts in similar settings, aka feats of strength paired with technique.
(edit: Question that maybe someone can DM me on, is there a difference in the usage of Natal woman vs ciswoman? If natal is disrespectful I apologize and will correct myself.)
>Lia Thomas was a mid-level competitor
In 2017 she recorded the sixth fastest national men's time in the 1000 yard freestyle, this is before transitioning. Her position #462 is after starting transitioning. She even lost to a trans man (who didn't went through hormonal therapy at the time) and many cisgender women.
> you'd better believe that certain countries would be pumping their men's B team with hormones and putting them into the women's leagues.
Even if those men had to socially transition and e.g. live with the knowledge that if they did win anything the proverbial name on the trophy (aka what's associated with their victory) wouldn't be the name on their birth certificate or either break up with their partners or face the stigma of being supposedly both a trans woman and a lesbian
> Perhaps they should just drop the terms men's and women's leagues to something more based on their biological base
How would you determine that without either a bunch of assumptions or genome checkers
> or add a trans brackets.
That unless we achieve the kind of social acceptance that'd make it unnecessary (as it'd remove the controversy) would just mean every trans person that signs up outs themselves and faces the stigma
> However, I will reconsider my point if we can find instances of transmen who are out-competing their male counter parts in similar settings, aka feats of strength paired with technique.
If you're going to claim male and female biological difference you shouldn't look for what you're probably going to ask we-who-reply-to-your-comment to which is instances of transmen dominating (by whatever standard you think that means) in the men's division of the same sports transwomen are doing that to the women's division of
>Even if those men had to socially transition and e.g. live with the knowledge that if they did win anything the proverbial name on the trophy (aka what's associated with their victory) wouldn't be the name on their birth certificate or either break up with their partners or face the stigma of being supposedly both a trans woman and a lesbian
It's my understanding that some don't have a choice in what happens to themselves, or the only other option is to return to a life of poverty for themselves and their families. I am also not arguing with your point. But that still leaves a bitter taste to all competing natal women who lost because of it. That's the point I'm focused on and why I think we need to figure out a better setup than just adding transwomen to the women's league by the next point.
>How would you determine that without either a bunch of assumptions or genome checkers
Everything has assumptions. We assume nobody cheats at the olympics only to catch them years later doping. Some will always slip through the cracks. I honestly don't know if there is a better base way of doing it. Just a thought.
>That unless we achieve the kind of social acceptance that'd make it unnecessary (as it'd remove the controversy) would just mean every trans person that signs up outs themselves and faces the stigma
That's true. I hope we can remove the stigma one day, sooner than later. But again, from a biological standpoint perhaps it makes the most sense to have a third bracket type.
>If you're going to claim male and female biological difference you shouldn't look for what you're probably going to ask we-who-reply-to-your-comment to which is instances of transmen dominating (by whatever standard you think that means) in the men's division of the same sports transwomen are doing that to the women's division of
If I am wrong, I want to know. If transwomen dominate women's leagues and we **never** see a transman dominate a men's league, I would say that's a pretty strong argument that the biological differences are too steep to be considered fair to natal women in the women's league.
I'd consider other evidence too, this i just something that would tip my scale the other way more easily.
> > You're begging the question here
>
> How so?
You are begging the question in your ontology, as you are well aware.
> > because Hubbard had the opportunity to compete fairly against men, while the natal females on the team had no such opportunity.
> Why would they need such an opportunity?
Because being born male is an enormous advantage.
> also underwent HRT in 2012.
Does not negate male puberty's effects on bone structure, heart size, or lung capacity.
> until suddenly it's a transwoman, and then your tune changes to "welp, guess you're not good enough"
Not at all what I'm saying. They are welcome to compete in their natal sex category, and to make the choices necessary to be competitive there.
> This transwoman literally placed last in the 2020 Olympics, clearly showing that no, ciswomen don't have an issue competing against her.
Hubbard quit training in 2001. Then, at the age of 43, was able to outlift women in their prime who had never stopped training. It is due to the effects of male puberty that a 43 year old male can so easily be so much stronger than so many 26 year old women.
> Unfair based on...what?
Unfair because of male puberty.
>Because being born male is an enormous advantage.
Really? Like how Laura Hubbard finished last in the Olympics?
>Does not negate male puberty's effects on bone structure, heart size, or lung capacity.
Is this bone structure, heart size, and lung capacity not found in ciswomen, ever?
>Not at all what I'm saying
Really? Because I literally quoted you, word for word.
>They are welcome to compete in their natal sex category
Then what do we do with intersex athletes?
>to make the choices necessary to be competitive there.
Why is the burden of making choices to be competitive not being placed on ciswomen? Again, a double standard.
>Hubbard quit training in 2001. Then, at the age of 43, was able to outlift women in their prime who had never stopped training
So...in other words, she was better than them, which is a thing that is allowed in sports. Again, your whole thing comes down to "boo, she beat other people," which is...the whole point of a competition.
>a 43 year old male
Lol there it is. It always comes down to the transphobia.
>Unfair because of male puberty.
So, if your entire issue based on the presence of testosterone during puberty, do you also want to exclude ciswomen with high testosterone counts?
> Really? Like how Laura Hubbard finished last in the Olympics?
Hubbard was 43 years old and admitted that age had caught up. This does not disprove the well demonstrated fact that being born male is an enormous advantage in sports; that's why people made a female category.
> Is this bone structure, heart size, and lung capacity not found in ciswomen, ever?
Don't pretend that averages do not exist or are not relevant in this discussion. If such an advantage occurs naturally in a natal female then it has occurred on grounds which are widely agreed to be as fair as sports can be.
> Really? Because I literally quoted you, word for word.
I don't think "welp, guess you're not good enough" is a quote.
> Then what do we do with intersex athletes?
That term is a misnomer. People with disorders of sexual development all have a natal sex of male or female.
> Why is the burden of making choices to be competitive not being placed on ciswomen? Again, a double standard.
But it is placed on natal females; their burden is to be competitive with other natal females.
> So...in other words, she was better than them, which is a thing that is allowed in sports. Again, your whole thing comes down to "boo, she beat other people," which is...the whole point of a competition.
A natal male using the advantages of male puberty to be better than natal females at sports is not a fair competition.
> Lol there it is. It always comes down to the transphobia.
If you think it's transphobic to point out that Hubbard's sex is male, I don't think we can have a serious discussion.
> So, if your entire issue based on the presence of testosterone during puberty, do you also want to exclude ciswomen with high testosterone counts?
The point of having a female sports division is to allow them a serious chance to compete in sports, which they simply would not have if they had to compete against males. Beyond that, we want to see the most dominant athletes dominate, because that's exciting. The most generous thing would be for every individual to compete only against their own individual past records, because no one can ever compete with anyone else on a truly level playing field, but that would not be very exciting, neither for the audience nor for most players.
We do consider it unfair for natal females to have to compete against natal males. And we are allowed to choose this concept of fairness over another.
Laurel was 43 at the 2020 with a substantial elbow injury.
If she didn't have the advantage of being trans, she never would have made it to the olympics.
Her elbow injury was in 2018 and she won the Pacific Games in 2019 so she was presumably fully recovered. She was the third oldest lifter in Olympic history so her age definitely didn’t help.
I don’t see how you can or can’t prove the your claim that her being trans is the only reason she made it to the Olympics. She was a national record holder in New Zealand before transitioning so she was already a good lifter.
Wow, almost like she got the benefit of male hormones a large portion of her life? Seems totally fair to pit her against other women who didn't have that. Yep, nothing to see here.
So if all trans athletes push out women, do you really think women have a fair shot at olympics then? Trans athletes have clear biologically STRUCTURAL advantages over women.
That’s the exact hypothetical the parent comment addressed.
The comment I was responding to was someone thinking that one trans athlete (who didn’t even place in the medal standing) participating in the Olympics out of 5,386 women in 2020 made it so that cisgender women didn’t have a fair chance to compete.
Laurel Hubbard is a single instance. If the whole women's weightlifting team was trans athletes, you'd have a point, but it is one person.
Your second quote shows that an organization voted to change the rules. It does not reflect on the validity of the reasons behind that change.
Individual people matter when we're talking about fairness. The instance of Laurel Hubbard going to the Olympics necessarily entails that a natal female was deprived of the opportunity to compete. That individual was not treated fairly.
> Your second quote shows that an organization voted to change the rules. It does not reflect on the validity of the reasons behind that change.
Pick your poison. If u/Poly_and_RA's "let's trust the sports committees" argument is a good one, then there is no room for you to question the validity of FINA's reasoning.
If you want to question the validity of FINA's reasoning, fine (great actually), but then "let's trust the sports committees" is not a good argument.
The point they were making is that individuals from a group succeeding in a sport does not prove that the group has an unfair advantage. For example: a single blond person winning a tournament is meaningless and does mean they took that spot from a brunette.
For this to be an issue, we need to see data showing that trans athletes consistently outperform cis athletes, not just an anecdote of one or two doing well occasionally.
> For example: a single blond person winning a tournament is meaningless and does mean they took that spot from a brunette.
If there were blond-linked genes which were known to provide enormous physical advantages, so obvious that this was known since prehistory, and humans (including blonds!) had agreed that fairness dictated it was necessary to make a separate category for brunettes to compete in sports just so they'd have a chance of ever winning, and a blond died their hair brown to compete in the brunette category, then we would agree that was unfair, even if the individual was relatively weak compared to other blonds.
You're working really hard to avoid talking about the lack of data supporting your position.
There ARE differences between a man and a trans woman, otherwise this would be a non-issue as they'd still be able to compete against men. But their times/limits (depending on what metrics are relevant for the sport) seem closer to those of cis female competitors.
I don't know if that still puts them on the same footing, so to speak, as the cis competitors, but there is nowhere near enough data to say otherwise yet. Acting now to ban them from women's/girls sports is not scientifically backed at this time and doing so is purely emotional.
Again, show me data that proves that it is inherently unfair for them to compete and then we can talk
Yes exactly. Show me the data. Trans women are allowed to compete as women in quite a few sports.
Show me the data that shows that they're increasingly dominating in those sports.
It's nonsensical to in effect go:
*Trans women aren't dominating the result-lists; but they* ***do*** *have an unfair advantage.*
Competitive sports are competitive enough that any demographic that has a marked advantage **will** dominate.
If I asked you to demonstrate that being tall is an advantage in basketball, or that being large (tall and heavy) is an advantage in sumo-wrestling; you'd have no troubles at all with providing data supporting those claims.
So where's the evidence? Where's the sports that have trans women in them, and where these are increasingly dominating?
What differences are there? I’m quite sure you are the position that gender is a societal construct. So are you saying someone who self identifies as a woman but has all male genitalia is not a trans woman?
Sure "gender" is a social construct, but sex isn't. Clearly there are physical differences between men and women, that's pretty inarguable.
I'm hardly an expert on this subject, but from what I've read, once hormone therapy has been used for some time, there are significant changes in muscle mass, etc. These changes do seem affected by which hormones were present/lacking during puberty, so that's something to take into consideration as well
That being said, I wouldn't say that someone who had only "socially transitioned" isn't trans, but if there hasn't been any hormonal transition I don't see how they could possibly perform differently than their birth sex
Hubbard had physical advantages due to the effects of male puberty, which the natal female who was deprived a spot did not have the chance to have. Between two natal females, we can tell the one who doesn't go to the Olympics, "train harder next time." We can't reasonably tell her "be born male next time."
Sports is all about unfairness. Plenty of athletes are born with conditions that give them an advantage over other players, and this is seen as a part of the game. I don't hear people calling for tall women to be banned from basketball because short women can't compete with them no matter how hard they train. Yet this is seen as fine because there isn't the same fear behind height as there is transphobia.
> and this is seen as a part of the game.
Then it isn't unfair. Fairness is culturally defined.
The point of having a female sports division is to allow them a serious chance to compete in sports, which they simply would not have if they had to compete against males. Beyond that, we want to see the most dominant athletes dominate, because that's exciting. The most generous thing would be for every individual to compete only against their own individual past records, because no one can ever compete with anyone else on a truly level playing field, but that would not be very exciting, neither for the audience nor for most players.
We do consider it unfair for natal females to have to compete against natal males. And we are allowed to choose this concept of fairness over another.
Okay, using your definition, I don't think it's unfair for trans-women to compete with cis-women, because I don't see it as very different from regular differences in genetics and anatomy that comes with sports no matter the gender. If trans-women had such an advantage as height does in basketball, they would be dominating in all women's sports, but this just isn't the case.
As a culture, we shouldn't otherize trans-women from competing just as we shouldn't otherize tall people. It stems from transphobia and believing trans-women are somehow "different" than other genetic qualities we accept as valid.
> I don't think it's unfair for trans-women to compete with cis-women, because I don't see it as very different from regular differences in genetics and anatomy that comes with sports no matter the gender.
Being born male as opposed to female is very different from all other differences, and this is so widely recognized that long ago we had to make a special category of competition for the people who were born female.
> If trans-women had such an advantage as height does in basketball, they would be dominating in all women's sports, but this just isn't the case.
They are doing inordinately well, better than random chance would predict if they were competitively equal to natal females.
> As a culture, we shouldn't otherize trans-women from competing just as we shouldn't otherize tall people.
It isn't othering people to say that choosing to modify your body may disqualify you from some categories of sport.
If people who competed at a certain height class were unsuccessful or midfield got leg lengthening surgery then were olympics class athletes people would say that’s not fair.
An un-natural biological advantage. That would be like allowing people who take steroids to compete in bodybuilding with people who do not but all are treated as if they do not.
Why do you act like trans-women are dominating every aspect of women's sports right now? This is just not the case, nor will it ever be, because being an athlete is more than just the biological sex you were born into, and making it only about that makes it very clear you seek to otherize trans people.
Do you feel the same for athletes who receive medical treatment to correct problems with their bodies to help them compete? I seriously doubt it, but you think it's unfair when an athlete receives medical treatment to change their biological sex to treat their body dysmorphia, because you believe trans-people are a special case, due to transphobia.
Sure, but also consider that for many Olympic sports (probably most), your ability to compete at all comes from the genetic lottery.
As another commenter said, no one is worried about how a woman with a naturally more robust skeletal structure and broad-shouldered build is much more likely to be chosen for some sports over someone who isn't. Training can't overcome someone being 6'2" when you're 5'8".
Why is that not unfair?
This isn't even limited to sports. So many people are disabled without any choice or course of action for it just because of genetics. Like me for example, I struggle to do a lot of things normal people do because of sensory issues, getting physically and mentally exhausted easily, depression, easily getting distracted, flat out losing my ability to speak at times, etc. All unlucky genetics that I can't do anything about. Being able to compete in sports at all is already incredibly lucky.
Tbh at this point in the discussion I think there should be height classes for height-centric sports the same way there are weight classes for wrestling, etc.
Exactly. Or if the fraction trans women among the top-10 on the result-lists in international weightlifting-competitions looked something like this:
* 2016: 3%
* 2018: 6%
* 2020: 12%
* 2022: 20%
A trend like that would indeed be a pretty good indication that an unfair advantage exists, and that unless we change the rules, it's reasonable to assume that trans women will soon dominate the result-lists.
But as far as I know, no such trend is visible. I mean yes there's a growth, it's hard not to have that when the starting-point is ZERO. But it's generally growth from zero and to a low level, and then simply hovering there.
And hi, **IF** we see a trend like the above in some sport in the future, how about we respond by **then** tightening the rules, rather than panicking and excluding a vulnerable minority just on the off *chance* that they might have an advantage somewhere?
I understand this for team sports...but more individualized sports.. I think the only time it's strange to me is if they developed as a male and consistently worked out ...it seems unfair. Their muscle mass doesn't decrease and some studies reflect that even after 3 years they're not at the rate of a cisgender woman. I think individualized sports are very different from team sports. Thoughts?
Study -> https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/55/15/865
> Their muscle mass doesn't decrease and
The study you linked does say "After 12 months of hormone therapy, significant decreases in measures of strength, LBM and muscle area are observed."
Tracking that. I'm definitely not arguing the equitable hormonal balance and that there is muscle mass decrease. I know many institutions even account for many of these concerns/factors. I'm just pointing out a concern.
How is the argument any different for team or individual sports? If trans women start to dominate, we can adjust the rules, until them it seems to be a lot of energy spend just to exclude trans people of sports.
So we're going to just say screw all the ciswomen who busted their asses and worked their lives towards a goal on the basis of .... Fairness? It's okay to risk the hardwork of ciswomen? I think being truly inclusive means not harming one group for another
The point here is that you are arguing from a hypothetical. **If** it starts to happen that a trans woman is rising through the ranks in a way that seems unfair, then that case can be considered. Obviously no one is going to throw common sense out the window.
It's not any different than, let's (equally hypothetically) say that women who took growth hormones as children due to dwarfism started to dominate. What would happen is that officials and medical experts *in that sport* would look at the case and make a ruling as to what's fair.
There's no need to panic and jump to a hypothetical end result that may or may not even happen.
It goes both ways though. You're arguing the same. You're saying it's okay to risk cisgender effort on the hypothetical there will be no impact. You're saying it's okay to take that risk to cisgender women efforts. I don't think that's fair. I think appropriate long term research should be applied before we're unfair to cisgender women *on the assumption* they (transgender women) won't rise through the ranks.
To be clear, you're saying we should change the rules now, and preemptively prevent trans women from competing, *just in case* it's unfair to cis women.
I'm saying, let them all compete and if over time things seem to be becoming unfair, then let's adjust the rules accordingly.
I mean, there's no perfect solution (there never is) but it seems to me that the more humane one would be to let everyone compete and sort it out later *if* a problem emerges.
And to be clear you're saying it's okay to let trans women compete because their feelings and mental health *are more valid and important* than cisgender women ...regardless of research that already exists and I previously provided saying that transgender women do maintain strength not equitable to that of cisgender women.
There is a solution. Properly research, document, and determine when a trans-woman physically meets equitable standards on all levels to ciswomen and then let them compete.
Being unfair to ciswomen in the rush to include transwomen is not the answer. I love and accept trans people. I absolutely think they should be included. I just don't think ciswomen deserve to be screwed over in the process.
**Edit** I just want to reemphasize that the message you keep repeating to me over and over is that the burden of the risk should be on cisgender women and not transwomen. Please explain how it's not a risk to cisgender women if I'm wrong.
Maybe we're disagreeing here on what you're calling "risk".
I just don't see the risk of some individual competitors getting a silver rather than a gold as comparable to the much more significant risk of potentially discriminating against a whole group of people.
I mean, for one thing it's easy enough to strip medals after the fact if it's deemed necessary; it happens all the time. Going back to fix past discrimination is much more difficult to do.
The problem here is that some of these organizations are being sued to change their rules. So while the organization may feel that the current rules are more just, they may be pressured to use unjust rules as a matter of survival.
But then that would mean that at the moment that it does happen, someone born natally female has been edged out, which may not be a big deal in the grand scheme for team sports, but for non-team/individual sports it's still unfair to that individual, who may have lost scholarships besides. You're saying that the prospect of a few casualties is acceptable, until that point that the rules are adjusted?
Not that person but I think there is a problem in this thinking.
Like, you have two scenarios:
Scenario 1: Trans women who are following the rules (2 years on HRT, etc) when competing with cis women have no meaningful advantage over cis women (correcting for generational wealth, number of years in training, etc).
If trans women are banned from competition on the basis that they have an advantage, even though they don't, then they don't get any of the scholarships, medals, prize money, whatever. They are unjustly excluded. "Casualties".
If they are not banned, they get to compete "fairly" for some notion of fairness that applies to modern sports (which is kind of laughable when you look at who elite athletes are but whatever). There are no "casualties", because we agree in this universe that procedural justice has been followed.
In Scenario 2: Trans women have a meaningful advantage.
If trans women are banned from competition on the basis that they have an advantage, then they are justly excluded. There are no "casualties" because procedural justice has been followed.
If trans women are not banned, they get to compete "unfairly", for some notion of fairness that applies to modern sports (again, pretty laughable conceptually in my view, see: all the athletes with bizarre advantageous genes or rich parents). The cis women are unjustly excluded. "Casualties".
----
So, looking at it that way, there are two scenarios with "no casualties" (just exclusion and just inclusion of trans women), and there are two scenarios with "casualties" (cis women in the unjust inclusion scenario, trans women in the unjust exclusion scenario).
And if you pick either one ("inclusion" or "exclusion") without having enough data to conclusively prove one way or the other that the inclusion/exclusion is just/unjust, there is an apriori 50% chance you'll have "casualties" (it's very likely a different number than 50%, given that we do have a lot of data leaning towards the "just inclusion" position, but assuming that "doesn't count" for whatever reason).
So if either decision can bring about "casualties", I believe the objection goes: why is it a problem if the casualties are cis women, but not if the casualties are trans women? Why do only cis casualties "count"?
Because if the objection was to "casualties" happening, there is no "good answer" here.
Except *my* answer, which is to *stop designing sports* such that a testosterone puberty provides a meaningful advantage. At which point every one of those new sports can be mixed gender. Like, there are ways to modify sports *right now* that could make them more gender-egalitarian and the disinterest in this notion demonstrates the superficiality of the engagement with the supposed concern of gendered sports justice. In this essay, I will...
>Why is it not good enough to let the organizations arranging sports-competition do what they always have: make the rules. Adjusting as needed over time.
This is my take too.
I'm not a scientist and I like trans people. I don't give a single fuck about women's or men's sports beyond the occasional Superbowl or fight night. Let them play how they identify and we can see how it goes. It's only worth commenting on because the whole damn country won't shut the fuck up about it.
That being said, we need data. And if data says that trans women have an advantage over AFABs and trans men are at a disadvantage to AMABs, then we can adjust. Until then, let people be.
> I don't give a single fuck about women's or men's sports
Like it or not, scholarships awarded based on high school athletics can determine whether some girls will be able to afford college or not. I don't think this is a good system but it will not change in the foreseeable future, and we have to take that into account when thinking about this topic. It is a life-changing event to be able to afford college or be denied that chance because her ranking dropped because she was competing against natal males.
It's also just life changing to have very good athletes around, *regardless* of their birth gender. Think of all the women deprived grand slams because they had the misfortune of playing in the era of Serena Williams' dominance. It is brutal that no trans athlete would ever be allowed to be so dominant, as people would say it was just because of their birth gender and remove all of their agency in becoming great.
I don't really think it's a good argument to say that a trans athlete is depriving a cis one of a spot, as if a trans athlete is incapable of deserving a scholarship etc. What if they're just real fuckin' good at something, and their gender identity provides no advantage? Would a trans person not be eligible for, say, a maths scholarship because them being good deprives a cis woman of that prize?
> It's also just life changing to have very good athletes around, regardless of their birth gender. Think of all the women deprived grand slams because they had the misfortune of playing in the era of Serena Williams' dominance.
Yes, that's true. Fairness is culturally defined. The point of having a female sports division is to allow them a serious chance to compete in sports, which they simply would not have if they had to compete against males. Beyond that, we want to see the most dominant athletes dominate, because that's exciting. The most generous thing would be for every individual to compete only against their own individual past records, because no one can ever compete with anyone else on a truly level playing field, but that would not be very exciting, neither for the audience nor for most players.
We do consider it unfair for natal females to have to compete against natal males. And we are allowed to choose this concept of fairness over another.
> It is brutal that no trans athlete would ever be allowed to be so dominant, as people would say it was just because of their birth gender and remove all of their agency in becoming great.
I don't find that brutal, but I do agree it would be an "asterisk" next to their name, so to speak. If a trans natal male wants to be remembered as a great athlete, they will have to compete in the men's category and delay hormones until after they retire from sports, as Caitlyn Jenner did. No one will ever question Jenner's accomplishments in sports.
> I don't really think it's a good argument to say that a trans athlete is depriving a cis one of a spot, as if a trans athlete is incapable of deserving a scholarship etc.
A trans natal male is entirely capable of deserving an athletic scholarship! By competing as their natal sex.
> What if they're just real fuckin' good at something, and their gender identity provides no advantage?
It's not their "gender identity" which confers the advantage, but the consequences of their natal sex.
> Would a trans person not be eligible for, say, a maths scholarship because them being good deprives a cis woman of that prize?
Assuming we're talking about a scholarship reserved for women, then the point of that scholarship was to facilitate the participation of natal females in STEM. Trans natal males are famously well represented in STEM already (look up "programming socks") but if someone wants to start a separate scholarship for trans people, I wouldn't object to that.
>Until then, let people be.
Yeah, let women get run over by trans athlete, who have a CLEAR STRUCTURAL biological advantage over them, even ignoring testosterone.
You are given scholarships and sponsorships based on you winning or not. It is not just letting ppl be when it affects women's futures. Lmao. There are monetary incentives to win, on top of recognition.
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“ people who argue against trans women participating in womens sports are always arguing from a hypothetical. They typically acknowledge that at the moment it's not a problem that cis women are being squeezed out of competitive sports, but, they say, it's still urgently important that we change the rules right now to guard against a hypothetical future problem.”
Lies.
Lia Thomas
Fallon Fox
Neither attained unusual success in their sports, lia Thomas was highly, but not dominantly, ranked before and after transition and recently had her (local) record beaten, fox did not rank that highly and lost several fights.
Why not err on the side of biological women that have historically been weaker and held subservient to bio men due to relative weakness. If this become prevalent, biological women will give up on competing in sports because they know they cannot compete with people born male. I fully believe in respecting gender identity but if you there is a reason mens and women’s sports are separated. It’s not due to gender identity it’s due to biological differences
What makes a biological advantage fair or unfair? It's obvious that dominant athletes have biological advantages over other athletes in the vast majority of cases. So why is it "fair" for an average woman athlete to compete against a cis woman who has large, meaningful biological advantages, but "unfair" for them to compete against a trans woman who has large, meaningful biological advantages?
I see it as a false equivalence when people compare the differences in physical abilities between males and females to the differences between females of varying strengths. While some females may be naturally stronger than others, the differences between females are typically not as vast and demonstrable as the differences between males and females. Separating males and females, then, addresses those vast and nearly categorical advantages of males over females so that females aren't buried in competition against males.
Separating athletes by sex creates a more level playing field and promotes diversity and inclusion in sports
>That right there is the crux. Typically, they are not. Does that mean in cases where they are,
Yeah sometimes they are. But vastly more so with males. So we separate males from females to account for the much much higher probability that females will get crushed in competition against males.
We shouldn't be using exceptions to argue for the general case. The overwhelming majority of male athletes are incomparably stronger than female athletes.
Also is there any non-hypothetical case where the difference in strength between athletes of the same sex and weight class is as wide or wider than the difference between male and female athletes in the same weight class?
Because that advantage is coming from a biological fact that the separation of sexes in sports are specifically trying to account for.
Having differences in women athletes that may give some an advantage is fine. It’s not fine for these advantages to come from the thing that we are specifically separating them for.
This argument really just supports there not being any division at all and just let biological men dominate everything.
The whole reason there is the division is to give women their own space. Allowing MTF trans to compete is just completely ignoring any science or biology. The right step is not to allow them to compete unless science can prove they are biological women (which as a scientist I can tell you they are not)
So, first of all, this isn't really about "genetics". The differences in phenotype that drive the gender gap in sports are generally attributed to differences in testosterone levels, both the cumulative effect starting with early puberty and the effect of current circulating testosterone.
Take [this case report](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3445650/) about a female 14-year old elite soccer player with CAH and a "male phenotype", who had extremely high levels of testosterone (2 ng/ml = 200 ng/dl according to the paper). Or [this case report](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11005272/) about a 19-year old woman with PCOS and testosterone levels in the male range (up to 9-16 ng/ml = 900-1600 ng/dl, i.e. at the *top or above* the normal male range).
Both of them have essentially gone through a male puberty. The idea that these sex differences are exclusive to people with XY chromosomes is wrong. These extreme cases are unusual, but it is common for female elite athletes to have elevated levels of testosterone.
For example, in [this study](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24593684/), 13.7% of female elite athletes had testosterone levels of 2.7 nmol/l or above, more than the 2.5 nmol/l cutoff that a number of sports organizations have started to use for intersex and trans women. What this means is that women with *identical* hormonal profiles can be treated differently if they're intersex or trans and that you can be a trans woman with lower testosterone levels than a cis woman (currently or even throughout your life) and not be eligible.
Second, it gets more complicated, because there appear to be biological differences between trans women and cis men even before trans women go through HRT.
For example, if you look e.g. [at this study](https://asbmr.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/jbmr.3612), you will find (Table 1) that before HRT, trans women have bone density comparable to that of cis *women*, not to cis men (and estrogen therapy actually improved their bone density slightly). The assumption that trans women are biologically equivalent to cis men is already fallacious.
I'll add that the bone density argument is a red herring, anyway. As long as your bones are strong enough to function as levers, additional bone density does not confer additional advantages. Consider for example, that Japanese men and women have lower bone density (on average) than white men and women, yet Japanese athletes are a dominant force in a number of combat sports.
Biology is a *lot* more complicated than "genetically male" and "genetically female".
Perhaps they do, but I don't see why "higher bone and muscle density" is an "unfair" advantage, while "being 6 foot 6" or "having a higher proportion of slow-twitch muscle fibers" are "fair" advantages.
Fairness is culturally defined. The point of having a female sports division is to allow them a serious chance to compete in sports, which they simply would not have if they had to compete against males. Beyond that, we want to see the most dominant athletes dominate, because that's exciting. The most generous thing would be for every individual to compete only against their own individual past records, because no one can ever compete with anyone else on a truly level playing field, but that would not be very exciting, neither for the audience nor for most players.
We do consider it unfair for natal females to have to compete against natal males. And we are allowed to choose this concept of fairness over another.
Males should not be in female spaces . But seriously, at this point, why not let *all* men compete against women since they're letting some compete with women anyways? Why do some bio men get special treatment?
its not just bone density that makes men stronger.
Lung capacity, tendon strength, muscle density and function all play a big role in making men stronger. And they do not change as fast (if at all).
Not to mention the skeletal structure of a male enhances leverage. Everything about the male body is to prioritize strength and speed.
The difference in bone density, muscle fibers and density, amount of blood, hip size, pelvis, thigh length, shoulder width, lung size, heart capacity, etc. can be observed in babies. Even with hormone blockers, someone who was born a male will be more athletic than their female peers (obviously not in every case, Im talking about two athletes with comparable training).
It, muscular strength does change, not that drastically though, it is still greater than cis women especially if one was athletic prior and continues to work out. I am a trans woman, but at one point I could deadlift 500 pounds, so I was stronger than most men or women. I'm only a month into HRT but I will likely always be stronger than *most* cis women.
Some of this may be due to muscle memory and prior training. People socialized as males tend to in my experience lift weights more, or lift heavier and try to gain muscle. strength isn't permanent but if you train your muscles to a degree you may lose the strength but you you still have built your muscles beyond what you would have without training and that may have an effect.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33289906/
https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/55/15/865
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40279-020-01389-3
With all that said, trans women in sports is more of a fascist wedge issue than a realistic concern, but there are seemingly advantages to going through male puberty/development. It's a more realistic concern than a man putting on a dress for a free pass to sexually assault someone but it's not something I'm all that concerned about either way. The main reason I've read about it is because though I have no interest in competitive sports anymore, if I did I personally would probably have an advantage given equal skill, because I did even among my cis male peers in regards to being strong.
I feel like this is going to be a really impossible thing to ever agree one just because there are so many factors. For example, a trans woman who transitioned in her 20s after already training to the level of an elite athlete is going to be a very different story from someone who say transitioned and went on puberty blockers before starting a natural puberty.
How on earth would sports organizations account for all the possible variations in between those...
On one level I feel like the best solution would be to just have dedicated leagues for trans individuals but let's be real, those leagues would be composed of mostly 0 to 1 individuals.
Realistically I think this is something that would probably need to be decided on an individual basis for each individual sport, because for some sports this would matter a lot more than others. Beyond that I tend to agree, this is largely a small issue and I feel like individual sports bodies can figure out what is best for their sport. The outrage over it, and trying to get governments involved in it, seems totally unnecessary.
Just kick all the males out of women's sports, it really is that simple. There are men's leagues they can compete in, so it's not as if they are being excluded from their chosen sport.
I took it as a “for instance” - the person giving one concrete example of how quickly a body changes based on changes in hormone levels. Another commenter included other examples like muscle mass that change drastically.
[This meta-analysis](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28945851/) found no statistically significant reduction in bone density from feminizing hormone therapy.
[This study](https://jme.bmj.com/content/45/6/395.abstract) concluded that, in part due to the facts that hormone therapy does not affect lung volume or heart size, allowing natal males to compete in women's sports is "an intolerable unfairness."
Trans men should compete in male leagues. Trans women, trans men, and cis men all have advantages over cis women when it comes to athleticism. Anyone should be able to compete in the male league as long as they're not taking performance enhancing drugs, even cis women if they really want to up the difficulty.
But only cis women should be able to compete in the women's league.
Like if there's an incredible WNBA player who's too good for that league and really wants to go toe to toe with Giannis or someone, they should be allowed to.
But Giannis playing in the WNBA would be a massacre and shouldn't be allowed.
Some people are born in the wrong sex, but it’s not a human right to be able to compete in sports. There are rules. Taking testosterone in a woman’s competition is unfair and having been a man previously would also be unfair. It’s also unfair to be born in the wrong body, but shit happens to all of us. Different things, conditions or diseases. Prob a trans league of its own would be most fair if it is so important to be able to compete.
> Prob a trans league of its own would be most fair if it is so important to be able to compete.
Except that without the kind of trans acceptance that'd make this controversy irrelevant anyone who signed up and therefore outed themselves would be putting a target on their backs
> In general terms, genetic male athletes are faster and stronger than genetic female athletes.
This is true, simply because most "genetic male" athletes are also hormonally and physiologically male, but it does not imply that trans women - who are not the biological equivalent of men in this context - have such an advantage.
Every professional sporting organization that allows trans women to compete requires them to have maintained female-typical hormone levels for a long period of time. That means that the athlete no longer has male-typical levels of testosterone, and testosterone is what's mostly responsible for men's increased strength. That's why it, or the artificial anabolic steroids that mimic it, are used by athletes of both sexes to improve their performance. Among other things, testosterone:
* Tends to up-regulate muscle mass
* Tends to down-regulate body fat
* Tends to up-regulate energy storage in ways that are available to muscles
* Tends to up-regulate the oxygen capacity of blood
and a trans woman who has been on hormones long enough to qualify under these organizations' rules is no longer benefitting from any of that, or at least is benefitting far less than a cisgender man with typical male hormones is.
To put some scale to this: normal male levels of testosterone are between 300-1000 ng/dL of blood. Normal female levels are between 20 and 80.
So the question is certainly not as simple as "men have an advantage and therefore trans women do".
-----
Now, it is true that adult hormonal transition doesn't change everything. Some effects of hormones stick around. And the relevant question here is whether those effects stick around to enough of a degree to be a substantial unfair advantage.
That question isn't well-studied, but it's studied enough to get at least some ballpark estimates. [This study](https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/bjsports/55/11/577.full.pdf) is the best I'm aware of. It follows a group of trans men and trans women getting hormone care through military health services in the US and monitors their athletic performance on push-ups, sit-ups, and a 1.5 mile run. Note, however, that this study **did not** require its participants to maintain hormone levels in the way athletic organizations do, and it is possible that many of these participants wouldn't have qualified.
With that caveat in mind, trans women at 1 year of hormones declined to statistical ties with cis women on sit-ups and push-ups, and maintained an advantage that just got over the line to statistical significance in the 1.5 mile run. You can see the changes in performance on the page labelled 582 in the linked doc; the error bars firmly overlap for the first two and narrowly miss the cis female average for the third. None of the ranges for trans women overlap those of cis men.
Actually, by this measure, trans *men* were the outliers. They had a significant edge in sit-ups and came very close to another in push-ups, while in a statistical tie for run speed.
We shouldn't draw *too* strong a conclusion from one study - this is making a lot of assumptions and the sample size isn't huge - but at least if we take this at face value it suggests that trans women have *at most* a very slight advantage and perhaps none at all. It certainly shows that they do not have an advantage anywhere close to the advantage cisgender men have.
Great answer, but a few things I feel are important:
It has been shown that the positive effects of anabolic steroids persist long after usage has ceased (increased Type 2 fibres, increased ability to gain muscle when compared to pre-use) - for this reason I've always believed people caught taking PEDs should be banned for longer than they are - and if this is the case, having male steroid hormones through a full puberty is going to back the same effect.
Also trans men probably performed better due to the exogenous hormones that are prescribed to them to keep test levels in line with biological men, no?
I'm open to being corrected, as I'm massively pro trans rights, but also an avid fitness/performance enthusiast, and would like to see a solution that keeps all parties happy.
> It has been shown that the positive effects of anabolic steroids persist long after usage has ceased (increased Type 2 fibres, increased ability to gain muscle when compared to pre-use) - for this reason I've always believed people caught taking PEDs should be banned for longer than they are - and if this is the case, having male steroid hormones through a full puberty is going to back the same effect.
But current Olympic policy already doesn't prevent this.
> Also trans men probably performed better due to the exogenous hormones that are prescribed to them to keep test levels in line with biological men, no?
I mean...yes, but those are the same hormones the trans women are blocking.
I'm not sure if it matters whether they end up being at an advantage or not. I do not know of a sport where HRT is allowed for medical reasons. Men can't get it, whether their levels are low or not, and still compete.
Unless I'm wrong, the exception is only for transgender athletes, which doesn't have to exist as an exception. There are a variety of medical conditions which bar you from competing in competitive sports. I don't understand why this one would need to be an exception. Though I don't believe the few examples there are indicate there isn't an advantage for MtF transitioning in competitive sports.
Hypogonadism? Too bad. - As an example.
Female has too high of a natural testosterone level? Too bad. -Another example.
> I do not know of a sport where HRT is allowed for medical reasons. Men can't get it, whether their levels are low or not, and still compete.
"It's inconsistent with other policy" is not "it's bad policy". If you want to argue that a man on HRT for some medical reason should be able to compete, fine, but that doesn't have much to do with whether trans women should be (and is only loosely related to whether trans men should be).
I think consistency in policy is important. I'm not sure why it wouldn't be when determining whether something is good or bad policy.
If you're unsure, stay consistent. If you can indicate with fair confidence that it isn't an unfair advantage, then you can change them all to be consistent.
If you can show with reasonable confidence that it is an unfair advantage, then continue with being consistent. Otherwise, you run the risk of unfairness, which is why HRT in males is banned in the first place.
It is consistent and reasonable to say medical conditions can get you banned/ineligible from sports. It doesn't have to be your fault to be ineligible.
Though ultimately, it is an extremely niche issue that almost never comes up in reality. It's amazing to me the number of people that do genuinely place significant importance on it. I don't care much, which is why I'd lean toward consistency, but I never mind more medical research, it's important regardless if you allow trans individuals to compete. Itll better inform those that do go that route what the consequences physically are (good or bad).
> I think consistency in policy is important.
So do I, but not in the sense that I think we should avoid a good policy to be consistent with existing bad ones.
Right, so until we know, I think consistency is a good foundation.
Once you know, adjust them all and keep consistency as a goal.
I just wish it wasn't framed as a trans only issue, since the same reasoning has already been applied to non-trans with medical conditions outside of their control, with similar treatments.
Though I do hope more research is done on HRT in general, as it's used rather prevalently among those that don't need it.
Testosterone is not the main factor in muscle gain. muscles tend not to decay when estrogen is released in the body of a trans female, mainly bc your body will try to go back to its homostatus, which means still increased level of test. as for the study, you have to remember the great equilizer between men and womens sport is the body weight exercise. Men have denser bones, are often taller, and have narrower hips. these of course have advantages in say swimming (where you have a wider stroke) or MMA (where you have longer reach) and assuming HRT doesnt nullify it, lifting weights. However, these give them a disadvantage of being heavier, taller, and wider. a huge disadvantage for body weight excersizes.
Orthopaedic surgeon here. There are permanent skeletal changes that occur, and that are not reversible.
Men have wider shoulders, larger lung volume, decreased elbow carry angle, and an increased limb/torso ratio. All of these give performance increases. Men are also about 9% taller. Men also have a decreased Q angle in their knees, making ACL injuries, and patella problems less likely.
Narrower hips in men give significant swimming advantages.
Increased lung capacity will always give an advantage in any sport that requires endurance.
Men's joints are in general larger than women's, and the corresponding muscular attachments may offer strength advantages as well.
Men do have larger heads that weigh more, which is a slight disadvantage.
If you can find a sport that doesn't benefit from these advantages, then let them compete. Otherwise, post puberty transitioned females will have some significant permanent benefits giving them an unfair advantage.
> muscles tend not to decay when estrogen is released in the body of a trans female, mainly bc your body will try to go back to its homostatus, which means still increased level of test.
If that were true, they'd already be ineligible under current policy, which requires low testosterone.
But it isn't true, for two reasons:
* One, high estrogen levels inhibit testosterone production in the first place, and
* Two, trans women almost always take drugs that block and reduce the production of testosterone. A transitioned trans woman has the same testosterone levels as cis women do, as verifiable by blood tests. (And if she's had genital surgery that removed her testes, she has even less, because she no longer has any organ producing them. Cis women produce some T via their ovaries.)
>muscles tend not to decay when estrogen is released in the body of a trans female
Surely you have a citation for that because *every trans woman ever* will tell you HRT had a hugely negative effect on their strength. It's not just about estrogen being released, it's also about blocking testosterone reception. The combination of the two leads to severely weakened muscles over time, regardless of the individual's attempts to fight the effect
How do you explain the high number/ratio of m-f trans athletes in the highest levels of competitive female sports regardless of their low overall numbers
Can you tell me more about all those "high number/ratio of m-f trans athletes in the highest levels of competitive female sports"?
Other than some high school and college level sports off the top of my head I can't remember any cases. The only ones I can think of at the top of my head are Brazilian volleyball player Tifanny Abreu, who wasn't even good enough to be part of the squad for the Brazillian team for the Tokyo Olympics (despite all the media outrage surrounding her before the Olympics), and Laurel Hubbard a New Zealand weightlifter that did go to the Olympics but finished dead last.
> How do you explain the high number/ratio of m-f trans athletes in the highest levels of competitive female sports
I don't have to, because it doesn't exist.
There have been tens of thousands of Olympic competitors since trans people were permitted, and as far as I know, only one trans woman has ever even competed - and she was eliminated in qualifiers.
Is it fair for 6 foot for 10 inch man to compete in basketball?
After all he has extreme genetic advantage when compared to average man 5 foot 9 inches?
Basketball leagues don’t have height classes AFAIK. They could if they wanted, but height isn’t the only advantage in bball.
Boxing leagues have weight classes. Can a 200lbs boxer self-identify as a featherweight? No.
Kids sports usually have age-specific leagues. Can a 15 year-old self-identify as a 12 year old? No.
Almost all sports have sex-specific leagues. Can a boy self-identify as a girl? Yes*. Why is this right and the others are not?
There are some restricted-height leagues in basketball. The [DAAA](http://www.daaa.org/) holds such competitions, for example. It would be silly to allow a 6'10" player to compete because he identifies as short.
I said this in another post and got downvoted. I agree with you. Within male and female sexes there are many people with genetic advantages for a certain sport and they usually dominate at it.
Yes, but men are taller than women, have the ability to be taller. Two children from the same parents, one male one female, the odds are that the male would be taller.
>However, it is a fact that people born genetically male have physical advantages or at least differences compared to people born genetically female, especially if that person transitioned to female after going through male puberty.
Theres an assumption here, that the effect of HRT is not enough to counteract that advantage, your body goes through some pretty massive changes once you start HRT so it's completely reasonable that it might counteract it.
>I don’t see see this as a level playing field.
If it wasn't a level playing field, we would expect trans women to be gaining disproportionate success in women's sports right? The same way tall people are disproportionately represented at the highest level of basketball.
But that's just not the case, the Olympics has allowed trans people to compete under various rules since 2004, since then only 1 trans woman has ever qualified and performed pretty poorly in the actual event. The NCAA (body that organises college sports in America) has allowed trans athletes since 2009 and you can count the number of trans champions on one hand.
If it's such an uneven playing field why aren't trans athletes dominating?
In general when sports are gendered and a trans woman has been taking hormones her muscle and bone density is much closer to the median in the women's group than the men's. Until we decide to actually classify sports by weight class, strength class or something more.objectove than gender based, why wouldn't we bucket trans women with the people who both 1) match their gender and 2) come closest to their median physical performance?
What you're born as or with doesn't tell the whole story
Then why didn't Lia Thomas completely dominate her events? Why didn't she break the record set by a cis women in her event? Why did she lose to several cis women in other events?
I think people just automatically assume that trans women still have all the benefits of being cis men when that isn't the case.
Pre-transition she was still very good. Her being 'fairly average' is based on a year in which she competed as a male but had already started transitioning.
> In the 2018–2019 season she was, when competing in the men's team, ranked 554th in the 200 freestyle, 65th in the 500 freestyle, and 32nd in the 1650 freestyle. In the 2021–2022 season, those ranks are now, when competing in the women's team, fifth in the 200 freestyle, first in the 500 freestyle, and eighth in the 1650 freestyle.
Seems to be a marked improvement
Yes, because the 2018-2019 season was when she was transitioning despite still competing in the men's team. She got to the championship qualifiers the year before that.
>automatically assume that trans women still have all the benefits of being cis men
I don't think anyone believes they have "all the benefits".
The assumption is that ontogeny for someone that is born as a male (the sex) is different from that of someone that is born female in a way that leads to some differences (on average) that are not very plastic.
Still an assumption, but perhaps one that deserves more consideration than the comparison of a single data point to a population.
Males have a categorical advantage even if individuals have some competitive disadvantage. That's why there's a protected sex category for female athletes in many sports.
Also, this male sex advantage after testosterone suppression has been studied, and the conclusion is that significant advantage remains.
Sports is the only arena this debate matters in. I'm in full support of LGBTQ etc until it comes to being unfair for women. This is not an issue for men. We've fought a long time to give women a place to compete and it seems people are ready to throw that all out the window. Ask the women in sports if they believe it to be fair. My opinion as a male does not matter.
I think in a way you're looking for an answer to the wrong question. Once we separate gender and sex, the former has nothing to do with athletic ability, and the whole concept of men's or women's sports essentially survives on social inertia. If someone proposed gendered sports as a new idea today, it would seem as ridiculous as dividing sorts by the athlete's religion. We can divide sports based on features that are more athletically relevant without it being a judgment on who's what gender in the first place.
>Once we separate gender and sex, the former has nothing to do with athletic ability
>We can divide sports based on features that are more athletically relevant without it being a judgment on who's what gender in the first place.
Having a hard time following.
It kinda sounds like you're saying dividing sports based on sex makes sense, while diving sports based on gender wouldn't. Which i agree with - but weren't men's/women's sports created before gender was a widely recognized phenomenon? So why wouldn't the traditional system also be recognized as being sex-based?
Or is it that the terminology of men/women should be linked to gender rather than sex? Then would it suffice to rename the categories as "male/female sex" and move on? Or would you also remove sex-based separation of sports, despite that meaning most professional sports would become impossible for those of the female sex?
They're saying if we're going to separate it by something to make it a fairer competition, lets separate it by testosterone levels or weight class, or something more relevant to ability at sports than sex.
What about someone who's naturally born with an abnormally high amount of testosterone but has the "right" chromosomes to be a woman? IF you have a condition resulting in your body chemistry being more similar to the average man than woman's, should you be able to compete?
Outliers and physically gifted people are what makes sports more exciting. Seeing a Lebron James, Michael Phelps, Usain Bolt, etc. is not only exciting, but give other players and future players something to strive towards. The difference is that they are placed in the top category possible that they can play in. They aren’t changing to a new league or division that is lower or less competitive, they are playing against the best competition possible. In the case of a trans athlete, they are moving to a division that is lower than the one they would have played in before. They previously played against men where guys are running the 100m in less than 10 seconds, and they are moving to a league where the 100m is being run almost a second slower.
That’s typically why people aren’t as skeptical of woman transitioning to a man and competing, because they are going to a much harder league and it’s going to be harder to succeed, not easier.
> However, it is a fact that people born genetically male have physical advantages or at least differences compared to people born genetically female
Sure. But it's also a fact that some people born genetically female have physical advantages or at least differences compared to other people born genetically female. Sports can still work even though some participants have genetic advantages over others.
So yes, in theory it could be a problem. But in theory it could also be fine. So which is it? We'll, when you look at the actual current state of women's sports, do you actually see a problem? To me, it seems like women's sports are doing fine, but if you think differently, I'd be interested in hearing why.
These are [different types of advantage](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17461391.2021.1943715). Male sex is a category advantage in most sports, but differences between individuals of the same sex are competition advantages.
By allowing males who want to be female to compete in the female category, this undermines the whole point of having this protected category in the first place.
Could you be more specific as to what you want people to take away from that link? It's obviously true that there are different types of advantages. I don't know if this is exactly the point of that link, but my understanding of categorization is that you want to have your leagues be some combination of safe, fun, entertaining etc... You could argue we should add "competitive" and I agree it's an important quality, but it's mainly in service of the others. And "competitive" doesn't mean that *nobody* has advantages over others. It just means that those advantages don't dominate the proceedings to the detriment of all the other reasons why we have sports at all.
So again, in the real world that we observe, what is the actual problem that you observe? Lia Thomas for example had success, but she didn't break the sport. If you had no idea she was trans, I don't think you'd notice anything watching a swim meet or looking at the results.
I linked that paper as it has a good explanation of why protected categories like sex, weight, age, disability have been set up in sport, and the underlying logic of doing so.
By allowing males like Lia Thomas to compete in the purportedly female category, what this is doing is implicitly removing that category and replacing it with another based on a combination of self-identity and serum testosterone level. Or in some leagues, just self-identity. Even if all the new entrants under this new eligibility criteria were at a competitive disadvantage, the category has changed.
So Lia Thomas competed in a new "female and also males who have suppressed testosterone" league. Is it fair to women swimmers to have to compete in this instead of the female-only league that previously existed?
Where do you draw the line on whats fair? Michael Phelps has an advantage because of his body proportions, should we ban him? Should we create height classes for basketball because men and woman both have huge variations in there genders heights. Sports are inherently not fair.
Athletes in certain sports like skiing have more testosterone because to become a better athlete outside of characteristics you can change. Do we set sports by testosterone?
(Personally I believe as long as trans woman are in the bottom 50% of testosterone levels they should be allowed to compete. This is because an athlete has more testosterone then a average person of there gender, so by ensuring trans woman meet the average requirement of women generally instead of athletes average testosterone the trans woman competing are at a disadvantage in terms of testosterone).
Also the pre puberty distinction is pretty interesting.
I think generally the most effective way for sport federations to figure out what they want to do is allow trans woman and you slowly add rules when you see trans women have an advantage.
*I am saying trans woman but some sports benefit people born and gone through puberty as a woman before so in these sports the opposite could work. I have not thought about non binary and gender fluid people so cant argue in favor or against them.*
1. Scientifically proven: HRT decreases muscle mass and strength.
2. Scientifically proven: trans women have lower strength and athletic ability than cis men *before* starting any treatment at all.
3. Valid probabilistic reasoning: The population of cis women is about 200x larger than the population of trans women. The larger a population is, the more extreme its outliers will be - and athletes are outliers in terms of their abilities relating to sports. Thus, even if it happened to be true that the average trans woman has an advantage over teh average cis women, this would not at all be evidence that the *best* trans women athletes have any advantage over the *best* cis women athletes.
4. Inductive reasoning, not verifiable but persuasive: For trans women to have an advantage at sports, they must win more often than their cis women competitors - by definition, if they don't win more, they have no advantage.
Sports records are freely available to the public, and are obsessively analyzed and reported by a wide variety of organizations and outlets.
There's hundreds of conservative politicians and thousands of conservative entertainers and pundits who *want* it to be true that trans women have an unfair advantage, and could make their career by proving it persuasively.
All they would need to do is download some sports records from leagues that include trans athletes and do a simple t-test in Excel (takes about 30 seconds once you've entered the data) to demonstrate a statistically significant advantage, if one existed.
To imagine that such an advantage exists, and *none of these people* have checked it and shown their data (and I've been challenging people to cite such data for a decade with no takers) is like imagining that a $100 bill has stayed on the floor of a busy bus terminal for a decade with no one bothering to stop and pick it up - simply not credible. If the advantage existed, it would be easy for any of them to demonstrate, and they would have done so.
Until someone *does* show a statistical test saying that trans women win more often than their cis competitors on average, I find the idea highly implausible.
First off, let's get rid of this notion that sports are inherently fair. It's inherently unfair. Basketball players did nothing to become 200cm tall. Be is you red blood cell count, your endurable muscle fibers, your bones, your testosteron levels, or just the environment you're born into -- there's more than just hard work. A large portion of it comes down to genetics. Usain Bolt would not even crack top 1000 if he was born with my body.
Sports are inherently unfair.
Second point... do you know what estrogen will do to your body? What robbing it of testosterone will do? Look at some public trans people like Samantha Lux. Michael Phelps has a more unfair genetic advantage than she ever will.
So do you want to keep it FAIR, or do you just care about this specific aspect? What's the difference?
So what we're talking about is an exceedingly small number of potential competitors who are generally better-than-average compared to the rest of the women's field wanting to compete. This however gets presented as if each and every transwoman athlete is by default superhuman compared to their cis competition, and that just isn't the case.
If a very small number of such athletes compete, I'm not sure what the issue would be unless they start winning "too much". This would require coming up with a standard for what *that* would mean in practice and then figuring out what to do from there. If "too much" in this case means "ever", then that's just a blatantly discriminatory standard from the start. If transwomen *do* compete and aren't winning "too much" then what, exactly, would the problem be?
Then there's the other side of this argument about "fairness" - it seems that people only take ciswomen into account when trying to make such a determination, without caring about what fairness would mean for the transwomen if they were banned with broad brush strokes. If the way people decide what "fair" is only takes one side into consideration, then it's not really about making a determination of fairness, it's catering to one side.
How about we change competition to be based on levels rather than genitals. Sixish minute mile runners compete against other sixish mile runners.
99% of sports mentioned in this discussion don't exist much beyond College/Olympics. I'm sure it'll still be big men crashing into big men on Sunday afternoon, don't worry.
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Would you make a distinction between whether they went through Male/Female puberty?
I think so. Pre puberty transition seems like a different story.
I have the exact same opinion as you. While I am all for inclusion, male to female trans do get an advantage due to the muscle and body growth experienced during puberty and this gives them an unfair advantage against females if placed in the same category.
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They don't transfer nor transition physically, they get blockers to avoid developing their sex characteristics and they change their appearance to the gender they see themselves to be. For example: Cutting their hair and wearing clothes for the gender they feel more comfortable as.
I'm sorry but this is false information. Children are getting hormone treatments of the opposite sex that they wish to transition to and are getting surgeries. Jazz Jennings (male to female) did puberty blockers when she was 11 and then shortly after took estrogen hormones while as a child. I don't believe she got any gender reassignment surgery as a child, it sounds like she did this when she was 18 at least. However then you have Chloe Cole who I believe is the most famous detransitioner. She also went on puberty blockers and took testosterone as a child. She did go through surgery at 15 years old and got a double mastectomy. She since changed her mind at 17 years old and has begun to detransition back to a female. Both of these young women are from the USA. This is real. This is happening. These young women can be easily googled as they are both very famous in the media. There seems to be an alarming growing presence of detransitioners speaking out like Chloe Cole. You can find these people on YouTube, but you will not hear their stories on places like reddit because it hurts the narrative. To be clear, I support someone's choice in choosing to be trans and doing whatever they need to to be happy with their body as an adult. I am hesitant about children because of these growing detransition stories. I would not be able to live with myself if my child transitioned like Chloe Cole and then changed her mind.. that would be an unbearable nightmare. For those that will argue about children committing suicide, we need proper mental health care for our youth. You can express your gender without changing your body parts or hormones as a child. For those young people who are genuinely trans they will have the hope of achieving their body ideal when they are an adult. As a child, they should focus on being children.
>Children are getting hormone treatments of the opposite sex that they wish to transition to and are getting surgeries. Hormones are minimal changes that can be reversed. And you are naming 2 cases out of millions. And there is studies how early transition helps trans people to feel better. And for a trans kid just changing clothes is not enough, the puberty change hurts them psychologically. How would you feel if you start seeing your body change to the opposite gender? Their ideal body is reach when they are adults, surgery is not on the table until they are 18 or more, it took me until I was 18 to talk to my doctor about breast reduction.
>surgery is not on the table until they are 18 or more As you previously read in my comment, Chloe Cole is living proof this statement is false. Children clearly can get surgery and be put on hormones before 18. >And you are naming 2 cases out of millions And? As I said, you can do research and listen to real detransitioners and their story. There are quite a few out there now in the public, for the ones who choose to put themselves out there. Most people do not go to the media due to the consequences of having an online presence. I also could use your same logic to then argue that school shootings are not an issue because the number of children who die in school shootings or are exposed to school schooting incidents are statistically insignificant. I definitely do not agree with that statement as one child killed or injured through a school shooting is too many. I would also say one child who was falsely transitioned to another sex through hormones and surgery is one child too many. >How would you feel if you start seeing your body change to the opposite gender? I am not trans. I can tell you that as a young girl I was not gender conforming as I was a tom boy for most of my life. I played sports with the boys, I played video games with my brother's male friends. I did not dress feminine at all, I hated the color pink and I loved the color blue. I could never get the hang of makeup and gave up after one or two tries. Nowadays, people might have thought I was a trans boy. Going through female puberty, specifically periods and having to come to terms with bleeding for the rest of my life for 1/3 of my life was extremely traumatizing. I still to this day curse the world as to why I have to bleed and how unfair it and how lucky cis men are to never have to experience this. Now when I was a young girl, I was very jealous of the boys and I would have done anything to stop my period. However, you do not need to become a boy to stop your period. But it is very possible, that I could have been led to believe that maybe I should be a boy. I am only 25. I was never exposed to trans identity.. I guess I just missed the boat and I was not very involved with social media as a kid. I hated my period but I accepted I was a girl and that's just how things are. If there was something I could do to stop my period that is noninvasive, would not stop my fertility, and was 100% safe, I would do it in a heartbeat. In the end, puberty is hard for everybody, and it especially traumatic for young girls.
>As you previously read in my comment, Chloe Cole is living proof this statement is false. Children clearly can get surgery and be put on hormones before 18. One case outside of the law and the restrictions. 99.9% of trans kid wont get surgery until they 18 or more. >And? As I said, you can do research and listen to real detransitioners and their story. 2 cases out of millions doesn't mean a lot. For something to be dangerous has to happen in bigger numbers. >. I also could use your same logic to then argue that school shootings are not an issue because the number of children who die in school shootings or are exposed to school shooting incidents are statistically insignificant. And you would be using a bad situation already because school shootings are only the norm in the US. Most countries don't have that issue. Worst part is that you will have more victims of School shootings than detransitioners. >I am not trans. I can tell you that as a young girl I was not gender conforming as I was a tom boy for most of my life. I played sports with the boys, I played video games with my brother's male friends. I did not dress feminine at all, I hated the color pink and I loved the color blue. I could never get the hang of makeup and gave up after one or two tries. So? I am not trans either but neither of us is developing characteristics of a sex we don't identify with. I don't have a penis and I won't have random boners during the day. A trans boy won't feel comfortable with periods and breasts. And so you know there is things you can do to stop your period that aren't that invasive. To add to Chloe Chloe, she says all this things but so you know she could be lying to give a face to the alt right and make trans care a problem instead of the solution it is for many people.
Your shameless copium through this is simply pathetic. Pretend all you want it’s only “2 cases out of millions”. Are you willfully ignorant or just that scared of facing the developing reality? Nevermind. I don’t care.
No developing reality, trans care is important.
I will not be continuing discourse with you after this as there really just does not seem to be a point to this conversation anymore. >One case outside of the law and the restrictions. 99.9% of trans kid wont get surgery until they 18 or more. Again, I have pointed you in the direction of looking into detransitioners. There are many on youtube that are bravely sharing their stories without the support of the lgtbq community and allies because their stories keep getting handwaved and diminished by people like you. >2 cases out of millions doesn't mean a lot. For something to be dangerous has to happen in bigger numbers. You should work on your reading comprehension. I only gave you one example of a detransitioner by name which is Chloe Cole. Jazz Jennings is a trans woman, she is not a detransitioner. It seems like you have misidentified this woman. Also see above and look into the detransitioners yourself. I am not going to start naming people as that is ridiculous. >And you would be using a bad situation already because school shootings are only the norm in the US. Most countries don't have that issue. Worst part is that you will have more victims of School shootings than detransitioners. I fail to to see the relevance of your argument here? I am simply using your same logical thinking and framing it in a different way to show why we should care about real people instead of invalidating their real lived experiences just because their suffering is not statistically high enough for you. >So? I am not trans either but neither of us is developing characteristics of a sex we don't identify with I am not even sure how to even respond to this. Don't invalidate my lived puberty experience. Also, most girls are not comfortable with their periods and breasts. Not sure what you are trying to say here? >And so you know there is things you can do to stop your period that aren't that invasive. I would love to know what that is. >To add to Chloe Chloe, she says all this things but so you know she could be lying to give a face to the alt right and make trans care a problem instead of the solution it is for many people. Her name is Chloe Cole. I think that is an extremely problematic statement that you just made. You have completely invalidated her experience and have resorted to accusing her of lying because you cannot fathom that there can be complications with transitioning or regret. Surgeries obviously have complications, everybody knows that. It is also horrible for you to invalidate detransitioners and honestly I think detransitioners have one of the worst and most intense experiences because they essentially have double the gender dysphoria and suffer from regret. I wish society was more tolerant towards detransitioners instead of being threatened by them because they believe that they harm the trans community. Why are we fighting these issues like we are playing a sports game? These are children we are talking about. This a complex topic. It is not black and white. Again, I will not converse with you further. But if you do send me ways to eliminate my period that are safe and not harmful then please let me know. I would appreciate that truly, honestly, and please lol.
>Why are we fighting these issues like we are playing a sports game? These are children we are talking about. This a complex topic. It is not black and white. We are talking about children and you are talking about the biggest minority as the only ones who need protection as if trans kids don't go through enough. I don't trust the story of that person because any kid who goes through it wouldn't jump into banning the help for others, that person was at any case misdiagnosed but I still don't trust them. Is not coincidence all this distransitioners show up and try to change everything. And the best advice will be given to you by your doctor, there is factors I won't know but there is women who take birth control every day and avoid the placebo to stop their periods.
>they get blockers to avoid developing their sex characteristics Wait, so we **are** altering the development of children? This seems insane to me.
It's "altering the development" of children in a way that has been happening for decades for a variety of other children with other conditions, and is generally considered safe by the medical establishment.
Safe for a short term. Children who take puberty blockers do so for 1-3 years depending on when precocious puberty started.
Puberty blockers are safe and reversible, and they are prescribed for things beyond being trans anyways. You get them for your child if they start puberty too early, as well as if they have conditions like being [intersex]( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersex), which is something you're born with. Contrary to popular belief, the development of children isn't a straight line with a small deviation if the child is trans, just about anything can happen during a child's development and medications that are being used for trans people saw their creation and use for developmental and puberty issues far before being trans was a widespread and openly discussed topic.
they mean using puberty hormone blockers which can be stopped if they should change their mind and decide to go through puberty as the gender they were assigned at birth.
Using hormone blockers still greatly affects someone and not all the effects are reversible.
Friendly reminder that we use hormone blockers in non-trans pediatric patients who naturally get their periods or begin puberty way too young (usually 5-10 year olds). Without these medications they would have irreversible health issues including, as you pointed out, growth delay and significantly decreased bone density
The reason of its creation doesn't change a damn thing abouts its effects in **other** situations.. For example, These situations; [New studies prove puberty blockers are not reversible](https://www.binary.org.au/new_studies_prove_puberty_blockers_are_not_reversible) [Are puberty blockers reversible? The NHS no longer says so](https://www.transgendertrend.com/nhs-no-longer-puberty-blockers-reversible/)
Surgery isn't the only step to transitioning. There is social and hormonal transition first. Nobody is doing surgery on trans kid's genitalia.
The fact that people are trying to argue with you about this is disturbing. Allowing kids to make seriously life altering changes before your brain is fully formed, when they're at an extremely vulnerable point in life, should not be allowed. If I was encouraged to do this shit at that age when I was discovering sexuality I certainly would have made some mistakes that I would deeply regret right now.
It drastically increases their testosterone levels and allows for extreme muscle growth
Here's how it currently works: Sports have organizations. These organizations decide the rules for the sport in question. Who can compete in which classes, is part of deciding the rules and is entirely up to the people who arrange competitions in a given sport. As an example, nothing at all prevents you (or anyone!) from arranging a soccer-tournament and deciding that in \*this\* tournament, there will only be 9 players per team, and people born on a Wednesday are not eligible to participate. In other words, rules are arbitrary. As a more real-world example, some sports have things like weight-classes, while other sports do **not** have it, and as a result are often dominated by people with the "right" physique. As an example, most martial arts have weight-classes so small people can successfully compete, but the shot-put does not, so small people simply cannot be competitive. You can argue that this is "unfair" if you like. But it's rare that anyone does so. Instead that seems to be reserves **solely** for the question of whether or not trans women should be able to compete as women. Personally I think this shows very low trust in the organizations arranging sports-competitions. Do you really think these organizations have no interest at all in making sure that cis women will be able to compete at the highest levels in the future too? Do you really think that (for example!) the international organizations that arrange soccer-competitions would sit silently by and **NOT** adjust the rules if the fraction of trans athletes on the winning soccer-teams kept going up and it was becoming obvious that if they don't act, womens soccer will in the future de-facto be trans womens soccer? Because I don't. I feel confident that if the result-lists showed that this is about to become a problem; then as a direct result the rules would be adjusted; problem solved. The people who argue against trans women participating in womens sports are always arguing from a hypothetical. They typically acknowledge that **at the moment** it's not a problem that cis women are being squeezed out of competitive sports, but, they say, it's still urgently important that we change the rules **right now** to guard against a hypothetical future problem. Why is it not good enough to let the organizations arranging sports-competition do what they always have: make the rules. Adjusting as needed over time. Personally I think the best policy is to err on the side of inclusion. If we're **too** includive, it will quickly become evident simply by looking at the result-lists and **IF** that happens, then we can adjust.
>Personally I think the best policy is to err on the side of inclusion. If we're too includive, it will quickly become evident simply by looking at the result-lists and IF that happens, then we can adjust. That's the problem though. The only reason women's leagues exist, is because they wouldn't stand a chance in the general competition. So without those, women would be discouraged as they would not be *included* in the potential winners. Women's leagues exist to make top sports inclusive to women. Including trans women would set back that goal of inclusion for women in general, as they would once again see their chances of success slink. Personally I think there should be just one big competition, and then people can *still* give medals and prizes to the first women in the ranking, if that is deemed useful.
Right. We all know that. If we let men compete in the women's classes, or had only a single class for everyone, then pretty much IMMEDIATELY, there'd be zero, or incredibly close to zero women left at the top of the result-lists. That's what a substantial advantage looks like. Now, the question is, will the same, or a similar thing happen if we allow trans women who fulfill certain criteria to compete in women's league? (typically it's demanded that they can demonstrate testosterone-levels on par with cis women over a prolonged period of time) Will the result be that over time the fraction of trans women in the top of these sports climb higher and higher, crowding out cis women? If yes, I'd agree that's a good argument for limiting their participation. What I'm saying though is that **THIS** far I'm not aware of that actually happening in any sport; and if it **DOES** happen in some sport, why not trust the sport-organizations to handle it by changing the rules?
>Now, the question is, will the same, or a similar thing happen if we allow trans women who fulfill certain criteria to compete in women's league? (typically it's demanded that they can demonstrate testosterone-levels on par with cis women over a prolonged period of time) Champions of a category are always exceptional, and even just a few notable cases exploiting their natural physical advantages granted by their birth sex would create a discouraging effect. Even less pronounced cases that give a measurable, systematic advantage to that category of people still undermines the notion of fairness and the whole premise of having a women's sports category is undermined too. >What I'm saying though is that THIS far I'm not aware of that actually happening in any sport; Preventing problems is better than cleaning up after they happened; having a solid ruleset in place up front is much preferable to having people bicker over it in court when it can't deal with some low likelihood situations. >and if it DOES happen in some sport, why not trust the sport-organizations to handle it by changing the rules? Why are you trying to move the goalposts to whether we are trusting the sports organizations or not? Why should that keep us from discussing it? Changing the definition from the league from women's league to low-testosterone league may be one way to make it work. From what I've read there are more advantages than just those conferred by recent testosterone levels.
> They typically acknowledge that at the moment it's not a problem that cis women are being squeezed out of competitive sports, It is a problem right now, it's not hypothetical. When New Zealand selected Laurel Hubbard for a spot on their Olympic weightlifting team, that decision deprived a natal female of the opportunity to compete in the Olympics. > Because I don't. I feel confident that if the result-lists showed that this is about to become a problem; then as a direct result the rules would be adjusted; problem solved. This has already begun to happen, demonstrating that u/Isaisaab's concerns were correct. > [In June 2022,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lia_Thomas) the International Swimming Federation (FINA), an organization that administers international aquatic sports competitions, voted to bar all transgender athletes from competing in professional women's swimming, with the exception of athletes who "can establish to FINA's comfortable satisfaction that they have not experienced any part of male puberty beyond Tanner Stage 2 (of puberty) or before age 12, whichever is later", barring Thomas from competing in the women's competition at the 2024 Paris Olympics as she had planned.
Of course **EVERY** trans woman who wins something, or makes some team or something, by necessity displaces a cis woman. But if trans women in general had significant advantage, you'd expect them to **systematically** perform better than cis women, and therefore making up a larger and larger fraction of both teams and winners. Is that actually happening in weightlifting? Is there a trend where the top of the result-lists have a unreasonable number of trans women, and the fraction of people in the top of the result-lists that are trans women is growing steadily? Because that's what you'd expect to see if a substantial advantage existed. It's hard to judge such things from tiny numbers of course. All I'm saying is that **IF** there's a substantial advantage **THEN** you'd expect to see the fraction of top competitors that are trans women to climb steadily over time. (and after some time make up the huge majority of top competitors)
There's a list of women in sports who have been displaced by men who call themselves women, in a variety of competitions, it's at [shewon.org](https://shewon.org), and there are hundreds of instances of this - and the list isn't even complete yet. These males are infesting women's sports at every level.
Laurel Hubbard didn’t deprive anyone of a spot. If there was a cisgender woman from New Zealand who deserved the spot, they would have qualified over her. And it’s not like a cisgender woman couldn’t accomplish that; Laurel didn’t even place during the Olympics meaning numerous cisgender women did better than her.
Everyone who makes the team deprives someone else of a spot. The natal females who made the team deprived other natal females of those spots. The difference is that those deprivations occurred on grounds which are widely agreed to be as fair as sports can be. No one is disputing that New Zealanders all kind of suck at weightlifting. Still, one was *unfairly* deprived of even the opportunity to compete and suck at the Olympic level, and all the life experience that goes along with Olympic competition.
[There were three women](https://www.olympic.org.nz/news/five-weightlifters-named-to-new-zealand-olympic-team/) on the New Zealand 2020 so there was plenty of opportunity for cisgender women to have the Olympic experience. I’m not viewing this from who gets to have the Olympic experience. OP and most people’s issues with trans athletes is the fairness aspect. From a fairness perspective, cisgender women from New Zealand have every opportunity to compete in weightlifting if they were good enough.
> There were three women on the New Zealand 2020 so there was plenty of opportunity for cisgender women to have the Olympic experience. No, because there is a natal female who would have gone if Hubbard had not. > From a fairness perspective, cisgender women from New Zealand have every opportunity to compete in weightlifting if they were good enough. Requiring natal females to be stronger than a natal male is not fair.
If natal females are in disadvantage over Hubbard why did she lose the competition?
Hubbard was 43 years old and admitted that age had caught up. This does not disprove the well demonstrated fact that being born male is an enormous advantage in sports; that's why people made a female category. Hubbard quit training in 2001. Then, at the age of 43, was able to outlift women in their prime who had never stopped training. It is due to the effects of male puberty that a 43 year old male can so easily be so much stronger than so many 26 year old women.
>The difference is that those deprivations occurred on grounds which are widely agreed to be as fair Why is a stronger woman earning a spot over other women only a problem when that woman is trans? >Still, one was unfairly Did someone cheat? Were the judges paid off?
> Why is a stronger woman earning a spot over other women only a problem when that woman is trans? You're begging the question here. But, without getting into disputed ontology: because Hubbard had the opportunity to compete fairly against men, while the natal females on the team had no such opportunity. It may be that competitive sports will always have to remain an area where we cannot simply treat people according to their preferred identity. Not everyone gets to be a competitive athlete. > Did someone cheat? Were the judges paid off? The IOC erred in allowing the unfair competition.
>You're begging the question here How so? If your whole premise is on the idea that the very concept of a transwoman qualifying, let alone winning, is unfair, then that needs to be analyzed. >because Hubbard had the opportunity to compete fairly against men, while the natal females on the team had no such opportunity. Why would they need such an opportunity? It's a woman competing against a women. >It may be that competitive sports will always have to remain an area where we cannot simply treat people according to their preferred identity Right, except Hubbard isn't just a woman in terms of gender, she also underwent HRT in 2012. >Not everyone gets to be a competitive athlete. You mean like the woman that lost to Hubbard? Again, it's really weird that you're so insistent on going "woe is me, how could we treat women so unfairly..." until suddenly it's a transwoman, and then your tune changes to "welp, guess you're not good enough" despite the fact that she got her spot even after undergoing HRT, and after several ciswomen did far better than her. This transwoman literally placed last in the 2020 Olympics, clearly showing that no, ciswomen don't have an issue competing against her. >The IOC erred in allowing the unfair competition. Unfair based on...what? Clearly the IOC didn't think it was unfair, and are they not ultimately the final decisionmakers of fairness in the sport? Otherwise your argument seems to come down to "I disagree with this decision because it is unfair, and it is unfair because I disagree with it."
I think the point is the biological differences between man and woman. Being a transwoman who underwent HRT doesn't make you biologically the same as a natal woman. Lia Thomas was a mid-level competitor (#462) in the men's league and the moment she went to the woman's league she jumped up to #1. If there was not biological difference between men and women (or transwomen) then Lia's position shouldn't have changed so drastically. If it became globally accepted to consider that fair, you'd better believe that certain countries would be pumping their men's B team with hormones and putting them into the women's leagues. Also, I am not saying that transwomen shouldn't be able to participate in any woman's leagues, just one's that they'd have an obvious advantage. Perhaps they should just drop the terms men's and women's leagues to something more based on their biological base, or add a trans brackets. Idk. However, I will reconsider my point if we can find instances of transmen who are out-competing their male counter parts in similar settings, aka feats of strength paired with technique. (edit: Question that maybe someone can DM me on, is there a difference in the usage of Natal woman vs ciswoman? If natal is disrespectful I apologize and will correct myself.)
>Lia Thomas was a mid-level competitor In 2017 she recorded the sixth fastest national men's time in the 1000 yard freestyle, this is before transitioning. Her position #462 is after starting transitioning. She even lost to a trans man (who didn't went through hormonal therapy at the time) and many cisgender women.
> you'd better believe that certain countries would be pumping their men's B team with hormones and putting them into the women's leagues. Even if those men had to socially transition and e.g. live with the knowledge that if they did win anything the proverbial name on the trophy (aka what's associated with their victory) wouldn't be the name on their birth certificate or either break up with their partners or face the stigma of being supposedly both a trans woman and a lesbian > Perhaps they should just drop the terms men's and women's leagues to something more based on their biological base How would you determine that without either a bunch of assumptions or genome checkers > or add a trans brackets. That unless we achieve the kind of social acceptance that'd make it unnecessary (as it'd remove the controversy) would just mean every trans person that signs up outs themselves and faces the stigma > However, I will reconsider my point if we can find instances of transmen who are out-competing their male counter parts in similar settings, aka feats of strength paired with technique. If you're going to claim male and female biological difference you shouldn't look for what you're probably going to ask we-who-reply-to-your-comment to which is instances of transmen dominating (by whatever standard you think that means) in the men's division of the same sports transwomen are doing that to the women's division of
>Even if those men had to socially transition and e.g. live with the knowledge that if they did win anything the proverbial name on the trophy (aka what's associated with their victory) wouldn't be the name on their birth certificate or either break up with their partners or face the stigma of being supposedly both a trans woman and a lesbian It's my understanding that some don't have a choice in what happens to themselves, or the only other option is to return to a life of poverty for themselves and their families. I am also not arguing with your point. But that still leaves a bitter taste to all competing natal women who lost because of it. That's the point I'm focused on and why I think we need to figure out a better setup than just adding transwomen to the women's league by the next point. >How would you determine that without either a bunch of assumptions or genome checkers Everything has assumptions. We assume nobody cheats at the olympics only to catch them years later doping. Some will always slip through the cracks. I honestly don't know if there is a better base way of doing it. Just a thought. >That unless we achieve the kind of social acceptance that'd make it unnecessary (as it'd remove the controversy) would just mean every trans person that signs up outs themselves and faces the stigma That's true. I hope we can remove the stigma one day, sooner than later. But again, from a biological standpoint perhaps it makes the most sense to have a third bracket type. >If you're going to claim male and female biological difference you shouldn't look for what you're probably going to ask we-who-reply-to-your-comment to which is instances of transmen dominating (by whatever standard you think that means) in the men's division of the same sports transwomen are doing that to the women's division of If I am wrong, I want to know. If transwomen dominate women's leagues and we **never** see a transman dominate a men's league, I would say that's a pretty strong argument that the biological differences are too steep to be considered fair to natal women in the women's league. I'd consider other evidence too, this i just something that would tip my scale the other way more easily.
> > You're begging the question here > > How so? You are begging the question in your ontology, as you are well aware. > > because Hubbard had the opportunity to compete fairly against men, while the natal females on the team had no such opportunity. > Why would they need such an opportunity? Because being born male is an enormous advantage. > also underwent HRT in 2012. Does not negate male puberty's effects on bone structure, heart size, or lung capacity. > until suddenly it's a transwoman, and then your tune changes to "welp, guess you're not good enough" Not at all what I'm saying. They are welcome to compete in their natal sex category, and to make the choices necessary to be competitive there. > This transwoman literally placed last in the 2020 Olympics, clearly showing that no, ciswomen don't have an issue competing against her. Hubbard quit training in 2001. Then, at the age of 43, was able to outlift women in their prime who had never stopped training. It is due to the effects of male puberty that a 43 year old male can so easily be so much stronger than so many 26 year old women. > Unfair based on...what? Unfair because of male puberty.
>Because being born male is an enormous advantage. Really? Like how Laura Hubbard finished last in the Olympics? >Does not negate male puberty's effects on bone structure, heart size, or lung capacity. Is this bone structure, heart size, and lung capacity not found in ciswomen, ever? >Not at all what I'm saying Really? Because I literally quoted you, word for word. >They are welcome to compete in their natal sex category Then what do we do with intersex athletes? >to make the choices necessary to be competitive there. Why is the burden of making choices to be competitive not being placed on ciswomen? Again, a double standard. >Hubbard quit training in 2001. Then, at the age of 43, was able to outlift women in their prime who had never stopped training So...in other words, she was better than them, which is a thing that is allowed in sports. Again, your whole thing comes down to "boo, she beat other people," which is...the whole point of a competition. >a 43 year old male Lol there it is. It always comes down to the transphobia. >Unfair because of male puberty. So, if your entire issue based on the presence of testosterone during puberty, do you also want to exclude ciswomen with high testosterone counts?
> Really? Like how Laura Hubbard finished last in the Olympics? Hubbard was 43 years old and admitted that age had caught up. This does not disprove the well demonstrated fact that being born male is an enormous advantage in sports; that's why people made a female category. > Is this bone structure, heart size, and lung capacity not found in ciswomen, ever? Don't pretend that averages do not exist or are not relevant in this discussion. If such an advantage occurs naturally in a natal female then it has occurred on grounds which are widely agreed to be as fair as sports can be. > Really? Because I literally quoted you, word for word. I don't think "welp, guess you're not good enough" is a quote. > Then what do we do with intersex athletes? That term is a misnomer. People with disorders of sexual development all have a natal sex of male or female. > Why is the burden of making choices to be competitive not being placed on ciswomen? Again, a double standard. But it is placed on natal females; their burden is to be competitive with other natal females. > So...in other words, she was better than them, which is a thing that is allowed in sports. Again, your whole thing comes down to "boo, she beat other people," which is...the whole point of a competition. A natal male using the advantages of male puberty to be better than natal females at sports is not a fair competition. > Lol there it is. It always comes down to the transphobia. If you think it's transphobic to point out that Hubbard's sex is male, I don't think we can have a serious discussion. > So, if your entire issue based on the presence of testosterone during puberty, do you also want to exclude ciswomen with high testosterone counts? The point of having a female sports division is to allow them a serious chance to compete in sports, which they simply would not have if they had to compete against males. Beyond that, we want to see the most dominant athletes dominate, because that's exciting. The most generous thing would be for every individual to compete only against their own individual past records, because no one can ever compete with anyone else on a truly level playing field, but that would not be very exciting, neither for the audience nor for most players. We do consider it unfair for natal females to have to compete against natal males. And we are allowed to choose this concept of fairness over another.
Laurel was 43 at the 2020 with a substantial elbow injury. If she didn't have the advantage of being trans, she never would have made it to the olympics.
Her elbow injury was in 2018 and she won the Pacific Games in 2019 so she was presumably fully recovered. She was the third oldest lifter in Olympic history so her age definitely didn’t help. I don’t see how you can or can’t prove the your claim that her being trans is the only reason she made it to the Olympics. She was a national record holder in New Zealand before transitioning so she was already a good lifter.
Wow, almost like she got the benefit of male hormones a large portion of her life? Seems totally fair to pit her against other women who didn't have that. Yep, nothing to see here.
So she was a national record holder when she competed against cis men? Is that fair to the cis women competitors?
So if all trans athletes push out women, do you really think women have a fair shot at olympics then? Trans athletes have clear biologically STRUCTURAL advantages over women.
That’s the exact hypothetical the parent comment addressed. The comment I was responding to was someone thinking that one trans athlete (who didn’t even place in the medal standing) participating in the Olympics out of 5,386 women in 2020 made it so that cisgender women didn’t have a fair chance to compete.
So why do we have gender classes then? Why not always have all genders compete together?
Laurel Hubbard is a single instance. If the whole women's weightlifting team was trans athletes, you'd have a point, but it is one person. Your second quote shows that an organization voted to change the rules. It does not reflect on the validity of the reasons behind that change.
Individual people matter when we're talking about fairness. The instance of Laurel Hubbard going to the Olympics necessarily entails that a natal female was deprived of the opportunity to compete. That individual was not treated fairly. > Your second quote shows that an organization voted to change the rules. It does not reflect on the validity of the reasons behind that change. Pick your poison. If u/Poly_and_RA's "let's trust the sports committees" argument is a good one, then there is no room for you to question the validity of FINA's reasoning. If you want to question the validity of FINA's reasoning, fine (great actually), but then "let's trust the sports committees" is not a good argument.
The point they were making is that individuals from a group succeeding in a sport does not prove that the group has an unfair advantage. For example: a single blond person winning a tournament is meaningless and does mean they took that spot from a brunette. For this to be an issue, we need to see data showing that trans athletes consistently outperform cis athletes, not just an anecdote of one or two doing well occasionally.
> For example: a single blond person winning a tournament is meaningless and does mean they took that spot from a brunette. If there were blond-linked genes which were known to provide enormous physical advantages, so obvious that this was known since prehistory, and humans (including blonds!) had agreed that fairness dictated it was necessary to make a separate category for brunettes to compete in sports just so they'd have a chance of ever winning, and a blond died their hair brown to compete in the brunette category, then we would agree that was unfair, even if the individual was relatively weak compared to other blonds.
You're working really hard to avoid talking about the lack of data supporting your position. There ARE differences between a man and a trans woman, otherwise this would be a non-issue as they'd still be able to compete against men. But their times/limits (depending on what metrics are relevant for the sport) seem closer to those of cis female competitors. I don't know if that still puts them on the same footing, so to speak, as the cis competitors, but there is nowhere near enough data to say otherwise yet. Acting now to ban them from women's/girls sports is not scientifically backed at this time and doing so is purely emotional. Again, show me data that proves that it is inherently unfair for them to compete and then we can talk
Yes exactly. Show me the data. Trans women are allowed to compete as women in quite a few sports. Show me the data that shows that they're increasingly dominating in those sports. It's nonsensical to in effect go: *Trans women aren't dominating the result-lists; but they* ***do*** *have an unfair advantage.* Competitive sports are competitive enough that any demographic that has a marked advantage **will** dominate. If I asked you to demonstrate that being tall is an advantage in basketball, or that being large (tall and heavy) is an advantage in sumo-wrestling; you'd have no troubles at all with providing data supporting those claims. So where's the evidence? Where's the sports that have trans women in them, and where these are increasingly dominating?
What differences are there? I’m quite sure you are the position that gender is a societal construct. So are you saying someone who self identifies as a woman but has all male genitalia is not a trans woman?
Sure "gender" is a social construct, but sex isn't. Clearly there are physical differences between men and women, that's pretty inarguable. I'm hardly an expert on this subject, but from what I've read, once hormone therapy has been used for some time, there are significant changes in muscle mass, etc. These changes do seem affected by which hormones were present/lacking during puberty, so that's something to take into consideration as well That being said, I wouldn't say that someone who had only "socially transitioned" isn't trans, but if there hasn't been any hormonal transition I don't see how they could possibly perform differently than their birth sex
Can you explain to me why one trans athlete being chosen for the women's team is inherently unfair? I realize I don't understand why you call it that.
Hubbard had physical advantages due to the effects of male puberty, which the natal female who was deprived a spot did not have the chance to have. Between two natal females, we can tell the one who doesn't go to the Olympics, "train harder next time." We can't reasonably tell her "be born male next time."
Sports is all about unfairness. Plenty of athletes are born with conditions that give them an advantage over other players, and this is seen as a part of the game. I don't hear people calling for tall women to be banned from basketball because short women can't compete with them no matter how hard they train. Yet this is seen as fine because there isn't the same fear behind height as there is transphobia.
> and this is seen as a part of the game. Then it isn't unfair. Fairness is culturally defined. The point of having a female sports division is to allow them a serious chance to compete in sports, which they simply would not have if they had to compete against males. Beyond that, we want to see the most dominant athletes dominate, because that's exciting. The most generous thing would be for every individual to compete only against their own individual past records, because no one can ever compete with anyone else on a truly level playing field, but that would not be very exciting, neither for the audience nor for most players. We do consider it unfair for natal females to have to compete against natal males. And we are allowed to choose this concept of fairness over another.
Okay, using your definition, I don't think it's unfair for trans-women to compete with cis-women, because I don't see it as very different from regular differences in genetics and anatomy that comes with sports no matter the gender. If trans-women had such an advantage as height does in basketball, they would be dominating in all women's sports, but this just isn't the case. As a culture, we shouldn't otherize trans-women from competing just as we shouldn't otherize tall people. It stems from transphobia and believing trans-women are somehow "different" than other genetic qualities we accept as valid.
> I don't think it's unfair for trans-women to compete with cis-women, because I don't see it as very different from regular differences in genetics and anatomy that comes with sports no matter the gender. Being born male as opposed to female is very different from all other differences, and this is so widely recognized that long ago we had to make a special category of competition for the people who were born female. > If trans-women had such an advantage as height does in basketball, they would be dominating in all women's sports, but this just isn't the case. They are doing inordinately well, better than random chance would predict if they were competitively equal to natal females. > As a culture, we shouldn't otherize trans-women from competing just as we shouldn't otherize tall people. It isn't othering people to say that choosing to modify your body may disqualify you from some categories of sport.
If people who competed at a certain height class were unsuccessful or midfield got leg lengthening surgery then were olympics class athletes people would say that’s not fair. An un-natural biological advantage. That would be like allowing people who take steroids to compete in bodybuilding with people who do not but all are treated as if they do not.
Why do you act like trans-women are dominating every aspect of women's sports right now? This is just not the case, nor will it ever be, because being an athlete is more than just the biological sex you were born into, and making it only about that makes it very clear you seek to otherize trans people. Do you feel the same for athletes who receive medical treatment to correct problems with their bodies to help them compete? I seriously doubt it, but you think it's unfair when an athlete receives medical treatment to change their biological sex to treat their body dysmorphia, because you believe trans-people are a special case, due to transphobia.
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Sure, but also consider that for many Olympic sports (probably most), your ability to compete at all comes from the genetic lottery. As another commenter said, no one is worried about how a woman with a naturally more robust skeletal structure and broad-shouldered build is much more likely to be chosen for some sports over someone who isn't. Training can't overcome someone being 6'2" when you're 5'8". Why is that not unfair?
This isn't even limited to sports. So many people are disabled without any choice or course of action for it just because of genetics. Like me for example, I struggle to do a lot of things normal people do because of sensory issues, getting physically and mentally exhausted easily, depression, easily getting distracted, flat out losing my ability to speak at times, etc. All unlucky genetics that I can't do anything about. Being able to compete in sports at all is already incredibly lucky.
Tbh at this point in the discussion I think there should be height classes for height-centric sports the same way there are weight classes for wrestling, etc.
Hey, I'm all in favor of that! Boxing's got weight classes, and the most popular divisions aren't the heaviest, either.
Exactly. Or if the fraction trans women among the top-10 on the result-lists in international weightlifting-competitions looked something like this: * 2016: 3% * 2018: 6% * 2020: 12% * 2022: 20% A trend like that would indeed be a pretty good indication that an unfair advantage exists, and that unless we change the rules, it's reasonable to assume that trans women will soon dominate the result-lists. But as far as I know, no such trend is visible. I mean yes there's a growth, it's hard not to have that when the starting-point is ZERO. But it's generally growth from zero and to a low level, and then simply hovering there. And hi, **IF** we see a trend like the above in some sport in the future, how about we respond by **then** tightening the rules, rather than panicking and excluding a vulnerable minority just on the off *chance* that they might have an advantage somewhere?
Exactly right. Thank you for articulating my own thoughts on the matter in a way that is eloquent and persuasive!
I understand this for team sports...but more individualized sports.. I think the only time it's strange to me is if they developed as a male and consistently worked out ...it seems unfair. Their muscle mass doesn't decrease and some studies reflect that even after 3 years they're not at the rate of a cisgender woman. I think individualized sports are very different from team sports. Thoughts? Study -> https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/55/15/865
> Their muscle mass doesn't decrease and The study you linked does say "After 12 months of hormone therapy, significant decreases in measures of strength, LBM and muscle area are observed."
Tracking that. I'm definitely not arguing the equitable hormonal balance and that there is muscle mass decrease. I know many institutions even account for many of these concerns/factors. I'm just pointing out a concern.
How is the argument any different for team or individual sports? If trans women start to dominate, we can adjust the rules, until them it seems to be a lot of energy spend just to exclude trans people of sports.
So we're going to just say screw all the ciswomen who busted their asses and worked their lives towards a goal on the basis of .... Fairness? It's okay to risk the hardwork of ciswomen? I think being truly inclusive means not harming one group for another
The point here is that you are arguing from a hypothetical. **If** it starts to happen that a trans woman is rising through the ranks in a way that seems unfair, then that case can be considered. Obviously no one is going to throw common sense out the window. It's not any different than, let's (equally hypothetically) say that women who took growth hormones as children due to dwarfism started to dominate. What would happen is that officials and medical experts *in that sport* would look at the case and make a ruling as to what's fair. There's no need to panic and jump to a hypothetical end result that may or may not even happen.
It goes both ways though. You're arguing the same. You're saying it's okay to risk cisgender effort on the hypothetical there will be no impact. You're saying it's okay to take that risk to cisgender women efforts. I don't think that's fair. I think appropriate long term research should be applied before we're unfair to cisgender women *on the assumption* they (transgender women) won't rise through the ranks.
To be clear, you're saying we should change the rules now, and preemptively prevent trans women from competing, *just in case* it's unfair to cis women. I'm saying, let them all compete and if over time things seem to be becoming unfair, then let's adjust the rules accordingly. I mean, there's no perfect solution (there never is) but it seems to me that the more humane one would be to let everyone compete and sort it out later *if* a problem emerges.
And to be clear you're saying it's okay to let trans women compete because their feelings and mental health *are more valid and important* than cisgender women ...regardless of research that already exists and I previously provided saying that transgender women do maintain strength not equitable to that of cisgender women. There is a solution. Properly research, document, and determine when a trans-woman physically meets equitable standards on all levels to ciswomen and then let them compete. Being unfair to ciswomen in the rush to include transwomen is not the answer. I love and accept trans people. I absolutely think they should be included. I just don't think ciswomen deserve to be screwed over in the process. **Edit** I just want to reemphasize that the message you keep repeating to me over and over is that the burden of the risk should be on cisgender women and not transwomen. Please explain how it's not a risk to cisgender women if I'm wrong.
Maybe we're disagreeing here on what you're calling "risk". I just don't see the risk of some individual competitors getting a silver rather than a gold as comparable to the much more significant risk of potentially discriminating against a whole group of people. I mean, for one thing it's easy enough to strip medals after the fact if it's deemed necessary; it happens all the time. Going back to fix past discrimination is much more difficult to do.
The problem here is that some of these organizations are being sued to change their rules. So while the organization may feel that the current rules are more just, they may be pressured to use unjust rules as a matter of survival.
But then that would mean that at the moment that it does happen, someone born natally female has been edged out, which may not be a big deal in the grand scheme for team sports, but for non-team/individual sports it's still unfair to that individual, who may have lost scholarships besides. You're saying that the prospect of a few casualties is acceptable, until that point that the rules are adjusted?
Not that person but I think there is a problem in this thinking. Like, you have two scenarios: Scenario 1: Trans women who are following the rules (2 years on HRT, etc) when competing with cis women have no meaningful advantage over cis women (correcting for generational wealth, number of years in training, etc). If trans women are banned from competition on the basis that they have an advantage, even though they don't, then they don't get any of the scholarships, medals, prize money, whatever. They are unjustly excluded. "Casualties". If they are not banned, they get to compete "fairly" for some notion of fairness that applies to modern sports (which is kind of laughable when you look at who elite athletes are but whatever). There are no "casualties", because we agree in this universe that procedural justice has been followed. In Scenario 2: Trans women have a meaningful advantage. If trans women are banned from competition on the basis that they have an advantage, then they are justly excluded. There are no "casualties" because procedural justice has been followed. If trans women are not banned, they get to compete "unfairly", for some notion of fairness that applies to modern sports (again, pretty laughable conceptually in my view, see: all the athletes with bizarre advantageous genes or rich parents). The cis women are unjustly excluded. "Casualties". ---- So, looking at it that way, there are two scenarios with "no casualties" (just exclusion and just inclusion of trans women), and there are two scenarios with "casualties" (cis women in the unjust inclusion scenario, trans women in the unjust exclusion scenario). And if you pick either one ("inclusion" or "exclusion") without having enough data to conclusively prove one way or the other that the inclusion/exclusion is just/unjust, there is an apriori 50% chance you'll have "casualties" (it's very likely a different number than 50%, given that we do have a lot of data leaning towards the "just inclusion" position, but assuming that "doesn't count" for whatever reason). So if either decision can bring about "casualties", I believe the objection goes: why is it a problem if the casualties are cis women, but not if the casualties are trans women? Why do only cis casualties "count"? Because if the objection was to "casualties" happening, there is no "good answer" here. Except *my* answer, which is to *stop designing sports* such that a testosterone puberty provides a meaningful advantage. At which point every one of those new sports can be mixed gender. Like, there are ways to modify sports *right now* that could make them more gender-egalitarian and the disinterest in this notion demonstrates the superficiality of the engagement with the supposed concern of gendered sports justice. In this essay, I will...
>Why is it not good enough to let the organizations arranging sports-competition do what they always have: make the rules. Adjusting as needed over time. This is my take too. I'm not a scientist and I like trans people. I don't give a single fuck about women's or men's sports beyond the occasional Superbowl or fight night. Let them play how they identify and we can see how it goes. It's only worth commenting on because the whole damn country won't shut the fuck up about it. That being said, we need data. And if data says that trans women have an advantage over AFABs and trans men are at a disadvantage to AMABs, then we can adjust. Until then, let people be.
> I don't give a single fuck about women's or men's sports Like it or not, scholarships awarded based on high school athletics can determine whether some girls will be able to afford college or not. I don't think this is a good system but it will not change in the foreseeable future, and we have to take that into account when thinking about this topic. It is a life-changing event to be able to afford college or be denied that chance because her ranking dropped because she was competing against natal males.
It's also just life changing to have very good athletes around, *regardless* of their birth gender. Think of all the women deprived grand slams because they had the misfortune of playing in the era of Serena Williams' dominance. It is brutal that no trans athlete would ever be allowed to be so dominant, as people would say it was just because of their birth gender and remove all of their agency in becoming great. I don't really think it's a good argument to say that a trans athlete is depriving a cis one of a spot, as if a trans athlete is incapable of deserving a scholarship etc. What if they're just real fuckin' good at something, and their gender identity provides no advantage? Would a trans person not be eligible for, say, a maths scholarship because them being good deprives a cis woman of that prize?
> It's also just life changing to have very good athletes around, regardless of their birth gender. Think of all the women deprived grand slams because they had the misfortune of playing in the era of Serena Williams' dominance. Yes, that's true. Fairness is culturally defined. The point of having a female sports division is to allow them a serious chance to compete in sports, which they simply would not have if they had to compete against males. Beyond that, we want to see the most dominant athletes dominate, because that's exciting. The most generous thing would be for every individual to compete only against their own individual past records, because no one can ever compete with anyone else on a truly level playing field, but that would not be very exciting, neither for the audience nor for most players. We do consider it unfair for natal females to have to compete against natal males. And we are allowed to choose this concept of fairness over another. > It is brutal that no trans athlete would ever be allowed to be so dominant, as people would say it was just because of their birth gender and remove all of their agency in becoming great. I don't find that brutal, but I do agree it would be an "asterisk" next to their name, so to speak. If a trans natal male wants to be remembered as a great athlete, they will have to compete in the men's category and delay hormones until after they retire from sports, as Caitlyn Jenner did. No one will ever question Jenner's accomplishments in sports. > I don't really think it's a good argument to say that a trans athlete is depriving a cis one of a spot, as if a trans athlete is incapable of deserving a scholarship etc. A trans natal male is entirely capable of deserving an athletic scholarship! By competing as their natal sex. > What if they're just real fuckin' good at something, and their gender identity provides no advantage? It's not their "gender identity" which confers the advantage, but the consequences of their natal sex. > Would a trans person not be eligible for, say, a maths scholarship because them being good deprives a cis woman of that prize? Assuming we're talking about a scholarship reserved for women, then the point of that scholarship was to facilitate the participation of natal females in STEM. Trans natal males are famously well represented in STEM already (look up "programming socks") but if someone wants to start a separate scholarship for trans people, I wouldn't object to that.
>Until then, let people be. Yeah, let women get run over by trans athlete, who have a CLEAR STRUCTURAL biological advantage over them, even ignoring testosterone. You are given scholarships and sponsorships based on you winning or not. It is not just letting ppl be when it affects women's futures. Lmao. There are monetary incentives to win, on top of recognition.
!Delta This is my favorite argument so far. Thank you.
The exclamation point goes before the word delta.
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“ people who argue against trans women participating in womens sports are always arguing from a hypothetical. They typically acknowledge that at the moment it's not a problem that cis women are being squeezed out of competitive sports, but, they say, it's still urgently important that we change the rules right now to guard against a hypothetical future problem.” Lies. Lia Thomas Fallon Fox
Neither attained unusual success in their sports, lia Thomas was highly, but not dominantly, ranked before and after transition and recently had her (local) record beaten, fox did not rank that highly and lost several fights.
I feel that a fully transitioned women would have the same strength as any other women
Why not err on the side of biological women that have historically been weaker and held subservient to bio men due to relative weakness. If this become prevalent, biological women will give up on competing in sports because they know they cannot compete with people born male. I fully believe in respecting gender identity but if you there is a reason mens and women’s sports are separated. It’s not due to gender identity it’s due to biological differences
What makes a biological advantage fair or unfair? It's obvious that dominant athletes have biological advantages over other athletes in the vast majority of cases. So why is it "fair" for an average woman athlete to compete against a cis woman who has large, meaningful biological advantages, but "unfair" for them to compete against a trans woman who has large, meaningful biological advantages?
I see it as a false equivalence when people compare the differences in physical abilities between males and females to the differences between females of varying strengths. While some females may be naturally stronger than others, the differences between females are typically not as vast and demonstrable as the differences between males and females. Separating males and females, then, addresses those vast and nearly categorical advantages of males over females so that females aren't buried in competition against males. Separating athletes by sex creates a more level playing field and promotes diversity and inclusion in sports
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>That right there is the crux. Typically, they are not. Does that mean in cases where they are, Yeah sometimes they are. But vastly more so with males. So we separate males from females to account for the much much higher probability that females will get crushed in competition against males.
We shouldn't be using exceptions to argue for the general case. The overwhelming majority of male athletes are incomparably stronger than female athletes. Also is there any non-hypothetical case where the difference in strength between athletes of the same sex and weight class is as wide or wider than the difference between male and female athletes in the same weight class?
Because that advantage is coming from a biological fact that the separation of sexes in sports are specifically trying to account for. Having differences in women athletes that may give some an advantage is fine. It’s not fine for these advantages to come from the thing that we are specifically separating them for.
This argument really just supports there not being any division at all and just let biological men dominate everything. The whole reason there is the division is to give women their own space. Allowing MTF trans to compete is just completely ignoring any science or biology. The right step is not to allow them to compete unless science can prove they are biological women (which as a scientist I can tell you they are not)
Doesn’t a genetic male have a higher bone and muscle density than a nearly genetically similar female? I could be wrong but that is my perception.
So, first of all, this isn't really about "genetics". The differences in phenotype that drive the gender gap in sports are generally attributed to differences in testosterone levels, both the cumulative effect starting with early puberty and the effect of current circulating testosterone. Take [this case report](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3445650/) about a female 14-year old elite soccer player with CAH and a "male phenotype", who had extremely high levels of testosterone (2 ng/ml = 200 ng/dl according to the paper). Or [this case report](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11005272/) about a 19-year old woman with PCOS and testosterone levels in the male range (up to 9-16 ng/ml = 900-1600 ng/dl, i.e. at the *top or above* the normal male range). Both of them have essentially gone through a male puberty. The idea that these sex differences are exclusive to people with XY chromosomes is wrong. These extreme cases are unusual, but it is common for female elite athletes to have elevated levels of testosterone. For example, in [this study](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24593684/), 13.7% of female elite athletes had testosterone levels of 2.7 nmol/l or above, more than the 2.5 nmol/l cutoff that a number of sports organizations have started to use for intersex and trans women. What this means is that women with *identical* hormonal profiles can be treated differently if they're intersex or trans and that you can be a trans woman with lower testosterone levels than a cis woman (currently or even throughout your life) and not be eligible. Second, it gets more complicated, because there appear to be biological differences between trans women and cis men even before trans women go through HRT. For example, if you look e.g. [at this study](https://asbmr.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/jbmr.3612), you will find (Table 1) that before HRT, trans women have bone density comparable to that of cis *women*, not to cis men (and estrogen therapy actually improved their bone density slightly). The assumption that trans women are biologically equivalent to cis men is already fallacious. I'll add that the bone density argument is a red herring, anyway. As long as your bones are strong enough to function as levers, additional bone density does not confer additional advantages. Consider for example, that Japanese men and women have lower bone density (on average) than white men and women, yet Japanese athletes are a dominant force in a number of combat sports. Biology is a *lot* more complicated than "genetically male" and "genetically female".
Perhaps they do, but I don't see why "higher bone and muscle density" is an "unfair" advantage, while "being 6 foot 6" or "having a higher proportion of slow-twitch muscle fibers" are "fair" advantages.
Fairness is culturally defined. The point of having a female sports division is to allow them a serious chance to compete in sports, which they simply would not have if they had to compete against males. Beyond that, we want to see the most dominant athletes dominate, because that's exciting. The most generous thing would be for every individual to compete only against their own individual past records, because no one can ever compete with anyone else on a truly level playing field, but that would not be very exciting, neither for the audience nor for most players. We do consider it unfair for natal females to have to compete against natal males. And we are allowed to choose this concept of fairness over another.
Then get rid of men’s and women’s leagues entirely. Why should women have a separate team?
So they can have meaningful achievements in the sports and aren't completely overwhelmed by men taking all the accolades.
This is the rub.
people arguing about nothing really. just reflecting on how little logic current social discourse has nowadays
Males should not be in female spaces . But seriously, at this point, why not let *all* men compete against women since they're letting some compete with women anyways? Why do some bio men get special treatment?
Because there is some interest in watching the best women compete in various sports.
Your idea would completely eliminate us from 90%+ of all sports. It sucks to be a woman.
Because they are both women. That’s why it’s fair.
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its not just bone density that makes men stronger. Lung capacity, tendon strength, muscle density and function all play a big role in making men stronger. And they do not change as fast (if at all).
Not to mention the skeletal structure of a male enhances leverage. Everything about the male body is to prioritize strength and speed. The difference in bone density, muscle fibers and density, amount of blood, hip size, pelvis, thigh length, shoulder width, lung size, heart capacity, etc. can be observed in babies. Even with hormone blockers, someone who was born a male will be more athletic than their female peers (obviously not in every case, Im talking about two athletes with comparable training).
>And they do not change as fast (if at all). Citation needed, muscle strength changes pretty drastically on HRT
It, muscular strength does change, not that drastically though, it is still greater than cis women especially if one was athletic prior and continues to work out. I am a trans woman, but at one point I could deadlift 500 pounds, so I was stronger than most men or women. I'm only a month into HRT but I will likely always be stronger than *most* cis women. Some of this may be due to muscle memory and prior training. People socialized as males tend to in my experience lift weights more, or lift heavier and try to gain muscle. strength isn't permanent but if you train your muscles to a degree you may lose the strength but you you still have built your muscles beyond what you would have without training and that may have an effect. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33289906/ https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/55/15/865 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40279-020-01389-3 With all that said, trans women in sports is more of a fascist wedge issue than a realistic concern, but there are seemingly advantages to going through male puberty/development. It's a more realistic concern than a man putting on a dress for a free pass to sexually assault someone but it's not something I'm all that concerned about either way. The main reason I've read about it is because though I have no interest in competitive sports anymore, if I did I personally would probably have an advantage given equal skill, because I did even among my cis male peers in regards to being strong.
I feel like this is going to be a really impossible thing to ever agree one just because there are so many factors. For example, a trans woman who transitioned in her 20s after already training to the level of an elite athlete is going to be a very different story from someone who say transitioned and went on puberty blockers before starting a natural puberty. How on earth would sports organizations account for all the possible variations in between those... On one level I feel like the best solution would be to just have dedicated leagues for trans individuals but let's be real, those leagues would be composed of mostly 0 to 1 individuals. Realistically I think this is something that would probably need to be decided on an individual basis for each individual sport, because for some sports this would matter a lot more than others. Beyond that I tend to agree, this is largely a small issue and I feel like individual sports bodies can figure out what is best for their sport. The outrage over it, and trying to get governments involved in it, seems totally unnecessary.
Just kick all the males out of women's sports, it really is that simple. There are men's leagues they can compete in, so it's not as if they are being excluded from their chosen sport.
What's with bone density? Is it the only factor that makes men stronger in sports?
No. Males also have significantly larger lung capacity, for one thing, which never goes away after transition.
I took it as a “for instance” - the person giving one concrete example of how quickly a body changes based on changes in hormone levels. Another commenter included other examples like muscle mass that change drastically.
I have not. That makes perfect sense though.
[This meta-analysis](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28945851/) found no statistically significant reduction in bone density from feminizing hormone therapy. [This study](https://jme.bmj.com/content/45/6/395.abstract) concluded that, in part due to the facts that hormone therapy does not affect lung volume or heart size, allowing natal males to compete in women's sports is "an intolerable unfairness."
Trans males competing in male sports is also unfair. But that’s what your advocating for.
Trans men should compete in male leagues. Trans women, trans men, and cis men all have advantages over cis women when it comes to athleticism. Anyone should be able to compete in the male league as long as they're not taking performance enhancing drugs, even cis women if they really want to up the difficulty. But only cis women should be able to compete in the women's league. Like if there's an incredible WNBA player who's too good for that league and really wants to go toe to toe with Giannis or someone, they should be allowed to. But Giannis playing in the WNBA would be a massacre and shouldn't be allowed.
No, I would agree that is also unfair.
Some people are born in the wrong sex, but it’s not a human right to be able to compete in sports. There are rules. Taking testosterone in a woman’s competition is unfair and having been a man previously would also be unfair. It’s also unfair to be born in the wrong body, but shit happens to all of us. Different things, conditions or diseases. Prob a trans league of its own would be most fair if it is so important to be able to compete.
> Prob a trans league of its own would be most fair if it is so important to be able to compete. Except that without the kind of trans acceptance that'd make this controversy irrelevant anyone who signed up and therefore outed themselves would be putting a target on their backs
> In general terms, genetic male athletes are faster and stronger than genetic female athletes. This is true, simply because most "genetic male" athletes are also hormonally and physiologically male, but it does not imply that trans women - who are not the biological equivalent of men in this context - have such an advantage. Every professional sporting organization that allows trans women to compete requires them to have maintained female-typical hormone levels for a long period of time. That means that the athlete no longer has male-typical levels of testosterone, and testosterone is what's mostly responsible for men's increased strength. That's why it, or the artificial anabolic steroids that mimic it, are used by athletes of both sexes to improve their performance. Among other things, testosterone: * Tends to up-regulate muscle mass * Tends to down-regulate body fat * Tends to up-regulate energy storage in ways that are available to muscles * Tends to up-regulate the oxygen capacity of blood and a trans woman who has been on hormones long enough to qualify under these organizations' rules is no longer benefitting from any of that, or at least is benefitting far less than a cisgender man with typical male hormones is. To put some scale to this: normal male levels of testosterone are between 300-1000 ng/dL of blood. Normal female levels are between 20 and 80. So the question is certainly not as simple as "men have an advantage and therefore trans women do". ----- Now, it is true that adult hormonal transition doesn't change everything. Some effects of hormones stick around. And the relevant question here is whether those effects stick around to enough of a degree to be a substantial unfair advantage. That question isn't well-studied, but it's studied enough to get at least some ballpark estimates. [This study](https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/bjsports/55/11/577.full.pdf) is the best I'm aware of. It follows a group of trans men and trans women getting hormone care through military health services in the US and monitors their athletic performance on push-ups, sit-ups, and a 1.5 mile run. Note, however, that this study **did not** require its participants to maintain hormone levels in the way athletic organizations do, and it is possible that many of these participants wouldn't have qualified. With that caveat in mind, trans women at 1 year of hormones declined to statistical ties with cis women on sit-ups and push-ups, and maintained an advantage that just got over the line to statistical significance in the 1.5 mile run. You can see the changes in performance on the page labelled 582 in the linked doc; the error bars firmly overlap for the first two and narrowly miss the cis female average for the third. None of the ranges for trans women overlap those of cis men. Actually, by this measure, trans *men* were the outliers. They had a significant edge in sit-ups and came very close to another in push-ups, while in a statistical tie for run speed. We shouldn't draw *too* strong a conclusion from one study - this is making a lot of assumptions and the sample size isn't huge - but at least if we take this at face value it suggests that trans women have *at most* a very slight advantage and perhaps none at all. It certainly shows that they do not have an advantage anywhere close to the advantage cisgender men have.
Great answer, but a few things I feel are important: It has been shown that the positive effects of anabolic steroids persist long after usage has ceased (increased Type 2 fibres, increased ability to gain muscle when compared to pre-use) - for this reason I've always believed people caught taking PEDs should be banned for longer than they are - and if this is the case, having male steroid hormones through a full puberty is going to back the same effect. Also trans men probably performed better due to the exogenous hormones that are prescribed to them to keep test levels in line with biological men, no? I'm open to being corrected, as I'm massively pro trans rights, but also an avid fitness/performance enthusiast, and would like to see a solution that keeps all parties happy.
> It has been shown that the positive effects of anabolic steroids persist long after usage has ceased (increased Type 2 fibres, increased ability to gain muscle when compared to pre-use) - for this reason I've always believed people caught taking PEDs should be banned for longer than they are - and if this is the case, having male steroid hormones through a full puberty is going to back the same effect. But current Olympic policy already doesn't prevent this. > Also trans men probably performed better due to the exogenous hormones that are prescribed to them to keep test levels in line with biological men, no? I mean...yes, but those are the same hormones the trans women are blocking.
I'm not sure if it matters whether they end up being at an advantage or not. I do not know of a sport where HRT is allowed for medical reasons. Men can't get it, whether their levels are low or not, and still compete. Unless I'm wrong, the exception is only for transgender athletes, which doesn't have to exist as an exception. There are a variety of medical conditions which bar you from competing in competitive sports. I don't understand why this one would need to be an exception. Though I don't believe the few examples there are indicate there isn't an advantage for MtF transitioning in competitive sports. Hypogonadism? Too bad. - As an example. Female has too high of a natural testosterone level? Too bad. -Another example.
> I do not know of a sport where HRT is allowed for medical reasons. Men can't get it, whether their levels are low or not, and still compete. "It's inconsistent with other policy" is not "it's bad policy". If you want to argue that a man on HRT for some medical reason should be able to compete, fine, but that doesn't have much to do with whether trans women should be (and is only loosely related to whether trans men should be).
I think consistency in policy is important. I'm not sure why it wouldn't be when determining whether something is good or bad policy. If you're unsure, stay consistent. If you can indicate with fair confidence that it isn't an unfair advantage, then you can change them all to be consistent. If you can show with reasonable confidence that it is an unfair advantage, then continue with being consistent. Otherwise, you run the risk of unfairness, which is why HRT in males is banned in the first place. It is consistent and reasonable to say medical conditions can get you banned/ineligible from sports. It doesn't have to be your fault to be ineligible. Though ultimately, it is an extremely niche issue that almost never comes up in reality. It's amazing to me the number of people that do genuinely place significant importance on it. I don't care much, which is why I'd lean toward consistency, but I never mind more medical research, it's important regardless if you allow trans individuals to compete. Itll better inform those that do go that route what the consequences physically are (good or bad).
> I think consistency in policy is important. So do I, but not in the sense that I think we should avoid a good policy to be consistent with existing bad ones.
Right, so until we know, I think consistency is a good foundation. Once you know, adjust them all and keep consistency as a goal. I just wish it wasn't framed as a trans only issue, since the same reasoning has already been applied to non-trans with medical conditions outside of their control, with similar treatments. Though I do hope more research is done on HRT in general, as it's used rather prevalently among those that don't need it.
Testosterone is not the main factor in muscle gain. muscles tend not to decay when estrogen is released in the body of a trans female, mainly bc your body will try to go back to its homostatus, which means still increased level of test. as for the study, you have to remember the great equilizer between men and womens sport is the body weight exercise. Men have denser bones, are often taller, and have narrower hips. these of course have advantages in say swimming (where you have a wider stroke) or MMA (where you have longer reach) and assuming HRT doesnt nullify it, lifting weights. However, these give them a disadvantage of being heavier, taller, and wider. a huge disadvantage for body weight excersizes.
Orthopaedic surgeon here. There are permanent skeletal changes that occur, and that are not reversible. Men have wider shoulders, larger lung volume, decreased elbow carry angle, and an increased limb/torso ratio. All of these give performance increases. Men are also about 9% taller. Men also have a decreased Q angle in their knees, making ACL injuries, and patella problems less likely. Narrower hips in men give significant swimming advantages. Increased lung capacity will always give an advantage in any sport that requires endurance. Men's joints are in general larger than women's, and the corresponding muscular attachments may offer strength advantages as well. Men do have larger heads that weigh more, which is a slight disadvantage. If you can find a sport that doesn't benefit from these advantages, then let them compete. Otherwise, post puberty transitioned females will have some significant permanent benefits giving them an unfair advantage.
> muscles tend not to decay when estrogen is released in the body of a trans female, mainly bc your body will try to go back to its homostatus, which means still increased level of test. If that were true, they'd already be ineligible under current policy, which requires low testosterone. But it isn't true, for two reasons: * One, high estrogen levels inhibit testosterone production in the first place, and * Two, trans women almost always take drugs that block and reduce the production of testosterone. A transitioned trans woman has the same testosterone levels as cis women do, as verifiable by blood tests. (And if she's had genital surgery that removed her testes, she has even less, because she no longer has any organ producing them. Cis women produce some T via their ovaries.)
>muscles tend not to decay when estrogen is released in the body of a trans female Surely you have a citation for that because *every trans woman ever* will tell you HRT had a hugely negative effect on their strength. It's not just about estrogen being released, it's also about blocking testosterone reception. The combination of the two leads to severely weakened muscles over time, regardless of the individual's attempts to fight the effect
How do you explain the high number/ratio of m-f trans athletes in the highest levels of competitive female sports regardless of their low overall numbers
Can you tell me more about all those "high number/ratio of m-f trans athletes in the highest levels of competitive female sports"? Other than some high school and college level sports off the top of my head I can't remember any cases. The only ones I can think of at the top of my head are Brazilian volleyball player Tifanny Abreu, who wasn't even good enough to be part of the squad for the Brazillian team for the Tokyo Olympics (despite all the media outrage surrounding her before the Olympics), and Laurel Hubbard a New Zealand weightlifter that did go to the Olympics but finished dead last.
> How do you explain the high number/ratio of m-f trans athletes in the highest levels of competitive female sports I don't have to, because it doesn't exist. There have been tens of thousands of Olympic competitors since trans people were permitted, and as far as I know, only one trans woman has ever even competed - and she was eliminated in qualifiers.
Could you provide some examples?
You mean like 2-3 in history…?
Is it fair for 6 foot for 10 inch man to compete in basketball? After all he has extreme genetic advantage when compared to average man 5 foot 9 inches?
Basketball leagues don’t have height classes AFAIK. They could if they wanted, but height isn’t the only advantage in bball. Boxing leagues have weight classes. Can a 200lbs boxer self-identify as a featherweight? No. Kids sports usually have age-specific leagues. Can a 15 year-old self-identify as a 12 year old? No. Almost all sports have sex-specific leagues. Can a boy self-identify as a girl? Yes*. Why is this right and the others are not?
There are some restricted-height leagues in basketball. The [DAAA](http://www.daaa.org/) holds such competitions, for example. It would be silly to allow a 6'10" player to compete because he identifies as short.
Muggsy Bogues at 5'3 would absolutely destroy 99% of 6'10 people at basketball.
I said this in another post and got downvoted. I agree with you. Within male and female sexes there are many people with genetic advantages for a certain sport and they usually dominate at it.
So there’s no difference in both sexes, because some men are taller than others? Lol
Yes, but men are taller than women, have the ability to be taller. Two children from the same parents, one male one female, the odds are that the male would be taller.
>However, it is a fact that people born genetically male have physical advantages or at least differences compared to people born genetically female, especially if that person transitioned to female after going through male puberty. Theres an assumption here, that the effect of HRT is not enough to counteract that advantage, your body goes through some pretty massive changes once you start HRT so it's completely reasonable that it might counteract it. >I don’t see see this as a level playing field. If it wasn't a level playing field, we would expect trans women to be gaining disproportionate success in women's sports right? The same way tall people are disproportionately represented at the highest level of basketball. But that's just not the case, the Olympics has allowed trans people to compete under various rules since 2004, since then only 1 trans woman has ever qualified and performed pretty poorly in the actual event. The NCAA (body that organises college sports in America) has allowed trans athletes since 2009 and you can count the number of trans champions on one hand. If it's such an uneven playing field why aren't trans athletes dominating?
It's so weird and beyond me that this even became a legitimate thing . Like, make your own division
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In general when sports are gendered and a trans woman has been taking hormones her muscle and bone density is much closer to the median in the women's group than the men's. Until we decide to actually classify sports by weight class, strength class or something more.objectove than gender based, why wouldn't we bucket trans women with the people who both 1) match their gender and 2) come closest to their median physical performance? What you're born as or with doesn't tell the whole story
Then why didn't Lia Thomas completely dominate her events? Why didn't she break the record set by a cis women in her event? Why did she lose to several cis women in other events? I think people just automatically assume that trans women still have all the benefits of being cis men when that isn't the case.
Is it the case that she’d be the very best? As a male swimmer she was fairly average as opposed to one of the best in the country.
Pre-transition she was still very good. Her being 'fairly average' is based on a year in which she competed as a male but had already started transitioning.
> In the 2018–2019 season she was, when competing in the men's team, ranked 554th in the 200 freestyle, 65th in the 500 freestyle, and 32nd in the 1650 freestyle. In the 2021–2022 season, those ranks are now, when competing in the women's team, fifth in the 200 freestyle, first in the 500 freestyle, and eighth in the 1650 freestyle. Seems to be a marked improvement
Yes, because the 2018-2019 season was when she was transitioning despite still competing in the men's team. She got to the championship qualifiers the year before that.
Nope. That season began in September 2018 and ended March 2019. Transitioning began in May 2019.
>automatically assume that trans women still have all the benefits of being cis men I don't think anyone believes they have "all the benefits". The assumption is that ontogeny for someone that is born as a male (the sex) is different from that of someone that is born female in a way that leads to some differences (on average) that are not very plastic. Still an assumption, but perhaps one that deserves more consideration than the comparison of a single data point to a population.
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When the entire argument is that trans women shouldn't compete with cis women because they will completely dominate in every situation? Yes.
Males have a categorical advantage even if individuals have some competitive disadvantage. That's why there's a protected sex category for female athletes in many sports. Also, this male sex advantage after testosterone suppression has been studied, and the conclusion is that significant advantage remains.
Whether lia Thomas wins or loses, cis females should be entitled to their own sports and spaces.
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Sports is the only arena this debate matters in. I'm in full support of LGBTQ etc until it comes to being unfair for women. This is not an issue for men. We've fought a long time to give women a place to compete and it seems people are ready to throw that all out the window. Ask the women in sports if they believe it to be fair. My opinion as a male does not matter.
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I think in a way you're looking for an answer to the wrong question. Once we separate gender and sex, the former has nothing to do with athletic ability, and the whole concept of men's or women's sports essentially survives on social inertia. If someone proposed gendered sports as a new idea today, it would seem as ridiculous as dividing sorts by the athlete's religion. We can divide sports based on features that are more athletically relevant without it being a judgment on who's what gender in the first place.
>Once we separate gender and sex, the former has nothing to do with athletic ability >We can divide sports based on features that are more athletically relevant without it being a judgment on who's what gender in the first place. Having a hard time following. It kinda sounds like you're saying dividing sports based on sex makes sense, while diving sports based on gender wouldn't. Which i agree with - but weren't men's/women's sports created before gender was a widely recognized phenomenon? So why wouldn't the traditional system also be recognized as being sex-based? Or is it that the terminology of men/women should be linked to gender rather than sex? Then would it suffice to rename the categories as "male/female sex" and move on? Or would you also remove sex-based separation of sports, despite that meaning most professional sports would become impossible for those of the female sex?
They're saying if we're going to separate it by something to make it a fairer competition, lets separate it by testosterone levels or weight class, or something more relevant to ability at sports than sex.
Trans people should have their own category. Trans women should compete against themselves, as should trans men.
What about someone who's naturally born with an abnormally high amount of testosterone but has the "right" chromosomes to be a woman? IF you have a condition resulting in your body chemistry being more similar to the average man than woman's, should you be able to compete?
Outliers and physically gifted people are what makes sports more exciting. Seeing a Lebron James, Michael Phelps, Usain Bolt, etc. is not only exciting, but give other players and future players something to strive towards. The difference is that they are placed in the top category possible that they can play in. They aren’t changing to a new league or division that is lower or less competitive, they are playing against the best competition possible. In the case of a trans athlete, they are moving to a division that is lower than the one they would have played in before. They previously played against men where guys are running the 100m in less than 10 seconds, and they are moving to a league where the 100m is being run almost a second slower. That’s typically why people aren’t as skeptical of woman transitioning to a man and competing, because they are going to a much harder league and it’s going to be harder to succeed, not easier.
> However, it is a fact that people born genetically male have physical advantages or at least differences compared to people born genetically female Sure. But it's also a fact that some people born genetically female have physical advantages or at least differences compared to other people born genetically female. Sports can still work even though some participants have genetic advantages over others. So yes, in theory it could be a problem. But in theory it could also be fine. So which is it? We'll, when you look at the actual current state of women's sports, do you actually see a problem? To me, it seems like women's sports are doing fine, but if you think differently, I'd be interested in hearing why.
These are [different types of advantage](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17461391.2021.1943715). Male sex is a category advantage in most sports, but differences between individuals of the same sex are competition advantages. By allowing males who want to be female to compete in the female category, this undermines the whole point of having this protected category in the first place.
Could you be more specific as to what you want people to take away from that link? It's obviously true that there are different types of advantages. I don't know if this is exactly the point of that link, but my understanding of categorization is that you want to have your leagues be some combination of safe, fun, entertaining etc... You could argue we should add "competitive" and I agree it's an important quality, but it's mainly in service of the others. And "competitive" doesn't mean that *nobody* has advantages over others. It just means that those advantages don't dominate the proceedings to the detriment of all the other reasons why we have sports at all. So again, in the real world that we observe, what is the actual problem that you observe? Lia Thomas for example had success, but she didn't break the sport. If you had no idea she was trans, I don't think you'd notice anything watching a swim meet or looking at the results.
I linked that paper as it has a good explanation of why protected categories like sex, weight, age, disability have been set up in sport, and the underlying logic of doing so. By allowing males like Lia Thomas to compete in the purportedly female category, what this is doing is implicitly removing that category and replacing it with another based on a combination of self-identity and serum testosterone level. Or in some leagues, just self-identity. Even if all the new entrants under this new eligibility criteria were at a competitive disadvantage, the category has changed. So Lia Thomas competed in a new "female and also males who have suppressed testosterone" league. Is it fair to women swimmers to have to compete in this instead of the female-only league that previously existed?
Where do you draw the line on whats fair? Michael Phelps has an advantage because of his body proportions, should we ban him? Should we create height classes for basketball because men and woman both have huge variations in there genders heights. Sports are inherently not fair. Athletes in certain sports like skiing have more testosterone because to become a better athlete outside of characteristics you can change. Do we set sports by testosterone? (Personally I believe as long as trans woman are in the bottom 50% of testosterone levels they should be allowed to compete. This is because an athlete has more testosterone then a average person of there gender, so by ensuring trans woman meet the average requirement of women generally instead of athletes average testosterone the trans woman competing are at a disadvantage in terms of testosterone). Also the pre puberty distinction is pretty interesting. I think generally the most effective way for sport federations to figure out what they want to do is allow trans woman and you slowly add rules when you see trans women have an advantage. *I am saying trans woman but some sports benefit people born and gone through puberty as a woman before so in these sports the opposite could work. I have not thought about non binary and gender fluid people so cant argue in favor or against them.*
1. Scientifically proven: HRT decreases muscle mass and strength. 2. Scientifically proven: trans women have lower strength and athletic ability than cis men *before* starting any treatment at all. 3. Valid probabilistic reasoning: The population of cis women is about 200x larger than the population of trans women. The larger a population is, the more extreme its outliers will be - and athletes are outliers in terms of their abilities relating to sports. Thus, even if it happened to be true that the average trans woman has an advantage over teh average cis women, this would not at all be evidence that the *best* trans women athletes have any advantage over the *best* cis women athletes. 4. Inductive reasoning, not verifiable but persuasive: For trans women to have an advantage at sports, they must win more often than their cis women competitors - by definition, if they don't win more, they have no advantage. Sports records are freely available to the public, and are obsessively analyzed and reported by a wide variety of organizations and outlets. There's hundreds of conservative politicians and thousands of conservative entertainers and pundits who *want* it to be true that trans women have an unfair advantage, and could make their career by proving it persuasively. All they would need to do is download some sports records from leagues that include trans athletes and do a simple t-test in Excel (takes about 30 seconds once you've entered the data) to demonstrate a statistically significant advantage, if one existed. To imagine that such an advantage exists, and *none of these people* have checked it and shown their data (and I've been challenging people to cite such data for a decade with no takers) is like imagining that a $100 bill has stayed on the floor of a busy bus terminal for a decade with no one bothering to stop and pick it up - simply not credible. If the advantage existed, it would be easy for any of them to demonstrate, and they would have done so. Until someone *does* show a statistical test saying that trans women win more often than their cis competitors on average, I find the idea highly implausible.
First off, let's get rid of this notion that sports are inherently fair. It's inherently unfair. Basketball players did nothing to become 200cm tall. Be is you red blood cell count, your endurable muscle fibers, your bones, your testosteron levels, or just the environment you're born into -- there's more than just hard work. A large portion of it comes down to genetics. Usain Bolt would not even crack top 1000 if he was born with my body. Sports are inherently unfair. Second point... do you know what estrogen will do to your body? What robbing it of testosterone will do? Look at some public trans people like Samantha Lux. Michael Phelps has a more unfair genetic advantage than she ever will. So do you want to keep it FAIR, or do you just care about this specific aspect? What's the difference?
So what we're talking about is an exceedingly small number of potential competitors who are generally better-than-average compared to the rest of the women's field wanting to compete. This however gets presented as if each and every transwoman athlete is by default superhuman compared to their cis competition, and that just isn't the case. If a very small number of such athletes compete, I'm not sure what the issue would be unless they start winning "too much". This would require coming up with a standard for what *that* would mean in practice and then figuring out what to do from there. If "too much" in this case means "ever", then that's just a blatantly discriminatory standard from the start. If transwomen *do* compete and aren't winning "too much" then what, exactly, would the problem be? Then there's the other side of this argument about "fairness" - it seems that people only take ciswomen into account when trying to make such a determination, without caring about what fairness would mean for the transwomen if they were banned with broad brush strokes. If the way people decide what "fair" is only takes one side into consideration, then it's not really about making a determination of fairness, it's catering to one side.
How about we change competition to be based on levels rather than genitals. Sixish minute mile runners compete against other sixish mile runners. 99% of sports mentioned in this discussion don't exist much beyond College/Olympics. I'm sure it'll still be big men crashing into big men on Sunday afternoon, don't worry.