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Rival weightlifter speaks out on transgender Hubbard's Olympic place

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Re: Rival weightlifter speaks out on transgender Hubbard's Olympic place

#81

Post by alvah »

leephillips wrote: post #13
The_Amp_Walrus wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Olympic weightlifting is already split into relatively thin weight brackets. I think the issue is that, pound for pound, men tend to be stronger than women In the 76-81kg womens bracket current record total (snatch + cnj) is 278kg. In the 73-81kg mens bracket the record total is 363kg. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympic_weightlifting#Weight_c... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_world_records_in_Olymp...

Men have a huge advantage in power and speed over women of the same weight; this is uncontroversial. This is not affected by reducing blood testosterone.

In a sane world this would be uncontroversial. In clown world, everything is up for grabs.

Re: Rival weightlifter speaks out on transgender Hubbard's Olympic place

#83

Post by kelnos »

tsherr wrote: post #30
kazinator wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the problem that division into genders is supposed to address. Currently we have n = 2. Results favoring one of the two genders is addressed by having separate categories with separate results: women's records, men's records.

Rather than splitting by gender it should be split by sex, or birth sex, if you prefer.

The problem is that doesn't entirely work for trans women. Hormone therapy during their transition will reduce their performance to the point where they mostly can't be competitive with cis men anymore, while they'll still dominate against cis women.

Re: Rival weightlifter speaks out on transgender Hubbard's Olympic place

#84

Post by [deleted] »

wolfgang42 wrote: post #61
kazinator wrote: post #20

I think sports categories should be chromosome strings. "XX division", "XY world record". "XXY 400 m finals", "XYY long jump trials", ... Gender identity doesn't factor into it at all; the words "man", "woman" should not be used. Problem solved; you don't get to wedge yourself into competition with XX persons if you're XY.

That seems like it introduces more problems than it solves; genetic essentialism as a solution to debates about gender tends to be an approach that nobody agrees with. Now you still have the same concerns about people using hormones, plus: - intersex people whose phenotype and genotype don’t match (putting them in the “wrong” category) - chimeric people who belong in different categories depending on which part of th…

[deleted]

Re: Rival weightlifter speaks out on transgender Hubbard's Olympic place

#85

Post by slipframe »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #76
eric4smith wrote: post #52

Yup - finally this has reached the point where gender politics crashes into reality. I’m not against any gender doing what they wish. But really, the point is when you (by nature) have testosterone coursing through your bloodstream… even if you transitioned, by the very nature of things you have an advantage of strength, agility, speed and desire over your female peers. As much as we would love to believe it, men are…

This graph made the rounds on Reddit: https://i.redd.it/vv4ws1848t671.jpg One has to completely ignore reality to try to pretend that is a fair competition. One other thing to note from that graph is the worst performance from a man was significantly better than the best performance from cis-woman. Testosterone makes you stronger, who knew?

Co-ed sports for kids that train together demonstrate this well. I was a competitive swimmer from the age of 5 to 18. Girls and boys received the same instruction from the same coaches, did the same number of laps in practice, etc. Before puberty, there was no difference in times between girls and boys. At about 10-11 years old, the girls started getting faster than the boys. But at 13-14 years old the boys became faster than the girls. Both of these correlate to when both groups reach puberty.

Re: Rival weightlifter speaks out on transgender Hubbard's Olympic place

#86

Post by kelnos »

kazinator wrote: post #33
Theory5 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps classes on ability necessary to the sport should be the only way to go?

But that is futile, because ability necessary to the sport is what produces the results, i.e. rankings. So that amounts to just (1) everyone competing together as if there were one category, then (2) being ranked from winner to loser, and (3) we then declare that each rank is its own ability class, so everyone is a winner in their ability class! Bob is the winner of the #1 division, Amy is the winner of the #2 divisi…

Even if you don't go to the absurd extreme you pushed it to, it still doesn't work. Like, say you rank everyone from 1st to 50th, and then break everyone into five divisions (1st-10th, 11th-20th, and so on).

Then you end up with perverse incentives. The #1 person in the 2nd division doesn't really want to work harder to move up to the 1st division, because they're likely to never get beyond 10th or 9th or so. And the 10th place holder in the 1st division might find it more prestigious to slow down a little to try to take the #1 spot of the 2nd division.

Re: Rival weightlifter speaks out on transgender Hubbard's Olympic place

#87

Post by SilverRed »

brodouevencode wrote: post #65

I’m curious as to what the biologically female competitors think about this.

Don't imagine they would be thrilled when the current situation is that no matter how hard you try, you will never come close to winning as a biological female https://i.redd.it/vv4ws1848t671.jpg

Re: Rival weightlifter speaks out on transgender Hubbard's Olympic place

#88

Post by kazinator »

slg wrote: post #53
kazinator wrote: post #20

I think sports categories should be chromosome strings. "XX division", "XY world record". "XXY 400 m finals", "XYY long jump trials", ... Gender identity doesn't factor into it at all; the words "man", "woman" should not be used. Problem solved; you don't get to wedge yourself into competition with XX persons if you're XY.

At what levels would this apply? Would we actually blood test 14 year olds? What about trans men who where assigned female at birth? Are they allowed to take testosterone and still compete against XX women?

"Trans men assigned female at birth" means nothing; just what are your chromosomes.

> Are they allowed to take testosterone

Absolutely not; however, doped sports could be yet separate category. There is probably audience money in it, like in monster trucks and WWF wrestling.

Re: Rival weightlifter speaks out on transgender Hubbard's Olympic place

#89

Post by JoeyBananas »

Theory5 wrote: post #25
JoeyBananas wrote: post #18

What is the argument in favor of allowing transgenders to compete in female sports? Does anyone actually defend this decision?

Why wouldn't people support transgendered people able to be the gender they wish and being able to do so in all possible aspects? Be they transwomen wanting to play female sports, or transmen wanting to play male sports (which you oddly leave out of your question).

> Why wouldn't people support transgendered people able to be the gender they wish and being able to do so in all possible aspects?

Ok, that is a plausible argument. However, it's missing one major component: How could anyone argue that this is one of the aspects or life where it is actually possible to treat someone as their preferred gender? If I had to cherry pick an example of an aspect of life where it is not possible to treat a transgender person as their preferred gender, it would be Olympic sports.

That's probably precisely why they are doing this. They're obviously trying to make a political statement. They want it to be the inspiring event that puts this Olympics in the history books. But I mean... Come on people, there are obvious reasons why this athlete is not going to be remembered heroically for their political message in the same way as someone like Jesse Owens.

Re: Rival weightlifter speaks out on transgender Hubbard's Olympic place

#90

Post by Zababa »

whatshisface wrote: post #38
kazinator wrote: post #20

I think sports categories should be chromosome strings. "XX division", "XY world record". "XXY 400 m finals", "XYY long jump trials", ... Gender identity doesn't factor into it at all; the words "man", "woman" should not be used. Problem solved; you don't get to wedge yourself into competition with XX persons if you're XY.

It might be better to have hormone classes in sports the way boxing has weight classes. You could have Mike Tyson class all the way through Betty White class, and as a side benefit you'd be able to put women's sports teams in with appropriately matched men. As another side benefit a lot of people who were simply born with the wrong stuff to compete could rise to the top of their class by hard work. Since there's not…

Have classes for everything, this way everyone is in their own special class and everyone is a world champion. This way everyone will be happy right? /s
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