Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would like to suggest that you resist the urge to police other’s use of language, especially when their use of terms is well established and reasonable. Whether you intend it or not, this is quite disrespectful.
How is calling transgender women "not women" "well established and reasonable"? Whether you intended to parrot what I said to be so snide, this is quite disrespectful.
Rival weightlifter speaks out on transgender Hubbard's Olympic place
241–250 of 643 posts
Re: Rival weightlifter speaks out on transgender Hubbard's Olympic place
#242Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you'd asked me 10 years ago I probably would have said something disrespectful. I didn't know enough about trans-rights or lgbt rights. But over the years I've realised that they probably face a lot of injustice and indeed are marginalised in some societies. I've been working for a company that cares deeply about diversity and inclusion, which has helped me learn a lot. But, I still don't think it's fair for women…
> But, I still don't think it's fair for women that an individual who lived the prime of their life as a man, benefitting from all the testosterone and muscle mass Are you.... sure about this? Like how sure are you? What do you think you know? The human body changes surprisingly fast. Astronauts that stay in outer space for too long can't even walk when they return to earth. That "too long" is like... a year basicall…
Yes. Male puberty confers lifelong physical advantages on the body in terms of muscle mass, heart size, lung capacity and bone density. That's why men dominate women physically in every sport, which is why women have their own special sporting categories so that they stand a chance. Hormone therapy reduces these advantage but it doesn't eliminate them.
> Is it fair to trans athletes?
Probably not, but then is it fair to wheelchair-bound athletes that they're physically incapable of competing with Olympians and so need their own separate event? Maybe the cruel reality of life is that we can't always accommodate everybody?
Re: Rival weightlifter speaks out on transgender Hubbard's Olympic place
#243I may be a few years behind on terminology (?) but surely sports has everything to do with sex and nothing to do with gender? No one cares what pronouns an athlete uses, how they dress, what roles and behaviours society traditionally assigns/expects of them and how they respond to those traditions. They care entirely about biological advantages and disadvantages. So the division is based on — again unsure of the term…
sports has everything to do with sex and nothing to do with gender Dividing by sex is a substitute for dividing by the things that really matter: height, weight, strength, bone density, etc. If sports grouped competitors by a combination of those attributes, it would solve a lot of issues, including debate over transgender athletes.
Sports scientists do not agree
Re: Rival weightlifter speaks out on transgender Hubbard's Olympic place
#244Earlier quoted context omitted.
This debate butts up against the limitations of language and it is necessary to take care to define terms. This definition will be more or less useful depending on what you are trying to communicate. “Sex” could be interpreted to mean a statement about chromosomes, in which case there are more than two variants. Or it could be interpreted to be a statement about reproductive potential, in which case the “two sexes” m…
> “Sex” could be interpreted to mean a statement about chromosomes. Yes, it could - by people who don't know what the word "sex" means. Sex isn't about chromosomes, it's about gametes, and sex chromosome variants aren't separate sexes. For example, people with Klinefelter Syndrome (XXY) are male. This isn't hard. https://colinwright.substack.com/p/sex-chromosome-variants-a...
Re: Rival weightlifter speaks out on transgender Hubbard's Olympic place
#245the most elegant and fair solution to problems like this is to eliminate all gender distinctions in sports and collapse all leagues, competitions and record categories into a unified human category. let the best human win, regardless of their birth gender, sex preference, or sex organs at moment. yes, there will be certain sports or events that will tend to favor male. but there will be some that favor female. let th…
Which sports are these? In which physical sports do women have an advantage over men? Can you name one?
Re: Rival weightlifter speaks out on transgender Hubbard's Olympic place
#246Earlier quoted context omitted.
> However, it presents a huge problem for women's athletics, Trans women have been able to compete for years in Olympic level sport, and they haven't wiped the floor with cis women. I fail to see evidence of the problem - I see a lot more evidence of it being a culture war and TERF talking point. It also doesn't really line up with the fact that we fawn over genetic quirks that let Michael Phelps dominate his sport.…
> It also doesn't really line up with the fact that we fawn over genetic quirks that let Michael Phelps dominate his sport. If we think that certain sorts of genetic quirks are unfair in women's sport, why do we allow them in men's? I appreciate that you’ve said this so concisely and clearly. The Olympics are, overwhelmingly, a show of extraordinary human abilities. Singling out transwomen for scrutiny and prejudice…
Re: Rival weightlifter speaks out on transgender Hubbard's Olympic place
#247I’m curious as to what the biologically female competitors think about this.
That is literally what this article is: a cis-female weightlifter speaking against this.
Considering that voicing your support for Hubbard comes with basically no personal or professional cost, while voicing your opposition can cost you dealy, I'm going to assume that since most people have remained silent then the majority agrees with Anna Vanbellinghen.
Re: Rival weightlifter speaks out on transgender Hubbard's Olympic place
#248Earlier quoted context omitted.
How is calling transgender women "not women" "well established and reasonable"? Whether you intended to parrot what I said to be so snide, this is quite disrespectful.
So, when someone says “I date women”, are you implying that it is established and reasonable to the typical person in the world or even Western society that this statement would be including trans people?
Re: Rival weightlifter speaks out on transgender Hubbard's Olympic place
#249Seems to me to be the simplest, fairest solution, given that hormone treatments might give a person an unfair advantage that we're trying to keep out of male and female sports, but that are inherently impossible to avoid in transgender sports.
Re: Rival weightlifter speaks out on transgender Hubbard's Olympic place
#250It's an outlier that's being pushed in as a substitute to set the framing for the entire discussion as if broad policy should be generalized from an extreme outlier.
This is the same tactic that was used to argue against gay marriage, finding some unusual extreme event and then trying to substitute it as commonplace.
Isolate these things. It honestly shouldn't bleed into mainstream discussion. This is a slight of hand substitution.
Transgendered status doesn't affect 99% of human interaction. I easily might have worked with or been neighbors to a trans person for years and never known it. You could have worked with many yourself.
You've probably worked or lived next to somebody for years and then found out they were LGBTQ and were like "well that's actually pretty irrelevant" just like how our grandparents would freak out if they were, say, Catholic or married to a foreigner. It's not a big deal.
I refuse to outsize the tiny isolated cases where it matters, it's a propaganda technique.
No thanks