271–280 of 643 posts
This problem is made artificial difficult. It's simple: born as a man? Sport like a man. Born as a women? Sport like women. Gender in sport is not about identity, it's about biology. Also it creates a huge backdoor to Olympic gold medals. There's nothing that stops turning the female category into all transgender..
Should FtM people, taking testosterone, compete with cis-women?
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Have you considered that forcing the abnormal to be included with the normal renders both terms meaningless?
This categorization scheme would specifically include the 'abnormal' and the 'normal' together based entirely on chromosomes.
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Taking hormone therapy dramatically changes your body, making using just your sex also problematic. It's a complex subject. Here's the best article I've found on it: https://www.barbellmedicine.com/blog/shades-of-gray-sex-gend...
But it doesn't change your skeletal structure, or the size of your lungs. Both of which dramatically affect your performance.
If there is a way to level it out, that might be a solution, if it’s possible.
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that is correct, and to be fair, not contested by the parent comment. you might be hard-pressed to find two bodies each "exactly like" the other. The interesting questions here are not about exactly equal, but about equivalence classes of people, and in different contexts.
The argument is that even hrt isn't enough to transfer someone from one class to another.
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From first principles, transwomen feel like they should be just as much of a woman born biologically female, but they just happened to be born biologically male. This dysphoria causes a great deal of angst and I don't think the benefits of othering them as any kind of second-class woman can outweigh that.
If I have clinical depression, saying "you're completely normal and do not have depression" doesn't make the depression go away or subside in any way. Gender dysphoria is oftentimes treated via transitioning in some fashion. Having groupthink on online spaces doesn't alleviate symptoms. I've never heard anyone except trans activists talking about the specifics of someone's trans-ness in an open setting. Certainly not…
This is really not a good analogy. An identity-linked issue like this would be closer to someone not being included into a certain in-group.
For example an African-American who grows up in a predominantly caucasian could be called "not black" or "not black enough" by someone trying to hurt them based on the way they speak or act differently.
You can imagine that this would be alleviated by people not putting up arbitrary rules on who "can be called black".
(Note : my terminology may be wrong but I think the meaning is clear)
Imagine a giant athlete the size of Arnold Schwarzenegger at his peak decides to transition and has to match a testosterone level to compete. Lol. It’s ridiculous.
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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.
Hmmmm. At that point are you not simply beginning to divide by ability? Basketball for short people? Weightlifting for weak people? It would seem to both go against the spirit of sport and be impossible to implement in practice (for e.g how many different ways do you cut it?) Perhaps the more fundamental question — once again leaning on apparently somewhat flimsy terminology — would be: is biological sex something wo…
Is it fun to watch a bunch of length skiers that all have a similar rare medical conditions that enables an endurance and oxygen uptake that is way beyond what is possible for the wast majority of the population? Dividing by genetics seems as a good option, but would that then go against the spirit of the sport?
Sex is simply just a bunch of common genetic traits, but they are not the only traits that matters in sport. There are a long list of them, especially in extreme strength or endurance sports.
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But it doesn't change your skeletal structure, or the size of your lungs. Both of which dramatically affect your performance.
I think the core question is, does Hubbard have an advantage so she will win 95% of the time? If so, it’s not really a competition, especially if that result derives from her innate male physiology giving her an unfair advantage. We don’t allow doping either. If there is a way to level it out, that might be a solution, if it’s possible.
Hopefully the wave of opposition to this travesty will be strong enough to change the regulations.
Boycott the Olympics.
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But it doesn't change your skeletal structure, or the size of your lungs. Both of which dramatically affect your performance.
I think the core question is, does Hubbard have an advantage so she will win 95% of the time? If so, it’s not really a competition, especially if that result derives from her innate male physiology giving her an unfair advantage. We don’t allow doping either. If there is a way to level it out, that might be a solution, if it’s possible.
But this is true of lots of sports. Most recently, Simone Biles was punished by scoring judges for a gymnastic move that only she is able to perform, due to her height and musculature. "Genetic freaks" who train hard but still have an unalterable physical advantage tend to dominate any individual sport, to the detriment of their competitors - what makes Hubbard different?