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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

#331

Post by FriedrichN »

One of the better arguments I've heard is that if you look at Hubbard's numbers when she was competing as a man and compare them when competing as a women you'll see a drop in performance, but not an enormous drop. She went from a mediocre lifter to one able to qualify for the Olympics.

The reduced testosterone requirement is still way above what the average female athlete will have and it is a very limited view of what makes a biological female different from a biological male. I can't imagine what kind of problems this will give in combat sports, just imagine the longer reach and explosiveness men have.

I'm all for people being able to identify as whatever they want, but not at the cost of fair sports.

Here are some great discussions on the topic if you're interested:

Weightlifting House - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcijSwv5YBM

Zack Telander - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjulLSX29H0

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

#332

Post by rocqua »

dncornholio wrote: post #264

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..

Even though I largely agree with your conclusion, I strongly disagree that this problem is made artificially difficult.

The fallout of a decision like this for professional athletes who are trans is huge. That fallout and the effects from that decision should not at all be taken lightly.

Having an MTF proffesional athlete to compete in the male category is going to probably cause a lot of disphoria. It will also make it much harder from them to be accepted as female. Many people will question "If she is a woman, why is she competing in the male category". Hence it would probably cause many MTF professional athletes to simply decide to drop their profession.

Transitioning is already hard. Adding "drop your profession" to that makes it that much harder. Especially to professional athletes to whom "being an athlete" is probably rather important. Just dismissing these concerns as "easy" is wrong. The impact this will have is huge and deserves significant consideration.

I believe that, on balance, even when considering the above, there are still cases where MTF athletes should be barred from "women's leagues". At least in sports where their biology gives MTF athletes a significant advantage. But that is a close and difficult call to me. Not at all an easy one.

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

#333

Post by stOneskull »

kbelder wrote: post #124
stOneskull wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why not trans athletics? a separate group.

Populated with transwomen and transmen? I suspect that the same problem would surface. It would be amusing though, because it would be a category where all the women would be beating all the men at weightlifting.

transmen vs transmen, transwomen vs transwomen

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

#334

Post by KMag »

fxtentacle wrote: post #305
Clewza313 wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being "gender critical" is the view that trans women are not women. Not to be confused with the "anti-gender" movement, which opposes anything other than traditional male/female roles, or with "postgenderism", which argues the complete opposite, namely that traditional gender is irrelevant. TL;DR is that Maya was (apparently) fired for the first opinion, lost a first court case over it because being gender critical i…

That just seems weird to me. Most people want to have kids later in life. Of course trans women are different wrt that life goal.

Not all trans people undergo or desire surgical intervention. Also, a transgender woman who desires biological children and surgical intervention could freeze her sperm before surgery.

Remember the story a few years ago about the gay couple where one of them was a transgender man and gave birth to their child? I'm sure similar situations do sometimes arise with transgender women.

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

#335

Post by trhway »

nimbleal wrote: post #213
crowf wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many sports have many categories. Boxers and wrestlers are separated based on weight

Yes, but as mentioned elsewhere weight alone would do little to solve this issue. Males would still dominate. So presumably you include other factors — but then you are simply dividing by ability. You could conceivably attempt to divide by innate ability (theoretically allowing competitors to compete against one another based on nurture, not nature) but that would be impossible to do fairly or in a way that would mak…

>impossible to do fairly

we're at HN - run PCA and clustering on the totality of athletes' results and biological data for the last N decades with end result being the groups based on identified parameters similar to boxing/wrestling weight groups.

>that would make sense to audiences.

we're already in situation which is harder and harder to make sense. Putting it on the firm basis of scientific analysis is the only way to move forward which would avoid all the pitfalls we're going to hit otherwise.

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

#336

Post by jayjader »

leephillips wrote: post #181
vore wrote: post #176

Earlier 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.

Well established: a woman is an adult human female. Try a dictionary, biology textbook, etc. You might not like it, but you can’t reasonably say that it’s not well established. I hope you agree that a “transgender woman”, or, to use more neutral language, a trans identified man, is not female. That’s the entire issue here. Reasonable: see the above. Also, implied by the users of the term itself. If a T.W. is a W., wh…

> If a T.W. is a W., why do they say T.W.?

If a human female is a human, why do we say human female? Because it adds additional, usually relevant, context.

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

#337

Post by sterlind »

As a trans woman, every time something like this hits the news, it makes me absolutely miserable. Conservatives and TERFs respond with vitriol and attack all of us as a group. I'm made to feel like some viking juggernaut, perverting the youth and forcing my way into women's spaces, when I really just want a quiet happy life as a cripple who can barely walk, much less dominate at weightlifting.

The backlash against trans people is getting worse. It's why I'm stealth. I don't have to deal with the prejudice, with everyone seeing these headlines and talking points and fitting them into narratives and applying them to me. It's cowardly for me to hide, but I just can't deal. I hate being trans because of stuff like this.

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

#338

Post by Veen »

ALittleLight wrote: post #132
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #50

I thought Anna Vanbellinghen was very well said. It's not about questioning someone's identity, or their right to live openly. But this is about acknowledging physical reality. One thing I'd like to add is that this is, by definition, a hard problem . The fact is sex and gender exists on a continuum, even if 99% of the time it seems binary. Anyone who says that the "other side" in this situation (regardless of which…

In my opinion people often speak incoherently on this topic because they are trying to be politically correct. Vanbellinghen is asserting that Hubbard should not compete as a woman. Hubbard identifies as a woman. In what way is Vanbellinghen not questioning Hubbard's identity? It is as if "I am not questioning your identity" is a magic spell that must be chanted prior to doing exactly that so you don't get in trouble…

> Vanbellinghen is asserting that Hubbard should not compete as a woman. Hubbard identifies as a woman. In what way is Vanbellinghen not questioning Hubbard's identity?

Women who take performance enhancing drugs are also disqualified from competing. No one is challenging their identity as a woman, just the fairness of their competing against women without that advantage. It is not a moral prohibition against consuming certain substances, but a practical prohibition because it makes competing on a level playing field impossible.

The same is true of trans atheletes. They have an advantage other women do not. Women's sports were invented precisely for that reason: natal males have an advantage that means most natal females are not competetive against them in most sports.

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

#339

Post by [deleted] »

dncornholio wrote: post #264

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..

[deleted]

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

#340

Post by throw0101a »

ellipsisfrog wrote: post #212
slg wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone considers themselves a woman, they are a woman. It doesn't have to be any more complicated than that for 99% of life. I can understand some objections in a very limited number of contexts and sports is one of those contexts, but otherwise just allow people to choose where they fall on the gender spectrum.

What makes 'woman' a special class in this regard? We wouldn't accept the same kind of self definition elsewhere. I couldn't decide to be a Native American without meeting some external criteria around my birth and life. Nor can I decide to be 6 foot 4 or thin even if I sincerely believed it. Someone who did self define like that would be regarded as delusional. Is there some principled way to decide what things one…

> I couldn't decide to be a Native American without meeting some external criteria around my birth and life.

For the record, people have self-identified as being Black:

* https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/jessica-krug-rachel-do...

* https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/25/rachel-dolez...

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Dolezal

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