Rival weightlifter speaks out on transgender Hubbard's Olympic place • Hacker News Board

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

#461

Post by splithalf » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 2:04 PM UTC

uniqueid wrote: post #184

nimbleal wrote: post #126

I 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.

I like this idea. It could also make the nba and nfl more racially diverse.

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

#462

Post by flippinburgers » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 2:05 PM UTC

zaarn wrote: post #415

esja wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people have no idea just how massive the biological advantage is. Movies and popular culture have conditioned people to think that females can hold their own against men. Individuals can, in some contexts, where the statistical distribution overlaps. For example a mediocre middle aged man can be beaten in strength or speed sports by an athletic 20-something woman. But at the tails of the distribution, where the…

What about intersex females or women with androgen sensitivity? They are XX but might still get "the advantage of growing up with testosterone". Or women who have testosterone insensitivity and an XY chromosome pair (ie, are in all factors but their sex chromosomes female)?

This what-about mentality that fragments the population into increasingly small groups while expecting everyone else to adhere needs a course correction.

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

#463

Post by blindmute » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 2:06 PM UTC

The effects of testosterone in the womb and during puberty have extremely profound effects on the body that do not ever go away throughout your entire life. Bone density and neuromuscular efficiency are vastly different between the sexes and do not regress with the introduction of hormones later on. The level of testosterone on competition day has by comparison almost no effect on anything. National women's teams in many sports regularly compete with and LOSE to normal boys' high school teams. The lie that MtF people have no significant advantage in sports is just a lie agreed upon. You know it's a lie, so don't agree with it. It's a lie for purely political purposes.

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

#464

Post by dncornholio » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 2:08 PM UTC

jean_tta wrote: post #443

knubie wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or anyone that takes testosterone.

Sounds like it is not that simple in the end, doesn't it?

It's very simple. If you want to do (professional) sports, you cannot take steroids/testosterone.

Being trans isn't a choice, but taking testosterone or whatever definitely is. It does not matter if you're male, female, trans, chinese, african or american.. Nobody should be allowed take banned PED's in professional sports.

It is very important to keep this integrity in sports. You could argue that you can let a FtM take testosterone because else he wont be able to compete with the others, but what if he started winning. Will people say he won because he's so good or would it be because he's allowed to take testosterone?

No ifs, no buts.

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

#465

Post by caeril » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 2:10 PM UTC

uniqueid wrote: post #184

nimbleal wrote: post #126

I 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.

Reaction times and spatial reasoning matter very significantly in sports, as well.

These are things for which there are also rather persistent differences in distribution between males and females.

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

#466

Post by dagw » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 2:12 PM UTC

yerwhat01010 wrote: post #307

prox wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> does Hubbard have an advantage so she will win 95% of the time? This graph would suggest she does: https://i.redd.it/vv4ws1848t671.jpg

If you read the article you'll see that Hubbard is top 10, but not top 3 in her weight class, and in no way a favorite to win. Even her scores pre-transition wouldn't guarantee her gold at the Olympics.

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

#467

Post by jayGlow » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 2:17 PM UTC

Y_Y wrote: post #432

acituan wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The point is that many other things have explanatory power as well and that choosing which categories to consider is ideological. Why have separate sports for sex? No need to complicate; if we didn't have sex segregated sports, for almost all sports (save for maybe open ocean swimming), we couldn't have any women competing at all[1]. In fact there are "battle of sexes" type exhibition matches that demonstrate the r…

I tried finding examples of other sports where women are roughly competitive with men at the top level: archery, shooting, curling, ultra-marathon, gymnastics, climbing.

men's and women's gymnastics are practically different sports. they only share 2 events and those events have pretty different rules between men and women.

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

#468

Post by kristopolous » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 2:18 PM UTC

textgel wrote: post #282

kristopolous wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have a big one with people who insist that I must call them in a particular way. It clashes with the idea that freedom of one person stops where freedom of another person starts So this would also apply to say, racial slurs and personal insults. Calling someone a name or the n-word instead of their name, that's a freedom? What about antisemitic slurs or insulting disabled people? How about just referring to women…

You don't have the right not to be offended. No matter how many times you ask.

Huh? So say, sexually fetishizing children in front of their parents is a freedom?

That's actually a crime, you know that, right, it's not freedom of speech. Using racial slurs is a crime in most environments as well.

There is no right to say arbitrary things in front of arbitrary people. That's actually not a thing.

It's not "your freedom" that's being violated, there never was one there to begin with here.

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

#469

Post by gccs » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 2:19 PM UTC

dncornholio wrote: post #464

jean_tta wrote: post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like it is not that simple in the end, doesn't it?

It's very simple. If you want to do (professional) sports, you cannot take steroids/testosterone. Being trans isn't a choice, but taking testosterone or whatever definitely is. It does not matter if you're male, female, trans, chinese, african or american.. Nobody should be allowed take banned PED's in professional sports. It is very important to keep this integrity in sports. You could argue that you can let a FtM t…

>you cannot take steroids/testosterone

I disagree. You just cannot be caught taking steroids/testosterone. Plenty of athletes do it and get away with it. Its part of the game, a meta game if you will.

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

#470

Post by prestigious » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 2:23 PM UTC

dagw wrote: post #405

buran77 wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While it's hard to draw a precise line, there's a clear difference between having some genetic features that give you an advantage, and having most genetic features that give you an advantage. Growing up under the influence of male genetics and hormones gives an individual a massive advantage in such a sport, that simply cannot be compensated for or against with just training or medical solutions. There's nothing tha…

The evidence is in the performance which falls squarely in line with male performance The article seems to make clear that while she is in the top 10, she's not in the top 3 and is in no way a favorite to win. So I'm not sure what that graph is supposed to be showing. Two women in this weight class have scored a 300+ in competition while Hubbard's best is a 285 from 2019.

I think the point is they took the spot from somebody who deserves to represent their country in Olympic competition and they aren’t even likely to win.