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

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

#471

Post by b0rsuk » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 2:24 PM UTC

imsesaok wrote: post #453

b0rsuk wrote: post #199

I don't have a big problem with people who "identify as" someone else. 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. What about my right to call another person as I see them? This is invasive. I'm not telling them how to live - they are. This is *gaslighting* and promoting *taboos*.…

You call them whatever you want, and the other side has a freedom to call you a transphobe. simple as that.

I don't see anything offensive in calling someone "a man" or "a woman". If I do that, and you respond by labeling me as a "transphobe", fine, but as far as I'm concerned you are responding with a pejorative (unflattering) term to a neutral one.

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

#472

Post by slipframe » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 2:27 PM UTC

nandhinianand wrote: post #411

Y_Y wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is being philosophically critical of something automatically hostile? There are plenty of things that would argue against on a moral basis, that are important parts of the lives of some of the people I've worked with. I'd never harass them directly or indirectly for one of these things, but it would be hard to keep them a complete secret either. On the other side of the coin, I recognise that the people I work with w…

> I don't think I have the right to insist they supress these beliefs, as long as they're not trying to harm me with them. The argument from the trans community would be that misgendering and encouraging other employees to misgender them(which will happen if the belief is propaganda-ised) will cause significant emotional harm, risk mental health, cause problems in fulfilling job etc.. I'm not sure about how true this…

Incidentally, threatening suicide to get what you want is a form of emotional abuse.

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

#473

Post by blindmute » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 2:30 PM UTC

ryanobjc wrote: post #200

jp0d wrote: post #175

Earlier 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…

You don't know what you're talking about. Male hormones in the womb and in puberty confer permanent, drastic changes to muscular power. After training, testosterone levels have very minor effects. An average high school boy athlete could take estrogen for 20 years and still be vastly stronger after that than most female athletes.

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

#474

Post by himinlomax » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 2:31 PM UTC

babesh wrote: post #60

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #16

I feel like with this issue at some point we are bound to reach a breaking point. It's just a question of how far along things will go before we get there. People are more and more open about being transgender and there is more and more support for transgender individuals having the chance to live life as their correct gender. This is a great thing! However, it presents a huge problem for women's athletics, particula…

There are many disadvantages/advantages that various groups face/possess. It is ideological which ones we choose to elevate. Genes for height, genes for fast twitch muscles, testosterone, etc… aren’t the same for different groups. Some of these disadvantages are just as insurmountable. Many sports are closed to poor people. Equestrian, sailing, etc… aren’t sports for the poor. Richer countries often have better techn…

> Many sports are closed to poor people. Equestrian, sailing, etc… aren’t sports for the poor.

Skiing is expensive for most people, but having grown up in a mountainous area, most kids could and did go skiing for very cheap.

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

#475

Post by atq2119 » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 2:33 PM UTC

maybeOneDay wrote: post #401

memling wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's possible to be against the idea of trans women competing in female competitive sports without intentionally misgendering all trans athletes/humans. Genuine question, one about which I haven't seen much in the way of conversation—although my experience is relatively limited. Why is the subjective experience of gender privileged over the objective biology of sex? I can anticipate a couple possible responses for…

2. Is definitely the counter argument I would use - if people have preferred pronouns then what is the ethical argument for ignoring those and using words that would cause them harm? If nothing else it seems to me to come down to basic decency and respect for others. It's less about one term being "privileged" (I must confess that word seems slightly unclear to me in this context) over another and more about the ease…

> Is definitely the counter argument I would use - if people have preferred pronouns then what is the ethical argument for ignoring those and using words that would cause them harm

So I think a natural conservative argument there would be that the primary reason why we have sex-based (not gender-based!) pronouns in the first place is so that we can talk about biological categories that are important for the continuation of our species: while some men cannot father offspring, certainly no transman can. So why should we call them men, if it is in fact the reproductive function because of which we use these terms in the first place?

Messing about with mechanisms that are crucial to our survival should at least not be done lightly.

Even as somebody who is non-conservative on most issues, the lack of acknowledgment by trans activists that that's what they're doing rubs me slightly the wrong way.

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

#476

Post by s1artibartfast » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 2:34 PM UTC

twic wrote: post #381

globular-toast wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, once we figure out exactly what attributes make an athlete good at a given sport, we might as well skip the sport entirely. Just give the medal to the guy with the greatest genetic potential to be good at that sport.

No, this is the opposite idea - you give the medal to the person who makes the most of whatever genetic potential they have.

You could do that, but few are interested in the answer to that question. People want to know who is fastest, strongest, ect, not most improved since birth.

The challenges people overcome makes for a good story, but is not the core competition.

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

#477

Post by blindmute » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 2:36 PM UTC

vore wrote: post #170

chitowneats wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no issue with how they choose to self identify. I accept trans-identifying individuals and I will use whichever pronouns they ask of me. What I have an issue with is this type of behavior where they turn things upside down without any care for others. In this case, they're stealing glory from and seriously hampering the careers of lifelong female athletes. Imagine lifting since you were a teenage girl, and som…

I apologize for misunderstanding your initial point: couching the pro-trans movement as an "ideology" had read to me as a dismissal of the pro-trans movement at large and if that is not your intent then I retract my initial comment. That said, I don't really agree with this clarification either: no trans woman is setting out to have gender reassignment to bully their way into competing against women who were lifting…

The trans person's intent doesn't matter. What matters is that they are inserting themselves into female competition at an immense advantage. The fact of the matter is that if you allow biological men into female competition, females will never win anything. That is literally why there are sex separated sports. Females cannot compete with males at the highest level of sport, this is just a fact. I don't think we should be destroying the sports dreams of half the population to appease the trans people. It sucks for them, but quite frankly I don't care, because there is no better solution than to exclude them.

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

#478

Post by CodeGlitch » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 2:39 PM UTC

Supermancho wrote: post #313

anaisbetts wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would having the same muscle but heavier bones as your competitors be an advantage in almost any sport?

Increased bone density means less prone to injury and more momentum in pivots and swings/punches.

Not only that - but look at the shape of the hip bone between men and women - the latter have wider hips to cater for child-birth. This means men have a massive advantage when running/swimming/cycling/lifting. The same applies to the arms (men have straighter arms) which obviously changes the mechanics when lifting. No amount of hormone therapy will change this.

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

#479

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 2:41 PM UTC

ako wrote: post #119

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Besides tennis, those are also not popular sports in the sense I'm discussing. And tennis is probably the least compelling of your examples.

Golf, skiing, snowboarding, windsurfing, kitesurfing, mtb-ing, street cycling, motorracing: all have thousands or even millions of participants, so can be considered popular, but require participants to spend thousands on equipment, travel, access to slopes, etc. If you can do any of these, you're considered rich.

You keep listing second and third tier sports. It doesn't really address my argument about the most popular spectator sports at all. And even if it did I don't think it would do much to defuse my main point, which is that a lot of people will not accept a situation where cis women are effectively barred from winning in any sport.

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

#480

Post by alisonkisk » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 2:43 PM UTC

I don't see it he argument for why "women's" sports should exist, once transgender competitors cause an imbalance.

That is to say, of course people should be welcome to participate regardless of gender, but the championships and prizes should be based on objective measurements (like boxing weight classes, or heights, or whatever), and whatever the public is so enamored of as to generate funding for tournament prizes.

IMO for athletics instead of focusing so much on competitions among a field of elite competitors with tiny differences, and overburdening and destroying their bodies, we should focus on challenges and achievements, and support many many people working to improve their personal records. And "sports ad entertainment" should be a more well rounded entertainment and aesthetic performance, not pointless contests of who gets a slightly lower or higher number on a metric.