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Olympic Committee bars transgender athletes from women’s events

nytimes.com

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Re: Olympic Committee bars transgender athletes from women’s events

#61

Post by atmavatar »

lelanthran wrote: post #13
happymellon wrote: post #9

Has anyone measured trans athletes performance? I see this topic come up repeatedly in different guises, protect women from the evil trans-agenda. But I haven't seen where this is actually a problem. Do trans-athletes regularly out perform "born as" (not sure the best way to phrase it) athletes?

> Do trans-athletes regularly out perform "born as" (not sure the best way to phrase it) athletes? Regularly. It's the competing women who are complaining, though. They feel it is unfair to compete with men.

The problem is that someone who's transitioned is no longer a man. After undergoing surgery and hormone treatment for a long period of time, a trans athlete falls somewhere between men and women in terms of capability. They'd have no more success competing against men than naturally born women would, yet they still have advantages when competing against naturally born women.

Unfortunately, while the most equitable solution might be to create a separate category unique to trans individuals, there aren't enough trans athletes to make it feasible (yet?). It's rather sad that transitioning means a person can no longer compete in sports, but I'm not sure there's a better alternative.

Re: Olympic Committee bars transgender athletes from women’s events

#62

Post by pasquinelli »

EA-3167 wrote: post #40
generj wrote: post #28

Not only trans athletes, but any biologically born women the IOC thinks are insufficiently feminine. It’s an unfair advantage apparently. You know, like being born tall for basketball players. Curious how no other biological advantages are being policed.

That doesn’t seem to be the case, given the first paragraph of the article: > The International Olympic Committee has barred transgender athletes from competing in the women’s category of the Olympics and said that all participants in those events must undergo genetic testing. Genetic testing doesn’t leave a lot of room for accidentally or intentionally targeting women for being “insufficiently feminine.”

wouldn't a woman with a y chromosome be disqualified then?

Re: Olympic Committee bars transgender athletes from women’s events

#63

Post by EA-3167 »

altruios wrote: post #58
EA-3167 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn’t seem to be the case, given the first paragraph of the article: > The International Olympic Committee has barred transgender athletes from competing in the women’s category of the Olympics and said that all participants in those events must undergo genetic testing. Genetic testing doesn’t leave a lot of room for accidentally or intentionally targeting women for being “insufficiently feminine.”

just going to leave this here for you to read... https://www.olympics.com/en/news/semenya-niyonsaba-wambui-wh...

Oh thank you, but I’m not uninformed, and genetic testing wouldn’t have missed Castor Semenya either.

Re: Olympic Committee bars transgender athletes from women’s events

#64

Post by weezing »

jasonlotito wrote: post #18

It's gonna get buried, but petesergeant had a good comment sharing this article. They are also banning females from female sports as well with this ruling. https://www.olympics.com/en/news/semenya-niyonsaba-wambui-wh...

Intersex category would be perfect fit but this is very rare condition so there wouldn't be enough competition.

Re: Olympic Committee bars transgender athletes from women’s events

#65

Post by dragonwriter »

reillyse wrote: post #44
changoplatanero wrote: post #15

I thought this article does a good job explaining why some people care a lot about this topic https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/how-youth-sports-supercharg...

The problem for this argument is that there is no actual data that trans kids and specifically trans girls are any better at sport than other girls. Literally no trans athletes winning anything. I think hacker news skews scientific so we can do the math, if say 1% of the athletes are trans we would expect them to win 1% of the medals in a fair contest. As it is, they don't even come anywhere close. There has not been…

> The problem for this argument is that there is no actual data that trans kids and specifically trans girls are any better at sport than other girls.

There is considerable evidence that they aren't. But that's not really relevant, because you have to remember segregation in sport has never been about competitive fairness, it has always been about allowing those who are socially superior to avoid the embarrassment of having to compete in an environment where they might be defeated by their social inferiors.

It is why women were long banned from competitions, and then shortly after exclusion seemed to harsh for evolving attitudes, they were segregated from men. And it is why trans people are being excluded from competition now. It's why racial segregation in sport was a thing. When competitive fairness is raised as an argument for segregation, it is pretextual, not the real reason, so counterevidence is irrelevant.

Re: Olympic Committee bars transgender athletes from women’s events

#66

Post by hervature »

joshuahaglund wrote: post #32
VirusNewbie wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>checking for Y chromosomes doesn't do it Lol why does this not do it?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Androgen_insensitivity_syndrom... Among others

I am going to try to keep my response apolitical to try to avoid fanning a culture war. That Wiki is the exact reason we are in this situation because we are bringing up points for 1 in 20000 or 0.005% of the population. Any system designed around 0.005% edge cases is going to be so complex that it is functionally impossible to do in practice. That is why one side says the solution is "obvious" because we have a simple rule that covers 99.9% of cases and the other 0.1% is unfortunately effectively barred from high level competition. Note, high level competition already bars 99.9% of people. Even though the opposing side is correct in pointing out these edge cases, it does nothing to advance an actual solution.

Re: Olympic Committee bars transgender athletes from women’s events

#68

Post by ck2 »

The easiest way to explain this nonsense

is that in 100+ years of Olympics, there are ZERO elite athletes who were transgender

none

it's brought to you by the some of the very same people who want you to prove you are a citizen every time you vote

because there have been no previous cases of that either

However there are women who have given birth who will fail that SRY test

Because biology is messy, not black and white, never "on" or "off", there is always overlap

They tried this before in 1996 and quickly ended it by 2000 because the result was a disaster

Re: Olympic Committee bars transgender athletes from women’s events

#69

Post by tensor »

nickff wrote: post #39
tensor wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To educate others reading this, it's far from "obvious" how to classify gender in sports. Checking if they have the right "parts" physically doesn't do it. Checking for hormone levels doesn't do it. Even checking for Y chromosomes doesn't do it. In my opinion the way forward is to stop trying to find arbitrary ways to define gender, and just start making competition classes based on whatever factors are relevant to t…

The problem with your proposed 'fuzzy divisions' is that they're not compatible with the zeitgeist of 'seeing the best compete', and 'drug-free' sports, as there's no reason to disallow performance-enhancing-drugs if we're already splitting into divisions.

Actually, you bring up an excelling additional argument for the sort of bracketing I proposed. It also works for drugs!

There is significant grey area wrt to "doping" too in the sense that a performance enhancing drug may express as a larger than normal amount of a naturally occurring substance. So did the person dope, or is that their natural genetics? In my scheme, WHO CARES!

Beyond that, I suppose there is the usual argument against more serious and non-natural forms of doping that it is physically detrimental to the competitors and by allowing it you are encouraging or pressuring people to essentially harm themselves.

Still, competition classes could be helpful in some of the doping grey areas.

Re: Olympic Committee bars transgender athletes from women’s events

#70

Post by poizan42 »

EA-3167 wrote: post #40
generj wrote: post #28

Not only trans athletes, but any biologically born women the IOC thinks are insufficiently feminine. It’s an unfair advantage apparently. You know, like being born tall for basketball players. Curious how no other biological advantages are being policed.

That doesn’t seem to be the case, given the first paragraph of the article: > The International Olympic Committee has barred transgender athletes from competing in the women’s category of the Olympics and said that all participants in those events must undergo genetic testing. Genetic testing doesn’t leave a lot of room for accidentally or intentionally targeting women for being “insufficiently feminine.”

Is the "genetic testing" for the presence of a Y chromosome or the presence of the SRY gene? And what about people with AIS?

If it's just karyotype, are men with XX male syndrome (SRY gene without an Y chromosome) then allowed to participate in women's sports?

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