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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

#111

Post by snackbroken »

LetsGetTechnicl wrote: post #35

It's clear how insane this culture war against trans people is when you consider this only applies to trans women and not trans men? Also, so many of these anti-trans efforts end up hurting cis women too, the ones who happen to look too masculine or have too high of testosterone. Gender is not as straightforward as bigots and transphobes would like to think. I wonder how many cis women will be affected by this ruling…

> It's clear how insane this culture war against trans people is when you consider this only applies to trans women and not trans men?

In most sports, the "mens" division is actually an open division that accepts all participants regardless of sex. Women just don't compete in it because they have no shot at getting a decent placement. The fact that males and females can't fairly compete with each other is the raison d'être of the women's league. This, and not culture war propaganda reasons is why only the most deranged bigots have an issue with trans men competing in "mens" sports.

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

#113

Post by dragonwriter »

exolymph wrote: post #95
LetsGetTechnicl wrote: post #35

It's clear how insane this culture war against trans people is when you consider this only applies to trans women and not trans men? Also, so many of these anti-trans efforts end up hurting cis women too, the ones who happen to look too masculine or have too high of testosterone. Gender is not as straightforward as bigots and transphobes would like to think. I wonder how many cis women will be affected by this ruling…

Trans men have no advantage against cis men.

Trans women who have been on hormone therapy for at least a year have no overall advantage over cis women in most real, existing competitive sports. They have disadvantages in some of the most widely-sports-relevant capacities—compared to cis women—and small advantages in a couple of isolated abilities (grip strength).

They also have advantages in traits that across the population correlate positively with some broadly-sports-relevant capacities (e.g., lean body mass, both absolutely and as a share of total body mass, lung volume), but the actual sports-relevant capacities these correlate with on a population level (strength, endurance, etc.) they don't have an advantage on. There are studies that have detailed some of the low-level reasons for this with regard to oxygen use and other factors.

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

#114

Post by SirFatty »

bdangubic wrote: post #96
b3ing wrote: post #17

This always should of been left to sports committees than our government, what a waste of our representatives times, but I guess they got the culture war points

unless you live in the olympics the olympic committee is not your representative

Try reading the comment again.

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

#115

Post by mothballed »

dragonwriter wrote: post #81
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.”

Genetic testing for what? I'm just going to leave the headline of this article for you to consider while you answer: "Report of Fertility in a Woman with a Predominantly 46,XY Karyotype in a Family with Multiple Disorders of Sexual Development" https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2190741/

Before you hold genetic testing down to this standard of perfection (catching a single event of something so notable it merited its own article in JCEM), it would do well to compare it to the alternatives from which you are moving, and whether those alternatives met this standard of perfection.

Otherwise it might turn out you are proposing a standard that no system that bifurcates men and women can achieve, and on the basis of that, rejecting genetic testing.

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

#116

Post by puppycodes »

happytoexplain wrote: post #101
puppycodes wrote: post #85

The differences between cisgender bodies are already so varied that the logic falls apart almost immediately. For that matter why not restrict rich athletes who have access to training and equipment that poor athletes do not? The point at where the line is drawn is entirely arbitrary. Gattaca vibes.

Don't we already sub-categorize within a gender? E.g. boxing. I don't actually know how common that is or why some sports get this treatment and not others.

Boxing is often the example given because its someone getting hurt, but when you actually break it down it also falls apart for boxing.

If we measured everyones strength, bone density, etc... in order to stop people from risking injury that would be one thing But basing it on your Chromosomes is lazy and inaccurate.

The point is that "fairness" being tied to whether your Cis or Trans is a hilarious hill to die on when we have advanced medical technology to actually test what we deem "fair".

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

#117

Post by [deleted] »

lelanthran wrote: post #56
petesergeant wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone who's not genetically gifted need not bother competing, though. Would you ban basketball players above a certain height?

> Would you ban basketball players above a certain height? Well, women's basketball did ban males from competing for, well, ever, and no one bat an eye. Like I said in another thread on this story, it's not men who are complaining that women are unfairly competing, it's women who are complaining that men are unfairly competing.

[deleted]

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

#118

Post by lelanthran »

happymellon wrote: post #89
lelanthran wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I asked because I'm curious, and Googling just gives opinion pieces and not data. Women complaining are voicing an opinion. Is this a good enough citation for the claim that women don't want to compete with men? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gndSDgsMnKI

Considering I was asking whether there was evidence on trans-performance, sure it matters a little. That's fine if they don't want to compete with men, but the statements were because "it's unfair". I was curious if there had been any studies on this.

> Considering I was asking whether there was evidence on trans-performance, sure it matters a little.

Well, (and I hesitate to say this because of HN guidelines, but) it was in the article, which I assumed you read. It was this assumption that made me think you wanted evidence that it is women who are complaining about competing against men.

FTFA

> Late last year Dr. Jane Thornton, the I.O.C.’s medical and scientific director and a Canadian former Olympic rower, presented the initial findings of a review of athletes who are transgender or have differences of sexual development, known as DSD, and are competing in women’s sports. That analysis, which has not been made public, stated athletes born with male sexual markers retained physical advantages, including among those that had received treatment to reduce testosterone.

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

#119

Post by [deleted] »

LetsGetTechnicl wrote: post #106
helterskelter wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trans men don't compete because women are essentially non competitive against men in top level athletics. Which is why trans women are controversial in women's sports. Every year there are hundreds of males highschoolers who outcompete females Olympic gold medalists. By allowing men to compete in women's sports you prioritize the notions of identity of what's usually a single individual over an entire class. It's pla…

Trans women are such a minority in women's sports it's really a non-issue that's been blown out of proportion. There was one trans woman who competed in the 2020 Olympics and she didn't even place. Riley Gaines has made a big deal in MAGA world about tying for 5th with a trans woman in a swimming competition. That means 4 cis women placed ahead of her, and if Lia Thomas hadn't competed, she still would've been in 5th…

[deleted]

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

#120

Post by AnEro »

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?

Many studies show with in ~10% female ranges of ability , but, having more fast twitch muscle fiber and bone mass from male puberty if they went through it. Bone mass does eventually drop to female levels but over decades not years so athletes would likely be out of athletic prime before that happens. Studies showing more dramatic results that stand out in my memory that lean toward transwomen outperforming transwomen are studies done on military veterans comparing to general population metrics of muscle mass for athletic activity levels also done with a very low population count I believe they only looked at under 300 trans women. Regardless we need more research, but there are a comically small amount of trans athletes seeking professional level sports, like I think Anecdotally, I found as a deskjob, pilates and casual weight lifting trans woman, I lost dramatic amount of strength and muscle mass. 20 pounds now feels like 50 pounds did for myself pre-transition. I usually participate with women and the instructor/personal helps with modifications usually aimed at women just getting into fitness. Running joke amongst friends is how easily I am outperformed by my female friends at the gym/pilates/etc. However, that's since my body is low testosterone even for females, its checked twice a year because of it, normally It's once a year for most trans people. Other friends retained a lot of their strength, but are mechanics, so its really situational in my opinion, and its a super hard and interesting topic of research because of it
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