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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

#231

Post by kelseyfrog »

trickyager wrote: post #189
harveychess wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would not be fair, because the point of having divisions is allow women to compete in a competition that is not dominated by men.

I think you're falling for Sticker Swap Fallacy. The goal is to have fair match-ups in sports. Gender and sex are two possible labels to use to assist with this, but they're imperfect enough that we probably ought to not use them as the primary differentiator. https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/C7LcpRtrHiKJRoAEp/sticker-sh...

The solution is simple: class every sport like boxing.

Pick a sports-relevant metric and split into divisions. Some sports will naturally fall into gendered divisions, while others will have varying degrees of co-ed competition among competitors of similar ability.

The way out of this is not to pick a better scissor of sex or gender, it's to pick a better scissor of ability.

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

#232

Post by Aurornis »

greygoo222 wrote: post #219
cmiles8 wrote: post #159

[flagged]

Transition changes biology. We don't yet have the technology to fully reverse the effects of male puberty, so there can be reasonable debate about trans women who transitioned after puberty, but early transitioners have no meaningful advantage. Their bodies, in an athletic context, are female. This is also true for many cisgender intersex women with XY chromosomes. Someone with androgen insensitivity can have XY chro…

> Their bodies, in an athletic context, are female.

I'm sorry, but this is not true. "Puberty blockers" do not complete suppress the effects of male genetics. They only attempt to block certain hormonal effects.

It is not possible to completely block the effects of having male genes by simple hormone modulation.

> Someone with androgen insensitivity can have XY chromosomes, yet be capable of giving birth

We do not determine eligibility for sports classes based on ability to give birth for good reason. It's not a proxy for the genetic athletic differences being addressed by these classes.

Individuals with androgen insensitivity typically cannot give birth. This an extremely rare possibility, not a typical feature of the condition.

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

#233

Post by themgt »

tdb7893 wrote: post #21

Trans women have competed as women in the Olympics once ever and have 0 medals. By the numbers it's a non issue under previous rules (despite the incredible amount of ink spilled over it). People are talking about trans women here but the vast majority of people affected by this change are women who are not trans who have a "disorder of sexual development".

The IOC policy is specifically that athletes need to test negative for the SRY gene to be eligible to compete in the female category. Imane Khelif won gold in the 2024 Summer Olympics women's boxing event, and has since admitted to having the SRY gene. So it isn't a non-issue.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imane_Khelif#2026

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

#234

Post by mvdtnz »

LetsGetTechnicl wrote: post #57
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…

Also there has only been one (1) trans woman, Laurel Hubbard, who has competed in a women's event (weightlifting) and she not place.

She didn't place at the Olympics but it's worth noting she was the oldest competitor by far, and this after she had cleaned up gold medals in numerous international competitions despite having a relatively thin background in the sport. She was expected to podium at the Olympics and it's not really clear why she performed so poorly (the only athlete in the division to DNF).

Mrs Hubbard's background, if you read it honestly, is great evidence for why this decision was the correct one.

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

#235

Post by greygoo222 »

lelanthran wrote: post #46
happymellon wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Citation? I asked because I'm curious, and Googling just gives opinion pieces and not data. [Edit] Currently -3 but no study referenced. Do people just not like the idea of providing evidence for their position? The women I've spoken to about this article cite men being the problem, whether its sexual harassment, or other sexist attitudes. Not one felt that trans participation in their sport of choice was in their to…

> 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

You can debate what policies are the most fair without calling trans women "men."

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

#236

Post by albertgoeswoof »

Aurornis wrote: post #226
r053bud wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Walk me through how you think this is going to be enforced? Athletes will need to start dropping their pants? Disgusting invasion of privacy.

The article already covered it: It's minimally invasive (cheek swab) testing typically for the SRY gene - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex-determining_region_Y_prote... This is less invasive than all of the other doping tests that athletes already go through, which require blood draws.

Doesn’t really work though - and given athletes are on the edge of performance there’s probably more people that fall in between than you might expect

From the Wikipedia article:

While the presence or absence of SRY has generally determined whether or not testis development occurs, it has been suggested that there are other factors that affect the functionality of SRY.[25] Therefore, there are individuals who have the SRY gene, but still develop as females, either because the gene itself is defective or mutated, or because one of the contributing factors is defective.[26] This can happen in individuals exhibiting a XY, XXY, or XX SRY-positive[27] karyotype[better source needed] Additionally, other sex determining systems that rely on SRY beyond XY are the processes that come after SRY is present or absent in the development of an embryo. In a normal system, if SRY is present for XY, SRY will activate the medulla to develop gonads into testes. Testosterone will then be produced and initiate the development of other male sexual characteristics. Comparably, if SRY is not present for XX, there will be a lack of the SRY based on no Y chromosome. The lack of SRY will allow the cortex of embryonic gonads to develop into ovaries, which will then produce estrogen, and lead to the development of other female sexual characteristics.[28]

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

#237

Post by cmiles8 »

DrJokepu wrote: post #223
homeonthemtn wrote: post #200

I always thought the more elegant approach to all of this was to add a mixed sex league. Keep the traditions, add a novel new one, and let people consent to who they want to compete against and watch

That already exists. That’s the men’s category. There are no rules forbidding women from competing in men’s categories at Olympic events.

Correct and it’s the same in many sports. Theres generally not “men’s golf” and “women’s golf” there’s just “golf” and “women’s golf.”

Women are not excluded from golf tournaments, but the requirements to compete (primarily how far one hits the ball) are vastly different. Thats why both play the same golf course, just from different tee boxes.

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

#238

Post by amykhar »

When I was growing up, I remember some drama because East German and Soviet male athletes were trying to compete as women. If male to female trans athletes were allowed to compete, I imagine it would just be a matter of time before a female athlete would HAVE to be trans in order to stand a competitive chance.

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

#239

Post by lux-lux-lux »

lelanthran wrote: post #205
brendoelfrendo wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A mid-tier male athletic transitions, and then blows the female record out of the water and gets gold. Do you have an example of this happening?

Lia Thomas. Why are all these innocent questioners asking for more evidence not familiar with the existence of the evidence they are asking for? Considering they feel so strongly about it, they should already have seen all this.

Pre-transition Lia Thomas wasn’t mid-tier, but I suspect you already knew that

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

#240

Post by hananova »

This also bans cis women with genetic anomalies. Until men with genetic anomalies are equally banned from sports (for example, being an outlier in height for basketball), this is nothing more than a misogynist attempt to make women’s sport as unimpressive and average as possible. Rules set by mostly old men of course.

Remember, sport is and has always been about statistical outliers competing. Fairness has never been, and will never be, a genuine consideration.

It’s also mighty interesting how it’s always the male division that’s open, until you happen to have a sport where women are beating men at it, and then suddenly it’s the women’s division that’s the open one! (See shooting.)

Stuff like this is why professional sports is widely seen as a cheater’s club where everyone tries to cheat as hard as possible just shy of getting caught, then acts completely innocent and indignant when someone else just barely crosses the line into getting caught.

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