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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

#441

Post by etherus »

putzdown wrote: post #74
tensor wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's in fact possible to develop a female body with XY chromosomes: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6586948/ Also warning that article has images that may be inappropriate in a public setting. I didn't realize when I linked it.

Thank you. But the Y test still seems sufficient. Every criterion will have false positives and negatives. With the Y test the false negative (you present as a woman but have a Y chromosome) is rare and the vast majority of cases are handled well. If you have this condition you must compete against men (given the Y chromosome test rule) or not compete. If you’re dying to be in the Olympics as a woman but have the Y c…

But that's a contradiction, no? We're saving women from other women and barring trans people also (ones we consider men) because of a perceived risk that I don't see evidence for (i.e. people choosing to compete as women on a malicious basis or with an 'innate advantage' that makes it dangerous - we've had a long time of running these sports without this sort of regulation, and it seems to be a political choice more than a reaction to evidence that women are being outcompeted by trans people). This is also assuming that having a y chromosome makes it fair for people with a y chromosome to compete against one another, but if you compare people's physiology these people who present as women often have low/no testosterone. Separating on the line of testosterone picks up a lot of female athletes (especially at the olympic level) that are not trans, and overall I just see this hurting women without evidence that it's actually a response to harm. In any case, trans people and gender non conforming women become the victims of this in the public sphere. It just seems very misguided.

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

#442

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

baumy wrote: post #311
kelseyfrog wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is, we're already using a scissor for ability, just a poor one with the exact problem you describe - it renders trans women unable to make a living playing professional sports. Throwing one group under the bus for another cannot be avoided so long as sex or gender are part of sports divisions. Please let go of the need for this.

You are clearly out of your depth. Have you ever competed in high level sports? Please don't speak on things you know nothing about. It takes a lot of gall to tell someone 'please let go of the need for this' when they are pointing this out. I will do no such thing, but I likely will give up trying to educate you. I won't respond further unless you pick an example sport, and propose how your "scissor for ability" wou…

I have competed in reasonably high level sports, and my wife was US Masters duathlete of the year a few years ago (with me as her coach). I think you're wrong, though it's easy to see why.

Currently, with sex-based categories, a woman can be declared "the best in the world" and most people won't waste much time on the question "yeah, but could she beat the best men?" (granted, some will). They will accept that, e.g. she has the fastest time over 26.2 miles in the world right now, even though a few hundred or a few thousand men worldwide are faster.

If you use performance based metrics to create the categories (the way that road cycling does, for example, though still within gender divisions), that "title" would go away, and likely a woman would only be "the best in the world in division X", other than in (as you noted) some endurance, climbing and gymnastics sports where an elite subset of women could potentially be the best of "top" category.

It isn't completely obvious that this is a negative - how much of a change it would be would depend on a lot of other changes (or lack thereof) in how sport was organized. Certainly if it continued to focus on only the top division, then women would be shut out of most opportunities to be professional. But that's not inherent in the design. I do concede, however, that it is quite a likely outcome of such a category structure.

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

#443

Post by waterhouse »

fwip wrote: post #412
nradov wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, I guess that's an option for youth sports in the prepubescent age groups. As a practical matter most youth sports leagues and schools aren't going to hassle with sex screening tests for little kids. But once puberty hits everything changes. My teenage daughter played travel club volleyball on a pretty good team, and during practice they would occasionally run drills with the boys team. Even at that age the diff…

You believe that women are genetically more susceptible to concussions than men are?

https://healthcare.utah.edu/healthfeed/2024/09/uneven-playin...

“Women tend to have thinner skulls than men, along with smaller neck muscles, which can predispose female athletes to getting a concussion,” says Sarah Menacho, MD, a neurosurgeon and neurocritical care specialist at University of Utah Health. “Data shows that women are also more likely than men to report concussion-related symptoms, and these symptoms can persist for a longer time period prior to recovery than in male athletes.”

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

#444

Post by zahlman »

UncleMeat wrote: post #368
cm2187 wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Already exists, it's what people refer to as "male olympics". As far as I know, females aren't banned from competing. It is just that they don't stand a chance in most disciplines. The whole point of female olympics is to keep males out.

That’s not true. Men’s gymnastics and women’s gymnastics are totally different sets of events and men would get trounced in a women’s event.

Putting aside that you argue entirely by assertion, that is one discipline, which therefore does not contradict the claim about "most disciplines".

Meanwhile the gap is well known to be massive in typical events, e.g.:

* Compare https://worldpowerlifting.com/records/womens-world-records/ vs https://worldpowerlifting.com/records/mens-world-records/ (or for that matter, browse through https://exrx.net/Testing/WeightLifting/StrengthStandards)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women's_100_metres_world_recor... plateaued at numbers seen in men's competition over a century ago; a "sub-elite" female competitor sprints barely ahead of "intermediate recreational" men per https://marathonhandbook.com/average-100-meter-time/ . Griffith-Joyner's record-setting time would not have even qualified her to run with men since at least 2000: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/100_metres_at_the_Olympics

* I often hear it suggested that women show an advantage in longer races, but even at standard marathon length this is not borne out in results: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Boston_Marathon

* National and international level competitive women's sports teams regularly get trounced by teenaged boys in exhibition e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDH_r7-GN4o widely reported on last year and https://www.cbssports.com/soccer/news/a-dallas-fc-under-15-b... from 2017

* The entire history of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Sexes_(tennis) requires quite a bit of creative interpretation to put women's tennis anywhere near the level of men's

That's just off the top of my head of anecdotes and examples I can recall being casually thrown around in these sorts of discussions.

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

#445

Post by lbreakjai »

2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #254
kelseyfrog wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Doesn’t Boxing use weight classes?

Weight classes within gender classes. Women would have no chance to compete against men of identical weight, all else equal. Men have more lean mass.

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

#446

Post by etherus »

huntny wrote: post #430
etherus wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you were required to compete with people of a gender you do not identify with, even when event organisers recognise you as more fitting among the other group, that's a ban. There are trans masc people. Requiring them to compete with women is unfair and disrespectful. Requiring trans fem people to do so is the same. The rules around gender identification in regulated sports require proof of medical treatment yada y…

[flagged]

Is this happening? I believe there are ~10 trans ncaa athletes. We're just hunting them. Why?

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

#447

Post by johnnyanmac »

loteck wrote: post #227

I wish people would care a lot less about sports.

Imagine this energy put into labor reform, minumum wage, universal Healthcare, Imagine this fervor when your representatives are actively harboring sex assailants.

But alas. It's easier to spread hate than enact positive change.

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

#448

Post by nradov »

fwip wrote: post #412
nradov wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, I guess that's an option for youth sports in the prepubescent age groups. As a practical matter most youth sports leagues and schools aren't going to hassle with sex screening tests for little kids. But once puberty hits everything changes. My teenage daughter played travel club volleyball on a pretty good team, and during practice they would occasionally run drills with the boys team. Even at that age the diff…

You believe that women are genetically more susceptible to concussions than men are?

Yes. It's not a matter of belief, sex differences in concussion risk have been extensively studied.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-sports-concus...

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

#449

Post by erxam »

huntny wrote: post #435
erxam wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

No it's because in almost every sport, male sex development bestows significant performance advantages. This is easy to see even with a casual glance. Look at the world records for any sport with measurable and comparable metrics, like times for swimming, running, etc. The difference between the most elite female and male athletes is stark.

The differences are marginal and mostly depend on the hormonal load present in each individual athlete.

Males are not scrutinized anywhere near as closely, so they always get away with higher levels of anabolic steroids/hGH/rhEPO/random peptides than women would. Women are subject to constant, consistent testing, while male doping testing is basically an honor system (just don't be too obvious about it).

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