Olympic Committee bars transgender athletes from women’s events • Hacker News Board

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

#661

Post by ahhhhnoooo » Fri, Mar 27, 2026, 1:37 AM UTC

ragall wrote: post #640

allreduce wrote: post #599

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The classification has always been based on sociological conceptions and is still based on such after this change. There have always been outliers who are sociologically women, but don't have the biological makeup most women have. That the criteria for admission are altered now to exclude some of them is motivated by anti-trans politics. Usually such rule changes are made when it becomes obvious that the old rules ca…

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You've posted this several times, and I think it represents a pretty narrow understanding of humans.

Like, gender clearly and obviously exists. Why do women wear make up and skirts, while men typically dont? Is there a biological need to do those things? Is that universal across all cultures?

Of course we have social norms for men and women. That set of norms is what gender is. Denying the idea that society expects different behaviors from men and women is frankly a pretty absurd take.

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

#662

Post by frumplestlatz » Fri, Mar 27, 2026, 1:39 AM UTC

citruscomputing wrote: post #589

michaelt wrote: post #513

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Competitive sport is unusual in that the whole thing is, in a sense, a search for outliers. Finding very rightmost person on the histogram of running speed or swimming ability or weightlifting strength. The very, very rare. The 7ft 6in guys. Then we put them on a podium, hand them a medal, and wrap them in a flag. In most other fields, outliers average out. The new subdivision of houses gets framed at the speed of th…

We have ceded too much ground in this debate. When I say "trans women are women" I mean that, ontologically, it is really true that trans women are a subcategory of the general class "women." Like you say, we are searching for outliers. We don't cut women that are too strong or too tall. We shouldn't cut out women that happen to be trans. If all the top levels of women's sport end up dominated by trans athletes (some…

If we’re going to take an ontological approach, is there a stable non-tautological definition of “woman” that admits your definition of the subcategory?

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

#663

Post by ahhhhnoooo » Fri, Mar 27, 2026, 1:40 AM UTC

locknitpicker wrote: post #369

callistocodes wrote: post #334

My two cents as a transfem athlete: The attention this topic receives is disproportionate considering how rare we are, especially close to the Olympics level. Most of us do sports for fun/friends and don’t care how they rank us, but would be sad to be banned. There might be more “biological advantage” nuance with people just starting their transition, but by this many years in it feels silly. I registered as a man fo…

> The attention this topic receives is disproportionate considering how rare we are, especially close to the Olympics level. We all remember state-sponsored doping scandals from the 60s where iron curtain nations invested heavily on medical research and experiments on prospective athletes to try to get medals. It's not hard to understand how badly this would turn out to be if the same sort of unscrupulous regime coul…

> It's not hard to understand how badly this would turn out to be if the same sort of unscrupulous regime could just abuse this loophole to seek the same benefit.

Surely this is something that can be addressed if it ever becomes a problem. Surely we don't need to write rules for scenarios that aren't causing issues...

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

#664

Post by slater » Fri, Mar 27, 2026, 1:40 AM UTC

ragall wrote: post #635

qingcharles wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of the rare problems where there exists no good solution to the issue. Even without taking transfem athletes into consideration, there still remains a problem for women's sports in that sex (not gender) is not fully black and white, male and female, and some high-performing female athletes show signs of intersex, which has caused this entire hysteria about checking for penises. How do you ever come up wit…

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There is.

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

#665

Post by whackernews » Fri, Mar 27, 2026, 1:42 AM UTC

thrance wrote: post #573

mvdtnz wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost every single person on Earth is not built of the right genetic stuff to compete with male Olympic athletes, me and you included. Why do we need a carve out for one particular group because of their genetic bad luck?

Because apparently it's OK to hate on trans people, scapegoat any current issue on this particular demographics, and do everything possible to make their lives as miserable as possible.

Where are you getting this impression?

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

#666

Post by secondcoming » Fri, Mar 27, 2026, 1:42 AM UTC

dangus wrote: post #591

qingcharles wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of the rare problems where there exists no good solution to the issue. Even without taking transfem athletes into consideration, there still remains a problem for women's sports in that sex (not gender) is not fully black and white, male and female, and some high-performing female athletes show signs of intersex, which has caused this entire hysteria about checking for penises. How do you ever come up wit…

It seems like we are creatively bankrupt if we can’t think of any solution. I think many of us could think of a good solution in literally seconds. And there’s a really good argument that a solution isn’t actually needed. Does the NBA need a solution for Steph Curry being the best 3 point shooter of all time and dominating his competition? Did the NFL need a solution for Tom Brady winning the Super Bowl 30% of the se…

> But as of now there is no such problem on any kind of significant scale.

This is not the same as saying there's no problem.

A fraction of humans will ever compete in the Olympics. People train their whole lives for it. It's not about 'scale', it's about safety and fairness. It's not reasonable to expect them to 'shut up' about it.

I don't want to watch a man beat up a woman in a boxing ring.

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

#667

Post by jojobas » Fri, Mar 27, 2026, 1:43 AM UTC

rideontime wrote: post #315

themgt wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

So it's the headline that's inaccurate. It should read "bars women with the SRY gene" rather than "transgender."

The former is included in the latter, so while inaccurate it's still correct.

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

#668

Post by rdevilla » Fri, Mar 27, 2026, 1:43 AM UTC

citruscomputing wrote: post #589

michaelt wrote: post #513

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Competitive sport is unusual in that the whole thing is, in a sense, a search for outliers. Finding very rightmost person on the histogram of running speed or swimming ability or weightlifting strength. The very, very rare. The 7ft 6in guys. Then we put them on a podium, hand them a medal, and wrap them in a flag. In most other fields, outliers average out. The new subdivision of houses gets framed at the speed of th…

We have ceded too much ground in this debate. When I say "trans women are women" I mean that, ontologically, it is really true that trans women are a subcategory of the general class "women." Like you say, we are searching for outliers. We don't cut women that are too strong or too tall. We shouldn't cut out women that happen to be trans. If all the top levels of women's sport end up dominated by trans athletes (some…

> When I say "trans women are women" I mean that, ontologically, it is really true that trans women are a subcategory of the general class "women."

I must now insist on pinning you to a particular philosophical position and indeed a citation, to avoid motte-and-bailey fallacies where, once your current stance is found nonviable, the definitions of words are, or the entire argument structure itself is, swapped around and re-defined post-hoc, such that "tails I win, heads you lose."

Axioms must be seen through to their conclusions, not accepted halfway and then abandoned for some other set of assumptions the instant you start running into paradoxes. You cannot simultaneously use ZFC and the New Foundations (without Choice); the system must remain internally consistent and coherent, there is no mixing and matching.

Ontology is found to be a subdiscipline of metaphysics (Wikipedia). Quoting Talia Mae Bettcher, a feminist gender theory professor:

    “transsexual claims to belong to a sex do not appear to be metaphysically
    justified: they are claims that self-identities ought to be definitive in
    terms of the question of sex membership and gendered treatment. They are
    therefore political in nature” (Bettcher 2014, 387).

Do you agree or disagree with the above quote?

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

#669

Post by fyredge » Fri, Mar 27, 2026, 1:44 AM UTC

michaelt wrote: post #513

callistocodes wrote: post #334

My two cents as a transfem athlete: The attention this topic receives is disproportionate considering how rare we are, especially close to the Olympics level. Most of us do sports for fun/friends and don’t care how they rank us, but would be sad to be banned. There might be more “biological advantage” nuance with people just starting their transition, but by this many years in it feels silly. I registered as a man fo…

Competitive sport is unusual in that the whole thing is, in a sense, a search for outliers. Finding very rightmost person on the histogram of running speed or swimming ability or weightlifting strength. The very, very rare. The 7ft 6in guys. Then we put them on a podium, hand them a medal, and wrap them in a flag. In most other fields, outliers average out. The new subdivision of houses gets framed at the speed of th…

Insightful indeed. It really frames the issue with trans athletes as a competition problem. We search for outliers yet arbitrarily limit the range of players available.

Gender segregation, weight classes, these are antithetical to the underlying aim of competitive sports. Perhaps we should completely do away with them, everyone competes in the same sport, separated only by leagues to reduce one-sided competition.

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

#670

Post by egberts1 » Fri, Mar 27, 2026, 1:45 AM UTC

callistocodes wrote: post #334

My two cents as a transfem athlete: The attention this topic receives is disproportionate considering how rare we are, especially close to the Olympics level. Most of us do sports for fun/friends and don’t care how they rank us, but would be sad to be banned. There might be more “biological advantage” nuance with people just starting their transition, but by this many years in it feels silly. I registered as a man fo…

400 transfems at Olympic events is rare?