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

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

#781

Post by gorgoiler » Fri, Mar 27, 2026, 9:02 AM UTC

jakeinspace wrote: post #309

fxwin wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.) Just in case you're referring to Zhang Shan winning Gold in 1992: the decision to bar women from competing in the 1996 Olympics was made before Zhang had won her medal. [0] > Until men with gen…

I would argue that it's the formerly presumed binary nature of sex/gender that made it a logical split for all sports. While marital arts and weightlifting tend to seperate by weight as well, that is because those particular events are particularly biased toward muscle mass and height/reach by proxy. Most sports are less clearly advantaged by size (soccer, for example). You just can't practically divide entire team s…

The sports in which I’ve competed — cross country cycling and cross country running — also have handicaps for age. I always liked that type of system because it also gives both the open results and results by category, and there are lots of categories. W20 can thrash an M30, and plenty of M20s too, even if the overall winner is likely to be an M20.

It was simplistic for sure but gender identity was only a proxy for the handicap that impacted performance: the genetic disadvantage of not having been through a natural male puberty. If we can no longer rely on gender identity as the proxy then it makes sense to either drop the handicap system altogether, or refine it to look at the performance enhancing impact of genetics rather than what your pronouns are.

s/W(..)/F$1/; # Women -> Female

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

#782

Post by frm88 » Fri, Mar 27, 2026, 9:22 AM UTC

fwip wrote: post #452

braingravy wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mid-tier or not is a judgement call. Regardless, Lia went from not being in the front of the pack, to being in the front of the pack: “By the conclusion of Thomas's swimming career at UPenn in 2022, her rank had moved from 65th on the men's team to 1st on the women's team in the 500-yard freestyle, and 554th on the men's team to fifth on the women's team in the 200-yard freestyle.” 65th to 1st in one category, and 55…

Yeah, generally you get better in your sport in the 4-5 years you're in college. She was already putting up crazy numbers as a freshman on the men's team. From Wikipedia: > Thomas began swimming on the men's team at the University of Pennsylvania in 2017. During her freshman year, Thomas recorded a time of eight minutes and 57.55 seconds in the 1,000-yard freestyle that ranked as the sixth-fastest national men's time…

Nitpick: the references 4 of the wiki page point to a CNN article which in turn references times and rankings that don't exist any longer. A little more investigation shows that all of Thoms' titles were revoked and a court case allowing Thomas to the Olympics was also lost. The wiki is badly out of date.

https://www.sportingnews.com/us/college/news/lia-thomas-stri...

https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-news/lia-thomas-loses-le...

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

#783

Post by lstodd » Fri, Mar 27, 2026, 9:24 AM UTC

dangus wrote: post #593

qu4z-2 wrote: post #530

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 I'm staying out of the other issue as best I can, but as a non-American the resistance to this is just baffling, especially given the fact your recent elections have not exactly been widely trusted internally. Not that I'm saying there was much merit to the distrust, but it still makes sense to take s…

The issue isn’t the proof of citizenship. The issue is that poll taxes are unconstitutional and there is no state that I’m aware of that makes the acquisition of identification documents free of cost. I’m honestly quite surprised that politicians don’t resolve this idiotic situation because it’s so damn simple, but I think it’s not solved because various state governments rely on small fees for revenue. And of course…

Thanks for clarifying. Not being of USA I didn't even consider the angle about having to pay for government ID - it's a very alien concept for us in eastern europe at least.

Election fraud on the other hand.. this we are very familiar with. Reaction to the coverage of last three US presidential elections was mostly "oh, how cute, such naive first attempts". So from our PoV there most certainly were widespread attempts to rig them, mostly from Dem side, and so very unprofessional, that their existence cannot be denied in good faith.

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

#784

Post by frm88 » Fri, Mar 27, 2026, 9:32 AM UTC

jkbbwr wrote: post #500

cvwright wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re conveniently ignoring the Olympic boxing champion from 2024 who beat the absolute shit out of the female competitors.

Are you talking about Imane Khelif? The woman who was born a woman, competed her whole life as a woman and is still last time I checked, a woman?

A woman with an SRY gene undergoing treatment to reduce testosterone levels to typical female level. https://nypost.com/2026/02/06/sports/imane-khelif-opens-up-o...

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

#785

Post by AlOwain » Fri, Mar 27, 2026, 9:39 AM UTC

peyton wrote: post #477

TimorousBestie wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately pointless, mostly symbolic things attract the most hysterical reactions from people.

Five billion people followed the Paris Olympics. It’s actually kind of important.

I doubt that 5 billion people could watch the Olympics at all.

Where I am from, there is so little interest in the Olympics that I doubt even half my countries' population would be interested. I have never watched the Olympics ever, and amongst my family and friends, there is little to no mention of it. It is a minor cultural phenomena. This seems to me like there were large extrapolations made.

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

#786

Post by 113 » Fri, Mar 27, 2026, 10:01 AM UTC

happymellon wrote: post #19

lelanthran wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

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…

Here is a meta-analysis that says trans women don't exhibit significant differences in performance: https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/60/3/198

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

#787

Post by mr_mitm » Fri, Mar 27, 2026, 10:05 AM UTC

kelseyfrog wrote: post #554

fourseventy wrote: post #536

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Men are stronger, faster, have more dense bones, have bigger lungs, bigger hands, etc, etc, etc. Men and women are different in hundreds of ways it's not just 'lean body mass'. Men are better at sports than women. Do you even live in reality? Have you ever completed in anything in your life?

Then create those divisions. Please be rational.

Those divisions already exists. Most sports have different leagues. There are international leagues, national leagues, regional leagues, all the way down to hobby leagues or beer leagues. If we assign everyone into a league independent of gender, the highest leagues (the most popular and most lucrative ones) will be exclusively men and women will only be present in the lower leagues. No one can want this outcome.

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

#788

Post by allreduce » Fri, Mar 27, 2026, 10:11 AM UTC

ragall wrote: post #688

ahhhhnoooo wrote: post #661

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There's no such thing as gender separate from sex. There's the recognition of one's immutable, inherent, sex, and tacking social expectations on top of it, but never that one could choose, or "feel". Always derived, never a choice. And when people allowed cross-dressing, it was always clear it was fake, pretending, never true. But they allowed people to have their personal delusions. The origin of this use of "gender…

You seem to be partly arguing from a position of ignorance.

The trans-ness some people experience is extremely general and durable, far more consistent with the explanation that they innately are their gender somehow[^1], than with choice or psychosis. Some people feel pressured by this to, despite all the societal dis-incentives, medically transition. They then are not only their gender in behavior and reported experience, but also physically (with the exception of some hard-to-change stuff such as fertility).

We usually handle such general, durable "personal delusions" by accepting them. If I studied some math for years, can do said math and am employed at my local university doing mathematics, I am a mathematician. I do not have delusions of being a mathematician. If I move to, say Germany, and after years speak the language, have children there, participate in the local culture, and have a citicenship I am now German. Only the most backward people would say I have delusions of being German. Although, this cultural rigidity of course exists, I do not see it as desirable. An advanced society should accept and accomodate its outliers instead of steamrolling over them and making them suffer.

[^1]: Afaik currently a neuroscientific explanation is not forthcoming

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

#789

Post by puppykito » Fri, Mar 27, 2026, 10:14 AM UTC

ImJamal wrote: post #476

nekusar wrote: post #306

The fair answer is to remove sex, gender, and everything related to that from classification. Dont look at it. Dont consider it. Everyone competes together. It means that floor gymnastics is fair for *anyone* to compete in. None of this "wrong crotch shape" bullshit. Or intersex. Or trans. If you are good enough, you get in. If not, you dont. And the whole trans argument would go away. Means testing and gender means…

Women would win almost no sports competition. Maybe that is fine in your view, but many women want to have a chance at winning.

And apparently trans women do not want that same chance at winning lol.

I find it appalling that only cis women get to have that chance, while literally banning trans women (and some unconventional cis women too) because of the way they were born and brought up.

Like that is the definition of discrimination one way or another.

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

#790

Post by puppykito » Fri, Mar 27, 2026, 10:26 AM UTC

happytoexplain wrote: post #29

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...

On this topic, I feel like "why do some people care a lot about this" is probably the question least in search of an answer.

Any chance this anti-trans lobby (the right, lobbies, whatever they are) gets to erase trans people out of public life, whether at high Olympics level or at dumb for-fun high school level, they will take it. They will always try to make it so that the would-be suffering of a non existent cis woman who got beaten by a trans woman is so so much more important than the clear discrimination that trans women (and trans men, and unconventional cis women) deal with these rulings.

If it were happening at an unprecedented level, I would totally understand the attention and such, but this is just painful to see.

The same can be applied to gender affirming care for trans youth, bathrooms, etc. It is always about the "may be hurt woman" than the actively being hurt real trans people.

Gosh I hate feeling like a second class citizen.