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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

#951

Post by moi2388 »

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…

Disproportionate to how rare perhaps, but not disproportionate to how loud.

Furthermore I’d argue rarity is not really an argument here. A new doping could also initially be rare; it would still provide an unfair advantage.

Anecdotal evidence also is meaningless. I might lose a sprinting race to a trained woman, but that doesn’t mean male sprinters aren’t inherently better than female sprinters. They obviously and clearly are.

In any case, I’d personally have no issue with this in friendly matches. Also I think olympically speaking this would be a perfect case for the paralympics, who have experience with (arbitrarily) adjusting competitions for varying levels of bodily differences.

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

#952

Post by nerdsniper »

space_fountain wrote: post #898
lesostep wrote: post #818

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd argue about testosterone. High testosterone happens in some woman naturally, why exclude them? They still are woman, they should have a right to participate. Height is also an advantage in sports, and women statistically are much shorter then man, should we ban tall woman from sports? Should we say "she exhibits a male amount of height, it isn't fair to let her participate with 'normal' woman"? The more "fair" we…

My view is that testosterone is a reasonable thing to discriminate on because: 1. It is causally connected to primary and secondary sex characteristics 2. It has a large impact on performance in many sports 3. It's easy to explain to most people and somewhat matches people's intuitions around fairness But, yes, it is true that there are cis women with high T levels and it is somewhat unfair and arbitrary to include t…

It's dumb because there are two types of hyper/hypo-gonadism. "Primary" hypergonadism is where you have way more of the hormone in your blood stream. You're advocating testing for only "primary hypergonadism" in women.

Secondary hypergonadism is where someone has a normal concentration of the hormone in their blood, but they have an unusual abundance of hormone receptors.

The effects are the same, but currently we can only measure secondary hypergonadism during an autopsy/dissection.

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

#953

Post by blks »

walthamstow wrote: post #886
blks wrote: post #865

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You sure about that? I rarely see any debate on the left about trans rights, but I see various right wing politicians and media constantly beat the drums about trans people - bathrooms, sports, claiming them all to be pedophiles, “transinvestigating” various celebrities or figures. Current US executive branch made a few directed hits against trans people, for example creating a bunch of problems with passports. Trans…

> Trans panic is doubly popular on the right That's what I said. I'm not sure what you read.

My bad, I read it as “doubtly”, if it’s even a word.

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

#954

Post by LenaRyouna »

UncleMeat wrote: post #696
aucisson_masque wrote: post #578

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one cares at amateur levels but we are speaking of the Olympic. I'm all for transgender to do sport, have fun and even compete but Olympic games are about who is the best of the world. If you chose to identify as another sex, you can accept to give up on competing at the highest of the highest level. It's not like a big sacrifice.

Tons of groups rage at trans girls in high school sports, to the point of sending bomb threats. This wont stop at the olympics.

Isn't the solution simple? People have the freedom to think themselves to be whatever they are, but for established rules, they can either choose to comply or not participate.

Just because a person identifies them as x, doesn't automatically mean other people have to be forced to accept them the same way. Just have a separate section for trans people in high school, separate for biological women etc.

The whole point of women's sports is arbitrary, and just as much as people should respect the freedom of a person to identify themselves as whatever they want to, the same people should respect the arbitrary rules of women's sports.

The issue is the people who want the world to be forced to accommodate them without consent.

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

#955

Post by dangus »

lstodd wrote: post #844
dangus wrote: post #825

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> from our PoV there most certainly were widespread attempts to rig them, mostly from Dem side Oof, I feel bad for whatever news network you are getting your American coverage from. You might want to look into who owns that news network. This is a very common political message specifically originating from the Republican Party’s media network (e.g., Murdoch-owned media, Turning Point USA, etc).

To "get coverage from a news network" is ignorance bordering on pure madness. They are almost exclusively propaganda and manipulation and as such the only useful signal that can be extracted is something like "how those people chose to frame certain events they feel they can't ignore in hopes of them going unnoticed". Note I'm talking about our local ones, in my opinion yours do not differ materially in this aspect.…

I just respectfully disagree with your view in a whole lot of ways.

I don't know how you can be aware of things like the January 6 insurrection and the fake electors scheme and believe that election fraud is "mostly dems."

We have a recorded phone call of Donald Trump asking the Georgia secretary of state to "find 11,780 votes" for him.

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

#956

Post by UncleMeat »

LenaRyouna wrote: post #954
UncleMeat wrote: post #696

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tons of groups rage at trans girls in high school sports, to the point of sending bomb threats. This wont stop at the olympics.

Isn't the solution simple? People have the freedom to think themselves to be whatever they are, but for established rules, they can either choose to comply or not participate. Just because a person identifies them as x, doesn't automatically mean other people have to be forced to accept them the same way. Just have a separate section for trans people in high school, separate for biological women etc. The whole point…

People said the same thing about racial integration.

As for a separate league for trans women... there are frequently like a couple dozen trans women athletes in an entire state. How exactly will that work for a separate league?

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

#957

Post by remarkEon »

ahhhhnoooo wrote: post #946
remarkEon wrote: post #935

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s this phenomenon in this thread where commenters are taking something that’s superficially similar and then making an extreme claim that, upon inspection, does not hold up at all or is completely irrelevant to the argument being made. That is what is happening here. “An adult’s hair color can be different than what it was at birth” is a true statement, but of course is not relevant at all to the claim that one…

Except gender is as malleable as hair color. Sex isn't, but gender is. Gender is the social expectations for a human in the context of a specific culture. If I live in Virginia until adulthood, then move to American Samoa, my gender expression is going to radically change. I'll start wearing skirts. If I then move to Qatar, my gender expression will change again. I might still think of myself as a man through those c…

>Except gender is as malleable as hair color.

Incredible statement, and you contradict yourself later on in your response. If I go put on a skirt that does not change my gender. You are, perhaps intentionally, injecting commentary on differing cultural norms on gender expression in order to deflect from prior statements that are more definitive on the malleability of gender itself. There's that motte and bailey, again.

>For some cultures, genitals have little to no bearing on one's social expectations. Fit into the role that feels right, who cares about what is in your DNA

This is fantasy, but I'll play a long for a minute. If one's physical characteristics have little to no bearing on one's social expectations [for gender], then why is it necessary to implement significant physical alterations via medications and surgery to "fit" into a role that feels right?

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

#958

Post by ahhhhnoooo »

remarkEon wrote: post #957
ahhhhnoooo wrote: post #946

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except gender is as malleable as hair color. Sex isn't, but gender is. Gender is the social expectations for a human in the context of a specific culture. If I live in Virginia until adulthood, then move to American Samoa, my gender expression is going to radically change. I'll start wearing skirts. If I then move to Qatar, my gender expression will change again. I might still think of myself as a man through those c…

>Except gender is as malleable as hair color. Incredible statement, and you contradict yourself later on in your response. If I go put on a skirt that does not change my gender. You are, perhaps intentionally, injecting commentary on differing cultural norms on gender expression in order to deflect from prior statements that are more definitive on the malleability of gender itself. There's that motte and bailey, agai…

> why is it necessary to implement significant physical alterations via medications and surgery to "fit" into a role that feels right?

Good question, there's three answers here:

1) It's not necessary. Many trans people do not want or do not get bottom surgery. It's an incredibly difficult surgery, and many folks also believe it's unnecessary to be trans.

2) The cultural group that the trans person belongs to will only accept them if they have the surgery, so the trans person must perform it to be recognized.

3) Some trans folks experience sexual dysphoria, seeing one's birth genitals causes anxiety, discomfort, and depression.

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

#959

Post by crote »

EA-3167 wrote: post #878
crote wrote: post #760

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that decisions at the olympic level tend to trickle down to lower competitions. There are plenty of sports where the gap between "college kid having fun" and "Olympics" isn't very wide.

Fortunately there's a big gap between "College kids" and "Kids", and by the time you're in college it's not just about having fun anymore. Sports in college, whether we like it or not, are a large source of upward mobility for a lot of people, sometimes whole families and communities. College sports can determine access to college through the system of scholarships, and of course they can lead directly to pro careers…

> by the time you're in college it's not just about having fun anymore

As someone who played sports in college, for >99% of people it really was just about having fun: you're hanging out with your friends, getting some exercise, and doing something enjoyable. I exercised side-by-side with people who went on to represent my country on the international stage and their dedication was definitely the exception.

No silly scholarships involved here, though: I live in the EU, so education is reasonably affordable to everyone without it, and the colleges don't feel the need to pretend to be professional sports teams.

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

#960

Post by crote »

pneumic wrote: post #892
crote wrote: post #748

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what about the kids who already get all of that and still say they are transgender? Should they perhaps be treated like they actually are transgender, or do you propose forced conversion therapy - like we tried in the past with gay people and left-handed people? Puberty blockers aren't being handed out like candy. There's a rather intense psychological diagnostic process before it.

Give them love and care, and let them grow out of it. Do not sterilize and mutilate them—a most extreme form of “conversion therapy”.

You assume they will "grow out of it". You are ignoring the fact that the majority of them won't grow out of it - even when given love and care.
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