theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
Maybe you should stick with what you are thinking.
Trans Women are not Women
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tyr_13
Penultimate Amazing
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Huh? Being a woman is not a disability, and yet many sports have separate categories for women. There simply is no need to view trans women as 'less than' nor as 'disabled' to exclude them from some sporting categories. There does not need to be a stigma attached, especially as some 'sports' that are gender separated are pretty arbitrary in that regard (chess).
That is not actually a rare view inside the trans community. Honestly though, looking at this only through the lens of 'trans' limits the discussion in sort of a weird way that detracts from the larger conversation to be had about fairness, the place of sport in society, and what limitations should be placed.
Would a cis woman who produces muscles like cis men do also have an unfair advantage? A man who has a condition that lets him perform well beyond other humans? Now those might get the 'natural' handwave, but say that man gets cancer and then stops producing the growth/repair/maintain hormones that he was naturally producing, but could replace them artificially. Would it be fair to let him return those levels to their 'natural' place, even though another competitor doing the exact same thing would be disqualified for doping?
Overall I think the competition aspect of sports, especially for high school kids, is gargantuanly over-emphasized. It should be nowhere near as important as our society has made it, but that's somewhat off topic.
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Strawberry
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Maybe I should because the rest of you seem to have gone down the rabbit hole of lady brains and men trapped in women's bodies.
Gender dysphoria is a mental illness, end of.
I think they missed an obvious 4th option
Just have another category
Men, women, trans
theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
I'm pretty sure defining something as a mental illness is only the beginning of the discussion.
TurkeysGhost
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Trans people account for less than 1% of the population. I don't think the population is large enough to constitute a separate league, at least not at the local school level.
Well I think if you actually want to make it fair to all concerned then it is either that or facing the fact that not being able to participate in competitive sports is another thing you have to add as a consequence of transitioning to female.
It sucks. I know, but loads of things in life suck.
People born with severe disabilities can't compete either.
You got dealt a **** life deck, get over yourself.
The Atheist
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Nasty conundrum on that.
From a physical - and presumably psychological - perspective, transitioning is much more effective if started before puberty.
Easy fix - have a "non-binary gender" third grade that allow MtF and FtM trans to compete against each other, along with those of indeterminate/intersex gender, like Caster Semenya and the other two medal winners at the Rio 800m for women.
I don't see how that's unfair to any of them.
theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
Nobody said anything about attaching a stigma.
Being a woman isn't a disability. But maybe suffering from gender dysphoria is a disability.
If you're cismale, and an athlete, and competing in the men's division causes you psychological suffering, is that a disability? If the only thing that mitigates your suffering is being allowed to compete as a woman in the women's division, is that a disability?
And if that's the only way to treat your condition, does it really make sense to deny you that option? Does it really help you in any way to have a non-cisgendered division for you to compete in?
Ziggurat
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That part there is what I'm not comfortable with. I don't feel like this has been at all adequately established. Unfortunately, given the intrinsic difficulties of the problem, it's basically impossible to do the kind of study that would best establish this in an ethical manner.
Some quick thoughts:
1. In my opinion, no-one should have to change how they were born (including drugging themselves) to compete - if you're born appearing female and find out that genetically you're XXY or XY with androgen insensitivity and have an advantage, so be it. Just like if you're born taller, stronger, with 6 fingers, whatever. I read that the English (?) rowing team a few years ago recruited women even with no rowing experience who were athletic and had a good ratio of arm to body length, for purposes of rowing, i.e. who had an inborn advantage in that sport. Unfair, or just, picking people born with an advantage?
2. Medical procedures, devices, drugs should be allowed if no serious competitive advantage. So someone who has artificial legs that may allow them to be significantly faster (like Pistorius, who was known for that before manslaughter conviction), that may be an issue. Or if someone identifies as female but is pre-op and not taking hormones, they have a significant competitive advantage in many sports. Whereas if it can be demonstrated that because of hormones etc. muscle mass has been lost and the person no longer has a significant competitive advantage, they should be allowed to compete.
3. I've read in the past that some wheelchair athletes etc. want their sports open to people who aren't disabled, so that it may be seen more as a sport with specific equipment, rather than a sport which only the disabled may pursue. Which makes sense to me. The only wheelchair sport I ever competed in (I'm not disabled, they needed more participants) was wheelchair fencing, and my recollection is that there were competitive categories, e.g. someone who had full upper-body strength and reaction times was in a different category from someone with more limited upper-body mobility or speed. Which also made sense to me, presumably those advocating an open policy on competing in wheelchair events mean only at the highest levels.
1. In my opinion, no-one should have to change how they were born (including drugging themselves) to compete - if you're born appearing female and find out that genetically you're XXY or XY with androgen insensitivity and have an advantage, so be it. Just like if you're born taller, stronger, with 6 fingers, whatever. I read that the English (?) rowing team a few years ago recruited women even with no rowing experience who were athletic and had a good ratio of arm to body length, for purposes of rowing, i.e. who had an inborn advantage in that sport. Unfair, or just, picking people born with an advantage?
2. Medical procedures, devices, drugs should be allowed if no serious competitive advantage. So someone who has artificial legs that may allow them to be significantly faster (like Pistorius, who was known for that before manslaughter conviction), that may be an issue. Or if someone identifies as female but is pre-op and not taking hormones, they have a significant competitive advantage in many sports. Whereas if it can be demonstrated that because of hormones etc. muscle mass has been lost and the person no longer has a significant competitive advantage, they should be allowed to compete.
3. I've read in the past that some wheelchair athletes etc. want their sports open to people who aren't disabled, so that it may be seen more as a sport with specific equipment, rather than a sport which only the disabled may pursue. Which makes sense to me. The only wheelchair sport I ever competed in (I'm not disabled, they needed more participants) was wheelchair fencing, and my recollection is that there were competitive categories, e.g. someone who had full upper-body strength and reaction times was in a different category from someone with more limited upper-body mobility or speed. Which also made sense to me, presumably those advocating an open policy on competing in wheelchair events mean only at the highest levels.
Ziggurat
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There are claims that this has been demonstrated for many athletes on hormone therapy, but those claims are disputable. The differences between women and men aren't just muscle mass. For runners (as in the case mentioned in the OP), men have narrower hips and a smaller Q angle, which makes for a more efficient stride. Hormone therapy cannot change that. I don't think hormone therapy decreases the neuromuscular efficiency advantage that men have over women either.
tyr_13
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So? There is a stigma currently, whether or not anyone here claimed it.
It generally isn't one. I know of no cases of it being so.
Is that a thing that exists with robust study and evidence of treatment effectiveness?
That's one of the biggest problem with all trans gender related discussions; hypothetical conditions and treatments are treated as equivalent stand-ins for things we have a lot of evidence for.
Basically as your hypothetical condition doesn't exist and its hypothetical treatment doesn't exist, and neither are equivalent to being trans gender, I don't think exploring it will help advance any understanding. (My examples actually exist by the way.)
davefoc
Philosopher
Perhaps you would like Farsi? I was having a conversation with my friend that was born in Iran a few days ago and I was amazed to learn that Farsi doesn't have masculine and feminine pronouns. He mentioned to me that this was a part of English that he still has trouble with because in Farsi he didn't need to identify the sex of the individual to use a pronoun.
He ran home and she ran home in Farsi (Persian) from Google translate:
او به خانه زد
او به خانه زد
davefoc
Philosopher
For me, the biggest problem with trans gender related discussions is the lack of concern by advocates that people who wish to pursue a transgender life and are encouraged to do so are not as well off as people who wish to pursue a transgender life that are counseled that there is no medical method to accomplish what they wish and they should seriously consider that what they want is impossible. I differentiate between men that want to act and dress like women and men that want to be women. It is possible for men to dress and act like women and I'm fine with that if that is what they want to do.
This idea, of course, places me with the religious right and almost every social conservative group going. I am not with those groups on most social issues and being criticized for having a view that is outside the groups I normally agree with is not much of a problem for me. Although my daughters tend to see my thoughts about this as at best uninformed. And they might be right.
I believe the second biggest problem is the ridiculous lengths that some people have gone to support transgender people by promoting and/or allowing transgender females to compete with biological females. This absurd approach is rightly rejected by right wing folks who see this as further proof of left wing craziness. Standing with transgender people on this undermines society's acceptance of transgender people whether from the right or the left.
FWIW, I do not stand with the right in any way on the choice of bathroom nonsense. This is a made up issue designed to energize their base on a wedge issue.
applecorped
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This
Roger Ramjets
Philosopher
It is in some sports.
But it's irrelevant. Men may be stronger than women on average, but people come in all sizes and physiques, both male and female. That doesn't mean a person has the right to pick which events to compete in based only on physical ability or gender or any other attribute - or perhaps it does - depending on the rules for that event.
All of you people talking about what categories a person 'should' be allowed to compete in should can it. The rules are made by sports organizers and players. So long as they don't violate any other laws it's nobody's business but theirs.
Some say that trans women are not 'women', but there are actual women who have strong male-like physiques too - perhaps more than most trans women. So why should one be excluded but the other not? Unless you are involved in making the rules it's not your call.
ponderingturtle
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Just like women who failed gender tests. We need to also ban all women who have too much testosterone in them and force them to take blockers of course.
ponderingturtle
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Or cis women who fail their sex tests, freaks like that need to also be banned from competing.
Can we have race based criteria for competitions as well?
baron
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Men are far, far stronger than women on average. In the bench press, for example, an untrained man can be almost three times as strong as a woman of similar body weight, with advanced male athletes being around 60% stronger than females. The same is broadly true for all strength measures.
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