Trans Women are not Women

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

Incidentally at the other end of sports, quite often there is the opposite problem. Kids and amateur women who would like to participate with men being excluded because teams are sex segregated. I think most people would argue that any woman/girl who wants to play with men should be allowed to right?

 

[angrysoba]

Incidentally at the other end of sports, quite often there is the opposite problem. Kids and amateur women who would like to participate with men being excluded because teams are sex segregated. I think most people would argue that any woman/girl who wants to play with men should be allowed to right?

Yes, I would argue that consenting adults should have the opportunity.

 

[Belz...]

this is already the case. We just pretend it isn't by calling them women's and men's sports rather than 'Elite sport' and 'not as good/strong' sports.

Of course, but I think "women's champion of the world" sounds more prestigious than "featherweight champion".

ETA: However, even then you'd have issues, because you have featherweight men, who will also outperform women. In fact, I don't think you can find a category where this won't happen, forcing women into their own categories anyway.

 

[angrysoba]

I follow you up to here but don't see that this follows. There are plenty of non-elite professional sportspeople at various levels. In fact that is what women's sport currently is and it does quite well in many areas.

There are, but think of say the English Football League. Once you get down to the lowest threshold of players being able to be paid full-time for what they do you will probably find it hard, if not impossible, for many women to break into even those ranks. Hence, their participation becomes rare. Similarly, Serena Williams playing at 400th in the world. I don't know if that ranking pays well, but there is almost certainly a severe drop off after that, and one of the reasons she is so good is because she received the kind of intense coaching that is given to those who show promise of going further. If women's tennis was not a separate thing, she probably would never have been as good.

 

[sadhatter]

Is this a thing that actually exists? The only comparable examples I know of are of no help to women at all. They tend to be split between amateur and pro - but they would still be dominated by cis-males. Obviously there are leagues in which teams can get promoted or relegated but again, in say the FA in the UK all the teams are male and probably will remain that way. I can see women getting into sports where there are specializations - coxes in rowing etc... baseball relief pitchers who have some special throw, etc... darts, snooker (oddly enough men seem to dominate these sports too!) Also I know of things like rugby sevens where the best teams play for the cup, the less good ones play for the plate and the worst ones play for spoon - or try to avoid it. Still, even the worst teams would probably be all-male affairs. I know of veterans leagues which use only over-40s but again all male.

I literally can’t see a way of women being competitive without their own leagues. So yeah, I agree with luchog about being clueless regarding luchog’s fix, despite luchog not giving a rat’s arse about sport. I await enlightenment.

It is most certainly not a thing.

I find sports boring as hell but I have a lot of friends who like them and in my opinion, luchog has a point of view that comes from a great understanding of the feelings of transgender people, but a lack of knowledge in sport, and the feelings of those who compete.

 

[sadhatter]

But if biological women are not as good as biological men then 'women's' and 'men's' designations are effectively the same thing.It seems to be just a quirk of our social conditioning that we ended up here where womens and mens elite sports are seen as equivalent despite the gulf in class but you cannot deny that this binary system is excluding trans people and as ideas of gender change there are going to be issues like this that need to be rethought.

I am not clear what the answer is but maybe it is about having classes that better reflect what would actually be going on. Of course, you could just redefine Women's sports as Cis-women's sports. But I imagine a lot of women would object to that too.

And that is what bothers me about a lot of this. Women who want to close off their world to transwomen, deny that they are women and assume bad faith on the part of transwomen - you just want to muscle in on our space so you can beat us up/rape us/molest kids/stop us playing sport/etc etc

Someone's feelings matter until they have real effects, then logic and reason are to be used.

Sport isn't generally to make people feel better at competitive levels, it's to make money, no team is going to pick worse players to be nice. No one is going to want to watch that team, and they will lose they will not make money and fold.

And if law were instituted in the MLB nhl etc. Teams would simply pull out and form new leagues, as people would be less willing to watch a sport with less skilled players.

 

[HansMustermann]

Wait... wait... so all I had to do to not suck at sports in school would have been to wear a skirt? Damn. Why wasn't that a thing in my time? I mean, I liked wearing girl clothes anyway

 

[sadhatter]

Yes, so women would mostly compete in the lower professional rankings. The top tiers would be dominated, perhaps entirely populated, by men.

I don't even think "lower professional" would be low enough. If the bar to low professional gets lowered ,more men will try.

I got out of competitive (not pro, like pride or ufc obviously, local stuff) material arts because i was mediocre as hell, i could kind of almost make it but with a lot more effort, and less results. If the bar was 20% lower because of being flooded, I'd probably have stayed.

 

[sadhatter]

I follow you up to here but don't see that this follows. There are plenty of non-elite professional sportspeople at various levels. In fact that is what women's sport currently is and it does quite well in many areas.

Not compared to men's sport by any means.

Do you understand the concept of a 'ringer" ? Trans women would effectively be ringers in any female league.

 

[sadhatter]

Incidentally at the other end of sports, quite often there is the opposite problem. Kids and amateur women who would like to participate with men being excluded because teams are sex segregated. I think most people would argue that any woman/girl who wants to play with men should be allowed to right?

Depends on the sport. I'm not sentencing a female fighter to brain damage if they was to fight a male pro. And if I'm the league in not taking that chance insurance wise.

Id also not allow someone to fight 20% out of their weight class.

 

[sadhatter]

Anecdote alert

When I was into fitness and MMA I along with a few friends tried to get into it competitively. I was mediocre bordering on bad. Never fought anywhere people paid to see, local "a bunch of guys in a gym with a 20 dollar trade marked name. " crap.

One of our friends was a female who later went on to a bit of local fame, no one who is going to be on a wheeties box, but someone who made money via fighting on a few occasions because people wanted to see her level of skill.

Being by far the smallest guy, I was the only one to take her up when she wanted to spar (obviously not in the ring, when hanging out, etc. Friendly competition done safely. ).

I can't say I mopped the floor with her, but I can say I won more than I lost. And it had nothing to do with skill, she had me beat on all fronts that way, it was simply that with equal effort I had some severe advantages.

The biggest thing I noticed was the impact of my strikes, against a guy of equal size I always had trouble doing damage, and hitting hard and accurate enough to throw someone off their game. While I sparred with her, I'd pull my punches for fear of doing lasting harm.

And that is what would happen if we made leagues Co ed. A bunch of small guys who have little skill are going to take the place of more skilled athletes because natural advantage makes sports harder for women (of all kinds).

 

[Ziggurat]

I follow you up to here but don't see that this follows. There are plenty of non-elite professional sportspeople at various levels. In fact that is what women's sport currently is and it does quite well in many areas.

It does well because it’s women, and a lot of spectators specifically want to see women. But if it’s a few women mixed in with low tier men, that appeal is largely gone. And you cannot have professional sports without spectators supporting it.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

Someone's feelings matter until they have real effects, then logic and reason are to be used.

Sport isn't generally to make people feel better at competitive levels, it's to make money, no team is going to pick worse players to be nice. No one is going to want to watch that team, and they will lose they will not make money and fold.

And if law were instituted in the MLB nhl etc. Teams would simply pull out and form new leagues, as people would be less willing to watch a sport with less skilled players.

I am not following.

There already is the picking and watching of worse players - it's women's sports.

And no, most sport is not about making money. That's the 1% of professional elite athletes.

Here is an example of a transwoman playing competitive sport with women at a very non-elite level... https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/47438175

Do you think they should be stopped? Do you feel they are muscling in on a woman's space?

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

Not compared to men's sport by any means.

Do you understand the concept of a 'ringer" ? Trans women would effectively be ringers in any female league.

Not necessarily and even if that is the case then I don't think the solution is simply to cling to the way things have always been done in the past by excluding transwomen and branding them 'not women'.

 

[Belz...]

I am not following.

There already is the picking and watching of worse players - it's women's sports.

Except that women's sports only include women, ensuring that women can compete and win. If you just throw in different skill categories, men will dominate all of them, except the very lowest ones. If that's OK with you, fine, but I think it wouldn't be ok with female competitors.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

It does well because it’s women, and a lot of spectators specifically want to see women. But if it’s a few women mixed in with low tier men, that appeal is largely gone. And you cannot have professional sports without spectators supporting it.

'I would pay to watch a sportsperson if they have a vagina but if they are equally good and have a penis I wouldn't' seems an odd logic though, don't you think?

It also seems as if we have contradictory theories working here. If pro sports is about revenue and people prefer to watch women than low-tier men then what incentive would there be for teams to recruit low-tier men over women?

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

Except that women's sports only include women, ensuring that women can compete and win. If you just throw in different skill categories, men will dominate all of them, except the very lowest ones. If that's OK with you, fine, but I think it wouldn't be ok with female competitors.

Well then we are arguing a different thing. This is now about creating a competitive category where people don't necessarily dominate because of a biological advantage. That's not about whether the participant is male or female though.

Although we should be honest and admit that pretty much all sports have an element of biological advantage and the male/female split is somewhat arbitrary because we as a society have decided that it is important for women to have an opportunity to be the best woman in sports.

As far as I know there isn't a baseball league for people under 6'. And we should acknowledge that while the top 1% of most sports don't include women, they don't include 99% of men either.

Someone mentioned Serena Williams earlier and how as a woman she was selected and promoted and able to succeed in the category. Lucky for her she wasn't born trans then? She would have been excluded from competing. And probably lucky for her she wasn't born a cis-man because chances are she would have been nothing special.

It's perfectly OK to say 'transwomen entering sport is going to throw up some interesting questions and challenges and we should look at how we best incorporate these new paradigms into our sports because we don't want to destroy the sport' but the title of this thread is just repeating a tired old nonsense and excluding transwomen from competing in sports is not the answer.

 

[Belz...]

Well then we are arguing a different thing. This is now about creating a competitive category where people don't necessarily dominate because of a biological advantage. That's not about whether the participant is male or female though.

I don't follow. The entire thread is about being male or female.

The point is that the current categories ensure that women can compete and win. The proposed solution would break that.

Although we should be honest and admit that pretty much all sports have an element of biological advantage and the male/female split is somewhat arbitrary because we as a society have decided that it is important for women to have an opportunity to be the best woman in sports.

Isn't it important for women to feel like they can compete and succeed?

 

[Ziggurat]

'I would pay to watch a sportsperson if they have a vagina but if they are equally good and have a penis I wouldn't' seems an odd logic though, don't you think?

Whether it's logical or not is irrelevant, it's what actually happens. People pay more money to see Serena Williams than they do to see Tomislav Brkic.

It also seems as if we have contradictory theories working here. If pro sports is about revenue and people prefer to watch women than low-tier men then what incentive would there be for teams to recruit low-tier men over women?

Because people also like competitive matches, and they like winners. An all-women's team that always loses to men isn't going to be a draw, not even for viewers who want to watch women.

 

[Matthew Best]

Here's something I didn't know (probably not really relevant to this discussion, but interesting nonetheless).

From 1968 until 1992 the Olympic skeet shooting event was open to men and women. Then in 1992 it was actually won by a woman.

So what happened at the next Olympics? It was made men-only.