Cont: Trans Women are not Women II: The Bath Of Khan

[d4m10n]

I can also point out that it would exclude actual female athletes with HAC or indeed PCOS. This may have been intentional...

If either of those conditions may result in something close to the typical male body type, then yes. I'm much more concerned with fairness than with separating females from males.

How much virilisation is too much?

Anything approaching the average for males is much too much. Not sure if we've any way to scientifically quantify this phenomenon, however. Need to read up.

 

[Rolfe]

Absolute fairness will have everyone finishing exactly equal.

Why are you so against separating females from males? Is there something particularly shocking about this reasonable categorisation?

 

[theprestige]

Absolute fairness will have everyone finishing exactly equal.

Why are you so against separating females from males? Is there something particularly shocking about this reasonable categorisation?

I don't think it's a question of being against it. It's more of an intersectionality conundrum. Does transgender vs gender outrank women vs men? It's a tough problem.

 

[d4m10n]

Why are you so against separating females from males? Is there something particularly shocking about this reasonable categorisation?

I mean, "so against"...?

Male / female is a reasonable first approximation but leaves plenty of edge cases (e.g. Ewa Klobukowska).

 

[TomB]

How much virilisation is too much?

I think that is up to individual sports leagues. There's no need for a one size fits all definition.

Sometimes documents and rules include a definitions section in which the meaning of terms is defined. Sometimes these are terms that have well known common meanings. For the purposes of the document in question, the definition can be narrowed or expanded.

So for a particular sports league, "woman" can mean "Humans born with two X chromosomes and no Y chromosomes on the second tuesday of March with a midwife attending." OR it could mean "a) any human born without a Y chomosomes or b) any human born with one Y chromosome whose body chemistry has been altered to the levels and times described in table 1a."

Those are (obviously) hypothetical context specific definitions that have absolutely no bearing on who should be considered a woman in various social contexts. There are absolutists on both sides who think that a single definition should apply in all cases. There are also those who recognize that there are contexts where things are not so black and white.

 

[Rolfe]

I don't think it's a question of being against it. It's more of an intersectionality conundrum. Does transgender vs gender outrank women vs men? It's a tough problem.

Not when you're talking about competitive sports it doesn't. (Never mind all the other situations where it obviously doesn't.)

 

[Rolfe]

I mean, "so against"...?

Male / female is a reasonable first approximation but leaves plenty of edge cases (e.g. Ewa Klobukowska).

Hardly "plenty", and as we know much more about genetics and developmental biology now than we did back then, hardly insoluble either. Far far fewer "edge" or debatable cases than your "endogenous testosterone" thing.

 

[d4m10n]

Hardly "plenty", and as we know much more about genetics and developmental biology now than we did back then, hardly insoluble either. Far far fewer "edge" or debatable cases than your "endogenous testosterone" thing.

I'm (clearly) not getting my point across (clearly) here.

One more try: You can divide people who have the advantage of signficant virilisation from those who do not have such an advantage without having to take a stance on what it means to be a woman or a man.

For example:

...people without a functional SRY gene (or alternatively, without bioavailable androgens)?

 

[Rolfe]

I think that is up to individual sports leagues. There's no need for a one size fits all definition.

Sometimes documents and rules include a definitions section in which the meaning of terms is defined. Sometimes these are terms that have well known common meanings. For the purposes of the document in question, the definition can be narrowed or expanded.

So for a particular sports league, "woman" can mean "Humans born with two X chromosomes and no Y chromosomes on the second tuesday of March with a midwife attending." OR it could mean "a) any human born without a Y chomosomes or b) any human born with one Y chromosome whose body chemistry has been altered to the levels and times described in table 1a."

Those are (obviously) hypothetical context specific definitions that have absolutely no bearing on who should be considered a woman in various social contexts. There are absolutists on both sides who think that a single definition should apply in all cases. There are also those who recognize that there are contexts where things are not so black and white.

I agree there are areas which are open for debate even when you do the sensible thing and categorise based on biological sex. Should you allow women with HAC and PCOS to compete against "normal" women, despite their high testosterone? Should you allow CAIS women to compete given that studies show that they have a significant edge over XX women despite their non-responsiveness to testosterone? And I agree that the answers may vary for different circumstances.

However, the fact remains that the overwhelming majority of human beings are unequivocally normal males or normal females. To use the tiny number of debatable cases as a reason to start allowing absolutely normal XY males into female sport because [reasons] is stark staring bonkers.

 

[cullennz]

I'm (clearly) not getting my point across (clearly) here.

One more try: You can divide people who have the advantage of signficant virilisation from those who do not have such an advantage without having to take a stance on what it means to be a woman or a man.

For example:

Or just say biological male and biological female.

If your are rare intersex these are the rules you have to pass/fail

Your main goal seems to be avoiding a stance on male and female, is this to not hurt peoples feelings?

 

[d4m10n]

Your main goal seems to be avoiding a stance on male and female, is this to not hurt peoples feelings?

It is not, although avoiding emotional distress is not exactly a bad goal.

 

[Roboramma]

It is whatever the person claiming to be one wants it to be

When someone says "I met a woman at the park walking her dog yesterday", if you want to understand that sentence do you have to ask them what "woman" means?

 

[Roboramma]

Being a sports team fan does.

If you ask someone who claims to be a fan of a particular sports team what they mean by the term "fan", they won't say "I mean that I claim to be a fan of that team". They'll probably say "I mean that I'm a supporter of that team" or "I like that team more than other teams in the league" or something similar that's actually related to the meaning of the word "fan".

So no, that word doesn't work that way either. For words to be useful for conveying information they have to actually have meaning.

 

[BobTheCoward]

When someone says "I met a woman at the park walking her dog yesterday", if you want to understand that sentence do you have to ask them what "woman" means?

I would simply not accept their conclusion unless the person walking their dog stated how they identify.

 

[Roboramma]

I would simply not accept their conclusion unless the person walking their dog stated how they identify.

So, the word literally has no meaning. To say "I identify as a woman" means the same as "I identify as a glarbentrop".

"I identify as a woman"
"What is a woman?"
"Someone who identifies as a woman"
So: "I identify as [someone who identifies as [someone who identifies as [someone who identifies as [...]]]"

 

[Puppycow]

I would be sending a woman to women's prison.

There's probably no point in responding to this, but you don't seem to care about the actual real-world consequences, do you.

To everyone else: I remember listening to a podcast about Philosophy and they were talking about the difference between deontology and consequentialism. To illustrate the most ridiculous extreme that deontology could be taken to, he quoted some kind of theologian or cleric (whose name I forget, but I think he may have been a Catholic bishop or something like that) saying something like (paraphrasing from memory) "It would be better for the whole world to perish and millions of innocents to die in agony than for a single venal sin to be committed." In other words, real-world consequences don't matter. Just following the commands of God is the only thing that matters, consequences be damned.

It confirmed to me that I am definitely in the consequentialist camp.

 

[cullennz]

I would simply not accept their conclusion unless the person walking their dog stated how they identify.

This statement is pretty nasty and unfeeling.

You chose to completely ignore the dog may not identify as a dog.

You just presume like all prejudiced people.

 

[Roboramma]

I would be sending a woman to women's prison.

Do you think that there's a good reason have separate prisons for men and women at all? If so, why?

 

[Ziggurat]

There's probably no point in responding to this

You could have stopped here.

At this point, it's clear Bob is just trolling. He doesn't even believe what he says.

 

[d4m10n]

To use the tiny number of debatable cases as a reason to start allowing absolutely normal XY males into female sport because [reasons] is stark staring bonkers.

Is anyone (other than Bob) actually making this argument here?