[ED] Discussion: Trans Women Are not Women (Part 6)

[Collin237]

Your question gets at the issue of whether anyone is truly harmed if we were to separate competitors by gender, but why would we even consider doing that? Why is gender any more significant than hair color, or hair length, or race? Why don't we have a division for people with long hair versus people with short hair? The answer is that there is no rational basis for using hair length as a separator? It doesn't convey an advantage. It isn't a meaningful separator for sport.

Neither is gender.

Gender -- as well as related conditions such as autism -- affects the types of motions it's easier for one to make. Whether that matters more than differences by sex, depends on the individual and the type of sport. And there's also the possibility of feeling better in one team than the other, to the extent that it affects performance.

None of this can be determined by generalizations, but it can't be written off either.

 

[llwyd]

A complete answer to that would actually be quite lengthy, but it would be mostly describing things that people find glaringly obvious. I'll try to cut it a bit shorter.

Another comparison would be age - we don't let adult men compete against 14 year old boys in, say hockey as it would be bloody murder. This seems rather self-evident as in almost all sports biology is the fundamental issue, not identity. And I say this as very strong supporter of trans rights, just with the caveat that there are some issues where things will always be complicated and difficult and rather messy as the fundamental dividing and deciding factor is sometimes very clearly about biology and not identity.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

The difference is not visible with specific cases, like the one you offered about the new 6'4" girl of pure muscle; it's visible in the aggregate, statistically, and overall. The differences in height and bone/muscle mass that going through male puberty creates makes a significant difference overall - over many people, not individual cases necessarily - such that girls generally will wind up not winning nearly as much as boys generally.

Now, one can make the case that this doesn't matter. If boys who have gone through male puberty wind up being better athletes for some sports, so be it. But that case would have to be made acknowledging the benefits that male puberty give boys for some sports.

I agree with the sentiment of the statement that the difference is not visible with specific cases but it was a specific case that Meadmaker was making his point with so I am asking, for my own understanding, what they consider to be the major difference that would make one situation identity destroying and the other situation bad luck.

Your points regarding statistics are fair in the general... but we also have to be careful to compare apples with apples. we are not talking about girls v boys but transgirls v girls in this case so the stats become somewhat different as we comparing presumably a random sampling of the population 'boys' (that become transgirls) with the non-random highest performing tail of the distribution of 'girls'.

I don't know the data on this but I suspect that this is probably something to do with why we haven't actually seen transgender athletes make much impact on the very highest levels of sport because once you let the data run its course what happens is that the elite women still bubble up to the top over the 'best we found in the small population of transwomen with the time, energy and inclination to participate in this sport at the elite level'.



.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

I was kind of hoping for an answer instead of a question, but ok...



Well, yes. That is kind of the point.



Yes.



Yes. That's the point, really. Being number 1 matters. Have you ever come in first at something? It matters. Have you ever come in 3rd? That matters, too, but there's a difference between first and third. Getting a bronze medal is pretty cool, but it's not a gold medal.



A complete answer to that would actually be quite lengthy, but it would be mostly describing things that people find glaringly obvious. I'll try to cut it a bit shorter.

We have competitions. Having observed that males have a competitive advantage over females, society has decided that there will be separate divisions for the people that have the advantage, and people who don't. Society has also decided that praise, attention, and sometimes even money should be given to the person who is best at the competition who does not have the advantage. That praise and attention should go to the person who actually meets that definition. It should go to the person who is the best among the disadvantaged.

If you want a deeper answer, you would have to go into the philosophy of competition, and human psychology, and the role of sport within society, and the science of self esteem, and really all sorts of subjects that I don't think you or I are really all that interested in. The fact is that the competitions exist, and they have criteria, so let's follow those rules instead of thinking of reasons why we can bend those rules for some unrelated reasons.

However, one thing that we could do, that might illuminate the question you asked, is to answer a different question.

Why should gender play any role at all in separating competitors into divisions?

Your question gets at the issue of whether anyone is truly harmed if we were to separate competitors by gender, but why would we even consider doing that? Why is gender any more significant than hair color, or hair length, or race? Why don't we have a division for people with long hair versus people with short hair? The answer is that there is no rational basis for using hair length as a separator? It doesn't convey an advantage. It isn't a meaningful separator for sport.

Neither is gender.

I've got to admit I don't feel like you really addressed the question i asked. The part which seemed to address the question pointed out that it's not as good to be third as first. Which I never disputed. My question is what is the difference between finishing third when a transgirl is first vs when a cisgirl with a biological advantage is first?

For the record, I get the natural reaction of saying 'that's not fair' I'm just trying to drill beyond that and actually understand what the problem is.

Have you ever watched kids (boys or girls) play sport and spotted the one that looks about 3 years older than the rest just because they happen to have those genetics? And its so easy for them to win. And you just think 'that's not fair'. But that's life isn't it?

Since you've asked I will attempt to answer your question but I am at a disadvantage as I haven't kept up to date with the thread and am absent the context of the question.

Why should sport be segregated by gender?

Do you mean at all or do you mean by gender rather than sex? I have to point out that I haven't really argued for either position as an absolute but if you want my thoughts historically the situation has come about for all kinds of reasons but I think we both agree that it's certainly a useful 'first cut' divider of performance but it's also a social thing that we have decided that women deserve/need their own sports leagues etc to participate in.

It's worth noting that we gender segregate sports that aren't based on physical performance like darts, snooker, shooting and chess. So it doesn't appear to be just about strength or whatever.

Seems to be quite a complex question with no easy answer therefore. And I think we need to acknowledge that because far too often in these arguments complex questions are distilled down into over-simplified soundbites for effect.

I'm fairly sure that we COULD segregate sports in a non-gender specific manner and probably end up with a system that would pit evenly matched athletes against each other - but the practicalities of it might be difficult.

A lot of it is driven by marketing and image of course as well as by a wish to promote equality between the genders and give ample focus and spotlight to women's sports. For example there is no reason why the London Marathon needs to be gender segregated into separate races. You could have everyone run at the same time rank everyone according to their finishing times and dish out whatever titles and prizes you see fit but there does seem to be a social/psychological difference in saying that Miss X finished #274 in the marathon and was the top ranked competitor with a vagina vs Miss X won the Women's marathon. Certainly in terms of TV coverage etc its going to make a world of difference and therefore in sponsorships etc.

Distance running is always an interesting one for me because it appears to me that if you aren't from East Africa then you ain't going to win it. I had a look at the London Marathon records - it's been 11 years since a woman who wasn't from Ethiopia or Kenya won it and 18 since a man who wasn't from these two countries won it. It strikes me that had transwomen won the marathon for 11 years then people like yourself would be up in arms saying it was grossly unfair and destroying the sport, but (rightly) nobody would say the same about Kenyans destroying the sport. It does seem to me that on the face of it you could make the same arguments about Kenyans as are made about transwomen though if you were that way inclined.

And if you had an example of little Sally Lilywhite in Omaha winning high school marathons until a Kenyan moved to town then I think we know what we say about people who argued that the Kenyan girl shouldn't be allowed to compete.

If I've completely missed your point and the actual question was why should it be segregated by gender rather than sex then I think the short answer to that is that if we don't then we are in danger of excluding transpeople from sport entirely and that seems unfair. My position on it is that we should allow transpeople to compete as much as we can but I also accept that there may be situations where for whatever reason it's not possible. but I believe, like pretty much all matters of discrimination, that it should be encumbent on those who wish to exclude people to show that it is necessary to exclude them rather than moving the burden of evidence to proving that someone should be allowed to compete.

 

[LondonJohn]

Way back when I was in HS, had to take a physical before being allowed into sports- even cheerleading required it. My daughter needs the same to play sports and go to camp in the summer - though camp had a waiver. It's about safety and liability.

...which is totally, fundamentally different from having to submit to an intimate personal examination to prove you possess a vagina and vulva. In any number of physical and psychological ways.

(Not least, as Suburban Turkey correctly points out, the very fact that any female being asked to submit to such a test (or to produce verifiable evidence of a prior test) is - and knows that she is - implicitly being suspected of being a "cheating male in disguise"....)

 

[Paul2]

Your points regarding statistics are fair in the general... but we also have to be careful to compare apples with apples. we are not talking about girls v boys but transgirls v girls in this case so the stats become somewhat different as we comparing presumably a random sampling of the population 'boys' (that become transgirls) with the non-random highest performing tail of the distribution of 'girls'.
.

I don't think that's right. All we're doing is comparing those who have gone through male puberty with those who haven't, and we seeing the difference that makes in performance in some sports, and we then question whether that is fair and to who it is fair. That is not comparing the highest performing girls with a random-performance sampling of trans girls.

Take all girls, take all trans girls, and we'll see a difference on average in performance in some sports. Take all cis girls, and take all cis boys, and we'd see the same difference in performance on average. Those differences are based on male puberty.

 

[Collin237]

Distance running is always an interesting one for me because it appears to me that if you aren't from East Africa then you ain't going to win it. I had a look at the London Marathon records - it's been 11 years since a woman who wasn't from Ethiopia or Kenya won it and 18 since a man who wasn't from these two countries won it. It strikes me that had transwomen won the marathon for 11 years then people like yourself would be up in arms saying it was grossly unfair and destroying the sport, but (rightly) nobody would say the same about Kenyans destroying the sport. It does seem to me that on the face of it you could make the same arguments about Kenyans as are made about transwomen though if you were that way inclined.

In fact, transwomen are -- for whatever reason -- highly correlated, since being allowed to compete against women, not to win in any sport. The cases in which they do are extremely rare, and nobody would even know about them except that the Conservative Media is blowing them out of all proportion.

 

[Meadmaker]

I've got to admit I don't feel like you really addressed the question i asked. The part which seemed to address the question pointed out that it's not as good to be third as first. Which I never disputed. My question is what is the difference between finishing third when a transgirl is first vs when a cisgirl with a biological advantage is first?

I think the best way to answer is that, in terms of public recognition, acclaim, reputation, and everything that goes with it, there is absolutely no difference. Either way, the person who came in third is told, "You are third best." and the person who came in first is told "You are best."

So in one case, the fastest female is told "You are best." In the other case, the fastest female is told "You are third best." If she perceived herself as the best, then either way, society refuses to acknowledge her as best, and to the extent that self perception is influenced by societal recognition, her identity as the best is diminished.

Have you ever watched kids (boys or girls) play sport and spotted the one that looks about 3 years older than the rest just because they happen to have those genetics? And its so easy for them to win. And you just think 'that's not fair'. But that's life isn't it?

Interesting question, because the answer is that no, I have never thought that. I have watched and I have observed the phenomenon, knowing full well that the kid who is best in the seventh grade might be just average by the time the other kids catch up in physical maturity, but it never occurred to me to call that "not fair" in any way.

As it turns out, I'm an official in a youth sports activity with age groups, and we deal with that situation all the time. One of the age groups is 10-13 years old, and we frequently tell kids who are 13 that they need to play in the 14-16 year old division. It's not because "it's not fair" for them to play in their own age group. It's because there's no point. In terms of the first place finish, there would be no need to hold the competition. On the other hand, that's done for the "minor" competitions and practice. We have a few very prestgious tournaments, and for those, they compete in their actual age division, at least until they have a first place win in a major tournament. What we think would be unfair would be to deprive the kid of his place as champion, which he earned.

Since you've asked I will attempt to answer your question but I am at a disadvantage as I haven't kept up to date with the thread and am absent the context of the question.

Why should sport be segregated by gender?

Do you mean at all or do you mean by gender rather than sex?

There is no context. It's a blank slate, and the thread has nothing to do with it. The question was meant to be a justification for having sports segregated by gender. Why do it? I didn't mean why was it done in the past. If it didn't make sense to do it in the past, we don't have to cling to the past. Why do it today? If there is no justification for gender segregation, we should stop.

It seems like your answer is that a lot of it is "marketing and image", and you seem to be saying that we could do it differently based on ability. Should we?

If you were to ask me why we ought to segregate by sex, I could give an answer. It's because sex is relevant to athletic performance. If you were to ask me why we ought to segregate by gender, I would say that should not segregate by gender, because gender is not relevant to athletic performance.

Searching through your answer, I'm not sure if I see whether you think we should segregate by gender or not, and if so, why? You seem to be saying that it isn't very important, but I'm not sure.

but I think we both agree that it's certainly a useful 'first cut' divider of performance

For emphasis, I will repeat, in slightly different words, that I do not agree with this statement. Gender is absolutely useless as a first cut divider. Gender has no effect on performance.

If I've completely missed your point and the actual question was why should it be segregated by gender rather than sex then I think the short answer to that is that if we don't then we are in danger of excluding transpeople from sport entirely and that seems unfair.

You have hit on a pet peeve that is very high profile in the US right now. A lot of state legislatures are, right now, trying to pass laws that would only allow females to compete in the girls' division of sports. There are numerous headlines that say things like, "Proposed law would ban transgender athletes from high school sports."

It's simply a lie.

My position on it is that we should allow transpeople to compete as much as we can but I also accept that there may be situations where for whatever reason it's not possible. but I believe, like pretty much all matters of discrimination, that it should be encumbent on those who wish to exclude people to show that it is necessary to exclude them rather than moving the burden of evidence to proving that someone should be allowed to compete.

Neither I nor anyone in this thread wants to exclude anyone from participation, nor have I heard of anyone in the United States who wants to do so.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

...which is totally, fundamentally different from having to submit to an intimate personal examination to prove you possess a vagina and vulva. In any number of physical and psychological ways.

(Not least, as Suburban Turkey correctly points out, the very fact that any female being asked to submit to such a test (or to produce verifiable evidence of a prior test) is - and knows that she is - implicitly being suspected of being a "cheating male in disguise"....)

And it's not a hypothetical ... it happens... women get accused of being men because they look 'manly' or are bigger and stronger looking than their teammates and opponents. And it's not just Caster Semanya type anomalies but 100% no doubts about it bonafide even TERFs would agree that's a woman like Korean football Park Eun Son.

https://edition.cnn.com/2013/11/08/sport/football/south-korea-gender-boycott-football/index.html

Because she's 5'11 and 165 pounds she gets branded a man and opponents refuse to play against her. I'd like to think that EVERYONE on this thread would say that 1. Park should be allowed to play women's football and 2. Park should not be subjected to the humiliation of having to prove she's a woman to meet other people's standards.

Cases like this one were the kind of thing I was trying to get at in the replies above to Meadmaker and Paul2. Park is above average height and weight for a South Korean MALE and far above the averages for a female.

Just for a comparison I looked at the 2013 Male National Team that played for South Korea in the East Asian Cup. They only scored one goal in that game and the player that scored it was Yun Il-Rok who is smaller and lighter than Park. Had Yun been a transwoman would 'her' presence in the team really be an order of magnitude different to Park competing?

 

[Meadmaker]

And it's not a hypothetical ... it happens... women get accused of being men because they look 'manly' or are bigger and stronger looking than their teammates and opponents. And it's not just Caster Semanya type anomalies but 100% no doubts about it bonafide even TERFs would agree that's a woman like Korean football Park Eun Son.

https://edition.cnn.com/2013/11/08/sport/football/south-korea-gender-boycott-football/index.html

Because she's 5'11 and 165 pounds she gets branded a man and opponents refuse to play against her. I'd like to think that EVERYONE on this thread would say that 1. Park should be allowed to play women's football and 2. Park should not be subjected to the humiliation of having to prove she's a woman to meet other people's standards.

Cases like this one were the kind of thing I was trying to get at in the replies above to Meadmaker and Paul2. Park is above average height and weight for a South Korean MALE and far above the averages for a female.

Just for a comparison I looked at the 2013 Male National Team that played for South Korea in the East Asian Cup. They only scored one goal in that game and the player that scored it was Yun Il-Rok who is smaller and lighter than Park. Had Yun been a transwoman would 'her' presence in the team really be an order of magnitude different to Park competing?

This is the first I've heard about this case.

It's kind of bad. I can't see it happening in that way to a high schooler in the US, but I get that it's worth looking at. It certainly could happen, under the rules. And, what happened?

The coaches made the accusation. Her team said that she had already taken a gender test and she won't take another. And by the way you are first class jerks for bringing it up, and we might sue you.

Yes. That could happen here, too.

There was no drawer-dropping required.

 

[llwyd]

And it's not a hypothetical ... it
Because she's 5'11 and 165 pounds she gets branded a man and opponents refuse to play against her. I'd like to think that EVERYONE on this thread would say that 1. Park should be allowed to play women's football and 2. Park should not be subjected to the humiliation of having to prove she's a woman to meet other people's standards.

Totally unacceptable and unfair, obviously. I guess you are kind of implying that she could be a transwoman just as well, or a trans girl in juvenile sports. But there I think there are a couple of things to be added - obviously sports are not genetically a level playing field, obviously there will be more naturally gifted athletes with a luckier draw in the lottery of genetics, and sometimes a very much luckier draw.

But you can see them as individual accidents of beneficial genetics - an untransitioned or very little transitioned trans girl will on the other hand be in a different genetic category, it will be no happy surprise, no happy accident that she has an advantage in physical sports, she will have it by her completely or largely male physique. The same with age - now there might a few 14 year old boys in ice hockey with basically an adult male size (if not physique), but we still do not let adult male hockey players compete in juvenile leagues, and if we would let them, that would be the end of juvenile leagues for juveniles.

Now many people say that these are very rare cases, and that's undoubtedly true, but their future number might quite a bit hang upon how this matter is handled now and in the near future. And, yes, we absolutely will have to be sensitive and totally respectful of trans women and girls in competitive sports, but at the same time I'm absolutely sure that this is one of those rare areas where mere self-identification will simply not do, that there needs to be some other arrangement, some kind of a compromise.

 

[Collin237]

So in one case, the fastest female is told "You are best." In the other case, the fastest female is told "You are third best." If she perceived herself as the best, then either way, society refuses to acknowledge her as best, and to the extent that self perception is influenced by societal recognition, her identity as the best is diminished.

If her self-esteem is damaged by being third best instead of best, she has some serious emotion issues.

I would say that should not segregate by gender, because gender is not relevant to athletic performance.

That's impossible. Living as a girl or a boy necessarily includes styles of motion, which may be better or worse for various athletic activities. Whether it's neurology or culture is irrelevant; it still exists.

You have hit on a pet peeve that is very high profile in the US right now. A lot of state legislatures are, right now, trying to pass laws that would only allow females to compete in the girls' division of sports. There are numerous headlines that say things like, "Proposed law would ban transgender athletes from high school sports."

Please show me where these headlines are?

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

This is the first I've heard about this case.

It's kind of bad. I can't see it happening in that way to a high schooler in the US, but I get that it's worth looking at. It certainly could happen, under the rules. And, what happened?

The coaches made the accusation. Her team said that she had already taken a gender test and she won't take another. And by the way you are first class jerks for bringing it up, and we might sue you.

Yes. That could happen here, too.

There was no drawer-dropping required.

Because this is on moderated status I can't tell if you have replied to my earlier posts or not but if not I hope you will. ETA: I see it there now... now sure if it was there before or not... moderated thread wobbles by the look of it.

I think you are downplaying this case somewhat and I don't find your personal opinion that 'this could never happen in the US' convincing I think if you start encouraging, legislating for and normalising the idea that whether a woman is actually a woman is up for debate then you are very much going to get examples like this and worse. People are going to start seeing it everywhere especially with so much scaremongering around and we know how that goes - not well. Not so much 'reds under the bed' as 'trans on every track'

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

Totally unacceptable and unfair, obviously. I guess you are kind of implying that she could be a transwoman just as well, or a trans girl in juvenile sports. But there I think there are a couple of things to be added - obviously sports are not genetically a level playing field, obviously there will be more naturally gifted athletes with a luckier draw in the lottery of genetics, and sometimes a very much luckier draw.

Well what I was implying was that when you start creating a climate of fear around men trying to infiltrate women's sport for nefarious purposes then ciswomen are going to be harmed by it also.

But yes there was a secondary point that I don't see the difference here that Meadmaker seems to see so starkly. That if Park had been unfortunate enough to have been born as a male (of the same physique and strength) then her presence would be sport-destroyingly unfair and indeed destroy the identity of her fellow competitors. But the same attributes in someone born female is fine.

But you can see them as individual accidents of beneficial genetics - an untransitioned or very little transitioned trans girl will on the other hand be in a different genetic category, it will be no happy surprise, no happy accident that she has an advantage in physical sports, she will have it by her completely or largely male physique. The same with age - now there might a few 14 year old boys in ice hockey with basically an adult male size (if not physique), but we still do not let adult male hockey players compete in juvenile leagues, and if we would let them, that would be the end of juvenile leagues for juveniles.

If you want to go down this path there is absolutely nothing stopping you regarding transwomen as women who have the (un)happy genetic accident of having been born with the benefit(?) of male physiology. If you want to. If you tried that thought experiment would it change your view? Because it seems to be somewhat arbitrary that you have decided one thing is just an outlier and another thing is a completely different category.

The ice hockey example isn't doing it for me. Its too far removed from what we are actually talking about.

Now many people say that these are very rare cases, and that's undoubtedly true, but their future number might quite a bit hang upon how this matter is handled now and in the near future. And, yes, we absolutely will have to be sensitive and totally respectful of trans women and girls in competitive sports, but at the same time I'm absolutely sure that this is one of those rare areas where mere self-identification will simply not do, that there needs to be some other arrangement, some kind of a compromise.

I would hope that EVERYONE would say these are rare cases because that's a matter of fact. The next bit is not however. It's a hypothetical slippery slope argument. And as far as I can see its not borne out by reality in so much as we have been allowing transgender athletes to compete and so far it hasn't destroyed women's sport.

It's great that you intend to be respectful to transwomen in competitive sports and it appears that your intentions are honest enough. However, be clear that the intentions of the lawmakers who pass these laws is NOT to respectfully handle the issue of transwomen in sport but to exclude them from sport and, it appears to me at least, to punish them for being trans.

Personally, I think I have said as much repeatedly, it's not my position that you just open the door up to all transwomen competing in all sports at all times without limit or restriction but that we should take seriously situations where it appears to be causing an issue and look to solve it. If that means that a 250lb transwoman can't fight women half her size in MMA then that might have to be a compromise that we make.

However, it appears that for others any example of a transwoman competing successfully is 'too much'. Meadmaker's argument seemed to be as much in the example he gave. If we are to allow transwomen to compete respectfully in women's sports then we have to accept that this means that they also will sometimes win. And that when a transwoman beats a ciswoman in a race it is not a full-frontal assault on the identity of the ciswoman but rather one of those things that happens in competitive sport when another competitor on the day is bigger/stronger/better than you just like when a 5ft 11 165lb ciswoman turns up on the opposing football team.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

Edited by Darat: 

Moderated thread.

I think the best way to answer is that, in terms of public recognition, acclaim, reputation, and everything that goes with it, there is absolutely no difference. Either way, the person who came in third is told, "You are third best." and the person who came in first is told "You are best."

So in one case, the fastest female is told "You are best." In the other case, the fastest female is told "You are third best." If she perceived herself as the best, then either way, society refuses to acknowledge her as best, and to the extent that self perception is influenced by societal recognition, her identity as the best is diminished.

It seems to be that if there is "absolutely no difference" then your argument falls by the wayside. The fastest runner in any high school is always at risk of coming across a faster runner and not being the best anymore. That's how competitive sports work. Objecting to that is being a spoilt brat. If that's all you meant by her identity then I think she's the one at fault for hanging her identity on something that was always open to be taken away from her. I had assumed you had meant something deeper about identity that had a specific interplay with the trans question. But fair enough.

If that's your argument then I honestly think all you've done is try to make a stretch to an argument about 'identity' because you wanted to counter the usage of the word on the opposite side. And I think you've failed. I would lose that argument and stick with whether or not it's fair to allow transwomen to compete with ciswomen as I think that has at least a firmer footing.

Interesting question, because the answer is that no, I have never thought that. I have watched and I have observed the phenomenon, knowing full well that the kid who is best in the seventh grade might be just average by the time the other kids catch up in physical maturity, but it never occurred to me to call that "not fair" in any way.

Ah yes of course that kind of thing does average out as different kids mature at different ages. But still on the day it's not very nice as a average little 10 year old to be able to get a kick of the ball (or whatever) because someone three inches shorter than your dad has turned up and won't let you have a kick.

Interestingly enough, and as a bit of a side bar, it also does create real 'unfairness' as kids are being identified at an age before their physical development is complete for fast tracking towards professional athlete status. and being in the system, getting the specialised training and coaching etc doesn't cancel out as the kids mature physically. The small kids just have a tendency to get overlooked.

As it turns out, I'm an official in a youth sports activity with age groups, and we deal with that situation all the time. One of the age groups is 10-13 years old, and we frequently tell kids who are 13 that they need to play in the 14-16 year old division. It's not because "it's not fair" for them to play in their own age group. It's because there's no point. In terms of the first place finish, there would be no need to hold the competition. On the other hand, that's done for the "minor" competitions and practice. We have a few very prestgious tournaments, and for those, they compete in their actual age division, at least until they have a first place win in a major tournament. What we think would be unfair would be to deprive the kid of his place as champion, which he earned.

Interesting. Obviously with youth sports its not totally analogous because as you say the participants are still developing but you do seem here to be saying that someone bigger, stronger, with a genetic advantage deserves to compete (and win) in a category where they dominate the opposition because they earned that victory and it would be unfair to exclude them. So it's at least possible that a transwoman could have earned their place as woman's champion too?

There is no context. It's a blank slate, and the thread has nothing to do with it. The question was meant to be a justification for having sports segregated by gender. Why do it? I didn't mean why was it done in the past. If it didn't make sense to do it in the past, we don't have to cling to the past. Why do it today? If there is no justification for gender segregation, we should stop.

It seems like your answer is that a lot of it is "marketing and image", and you seem to be saying that we could do it differently based on ability. Should we?

If you were to ask me why we ought to segregate by sex, I could give an answer. It's because sex is relevant to athletic performance. If you were to ask me why we ought to segregate by gender, I would say that should not segregate by gender, because gender is not relevant to athletic performance.

Searching through your answer, I'm not sure if I see whether you think we should segregate by gender or not, and if so, why? You seem to be saying that it isn't very important, but I'm not sure.

Ok fair enough. Wasn't sure if I had missed something. For clarity then I am not saying we SHOULD segregate by gender or by sex or by anything specifically. I'm saying we CAN segregate by whatever we want and we don't need a one size fits all strategy we can identify what works best in any given situation.

My preference as a default would be to separate by gender rather than sex because not doing so would largely deny transwomen the ability to participate in sport. But there may be cases where sex is the right thing to segregate by.

My suspicion is that you are flat out wrong to say gender does not influence sporting performance. I'm almost sure it does but I don't have data at hand so I can't provide it to you at this time. I can give you a couple of examples that come to mind though - women are not encouraged generally to be hugely muscled as it's seen as unattractive and unladylike therefore it is unlikely that a woman is going to pursue the extremes of strength and size that a man might and this will affect performance in strength and size sports to some extent. Another thing that springs to mind is that there are differences in the sports that aren't about strength/size in biology like darts and snooker and again I think there must be a gender element to this - women just don't spend 12 hours a day down the snooker club with the lads getting good at snooker from age 12.

For emphasis, I will repeat, in slightly different words, that I do not agree with this statement. Gender is absolutely useless as a first cut divider. Gender has no effect on performance.

That's simply not true and you haven't thought about it then if you believe this. For a start gender is highly correlated with biological sex (almost 100% so) so if your position is that biological sex is the best first cut divider then gender cannot be anywhere near useless. it must be pretty damn good. Whether you segregate by gender or sex you are going to get pretty much the same division of individuals save a small number of edge cases. I hope you can agree with this as its a simple statement of fact. If you want to say it's not as good as sex then OK but it's certainly not useless.

I disagree with your assertion that gender has no effect on performance as I mentioned above.

You have hit on a pet peeve that is very high profile in the US right now. A lot of state legislatures are, right now, trying to pass laws that would only allow females to compete in the girls' division of sports. There are numerous headlines that say things like, "Proposed law would ban transgender athletes from high school sports."

It's simply a lie.

Why is this a pet peeve of yours? Notice I didn't say 'ban' I said exclude. I guess what you mean is that transwomen can still compete with the guys but if that is your point it's rather disingenuous I think. It comes across as you being quite willing to throw trans people under the bus to preserve what you see as the status quo.

The arguments for why transwomen are not going to compete in male sports leagues are unsurprisingly very similar to the arguments to why women have their own sports leagues in the first place and span biological, gender, psychology and social issues.

The alternatives would be to have separate trans competitions but I think the numbers aren't going to make that practical.

So while excluding trans people from women's sport does not technically mean excluding them from sport the effect of such ruling effectively excludes them.

Neither I nor anyone in this thread wants to exclude anyone from participation, nor have I heard of anyone in the United States who wants to do so.

I can't speak for your intentions but I certainly believe that at least SOME of the people in the US who oppose transwomen in women's sport not only want to exclude transpeople from participation in women's sport but actually would rather transpeople didn't exist at all.

As for your personal desire to not exclude anyone from participation then I can only ask you to reflect on the actual EFFECT of what you propose would be rather than the technicalities of arguments and what your solution would actually entail. Put yourself in the shoes of a 16 year old transgirl and try to reflect on the reasons why they might not WANT or CHOOSE to be on the boys wrestling team/track team/football team or whatever even if they are ALLOWED to. I do detect a distinct lack of empathy/sympathy in some of these arguments.

 

[Meadmaker]

Edited by Darat: 

Moderated thread.

I think you are downplaying this case somewhat and I don't find your personal opinion that 'this could never happen in the US' convincing I think if you start encouraging, legislating for and normalising the idea that whether a woman is actually a woman is up for debate then you are very much going to get examples like this and worse.

Well, I specifically said it could happen, but I said I can't see it happening that way to a US high school student. In other words I couldn't imagine press conferences and the like, as appear to have happened in this dispute involving professional players. I would expect it to be much more discreet.

But, all sorts of things are at least possible. Yes, it could happen, and, by the way, it could happen with or without a law that mandates sex based segregation. If trans girls are allowed to compete on girls' teams, there won't be demands for gender (sic) testing, but in discussing team losses of girls' teams, coaches will inevitably include, among the reasons, that the girls on her team fought hard, but they just couldn't overcome the advantage of the trans player. We already see that today. That, certainly, will happen, and will happen more frequently and more publicly than the challenges that will happen if sex-based segregation is mandated by law.

 

[d4m10n]

...which is totally, fundamentally different from having to submit to an intimate personal examination to prove you possess a vagina and vulva. In any number of physical and psychological ways.

If only there were some vastly less invasive way to discover whether an individual has an SRY gene.

 

[Meadmaker]

I want to address the East African analogy that was brought up a few posts back.

First, it's an analogy, so those have some common problems. Just because something is similar in one respect doesn't mean it's similar in others, so I'm going to try to avoid the trap of going into point by point comparisons of various situations, and just try to address the questions related to East African runners, their consistently strong performance in distance events, and any related issues of fairness, segregation or anything related to it. We could do the same for Jamaican sprinters, but I'll stick to East African distance runners. I will address, directly, the questions about East African runners. Only then will I try to relate this to issues relating to males and females.

East African runners seem to have something special that makes them disproportionately represented among the winners of elite distance racing? Is it genetics? Is it culture? Is it some combination of the two?

First, let's observe that while they seem to be strong in distance events, they aren't completely dominant. Yes, they win lots of gold medals, but they do not win all of the gold medals, and plenty of other nations win silver and bronze medals, so, whatever it is that makes them strong runners, they are only marginally better than the rest of the world. The winner isn't always East African, and the top finishers almost always include people who are not East African.

So, there's really no need to change anything. The competitions still work. Yes, people wonder about whether there is some advantage, either genetic or cultural, but whatever it is, it isn't enough to make the races meaningless or make it possible to predict the winners just based on ethnicity or genetics.

Suppose we were to identify a specific genetic marker that was able to predict victory? In other words, do DNA tests on all top finishers, and discover that they all had a particular allele, and that allele was much more common among the East African population. Would it make sense to have a division strictly for genetically disadvantaged individuals, i.e. without the "runner's gene"? Well, yes. I think so. I don't see why not. However, the appropriate trait to base the segregation on would be the presence of the gene, not the origin in East Africa.

At present, we don't know if there is such a gene, and our technology is such that discovering who had it and who did not would be complicated. The fans of the sport, and the participants, might not like it either. In short, there is absolutely no reason to change the rules in recognition of the apparent advantage that East Africans have. We don't know if it's genetics, or culture. We can't identify whether a given individual has the sepcific gene in question. We know that East Africans don't always win, so we know that if it is some specific genetic advantage, it spreads beyond the East African community. So, there's no point in having a separate division for people who do not share the "runner's gene" that is, apparently, found in East African runners.

Now, I want people to think about that answer, because I suspect that a lot of people would reach the same conclusion, that East Africans should be treated the same as everyone else, but for a different, and in my opinion erroneous, reason. I think they would say, "Obviously, we cannot discriminate based on race or ethnicity."

I think that's wrong. I think it's perfectly ok to discriminate based on race or ethnicity if race or ethnicity is truly a deciding factor. However, as far as I know, there is no task or competition where people of one race or ethnicity consistently dominate as a result of some insurmountable advantage shared by that race.


Where such traits exist, such that a person without the trait cannot win or even be seriously competitive against people with the trait, then segregation of competitors based on the trait makes perfect sense. So, it makes sense to segregate most athletics based on age and sex. It makes sense for some sports to segregate based on height or weight. (Height based segregation never seems to generate enough interest among fans or participants to be sustainable.)

So, finally, we are ready to compare the East African analogy to the male/female segregation. The reason they are completely different is that the advantage of being male is easily recognized and utterly dominant. If males and females competed together, in most sports the females would lose every time. This is not true of East African distance runners, so the situations are not comparable.

 

[Collin237]

Now many people say that these are very rare cases, and that's undoubtedly true, but their future number might quite a bit hang upon how this matter is handled now and in the near future. And, yes, we absolutely will have to be sensitive and totally respectful of trans women and girls in competitive sports, but at the same time I'm absolutely sure that this is one of those rare areas where mere self-identification will simply not do, that there needs to be some other arrangement, some kind of a compromise.

I've seen claims that gender can be measured, at least with some probability, by MRI scans; and I haven't seen a convincing rebuttal.

And then there are also tentative psychological tests for gender incongruence.

These will need to be available with reasonable levels of both competence and ubiquity. Otherwise, self-identification will be the only practical option in most cases.

 

[deadrose]

I don't know why I even bother trying to post in this thread, but I would like to affirm for the record that I am a female who is fully in favor of trans rights. It seems that some people think only men are supporting them in this thread.

I am female enough to have given birth to three children, which means I now have their blood cells in my circulation as well as my own, so depending on the form of DNA testing I could conceivably test as intersex or chimeric (which both turn out to be far more common than thought). Also, I no longer have a uterus or cervix, and have passed menopause, so by some people's standards I'm not female at all.

And quite honestly, I'd rather share restrooms, changing facilities and sports with any number of transgender people than with a bunch of gatekeepers sizing me up because of my deep voice or the length of my hair.

TL/DR: I'm not and never will be on your side, just because I'm female.