Trans women are not women (Part 8)

[Elaedith]

This is an interesting article by Helena, a detransitioner, describing how she came to identify as trans as a result of becoming immersed in a cult-like social media community. It's long but worth reading.

 

[Meadmaker]

This is an interesting article by Helena, a detransitioner, describing how she came to identify as trans as a result of becoming immersed in a cult-like social media community. It's long but worth reading.

Anecdote.

ETA: But....I did read the article. I admit I skimmed a few sections. This particular anecdote has an awful lot of details that match plenty of other anecdotes.

 

[Meadmaker]

I got curious about my memory of previous discussions of detransitioning, so I pulled up the search function.


The interesting thing is that almost all of the hits were from people who were generally gender critical. (Did I use that word right? I think it generally means people on "my team"., i.e. people who think there are certain situations where segregation by biological sex is a good idea, regardless of gender identity or presentation.)

 

[Abooga]

I wanted to share this interview I came across yesterday. What do the resident gender ideologues think about being labelled as, (apart from the now common mysoginist), as homophobes, and even racist? (I concede he might have gone a bit too far with that last one)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5MDAVw2osE

 

[TurkeysGhost]

Saw this quote in a news story about Indiana's proposed transgender sports law.




It really speaks volumes about the debate.

I trust you understand that sports in school aren't competition for the sake of competition.

 

[d4m10n]

I trust you understand that sports in school aren't competition for the sake of competition.

Competition is never entirely for its own sake. The competitive instinct helps people drive themselves harder than they would in individual trials and helps them bond with teammates. Both of these goals are undermined when someone with an obvious physiological advantage (like Thomas or Hubbard) joins the club.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

Competition is never entirely for its own sake. The competitive instinct helps people drive themselves harder than they would in individual trials and helps them bond with teammates. Both of these goals are undermined when someone with an obvious physiological advantage (like Thomas or Hubbard) joins the club.

Sure, but everyone generally understands that K-12 school sports are not about winning matches alone. There's a general understanding that sports are an educational experience for students, not just a competition to see the most talented athletes rise to the top.

There's a pretty obvious sliding scale of priorities that tracks with age. In the youngest sports, who wins or loses is largely unimportant. There are often rules in place to ensure almost any child can play and gets more or less equal play time, even if doing so results in a team being less competitive. Everyone rolls their eyes at the loudmouth parent at the peewee game who takes the competitive element a bit too seriously.

It's not unusual to see very unskilled players, or even players with severe physical disabilities, playing on a little league team, as an example. Thankfully such rules were in place that yours truly was able to play nearly 10 years of youth hockey, despite being consistently poorer player than my peers. Had I the inclination, I likely could have played all through high school despite my lack of skill, likely as a third stringer on a JV team. Obviously competition and winning are not the only goals here.

As kids become older competition gets more intense, but even then there's concessions made, often explicitly written into rules, to ensure that sports remain somewhat accessible to any interested student.

Some sports really seem to lose the thread more than others (say high school varsity football in some parts of the country), but many rightly understand that school sports are as much about educating students than it is about assembling the most competitive team possible.

ETA: Hell, Title IX itself is such a concession. The interest of ensuring that girls have as much access to school sports as boys, even in spite of any interest the community might have in these games, is the compelling force behind such laws.

So yeah, making accommodations that trans kids can participate in physical education via school sports is as much a concern as some cis kid collecting medals.

It's also noteworthy that private sports clubs exist, often marketing themselves directly to high skill young athletes who wish to compete more intensely than the school system will allow.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

An amendment was just filed by the sponsor of #DontSayGay to make it even more dangerous for vulnerable kids with a STATE-MANDATED outing of LGBTQ students to parents, specifically in cases of abuse, abandonment + neglect.

This will have devastating consequences for our youth.

https://twitter.com/CarlosGSmith/status/1495481777217052676

Sponsor of the "don't say gay" bill in Florida is proposing an amendment that would require a school to out queer students to their parents, even in cases where they reasonably believe that doing so would result in abuse, abandonment, or neglect.

 

[Meadmaker]

I trust you understand that sports in school aren't competition for the sake of competition.

There is an incredible amount wrong with the quote in question, but I'll stick to this aspect for now.


You are absolutely right. School sports are competition for the sake of other things. However, if you destroy the competition, you don't get the other things. The competition makes it work.

The woman who made the quote is taking the "sports don't matter" thing to a whole new level of stupid by saying that sports don't matter to your daughters, but they have to keep playing so that my daughter gets the benefit.

 

[Ziggurat]

https://twitter.com/CarlosGSmith/status/1495481777217052676

Sponsor of the "don't say gay" bill in Florida is proposing an amendment that would require a school to out queer students to their parents, even in cases where they reasonably believe that doing so would result in abuse, abandonment, or neglect.

Not quite. In general, it's not really any of a school's business whether or not a student is queer. Even if the school knows, if that doesn't affect the way the school treats the student (and in general it shouldn't and won't), then they aren't obligated to do anything even by this bill. The school doesn't have to tell parents about things that the school isn't involved with.

That being said, I understand why the bill has people upset. They want students to be able to get services through the school and keep that information confidential even from parents. On the flip side, though, parents want to know what schools are doing with their kids, and they don't trust that the schools will always act in the child's best interests. There is no easy reconciliation to this conflict. But the conflict isn't quite what you make it out to be.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

The woman who made the quote is taking the "sports don't matter" thing to a whole new level of stupid by saying that sports don't matter to your daughters, but they have to keep playing so that my daughter gets the benefit.

Hard for me to comment on that, I'm not seeing a link to any article that quote comes from. I imagine the context for such a statement matters quite a bit.

 

[TomB]

Sure, but everyone generally understands that K-12 school sports are not about winning matches alone. There's a general understanding that sports are an educational experience for students, not just a competition to see the most talented athletes rise to the top.

Sort of.

Is there an education component? Sure. But only a minority of students participate in sports in high school. Those that do are required to try out on a skill based basis. So this is not an educational agenda that is provided to everyone. Only the ones who make the team.

For example, my daughter had to try out for Junior high Volleyball, high school cheer-leading and high school softball. Some people who tried out did not make the team. In some cases, more people failed to make the team than made the team.

There's a pretty obvious sliding scale of priorities that tracks with age. In the youngest sports, who wins or loses is largely unimportant. There are often rules in place to ensure almost any child can play and gets more or less equal play time, even if doing so results in a team being less competitive. Everyone rolls their eyes at the loudmouth parent at the peewee game who takes the competitive element a bit too seriously.

Around here, school sports start in junior high. Team membership is, from the start, based on a skill-based tryout. There are no "equal participation" rules. Take it from someone whose stepsons were bench-warmers in Jr. High basketball.

What you are referring to sounds more like club or Park District sports. And even then, I'm not sure there are equal participation rules at the club level. Depends on the club and the league in which they play. There are, believe it or not, competitive leagues at pretty young ages in some sports.

But my point is that what you describe, from what I have seen does not exist in school sports. It exists in private sports.

It's not unusual to see very unskilled players, or even players with severe physical disabilities, playing on a little league team, as an example. Thankfully such rules were in place that yours truly was able to play nearly 10 years of youth hockey, despite being consistently poorer player than my peers. Had I the inclination, I likely could have played all through high school despite my lack of skill, likely as a third stringer on a JV team. Obviously competition and winning are not the only goals here.

First, little league is private. We aren't talking about students there. Second, some of the upper levels of Little League are highly competitive. See Little League World Series. There are even cheating scandals related to recruiting in Little League.

As for your hockey league....

Were there tryouts? Were there people who did not make the team?
Generally speaking, third-stringers make the team because the coaches think they are better than those who did not make the team. Or sometimes they are the coach's relative. Or someone the coach likes for some intangible reason. (Tryouts are pretty subjective.) And yes, sometimes they will take a well-liked disabled kid onto the team.

But none of that guarantees playing time. Third stringers fulfill a substitution role, but their time tends to be minuscule compared to the first and second string. This was true in Jr. High Volleyball (lowest level of sports in our school system) and it was true in high school softball. And not all the cheerleaders got to be on the competition floor. When the game is no longer in doubt, you see the third string come in sometimes. This is when the heartwarming videos of both teams helping the disabled kid score show up.

As kids become older competition gets more intense, but even then there's concessions made, often explicitly written into rules, to ensure that sports remain somewhat accessible to any interested student.

Yes. That means they can try out for the team. It doesn't mean they have to be given a spot on the team.

Some sports really seem to lose the thread more than others (say high school varsity football in some parts of the country), but many rightly understand that school sports are as much about educating students than it is about assembling the most competitive team possible.

Sure. But that education is only being provided to those who are able to make the team. Through tryouts. It's not provided to the student body at large.

ETA: Hell, Title IX itself is such a concession. The interest of ensuring that girls have as much access to school sports as boys, even in spite of any interest the community might have in these games, is the compelling force behind such laws.

Sort of. It's a bit complex and takes into account things like interest levels, type of sport (contact/non-contact) etc.

So yeah, making accommodations that trans kids can participate in physical education via school sports is as much a concern as some cis kid collecting medals.

What you are missing here is that trans kids do have the same access to sports as non-trans kids. That is not an issue. The question is which sports teams do they have access to.

My stepson did not have the option of competing on the female track team. He only had the option of competing on the male track team. The ask here is not that a trans kid get the option to compete. It's that they get the option to choose the classification in which they compete.

Now, the fact that occasionally a girl will play on the boys' baseball team does muddy the water. That's because it's regarded as playing up. (Just as in the clubs a 14 year old can play on the 16U team but a 15 year old can't play on the 14U team.) It also happens occasionally when the sport is not offered for female students. (Note under title IX this does not mean that a male can play on the female volleyball team if there is no male volleyball team. Has to do with historic disparity in offerings.)

It's also noteworthy that private sports clubs exist, often marketing themselves directly to high skill young athletes who wish to compete more intensely than the school system will allow.

And yet most of the items of inclusion you mention do not really apply to school sports.

 

[TomB]

Saw this quote in a news story about Indiana's proposed transgender sports law.




It really speaks volumes about the debate.

<sigh>
Ignoring the medals part, usually rosters are limited to X number of athletes. If her daughter is on the team, someone else's daughter is not on the team and misses out on the life lessons and confidence boosts sports provides.

Another way of phrasing it is "My daughter's mental health is more important than that other girl's mental health."

I actually kind of understand that. As parents are primary concern is the well-being of our children. "Fair" is what benefits our kids. But as a neutral third party, it doesn't really fly.

 

[TomB]

Here's a link for ST that contains the quote:
https://www.heraldtimesonline.com/story/news/local/2022/02/06/hb-1041-indiana-trans-rights-transgender-swimmer-sports/9319116002/

Now, there is some context here to be considered.

The woman's daughter transitioned at the age of 3, and has not and will not, apparently, go through male puberty. Regardless of my mixed feelings about transitioning that early, I think that is quite different than someone who has transitioned at a later age.

Unfortunately, I don't really see either side addressing the differences between a pre-pubescent vs. post-pubescent transition.

And that's a bit of a shame.

 

[Meadmaker]

Hard for me to comment on that, I'm not seeing a link to any article that quote comes from. I imagine the context for such a statement matters quite a bit.

Not really. Indiana is debating a bill that would require all participants in girls' sports to be female. Some people like it. Some people don't. A journalist wrote a pretty formulaic article with quotes from both sides.




Meanwhile, somehow the fact that I got to play two innings in every Little League game even though I never reached first base is somehow related to why Terry Miller gets to stand on the podium at the New England regional championships, and have her name in the record books as the fastest of all time in that region. I didn't qutie follow the reasoning why those two were connected, but I'm sure it makes sense to someone.

Now, if Terry had said, "It's not really about the competition for me. I was just happy to be able to run. Selina can take my spot at the regional competition," then I could see some sort of connection, but that didn't happen. Terry seemed to be pretty darned competitive, and happy about winning, just like Lia Thomas, setting an Ivy League record this weekend. It sure seems like these people are competing, so the absence of competitiveness seems kind of a non sequitur.

ETA: If you want the context of the quote: https://www.indystar.com/story/news...ban-transgender-girls-from-sports/6829163001/

 

[TurkeysGhost]

<sigh>
Ignoring the medals part, usually rosters are limited to X number of athletes. If her daughter is on the team, someone else's daughter is not on the team and misses out on the life lessons and confidence boosts sports provides.

Another way of phrasing it is "My daughter's mental health is more important than that other girl's mental health."

I actually kind of understand that. As parents are primary concern is the well-being of our children. "Fair" is what benefits our kids. But as a neutral third party, it doesn't really fly.

Limitations on how many people can participate in sports are largely up to the discretion of the schools. Some sports are more competitive than others.

When I was in school, you could essentially walk onto the track team or cross country team, so long as you were willing to attend practice. Whether or you got to run for time in official events was handled on a more competitive basis.

More popular sports like football, baseball, and basketball had junior varsity teams which were more or less competitive. If there's enough interest further leagues can be made.

If there's enough interest and resources, there's really no reason why a school couldn't field multiple teams of various skill levels.

Any scarcity of team slots is a policy decision by the school.

 

[Ziggurat]

What you are missing here is that trans kids do have the same access to sports as non-trans kids. That is not an issue. The question is which sports teams do they have access to.

It's not just ST who is missing this, and I think it's being missed deliberately. A quote from the news story you just linked:

"The Indiana House passed a bill, HB 1041, last week banning transgender girls from playing sports in elementary, middle and high schools."​

But as you correctly point out, the bill wouldn't ban them from playing sports, it would only require them to play on the boys' teams. I know that this isn't satisfactory for everyone, but the distinction still matters, and it's dishonest to ignore it.

 

[Meadmaker]

Here's a link for ST that contains the quote:
https://www.heraldtimesonline.com/story/news/local/2022/02/06/hb-1041-indiana-trans-rights-transgender-swimmer-sports/9319116002/

Now, there is some context here to be considered.

The woman's daughter transitioned at the age of 3, and has not and will not, apparently, go through male puberty. Regardless of my mixed feelings about transitioning that early, I think that is quite different than someone who has transitioned at a later age.

Unfortunately, I don't really see either side addressing the differences between a pre-pubescent vs. post-pubescent transition.

And that's a bit of a shame.

Ninja'd.

Interesting. Your story contains more information than mine did.

Well, as has been pointed out a whole lot of times in this long running thread, if the trans activist side would give up on self ID, we would have a very different discussion.

I don't actually like the "whatever you were recorded at birth" approach to a lot of transgender issues, but each side wants to push to an extreme approach. If I have to choose between "whatever you were at birth", versus "whatever you declared yesterday", I'll go with birth. I think there's plenty of room for a different approach, but the politicians and activists don't seem to want to go there.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

Not really. Indiana is debating a bill that would require all participants in girls' sports to be female. Some people like it. Some people don't. A journalist wrote a pretty formulaic article with quotes from both sides.




Meanwhile, somehow the fact that I got to play two innings in every Little League game even though I never reached first base is somehow related to why Terry Miller gets to stand on the podium at the New England regional championships, and have her name in the record books as the fastest of all time in that region. I didn't qutie follow the reasoning why those two were connected, but I'm sure it makes sense to someone.

Now, if Terry had said, "It's not really about the competition for me. I was just happy to be able to run. Selina can take my spot at the regional competition," then I could see some sort of connection, but that didn't happen. Terry seemed to be pretty darned competitive, and happy about winning, just like Lia Thomas, setting an Ivy League record this weekend. It sure seems like these people are competing, so the absence of competitiveness seems kind of a non sequitur.

ETA: If you want the context of the quote: https://www.indystar.com/story/news...ban-transgender-girls-from-sports/6829163001/

And yet students across this country participate in organized sports at the non-elite level in huge numbers. Let's not be daft, there's more going on here besides the small number of top level athletes competing for the record books.

There's educational and social value in playing in school sports, even if you're not a championship team competing in highest skill divisions.

NCAA has three divisions of athletics, and you can guess that division II and III are playing for reasons beyond hoping to set records.

 

[Meadmaker]

And yet students across this country participate in organized sports at the non-elite level in huge numbers. Let's not be daft, there's more going on here besides the small number of top level athletes competing for the record books.

Indeed

There's educational and social value in playing in school sports, even if you're not a championship team competing in highest skill divisions.

True, true.

And....what educational and social value is being taught to the girl who doesn't make the volleyball team because a transgirl beats her out?

Seems to me that the educational lesson there is "You don't matter."