Trans women are not women (Part 8)

[Meadmaker]

<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.

Yep. That's another thing wrong with the quote.

I see three general areas of "wrong" with the quote, and all have been touched on.

There's "Winning doesn't really matter" (Except, of course, to my daughter).

There's "Your daughter's mental health (or self image, or self esteem) isn't as important as my daughter's."

And there's, "Because my daughter has mental health issues, you have to do what she wants," And a closely related, "If you don't give in to my daughter, you are responsible for her mental health issues."

It's just utterly self centered, as is the whole debate, really, though you have to sort of read between the lines to find it sometimes.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

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?

I imagine it's a similar experience to not making the team because a cis-girl beat them out.

 

[TomB]

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.

Sure. But in schools, it’s limited to the kids who make the team. It is not available to all.

Unless you are talking intramurals.

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

Those divisions are, based on the school and the resources they devote to athletics. Division 3, for example, doesn’t give scholarships.

The schools decide their division. It’s not based on athletic ability.

There are division 2 schools with very strong sports programs. NDSU, for example has an excellent football program.

And you will see quite a few division 2 players in the pro ranks. I think Walter Payton actually came from a division 3 school.

In practice, the better athletes tend to go to the division 1 programs to get better exposure and full scholarships.

But the NCAA does not base its division on ability. It’s on the resources the schools want to commit to athletics.

 

[Paul2]

I imagine it's a similar experience to not making the team because a cis-girl beat them out.

Then why have girls' and boys' teams to begin with? The reason for having girls' and boys' teams is so that the girls wouldn't get beat out (mostly) for spots on a team. If a trans girl who went through male puberty beats out a cis girl for a spot, how is that any different from a cis boy beating out a cis girl for a spot in terms of the competition for that spot?

 

[Meadmaker]

The reason for having girls' and boys' teams is so that the girls wouldn't get beat out (mostly) for spots on a team.

I'll quibble a bit. It's not that the above is incorrect, but it misses some emphasis.

We have school sports for a variety of reasons, but one of those reasons, and I think the most important of them, is to reward and encourage athleticism. We want people to try to make themselves physically more capable.

We have girls' leagues because no matter how hard they train, they aren't going to catch the guys. In terms of perfecting their abilities, the female who is in the top 1% of females is more athletic than a guy in the 60th percentile of men, but the guy will still win the race. (I don't know if the percentages are right, but you get the idea.)

If we give away the girls' spot to a less athletic, but more capable, male, that sends a bad message to the girls, in my opinion.

For what it's worth, some people have responded to arguments like those above by noting that there aren't basketball leagues for short people, and similar arguments. I don't think the concept is inherently stupid. The idea of a special league for people at natural disadvantages that are impossible to overcome makes a certain amount of sense. It just isn't always practical.

However, in the cases of sex, age, and disability, there are, in fact, good reasons to have separation, and enough interest among participants, spectators, and patrons to make it happen.

 

[Paul2]

For what it's worth, some people have responded to arguments like those above by noting that there aren't basketball leagues for short people, and similar arguments. I don't think the concept is inherently stupid. The idea of a special league for people at natural disadvantages that are impossible to overcome makes a certain amount of sense. It just isn't always practical.

However, in the cases of sex, age, and disability, there are, in fact, good reasons to have separation, and enough interest among participants, spectators, and patrons to make it happen.

It doesn't make sense, though, to have special leagues for people at a natural disadvantage that is impossible to overcome. That states the situation too broadly: it's that some natural characteristic of a population should be exactly the disadvantage. For instance, short people have a natural disadvantage at basketball precisely because they are short, and the game favors height (in general). But the equivalent would be to assert that women have a natural disadvantage at sports because they are women, which is not true. The fact of a woman's femaleness - in and of itself - does not impact their performance in sports.

 

[Meadmaker]

It doesn't make sense, though, to have special leagues for people at a natural disadvantage that is impossible to overcome. That states the situation too broadly: it's that some natural characteristic of a population should be exactly the disadvantage. For instance, short people have a natural disadvantage at basketball precisely because they are short, and the game favors height (in general). But the equivalent would be to assert that women have a natural disadvantage at sports because they are women, which is not true. The fact of a woman's femaleness - in and of itself - does not impact their performance in sports.

And age does not, in and of itself, impact people's performance, but if I enter a competition for men over fifty, and I get beaten by a thirtytwo year old, I'm going to have a word with the event organizers.

Age and sex are two characteristics where, in and of themselves, make no difference, and yet they are so strongly correlated with performance that competitions are organized for people of different ages and sexes.

Gender, as we use the term here, on the other hand, doesn't make any difference at all in athletic performance, so I can't see any sense in segregation by gender.

 

[d4m10n]

Because my daughter has mental health issues, you have to do what she wants...

It is unclear to me why Lia Thomas (for example) receives greater mental health benefits from swimming against females than she would swimming against other males. Wouldn't her sense of achievement be even greater in the latter case?

Has anyone forthrightly said what advantages are gained for the individuals crossing over to compete against the opposite sex, aside from (probably) winning more often?

 

[TurkeysGhost]

It is unclear to me why Lia Thomas (for example) receives greater mental health benefits from swimming against females than she would swimming against other males. Wouldn't her sense of achievement be even greater in the latter case?

Has anyone forthrightly said what advantages are gained for the individuals crossing over to compete against the opposite sex, aside from (probably) winning more often?

There's very little reason to believe that selecting the competitive venue has much to do with it, but rather a desire not to be treated as the wrong gender.

There are trans boy/men athletes as well who wish to compete with other men, though they obviously do not draw the same amount of attention.

The case of Mack Beggs is one such example, a trans boy taking prescribed testosterone who was not permitted to compete with other boys as he intended.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/highschools/meet-the-texas-wrestler-who-won-a-girls-state-title-his-name-is-mack/2017/02/25/982bd61c-fb6f-11e6-be05-1a3817ac21a5_story.html?utm_term=.32d7c6ab5096

There's no reason to assume that a desire for easier competition is the driving motivation in any of these cases.

 

[theprestige]

Now would be another great time for LJ to present the settled science showing that gender dysphoria is a mental health issue and that transcending sex segregation in sports is a critical part of the treatment.

 

[Ziggurat]

There's no reason to assume that a desire for easier competition is the driving motivation in any of these cases.

Perhaps. But so what? Motivation or not, that's still the result.

 

[Meadmaker]

There's very little reason to believe that selecting the competitive venue has much to do with it, but rather a desire not to be treated as the wrong gender.

I think this is true, but I'll note that Damion's actual question was about mental health benefits, not what she wants or why she wants it.

Those are two different questions.


I can't speak for Damion, to say that was really his intent, but in my opinion, it's very relevant. It also goes to what theprestige is getting at. Is there a reason to believe that allowing transgirls to compete in the girls' division is actually beneficial to the transgirls' mental health?

 

[theprestige]

There's very little reason to believe that selecting the competitive venue has much to do with it, but rather a desire not to be treated as the wrong gender.

There are trans boy/men athletes as well who wish to compete with other men, though they obviously do not draw the same amount of attention.

The case of Mack Beggs is one such example, a trans boy taking prescribed testosterone who was not permitted to compete with other boys as he intended.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/highschools/meet-the-texas-wrestler-who-won-a-girls-state-title-his-name-is-mack/2017/02/25/982bd61c-fb6f-11e6-be05-1a3817ac21a5_story.html?utm_term=.32d7c6ab5096

There's no reason to assume that a desire for easier competition is the driving motivation in any of these cases.

Begs the question that right and wrong gender have even been defined in terms of sex segregation.

 

[Meadmaker]

The case of Mack Beggs is one such example, a trans boy taking prescribed testosterone who was not permitted to compete with other boys as he intended.

Do you think the fact that the sport was wrestling may have had some influence on where Mack was allowed to compete?


In years past, the subject of mixed sex wrestling has come up, and I have always vehemently opposed it, for reasons that ought to be obvious. These days, I'm not sure I would say the same thing. However, it's not so much that I've become enlightened. (Should I say, "woke"?) It's just that there's only so much reality denial I can take.


These days, I just wish people would accept reality. If a girl chooses to wrestle against boys, sometimes there are going to be guys pawing at her snatch. That's reality. It will happen by accident, and it will happen on purpose. Of course, the boys will deny the "on purpose" part, but they'll be lying. If that doesn't bother the girl, and there are laws in place protecting the schools from liability if when it happens, go for it, girls....and transboys.

 

[Emily's Cat]

I don’t have any issue with representation being treated with some granularity. I can picture something like ‘ok for women we need at least two cis, two black, one trans’ then you fulfill ‘trans women are women’ for the trans activists and ‘don’t let trans women take over our spots’ for the gender critical types.

You simultaneously end up implying that black females are not as female as white females... and that some males are as female as white females.

I'm of the opinion that females are all equally female, and males are all equally NOT female.

 

[p0lka]

You simultaneously end up implying that black females are not as female as white females... and that some males are as female as white females.

I'm of the opinion that females are all equally female, and males are all equally NOT female.

It follows then that all males are equally male? Is that correct?

 

[theprestige]

It follows then that all males are equally male? Is that correct?

Any time people ask rhetorical questions with obvious answers, I know there's shenanigans afoot. Can we just skip to the part where you state your point in plain language?

 

[Emily's Cat]

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.

The stories of detransitioners were a significant driver on my views toward puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for teens. I didn't have a strong opinion prior to that, some basic hesitation because teens aren't known for being good at long-term thinking, but not particularly opposed to it. After having been exposed to the stories of detransitioners, the regret, the harm done to otherwise physically healthy people... yeah, I'm a lot more against it now.

But I still hear people parroting the "safe and reversible" for puberty blockers, and "safe and effective" for cross-sex hormones, and hollering that the "medical community knows best and affirmation is the way to go" all while very pointedly ignoring the rising number of detransitioners as well as the position change from the UK, Finland, and Sweden.

 

[Emily's Cat]

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

I understand that some parents believe that the emotions of their child are more important than fairness, safety, and the emotions of all other children combined.

 

[Emily's Cat]

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.

That concession is the difference between intramural teams and competitive teams.

I swam competitively in middle school. I wasn't the best, but I had to try out and be accepted, and I could only go to meets if I won that spot within our team.

My sibling did intramural softball. Anyone who wanted to join the team could do so. They may not get to be pitcher if they can't throw the ball, but there was a spot for pretty much anyone who showed up and was physically capable of playing.

My cousin did special olympics skiing and running. It was a combination. Participation was strictly limited to only those with physical or mental disabilities... but aside from that, anyone who wanted to compete could do so. But winners were still winners, and my cousin was quite proud of their many silver and gold medals for skiing. They put in a LOT of work and practice to earn them.