Cont: Trans women are not women (IX)

[LondonJohn]

Take away the safety issue, and there's still a fairness issue.

Why do you think transwomen have the right to compete with women at any level of sport?

Why do you not extend that right to "elite" and "sub-elite" levels of sport?

Explained many times previously. Search the thread(s).

 

[LondonJohn]

I have figured a solution to the birth problem, "it's a boy or it's a girl" are out.

"They are starting life with/without a penis" is in.

Can anyone do better?

Huh?

Nobody at all is suggesting that new-born babies should not be sexed/gendered in the way that they always have been.

The issue is around people who come to realise that the gender they were assigned at birth is not in alignment with their true gender identity.

 

[Lplus]

I have figured a solution to the birth problem, "it's a boy or it's a girl" are out.

"They are starting life with/without a penis" is in.

Can anyone do better?

The Bedicked or the Unbedicked. (same thing but snappier)

 

[smartcooky]

I think you might possibly have either missed or misunderstood these words in my post: "...except the elite and sub-elite levels".

Nope, I understand it perfectly - its just that you are wrong... completely wrong.

Where do you think elite athletes, and sub-elite athletes come from? Do they just magically appear out of nowhere like fairy dust? No, of course they don't. They come from the grass roots of every sport. They are the ones who strive hard to succeed, and so through sheer skill and determination make it to the next level, and the next, and the next an so on. Only a tiny percentage of grass roots athletes ever make it to the next level, and only a tiny percentage of those make it to the next, and so on.

It is at the level of grass-roots in women's sport that having transwomen competing against women will do the most damage to women's sport (and let's not piss around with all the PC semantics here - however you try to spin it, transwomen are physiologically male). Bigger, faster & stronger transwomen will dominate women's sports at those levels, there is zero doubt about this fact. It is already happening now.

That domination will lead to women being unable to progress in their own sport, and this will lead to transwomen being the ones who predominantly progress up the levels thanks to the unfair advantage of their male physiology. Ultimately, the women trying to compete in women's sports will have no chance of progressing, particularly in individual sports like athletics, where select is based on times and placings.

 

[Lplus]

1) I am free to participate in this thread exactly as I wish. And I choose to visit this thread more and more infrequently - mainly since I tend not to find it particularly interesting, informative or worthwhile any longer to engage with the amount of anti-transgender-identity animus dressed up as a narrow set of concerns over things like women's sport or women's prisons. Oh, and I certainly don't feel any obligation at all to answer questions, whether in (what my interlocutor might consider) a timely manner or not.

2) I've explained my position on women's sports probably a dozen times now in this thread. Including, as it happens, about 16 hours ago.

There is no anti transgender-identity animus. There is distict animus against the obligations that some transgender individuals are insisting on forcing upon a significant number of non transgender individuals.

 

[shuttlt]

I have figured a solution to the birth problem, "it's a boy or it's a girl" are out.

"They are starting life with/without a penis" is in.

Can anyone do better?

I think we could be a bit more Handmaid's Tale if we put out minds to it. It's all metaphors for farming, and growing isn't it? Barren etc? Female babies could be untilled plots, and male babies could be untried farmers.

 

[Samson]

I think we could be a bit more Handmaid's Tale if we put out minds to it. It's all metaphors for farming, and growing isn't it? Barren etc? Female babies could be untilled plots, and male babies could be untried farmers.

I reflected further on the brief use of the pronoun "it" in old fashioned births (It's a boy Mrs Walker it's a boy) I think thereafter it becomes he.

Yes, "It's" starting life with a penis might be more handmaid than the contemporary "they".

 

[shuttlt]

I consider "fair" to be synoymous with "equitable" and "just".

Giving synonyms doesn't really help. If I was talking about "evil" and you asked me to define what I meant, and I told you I meant "wicked", I'm not sure it would help. What do you mean by equitable?

You appear to use it to mean eligible to meet certain criteria.

It can do, again.... I don't think these categories are about fairness, so I'm really just throwing ideas out there.

So far so good, but how are you deciding on those criteria? What logic is behind the decision to eliminate those who are not female - other than the very fact of the difference in chromosomes between male and female?

Why would the difference in chromosomes be unfair, but differences in DNA not be unfair? If you are going to found this on "fairness", you need to flesh out your definition, particularly if you are going to claim it is logical in some way. Look at the marathon, the world record for that has been held by Ethiopians and Kenyans continuously for the past 20 years. Similar story in the Olympics except there was an upset when a Ugandan won. Their physiology seems to be really good for distance running. Runners from East Africa are far more dominant than trans-athletes. You need to give a definition of fairness that explains why this isn't a problem, but being born with a penis is.

 

[shuttlt]

I reflected further on the brief use of the pronoun "it" in old fashioned births (It's a boy Mrs Walker it's a boy) I think thereafter it becomes he.

Yes, "It's" starting life with a penis might be more handmaid than the contemporary "they".

We could go more Narnia, and call them son's of Adam, or daughters of Eve?

 

[Darat]

...snip...

If transwomen are permitted to compete against biological women, then ultimately, biological women will be pushed down or out of their own sports as all the top performers who hold all the records will be transwomen. Why should a tiny minority group of people be allowed the unfair physiological advantage of going through male puberty, something that biological females are denied.

...snip...

Not arguing against sex segregation in sport but how likely is the above given the very small number of trans people?

 

[Rolfe]

Every male who participates in women's sport pushes multiple women down to lower placings than they would otherwise get. I saw a calculation once about how many women had been pushed out of higher placings by a single male competing in women's sports, and it was a lot.

We've already heard from US high school girls who have trained for years to become competitive in athletics and are seeing everything they have worked for snatched from them by a couple of boys who have grown their hair. How many such girls is it OK to sacrifice? One spoke about turning her attention to the long jump because there were no males competing in that, only to realise that a boy (with long hair) now had his sights on that one too.

 

[shuttlt]

The question, then, though, is why do we have a category for females but not tall people?

Because we want to? Because culturally "women" have a special significance in society and have traditionally been entitled to protection. Because "who is the fastest?" is a question that we are interested in answering, and "who is the fastest woman?" is a question we are somewhat interested in answering, but "who is the fastest woman, or man whose performance has been reduced to put him on an approximately equal playing field with women?" is not a question we are interested in? Maybe a midget and a man with no arms would be equally matched at sumo, but what would such a competition actually mean? Because the purpose of sport is to impart some kind of societal good that requires us to believe in a notion of fairness, and that if you try hard enough you can win, and that illusion is shattered if men compete?

Honestly, if a trans-woman wins, is it because they won "fair", or because they weren't on enough hormone blockers? You are never going to make things so equal that trans-women can win, and women aren't going to feel cheated.

Perhaps here's a way: the tallness of tall people is the actual characteristic that affects whether they have an advantage or not in basketball, say, and is also the characteristic by which we have classed those people together. But having ovaries (or having had them, in the case of an ovarectomy (?), or having the body for having them, etc., let's not get bogged down in the exceptional cases) is the characteristic by which we class people together into the category of females but the ovaries themselves are *not* the actual characteristic that affects an advantage or disadvantage.

This seems like reasoning backwards from a conclusion. Is height really a pure advantage in basketball in a way that being a man isn't? Surely the more fundamental thing is being able to get your hand to a particular location in space. A tall person with short arms may have less of an advantage than one thinks, similarly a tall person whose leg muscles are not great for jumping. Is weight really the thing that determines boxing performance, or is muscle weight and fat weight different? You can pick apart all these things if you want to. Like I say, it feels like reasoning backwards from a conclusion.

If a woman had their ovaries removed, that would not affect their competitive status. If a man, having undergone male puberty, had their testes removed, that would not affect their competitive status (I think).

I suspect if that started happening en masse because of a competitive advantage, real or imagined, it would be banned. It seems like a dark road to go down having people feel that they need to take such medical decisions in order to be competative.

I have no idea whether this holds up consistently, but I'm sure someone will let me know if it doesn't. But maybe this is a step in the direction of explaining *why* we have different categories of competition for males and females.

See above.

 

[lionking]

Not arguing against sex segregation in sport but how likely is the above given the very small number of trans people?

How many do you want to see? Lia Thomas alone has been a disruptive swimmer in the US college system.

 

[Darat]

How many do you want to see? Lia Thomas alone has been a disruptive swimmer in the US college system.

?

 

[lionking]

?

Really?

Lia has been mentioned countless times in this thread. Lia has broken womens swimming NCAA records galore and relegated women swimmers to failure. Lia wants to make he US womens Olympic team. Lia is non-transitioned with a girlfriend and self identifies as a transgender lesbian.

How many women swimmers are going to be disadvantaged by the Lias of this world?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lia_Thomas

 

[Rolfe]

Be fair. He grew his hair and he's wearing a swimming costume in the general style of a woman's costume.

 

[lionking]

Be fair. He grew his hair and he's wearing a swimming costume in the general style of a woman's costume.

Well the costume has a significant bulge. I suspect it was custom made.

 

[Rolfe]

One bulge below the waist. Nothing appreciable above the waist. No apparent reason to have any costume above the waist, because there's nothing to cover. But I suspect there are rules about what must and must not be worn in the pool.

 

[shuttlt]

One bulge below the waist. Nothing appreciable above the waist. No apparent reason to have any costume above the waist, because there's nothing to cover. But I suspect there are rules about what must and must not be worn in the pool.

There is nothing masculine or feminine about being a firefighter, or a nurse, or having a penis, or breasts and a vagina. Liberate yourself from these old notions, Rolfe. We are all deracinated individuals, without past, or future, inventing ourselves in the metaverse of our own minds.

 

[lionking]

There is nothing masculine or feminine about being a firefighter, or a nurse, or having a penis, or breasts and a vagina. Liberate yourself from these old notions, Rolfe. We are all deracinated individuals, without past, or future, inventing ourselves in the metaverse of our own minds.

What on earth does that have to do with Lia Thomas and sport?

Look I know you want to avoid the sport issue, but this is at the cutting edge of this whole topic.