Cont: Transwomen are not women - part 13

[Matthew Best]

Okay, then, to be clear, there is no man involved in this particular conflict.

What conflict?

 

[Brainster]

I don't know why I'm poking the dead horse, but this thread is about transwomen in women's sports being an unfair advantage and not simply transphobia, right?

Not solely. There are lots of issues that we discuss here. For example, whether transwomen who have been convicted of rape should be incarcerated with women. That's fun to argue about, but surprisingly we don't hear much from the Hallelujah Trans chorus around here on that particular issue, wonder why?

How does that relate to this story?

(For those who don't want to go onto twitter, and I don't blame you, a ciswoman refused to play against a transwoman in the finals of a pool tournament. Because it's twitter, most of the comments praised the ciswoman. When a few people asked what physical advantage a transwoman has over a ciswoman, they were either laughed at or told it was a matter of principle.)

Is it a matter of unfair advantage or is it a matter of principle? If it is a matter of principle, what is that principle?

The principle is that women never win in open pool competitions, and so rather than relegate them to perpetual loser-hood, somebody came up with the idea of having separate competitions for men and women. In pool there is an obvious advantage to height and strength, but let's talk about some "sports" where the male edge is quite a bit harder to see. Why do we have separate categories for men and women in darts or poker? And the answer is the same.

Now the irony is that on average at least in poker women are as good as men. I have run poker tournaments as a moonlighting job for the last 13 years and for a good part of that I used a database to track the players and how well they did. I had a field for sex, and when I computed where the average woman and average man finished it was even.

But average is not the same as elite or best. Men were far more likely to win my tournaments than women (and far more likely to be the first out), even after adjusting for the fact that more men than women entered my tournaments. In the World Series of Poker, approximately 4-5% of the field is female, so approximately 4-5% of final tables should be females. If we limit it to the last 20 years (the Chris Moneymaker era), there have been 180 players at the final table and so we would expect somewhere between 7.2 and 9 of them to be female. In fact the number of females at the final table has been zero. Extend it out to the final two tables and we would expect 14.4-18 women; there have actually been four.

 

[Upchurch]

E.g., in athletic competition. Which pool is.

That is ...quite the claim and not at all obvious or a given. The entire premise of your principle rests on that claim. Can you support it?

 

[Matthew Best]

I don't know why I'm poking the dead horse, but this thread is about transwomen in women's sports being an unfair advantage and not simply transphobia, right?

How does that relate to this story?

I am still a bit baffled. This is a thread about male people (i.e. trans women) having an unfair advantage in women's sports - as you point out.

You link to a story about a male person in women's sports, and the question you're asking is how that relates to this thread?

I'm guess this all makes sense to you somehow but I'm not sure I can see it.

 

[JoeMorgue]

That is ...quite the claim and not at all obvious or a given. The entire premise of your principle rests on that claim. Can you support it?

Can you stop? Seriously can you stop?

And BTW "Durrr what am I doing? Please explain it" is what I mean when I say "Please stop."

90% of this discussion recently is you trying to get people to explain piss simple concepts to you and I'm so tired of it.

 

[Elaedith]

I don't know why I'm poking the dead horse, but this thread is about transwomen in women's sports being an unfair advantage and not simply transphobia, right?

Regardless of how it started, it is now about all things related to gender identity theory and it's influence on science, medicine, politics, and society. I haven't seen much discussion of transphobia, aside from gender identity fundamentalists labelling philosophical disagreement about sex and gender as transphobia, which to a actual skeptic (there may still be a handful left) shows that they have no argument.

How does that relate to this story?

(For those who don't want to go onto twitter, and I don't blame you, a ciswoman refused to play against a transwoman in the finals of a pool tournament. Because it's twitter, most of the comments praised the ciswoman. When a few people asked what physical advantage a transwoman has over a ciswoman, they were either laughed at or told it was a matter of principle.)

Is it a matter of unfair advantage or is it a matter of principle? If it is a matter of principle, what is that principle?

The principle is exactly identical to refusing to play against a male person who isn't a transwomen.

 

[Upchurch]

Not solely.

It was used as a reason for a good long time not to address points brought up outside of sports. You'll excuse me for reiterating what many have said in the early days of this mega-thread.

The principle is that women never win in open pool competitions, and so rather than relegate them to perpetual loser-hood, somebody came up with the idea of having separate competitions for men and women.

But why? For physical or biological reasons or because of the self-perpetuating social reasons the rest of your sentence highlights?

In pool there is an obvious advantage to height and strength

Alex Pagulayan^WP is 5'3" and I will require evidence that the strength required to play pool at an expert level is outside the normal range of any adult human being.

but let's talk about some "sports" where the male edge is quite a bit harder to see. Why do we have separate categories for men and women in darts or poker? And the answer is the same.

Yes, social and, arguably, economic reasons. Not a biological or physical reason.

 

[Upchurch]

Can you stop? Seriously can you stop?

And BTW "Durrr what am I doing? Please explain it" is what I mean when I say "stop what you are doing?"

Right back at'cha with your perpetual attitude that everyone secretly shares your opinions and those who don't are playing dumb. It's entirely possible for someone to disagree with you because you might actually be wrong about something.

90% of this discussion recently is you trying to get people to explain piss simple concepts to you and I'm so tired of it.

No one is forcing your to participate in any discussion. However, yes, if you do participate, I'm going to ask you to justify your assumptions, and you have so many of them to question.

So, participate or not. It's up to you, but don't get mad at me if I question your worldview.

 

[theprestige]

That is ...quite the claim and not at all obvious or a given. The entire premise of your principle rests on that claim. Can you support it?

My premise is that males have an advantage over females in athletic competition. This is extremely obvious, and should absolutely be taken as given at this point in this discussion. If you don't take it as given, then you'll need to go back and familiarize yourself with the discussion so far, and either accept it as a given or make your case for why it shouldn't be accepted as a given.

Notice that this premise does not rest on the claim that pool is an athletic competition. I deduce that pool is an athletic competition because it's segregated by sex, females prefer it that way, and it's not prison or other segregated safe spaces for women.

---

Really it seems like the "entire premise of your principle" rests on the implicit claim that pool is not an athletic competition. That is to me "quite the claim and not at all obvious or a given". Can you support it?

One thing we've seen over the course of this thread is that some things that don't immediately appear to be athletic competitions turn out to have the same statistical bias towards males. Things like chess, and poker. You want us to consider whether pool should be taken out of a category of competition that includes chess and poker as well as football and tennis and swimming? Fine, make your case for why pool is the exception to the rule.

---

Anyway, your argument seems to concede, a priori, the actual premise: Males have an advantage over females in athletic competition, and therefore it is a good thing to segregate athletic competition by sex. Thus you trying to convince me that pool should be exempted from the category of "athletic competition".

Put it another way: You believe that sex segregation in sports is rational and not transphobic. You believe that the only way to rationally accuse this female pool player of transphobia is to assume that pool is not an athletic competition.

The way I see it, you have two options: Either make a strong case for why pool isn't an athletic competition... Or stop looking for reasons to accuse athletes of transphobia when they try to maintain sex segregation in their sport.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Right back at'cha with your perpetual attitude that everyone secretly shares your opinions and those who don't are playing dumb.

I don't expect anyone to share my opinions. I've been the odd man out in this discussion as long as its been a discussion.

What I'm doing is pretending like every opinion that isn't mine is hard to understand.

You know damn ******* well why some people don't consider transwomen women. You can disagree with but you don't do that, you pretend like you don't get it.

 

[Upchurch]

I am still a bit baffled. This is a thread about male people (i.e. trans women) having an unfair advantage in women's sports - as you point out.

You link to a story about a male person in women's sports, and the question you're asking is how that relates to this thread?

I'm guess this all makes sense to you somehow but I'm not sure I can see it.

The issue is that there is not a clear unfair biological advantage here. The segregation of leagues very much appears to be entirely social and historical rather than due to any biological differences. The standard argument from the outset of this thread does not seem to apply, at yet, it is still being applied.

I agree with JoeMorgue's opinion (the first one, not the second that contradicts the first) that it shouldn't be a segregated league in the first place, but even if it must be, there is no biological reason a transwoman should not be able to participate in a women's tournament alongside ciswomen.

 

[Ron Obvious]

I don't really know why there should be segregation in Pool (or Chess), but given that there exist separate women's competitions, then naturally men (including transwomen) don't belong in there.

Simple.

 

[Upchurch]

I don't expect anyone to share my opinions. I've been the odd man out in this discussion as long as its been a discussion.

What I'm doing is pretending like every opinion that isn't mine is hard to understand.

You know damn ******* well why some people don't consider transwomen women. You can disagree with but you don't do that, you pretend like you don't get it.

You're doing it again in the same post your where you claim you don't.

Yes, I know why people say they are transphobic, but that doesn't mean I understand it. I fundamentally believe that most people who participate on this board value skepticism and critical thinking. Questioning assumptions, whether one's own or other people's, should never be a taboo subject, as you seem to be arguing that it should be. Again.

 

[Matthew Best]

The issue is that there is not a clear unfair biological advantage here.

What's your evidence for this claim?

And if you can support it, then if the advantage that male people have over female people is not biological, does that mean it's not important?

 

[8enotto]

Not much "phobia" at play when athletes and schoolgirls are standing up and attempting to stop the madness.

Women have enough little details to deal with in private that they don't need this one too.

 

[Marcus]

Yikes. Did you read that list? Five of the six points sound like they were written by a 12 year old based on a 1950s understanding of gender roles, and one directly contradicts itself. Regardless, these are just claims with no evidence. If this is your only source, I'm not sure the claim has been supported.

As I said, my source is only my own knowledge and experience. I'm perfectly happy if you don't believe males have an advantage in this or any other sport.

 

[Elaedith]

You're doing it again in the same post your where you claim you don't.

Yes, I know why people say they are transphobic, but that doesn't mean I understand it. I fundamentally believe that most people who participate on this board value skepticism and critical thinking. Questioning assumptions, whether one's own or other people's, should never be a taboo subject, as you seem to be arguing that it should be. Again.

You are confused. Saying that transwomen are not women is not transphobic. It is disagreeing with your beliefs about 'woman' being re-defined to refer to gender identity rather than sex. Obviously people who don't believe in gender identity theory don't agree with this. You don't understand it because you are like a religious fundamentalist who cannot comprehend that atheists really don't believe in god. For you to lecture people about questioning assumptions is laughable.

 

[theprestige]

You're doing it again in the same post your where you claim you don't.

Yes, I know why people say they are transphobic, but that doesn't mean I understand it. I fundamentally believe that most people who participate on this board value skepticism and critical thinking. Questioning assumptions, whether one's own or other people's, should never be a taboo subject, as you seem to be arguing that it should be. Again.

You're not questioning people's assumptions, you're trying to do a fringe reset. We're not going to start the "sex segregation in sports is a good thing" debate all over again for you, just because you don't like the implications for your predetermined and unconsidered social justice outcome and think that playing dumb will get you a do-over.

If you're so big on questioning assumptions, start by questioning your assumption that allowing males to transcend sex segregation in sports is a good thing.

 

[Marcus]

What's your evidence for this claim?

And if you can support it, then if the advantage that male people have over female people is not biological, does that mean it's not important?

Chess is a bit of a mystery, in that there is a large male advantage but no physicality involved. Pool, being a physical game, seems more likely to at least partially involve a physical advantage. But, like you say, does it matter? An advantage of any kind means that at least at the professional levels separate leagues are needed for fairness.

 

[Brainster]

But why? For physical or biological reasons or because of the self-perpetuating social reasons the rest of your sentence highlights?

What self-perpetuating social reasons are you talking about?

Alex Pagulayan^WP is 5'3" and I will require evidence that the strength required to play pool at an expert level is outside the normal range of any adult human being.

So give me another reason why women never win open competitions at pool, poker or darts at an elite level (some women will certainly win open competitions at your local bar). I know the answer but it involves the Bell Curve (not the book) so it will probably go in one ear and out the other.