Cont: Transwomen are not women - part 13

[theprestige]

But you haven't proved anything yet.

I hold these truths to be self-evident: that pool is a physical activity, and that competitive pool calls for physical excellence. If these are things that you need proven to you, then I have no interest in discussing with you the rights of transwomen in sports.

Okay, the fact that you keep moving the goal posts is a red flag on your argument. I never made the claim that pool is or is not a sport. I never made the claim that pool is or is not a physical activity. Those are all your straw man arguments.

I said that pool is not an athletic competition, responding to your first usage of the term.

I'm using the three terms synonymously. You're trying to split what is for me an atomic hair.

You do not dispute that pool is a physical activity. You do not dispute that competitive pool calls for physical excellence. You do not dispute that males have an innate physical advantage, nor that males tend to reach greater heights of physical excellence as measured by athletic competition.* You do not dispute that sex segregation in sports is not transphobic. But somehow in all of these stipulations you still imagine you can find room for transphobia, in a competitive pool player wanting to uphold sex segregation in her competitions.

All because you have predetermined that the male physical advantage - which you do not dispute - cannot extend to the physical activity of pool. And now you're resorting to semantic red herrings, and playing dumb.

---
*As measured by athletic competition, but not exclusive to athletic competition. Your semantic games won't get you off the hook here. The same physical disparity we measure so clearly in athletic competition, that leads us to segregate sports, also leads us for the same reasons to segregate prisons and a few other things. Even though incarceration is not, strictly speaking, a sport or athletic competition.

 

[theprestige]

Unless, of course, either sex practices those skills. Do you think professional pool players practice playing pool?

Why should they have to practice, in your opinion? You think all that's necessary is a knowledge of geometry. Are you now moving your goalposts, to include an important physical component that must be practiced in order to achieve competitive excellence?

 

[Ziggurat]

Advantages in what sense? I'm not sure I understand the context of this question.

Are you serious? We're talking about a competition, in this case pool. You're saying transwomen have no advantage over women, so they should compete against women. But as Joe alluded to, you aren't saying that men should compete against women, that there should be zero segregation at all. So I have inferred that you think men have an advantage over women (the only reason to segregate the competition), but transwomen do not. And that logically requires that men have an advantage over transwomen.

So what is that advantage?

What definition of "woman" am I using? I suppose, "the feminine gender"*. It allows for the distinction between sex (a biological quality) and gender (a social construct). I'd say it's better than "adult human female" because, at best, it does not ignore the distinction or, at worst, deny it exists entirely.

It doesn't ignore gender, sure, but it ignores sex. That's not better. And it basically just kicks the can down the road anyways, because what do you mean by gender? What gender does a butch dyke have? Is an effeminate gay male a woman? Is gender anything other than regressive stereotyping?

 

[theprestige]

Is gender anything other than regressive stereotyping?

Misogynist regressive stereotyping.

 

[Upchurch]

I hold these truths to be self-evident: that pool is a physical activity, and that competitive pool calls for physical excellence. If these are things that you need proven to you, then I have no interest in discussing with you the rights of transwomen in sports.

"Don't question my assumptions. I won't defend them. I take them on faith."

Understood.

I'm using the three terms synonymously. You're trying to split what is for me an atomic hair.

I am not taking them to be synonymous, especially "sport" which can mean lots of different things.

You do not dispute that pool is a physical activity. You do not dispute that competitive pool calls for physical excellence.

I very much deny that competitive pool requires physical excellence. At best, it takes physical adequacy. Workings extremities and enough strength to perform finessed shots. Nothing beyond normal male or female upper body strength range.

You do not dispute that sex segregation in sports is not transphobic.

I have refrained from making a decision on that, in general.

The rest of your argument falls apart on bad assumptions.

 

[Ziggurat]

Are we still talking about pool? Then, the answer is none because pool is not an athletic competition.

That makes no sense. I have no idea what you think "athletic" means (nor does it really matter), but it's very much a physical activity, and men and women are not physically equivalent. So the possibility of differences in ability exist.

If you want to claim that men have no advantage over women, you have to demonstrate that they don't. And you can't do that by appealing to some artificial definition of what counts as "athletic". That's not relevant in any way. You have to do that by showing either that none of the biological differences between the sexes impact performance (and there's good reason to think that some of the differences do impact performance), or you have to show by outcome that women are just as good as men.

You have not attempted either.

Again, none because pool is not an athletic competition. I don't understand the context of the question. If biological advantage is not relevant to playing pool, what would it matter if cismen or transmen were playing against transwomen or ciswomen?

It wouldn't, if that were the case. But if that were the case (not demonstrated, and not supported by your "athletic" claim), then there should be no segregation at all. There is segregation, predicated on the existence of such an advantage. TRA's aren't asking to get rid of the segregation, so they aren't actually contesting the existence of a biological advantage. They're just asking to hop the fence and be on the other side of that segregation.

 

[Upchurch]

Okay, Zig, then what were you asking? Could you clarify, please?

 

[theprestige]

Okay, Zig, then what were you asking? Could you clarify, please?

"Upchurch, do you believe males lose their male physical advantage when they identify as women?"

 

[Upchurch]

"Upchurch, do you believe males lose their male physical advantage when they identify as women?"

See? That wasn't so hard. Thank you.

I don't see how men have a physical advantage in a game like pool, any more then I think they have a physical advantage in a game like, say, Jenga. However, the physical differences largely depend on how they transition and when, as I understand it.

 

[Marcus]

Galileo, having already proven his claim to be true, did not bother re-proving it. He just asserted its truth.

Your whole argument depends on you asserting arbitrarily that pool is not a physical activity, and that competitive pool does not call for physical excellence. That's self-evidently nonsense. What am I supposed to do? Try to convince you that pool is a physical activity?

It's self-evident that upchurch is not a pool player.

 

[Upchurch]

It's self-evident that upchurch is not a pool player.

Is it? As a knowledgeable pool player, is there no limit to the amount of force one can apply to the balls and still take a deliberate, planned shot?

 

[Sherkeu]

Is it? As a knowledgeable pool player, is there no limit to the amount of force one can apply to the balls and still take a deliberate, planned shot?

I just saw this today. So then I went to see what the pros thought about it. Because if you talk about a sport, you should see what people who play it a lot think of it, right?

Seems most of them (and by most, it is mostly men) would agree that a Womens category should be for FEMALES and not MALES. And there are more reasons for that than just strength or height...though that does play a small role. For some reason they laugh at the top women playing the top men in any fair way. Why is that?

Other reasons: Depth of the talent pool. Marketing to families. Better turnout. More news for the sport. Having more interest for women (ie FEMALES!). etc....


Please look into it before making judgments beyond your knowledge base.

 

[Marcus]

Is it? As a knowledgeable pool player, is there no limit to the amount of force one can apply to the balls and still take a deliberate, planned shot?

I would believe that you play causally in bars, but not that you are a league or tournament player. The only alternative is that you are deliberately dissembling to further an ideological agenda, and I am trying to give you more credit than that.



As to your question, a large amount of force only applies to the break and certain force shots. More to the point is manual dexterity, hand eye coordination, and endurance. Don't get me wrong, I would love to have the skill of an Allison Fischer or Karen Corr. But you can't expect women to give up their leagues and play against men.

 

[Roboramma]

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.


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


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.


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

This seems a little backwards. "If you can't demonstrate that I'm wrong, then I should be assumed to be right" was never the way science worked. We know that there is something causing a difference in outcomes between male and female players. Given the complexity of social science it is very difficult to tease out the actual causal relationship, but we know it's something. You are demanding evidence that the difference between men and women in this context is physiological, but absence of evidence here isn't evidence of absence. It's entirely plausible that a sport played by the action of human bodies can be affected by their varying characteristics. If you want to refute that claim, you'll have to actually supply the evidence.

I wouldn't be surprised if the difference turns out to be mainly based on the fact that more men play pool, and play it for more time with more passion, from a young age than do women. But I also wouldn't be surprised if grip strength leads to differences in stability and thus accuracy in play, or that general upper body strength comes into play in at least some shots, that height offers an advantage, or some other physiological difference that I haven't thought of.

 

[Roboramma]

I think pool is primarily fast twitch muscle fibers. Males have a higher percentage of fast twitch muscle fibers AND higher neuromuscular efficiency (the percentage of motor neurons that can be triggered immediately), which means that they're going to have finer control over fast twitch exertions than females. But that doesn't give them finer control over slow twitch exertions.

Yeah, as an explanation for male/female differences in pool outcomes, this seems pretty reasonable. It certainly overcomes upchurch's argument from incredulity that there could possibly a physical advantage causing the difference.

 

[Roboramma]

Okay, Zig, then what were you asking? Could you clarify, please?

Which part of this was confusing:

We're talking about a competition, in this case pool. You're saying transwomen have no advantage over women, so they should compete against women. But as Joe alluded to, you aren't saying that men should compete against women, that there should be zero segregation at all. So I have inferred that you think men have an advantage over women (the only reason to segregate the competition), but transwomen do not. And that logically requires that men have an advantage over transwomen.

So what is that advantage?

 

[smartcooky]

It actually appears to be a English Pool Association tournament. It's on their calendar for November 11-12 and doesn't appear on the Ultimate Pool Group's calendar.

Regardless, the five points I made earlier are still 100% valid (and I note that you have so far studiously avoided addressing any of them).

The fact is that, unlike snooker, and billiards, pool (both the 15-ball and the 9-ball versions) are power games where men have a physical advantage, which leads to a very real tactical advantage. In 9-ball this is especially the case, as in most tournament, the winner of a game breaks in the next game.


In any case, the **** is really going to hit the fan now

https://www.binary.org.au/female_pool_players_to_walk_away_from_male_opponents

Female pool players to walk away from male opponents

Up to 60 professional female pool players have now joined a WhatsApp support group to oppose the unfair policy.

One player, Lynne Pincher, said: 'When I heard the announcement last week I spent most of the day in tears - especially because it came after the announcement eight weeks earlier that it was finally going to be a fair field.

'I'm worried now about the future of the game for women. If next year we had eight trans player they would probably be in the top eight.'

Pincher was then pitted against a male player, Chris "Harriet" Haynes. Pincher stepped up to the table at the Women’s Champions of Champions Final in Denbighshire, Wales, but then informed the referee she would forfeit the match. She walked away to loud cheers of support from the spectators.

I can easily see the possibility of someone coming along to set up a rebel competition with their own rules, excluding all biological males from playing.

 

[Pixel42]

I don't see how men have a physical advantage in a game like pool.

And what, if you can't immediately see one, one can't possibly exist? Roboramma is correct, this is an argument from incredulity. It's particularly egregious when several possibilities have been pointed out to you, all of which you have studiously ignored.

However, the physical differences largely depend on how they transition and when, as I understand it

I don't see (see what I did there?) how transitioning would change any of the physical differences between males and females that are likely to effect their proficiency at this particular sport, but in any case that would only be relevant if there were general agreement that only transwomen who had transitioned were permitted to compete in female leagues. In practice all that's usually required is to say some magic words.

 

[Upchurch]

Because if you talk about a sport, you should see what people who play it a lot think of it, right?

Historically, no. During the 80'ish years of racial segregation in baseball, for example, it wasn't the players who broke the color line, was it?

As to your question, a large amount of force only applies to the break and certain force shots. More to the point is manual dexterity, hand eye coordination, and endurance.

You don't say. Are female professional pool players incapable of making those force shots, having manual dexterity, hand eye coordination, or endurance?

This seems a little backwards. "If you can't demonstrate that I'm wrong, then I should be assumed to be right" was never the way science worked.

Fortunately, that isn't the position I took and I did support my position.

Which part of this was confusing:

As ever, the inclusion of positions that were the exact opposite of what I was saying based on an inference by someone else entirely. In short, a strawman argument.

https://www.binary.org.au/female_pool_players_to_walk_away_from_male_opponents

What an unbiased source and neutrally presented story.

And what, if you can't immediately see one, one can't possibly exist?

That is not my position. I have seen a ton of conjecture, but nothing that indicates that playing a professional level of pool is outside the physical capabilities of female biology.


And, with that, I'm done. Like the last time I tried to engage in a conversation on this topic, I've encounter just a wall of strawman arguments that are based on what other people have said, not my actual words. At least last time, there was nearly a real dialogue before it was shouted down by the echo chamber. That didn't even happen this time. Maybe this really is a cursed thread, like they say.

 

[Marcus]

You don't say. Are female professional pool players incapable of making those force shots, having manual dexterity, hand eye coordination, or endurance?

They are at a disadvantage compared to males.