Really?
Shoot. What's my motive?
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Transgender athlete
- Thread starter Jimmy
- Start date
Shoot. What's my motive?
Again with the 'noone cares if biological advantages are unfair in almost all other cases'.
By it's very nature, all competition apart from open male competition (for many sports) is closed off for the very reason of protecting against what you're calling biological advantage.
It is also protected via various rules on performance enhancing drugs.
That you want to be caught up in some bizarre land where all comps should be divided up into fragments so people can only compete with people of exactly the same ability, height, and whatever else is practically unworkable, and shows a complete lack of understanding of the fiscal and administrative models present in sports. It's also completely unwanted by the vast majority of athletes.
How you reconcile wanting to divide up sports into a myriad of categories with the simple fact that this would have no impact on the actual problem is beyond me.
Institute your below 185cm elite basketball league, and in the 8 minutes before it was bankrupt, you'd have no women making teams, and likely no transgender athletes either. But hey, you'd have broken the men's league.
You do understand that the people arguing against the status quo are doing so without addressing anything in any concrete way, but are instead strutting around like they are the only decent people in the room, right?
Addressing the actual issue would be better.
I've posted actual information about how the competitions in Australia are organised, and made various points. None of that has been read or addressed as near as I can tell, since any thought of straying into actual detail, real life examples, or consideration about the positive and negative effects of any of this appears to be sullying people's lily-white hands.
But sure, throw out more ridiculous one liners if it makes you feel better.
"worship the status quo"
ffs
Koldo
Outstanding Member
I didn't mean it like that.
You don't need to show in practice that my ideas are unworkable. You need to show them to be unworkable at least in principle.
Also, it is important to clarify this: I don't really care if my ideas are implemented here. I am just proposing them as a way to create fairer competition. But apparently, exactly the ones that don't want trans women to compete with cisgender women because it wouldn't be fair are also the ones that don't want to make changes to make their favorite games fairer. Go figure.
Wikkipedia an objective source? Really?
Sexual attraction! What on Earth does sexual attraction have to do with this conversation?
Koldo
Outstanding Member
1) Those women competitions don't protect against biological advantages per se. They protect against one biological advantage, period. In other words, they merely allow some other biological advantage to be the most significant.
2) I am not suggesting creating dozens of different categories. There is simply not enough variance among humans to justify doing that.
3) I am afraid I wasn't aware that you could speak for the vast majority of athletes.
4) Where's the argument that my max 1,85 meters league idea would have break up the men's league? I see none. Plenty of doomsday speech, but zero evidence.
Koldo
Outstanding Member
What specific points do you feel that need to be addressed?
Where have you seen anyone in here actually showing that it is impossible to either change the rules to make the games fairer, or to create new categories?
Augustus
…
The NBA is owned by team owners. It’s not an independent body.
You want them to massively increase their costs to dilute their product.
Given the league is owned entirely by rich, successful capitalists, if there was a demand for this don’t you think they would have explored ways to increase the value of their unique assets? Double the amount of games must surely appeal if they think it will be a success.
Even beyond this, they need to reach a CBA with the players for revenue sharing. More players = less revenue pay for each player. You would be asking the players to vote for a multi million dollar pay cut.
“So LeBron, would you be willing to give me $10 million so I can pay some 170cm chaps to play in the miniNBA instead of only being able to play pro ball in Spain and Turkey? You like that idea right? You’re not one of these silly stick in the muds who worship the status quo, are you?”
Now a rival company could start this from scratch, if you think it will work you can be a multi-billionaire in a few years. Just go pitch the idea to investors and start selling franchises. The Boston Leprechauns, LA Ponds, Indiana medium-pacers, Chicago Calves…
Why? I honestly don't mean this to be offensive, but you understand nothing about the sport which you're commenting on. It's not my job to prove your radical ideas about basketball unworkable.
They also haven't reached the point of being detailed enough that I could respond effectively.
My takeaways from your ideas currently are;
1) You prefer a handicap system to try and ensure fairer competition. Current examples of this being implemented in limited ways at an elite level would be horse-racing, combat sports and some forms of sailboat racing. The thing these sports have in common is there is a single measureable 'handicap' method. Weight is added to horses, classes are broken up by weight in combat sports, and in certain classes of sailing, time is added. These are all 'single measureable entities', too. So in the case of horse racing, there is a jockey and horse, but the two are basically one for the purposes of the race. It's the same with the boat and her crew.
2) Conceptually you seem to think this handicapping and equalising would result in a fairer game, because it would remove 'unfair' advantages.
3) It wouldn't remove them at all, of course. There are several reasons for that. In the context of basketball, which I have been limited my comments to, as I think specifics matter, I would say the following;
a) Height is overblown as a way to judge 'better' players. The best teams have a mix of heights, else all NBA teams would simply be 7 footers running around. Does height help? Sure...if I can keep my exact same skill level, speed, fluidity, etc, but add two inches, I'll be better than current me. But the idea that taller is better is deeply flawed.
b) There is literally no-one in the sport asking for the elite level of competition to be broken up like this. Not women, not men, not transgender athletes. By all means feel free to show otherwise.
c) The top level of competition (NBL in Australia) is open to all, which is 'fair' in a way you don't seem to be including or assessing. If I'm a 6'9" female, or transgender athlete, where exactly do you think they should play in your hypothetical new leagues? That remains unclear to me.
d) You are also limiting your assessment of height, etc, to the NBA, whereas I am speaking primarily about the top four levels in Australia. If we use height as the same example of a way to split out competition, you'll run into problems when considering an international game. The average height of a basketball player at the NBL1 level is lower than at the NBL level. The average height of the NBL is lower than the NBA. So young Aussie player Sam might stand 6'1" and find himself as the shortest player in a height restricted league growing up, excel, make the next grade up, and find himself as the tallest player at the top level, before getting himself a college scholarship in the US (a common thing for top level Aussie players) again find himself as the shortest player in a height restricted league, make the NBA, find himself the tallest player in a height restricted league, make the Australian Olympic Team, and find himself the shortest player in a height restricted competition. Meanwhile the 6'1" female players don't need to worry, since they won't be in ANY of the top level competitions.
d) Elite basketball leagues (and again, I am using elite and sub-elite as specific terms indicating the top two tiers of competition in the nation only - not just 'really, really good basketball' - are financially complex and mostly live on a knife's edge when it comes to generating enough revenue to cover costs. This would break them. I'm not sure what you'd consider evidence of that, but anyone with a cursory understanding about the financial position of the leagues in Australia over the last 30 years would be aware of how thin the margins are. Key teams including the Sydney Kings and Brisbane Bullets have been unable to pay wage bills. Whilst the league is in a better position now, and the women's league is finally getting to the point of becoming professional, these are not money-making machines by ANY means.
The minimum wage for a male player (NBL) is $55,000 AUD. The minimum wage for a female player (WNBL) is $13,000.
(FWIW - and I haven't mentioned it because it's tangential - but arm length is a better measure than height for basketball specifically. Or standing reach if you want to combine the two. To be clear, it's one of about 100 measures teams take when drafting college prospects, and they get the whole 'who'll be better' question wrong all the time, but it's still better than height, and will sound like you have a passing familiarity with the sport you're commenting on.)
Not fairer. How is it fairer?
And who doesn't want trans women to compete with cisgender women?
Let me frame it a different way. Your version of 'fairness' has two key tenets;
1) Sports should be made more equitable via handicapping to make the playing field 'fair'.
2) Transwomen should have full access to the sport.
I have not seen anywhere that you've even attempted to combine those two principals and come up with a proposal for what the top leagues would look like. Nada. If you're assuming a height restriction (even as an example) would give trans athletes a chance to compete in the elite competitions, you are frankly kidding yourself. The only chance for trans women to compete in the elite competitions is for there to be a gender segregated competition, and allow self-identification.
Whereas the current Australian system allows transwomen to compete in all competitions below elite and sub-elite, and has the premise of a case-by-case assessment for those top two levels. And is almost certain to approve it's first transwoman to play in the sub-elite competition this week.
I ask again, what are your ideas, in any detail? They're not detailed, specific, implementable, or clearly stated.
Hey, so I think the tax system should be fairer. Where to from here?
As opposed to seperating based on height. Oh wait...
It's kinda ironic. When you suggest we can handicap based on something other than gender, you're tying yourself in knots trying to avoid being specific and detailed. Ultimately if you're dividing competitions up by a single divider in order to promote a fair outcome, gender works better than anything else you can suggest for elite competition.
I'm honestly not sure what you are suggesting.
I'm extrapolating from the large numbers I work with on a weekly basis, and the huge amount of time I spend involved with the game, consuming content, etc. By all means, find a couple of examples in the entire world that prove me wrong.
What evidence? Do you think there are a bunch of people who have trialled this at the elite level? That would be culpable and a sackable offence.
1. If you remove gender barriers and implement height ones instead, you now have broken women's basketball, because women are on average 6 inches shorter, apart from all the other barriers. Just what female athletes need...more barriers.
2. If you keep gender barriers and implement height ones as well, you've solved exactly nothing in terms of the gender issues we are discussing.
3. Male leagues struggle to make money, even as the top level of competition. Getting sponsors is hard. Getting tv deals is hard. Player wages creep up slowly, and occasionally take a major backstep.
It's much tougher on the women's side.
Splitting those up increase administrative costs, and decrease access to revenue. That's just basic economics.
But perhaps you should think of it this way.
3 x 3 basketball has grown in popularity to the point that it's now an Olympic sport. This started at a grassroots level, and the popularity over time led to increased tournament play, and a more general acceptance and interest in it.
It's now an Olympic sport (whatever my thoughts) because of that. It was a largely organic process.
Height restricted leagues have never survived, even at the local domestic level, where there are a stack of short guys like me.
But we can somehow impose that from on high at the elite level, and think it will work? Why?
And what does that do to international pathways for my athletes?
And what does it do to my national program, for the Olympics and World Championships?
And...and...and...
Augustus
…
That you are a hateful scaremongering bigot who blindly follows what Fox News tells you of course.
On the other hand, in this thread, progressives have explicitly stated if women and girls don’t like the increased risk in combat and collision sports they can play cards instead, and women’s sports suck anyway so it doesn’t matter if they die out
Koldo
Outstanding Member
1) How exactly am I supposed to be specific and detailed when I don't know all of the multiple variables that might unfairly give a significant advantage to a player, other than height? Why does there have to be a single divider only? Might as well have no dividers if achieving fairness is not the objective.
2) I have been clear on what I am suggesting... I have no idea what exactly you don't understand. Let's either address the unfairness in sports (through adjusting the rules or creating new categories to make strict biological advantage not particularly impactful) or let's not (and therefore make it so there is only one open category for everyone).
3) How many short male basketball athletes do you personally know to have this opinion in particular?
4) I guess I can understand what is off here. What I am suggesting is keeping both a gender barrier and a height barrier. As for the issue regarding trans women, since the entire point of creating an additional barrier is to create a fair competition, they would be excluded from categories where their biological advantage is impactful. Or there would need to be an additional rule that would impose a disavantage to them to make up for that.
As for whether those new categories are financially viable, just make it an Olympic category. There will be lots of countries interested in investing, as minimal as it might be, to gain the Gold medal.
Koldo
Outstanding Member
In other words, if the company owners in the WNBA see a demand, among viewers, to watch trans women playing against cisgender women, you are going to humbly accept their decision and shut up about it?
What are some of these other cases that nobody cares about a biological advantage?
Augustus
…
I don’t even like basketball, so they can do what they like
In general, I feel safety should be the first priority, and it is immoral to allow transwomen to compete in combat and collision sports because this passes significant risks on to others.
I find those who favour ideology over safety on this issue to be ignorant, particularly when it applies to girls level (for the record, I also think collision sports at school level should all be played by weight, not age. When I was at school, you'd turn up for a game and see a 14 year old version of the incredible hulk jogging on to the pitch, and think "Oh ****..." A 1.90m 110kg hulk shouldn't be playing against a 1.60m 55kg child.)
In sports with no increased risk then the equation is inclusion v fairness. There is no fully equitable solution.
Again though, I find it ignorant when some people smugly parade their "superior morality" and act as if it is purely a cost free and unquestionably moral action to include transwomen.
For reasons explained, I favour fairness, and see the “but some women are taller” arguments as fallacious given the unique and incomparable advantage of male puberty. Fairness for ciswomen produces the greatest good imo.
If some people favour inclusion over fairness then I’m not going to lose any sleep over it, but feel they should be open and honest that they are deliberately favouring inclusion over fairness and that transwomen do retain a significant advantage. There would need to be some restrictions on who qualifies (for example 2 years of testosterone suppression) as self-ID would lead to the end of elite sport for ciswomen and is thus insane.
If some ciswomen athletes feel this is unfair and protest, then they shouldn’t be criticised as it is unfair to them and it is not objectively more moral to favour inclusion over fairness. Some people have to pay the cost, and those who don't shouldn't criticise those that do.
At lower levels of sport a wider range of solutions are possible, and it is up to the relevant bodies to create their own policies based based on what works in their specific situations.
That you are a hateful scaremongering bigot who blindly follows what Fox News tells you of course.
On the other hand, in this thread, progressives have explicitly stated if women and girls don’t like the increased risk in combat and collision sports they can play cards instead, and women’s sports suck anyway so it doesn’t matter if they die out
Sheesh. I suspect you're right. It's ludicrous.
Once again...I'm fine with you giving hypothetical examples. But if you know nothing about the sport, you might at some point wonder what your angle is here?
To perhaps better illustrate why I think this is problematic, here are key physical considerations used when attempting to assess players available to draft to the NBA. Basically these are informative physical measures.
1. Standing reach
2. Height without shoes
3. Wingspan (ie. arm length)
4. Standing vertical leap
5. Max vertical leap (ie. runup allowed, one or two foot takeoff allowed)
6. Shuttle Run time
7. Lane agility drill (ie. basically flexbilility in turning and accelerating)
8. Three quarter sprint
There are a lot more tests, including skill tests and psychometric evaluations on fringey things like 'brain speed', as well as reflexes, etc, but the above 8 represent key physical tests done. The results of these are readily available (Draft Combine | Stats | NBA.com)
Out of the top 5 in each of those 8 categories, 1 of them (Dyson Daniels) was drafted in the top ten players chosen. He was first in the shuttle run, but didn't crack the top 5 in any other drill, and was drafted number 8 I think from memory (to New Orleans).
But ignore that for a moment. Let's assume those 8 measures are more indicative of performance than they actually are. How do you craft them into a coherent competition structure?
It is open. The NBL is open. Anyone can play. So that is already covered, and I'm a little bemused why that's constantly ignored.
Gender splits is an example of addressing the fairness issue, since it would be unfair to female athletes to make them compete with male ones in the sport of basketball. If a female was good enough, and wanted to, she could.
Trans athletes are therefore somewhat trickier in terms of fairness, as it is likely to depend on a lot more individual circumstances. Ultimately there are exactly two leagues in Australia that do not grant trans athletes access without going through an assessment process. Apparently that's not good enough? At other levels of competition, trans athletes have full access to women's competitions, and anyone can access 'men's competitions.
What I don't understand is why you want to divide people based on height, or other very uninformative factors, or how you think doing this would help trans athletes in basketball. At all. No understanding.
I also think it would be unhelpful for female athletes, and remove the problem of how to handle trans athletes (and female athletes) in elite and sub-elite competitions (remembering the specific meaning for those terms). There simply wouldn't be any. You don't care. I do.
[edit : appears you still want to include gender as a way to divide competitions now, in addition to whatever else, so perhaps this isn't true, but it leaves me more confused, not less.]
Hard to answer, as I'm not sure which opinion you mean. That elite level competition shouldn't be split by height?
It doesn't even rate as a topic of conversation. People would be horrified by the concept.
But I speak personally with about 60-70 players per week on a normal week, double that occasionally (tournament season).
In terms of 'short players'...I mean...I am one. By basketball standards, anyway. I'm 182cm. And height restricted leagues were trialled here at lower levels in the 90s, 00s. Far as I am aware they all died a natural death due to lack of interest. Not that many were trialled in the first place, but still...
Now I'm really confused. If you're arguing gender divisions should remain in place (as well as whatever else you're suggesting) then current Australian policy is probably more permissive (if a little unclear, which is my main issue) than you already in terms of inclusion. In terms of a broader 'should basketball be split to make it fairer on short people at an elite level' I'm comfortable to say a resounding no, but you can believe whatever you want.
Having said that, I'm lost as to how you'd measure 'biological advantage', but it's closer to the existing system I think. An individual assessment of a trans athlete is performed to see if she would be unfairly advantaged and basically destroy competition in the women's game. The mechanisms used to do this assessment are horribly unclear and untested, but the idea of approaching it that way makes sense at least.
Where a trans athlete can be included in women's competitions without it being carte blanche to all trans athletes without consideration, and where that athlete doesn't have clear undue advantage, I'm for it.
Only to a small degree. I have a mate who is a kayaker, World Champ level. The sport costs him money.
Basketball is a global sport where players and competitions are competing internationally to secure talent and generate a good product.
A self-sustained elite program is a vital part of that, and it has a major impact (here at least) on how much lower level programs are structured. I can draw a clear line for each girl I'm coaching to what their next steps are if they are someone looking to become a professional basketball player. That's not due to the relatively small amounts of money invested by the government periodically because of Olympic competition.
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Koldo
Outstanding Member
While I could easily answer this question, I find it redundant for I have already provided one example.
Koldo
Outstanding Member
I don’t even like basketball, so they can do what they like
In general, I feel safety should be the first priority, and it is immoral to allow transwomen to compete in combat and collision sports because this passes significant risks on to others.
I find those who favour ideology over safety on this issue to be ignorant, particularly when it applies to girls level (for the record, I also think collision sports at school level should all be played by weight, not age. When I was at school, you'd turn up for a game and see a 14 year old version of the incredible hulk jogging on to the pitch, and think "Oh ****..." A 1.90m 110kg hulk shouldn't be playing against a 1.60m 55kg child.)
In sports with no increased risk then the equation is inclusion v fairness. There is no fully equitable solution.
Again though, I find it ignorant when some people smugly parade their "superior morality" and act as if it is purely a cost free and unquestionably moral action to include transwomen.
For reasons explained, I favour fairness, and see the “but some women are taller” arguments as fallacious given the unique and incomparable advantage of male puberty. Fairness for ciswomen produces the greatest good imo.
If some people favour inclusion over fairness then I’m not going to lose any sleep over it, but feel they should be open and honest that they are deliberately favouring inclusion over fairness and that transwomen do retain a significant advantage. There would need to be some restrictions on who qualifies (for example 2 years of testosterone suppression) as self-ID would lead to the end of elite sport for ciswomen and is thus insane.
If some ciswomen athletes feel this is unfair and protest, then they shouldn’t be criticised as it is unfair to them and it is not objectively more moral to favour inclusion over fairness. Some people have to pay the cost, and those who don't shouldn't criticise those that do.
At lower levels of sport a wider range of solutions are possible, and it is up to the relevant bodies to create their own policies based based on what works in their specific situations.
1) Obviously if there are safety issues, they ought to be taken into consideration. Not only when it comes down sex and weight difference, by the way.
2) It is not an unquestionably moral action to include trans women.
3) You can't say you favor fairness and then at the closest corner, if anyone suggests rules should be changed or a new category created to increase fairness, completely dump away fairness.