Transgender athlete

[Kfox]

That's OK, but in some cases, there are not enough transgender athletes in a given place and a given sport to have such a separate category.

I wasn't suggesting a separate category for Transgender athletes, I was saying transgender athletes should play in the division according to their sexual biology.

 

[Jose Fly]

Let's start with HUMANS as a single pool of possible participants, and then begin classifying and groupting them according to ability relative to the sport they're interested in. And let's do so regardless of what dangly bits they have or don't have between their legs, or what pronouns they prefer, since that does not seem to have any effect on anyone's performance, at all.

This is why, despite the fact that I'm a sports guy and a trans rights advocate, I tend to steer clear of the debates around this issue.....too many people like you who clearly know nothing about sports and women's sports, acting like they do.

FYI, the NBA, NFL, PGA Tour, NHL, MLB, etc. are not "men only" by rule. Anyone who's good enough to play in those leagues can play in them. Some women have tried to make their way into those leagues, but they simply weren't good enough. Some, e.g., Michelle Wie, were even given special access to events, yet failed to have success.

As others have noted, if we did what you suggest, that would be the death of women's sports. It's important to remember that women's sports were created for a reason.

I mean...is your goal here to just eliminate women's sports altogether?

 

[Colt]

I support lgbtq's but I think transgenders in sports is unfair for obvious reasons. They should have there own league. That would be cool. I guess I don't really care either way though. Just tryin to think of a fair way. I mean can you imagine a bodybuilder size trans 230 lb. on a football field with 130 lb women? I mean where do u draw the line? It's nonsensical. I mean if your going to do something then do it right? You can't discriminate against the gladiator can u?

Transgenderism is a fad, it will go away.

 

[Secret Chief]

Transgenderism is a fad, it will go away.

How long is a fad? The term was coined in 1965 by Psychiatrist John F. Oliven, which was a replacement for the term transsexualism.

- Transgender - Wikipedia

 

[Augustus]

BTW, anyone who has played sports for any length of time well know injuries can and do occur. As for myself, I accumulated two broken collarbones, a hairline fracture on my fibula, two ripped tendons in my calves, a dislocated left elbow that never healed properly, bone spurs, and numerous more minor injuries. If one doesn't accept the possibility of injuries, maybe they should just take up playing card games.

“Toughen up princess, maybe sports aren’t for you eh? You’re better off staying home and learning knitting” is not quite the progressive flex you think it is.

Such a misogynistic attitude.

Parents demand answers from ECB as trans woman competes against girls

The ECB say they are currently reviewing their policy on transgender cricketers.

www.express.co.uk

 

[Augustus]

is your goal here to just eliminate women's sports altogether?

The goals of some “progressives” here seems be to a combination of eliminating women in pro sport, discouraging girls and women from playing sport at any level, making strange new sports like small people basketball and mocking girls and women who worry about being exposed to increased risk of serious injury.

For ideological reasons some people find it impossible to understand you can’t make sports fully inclusive without making them unfair and (sometimes very significantly) increasing risk to women and girls.

They have to pretend we can though either by coming up with ludicrous revamps of sport or just pretending these problems don’t exist.

 

[Jose Fly]

The goals of some “progressives” here seems be to a combination of eliminating women in pro sport, discouraging girls and women from playing sport at any level, making strange new sports like small people basketball and mocking girls and women who worry about being exposed to increased risk of serious injury.

I think it's more that they just don't know what they're talking about. Plus, for whatever reason a lot of progressives hate sports.

For ideological reasons some people find it impossible to understand you can’t make sports fully inclusive without making them unfair and (sometimes very significantly) increasing risk to women and girls.

They have to pretend we can though either by coming up with ludicrous revamps of sport or just pretending these problems don’t exist.

It can get pretty absurd at times. I actually had one progressive tell me that the only reason the WNBA exists is because the men in the NBA don't want to be embarrassed by getting beat by women. When I asked if they truly believed the women in the WNBA were better basketball players than the men in the NBA, they answered "absolutely".

But then, if a person neither knows nor values sports, destroying women's sports doesn't seem all that significant.

 

[Koldo]

The goals of some “progressives” here seems be to a combination of eliminating women in pro sport, discouraging girls and women from playing sport at any level, making strange new sports like small people basketball and mocking girls and women who worry about being exposed to increased risk of serious injury.

For ideological reasons some people find it impossible to understand you can’t make sports fully inclusive without making them unfair and (sometimes very significantly) increasing risk to women and girls.

They have to pretend we can though either by coming up with ludicrous revamps of sport or just pretending these problems don’t exist.

Sports are essentially unfair by nature.
Short? Good luck playing basketball and volleyball.
Tall? Forget about artistic gymnastics.
Each sport is heavily suspectible to be dominated by people that possess certain traits. Not to mention the influence of having the money to support a proper diet and training program. Fairness is an illusion.

I don't disagre there is an underlying problem here though. Having a male puberty creates an even bigger gap.

 

[Colt]

How long is a fad? The term was coined in 1965 by Psychiatrist John F. Oliven, which was a replacement for the term transsexualism.

- Transgender - Wikipedia

Not sure how long it will go on, it just became popular recently.

 

[Augustus]

Sports are essentially unfair by nature.
Short? Good luck playing basketball and volleyball.
Tall? Forget about artistic gymnastics.
Each sport is heavily suspectible to be dominated by people that possess certain traits. Not to mention the influence of having the money to support a proper diet and training program. Fairness is an illusion.

I don't disagre there is an underlying problem here though. Having a male puberty creates an even bigger gap.

I agree sports are unfair, but we still ban PEDs, certain sports equipment etc. as these are judged to be too unfair.

Specific characteristics like height, VO2 max, foot size etc. impact your ability to become elite at a given sport certainly, but Michael Jordan wasn't the tallest, and the gut with the biggest feet won't necessarily win the swimming race. No specific characteristic can be used to identify the best, and each of them only make a small difference.

Male puberty is worth something like a 10-30% boost in certain physical characteristics where the difference between top athletes is often around 0.5%.

If you have 10 athletes who are elite based on their birth sex, put them in the same sport then we won't know the order within the sexes, but we certainly know that those who underwent male puberty will beat those that didn't.

Transitioning is like "levelling up" in terms of ability for many, hence Lia Thomas went from a top 500 college athlete to a dominant champion.
For me, that's in the "too unfair" category (there are some arguments based on performance data that she is deliberately underperforming so as to not look too bad, although I don't personally find these very persuasive).

I would actually really like an elite male to transition to see what it would be like, as AFAIK there never has been one, just high level athletes who became elite after transition.

 

[Kfox]

Sports are essentially unfair by nature.
Short? Good luck playing basketball and volleyball.
Tall? Forget about artistic gymnastics.

Lots of short people play basketball and volleyball. They may not get paid to do it, but there is nothing stopping them from doing it.

Each sport is heavily suspectible to be dominated by people that possess certain traits. Not to mention the influence of having the money to support a proper diet and training program. Fairness is an illusion.

Just because some people can excel in ways others can't does not make it unfair.

 

[Koldo]

Lots of short people play basketball and volleyball. They may not get paid to do it, but there is nothing stopping them from doing it.

Just because some people can excel in ways others can't does not make it unfair.

I was talking about playing at competitive professional levels. If being able to excel in ways that others can't is not unfair, what is?

 

[Koldo]

I agree sports are unfair, but we still ban PEDs, certain sports equipment etc. as these are judged to be too unfair.

Specific characteristics like height, VO2 max, foot size etc. impact your ability to become elite at a given sport certainly, but Michael Jordan wasn't the tallest, and the gut with the biggest feet won't necessarily win the swimming race. No specific characteristic can be used to identify the best, and each of them only make a small difference.

Male puberty is worth something like a 10-30% boost in certain physical characteristics where the difference between top athletes is often around 0.5%.

If you have 10 athletes who are elite based on their birth sex, put them in the same sport then we won't know the order within the sexes, but we certainly know that those who underwent male puberty will beat those that didn't.

Transitioning is like "levelling up" in terms of ability for many, hence Lia Thomas went from a top 500 college athlete to a dominant champion.
For me, that's in the "too unfair" category (there are some arguments based on performance data that she is deliberately underperforming so as to not look too bad, although I don't personally find these very persuasive).

I would actually really like an elite male to transition to see what it would be like, as AFAIK there never has been one, just high level athletes who became elite after transition.

Being shorter than 1,75m pretty much makes your chances of getting into the NBA close to 0%. The height advantage in basketball is into the 'too unfair' category.

 

[Kfox]

I was talking about playing at competitive professional levels.

Nobody wants to spend their hard earned money to see a bunch of average players, we want to spend our money to see the very best! And by definition, everybody can’t be the best.

If being able to excel in ways that others can't is not unfair, what is?

Fairness. As long as everybody is allowed to try their best, it’s fairness even if their best comes up short.

 

[Augustus]

Being shorter than 1,75m pretty much makes your chances of getting into the NBA close to 0%. The height advantage in basketball is into the 'too unfair' category.

1.60m 1st round pick and 14 season NBA career.

Muggsy Bogues - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

On the other hand, a 2 meter tall female who hasn’t undergone male puberty has a zero percent chance of being anywhere close to playing in the NBA or any of the next 10 steps down from the NBA.

So your height advantage is too unfair example is clearly wrong.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

Being shorter than 1,75m pretty much makes your chances of getting into the NBA close to 0%. The height advantage in basketball is into the 'too unfair' category.

Weird example. The NBA is an open competition, and a woman has been previously drafted. The WNBA is not.

THe question here isn't what restrictions should be added to a currently open competition. But how to handle a closed one.
Unless you are also arguing that all players should be put in a single pool, and you're unable to see the detrimental impact this would have on both female and transgender athletes...

 

[PureX]

This is why, despite the fact that I'm a sports guy and a trans rights advocate, I tend to steer clear of the debates around this issue.....too many people like you who clearly know nothing about sports and women's sports, acting like they do.

FYI, the NBA, NFL, PGA Tour, NHL, MLB, etc. are not "men only" by rule. Anyone who's good enough to play in those leagues can play in them.

Why do you all focus only on the most skilled sets of players in a given sport? Why are you all so obsessed with excellence instead of equitable competition. I couldn't care less about who is in the top tier of a sport. Those people will never be denied access to the sport they want to play. So they aren't the issue. It's all those other people that want to play sports but cannot as their gender or their sexual identity precludes them, because we are still following silly antiquated selection rules in the way we organize sports. There is NOTHING about one's gender that makes them better or worse at ANY sport short of childbirth. So there is no reason whatever to be using gender as the criteria for determining eligibility.

 

[Koldo]

Nobody wants to spend their hard earned money to see a bunch of average players, we want to spend our money to see the very best! And by definition, everybody can’t be the best.

Fairness. As long as everybody is allowed to try their best, it’s fairness even if their best comes up short.

I completely disagree with your concept of what constitutes fairness. Being able to try your best, by itself, doesn't make a competition fair. A fair competition involves the winner being decided by who trained the most/best and who made the best decisions through the match/game.

 

[Koldo]

1.60m 1st round pick and 14 season NBA career.

Muggsy Bogues - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

On the other hand, a 2 meter tall female who hasn’t undergone male puberty has a zero percent chance of being anywhere close to playing in the NBA or any of the next 10 steps down from the NBA.

So your height advantage is too unfair example is clearly wrong.

I am well aware of who he is. He is a huge exception at that height. There are 520 nba players right now and the shortest is 1,77m. I don't see why a chance close to 0% is much better than a 0% chance. Both to me are in the 'too unfair' category.

 

[Koldo]

Weird example. The NBA is an open competition, and a woman has been previously drafted. The WNBA is not.

THe question here isn't what restrictions should be added to a currently open competition. But how to handle a closed one.
Unless you are also arguing that all players should be put in a single pool, and you're unable to see the detrimental impact this would have on both female and transgender athletes...

What I am saying is that both open and women only competitions are unfair. The rules of each sport benefit a certain group of people to the point whoever is not part of this group has no chance of winning.

Allowing trans women in women only competitions would merely shift the current 'Oh, you are too short so you can't play basketball competitively' to 'Oh, you didn't go through male puberty so you can't play competitively'.

No one cares about short people being essentially unable to play basketball. Why should we care if cisgender women eventually become essentially unable to play basketball?