this post was submitted on 01 Feb 2024
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[–] OsrsNeedsF2P@lemmy.ml 65 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (9 children)

Genuinely don't know how I feel about the "trans women in sports". On one hand, it is a valid concern for a recently transitioned player to compete in some events, but on the other, I can totally see younger girls see more women at i.e. the skatepark and it encourages them to give it a try too

[–] MyDearWatson616@lemmy.world 75 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Recreational sports should have no boundaries. When you get into professional sports, the topic becomes a lot more dicey.

[–] daniskarma@lemmy.world 19 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I just don't get professional sports.

IMHO sports should only be for fun.

[–] tryptaminev@feddit.de 19 points 9 months ago (3 children)

If you dont have professional sports, you end up with sports being dominated by rich kids, who can afford to not work and fully focus on the sports, while other athletes have to work full time still.

Sports are an entertainment for many people, and why should actors, musicians, comedians and other entertainers make a living, but athletes shouldn't, even though they have to put in the same effort and time?

[–] Sage_the_Lawyer@lemmy.world 19 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Sports at the top level already are dominated by rich kids. Wealth is actually more likely to lead to athletic advantages than being a trans woman.

https://www.cces.ca/sites/default/files/content/docs/pdf/transgenderwomenathletesandelitesport-ascientificreview-e-final.pdf

Hmm, this link might be dead. Search for "Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport - Transgender Women Athletes and Elite Sport" and it should pop up.

More:

https://news.osu.edu/want-to-play-college-sports-a-wealthy-family-helps/

The Income Gap Is Becoming a Physical-Activity Divide https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/24/health/sports-physical-education-children.html?smid=nytcore-android-share

[–] Klear@lemmy.world 5 points 9 months ago

He's saying that athletes shouldn't exit at all, I think. Which might be an even worse take thb.

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[–] Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee 17 points 9 months ago

Especially when there's money on the line.

[–] barsoap@lemm.ee 73 points 9 months ago (2 children)

There's generally rules of the "have to be on HRT for X months" kind which is perfectly sensible: Your body doesn't change the second you come out, or decide to swallow pills.

Then, all the data we have says that middling athletes stay middling after transitioning, bad ones stay bad and great ones stay great, that's enough for fairness given that we don't disqualify Michael Phelps for being half fish. All those genetic advantages he has would carry over if he were to transition and he'd dominate the female league not because he transitioned but because he's a genetic freak.

If you think that people transition just to have an advantage I don't know what to tell you either. I'll believe it when I see Matt Walsh do it, on camera, under doctor's supervision. If that clown with all his hatred can't do it with ideological fuel then noone can.

[–] BautAufWasEuchAufbaut@lemmy.blahaj.zone 9 points 9 months ago (4 children)

Pills? There is HRT medicine which comes in pills?

[–] Mint@lemmy.one 26 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Yes, I don't know about masc HRT specifically, but estrogen comes in many different forms - needles,gel and pills

[–] Adramis@lemmy.world 11 points 9 months ago (2 children)

T is injection / patch / gel only, no oral.

[–] PopShark@lemmy.world 8 points 9 months ago

I’m not trans myself and don’t know anyone that is but from my background in powerlifting my guess is this is because basically any oral testosterone is brutal for the liver to break down and process

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[–] dodgy_bagel@lemmy.blahaj.zone 13 points 9 months ago

Ask any post menopausal woman. (estrogen pills)

Or teenage girl with acne. (anti androgen pills(sometimes))

Trans women take both.

[–] AnarchistArtificer@slrpnk.net 11 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Some T blockers, like spironolactone, can also come in pills, I believe.

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[–] barsoap@lemm.ee 5 points 9 months ago

Why wouldn't there be?

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[–] eupraxia@lemmy.blahaj.zone 56 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (3 children)

I fight people and have opinions!

Really depends on the sport. In non-professional fencing and HEMA, practice tends to be coed. Men and women tend to perform equivalently - really height is the biggest "biological advantage". More reach means more ability to hit an opponent before they hit you, and this goes the same for men and women. Sure, men can accelerate a bit faster and tend to be taller, women can plant their feet a little wider and tend to be more balanced and flexible - but these are just averages. Individual people vary wildly because biology doesn't give a shit about the categories we create to describe it. And strategy can make up for a lot of those things in ways that you really just can't with height discrepancies. We had to give our club's tallest member a shorter axe just to make up for the reach advantage when she fought people she stood a head above.

Dividing strictly based on AGAB is not an even playing field and I feel trans athletes only draw attention to what's already a significant problem in competitive sports. And once you get to a professional level, I understand there's more nuance, but a vast, vast majority of athletes are not professional and the issue is blown far out of proportion for them. Anyone pushing to enforce divisions in kids' sports via genital inspections has lost their goddamn minds.

[–] Diplomjodler@feddit.de 37 points 9 months ago

Some people just like to inspect kids' genitals. Those are not the kind of people who should make these decisions, though.

[–] problematicPanther@lemmy.world 20 points 9 months ago

i was in taekwondo as a kid. I was really good, imo. I competed at the national level and won several medals. But I still routinely got my ass handed to me on a silver platter by the women/girls I trained with whenever we'd spar.

[–] EnderMB@lemmy.world 7 points 9 months ago

In many combat sports like MT, BJJ, and MMA opinions are quite strong, and possibly rightly so when there is a risk of bodily harm. Some BJJ comps have put together rules where a trans person can enter their chosen division, as long as competitors agree to compete with them. That seems to be a common middle-ground, but still results in some people refusing and blocking that person from competing with their own gender. Some have just redefined the men's categories to "open" and lumped trans people into that category.

Frankly, what I would love to see is a fully funded study, and a commitment from sporting bodies to both follow that guidance AND to commit to future funding to repeat experiments.

[–] sonori@beehaw.org 55 points 9 months ago (2 children)

How about just using the rules the Olympics have been using for fifty years for competitive sports that they came up with after doing a proper study into the issue, which is if your fully transitioned for more than two years you can compete.

For sports where there isn’t a pro industry and people arn’t getting paid to compete, like in schools, just let people do whatever they present as. The point is to have fun, not ban people for maybe having a quarter of a percent advantage. If it was then games like basketball would need to have height and weight classes. The whole reason we allow, much less spend money funding, sports in schools, parks, and community centers is for exercise and fun, not just to cater to the adults betting money on the results.

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[–] reverendsteveii@lemm.ee 24 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (3 children)

Why would sex be the only genetic advantage we normalize for? Welsh people tend to be taller than Italians, should there be an Italians-only basketball league that bans Welsh folk?

[–] GoodEye8@lemm.ee 19 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

It's not. Boxing has weight classes because a heavyweight would snap a featherweight in half and some people literally can't reach heavyweight without going overweight.

[–] reverendsteveii@lemm.ee 7 points 9 months ago (1 children)

kind of invalidates the whole "they have a biological advantage" argument then, doesn't it?

[–] GoodEye8@lemm.ee 6 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] reverendsteveii@lemm.ee 14 points 9 months ago (1 children)

by deciding arbitrarily that some biological advantages are just an inherent part of sports but others need to be regulated

[–] GoodEye8@lemm.ee 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

How are they arbitrary decisions? The reason boxing has weight restrictions is because the heavier weight guy might actually kill the lighter weight guy, there's a clear health risk behind that decision. Same actually goes for a lot of fighting sports. And when it comes to sports like Tennis results have shown than men have a clear biological advantage over women, which is why women get separate tennis tournaments. And as a counter-example marathon running (at least to my knowledge) doesn't have male and female marathons, because there's no clear biological advantage for either sex.

Biological regulations tend to happen when there's either a health risk or an systemic advantage. If Usain Bolt has some magical leg muscles that make him one of the greatest (if not the greatest) sprinter of all time then that does not need regulating because that's just him, it's his natural talent. But if everyone can juice their body to make such magical leg muscles, then that needs to be regulated because it would give an unfair advantage against other people who wouldn't juice themselves.

And to take your Welsh vs Italians comparison to a more realistic example, world dwarf games exist and it contains basketball. There actually is a basketball tournament specifically for extremely short people. You thought the height thing would be silly, but it's actually a thing.

[–] reverendsteveii@lemm.ee 9 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

there is a clear health risk in all combat sports, but two big dudes are allowed to beat parkinson's disease into one another as are two small dudes. whether to draw a line at all and where to draw the line are arbitrary, even if you like the decision.

not only is marathon running divided by gender, but shrieking transphobes threw a fit about a trans woman "beating 14,000 real women" in the new york marathon when she actually came in at about the 6,000th place

chess is divided by gender. are you willing to defend the position that cis women can't think? if so, how do you defend the stripping of titles from trans men that were earned when they competed as women?

in the case of the dwarf olympics the difference is you're banning a characteristic of an individual athlete that gives an advantage, not categorically banning all athletes who could potentially have that characteristic.

[–] GoodEye8@lemm.ee 4 points 9 months ago

there is a clear health risk in all combat sports, but two big dudes are allowed to beat parkinson’s disease into one another as are two small dudes. whether to draw a line at all and where to draw the line are arbitrary, even if you like the decision.

In that case all societal lines are also arbitrary because it's not like there's some magical science that dictates with pure objectivity where the line is supposed to be. However there is still intent behind the weight classes, so I wouldn't call it arbitrary in the sense that they're drawn on a whim.

not only is marathon running divided by gender, but shrieking transphobes threw a fit about a trans woman “beating 14,000 real women” in the new york marathon when she actually came in at about the 6,000th place

I didn't know that. I just know that my female friend can and has joined marathons that also have men running. As for the transphobe shrieking, fuck those guys.

chess is divided by gender. are you willing to defend the position that cis women can’t think? if so, how do you defend the stripping of titles from trans men that were earned when they competed as women?

I specifically left out chess because it doesn't have anything to do with physical abilities. Chess is divided by gender because some men are too much of an asshole to act civil around women. That's all. Also, I love how you try to put words in my mouth. Fuck you for that.

in the case of the dwarf olympics the difference is you’re banning a characteristic of an individual athlete that gives an advantage, not categorically banning all athletes who could potentially have that characteristic.

At no point did I say I'm against trans people competing. I just don't think there's enough empirical evidence to draw any conclusions and the whole process of transitioning has a lot of nuances that impact performance. I'm not saying anyone should get banned on a potential characteristic, but I will say that if for instance it becomes apparent that trans-women end up consistently out-competing biological women then there should be a line drawn unless women themselves are okay with this.

I'm not against people transitioning, I'm also not against them competing, but if they do start outperforming women (and to be clear, I am explicitly stating that there's not enough empirical evidence to say if they will or not) then I'm against them. The whole idea of womens leagues is for women to have an compete without having to deal with an obvious disadvantage (or sexism as the case with Chess). If transwomen end up being statistically better than biological women, then that puts biological women at an obvious disadvantage. If transwomen don't have any statistical edge then let them compete. So far it's not clear and if women don't have an issue with them competing then neither do I.

[–] Twelve20two@slrpnk.net 6 points 9 months ago (1 children)

...I mean when you put it that way, it would be kinda funny if there was one

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[–] Devorlon@lemmy.zip 24 points 9 months ago (2 children)

That sort of rhetoric always feels sexist to me. The implication is that trans women shouldn't compete since those with XX chromosomes have some sort of superpower that means they'll beat those with XX.

The quote "Trans women can compete in sports as long as they don't win." always stood out to me.

[–] Shou@lemmy.world 18 points 9 months ago (2 children)

It's more about things like height, lung volume capacity and leg/arm length in certain sports. Not chromosomes.

[–] riwo@lemmy.blahaj.zone 11 points 9 months ago (1 children)

so that's really what people should be grouped based on in these sports instead of gender.

[–] tryptaminev@feddit.de 15 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Well it is more complicated than that. After puberty female bodies usually have more fat and less muscle mass, than similiarly trained male bodies. Also the metabolism and "energy management" of male bodies is more advantageous for most sports. Note of course that these are also spectrums, and women who train well outcompete men who don't.

So it does make sense to group athletes by gender too. But like somebody else said in this thread, there is no factual reason, why gender should be the only or the main grouping criteria.

[–] riwo@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 9 months ago (1 children)

all the things u list are still just individual factors, thst can be indicidually measured. gender does not play a role for them. make leagues based on these factors and not gender.

[–] tryptaminev@feddit.de 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

So how do you want to do it? I cannot see it as particularly inviting that athletes are grouped by body fat ratio, or needing an extensive medical analysis on how their metabolism performs.

[–] WalrusDragonOnABike@reddthat.com 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] tryptaminev@feddit.de 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I did sports semi professionally at some point. The people in my club who did so professionally were already fucked bad enough, with the anti doping agents having to know where they were at all times.

Imagine on top having very sensitive information from your medical records public. Imagine you are dropped out of the most prestigous top athlete bracket, because your body fat ratio increased half a percent too much after you had an injury.

Also imagine at say the swimming world cup there isnt just 2 dozen different competitions already seperated into men and women, but with another 4 subsections. These things also mean that the attention to the sports have to be spread among more people and outside of the popular sports that will drop many people out of attention and money spent on the sport.

[–] WalrusDragonOnABike@reddthat.com 2 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Imagine on top having very sensitive information from your medical records public. Imagine you are dropped out of the most prestigous top athlete bracket, because your body fat ratio increased half a percent too much after you had an injury.

Isn't that already a thing for sports with weight classes? Having fairer matches makes things more interesting in all divisions.

You don't even need more divisions. Just more precise ways of making them.

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[–] ICastFist@programming.dev 5 points 9 months ago (2 children)

And a body that has significantly more testosterone, which helps with sports where raw strength is an advantage, like cycling, sprinting and swimming.

A healthy man's testosterone will vary around 8~29 nmol/L (nanomoles per litre), while a woman will have 0~2 nmol/L.

[–] AnyOldName3@lemmy.world 10 points 9 months ago

It's not that clear-cut as cis women with abnormally high testosterone levels are overrepresented in top level sports, to the point where competitions that tried to define the men's and women's groups based on testosterone levels end up with cis people on the wrong side of the line. Also, hrt for trans people is usually stronger than the natural hormone levels of a cis person of the same gender as it's meant to change their body rather than just maintain it, so the attributes that are more dependent on hormones typically overshoot.

[–] princessnorah@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 points 9 months ago

What do you mean by this? My T levels have been in the average female range for more than five years now. I don’t even take blockers, estrogen + progesterone take care of it on their own.

I also never had male range T levels, they were always somewhere halfway between the two.

[–] Anamana@feddit.de 8 points 9 months ago

I mean I can see why some people feel like they are at a biological disadvantage here

[–] droans@lemmy.world 18 points 9 months ago (3 children)

I think Utah's governor, a Republican, actually put it best.

https://governor.utah.gov/2022/03/24/gov-cox-why-im-vetoing-hb11/

The transgender sports participation issue is one of the most divisive of our time. Because there are logical and passionate arguments by many parties, finding compromise or common ground can be difficult. Sadly, there is very little room for nuance in this debate. But I hope you will permit me an opportunity to explain my reasons for vetoing HB11...

I must admit, I am not an expert on transgenderism. I struggle to understand so much of it and the science is conflicting. When in doubt however, I always try to err on the side of kindness, mercy and compassion. I also try to get proximate and I am learning so much from our transgender community. They are great kids who face enormous struggles. Here are the numbers that have most impacted my decision: 75,000, 4, 1, 86 and 56.

  • 75,000 high school kids participating in high school sports in Utah.
  • 4 transgender kids playing high school sports in Utah.
  • 1 transgender student playing girls sports.
  • 86% of trans youth reporting suicidality.
  • 56% of trans youth having attempted suicide.

Four kids and only one of them playing girls sports. That’s what all of this is about. Four kids who aren’t dominating or winning trophies or taking scholarships. Four kids who are just trying to find some friends and feel like they are a part of something. Four kids trying to get through each day. Rarely has so much fear and anger been directed at so few. I don’t understand what they are going through or why they feel the way they do. But I want them to live. And all the research shows that even a little acceptance and connection can reduce suicidality significantly.

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[–] samus12345@lemmy.world 18 points 9 months ago (1 children)

If it's such a big deal, why not separate by ability rather than sex? We already have weight classes in some sports. Make it so only people who exhibit a certain amount of strength or whatever is relevant to the sport can participate.

[–] plumbercraic@lemmy.world 11 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Because not all of us want to see an end to female professional sports. From athletics to contact sports to solo and team sports if we separate by ability this will guarantee women get even less space to compete at the highest levels.

[–] samus12345@lemmy.world 4 points 9 months ago

But you can still be at the highest level in whatever category you're in. Just like when you separate by sex.

[–] drathvedro@lemm.ee 3 points 9 months ago

Everybody's talking about trans women in sport yet nobody's talking about transmen, which would close this topic once for all.