Comment on US Olympic policy change bans transgender women in women's events
fipto@lemmy.world 4 weeks agoI was busy the last few days but I think this conversation is important.
I’m right there with you for lots of the things you bring up. Women’s sports are severely underfunded, and women’s accomplishments are severely under-appreciated. What would you name as the reasons for this outcome? I think there are many… For one, many people are sexist and just don’t care for women’s sport. Another reason is that women’s sports are on average less extreme. Men are setting the records and pushing the human boundaries when it comes to sport. Women are pushing boundaries, too, (within women’s specific sports categories), but generally not beating the highest of all human records.
On average, women have significant disadvantages when it comes to sport… The short list I gave previously is obviously non-exhaustive. This is why women (as a class) outperform men (as a class) when it comes to physical sports. <- just so its very clear, I’m speaking of classes here, not individuals.
One class out-performing another then brings about the most natural way to make categories in sports: sex. This way, each class can have their own champions. Women are given opportunities to win in fairness and gain recognition for amazing feats.
Ultimately you and I are both concerned with giving the best possible opportunities to athletes. The whole idea of sports is that there is an established class who is participating, and within that class - may the best competitor win. Because of the stark differences in outcomes among men and women competitors, the easiest and most fair class distinction to draw is based on sex. It uplifts women as a class, and gives women a spot on the largest stages. I think this is a wonderful thing, and I would never want to threaten it.
So that’s my perspective. As a quick direct response, (so I don’t seem as if I’m avoiding anything):
- “does that mean a cis woman who has all of those things is also unfair?” In this response, I mention here that my list is non-exhaustive. I think if we looked up a longer list, it would be clear why both athletes couldn’t practically possess all of the same characteristics, and why this comparison would fail.
- “satistics show that cis and trans athletes have a statistical advantage in a wide variety of sports and activities between 7% and -13%”… Appologies, this is somewhat unclear to me. Would you clarify a bit? I am having trouble understanding who/what exactly the numbers refer to.
- “several sports are starting to have women with results similar to men”. Could you explain in which sports men and women have similar outcomes? Or what has led you to this conclusion? If this is the case, I’d like to believe it too.
Thanks for the good discussion, and for the patience.
webadict@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
But, I think you don’t want sports segregated by sex assigned at birth, either. If you did, you would have trans men competing against women. And again, trans men still compete and win at sports while competing against other men just like any other masc athlete, and if your argument is that men, as a category, are better than women at sports, then you won’t accept trans men competing against women, either.
The thing is, there’s not much point debating you. It feels like you would probably be okay with excluding trans people from sports, and that feels more and more like the point with these types of debates. And if you are okay with trans men competing against men, then is it not kinda bigoted to not also be okay with trans women competing against women? Why exclude them for doing everything they can to make it fair? Even the Olympics had a plan for trans athletes that was statistically shown to be fair for competitors based on medical experts.
Like, in a perfect world, there would be better sports categorization, but until that point, we see trans women perform like women and trans men perform like men, so that is where we should allow them to compete. And if there is some sort of issue where someone (male or female, trans or cis) dramatically over performs, that would be a better time to deal with that particular one-off.
Anyway, feel free to look into long- and ultra-distance running for instances of women getting closer to men’s times, but, heck, women are closing the gap in shorter running competitions as well, even if at a slower rate. As for the 7% to -13% advantage, trans athletes were compared against cis athletes in a variety of activities, testing things from jump height to grip strength to wingspan, and the advantages in most categories ranged from a 7% advantage to a 13% disadvantage for the trans athlete on average. The biggest issue is that there just aren’t enough trans athletes to know how much of an advantage or disadvantage being trans gives you, but, on average, it is likely to be pretty minimal if there even is one.
fipto@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Hey, I’m genuinely sorry if anything I’ve said has come off as hurtful or insincere. I don’t like to think of this thread as a debate, myself. I like to have conversations, and I really don’t like debates full of gotchas and personal attacks that some “anti trans” people use. I wouldnt call myself anti trans. I try to just talk and listen, and let people know when I agree with them. If you aren’t super comfortable talking here, I don’t want to pressure you to continue. I try to see you as a conversation partner and not an opponent since we’re all humans after all. For now, you asked some questions and made some statements, so I’ll answer those:
You’re right actually, I don’t think segregating by sex is the best possible solution. I might have said something different before, so please excuse me if I misspoke. Thanks for catching me out there. I think that it is important that women have the right to their own protected category, to increase opportunities and recognition. I probably explained that better in my last response. But in general, I think it would be nice if there were two categories: Women and Open. As far as the Open category goes, anyone would be able to participate there no matter what, as long as they can perform at the level required. This gets rid of a lot of silly debates, while still allowing women athletes to have guaranteed access to opportunities and recognition in the Womens category, or choose to compete on the Open stage if they qualify. Since I can’t have my ideal world, though, I think that having Mens and Womens categories is… an ok solution. How much can we reasonably change? As far as your question of: “trans men competing against women” goes, most sporting authorities have rules that athletes can’t compete if they’ve taken a steroid (extra testosterone for example) in the last X months. Do you think this is a good rule?
Ah! Yes, I’m actually familiar with this. Thanks for bringing it up. Long distance / endurance competitions are one of the few cases where women may outperform men. This is pretty interesting, and I haven’t looked into why it is. Maybe pain tolerance? Either way, this is pretty cool.
I’d really like to understand you point of view better. If you have some time, I’m curious. Can I ask:
I’d also like to ask, based on your last comment:
How would you define being trans? This might seem like a silly question, but I want to make sure we’re talking about the same thing. Personally, I think that anyone who says “I’m trans” is trans. This means that no medicalization is necessary, cause trans is just an identity. So according to that definition, “being trans” alone gives you literally 0 advantage/disadvantage! (lol at the technicalities of definitions). But yeah, What do you think?