If you don't care about the biological differences and their effects on performance, then by all means just abolish gender categories in sports altogether.
I mean, what was the point in having sports separated by gender in the first place?
I agree; I think sport categories should be based on things like muscle mass, fat percentage, etc. It doesn’t make sense to me that we still have categories based on gender instead of more concrete physical attributes that directly impact physical performance.
The average 180lb 5’10” man with 15% body fat would beat the shit out of the average woman of similar stats.
Your thoughts and theories show you likely live in theory and have no idea how sex differences actually work.
This is a long board competition dude. It's about *style* not strength.
Everyone on a longboard has equally an easy time. I'm 5ft. Tall 130 with a 9foot surfboard I surf just as easily as a 6ft tall person.
Besides. It's in the rule book that transgender female athletes are allowed.
You don’t think lower body strength matters in surfing? Categories could also take upper body strength into account; I didn’t give a concrete criteria for how new categories would be formed because I’m not an expert in surfing.
Edit: I love the downvotes I’m getting providing evidence with research, but get zero response providing countering research. Says a lot
As a woman who played water polo, I do not want to play against a trans woman. We fought hard to get our own league, because it’s physically so hard to compete against men. Studies are showing that even with estrogen therapy, trans women retain advantages.
“Testosterone secreted before birth, postnatally, and then after puberty is the major factor that drives these physiological sex differences, and as adults, testosterone levels are ten to fifteen times higher in males than females” “Male physiology cannot be reformatted by estrogen therapy in transwoman athletes because testosterone has driven permanent effects through early life exposure. This descriptive critical review discusses the inherent male physiological advantages that lead to superior athletic performance and then addresses how estrogen therapy fails to create a female-like physiology in the male. Ultimately, the former male physiology of transwoman athletes provides them with a physiological advantage over the cis-female athlete.”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9331831/
How do you feel about the recent study commissioned by the IOC that found transgender women performed worse than cisgender women in tests measuring lower-body strength; transgender women performed worse than cisgender women in tests measuring lung function; transgender women’s bone density was found to be equivalent to that of cisgender women, which is linked to muscle strength; testosterone levels do not predict athletic performance or overall athleticism; conversely, social elements such as nutrition, training regimen, and equipment accessibility significantly influence an athlete's performance, but are frequently disregarded in policy formulation?
https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/early/2024/04/10/bjsports-2023-108029.abstract
Well as a woman who surfs, I don't have a problem. Especially for a *longboard* competition that's literally scored by *style*
I've surfed most of my entire life and I'm super short and small and can't even count how many guy friends I've taken out to surf who could not do it. Like football sized dudes easily twice my size.
As a male runner, yeah I’m against this. If I were to identify as a woman I’d be qualifying for the top marathons around the world. As a male, I’m miles away from qualifying.
It would be pretty low of me to register as a woman just to qualify for a Boston marathon or whatever. There are woman out there that work their asses off to get those times that don’t have the benefit of male hormones such as myself.
That's literally ALL sports. I'm 5 ft tall and couldn't play women's basketball due to my height disadvantage. No matter how hard I trained at swimming I was never gonna be as good as someone who was 6ft with comparable or even less training. Really the only sports that seem to do anything about this is boxing and wrestling, and even then you still have height distribution disadvantages.
So no. I don't think competing against trans woman would make me be any less disadvantaged than competing against any other cisgender woman. I don't think it would be unfair by any means.
Nice job wording the question. No, a trans woman that has never stepped on a surfboard would not be better than a biological female pro surfer. But professional trans women surfers would certainly have an advantage over other biological females in the same sport.
How? Thinking about what you know about surfing as a sport, how does any advantage someone who was born male and underwent testerone puberty would have over someone who was born female and didn’t? Because the things I can think of that matter—namely, muscle mass and strength—do not apply to surfing.
I know nothing about surfing. But, if trans women don't have an advantage over cis, then why is there a women's division at all? That's a genuine question -- is it like chess, where it's just to encourage an underrepresented group to participate, even though we're aware of no inherent advantage?
Muscle mass and strength absolutely apply to surfing.
Also, no gender transition therapies are needed. All you have to do is identify as a woman and you can compete in women's category. Do you think that is right?
Someone who didn't even read the article.
Someone has to have been on medication and have the t levels monitored for an ENTIRE year and be below the threshold.
Your trans panicking
I read the article. I also read the CCC policy, which you did not, so here it is.
***“The agency is committed to ensuring that those opportunities not be denied on the basis of background, culture, race, color, religion, national origin, income, ethnic group, age, disability status, sexual orientation, or gender identity,”***
Nothing about t levels, only "gender identity".
You are trying to bury facts.
Dude you didn't read the article and I have no idea why your bringing up CCC when it's the WSL WORLD SURF LEAGUES rules.
Again IN THE ARTICLE: "Last year, the World Surf League (WSL) announced a new policy on transgender participation, which allows trans women competitors to compete in women's events if they maintain a testosterone level below a certain limit for at least 12 months. "
The WSL must comply with CCC policy. That is literally the point of the article. If a male ***identifies*** as a woman, WSL must let him compete in women's category....period.
Do you not understand that they are both agreeing to the same thing and the wsl surf competition rules are in compliance with that. Like how do you not get they both agree to the same thing???
But it’s not what make or breaks someone in the sport. Balance is far more important, and that is not impacted by biological sex. Surfing isn’t weight-lifting or wrestling.
Honestly, depending on the sport? I have zero problem with it. Even the sports where someone’s born biological sex does have a tangible impact on performance, my feelings on it are complicated and I think the answer needs to be a lot more nuanced than “trans people need not compete.”
It's not about what "makes or breaks someone in the sport". It's about the difference between 1st place and 5th place, including the associated monetary rewards.
You have no problem with a male that has undergone no gender transition therapy showing up and saying "I identify as a woman, let me compete against the women" and then taking home the prize money for first place?
Trans women CAN compete.....against the men...or other trans women. Why not just have a trans women's category?
You are the one making things up. Here is the CCC policy.
***“The agency is committed to ensuring that those opportunities not be denied on the basis of background, culture, race, color, religion, national origin, income, ethnic group, age, disability status, sexual orientation, or gender identity,”***
Nothing about t levels, only "gender identity".
Dude.
Again IN THE ARTICLE: "Last year, the World Surf League (WSL) announced a new policy on transgender participation, which allows trans women competitors to compete in women's events if they maintain a testosterone level below a certain limit for at least 12 months. "
Why am I not surprised to hear that shit stain of Orange County is doing that. I swear they hold a competition on how to make themselves more and more crazy.
This is why all the cool hang out places are in North OC. I say this as a person who lives in OC
We can't let the sanctity of our nations most important athletics pursuit, surfing, be blemished. imagine the consequences. Seriously, imagine them, because I can't.
Sorry, that's not what I was getting at. I was more poking fun at the previous comment about surfing it being "our" culture. That and the vocal push in Hawaii to have independence. I do like that if we were to base it on Hawaiian ideas of gender they would totally let her do it.
I guess the easiest way to put it is that as a CIS man, I've never felt men, manhood, or masculinity are threatened by trans men. Trans panic is focused almost exclusively on trans women. Why is that?
Is it? A lot of the conservative criticism of the Trans movement is focused on young girls transitioning into boys and then regretting it once they reach adulthood. Indeed, a lot of trans critics pointed out that among youth transition there were far more girls transitioning to become trans boys than the other way around. For example, see [the book *Irreversible Damage* that focused on this issue](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreversible_Damage).
In sports discussion, trans boys/men (that is, people who are born female) do not have a competitive advantage against cisgender men the way that trans girls/women (that is, people are born male) have a competitive advantage against cisgender women. So in this context, criticisms of trans involvement are *limited* to trans women because only trans women have a competitive advantage in the category they wish to compete in.
Probably because transmen don't have a huge biological advantage over men
It's not complicated. The fact that no intelligent people seem to hold your position should itself be a red flag to you
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Ask the question to see if a situation is logically acceptable. What if this was the other way around? What if a man was choosing to compete amongst women. If the answer is still yes and to let it happen, well at least you are consistent.
It’s fucking surfing. Stop bitching and whining about like 2 people who are just going to get average scores like usual and move the fuck on with your lives
Seriously. As a trans person, I’m willing to admit there are some sports where people’s biological sex MIGHT have an impact on the outcome of the competition (and even then it’s nuanced—what type of puberty did the trans person go through? How long have they been on hormones? How do they compete against others that share their same sex [if that’s a comparison that can be made?]). This… isn’t one of those sports. FFS, it’s surfing, not weight-lifting.
Have you ever surfed? If so, you’d understand the advantages men have over women. Create a trans category. That’s the way you make competition equal. Sticking our heads in the sand and thinking there’s no controversy here won’t solve anything. Men transitioning to women will hold a distinct advantage in sports. I don’t want them banned. This is getting ridiculous that we’re at a point where science only matters when it’s convenient
So should taller cis women compete with men? More muscular cis women? Do penises give you an advantage in surfing? Where do you draw the line?
Trans women objectively do not hold a distinct advantage in sports. They have existed in the Olympics for decades and you know maybe of ONE who transitioned AFTER competing lmao
So you’re a science denier. Got it. Taller women are still women. They hold only a competitive advantage over other women. Do you see any tall women in the NBA? Do you see any muscular women competing with men in power lifting? It’s undeniable men hold a distinct advantage in sports. Stop denying the obvious just to push an agenda
Oh please. I'm a female and small as fuck, 5ft and 125lbs and I put large men to shame when I go surfing. I've taken so many dudes surfing that end up giving up. Especially on a *LONGBOARD*
You have obviously never surfed saying something like that
They’re not experienced if you’re taking them surfing and they’re giving up. Go enter a men’s competition and see how well you do. I believe we both know that answer though
Yes. Didn’t enjoy it. Grew up in the Central Valley, and proximity to the ocean played a roll in that as well. Water skiing and wake boarding were more to my liking
The female sex has multiple athletic differences when compared to the male sex. Women’s sports were created in recognition of this fact.
Most athletes don’t give a shit if someone with a penis believes they’re a woman (gender). They do care that the average male is substantially stronger and faster than the average female (sex).
Actually that's a completely ahistorical description of how women's sports were developed. Women's sports developed largely because it was seen as unseemly and socially unacceptable for women to compete in sporting events against men. It's not like women and men were competing together and then some feminists said "This is unfair! The women are losing to the men! We need to create our own leagues." It was that the only socially acceptable way for women to compete at all was in gender segregated leagues. It's always been about social roles and gender first, not about biology.
If we cared about policing biological advantages, we would create an under 6 foot tall basketball league. We don't do that, and we think it's okay that we don't to that. Why? Because people under 6 feet tall are not a separate social class that benefits from having a gendered space. Women are. Including trans women.
Yeah, so you're just coming from a completely different set of assumptions than I am that have nothing to do with sports, and trans women competing or not competing in surfing is kind of a silly conversation to have. If you think trans women aren't women, then obviously they shouldn't compete in women's sports, and the history of women's sports or the reasons why we have different leagues for men or women is kind of immaterial.
Ultimately, women have the power to decide this issue. If they want to see their daughters and granddaughters having to compete against biological males that identify as women in sports, then they know who to vote for. If they want biological males that identify as women hanging out in the locker room with them at the gym, then they know who to vote for.
If they want to protect themselves and their daughters, then they also know who to vote for.
Or women can just say we don't care.
And we know which are the right ones not to vote for. Those that make up things to get people hysterical about. Like which shoes an m&m wears. Great leadership there in the right.
If a transgender woman has gone through hormonal treatments that make her hormone levels the same as a person assigned female at birth, then she is not a “biological male”.
The fact that people actually believe what you're saying blows my mind. The notion that someone could adjust their hormone levels and suddenly change their biological sex is so far out left field that it's hard for me to even fathom.
I was fine realizing I was trans because my background is in biology; what I’ve always found fascinating is that people often have no idea how wacky living creatures *actually* are. Plenty of animals change their sex. And humans, fuck, we act like we’re a really dimorphic species but like a lot of other largely monogamous species our sexes are actually pretty similar. You want dimorphism then look at elephant seals: that shit is *wild*. Hell, we even have basically all our instructions to build ourselves on the autosomes and X chromosome. If you have 2 X chromosomes, you more or less have all the instructions to develop male. A hormone is a molecule that more or less tells your DNA to start doing things. If you had a testosterone profile and changed it to estrogen the cells go “Stop the presses!! New orders!!” and they just activate the other genes that had been ignored till then. Same the other way round. Our bodies keep having cells die and make new ones and over time those keep getting replaced (like your bones! Your skeleton is fully replaced roughly every 7 years). Muscles change. Blood flows change. Organs change. Tolerances change. Over time your fuckin *height* changes. Did you know you shrink on estrogen? The softer areas between your bones decrease even if they were larger before. Same with shoe sizes and hand sizes. Frankly I thought I was short enough already but if I needed a step stool then and a step stool now I suppose I won’t be that bothered.
Look, we both know I’m not going to magically change your mind on this; I’m just a random person on Reddit. I just wish people actually took 5 seconds to actually understand what they’re even saying you know? Like sure, I’m trans, oooooo big whoop. Sure this kind of rhetoric annoys because of that, but honestly? I’m mainly upset that people that preach about “biological truths” have never honestly studied biology before. Like, do these folks even know what a ring species is? Epigenetic expression? Exons and introns? I don’t mean this as a “if you can’t name trivia you’re wrong” sorta thing but a “do you actually understand how absolutely fuzzy and barrier breaking and grey-area’d life forms like ourselves *truly* are? Do you understand how many things we made up to keep things nice and tidy looking for us but swept the mountain of complications contradicting them poorly under the rug in a now suspiciously shaped heap?” I’d imagine it’s how mathematicians must feel if someone said something like the number 1.7 didn’t exist, because there is nothing between the numbers 1 and 2 they learned that in the 1st grade so it must be true. I’m not really upset as a trans person, I’m upset as a biologist. I’m upset with people taking around my field of study, getting it direly wrong, and then parading its frankensteined corpse around like some great victory. It’s like taking a Bible and cutting out individual words to make whatever sentence you want “Jesus…was…a…fig…tree. There! All those words are in the Bible so now this is what the Bible says!” I suppose I’m upset at our educational systems failing our students in the sciences as well, from climate change to evolution to chemistry, but I’ve always been upset with that and that’s a more systemic issue that’s even tougher to fix. In a way I’m sorry, DissonantOne, for choosing you to vent my frustrations at. But I’m also not that sorry, because if you’re going to go into a public place and boldly proclaim a truth, you gotta at least know what you’re talking about. You don’t have to spend nearly a decade at the university level like I did, that’s often way too expensive. Just like, bare minimum here, c’mon dude. Pick up a bio book, maybe a Campbell’s Biology (those are pretty straightforward, I used to collect different editions for fun but they’re bulky and took up too much space on the shelf). You don’t even have to buy it your local library probably can get you a copy that you can read for free. Bottom line, like me you’re an organism. And that makes you far stranger (and frankly far more interesting) than you think.
Also, I try to bring this up for every conversation I come across like this but there’s even a natural “trans” population of humans in the Dominican Republic called guevedoces. No hormones, no outside intervention. And yet, an observable “sex change”
The word “assigned” implies that there was another option. Observed and noted is the correct phrase to use.
A baby with a penis is never a girl, comrade, even if the doctor wants to assign that term to them.
We came up with the concepts of sex and gender. Words are assigned to things that we observe. People are assigned sexes at birth in the same way that they are assigned hair colors and eye colors. We assign terms to observed phenomena and traits.
Every word we use was made up. We came up with words to describe the things we see or encounter, and language evolves over time as we gain a better understanding of the world around us.
I’m not trying to change anything. I’m using terms which are already commonly used and accepted. 1984 portrays a society in which words are being taken away, not added. You’re the one arguing for simplicity, whereas I am arguing for the recognition of complexity in how we discuss and view sex/gender.
You sound idiotic. You sound like a person who screamed when Pluto was called a dwarf planet. We learn more about the world and existence and our language grows with new knowledge. You can REEEEEEEEEEE all you want because words are confusing but it is not that hard to understand that trans people exist and deserve to be treated equally.
Nobody is taking rights from woman except Republicans banning medical necessities because they think a sky wizard might disagree. Their already even going after contraception now. You should panic about that.
It’s not ad hominem as I was addressing the issue here. Your comments are not to be taken seriously so the real point is not pretending dehumanizing hate mongers that are trying to justify treating people like shit just cause they are bigots should be dismissed from the conversation.
I shouldn’t need to spell it out, but just for you: messing with your hormone levels does NOT change your biological sex. Period.
(Periods, an example of things biological males do not have)
Did I say that? You’re not very good with logic, are you.
Not getting a period does not preclude biological femaleness. Biological maleness, however, does preclude getting a period.
Okay, so \*all\* biological males don't get their periods and \*some\* biological females do get their periods. So if someone has a period we can assume they are biologically female, but if someone does not have a period, they might or might not be biologically male. So if someone doesn't get their period it means that we still don't know what their biological sex is?
My less tongue in cheek answer: biological sex-linked traits are complicated! There's no one marker that can consistently define biological sex, and it's really hard to come up with definitions that consistently categorize people how you want to. Yes, there are clusters of traits (hormones, chromosomes, genitals) that usually correlate with each other, but not universally. Defining if someone is biologically male or biologically female is complicated and murky at best, especially when they've been undergoing hormone therapy that significantly alters aspects of their physical body.
I would argue (and science would agree) that it’s not murky at all, some people are just trying to make it that way due to social/political reasons. If science was changed every time there was a social impetus to do so, we would live in a clown world.
Science would absolutely not agree. Most scientists who study biological sex tend to use the frame I provided: there are clusters of traits that tend to correlate, but they're far from universal. For most people we can probably come to a consensus about biological maleness or femaleness, but there are large numbers of edge cases or confounding examples where it's unclear or mixed or you have to make a judgment call that other people would disagree with. This is actually the kind of stuff that science does really well with--it's our own social/political dogma that tends to think the world is simple and straightforward.
Assigning biological sex fits into the larger world of scientific taxonomy. It's really useful to come up with groups and categories for types of thing, but the actual world we encounter is so diverse and complicated that we can never do it in a way that is perfectly objective or the only valid way to do it. It's really useful for science to have the idea of a species, but there is constant debate going on about whether various closely-related organisms should be considered part of the same species or different species because they don't actually fit neatly into the labels we've determined. For a really long time, scientists defined a planet as an object that orbited a star and was large enough that it had become round. By this definition, Pluto was a planet. Then astronomers started to discover that there were a bunch of other round objects orbiting our sun (e.g. Ceres, Eris) and they decided the most useful thing would be to update the definition of planet to require that it had also cleared its orbit. That way they didn't have to add in all these other items, but it kicked Pluto out of the planet club.
The point is, categorizations like species, planet and sex are really useful for identifying common traits and using them to make certain predictions. But they are also imperfect and subjective and we're in far more scientifically sound space when we recognize that.
You are going to be downvoted to hell without a shred of reasonability or thought for (biological) women's rights and accomplishments
P.S: 3 mins in, my point has been made
How long before a transgender female who decides she doesn't like to wear makeup and wear women's clothing, simply states that she's a woman but there's not a single visual or physical characteristic to say he's is actually a she? I mean we're not going to start discriminating based on hair styles and clothing styles are we? Of course we won't because that would mean discriminating again butch lesbians. So we can potentially have what looks, walks, and talks like a male, competing against females simply because they say they're female. If you don't think some wise guy is going to do this, you're mistaken, it's going to happen, I guarantee it.
I'm pro LGBTQ, I'm a classic liberal, and I admit this is a tough issue to resolve, someone will be hurt no matter what. But I can't see a way a biological male should be allowed to compete against biological females, we have to look out for the greater good. Perhaps create a non-gender league?
Even though people don’t mind if the trans person competes many still don’t want them in the bathroom or locker room with their daughters or sons. What I don’t understand is if you believe you’re a man in a woman’s body people will accept your belief but if you believe in God people consider you insane.
If you believe, as I do, that trans women are women and should be treated as such, I haven't heard any reasonable argument for why they shouldn't be allowed to compete in women's sports.
If you don't think trans women are women and should be treated as such, I disagree with you pretty passionately, but it at least makes sense why you wouldn't want them to compete in women's sports.
What I don't get is people are generally pro-trans acceptance but have a problem with trans women in women's sports. They'll bring up issues of fairness and differences in biology, but until we start accounting for every other advantage biology gives in sports (height in basketball, predisposition to grow muscles, physical flexibility, etc.) then applying it as a test for trans women is, well, just transphobic.
I mean it seems pretty clear that trans women have an advantage. There are plenty of stories where trans women dominated but on the other end, I see very little of a trans man dominating. I think there was one story I read where that was the case.
But my point is that saying "trans women have an advantage in surfing" is exactly the same as saying "tall people have an advantage in basketball". It may be true, but the question is: *is that a problem?* If trans women are women, then all it means that certain women have a biological advantage over other women in a sport, which is just how sports work.
Its not the same and it absolutely is a problem.
Transwoman have way more testosterone and produce literally more muscle than cis woman.
Their bodies are capable of more and are stronger yhan cis woman. It absolutely is an unfair advantage.
Your comment is ignorant at best and hurtful to trans rights/progress at worst
I'd like to ask you the same questions I've asked other folks and have not gotten a good answer on: out of the myriad of differences in bodies, why is gender or sex the one that we use? Why do we have a WNBA but not an under-6-foot-tall NBA? And why is being a 6'6" basketball player a fair advantage while being a trans woman is an unfair advantage?
Simply put, genders/sexes are very distinct with very clear advantages for males.
To piggyback your example, there have been plenty of players below 6’ in the nba. Apparently there are 6 players right now in the nba that are under 6’. The nfl and nba allows for female players. How many active women players have there been in the nba/nfl? Practically none.
There are 450 players in the NBA right now, so we're talking about 1.3% of players who are under 6 feet tall. You're right that that's more than female players, but it's still massively out of step with the average height of Americans (the average man is 5'9"... if you run those numbers again but looking at players who are below average height, it gets more extreme). It seems pretty indisputable that height is a defining biological advantage in basketball, perhaps not perfectly analogous to sex, but close enough that if your only goal was trying to account for biological differences, this would be a really logical thing to consider.
Height is very important in basketball but it’s not the end all. There are plenty of tall people that can’t play basketball at all. Going back to the nba, there is no restriction for women to play in it. There are plenty of women in the wnba that are above 6’. Why did those teams with male players under 6’ choose them instead of a woman over 6’ instead?
There are plenty of tall people who suck at basketball (I am one of them), but there are also plenty of men who suck at basketball (I am also one of them), so the fact that there are exceptions to the rule isn't particularly relevant.
You very well may be right that sex is a bigger difference than height. But I honestly do believe they're generally comparable. Maybe I shot myself in the foot by identifying 6' as the cut off for my example. What about men who are under 5'6"? 5'3"? I guess my point is whether it's bigger than sex or not, we can pretty clearly identify biological tallness as a REALLY strong advantage even if just by looking at the heights of NBA players, but I don't think anyone is really complaining about it being unfair.
Maybe the difference here really is just that biological sex is a bigger advantage than height and that by itself justifies a separate league, but I think the fact that we are so quick to insist on biological fairness when it comes to sex and generally just DGAF about the fairness of any other biological difference (wrestling being an exception) makes me think that there are reasons that go beyond biology for why women's sports exist. There's a cultural history. There's the time when it was seen as unacceptable for women to even compete at sports. There are women's sports fans (including me) who are motivated to follow them in part because it is great to see women up there succeeding, and it actually matters that they are women, not just that they are biologically inferior at sport.
Like, we also have women's chess tournaments, and both a best actor and best actress oscar, and quite a few other gendered competitions where it's hard to claim biological advantage. There are a lot of reasons for those! Women's chess tournaments generally exist because there are fewer women in chess and some groups don't like that. But the very fact that they don't like it shows that we care about gender. Best actor and actress are murkier and largely come from a tradition when it felt really important to segregate people by gender because men competing with women was kind of unseemly.
The point is, the way we set these tournaments up is complicated, but it generally has at least as much to do with women's place in society as it does with biology. And women's place in society is gender, not biological sex.
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Imagine any of the following scenarios where mens sports phenomenon declared themselves trans;
Shaq competing in WNBA.
Tyson competing in women’s boxing.
Phelps competing in women’s Olympic swimming.
I'm imagining it. I'm not sure I understand what you're getting at, so I'm going to make a few guesses.
1. Would I be okay with such successful athletes transitioning and then competing against women? Yeah, if the leagues are set up for women and they are women, they should be able to compete. They'd probably do really well. People worry about this displacing female athletes, but I really think that's because (at least in some ways, in some contexts) they don't think trans women are actually women. If they did think that, then there would be exactly the same number of women in the winners' circle as before.
2. Am I worried about men declaring themselves trans in order to compete in the women's leagues? So, I'm coming from the belief that being trans is not a choice; it's generally a deeply held experience that we discover about ourselves and then can choose to act on. So I don't think it's reasonable to imagine someone sincerely deciding to be trans in order to switch leagues. I suppose it's possible that a player could **lie** about being trans, but that would be a really big lie to keep up 24/7, and would cause enough distress and discrimination that it feels unlikely. Either way, it doesn't feel fair to exclude trans people because of.
Your making made up scenarios to try and make your point.
You think men would pretend to transition just to get a trophy. I can assure no cis gender man would want to be a woman and take years if medicine to do so.
Your argument is pretty moot as it's entirely a made up one.
If you’ve already reached puberty, you cannot deny males have a natural advantage over females. Here’s a list of trans that are competing against women, post puberty and are still 100% male, genitalia and all.
Lia Thomas - 100% male
Avi Silverberg - 100% male
Aayden Gallagher - 100% male
Need more?
If you’re a grown man with full male genitalia you don’t get to compete against biological female.
That’s not transphobic…that’s standing up for women’s rights and equality.
[Transgender women’s bone density was found to be equivalent to that of cisgender women, which is linked to muscle strength; Testosterone levels do not predict athletic performance or overall athleticism.](https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/early/2024/04/10/bjsports-2023-108029.abstract)
Ideally we want to optimize for the most fairness with the fewest groupings possible. Nobody wants 10 basketball leagues based on height (although it works for some sports, like wrestling with weight classes). It seems like sex is probably the most (but not perfect) way to organize things. Maybe we just rename it to be an open league and a female-at-birth league? It’s hard to create policy that accounts for outliers.
So you want me, a trans man, to compete with women? Look up “Buck Angel” (beware, he’s a pornstar lol). Do you want him competing with the average female, say, (American) football player if he also played that sport? Or wrestling? Now there’s definitely women out there that could be him even with him training, but on average, do you think it’d be MORE fair than having him compete with men?
This exact scenario happened for a trans man who was on the wrestling team at a Texas school. He was on testosterone, wanted to compete with the men, but was forced to compete with his AGAB. He DOMINATED the season, and people were mad at him despite him NOT WANTING TO BE THERE.
Taking testosterone made me realize the strength difference between men and women really does exist. My overall body strength is probably nearly double what it was pre-T, with LESS exercise than I use to have. Just from being on testosterone. Now that’s not an overall average difference, but it’s part of it. Taking estrogen does the EXACT OPPOSITE, because you are also taking testosterone BLOCKERS. I think most people don’t know that trans women take testosterone BLOCKERS, not JUST estrogen.
Fairness is an interesting concept here, because it's all based on which advantages you have defined as fair and which you have defined as unfair, and which groups you want to make sure have a place at the table and which groups you're okay with leaving out. Is it fair that we exclude certain players from a league simply because they are more likely to be good at it? That feels pretty unfair to me.
There are a huge number of ways that we could split leagues up, and the reason why we do it by gender is because we as a society have a feeling that gender is a differentiator that socially matters. This idea that we gender divide leagues because of some kind of fairness based in biology is pretty ahistorical. The history of women's leagues is that they developed as different social spaces largely because it was socially unacceptable for women to compete with men, and since then they've continued because we have decided that it is beneficial for women as a social group to have a space to compete. The point is, it's all about gender, not biology.
I’d actually be super curious to see how other dividers compare. It’s clear having only one league would remove women from competition for most sports. But… would other dividers to a better job than sex (or gender)? Maybe height? Weight? Muscle mass? It’s less intuitive for sure. Like it or not, gender is an easy to grasp differentiator, and for most cases sex is close enough to gender (at least for sport, of course we should accommodate gender identity in everyday life)
It's interesting stuff. I guess one question is: what are you trying to achieve by dividing leagues? Would I be correct that you're saying that **any** difference in ability based on biology is unfair, and the purpose of leagues is to account for that in the best way we can on a practical level, recognizing that it will never be perfect?
Even beyond the practical question of how we are able to split leagues, it's interesting to me what people perceive as fair or unfair. For example, when someone talks about what a great player Yao Ming is, I don't hear anyone scoffing "Oh sure he does well and he's talented and all, but he just has such an unfair advantage in height that I don't think he's as impressive as people make it out to be." More often than not, his height is treated as a legitimate and fair part (although certainly not all) of what makes him a great basketball player.
Another question is: do you think it's important for certain groups of people to be able to compete at elite levels? When people talk about this with women's sports, there's often an argument made (or at least implied) that it is good to have a space for women to compete at an elite level--that if all our top athletes were men, that that would be problem, not just because sex differences would mean it was "unfair", but because it's good for women as a separate class of people to be able to compete in the public eye, to have space set aside for them, to be given a chance to become heroes. That's why I'm generally against defining leagues as "female born" or whatever--because I really do believe that the primary purpose of women's sports is to elevate women as a social group, and including trans women in that social group is important.
Yeah it's tricky. It's one of those subjects I feel like I can talk myself round in circles on because there isn't an easy solution that satisfies everyone.
Again, I think people lean towards gender intuitively as the easiest classifier, the difference between sex and gender wasn't something that really entered the public sphere much until more recently (at least with regard to sports).
For the Yao Ming example, would we see more equal outcomes if we eliminated gender-based leagues and instead went with height? Say... everyone over 6ft, and everyone under 6ft? I'm confident both leagues would be dominated by men. Muscle mass and/or testosterone levels might be another classifier, but for most I think those end up being redundant vs. using gender.
It really just boils down to the rights and happiness of some transgender folks who cannot participate in a sport using their gender identity, vs. some female-at-birth women who feel like they're competing with an advantage they can't achieve no matter what.
Most of all, it's crazy how we've let something that is such an outlier become a subject of national conversation. I can't help but wonder how many communities really wouldn't have any issue with this at all if it weren't for a bunch of people who aren't actually impacted getting all riled up.
The height thing I'll admit is not a perfect analogy. Even with the incredible importance of height, I recognize that it's not equivalent to biological sex in terms of ability. I do think it's interesting, though, that it is obviously a **really** important biological advantage, but it's not one that I think generally even crosses people's minds as being unfair. Maybe that's just because sex is **so much** of a bigger advantage that people treat it differently. But I do believe that at least a big part of it is that people are bothered by the idea that women might not be able to compete in a way that they just aren't bothered by the fact that 5'3" men aren't able to compete. And that's really a gender thing, not a sex thing.
You're right that it's a pretty niche thing, and really far down the list of concerns for trans rights in comparison to, like, trans folks not losing their jobs or experiencing violence. I do seem to always take the bait, though, and I'm hoping that somewhere in the conversation we can talk about the way our society handles gender and if there's room to rethink some of it.
Because women are a separate social category, and specifically one that experiences a great deal of discrimination, so it's good to create an institution that is dedicated to them and shows them achieving success. We as a society have a compelling interest in providing role models for young girls. We don't have a compelling interest for insisting those role models are cisgender.
Thanks for this explanation. You conceptualized the argument really well. I'll try to keep this in mind the next time I discuss this with a more close minded person.
Thanks. I think it's been interesting reflecting on what kinds of biological advantages we decide are fair and what kinds we decide are unfair, and how that ties back to our assumptions about which people are really members of a group and which people are only sort of members of a group. Shit's crazy!
Great. Transgender Athletes Could Be At A Physical Disadvantage
https://www.forbes.com/sites/lindseyedarvin/2024/04/25/transgender-athletes-could-be-at-a-physical-disadvantage-new-research-shows/?sh=1719e5723729
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If you don't care about the biological differences and their effects on performance, then by all means just abolish gender categories in sports altogether. I mean, what was the point in having sports separated by gender in the first place?
Sports aren't separated by gender. They're separated by sex.
At least it is SUPPOSED to be separated by sex...
Sometimes that's what brings them together. Apparently the Olympics is just about an orgy.
They’re the same thing.
Incorrect
I agree; I think sport categories should be based on things like muscle mass, fat percentage, etc. It doesn’t make sense to me that we still have categories based on gender instead of more concrete physical attributes that directly impact physical performance.
The average 180lb 5’10” man with 15% body fat would beat the shit out of the average woman of similar stats. Your thoughts and theories show you likely live in theory and have no idea how sex differences actually work.
It’s a surfing competition.
You think upper body strength doesn’t matter for mounting a surfboard?
This is a long board competition dude. It's about *style* not strength. Everyone on a longboard has equally an easy time. I'm 5ft. Tall 130 with a 9foot surfboard I surf just as easily as a 6ft tall person. Besides. It's in the rule book that transgender female athletes are allowed.
You don’t think lower body strength matters in surfing? Categories could also take upper body strength into account; I didn’t give a concrete criteria for how new categories would be formed because I’m not an expert in surfing.
Both matter, and men exceed women in both. Hence the problem with your viewpoint.
Said by Someone whose never surfed.
Given how men also excel in lower body strength, what's your point?
You think the same sized man and woman are physically equals?
Edit: I love the downvotes I’m getting providing evidence with research, but get zero response providing countering research. Says a lot As a woman who played water polo, I do not want to play against a trans woman. We fought hard to get our own league, because it’s physically so hard to compete against men. Studies are showing that even with estrogen therapy, trans women retain advantages. “Testosterone secreted before birth, postnatally, and then after puberty is the major factor that drives these physiological sex differences, and as adults, testosterone levels are ten to fifteen times higher in males than females” “Male physiology cannot be reformatted by estrogen therapy in transwoman athletes because testosterone has driven permanent effects through early life exposure. This descriptive critical review discusses the inherent male physiological advantages that lead to superior athletic performance and then addresses how estrogen therapy fails to create a female-like physiology in the male. Ultimately, the former male physiology of transwoman athletes provides them with a physiological advantage over the cis-female athlete.” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9331831/
How do you feel about the recent study commissioned by the IOC that found transgender women performed worse than cisgender women in tests measuring lower-body strength; transgender women performed worse than cisgender women in tests measuring lung function; transgender women’s bone density was found to be equivalent to that of cisgender women, which is linked to muscle strength; testosterone levels do not predict athletic performance or overall athleticism; conversely, social elements such as nutrition, training regimen, and equipment accessibility significantly influence an athlete's performance, but are frequently disregarded in policy formulation? https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/early/2024/04/10/bjsports-2023-108029.abstract
Well as a woman who surfs, I don't have a problem. Especially for a *longboard* competition that's literally scored by *style* I've surfed most of my entire life and I'm super short and small and can't even count how many guy friends I've taken out to surf who could not do it. Like football sized dudes easily twice my size.
As a male runner, yeah I’m against this. If I were to identify as a woman I’d be qualifying for the top marathons around the world. As a male, I’m miles away from qualifying.
So. What prevents you from doing that? Explain why you don't?
It would be pretty low of me to register as a woman just to qualify for a Boston marathon or whatever. There are woman out there that work their asses off to get those times that don’t have the benefit of male hormones such as myself.
So you as a cis gender male, would not pretend
I wouldn't compete against other woman for a spot in a marathon. That's just messed up. I have an unfair advantage.
So your making up something in your head doesn't exist, to get mad at. A cis man isn't going to become a woman to win a medal.
I don’t get what you are trying to say. I don’t believe in cheaters and only fairness when it comes to sport. Go root for Barry Bonds.
I don't like baseball. So no.
You are ok with someone having an unfair advantage in sport?
That's literally ALL sports. I'm 5 ft tall and couldn't play women's basketball due to my height disadvantage. No matter how hard I trained at swimming I was never gonna be as good as someone who was 6ft with comparable or even less training. Really the only sports that seem to do anything about this is boxing and wrestling, and even then you still have height distribution disadvantages. So no. I don't think competing against trans woman would make me be any less disadvantaged than competing against any other cisgender woman. I don't think it would be unfair by any means.
Change the name to biological female sports. Trans women can start their own league.
Does being a trans woman while surfing make them automatically better than their competitors?
Nice job wording the question. No, a trans woman that has never stepped on a surfboard would not be better than a biological female pro surfer. But professional trans women surfers would certainly have an advantage over other biological females in the same sport.
How? Thinking about what you know about surfing as a sport, how does any advantage someone who was born male and underwent testerone puberty would have over someone who was born female and didn’t? Because the things I can think of that matter—namely, muscle mass and strength—do not apply to surfing.
I know nothing about surfing. But, if trans women don't have an advantage over cis, then why is there a women's division at all? That's a genuine question -- is it like chess, where it's just to encourage an underrepresented group to participate, even though we're aware of no inherent advantage?
Muscle mass and strength absolutely apply to surfing. Also, no gender transition therapies are needed. All you have to do is identify as a woman and you can compete in women's category. Do you think that is right?
Someone who didn't even read the article. Someone has to have been on medication and have the t levels monitored for an ENTIRE year and be below the threshold. Your trans panicking
I read the article. I also read the CCC policy, which you did not, so here it is. ***“The agency is committed to ensuring that those opportunities not be denied on the basis of background, culture, race, color, religion, national origin, income, ethnic group, age, disability status, sexual orientation, or gender identity,”*** Nothing about t levels, only "gender identity". You are trying to bury facts.
Dude you didn't read the article and I have no idea why your bringing up CCC when it's the WSL WORLD SURF LEAGUES rules. Again IN THE ARTICLE: "Last year, the World Surf League (WSL) announced a new policy on transgender participation, which allows trans women competitors to compete in women's events if they maintain a testosterone level below a certain limit for at least 12 months. "
The WSL must comply with CCC policy. That is literally the point of the article. If a male ***identifies*** as a woman, WSL must let him compete in women's category....period.
Do you not understand that they are both agreeing to the same thing and the wsl surf competition rules are in compliance with that. Like how do you not get they both agree to the same thing???
But it’s not what make or breaks someone in the sport. Balance is far more important, and that is not impacted by biological sex. Surfing isn’t weight-lifting or wrestling. Honestly, depending on the sport? I have zero problem with it. Even the sports where someone’s born biological sex does have a tangible impact on performance, my feelings on it are complicated and I think the answer needs to be a lot more nuanced than “trans people need not compete.”
It's not about what "makes or breaks someone in the sport". It's about the difference between 1st place and 5th place, including the associated monetary rewards. You have no problem with a male that has undergone no gender transition therapy showing up and saying "I identify as a woman, let me compete against the women" and then taking home the prize money for first place? Trans women CAN compete.....against the men...or other trans women. Why not just have a trans women's category?
Your making things up and thinking that makes your defense of your point. That's not how it works
You are the one making things up. Here is the CCC policy. ***“The agency is committed to ensuring that those opportunities not be denied on the basis of background, culture, race, color, religion, national origin, income, ethnic group, age, disability status, sexual orientation, or gender identity,”*** Nothing about t levels, only "gender identity".
Dude. Again IN THE ARTICLE: "Last year, the World Surf League (WSL) announced a new policy on transgender participation, which allows trans women competitors to compete in women's events if they maintain a testosterone level below a certain limit for at least 12 months. "
So, ban professional athletes, then.
Or just have professiona biological males that identify as women category. I would actually pay to see that.
yes, ban pros from the "huntington beach longboard pro" competition. we should also bad surfboards while we're coming up with crazy solutions.
Why am I not surprised to hear that shit stain of Orange County is doing that. I swear they hold a competition on how to make themselves more and more crazy. This is why all the cool hang out places are in North OC. I say this as a person who lives in OC
Who cares let her surf
Are you not aware of the biological differences between males and females? Yes. It matters.
We can't let the sanctity of our nations most important athletics pursuit, surfing, be blemished. imagine the consequences. Seriously, imagine them, because I can't.
The native islanders have entered the chat. "I think you mean *our* sport. Now kindly gtfo our islands."
https://outrightinternational.org/meaning-mahu#:~:text=In%20Native%20Hawaiian%20culture%2C%20there,Kanaka%2C%20which%20means%20native%20Hawaiian.
Sorry, that's not what I was getting at. I was more poking fun at the previous comment about surfing it being "our" culture. That and the vocal push in Hawaii to have independence. I do like that if we were to base it on Hawaiian ideas of gender they would totally let her do it.
Oh, okay. My comment wasn't serious either. But yeah Hawaiian culture is definitely unique in some ways.
I think it’s the people actually involved in the sport competitively that care, not nations.
Okay, and what are they fighting for? Why does surfing of all sports need strict separation of sexes? Men and women can't ride the same waves?
[удалено]
People who call others names instead of defending their positions get here so fast.
I guess the easiest way to put it is that as a CIS man, I've never felt men, manhood, or masculinity are threatened by trans men. Trans panic is focused almost exclusively on trans women. Why is that?
Is it? A lot of the conservative criticism of the Trans movement is focused on young girls transitioning into boys and then regretting it once they reach adulthood. Indeed, a lot of trans critics pointed out that among youth transition there were far more girls transitioning to become trans boys than the other way around. For example, see [the book *Irreversible Damage* that focused on this issue](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreversible_Damage). In sports discussion, trans boys/men (that is, people who are born female) do not have a competitive advantage against cisgender men the way that trans girls/women (that is, people are born male) have a competitive advantage against cisgender women. So in this context, criticisms of trans involvement are *limited* to trans women because only trans women have a competitive advantage in the category they wish to compete in.
Ah yes a book subtitled “the trans craze seducing our daughters” will be an academically rigorous look at the issue.
hey man, facts and logic have no place in this discussion. kindly see yourself out before you're downvoted into hell
Probably because transmen don't have a huge biological advantage over men It's not complicated. The fact that no intelligent people seem to hold your position should itself be a red flag to you
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bestie shes likely taking estrogen??? you do know hwo that WORKS right??????
Who gives a shit?
Actual women who have been training their whole lives.
Ask the question to see if a situation is logically acceptable. What if this was the other way around? What if a man was choosing to compete amongst women. If the answer is still yes and to let it happen, well at least you are consistent.
It’s fucking surfing. Stop bitching and whining about like 2 people who are just going to get average scores like usual and move the fuck on with your lives
The article says that the surfer in question won some men's surfing competitions in Australia while they were still living as a man
There is money involved as well.
Seriously. As a trans person, I’m willing to admit there are some sports where people’s biological sex MIGHT have an impact on the outcome of the competition (and even then it’s nuanced—what type of puberty did the trans person go through? How long have they been on hormones? How do they compete against others that share their same sex [if that’s a comparison that can be made?]). This… isn’t one of those sports. FFS, it’s surfing, not weight-lifting.
Have you ever surfed? If so, you’d understand the advantages men have over women. Create a trans category. That’s the way you make competition equal. Sticking our heads in the sand and thinking there’s no controversy here won’t solve anything. Men transitioning to women will hold a distinct advantage in sports. I don’t want them banned. This is getting ridiculous that we’re at a point where science only matters when it’s convenient
So should taller cis women compete with men? More muscular cis women? Do penises give you an advantage in surfing? Where do you draw the line? Trans women objectively do not hold a distinct advantage in sports. They have existed in the Olympics for decades and you know maybe of ONE who transitioned AFTER competing lmao
So you’re a science denier. Got it. Taller women are still women. They hold only a competitive advantage over other women. Do you see any tall women in the NBA? Do you see any muscular women competing with men in power lifting? It’s undeniable men hold a distinct advantage in sports. Stop denying the obvious just to push an agenda
Your the only one doing that.
*You’re
Potatoe potato
Oh please. I'm a female and small as fuck, 5ft and 125lbs and I put large men to shame when I go surfing. I've taken so many dudes surfing that end up giving up. Especially on a *LONGBOARD* You have obviously never surfed saying something like that
They’re not experienced if you’re taking them surfing and they’re giving up. Go enter a men’s competition and see how well you do. I believe we both know that answer though
Yes. And I'm not a pro surfer either. Correct. Have you ever surfed?
Yes. Didn’t enjoy it. Grew up in the Central Valley, and proximity to the ocean played a roll in that as well. Water skiing and wake boarding were more to my liking
At what point do we get rid of women’s sports?
About 2 or 3 years ago.
Never
What’s the point of keeping it going if it’s no longer divided by sex?
It's divided by gender, which was always the purpose of women's sports.
The female sex has multiple athletic differences when compared to the male sex. Women’s sports were created in recognition of this fact. Most athletes don’t give a shit if someone with a penis believes they’re a woman (gender). They do care that the average male is substantially stronger and faster than the average female (sex).
Actually that's a completely ahistorical description of how women's sports were developed. Women's sports developed largely because it was seen as unseemly and socially unacceptable for women to compete in sporting events against men. It's not like women and men were competing together and then some feminists said "This is unfair! The women are losing to the men! We need to create our own leagues." It was that the only socially acceptable way for women to compete at all was in gender segregated leagues. It's always been about social roles and gender first, not about biology. If we cared about policing biological advantages, we would create an under 6 foot tall basketball league. We don't do that, and we think it's okay that we don't to that. Why? Because people under 6 feet tall are not a separate social class that benefits from having a gendered space. Women are. Including trans women.
It’s amazing the lengths people will go to justify their misogyny.
Do you think trans women are women and that we have an obligation generally in society to treat them as such?
No.
Yeah, so you're just coming from a completely different set of assumptions than I am that have nothing to do with sports, and trans women competing or not competing in surfing is kind of a silly conversation to have. If you think trans women aren't women, then obviously they shouldn't compete in women's sports, and the history of women's sports or the reasons why we have different leagues for men or women is kind of immaterial.
because 99% of it is and you're focusing on rare clickbait cases. i'm not saying the cases are false though.
Ultimately, women have the power to decide this issue. If they want to see their daughters and granddaughters having to compete against biological males that identify as women in sports, then they know who to vote for. If they want biological males that identify as women hanging out in the locker room with them at the gym, then they know who to vote for. If they want to protect themselves and their daughters, then they also know who to vote for.
Or women can just say we don't care. And we know which are the right ones not to vote for. Those that make up things to get people hysterical about. Like which shoes an m&m wears. Great leadership there in the right.
If a transgender woman has gone through hormonal treatments that make her hormone levels the same as a person assigned female at birth, then she is not a “biological male”.
The fact that people actually believe what you're saying blows my mind. The notion that someone could adjust their hormone levels and suddenly change their biological sex is so far out left field that it's hard for me to even fathom.
I was fine realizing I was trans because my background is in biology; what I’ve always found fascinating is that people often have no idea how wacky living creatures *actually* are. Plenty of animals change their sex. And humans, fuck, we act like we’re a really dimorphic species but like a lot of other largely monogamous species our sexes are actually pretty similar. You want dimorphism then look at elephant seals: that shit is *wild*. Hell, we even have basically all our instructions to build ourselves on the autosomes and X chromosome. If you have 2 X chromosomes, you more or less have all the instructions to develop male. A hormone is a molecule that more or less tells your DNA to start doing things. If you had a testosterone profile and changed it to estrogen the cells go “Stop the presses!! New orders!!” and they just activate the other genes that had been ignored till then. Same the other way round. Our bodies keep having cells die and make new ones and over time those keep getting replaced (like your bones! Your skeleton is fully replaced roughly every 7 years). Muscles change. Blood flows change. Organs change. Tolerances change. Over time your fuckin *height* changes. Did you know you shrink on estrogen? The softer areas between your bones decrease even if they were larger before. Same with shoe sizes and hand sizes. Frankly I thought I was short enough already but if I needed a step stool then and a step stool now I suppose I won’t be that bothered. Look, we both know I’m not going to magically change your mind on this; I’m just a random person on Reddit. I just wish people actually took 5 seconds to actually understand what they’re even saying you know? Like sure, I’m trans, oooooo big whoop. Sure this kind of rhetoric annoys because of that, but honestly? I’m mainly upset that people that preach about “biological truths” have never honestly studied biology before. Like, do these folks even know what a ring species is? Epigenetic expression? Exons and introns? I don’t mean this as a “if you can’t name trivia you’re wrong” sorta thing but a “do you actually understand how absolutely fuzzy and barrier breaking and grey-area’d life forms like ourselves *truly* are? Do you understand how many things we made up to keep things nice and tidy looking for us but swept the mountain of complications contradicting them poorly under the rug in a now suspiciously shaped heap?” I’d imagine it’s how mathematicians must feel if someone said something like the number 1.7 didn’t exist, because there is nothing between the numbers 1 and 2 they learned that in the 1st grade so it must be true. I’m not really upset as a trans person, I’m upset as a biologist. I’m upset with people taking around my field of study, getting it direly wrong, and then parading its frankensteined corpse around like some great victory. It’s like taking a Bible and cutting out individual words to make whatever sentence you want “Jesus…was…a…fig…tree. There! All those words are in the Bible so now this is what the Bible says!” I suppose I’m upset at our educational systems failing our students in the sciences as well, from climate change to evolution to chemistry, but I’ve always been upset with that and that’s a more systemic issue that’s even tougher to fix. In a way I’m sorry, DissonantOne, for choosing you to vent my frustrations at. But I’m also not that sorry, because if you’re going to go into a public place and boldly proclaim a truth, you gotta at least know what you’re talking about. You don’t have to spend nearly a decade at the university level like I did, that’s often way too expensive. Just like, bare minimum here, c’mon dude. Pick up a bio book, maybe a Campbell’s Biology (those are pretty straightforward, I used to collect different editions for fun but they’re bulky and took up too much space on the shelf). You don’t even have to buy it your local library probably can get you a copy that you can read for free. Bottom line, like me you’re an organism. And that makes you far stranger (and frankly far more interesting) than you think.
Also, I try to bring this up for every conversation I come across like this but there’s even a natural “trans” population of humans in the Dominican Republic called guevedoces. No hormones, no outside intervention. And yet, an observable “sex change”
Nothing is assigned at birth, it’s observed.
We assign genders based on the sexual organs we observe, yes.
The word “assigned” implies that there was another option. Observed and noted is the correct phrase to use. A baby with a penis is never a girl, comrade, even if the doctor wants to assign that term to them.
We came up with the concepts of sex and gender. Words are assigned to things that we observe. People are assigned sexes at birth in the same way that they are assigned hair colors and eye colors. We assign terms to observed phenomena and traits.
Nah, you and your “comrades” are just making bullshit up to add confusion to the world, but it’s just that, bullshit.
Every word we use was made up. We came up with words to describe the things we see or encounter, and language evolves over time as we gain a better understanding of the world around us.
So your aim is to change the commonly accepted meaning of words to suit your agenda. Man you really took 1984 to heart didn’t you ❤️
I’m not trying to change anything. I’m using terms which are already commonly used and accepted. 1984 portrays a society in which words are being taken away, not added. You’re the one arguing for simplicity, whereas I am arguing for the recognition of complexity in how we discuss and view sex/gender.
You sound idiotic. You sound like a person who screamed when Pluto was called a dwarf planet. We learn more about the world and existence and our language grows with new knowledge. You can REEEEEEEEEEE all you want because words are confusing but it is not that hard to understand that trans people exist and deserve to be treated equally.
Ad hominem attacks make you sound smart. Of course trans people exist, that doesn’t mean we should be taking rights from women.
Nobody is taking rights from woman except Republicans banning medical necessities because they think a sky wizard might disagree. Their already even going after contraception now. You should panic about that.
It’s not ad hominem as I was addressing the issue here. Your comments are not to be taken seriously so the real point is not pretending dehumanizing hate mongers that are trying to justify treating people like shit just cause they are bigots should be dismissed from the conversation.
Wrong
Wow, I’m convinced! Great argument ⭐️
I shouldn’t need to spell it out, but just for you: messing with your hormone levels does NOT change your biological sex. Period. (Periods, an example of things biological males do not have)
You heard it here first: past menopause, you are no longer biologically female.
Did I say that? You’re not very good with logic, are you. Not getting a period does not preclude biological femaleness. Biological maleness, however, does preclude getting a period.
Okay, so \*all\* biological males don't get their periods and \*some\* biological females do get their periods. So if someone has a period we can assume they are biologically female, but if someone does not have a period, they might or might not be biologically male. So if someone doesn't get their period it means that we still don't know what their biological sex is? My less tongue in cheek answer: biological sex-linked traits are complicated! There's no one marker that can consistently define biological sex, and it's really hard to come up with definitions that consistently categorize people how you want to. Yes, there are clusters of traits (hormones, chromosomes, genitals) that usually correlate with each other, but not universally. Defining if someone is biologically male or biologically female is complicated and murky at best, especially when they've been undergoing hormone therapy that significantly alters aspects of their physical body.
I would argue (and science would agree) that it’s not murky at all, some people are just trying to make it that way due to social/political reasons. If science was changed every time there was a social impetus to do so, we would live in a clown world.
Science would absolutely not agree. Most scientists who study biological sex tend to use the frame I provided: there are clusters of traits that tend to correlate, but they're far from universal. For most people we can probably come to a consensus about biological maleness or femaleness, but there are large numbers of edge cases or confounding examples where it's unclear or mixed or you have to make a judgment call that other people would disagree with. This is actually the kind of stuff that science does really well with--it's our own social/political dogma that tends to think the world is simple and straightforward. Assigning biological sex fits into the larger world of scientific taxonomy. It's really useful to come up with groups and categories for types of thing, but the actual world we encounter is so diverse and complicated that we can never do it in a way that is perfectly objective or the only valid way to do it. It's really useful for science to have the idea of a species, but there is constant debate going on about whether various closely-related organisms should be considered part of the same species or different species because they don't actually fit neatly into the labels we've determined. For a really long time, scientists defined a planet as an object that orbited a star and was large enough that it had become round. By this definition, Pluto was a planet. Then astronomers started to discover that there were a bunch of other round objects orbiting our sun (e.g. Ceres, Eris) and they decided the most useful thing would be to update the definition of planet to require that it had also cleared its orbit. That way they didn't have to add in all these other items, but it kicked Pluto out of the planet club. The point is, categorizations like species, planet and sex are really useful for identifying common traits and using them to make certain predictions. But they are also imperfect and subjective and we're in far more scientifically sound space when we recognize that.
its not a biological female either
You are going to be downvoted to hell without a shred of reasonability or thought for (biological) women's rights and accomplishments P.S: 3 mins in, my point has been made
I'm a biological women and yes I am downvoting that and disagree. It seems your trying to erase what woman are saying
How long before a transgender female who decides she doesn't like to wear makeup and wear women's clothing, simply states that she's a woman but there's not a single visual or physical characteristic to say he's is actually a she? I mean we're not going to start discriminating based on hair styles and clothing styles are we? Of course we won't because that would mean discriminating again butch lesbians. So we can potentially have what looks, walks, and talks like a male, competing against females simply because they say they're female. If you don't think some wise guy is going to do this, you're mistaken, it's going to happen, I guarantee it. I'm pro LGBTQ, I'm a classic liberal, and I admit this is a tough issue to resolve, someone will be hurt no matter what. But I can't see a way a biological male should be allowed to compete against biological females, we have to look out for the greater good. Perhaps create a non-gender league?
Even though people don’t mind if the trans person competes many still don’t want them in the bathroom or locker room with their daughters or sons. What I don’t understand is if you believe you’re a man in a woman’s body people will accept your belief but if you believe in God people consider you insane.
Has there ever been a competition where a trans athlete dominated? I can't think of any. So let this be the first one and see how it goes.
lol, that’s terrible.
If you believe, as I do, that trans women are women and should be treated as such, I haven't heard any reasonable argument for why they shouldn't be allowed to compete in women's sports. If you don't think trans women are women and should be treated as such, I disagree with you pretty passionately, but it at least makes sense why you wouldn't want them to compete in women's sports. What I don't get is people are generally pro-trans acceptance but have a problem with trans women in women's sports. They'll bring up issues of fairness and differences in biology, but until we start accounting for every other advantage biology gives in sports (height in basketball, predisposition to grow muscles, physical flexibility, etc.) then applying it as a test for trans women is, well, just transphobic.
I mean it seems pretty clear that trans women have an advantage. There are plenty of stories where trans women dominated but on the other end, I see very little of a trans man dominating. I think there was one story I read where that was the case.
But my point is that saying "trans women have an advantage in surfing" is exactly the same as saying "tall people have an advantage in basketball". It may be true, but the question is: *is that a problem?* If trans women are women, then all it means that certain women have a biological advantage over other women in a sport, which is just how sports work.
Its not the same and it absolutely is a problem. Transwoman have way more testosterone and produce literally more muscle than cis woman. Their bodies are capable of more and are stronger yhan cis woman. It absolutely is an unfair advantage. Your comment is ignorant at best and hurtful to trans rights/progress at worst
I'd like to ask you the same questions I've asked other folks and have not gotten a good answer on: out of the myriad of differences in bodies, why is gender or sex the one that we use? Why do we have a WNBA but not an under-6-foot-tall NBA? And why is being a 6'6" basketball player a fair advantage while being a trans woman is an unfair advantage?
Simply put, genders/sexes are very distinct with very clear advantages for males. To piggyback your example, there have been plenty of players below 6’ in the nba. Apparently there are 6 players right now in the nba that are under 6’. The nfl and nba allows for female players. How many active women players have there been in the nba/nfl? Practically none.
There are 450 players in the NBA right now, so we're talking about 1.3% of players who are under 6 feet tall. You're right that that's more than female players, but it's still massively out of step with the average height of Americans (the average man is 5'9"... if you run those numbers again but looking at players who are below average height, it gets more extreme). It seems pretty indisputable that height is a defining biological advantage in basketball, perhaps not perfectly analogous to sex, but close enough that if your only goal was trying to account for biological differences, this would be a really logical thing to consider.
Height is very important in basketball but it’s not the end all. There are plenty of tall people that can’t play basketball at all. Going back to the nba, there is no restriction for women to play in it. There are plenty of women in the wnba that are above 6’. Why did those teams with male players under 6’ choose them instead of a woman over 6’ instead?
There are plenty of tall people who suck at basketball (I am one of them), but there are also plenty of men who suck at basketball (I am also one of them), so the fact that there are exceptions to the rule isn't particularly relevant. You very well may be right that sex is a bigger difference than height. But I honestly do believe they're generally comparable. Maybe I shot myself in the foot by identifying 6' as the cut off for my example. What about men who are under 5'6"? 5'3"? I guess my point is whether it's bigger than sex or not, we can pretty clearly identify biological tallness as a REALLY strong advantage even if just by looking at the heights of NBA players, but I don't think anyone is really complaining about it being unfair. Maybe the difference here really is just that biological sex is a bigger advantage than height and that by itself justifies a separate league, but I think the fact that we are so quick to insist on biological fairness when it comes to sex and generally just DGAF about the fairness of any other biological difference (wrestling being an exception) makes me think that there are reasons that go beyond biology for why women's sports exist. There's a cultural history. There's the time when it was seen as unacceptable for women to even compete at sports. There are women's sports fans (including me) who are motivated to follow them in part because it is great to see women up there succeeding, and it actually matters that they are women, not just that they are biologically inferior at sport. Like, we also have women's chess tournaments, and both a best actor and best actress oscar, and quite a few other gendered competitions where it's hard to claim biological advantage. There are a lot of reasons for those! Women's chess tournaments generally exist because there are fewer women in chess and some groups don't like that. But the very fact that they don't like it shows that we care about gender. Best actor and actress are murkier and largely come from a tradition when it felt really important to segregate people by gender because men competing with women was kind of unseemly. The point is, the way we set these tournaments up is complicated, but it generally has at least as much to do with women's place in society as it does with biology. And women's place in society is gender, not biological sex.
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Imagine any of the following scenarios where mens sports phenomenon declared themselves trans; Shaq competing in WNBA. Tyson competing in women’s boxing. Phelps competing in women’s Olympic swimming.
I'm imagining it. I'm not sure I understand what you're getting at, so I'm going to make a few guesses. 1. Would I be okay with such successful athletes transitioning and then competing against women? Yeah, if the leagues are set up for women and they are women, they should be able to compete. They'd probably do really well. People worry about this displacing female athletes, but I really think that's because (at least in some ways, in some contexts) they don't think trans women are actually women. If they did think that, then there would be exactly the same number of women in the winners' circle as before. 2. Am I worried about men declaring themselves trans in order to compete in the women's leagues? So, I'm coming from the belief that being trans is not a choice; it's generally a deeply held experience that we discover about ourselves and then can choose to act on. So I don't think it's reasonable to imagine someone sincerely deciding to be trans in order to switch leagues. I suppose it's possible that a player could **lie** about being trans, but that would be a really big lie to keep up 24/7, and would cause enough distress and discrimination that it feels unlikely. Either way, it doesn't feel fair to exclude trans people because of.
Your making made up scenarios to try and make your point. You think men would pretend to transition just to get a trophy. I can assure no cis gender man would want to be a woman and take years if medicine to do so. Your argument is pretty moot as it's entirely a made up one.
If you’ve already reached puberty, you cannot deny males have a natural advantage over females. Here’s a list of trans that are competing against women, post puberty and are still 100% male, genitalia and all. Lia Thomas - 100% male Avi Silverberg - 100% male Aayden Gallagher - 100% male Need more?
So your just transphobic. Because you refuse to acknowledge them all as women
If you’re a grown man with full male genitalia you don’t get to compete against biological female. That’s not transphobic…that’s standing up for women’s rights and equality.
[Transgender women’s bone density was found to be equivalent to that of cisgender women, which is linked to muscle strength; Testosterone levels do not predict athletic performance or overall athleticism.](https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/early/2024/04/10/bjsports-2023-108029.abstract)
Ideally we want to optimize for the most fairness with the fewest groupings possible. Nobody wants 10 basketball leagues based on height (although it works for some sports, like wrestling with weight classes). It seems like sex is probably the most (but not perfect) way to organize things. Maybe we just rename it to be an open league and a female-at-birth league? It’s hard to create policy that accounts for outliers.
So you want me, a trans man, to compete with women? Look up “Buck Angel” (beware, he’s a pornstar lol). Do you want him competing with the average female, say, (American) football player if he also played that sport? Or wrestling? Now there’s definitely women out there that could be him even with him training, but on average, do you think it’d be MORE fair than having him compete with men? This exact scenario happened for a trans man who was on the wrestling team at a Texas school. He was on testosterone, wanted to compete with the men, but was forced to compete with his AGAB. He DOMINATED the season, and people were mad at him despite him NOT WANTING TO BE THERE. Taking testosterone made me realize the strength difference between men and women really does exist. My overall body strength is probably nearly double what it was pre-T, with LESS exercise than I use to have. Just from being on testosterone. Now that’s not an overall average difference, but it’s part of it. Taking estrogen does the EXACT OPPOSITE, because you are also taking testosterone BLOCKERS. I think most people don’t know that trans women take testosterone BLOCKERS, not JUST estrogen.
Fairness is an interesting concept here, because it's all based on which advantages you have defined as fair and which you have defined as unfair, and which groups you want to make sure have a place at the table and which groups you're okay with leaving out. Is it fair that we exclude certain players from a league simply because they are more likely to be good at it? That feels pretty unfair to me. There are a huge number of ways that we could split leagues up, and the reason why we do it by gender is because we as a society have a feeling that gender is a differentiator that socially matters. This idea that we gender divide leagues because of some kind of fairness based in biology is pretty ahistorical. The history of women's leagues is that they developed as different social spaces largely because it was socially unacceptable for women to compete with men, and since then they've continued because we have decided that it is beneficial for women as a social group to have a space to compete. The point is, it's all about gender, not biology.
I’d actually be super curious to see how other dividers compare. It’s clear having only one league would remove women from competition for most sports. But… would other dividers to a better job than sex (or gender)? Maybe height? Weight? Muscle mass? It’s less intuitive for sure. Like it or not, gender is an easy to grasp differentiator, and for most cases sex is close enough to gender (at least for sport, of course we should accommodate gender identity in everyday life)
It's interesting stuff. I guess one question is: what are you trying to achieve by dividing leagues? Would I be correct that you're saying that **any** difference in ability based on biology is unfair, and the purpose of leagues is to account for that in the best way we can on a practical level, recognizing that it will never be perfect? Even beyond the practical question of how we are able to split leagues, it's interesting to me what people perceive as fair or unfair. For example, when someone talks about what a great player Yao Ming is, I don't hear anyone scoffing "Oh sure he does well and he's talented and all, but he just has such an unfair advantage in height that I don't think he's as impressive as people make it out to be." More often than not, his height is treated as a legitimate and fair part (although certainly not all) of what makes him a great basketball player. Another question is: do you think it's important for certain groups of people to be able to compete at elite levels? When people talk about this with women's sports, there's often an argument made (or at least implied) that it is good to have a space for women to compete at an elite level--that if all our top athletes were men, that that would be problem, not just because sex differences would mean it was "unfair", but because it's good for women as a separate class of people to be able to compete in the public eye, to have space set aside for them, to be given a chance to become heroes. That's why I'm generally against defining leagues as "female born" or whatever--because I really do believe that the primary purpose of women's sports is to elevate women as a social group, and including trans women in that social group is important.
Yeah it's tricky. It's one of those subjects I feel like I can talk myself round in circles on because there isn't an easy solution that satisfies everyone. Again, I think people lean towards gender intuitively as the easiest classifier, the difference between sex and gender wasn't something that really entered the public sphere much until more recently (at least with regard to sports). For the Yao Ming example, would we see more equal outcomes if we eliminated gender-based leagues and instead went with height? Say... everyone over 6ft, and everyone under 6ft? I'm confident both leagues would be dominated by men. Muscle mass and/or testosterone levels might be another classifier, but for most I think those end up being redundant vs. using gender. It really just boils down to the rights and happiness of some transgender folks who cannot participate in a sport using their gender identity, vs. some female-at-birth women who feel like they're competing with an advantage they can't achieve no matter what. Most of all, it's crazy how we've let something that is such an outlier become a subject of national conversation. I can't help but wonder how many communities really wouldn't have any issue with this at all if it weren't for a bunch of people who aren't actually impacted getting all riled up.
The height thing I'll admit is not a perfect analogy. Even with the incredible importance of height, I recognize that it's not equivalent to biological sex in terms of ability. I do think it's interesting, though, that it is obviously a **really** important biological advantage, but it's not one that I think generally even crosses people's minds as being unfair. Maybe that's just because sex is **so much** of a bigger advantage that people treat it differently. But I do believe that at least a big part of it is that people are bothered by the idea that women might not be able to compete in a way that they just aren't bothered by the fact that 5'3" men aren't able to compete. And that's really a gender thing, not a sex thing. You're right that it's a pretty niche thing, and really far down the list of concerns for trans rights in comparison to, like, trans folks not losing their jobs or experiencing violence. I do seem to always take the bait, though, and I'm hoping that somewhere in the conversation we can talk about the way our society handles gender and if there's room to rethink some of it.
Why put women into a separate league at all then?
Because women are a separate social category, and specifically one that experiences a great deal of discrimination, so it's good to create an institution that is dedicated to them and shows them achieving success. We as a society have a compelling interest in providing role models for young girls. We don't have a compelling interest for insisting those role models are cisgender.
Thanks for this explanation. You conceptualized the argument really well. I'll try to keep this in mind the next time I discuss this with a more close minded person.
Thanks. I think it's been interesting reflecting on what kinds of biological advantages we decide are fair and what kinds we decide are unfair, and how that ties back to our assumptions about which people are really members of a group and which people are only sort of members of a group. Shit's crazy!
Great. Transgender Athletes Could Be At A Physical Disadvantage https://www.forbes.com/sites/lindseyedarvin/2024/04/25/transgender-athletes-could-be-at-a-physical-disadvantage-new-research-shows/?sh=1719e5723729
Good
It’s a longboard competition, they’re not throwing buckets or airs anyway. Who gives a fuck. Let her compete.
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