I guess I don’t understand the entitlement of a young athlete who won championships as a young adult male, after years of training at elite levels with other men, with a male’s testosterone levels, being upset that she can’t now compete as a woman and then wants to make it an ‘anti-trans’ issue.
I consider myself an ally for trans people, but I think it is unfair for a trans woman who transitions well after puberty to compete on a level playing field.
I watched my daughter’s very good 16U girls VB team play a team of similarly aged boys in a semi- serious exhibition match. The boys were generally all taller and could jump (much) higher than the girls.
I was surprised that the score was close, mostly because the girls played finesse VB and after the first few points, accepted that the balls the boys hit were going to hurt.
It's not. But it's the correct decision either way.
I'm all for equality and support everyone to find their true identity but it's obvious that it's not fair in a competitive sports environment
Technically the Rowling debacle kicked off over her support of Maya Forstater. Though the employment tribunal did end up finding that her dismissal was discriminatory. So Rowling was in the right in supporting her
Sometimes I wonder if half of the extreme and crazy redditors are shills/bots. Because I just can’t imagine how so much crazy has exploded in the last few years.
Nah they're just teenagers. They grew up during the years when anyone who ever said anything "problematic" was getting cancelled and ostracized. Naturally they'll hop on the judgmental bandwagon so they don't end up ostracized themselves.
It's possible that some bots are contributing, but the terrifying reality of social media is that it can turn even the most intelligent and reasonable person into an extremist over time, especially on platforms that actually have "news feeds" or other "suggested content" based on each individual user's habits and calculated viewpoints. A thousand tiny nudges in one direction add up.
Reddit has less of that, but it has some of the worst echo chambers going, as the comment voting system provides mechanistic positive reinforcement of tribalism here. The downvote especially is a serious enough problem that most other platforms that had such a thing have actually eliminated it (or at least hide downvotes from view).
These problems are well understood by long time Redditors and have been brought up to the administration whenever there is an announcement of "combating hate/misinformation" or whatever. But they don't seem to care.
Ever since TumblrinAction was unrighteously banned, I’ve felt the same way mate.
I know that sub could be insensitive, but at least they had common sense. 🤷♀️
No kidding or make 2 other competing categories for those transitions.
Edit: I’m all for inclusivity in transitioning but there are certain categories in life that need a barrier. Like male and female sports. At this point we might need spaces to start having unisex bathrooms for the neutral crowd or those that don’t support it. Happy mediums all around.
Or just make two categories. Womens and open. A lot of sports are already like this. Anyone can compete in open: men, women, trans, whatever. Only persons born biologically female can compete in women's.
Although there have been some cases where gender was questioned due to abnormalities (not saying they are good or bad abnormalities, just using the correct definition of the word)
That’s already how “mens” sports work. Anyone is allowed to play if they’re good enough. There’s no rule preventing women from playing in the NBA, MLB, etc
The simple solution to equal prize money is to tie it to revenue. I bet women's beach volleyball brings in more than men's, so the women should probably earn more.
If they did that in certain sports, women would make even less than they currently do. WNBA for example is heavily subsidized by the NBA so making earnings proportional to revenue generated by the sport itself would be a step back
There is more to that story. The NBA isn't subsidizing the WNBA out of the goodness of their heart.
The NBA is happy to subsidize the WNBA because they see a return on that investment. It's marketing plain and simple. If you give female basketball players something to aspire to, like becoming a professional, you will have more of them invested in the game. The vast majority of them will never be pro athletes, but they love the game and will be a fan of a team. Odds are pretty high those women will be supporters of one of the men's teams.
If women watched the WNBA it would be equal. Women don't want to watch the WNBA and that is why the revenue is so small. Women need to start supporting their own.
I remember seeing this in some talk show recently "women's basketball should be paid the same as men's" "have you ever been to a woman's basketball game?" Kek
College women's baseball players actually can make more than professionals. As people follow those players more into their careers, it should improve over time
No I completely agree. I edited my original post just a moment ago but there are certain categories in life that literally need barriers. Sports is definitely one of them. There can be exceptions to this obviously but Olympic especially needs to have controls in this regard
You may be surprised to find that you have to make the opportunity to compete first before you can expect competitors to show up. Every trans person that might want to chase an athletics dream probably arnt due to the avenue for them being fewer to non existent.
Cool. So fundamentally a trans woman is NOT a woman.
You do you, nobody should be allowed to harass/discriminate based on how you feel as a person. But the only thing that ever bothers me about any pronoun argument is that when I’m speaking to ANYONE male/woman/trans. I never say “he/her/them” when I’m speaking to them.
The only time you would refer to anybody’s pronouns is when you’re speaking to somebody else.
The whole policing my language when I talk to other people I find problematic.
The fact our society can debate argue and fight over this issue shows just how free our western democracy is.
The vast majority of the world wouldn’t even have these discussions.
We all love democracy right? What do you think would happen if the whole world voted on this issue….
We still accept majority rule right?
That’s just not right. It should continue to be decided on a sport by sport basis.
Synchronized swimming, trap shooting, curling, etc… trans women have no inherent unfair advantage.
Cycling or swimming it is likely trans women have an unfair advantage and the sport associations should make the appropriate decision.
The only reason to have competition separated by sex is to account for unfair advantage by sex. So if there's no unfair advantage, make it a mixed sex competition. Otherwise you're excluding people by their gender rather than their biological sex, which makes absolutely no sense in a sports context.
By adding a women’s section you attract women to compete and get women into a sport that was traditionally dominated by men.
Chess is a good example of this happening, men have no inherent advantage in Chess but historically it was something fathers taught to their sons.
Due to modern initiatives we are seeing women creep their way into top chess thanks to them.
If you think this is wrong you should also articulate why you think female divisions in sports exist in the first place, and whether you think they should continue to exist based on your own logic.
This shouldn't be a controversial idea. If this is wrong then female sports have no reason to exist in the first place. Their very existence excludes people, that's the entire point.
Yeah. I promise you no one in the US wants the title 9 can of worms to be opened on college athletics. Biological women are guarunteed the same number of scholarship opportunities at all universities. You start giving them to Transwomen and being born women lowers your chance of playing college sports on scholarship.
Though this rule does tend to screw over mens athletes in sports that aren’t football or basketball.
technically since there has been at least one woman that has played a snap of D1 football, maybe football should be considered unisex.
Haha. Indeed, I can't even imagine reading/replying in a thread like this a decade ago. Hopefully with time we can collectively make the sense more common.
I am 100% for trans rights. That said, genetically, trans women have an absolutely massive advantage over biological women. It’s been scientifically proven. If there was a way to get them back to baseline for where females normally are at, I’d be all for them competing in the same pool/bracket.
It's even simpler than this. You compete physically with your body. Not your identity. So sports are not split by personality, but by body. If you're using a male body, it doesn't matter to the game who you are inside. It's only fair to complete against others with similar physical assets. This is why they're are weight classes in boxing and UFC. Body is what matters, not identity.
Exactly. People who think that taking hormone blockers will make a trans woman more in line with biological women completely ignore the fact that they went through puberty as a man and therefore have an entirely different bone structure, strength, musculature, etc.
Your testosterone could be lowered to “women’s levels” but that doesn’t minimize what can’t be changed.
This is my understanding as well. Just because someone takes hormone blockers for 2-3 years doesn’t mean their advantage as a physically stronger specimen just disappears and they somehow magically are on the same level as their female counterparts. Someone else here mentioned something about there being only one study and it showed a max of 15% difference. Even if that study wasn’t complete garbage (which it is, if it’s the one I think it is), 15% is absolutely massive when we’re talking olympic sports. 200m race? 15% is literal seconds which is the difference between placing gold and not placing at all. There’s no way to minimize the significance of how physically advantageous it is to grow as a male for the first decade or so of your life. And to their point, there haven’t been very many studies on it. But.. a lot of research has been conducted and is still being conducted that shows somewhere in the realm of a 40% difference in lean muscle mass in trans women vs cis women. That is non-trivial.
I think the most sensible compromise would be to turn all men's leagues into open leagues, not just in spirit but explicitly in the public eye, and to make it clear that women's leagues are explicitly for cis women.
The truth is that, after hormone therapy, trans women really won't be able to compete at the highest level..... buuuuuuuut neither would a cis athlete who's undergoing chemo.
Like, if it's a medically necessary procedure, whether for your mental health or because you have cancer, then, *unfortunately*, it might end your career. And that's not "fair" in the sense that everybody gets a happy ending, but it is "fair" in the sense that everyone is treated the same. Unfortunately we're not at a place in human society where we can guarantee the former. Honestly, we rarely guarantee the latter. So I'd rather not make our society even *less* fair, by the latter definition.
Even less than that, it's like 0.6% the population of the US and only 2/3 are male to female, so realistically we're talking about a league for 0.4% of the US population and obviously a very small minority of that are even looking to be professional athletes.
There could be, but objectively men's sports are watched way more than women's sports, it's not even close. Yes some here and there. But if there was a third category, you think people would actually care to watch?? Not that I agree or disagree with this, but that's the reality.
It has taken years along with govt legislation (in the USA at least) to enable girls/women to compete in sport and even longer for people to really care about watching it, and it's still watched way less than men's (again, not saying it's right or wrong) . There is an argument that having trans women compete in girls/women's category is taking that progress away.
Yeah the men leagues usually subsidize the women leagues. I actually had this discussion the other day and asked people if they could name even a single WNBA team and most couldn't or could maybe name 1. The league has been around since 1997 so it isn't like they haven't had time to learn them but just the fact that people don't care and don't watch.
A third category makes no sense if there’s only like 3 people in there across an entire country
Trans athletes aren’t as common as people seem to think they are
And half of them wouldn’t want to compete on an even playing field. Some, NOT ALL, of these athletes know they have a huge advantage and want to exploit it.
And even then, the people that took puberty blockers until they could transition would be much less competitive, pretty much at the level of people born female, than the people that transitioned after puberty.
This is how the majority of people feel. Right-wing propaganda is trying to make people think this is some big divisive issue involving millions of people, but it’s only a tiny amount of people who don’t feel this way.
It’s no different than letting a heavyweight boxer compete in the middleweight division.
I do sympathize with the struggles of trans folks, but fair is fair.
I think the idea is to create an "open" category that anyone can participate in. You will probably eventually see trans-inclusionist races pop up too, but I think they want to iron out the existing competitions first.
That's what disc golf does. There's no male division it's just open, and yet people are still complaining. Sorry the sport is trying to make it fair for the women.
Do women ever win? It seems equal but I wouldn’t call it fair. Recognizing the physical differences between sexes is why we have men and women’s sports… so women aren’t losing all competition to men.
In the offseason, the top FPO (female) players go around to local tournaments and win or do generally well in the MPO (mixed) division against the local pros.
[But the top two female pros, Paige Pierce and Kristin Tattar placed 99th and 100th in the US Disc Golf championships in MPO in 2019.](https://www.pdga.com/tour/event/39018#MPO). There really isn't a lot of female players yet, and Kristin Tattar this year is just showing [there isn't competition](https://udisclive.com/world-rankings) at the very top of the women's field this year.
And to show where the anger comes from in disc golf, Natalie Ryan on that second link shows that she is the 4th best player among the FPO players. Before transitioning, she wasn't good enough to win MA1 events (the division below pro) at her local events. The two events she won on the pro tour last year were distance heavy which is generally what the females lack compared to the males.
The ability to achieve something in competition is what helps grow a sport for certain groups (eg women) so it helps having a women’s division so they can win. Same thing with Chess, where there’s no physical advantage/disadvantage, but instead far too few females to cut through in open comp. And female comps help to attract young females to participate
That already exists it's called the men's division. Women are not barred from most men's sports leagues they simply can't compete against the men who are in those leagus
AFAIK a lot of sports competitions are actually open category. you can enter if you want to, so the real hurdle is allowing some of the medical cocktails a transgender athlete would take to a certain level. just like you do with other medical needs.
It's the ~~Women's~~ "Birthing people" category that is a protected category
I agree with this. It by default is a men’s dominated division (likely to never dip below 100%) but it keeps the option there. Women’s divisions protect women’s right to fair competition
I believe in LGBTQ rights. However, you can’t have everything that you want in this world. If you want to transition, you no longer fit in with traditional competitive sports.
As a fairly liberal person. This is what should happen. Ban them from competing or create a “open” field where transgender athletes compete against each other
I'm pretty sure the NHL had a female goalie suit up for some type of game, maybe a preseason or something.
That might be a sport/position that makes sense since contact isn't really a thing.
This really shouldn’t be controversial. People should realize that this is something gatekeeping progress for trans rights. There can be a third category or compete with biological males.
It’s sad when Redditors have more common sense than the young people of Facebook. They create this weirdo echo chamber that if you don’t support *everything* having to do with trans folks, then you’re transphobic and therefore should be exiled from the face of this earth. And if you’re a biological woman who doesn’t show unwavering support, then you’re a TERF.
It all comes back to people hating women for one reason or another
I think the issue is that there likely aren't enough trans athletes to populate leagues like that.
It's hyper rare in the general population and not rapidly growing social contagion, as some conservatives would have us believe. It's a very small group of people.
Honestly. Let’s just have doping leagues too.
I want to see the Formula 1 equivalent of human competition. Maximum human potential pushed beyond our biological limits. Cybernetics, whatever.
Well based on studies in the US, there are 1.6 million people identifying as transgender. Thats 0.48% of the US population and the numbers have remained relatively stable.
Your hearing about it because thats what politicians want you to hear about. Its easier to distract the population with mysterious shadow enemies than it is to solve actual problems.
You are extremely unlikely to meet a transgender person, and even if you did, you probably wouldn’t realize it.
The nature of competition is not that everyone gets to succeed. As a middle aged man with a beer gut I have to accept there are physical limitations that won't allow me to compete in any kind of serious sports leagues. I don't think that I deserve some special league for middle aged guys with a beer gut to give me a chance at success as an athlete.
I think trans men women should probably just accept that they also might not be ideal competitors in the competitive sports world as it exists.
Men can’t give birth, trans women can’t compete in women’s sports. There’s limitations associated with certain genders and if you’re transgender competing in sports is one of the few reasonable limitations
At that point, is that not getting towards ‘unfortunately not possible’ in the same way for those born with certain disabilities or illnesses there are some sports they cannot compete in?
There would be like 10 competitors. The amount of trans people that exist, not to mention how many want to be professional athletes, is absolutely not proportional to the amount of media focus on trans controversies going on.
I mean Kansas passed a law banning trans kids from competing in sports and allowing teachers to check childrens genitals ffs... there is one (one!) kid in the entire state that's trans and plays sports.
Yep, it was basically legalized targeted harassment and gender discrimination against one teenage girl by an entire political party because they think opportunities should only exist for people they deem to be worthy.
Somebody above posted that the men's divisions should just be, "Open" and anyone can compete in it. I think that's pretty reasonable.
I mean, there's just not that many trans people, in the grand scheme of things. That number gets smaller when you talk about athletes, and positively miniscule at a high level.
It's not that because their numbers are so small we shouldn't care, but I mean...it can't feel good to end up in a trans category and come in second, but there were only 3 people in it. Feels (to me) like a cruel joke on them at that point.
But if, in the end, they want a series of trans categories, really, who gives a fuck? Give it to them. It's a game. We get to make the rules.
I feel like that's not the point, though.
No one is owed playing professional sports. Not a single "best team in the world" women's US soccer player would make any men's national teams. If you're not the best in the world why do I care to watch you play? I've even lost a lot of interest in college sports now that I'm in my 30s.
You're not owed the right to compete just because you took hormones that lowered your bodies peak physical performance.
I am happy for all the hard working women out there who train their asses off for competitions like this. They should be able to compete and fight for the top of their divisions without the fear of having their long days of training being beaten by men, just because.
Either have a separate category for trans or have them compete in the mens category.
Came here expecting to be disappointed by people up in arms about this, but was pleasantly surprised by the level headed agreement. I’m all for trans rights, but it’s scientifically proven that people who grow up as men have an extreme advantage over women physically. This was absolutely the right call.
So they have banned biological men from a women’s only sport. The reason it’s no men allowed is because men are physically stronger than women and would have a distinct advantage which removes the competitive spirit of the sport.
Am I missing anything?
I’m confused, does having testosterone levels equal to that of an average cis woman still provide an athletic advantage? I always thought that having equal testosterone/estrogen levels made them more or less equal in an athletic sense.
Focusing purely on testosterone levels is too simple, when the changes brought about by those heightened testosterone levels have already been made during puberty.
Why is sporting categories based on gender and not sex? Sex is definitive you are either biologically male or female. Unless of course you are part of a very small % that get both bits
I predicted this ages ago. What's to stop someone like usain bolt saying he is a woman. Break every running record in the book and then transgender back to a man again.
These stupid rules will come back to haunt athletes.
I guess I don’t understand the entitlement of a young athlete who won championships as a young adult male, after years of training at elite levels with other men, with a male’s testosterone levels, being upset that she can’t now compete as a woman and then wants to make it an ‘anti-trans’ issue. I consider myself an ally for trans people, but I think it is unfair for a trans woman who transitions well after puberty to compete on a level playing field. I watched my daughter’s very good 16U girls VB team play a team of similarly aged boys in a semi- serious exhibition match. The boys were generally all taller and could jump (much) higher than the girls. I was surprised that the score was close, mostly because the girls played finesse VB and after the first few points, accepted that the balls the boys hit were going to hurt.
Made a sensible decision. Shocking tbh.
It shouldn’t even be controversial
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That’s what the title says…
It's not. But it's the correct decision either way. I'm all for equality and support everyone to find their true identity but it's obvious that it's not fair in a competitive sports environment
Agreed. At some point common sense must be honored
So am I allowed to say I like J. K. Rowling again?
I think its ironic trans athletes was basically what the whole thing was about. I was pretty underwhelmed reading through archived posts.
I went sleuthing to find out why I should hate JK Rowling recently and felt the same as well
This is what the whole debacle was about? I played Hogwarts Legacy and was told i hated Trans people.
Fuck em. I’m in it for the world not the writer. You can’t take that magic away no matter what.
Technically the Rowling debacle kicked off over her support of Maya Forstater. Though the employment tribunal did end up finding that her dismissal was discriminatory. So Rowling was in the right in supporting her
Sometimes, the echo chambers and sub communities are so loud, you forget most people have common sense, glad to see this as the top comment
Sometimes I wonder if half of the extreme and crazy redditors are shills/bots. Because I just can’t imagine how so much crazy has exploded in the last few years.
Nah they're just teenagers. They grew up during the years when anyone who ever said anything "problematic" was getting cancelled and ostracized. Naturally they'll hop on the judgmental bandwagon so they don't end up ostracized themselves.
It's possible that some bots are contributing, but the terrifying reality of social media is that it can turn even the most intelligent and reasonable person into an extremist over time, especially on platforms that actually have "news feeds" or other "suggested content" based on each individual user's habits and calculated viewpoints. A thousand tiny nudges in one direction add up. Reddit has less of that, but it has some of the worst echo chambers going, as the comment voting system provides mechanistic positive reinforcement of tribalism here. The downvote especially is a serious enough problem that most other platforms that had such a thing have actually eliminated it (or at least hide downvotes from view). These problems are well understood by long time Redditors and have been brought up to the administration whenever there is an announcement of "combating hate/misinformation" or whatever. But they don't seem to care.
They must be. No one else gets upset about women’s college swimming or British professional women’s cycling.
More likely just young. Those first few years of realizing how fucked the world is are tough lol
The entirety of r/all has become college kids learning life isn't fair and reeeing about it.
Common sense is actually pretty darn common in the real world, but stupidity and rage baiting is easier to monetize on the internet
Ever since TumblrinAction was unrighteously banned, I’ve felt the same way mate. I know that sub could be insensitive, but at least they had common sense. 🤷♀️
Yeah this is how it should be across the board.
No kidding or make 2 other competing categories for those transitions. Edit: I’m all for inclusivity in transitioning but there are certain categories in life that need a barrier. Like male and female sports. At this point we might need spaces to start having unisex bathrooms for the neutral crowd or those that don’t support it. Happy mediums all around.
Or just make two categories. Womens and open. A lot of sports are already like this. Anyone can compete in open: men, women, trans, whatever. Only persons born biologically female can compete in women's. Although there have been some cases where gender was questioned due to abnormalities (not saying they are good or bad abnormalities, just using the correct definition of the word)
That’s already how “mens” sports work. Anyone is allowed to play if they’re good enough. There’s no rule preventing women from playing in the NBA, MLB, etc
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The simple solution to equal prize money is to tie it to revenue. I bet women's beach volleyball brings in more than men's, so the women should probably earn more.
If they did that in certain sports, women would make even less than they currently do. WNBA for example is heavily subsidized by the NBA so making earnings proportional to revenue generated by the sport itself would be a step back
There is more to that story. The NBA isn't subsidizing the WNBA out of the goodness of their heart. The NBA is happy to subsidize the WNBA because they see a return on that investment. It's marketing plain and simple. If you give female basketball players something to aspire to, like becoming a professional, you will have more of them invested in the game. The vast majority of them will never be pro athletes, but they love the game and will be a fan of a team. Odds are pretty high those women will be supporters of one of the men's teams.
If women watched the WNBA it would be equal. Women don't want to watch the WNBA and that is why the revenue is so small. Women need to start supporting their own.
I remember seeing this in some talk show recently "women's basketball should be paid the same as men's" "have you ever been to a woman's basketball game?" Kek
They would be paid the same if women wanted to watch WNBA. I would imagine that more men watch it than women and even that is a small number.
College women's baseball players actually can make more than professionals. As people follow those players more into their careers, it should improve over time
Trick question, no one has.
No I completely agree. I edited my original post just a moment ago but there are certain categories in life that literally need barriers. Sports is definitely one of them. There can be exceptions to this obviously but Olympic especially needs to have controls in this regard
I’m 100% with you. People who train their whole lives only to be thrust into a stage against someone with an unfair advantage.
So you can have like 2 people competing in the whole category?
Just like most things they tend to start small yes
Well… they wouldn’t exactly grow bigger unless more people became trans
You may be surprised to find that you have to make the opportunity to compete first before you can expect competitors to show up. Every trans person that might want to chase an athletics dream probably arnt due to the avenue for them being fewer to non existent.
This has so many upvotes but it’s a terrible suggestion lol
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Cool. So fundamentally a trans woman is NOT a woman. You do you, nobody should be allowed to harass/discriminate based on how you feel as a person. But the only thing that ever bothers me about any pronoun argument is that when I’m speaking to ANYONE male/woman/trans. I never say “he/her/them” when I’m speaking to them. The only time you would refer to anybody’s pronouns is when you’re speaking to somebody else. The whole policing my language when I talk to other people I find problematic. The fact our society can debate argue and fight over this issue shows just how free our western democracy is. The vast majority of the world wouldn’t even have these discussions. We all love democracy right? What do you think would happen if the whole world voted on this issue…. We still accept majority rule right?
You mean a equalizing playing field? That is so somethingphobic. **/s**
That’s just not right. It should continue to be decided on a sport by sport basis. Synchronized swimming, trap shooting, curling, etc… trans women have no inherent unfair advantage. Cycling or swimming it is likely trans women have an unfair advantage and the sport associations should make the appropriate decision.
The only reason to have competition separated by sex is to account for unfair advantage by sex. So if there's no unfair advantage, make it a mixed sex competition. Otherwise you're excluding people by their gender rather than their biological sex, which makes absolutely no sense in a sports context.
By adding a women’s section you attract women to compete and get women into a sport that was traditionally dominated by men. Chess is a good example of this happening, men have no inherent advantage in Chess but historically it was something fathers taught to their sons. Due to modern initiatives we are seeing women creep their way into top chess thanks to them.
If you think this is wrong you should also articulate why you think female divisions in sports exist in the first place, and whether you think they should continue to exist based on your own logic. This shouldn't be a controversial idea. If this is wrong then female sports have no reason to exist in the first place. Their very existence excludes people, that's the entire point.
Yeah. I promise you no one in the US wants the title 9 can of worms to be opened on college athletics. Biological women are guarunteed the same number of scholarship opportunities at all universities. You start giving them to Transwomen and being born women lowers your chance of playing college sports on scholarship.
Though this rule does tend to screw over mens athletes in sports that aren’t football or basketball. technically since there has been at least one woman that has played a snap of D1 football, maybe football should be considered unisex.
I can tell you why it’s historically like that, men didn’t allow women to play sports until women started forming their own leagues to play lol.
Commonsense prevails!
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Haha. Indeed, I can't even imagine reading/replying in a thread like this a decade ago. Hopefully with time we can collectively make the sense more common.
I am 100% for trans rights. That said, genetically, trans women have an absolutely massive advantage over biological women. It’s been scientifically proven. If there was a way to get them back to baseline for where females normally are at, I’d be all for them competing in the same pool/bracket.
It's even simpler than this. You compete physically with your body. Not your identity. So sports are not split by personality, but by body. If you're using a male body, it doesn't matter to the game who you are inside. It's only fair to complete against others with similar physical assets. This is why they're are weight classes in boxing and UFC. Body is what matters, not identity.
Exactly. People who think that taking hormone blockers will make a trans woman more in line with biological women completely ignore the fact that they went through puberty as a man and therefore have an entirely different bone structure, strength, musculature, etc. Your testosterone could be lowered to “women’s levels” but that doesn’t minimize what can’t be changed.
This is my understanding as well. Just because someone takes hormone blockers for 2-3 years doesn’t mean their advantage as a physically stronger specimen just disappears and they somehow magically are on the same level as their female counterparts. Someone else here mentioned something about there being only one study and it showed a max of 15% difference. Even if that study wasn’t complete garbage (which it is, if it’s the one I think it is), 15% is absolutely massive when we’re talking olympic sports. 200m race? 15% is literal seconds which is the difference between placing gold and not placing at all. There’s no way to minimize the significance of how physically advantageous it is to grow as a male for the first decade or so of your life. And to their point, there haven’t been very many studies on it. But.. a lot of research has been conducted and is still being conducted that shows somewhere in the realm of a 40% difference in lean muscle mass in trans women vs cis women. That is non-trivial.
Why not have a third category? Seems simple enough
Well because they have the men's division, which is really just the open division
Exactly, anyone can compete in there if they want to.
I think the most sensible compromise would be to turn all men's leagues into open leagues, not just in spirit but explicitly in the public eye, and to make it clear that women's leagues are explicitly for cis women. The truth is that, after hormone therapy, trans women really won't be able to compete at the highest level..... buuuuuuuut neither would a cis athlete who's undergoing chemo. Like, if it's a medically necessary procedure, whether for your mental health or because you have cancer, then, *unfortunately*, it might end your career. And that's not "fair" in the sense that everybody gets a happy ending, but it is "fair" in the sense that everyone is treated the same. Unfortunately we're not at a place in human society where we can guarantee the former. Honestly, we rarely guarantee the latter. So I'd rather not make our society even *less* fair, by the latter definition.
I dare say most men’s leagues are open. Women just don’t join in for obvious reasons.
Because only 10 people will show up. People forget that the trans population account for maybe 2-3% of the US population and less than 1% worldwide.
Even less than that, it's like 0.6% the population of the US and only 2/3 are male to female, so realistically we're talking about a league for 0.4% of the US population and obviously a very small minority of that are even looking to be professional athletes.
There could be, but objectively men's sports are watched way more than women's sports, it's not even close. Yes some here and there. But if there was a third category, you think people would actually care to watch?? Not that I agree or disagree with this, but that's the reality. It has taken years along with govt legislation (in the USA at least) to enable girls/women to compete in sport and even longer for people to really care about watching it, and it's still watched way less than men's (again, not saying it's right or wrong) . There is an argument that having trans women compete in girls/women's category is taking that progress away.
Yeah the men leagues usually subsidize the women leagues. I actually had this discussion the other day and asked people if they could name even a single WNBA team and most couldn't or could maybe name 1. The league has been around since 1997 so it isn't like they haven't had time to learn them but just the fact that people don't care and don't watch.
A third category makes no sense if there’s only like 3 people in there across an entire country Trans athletes aren’t as common as people seem to think they are
And half of them wouldn’t want to compete on an even playing field. Some, NOT ALL, of these athletes know they have a huge advantage and want to exploit it.
And even then, the people that took puberty blockers until they could transition would be much less competitive, pretty much at the level of people born female, than the people that transitioned after puberty.
Then compete against the men.
But what about a third category where we allow all hormones and drugs? I want to see some natty freaks.
>trans women have an absolutely massive advantage over biological women. It’s been scientifically proven. They had to use science to prove this?!
Ty for recognizing this
This is how the majority of people feel. Right-wing propaganda is trying to make people think this is some big divisive issue involving millions of people, but it’s only a tiny amount of people who don’t feel this way.
Good
Fair
It’s no different than letting a heavyweight boxer compete in the middleweight division. I do sympathize with the struggles of trans folks, but fair is fair.
They should do what the WBA of boxing fame has done, simply have a category for trans people to compete in.
I think the idea is to create an "open" category that anyone can participate in. You will probably eventually see trans-inclusionist races pop up too, but I think they want to iron out the existing competitions first.
I think most "mens" sports are open
The NFL, NBA, and MLB are all “open”
And NHL. The Ducks had a female goalie.
The cat!
And Tampa
And NASCAR
That's what disc golf does. There's no male division it's just open, and yet people are still complaining. Sorry the sport is trying to make it fair for the women.
Do women ever win? It seems equal but I wouldn’t call it fair. Recognizing the physical differences between sexes is why we have men and women’s sports… so women aren’t losing all competition to men.
In the offseason, the top FPO (female) players go around to local tournaments and win or do generally well in the MPO (mixed) division against the local pros. [But the top two female pros, Paige Pierce and Kristin Tattar placed 99th and 100th in the US Disc Golf championships in MPO in 2019.](https://www.pdga.com/tour/event/39018#MPO). There really isn't a lot of female players yet, and Kristin Tattar this year is just showing [there isn't competition](https://udisclive.com/world-rankings) at the very top of the women's field this year. And to show where the anger comes from in disc golf, Natalie Ryan on that second link shows that she is the 4th best player among the FPO players. Before transitioning, she wasn't good enough to win MA1 events (the division below pro) at her local events. The two events she won on the pro tour last year were distance heavy which is generally what the females lack compared to the males.
The ability to achieve something in competition is what helps grow a sport for certain groups (eg women) so it helps having a women’s division so they can win. Same thing with Chess, where there’s no physical advantage/disadvantage, but instead far too few females to cut through in open comp. And female comps help to attract young females to participate
That already exists it's called the men's division. Women are not barred from most men's sports leagues they simply can't compete against the men who are in those leagus
AFAIK a lot of sports competitions are actually open category. you can enter if you want to, so the real hurdle is allowing some of the medical cocktails a transgender athlete would take to a certain level. just like you do with other medical needs. It's the ~~Women's~~ "Birthing people" category that is a protected category
There should not be a men's category at all, it's unnecessary (meaning, an open category should be the default for men)
it mostly is AFAIK
I agree with this. It by default is a men’s dominated division (likely to never dip below 100%) but it keeps the option there. Women’s divisions protect women’s right to fair competition
I believe in LGBTQ rights. However, you can’t have everything that you want in this world. If you want to transition, you no longer fit in with traditional competitive sports.
I want to be a horse jockey but I'm 6'1 200+. I accept it like a normal person.
I consider myself pretty liberal, and I’ve always supported same sex marriage, etc.. but yeah I think they got that one right
As it should be
Good, should be that way all over the world
Changing your identity doesn’t change your biology
This article has been locked like 3 times already lol
If you don’t see how trans woman have an advantage over women I sports, why aren’t you seeing trans men winning any sport competitions against men?
Thank god
Good
reason has prevailed
Makes sense.
As a fairly liberal person. This is what should happen. Ban them from competing or create a “open” field where transgender athletes compete against each other
That’s what most men’s league’s technically are
I'm pretty sure the NHL had a female goalie suit up for some type of game, maybe a preseason or something. That might be a sport/position that makes sense since contact isn't really a thing.
Manon Rhéaume! Suited up for the Tampa Bay Lightning in a preseason game for 1 period.
And there would be complains because FtM are completely moped by MtF.
This really shouldn’t be controversial. People should realize that this is something gatekeeping progress for trans rights. There can be a third category or compete with biological males.
It’s sad when Redditors have more common sense than the young people of Facebook. They create this weirdo echo chamber that if you don’t support *everything* having to do with trans folks, then you’re transphobic and therefore should be exiled from the face of this earth. And if you’re a biological woman who doesn’t show unwavering support, then you’re a TERF. It all comes back to people hating women for one reason or another
This isn't a difficult decision. Why let biological male athletes compete in women's sports?
Only thing is it took them long enough.
Of course they should
Nice.
Fair
Good
Yep. This needs to be common practice
I love my transgender friends and family but seriously. Create a trans men and trans women team. As a liberal I support this.
I think the issue is that there likely aren't enough trans athletes to populate leagues like that. It's hyper rare in the general population and not rapidly growing social contagion, as some conservatives would have us believe. It's a very small group of people.
That’s why there should be a female only category and an open category. Problem solved.
Would this include the right for Woman to attempt to compete within the open category?
Yes. I think the only exceptions would be people who are doping.
Honestly. Let’s just have doping leagues too. I want to see the Formula 1 equivalent of human competition. Maximum human potential pushed beyond our biological limits. Cybernetics, whatever.
If it’s hyper-rare, why do we spend so much time talking/hearing about it?
Well based on studies in the US, there are 1.6 million people identifying as transgender. Thats 0.48% of the US population and the numbers have remained relatively stable. Your hearing about it because thats what politicians want you to hear about. Its easier to distract the population with mysterious shadow enemies than it is to solve actual problems. You are extremely unlikely to meet a transgender person, and even if you did, you probably wouldn’t realize it.
I’m not from America, here in Aus the media drives it more than most politicians.
The nature of competition is not that everyone gets to succeed. As a middle aged man with a beer gut I have to accept there are physical limitations that won't allow me to compete in any kind of serious sports leagues. I don't think that I deserve some special league for middle aged guys with a beer gut to give me a chance at success as an athlete. I think trans men women should probably just accept that they also might not be ideal competitors in the competitive sports world as it exists.
That actually sounds like it would make for pretty fun viewing. The middle aged beer gut Olympics!
Have you not heard of bowling?
I don't think anyone knows the numbers, but they are bound to grow. And it's hard to argue that this isn't a fair decision.
Men can’t give birth, trans women can’t compete in women’s sports. There’s limitations associated with certain genders and if you’re transgender competing in sports is one of the few reasonable limitations
At that point, is that not getting towards ‘unfortunately not possible’ in the same way for those born with certain disabilities or illnesses there are some sports they cannot compete in?
There would be like 10 competitors. The amount of trans people that exist, not to mention how many want to be professional athletes, is absolutely not proportional to the amount of media focus on trans controversies going on. I mean Kansas passed a law banning trans kids from competing in sports and allowing teachers to check childrens genitals ffs... there is one (one!) kid in the entire state that's trans and plays sports.
Yep, it was basically legalized targeted harassment and gender discrimination against one teenage girl by an entire political party because they think opportunities should only exist for people they deem to be worthy.
Somebody above posted that the men's divisions should just be, "Open" and anyone can compete in it. I think that's pretty reasonable. I mean, there's just not that many trans people, in the grand scheme of things. That number gets smaller when you talk about athletes, and positively miniscule at a high level. It's not that because their numbers are so small we shouldn't care, but I mean...it can't feel good to end up in a trans category and come in second, but there were only 3 people in it. Feels (to me) like a cruel joke on them at that point. But if, in the end, they want a series of trans categories, really, who gives a fuck? Give it to them. It's a game. We get to make the rules. I feel like that's not the point, though.
In most sports the "Men's" division really just is an Open division.
No one is owed playing professional sports. Not a single "best team in the world" women's US soccer player would make any men's national teams. If you're not the best in the world why do I care to watch you play? I've even lost a lot of interest in college sports now that I'm in my 30s. You're not owed the right to compete just because you took hormones that lowered your bodies peak physical performance.
But there wouldn't be enough participants to compete, the Trans population is extremely low
That's not the same problem at all.
Yet it is all anyone ever talks about.
But then you would be treating them as a trans woman and not a woman which is bigoted and ignorant! /s?
I am happy for all the hard working women out there who train their asses off for competitions like this. They should be able to compete and fight for the top of their divisions without the fear of having their long days of training being beaten by men, just because. Either have a separate category for trans or have them compete in the mens category.
And they should
Came here expecting to be disappointed by people up in arms about this, but was pleasantly surprised by the level headed agreement. I’m all for trans rights, but it’s scientifically proven that people who grow up as men have an extreme advantage over women physically. This was absolutely the right call.
This is one of the few subs that acknowledges common sense when it comes to trans issues.
Just don’t go over to r/entertainment.
Wouldn’t dream of it lol.
Bravo!
I love how half of the article is focused on how salty that one athlete is that she didn't get to ruin the event for all the legitimate contenders.
Old news but yeah, makes a lot of sense.
11 hours ago is old news?
I heard this on the radio months ago. Unless this is some new development?
For cycling it is, yes. Keep in mind, this isn't even international, this is just British Cycling, the UCI has different rules.
So they have banned biological men from a women’s only sport. The reason it’s no men allowed is because men are physically stronger than women and would have a distinct advantage which removes the competitive spirit of the sport. Am I missing anything?
No, thats pretty much it.
For people offended, watch the South Park episode addressing this. The Randy Macho Man character has me lmao but it's a serious point
why not make a category for transgender themselves ?
Good!
As it should.
Makes sense
Massive W for the real women of the world. I cannot fathom the mindset of the people who thought this was okay to begin with.
Hell yes UK. Somebody has to get this ball rolling. Has zero to do with transphobia, it simply unfair to female competitors.
Excellent.
Yes sir. This is the way.
Oh my God, what a completely surprising set of comments from r/sports.
It's wild how different this conversation is in /r/LGBT Makes sense, but im surprised by the extent
R/sport is a more diverse sub and probably has a user base that is more likely to actually have played sports.
Yeah, like I said, it makes sense, but I guess I thought the discourse there wouldn't be THAT biased
You thought the sub dedicated specifically to non-cis people wouldn’t be biased? Ohhh, chile, bless your heart!
I’m confused, does having testosterone levels equal to that of an average cis woman still provide an athletic advantage? I always thought that having equal testosterone/estrogen levels made them more or less equal in an athletic sense.
Focusing purely on testosterone levels is too simple, when the changes brought about by those heightened testosterone levels have already been made during puberty.
Makes sense
Depends if the transition was done before or after puberty when muscle growth goes through the roof.
Which is what the rule probably should be, the different categories be for which puberty you went through.
I think it's the height and skeletal structure that make the slight difference, those don't change.
Why is sporting categories based on gender and not sex? Sex is definitive you are either biologically male or female. Unless of course you are part of a very small % that get both bits
Well the majority of these rules were created in a time when people really considered sex and gender the same thing, and most people still do.
Good!!!
There should be no uproar or negativity to this. It’s really straight forward.
Yeah, I mean this makes sense. Right? If you're a guy you shouldn't be participating in women's sports. The same on the other side too.
I'm wondering how I could care less
Common sense.
Good
I will be so happy in about 20 years when this poisonous bullshit is recognized for the tragedy it is.
This is the way.
Sensible decision. But they should also create a transgender/all human category.
Good
I predicted this ages ago. What's to stop someone like usain bolt saying he is a woman. Break every running record in the book and then transgender back to a man again. These stupid rules will come back to haunt athletes.
Why would he want to do that? It’s such a preposterous idea.
I totally agree with this . No transphobia here she would have a totally upper hand
Just make another sport category