1w ago

Trump admits to using rage bait to win elections.

Sorry if this is the wrong community for this. Not sure where else to put it.

You're viewing a single thread.

56 comments

Well fuck me, I recently said that trans in women's sports was a complicated issue. This is straightforward anti-trans propaganda. I also looked at some peer reviewed studies that showed there is no physiological advantage for trans women.
We all make some assumptions based on anecdotal evidence, and the best we can do is learn from our mistakes.
- thank you for interrupt my doomscroll to remind me that people out there are still empathetic and capable of learning/admitting to their faults.
- If a person goes through testosterone puperty there are undeniable advantages over everybody that didn't, in sports where physical strengths matters. I'd really love to get my mind changed on that, could you please name the study and/or journal where it was published.
  
  If a person is born with an abnormally large wingspan there are undeniable advantages over everybody that wasn't.
  We don't limit abnormal body types in sports competitions, we elevate them. Wingspan in swimming, height in basketball, muscle in football, etc. It's already genetics, there's nothing inherently "fair" about athletics. Abnormally - but "naturally" - high levels of testosterone literally already give people an advantage in sports.
  There's nothing more or less unfair about giving normal - but "unnatural" - levels of hormone supplementation to people for legitimate medical reason, especially when there's so few transgender athletes in the first place, and no evidence whatsoever that they are particularly dominating a given sport.
  
  I think I know what you mean and it's true if you look at world class. But that's the reason why sometimes we use those properties to cluster people into groups to make it more fair. A lot of fighting sports are split into weight classes. We have paralympics, and we split many sports into male and female. Even in chess where almost everybody agrees that there is very likely no performance difference between man and women, but there are so many man playing chess that statistics alone tells you that most outliers (best and worst players) are also men.
  But with "fairness" you have to draw the line somewhere or the groups that are able to play against each other would be too small. In the extreme it would mean that it's only fair if you compete against yourself, like in trying to break you own personal records.
  Even paralympics aren't fair. It makes a difference to shoot with a bow if you are missing a leg, or an eye or an arm. Getting too specific will certainly make it fairer but would result in more groups and less people that would be allowed to compete against each other.
  I'm personally not interested in watching any form of spots, so I couldn't care less about who's allowed to compete against whom, but I think it's only understandable if people that went through puperty without testosterone would complain if they would have to compete against more and more people who went through testosterone puperty.
  
  But with “fairness” you have to draw the line somewhere or the groups that are able to play against each other would be too small.
  Exactly. You shouldn't draw arbitrary lines to split up groups of athletes such that one of the groups literally has nobody to play with.
  I think it’s only understandable if people that went through puperty without testosterone would complain if they would have to compete against more and more people who went through testosterone puperty.
  "More and more" people is doing some real heavy lifting here. Every statistic - every statistic - agrees that this is not a common situation at all. We don't hear the voice of a lot of transgender athletes because there are not a lot of transgender athletes. There's barely any. And many of them - like many cisgender athletes - aren't even good athletes.
  I think its only understandable if people that went through puberty without growing 3 feet taller would complain if they would have to compete against more and more people who naturally became 7 feet tall from puberty... but that's not happening. It's not common. It never will be common. And many people who do become 7 feet tall will never become competitive athletes.
  It's so uncommon to find a 7 ft tall athlete that when you do, you often find them dominating the local sports teams. They're allowed to play. Why shouldn't they? Recruiters follow them around the country. Colleges give them scholarships and national leagues give them millions of dollars.
  Their peers - the poor high schoolers that have to play against future national pros and olympic champions - they understandably complain that they don't have a chance of winning. They are upset when they lose, or never get to touch the ball, or get benched. And yet no national campaign. No public outcry against giantism. No superpower writing half-baked oppressive laws "protecting" short people. Nobody vilified Andre or Shaq for standing out and flexing on everybody. (Edit - and for the record, no transition by default gives athletic ability, or ever gives such a significant advantage as for e.g. height does in basketball)
  Why should we treat transgender people differently?

56 comments