Sport is such an unfair world, trying to find equality and justice in it is futile. We don’t want kids taking growth hormones to boost their chances of making it into the NBA. But that also means we crush the dream of plenty of people. Athletes with asthma can’t use their inhaler under certain circumstances. A few years ago an UFC fighter with Asthma got his win overturned because he used an inhaler inbetween rounds.
There was a huge discussion about allowing prosthetics in “regular” competition. Turned out at the time that proshetics weren’t advanced enough to give an advantage. But I think we all know that this is only a matter of time. And eventually a hard ruling needs to be made that dictates in which direction sport goes.
Banning athletes who take as many hormones, hormone blockers, and other mediaction as transwomen usually take is 100% something that needs to happen. Especially considering that in certain leagues the usage of these substances is the only reason that transwomen are allowed to compete. That feels against the spirit of sport and TUEs. But untill more data exist, I doubt a useful ruling can be made.
What I don’t like about the whole discussion is going for the “They aren’t real women” argument. That feels degrading and hurtful for everyone involved. I don’t want cis or transwomen to have to undergo inspections to determine their gender.
Banning athletes who take as many hormones, hormone blockers, and other mediaction as transwomen usually take is 100% something that needs to happen.
Those hormone blockers block testosterone and the hormones they take are estrogen. Those are not exactly performance enhancing actions. In fact, they do the opposite. If anything, we should be making sure that trans women competing in sports should be taking hormone blockers and estrogen.
You need to re-examine your take because it is truly baffling.
Why do transgender athletes have such a problem with competing in the all-comers category instead of the women’s category, which is reserved for XX born females who have been producing all of the hormones you describe above since birth?
You just made up those requirements. Are XXX and XXY women not allowed to compete in your sport that you made up the requirements for? What about women with Swyer syndrome?
As for why women would prefer competing in a women’s competition, that question kind of answers itself.
But the “hormones” you generically refer to, aka fucking estrogen lol, and hormone blockers Trans women take aren’t an advantage. Ask any trans women, they make you weaker…
Like why point out trans women when trans MEN are taking a hormone that actually promotes strength and athleticism? TERF vibes
They make you weaker, perhaps, but are you at the same level as a cis woman who was never exposed to that level of testosterone?
And trans men are just competing against men that naturally produce those same hormones.
It is simply a complex issue that defies a simple answer.
There are plenty of cis women that have higher natural t levels than men, that’s why many sports already required people stay under certain t levels before trans sporting rights were even in the question.
Every woman has variations in their hormone makeups and history. Besides, the pool of trans women athletes is just so small, and the amount of vitriol is so disproportionate and obviously rooted in transphobia.
With your passion and drive, you would absolutely be a force to be reckoned with and a wonderful asset. It is such a shame that you are struggling so much with petty name calling and insults because instead of helping the trans cause, the actual effect you have is absolutely the opposite. You hurt it tremendously. You 100% come across as someone who is uneducated, childish, and mindlessly mean. You lack the ability to respond to anyone in a way that encourages them to see things from your point of view.
I’m sure that deep down you have some good points, you are just currently utterly unable to convey them. This is not a reason to give up though, just a reason to spend some time self reflecting. You can be so much better and more useful than you currently are. Not only will that help your community, but it will also help you enjoy your life more on a personal level.
The trans community is full of so many unspeakable incredibly amazing individuals. I’m sure you can find some to look up to and learn from. Good luck. I know you’ve got it in you!
lmao I’m not here to convince transphobic people of anything. take your smug tone-policing and shove it up your damn ass
boohoo waaaaa I said someone has terf vibes 😭😭😭😭
Many sports have two divisions: Open and Womens. This even includes ones like Chess and various e-sports. The NFL, NBA, and MLB all allow women, or at least have no rule banning them (In the former two cases, ever, in the latter, any more, the 1952 ban was rescinded in the 90’s.)
So to answer your question: Everyone can already compete in one division.
The NFL, NBA, and MLB all allow women
They may technically allow them, but do you think most women, even very skilled ones, would want to face the abuse they would get from players, coaches and fans if they decided to do it?
Just because it is allowed doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be a major hardship. And I think the vast majority of women in sports are smart enough to understand that is what they would face.
Replace women with black people and your argument sounds exactly like the enlightened individuals arguing that baseball shouldn’t be integrated even if there were black men out there good enough to play ball with white men.
Jackie Robinson absolutely understood that he would face unyielding discrimination. So did the flood of black ballplayers that followed him in the years to come. Hardship didn’t deter any of them.
Right, but no women? Not one since the introduction of the rule? I’ve know many female athletes and all of them would and could handle the abuse if they wanted to compete with male athletes.
So why have womens sports then why not just let everyone compete in one division?
Because that would be the end of female athletes.
Same reason weight classes exist in some sports. Put a featherweight against a heavyweight of similar fitness and experience and it would be terribly boring and no one would care.
And having competitors with insane testosterone counts won’t end “female” sports?
Who has insane testosterone counts? Most trans women have <1nmol/L. The boundary at the olympic level is 10nmol/L
We if we have people who are men in all but name competing in womens sports that wont kill female athletes? There are undenyable differences when it comes to sport and i doubt trans athletes are getting surgery to change their bone structure are they? Either eliminate all female athletes and let trans athletes compete as women or dont u cant have both its called doublethink.
Trans women have been competing in female sports for years and years, before 2016 and 2018 rule changes with regards to T levels (that no trans woman will have trouble meeting since their actual T level requirement is super high anyway) How come it wasn’t the end then?
Because there weren’t many of them. No one thinks any random trans woman is going to destroy all biological women. That’s just not the way it works. For example, 100% of female athletes would destroy my fat male ass in just about any sport.
But we’ve already seen specific sports dominated by specific trans women. Indoor cycling (Rachel McKinnon) and MMA (Fallon Fox) come to top of mind. We’ve seen amateur male powerlifters throw on a wig and call themselves a woman and smash olympic records in women’s sports.
As trans women in general as well as trans women in sports becomes more and more accepted, that will continue to happen, until women’s sports are ended altogether.
Simply put, if you deny that men are overwhelmingly better than women at sports, you’re putting feelings over facts. And only the feelings of one small group and ignoring the feelings of a much larger group.
Then you’d have people cry because most men would dominate most of those sports, leaving most women in the dust and with no chance of winning them.
Agreed honestly, the division of any thing by gender seems out of date these days. Go based on skill, age, or weight/height, something… just leave gender out of it.
Oh thank you. I needed a laugh, there is always someone that has to go full triggered keyboard warrior in these threads. Bunch of comments, all of them intentionally ignorant, purposefully bad faith and I suspect you just LOVE feeling like the only smart person in the world.
Well, you are being a downvoted for a reason. And that is most people are bored of these little edgelord takes. But good on you for keeping sticking to your guns in the face of context, reason and public mockery, you sure are “brave” for being the only person with “the truth”, pity not everything brave is also smart.
😂
I have said it before and I’ll say it again: this issue exists to stir up controversy. Very few people can ever be professional athletes, but lots of people suffer as a result of the hostility generated by this debate.
Also, very few people talk about trans men in sport. There’s no real justification for excluding trans men from sport other than fragile egos of male athletes being scared of being outperformed by an afab athlete.
Also also, if we’re making the argument that people with higher exposure to testosterone for a short duration in their life have increased athletic performance (which to be clear is kind of true but not actually relevant for all trans women), then I have to remind you that anabolic steroids can benefit athletes for up to a decade, which is exactly much fucking longer than these drugs remain detectable in an athlete’s system.
Also also also, professional sport is stupid and doesn’t deserve this much attention. It certainly shouldn’t be allowed to stir up this much hate toward regular ass trans folks just wanting to live their damn lives, but it does have that effect.
Also, very few people talk about trans men in sport.
Very few people talk about trans men in general. Virtually all the defense for anti-trans policies and laws is built around rhetoric about protecting women from “men in dresses” or the like. One thing trans men succeed at is gaining the social invisibility cis men tend to have.
Which is weird, because if you believed the usual progressive rhetoric about gender you’d think trans men would be viewed as women trying to steal men’s patriarchal privilege for themselves and would be treated as even more of a problem than trans women. Rather than anti-trans rhetoric being mostly concerned with maintaining protected spaces for women.
The narrative around trans people, whether it’s bathrooms or sports, is always around cis men pretending to be trans women to invade women’s spaces.
I agree with you except for your last point. Even if you don’t have a personal interest, it’s a massive industry with hugely influential celebrities.
In general, and I’m sure some people here will be incensed at the suggestion, people do not give a shit about women’s sports and the only time many of them do is when they find out a “man” is competing in them.
Most of the women in women’s sports who are asked support trans inclusion (somewhat sport dependent, some sports are historically more queer friendly than others) and find equal pay to be a much bigger issue for women’s sports. For some reason nobody who is “concerned” about women’s sports wants to hear that, though. 🤷♂️
The reason for women getting paid less in sports is due to advertisement revenue. Not as many people watch women’s sports, so advertisers pay less. This results in female athletes getting paid less. I know that economics is not everyone’s strong point, but you really don’t have to get very deep into it to understand this concept, all it takes is an open mind and the willingness to learn something new.
Wow, I honestly thought Lemmy would be less transphobic. This totally rational comment downvoted for no reason. If most women in sports aren’t concerned about trans women being there, why are all these assholes concerned about it.
If you’re position is excluding trans women from sport because of vibes you’re just a transphobe.
There is no rabid hoard of transwomen waiting to overrun sport and sweep the awards. Until recently this wasn’t even an issue, the Olympics has allowed trans women to compete from like 2000. Where are the medals?
We’re a tiny population who generally perform worse than natal women because our T is lower. Despite all the contrived “just asking questions” about skeleton size or whatever nonsense there is no clear picture of advantage. At any rate tall women aren’t banned from sport. Even women with PCOS aren’t banned from sport.
We don’t have seperate leagues for people raised in stable households on good diets and yet that’s got performance benefits that swamp anything from having a slightly higher forearm to middle finger ratio or whatever insane thing people bring up.
This whole thing is completely drummed up and is just an acceptable way for the general unease cis people feel about trans people to be voiced.
We don’t have seperate leagues for people raised in stable households on good diets and yet that’s got performance benefits that swamp anything from having a slightly higher forearm to middle finger ratio or whatever insane thing people bring up.
This is actually a really good point. There’s no much natural variation in body types and hormone levels.
It is interesting that you bring up the fact that not many transwomen are winning medals. Would it be a problem if they were? If so, what percent of women’s medals going to transwomen would make you decide that transwomen shouldn’t be allowed in women’s sports?
The point of all leagues/divisions/brackets is to foster community and competition. Consistent domination of any one group of people stifles that.
If people with green eyes started winning every single javelin competition it would be a reason to consider making a green eyed javelineer league assuming their was the numbers and interest to support it (otherwise you’re just banning green eye’d javelineers de facto).
Fascinating! This is a take I think I’ve never come across. Am I right in assuming that you think there should be light-skinned and dark-skinned events in the Olympics then? There are many events that almost always go to dark-skinned individuals. The same thing holds for many professional sports.
This is a really interesting idea. I doubt it will happen, but if it did, I wonder if we would see the same people claiming that female athletes dont get paid enough claiming the same for white male athletes.
I have to say, I am quite surprised by your response. I really appreciate that! Thank you very much!
If this is all drummed up, then why do transgender athletes have such a problem with competing in the all-comers category instead of the women’s category, which is reserved for XX born females who have all of the disadvantages you describe above since birth?
The same fucking reason why people resented segregation you idiot.
You are not this stupid, this is entirely bad faith. Just say “I find trans women gross and I don’t give a shit about trans men” instead of pretending you have anything principled to say.
Except skin color does not affect athletic performance whereas sex does. There is a huge difference in segregation and this topic.