STOCKTON, CA—Cackling as the steps of the dastardly plan crystallized in her mind, local trans teen Brie Chandler told reporters Tuesday that she had hatched a nefarious plot to undergo years of medical treatments and counseling to win at swimming. “It’s oh, so simple: several years of sweet-talking medical…
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You realize that most trans women undergoing HRT have less testosterone in their systems than many of their cisgender competitors, right? Women naturally have some testosterone in their body; if they have PCOS, then they have a lot (in comparison to other cis women). Trans women on HRT take medicine to block testosterone, so while their body might generate the most of all, the amount bioavailable to them after the medicine neutralizes it is less than non-PCOS cis women have. If the sports debate was about testosterone providing an unfair advantage, then we would ban cis women with PCOS from competing, but we don’t.
In the case of teenagers, it’s even simpler - contrary to propaganda, very very few doctors are willing to put a minor on HRT. Instead, they simply give them puberty blockers to delay the onset of puberty until they’re over 18 and can decide for themselves whether to go on HRT or not. So, a 17yo trans girl is developmentally equivalent to a 10yo boy - her muscles are massively under developed compared to any of her cis competitors.
So whether adult or teen, a trans woman winning at sports is not someone with an unfair advantage; rather, it’s someone with a massive disadvantage managing to win despite her handicap.
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It’s not a problem because it’s not happening to any meaningful degree. Trans women continue to be under, not overrepresented in high end sports, because there isn’t a meaningful advantage after a couple of years of HRT. Please provide examples of this problem you claim exists.
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Riley Gaines, who tied for fifth behind a number of cis women? Yeah, she looked at her future in sport and decided that grifting was easier and would pay better.
Taylor Silverman, the skateboarder? You want to tell me about the super secret male advantage she lost to? I’m not seeing it. Are you going to claim that banning trans women from chess was reasonable too?
People who are speaking up about this are bigots and sore losers. Trans women don’t win disproportionately, there’s no meaningful advantage, and all anyone ever has are anecdotes, almost all of which fail to check out to any meaningful degree. Riley Gaines didn’t even go down a slot so what the fuck do you want here? Trans women don’t get to compete, regardless of fairness? Because if so, say it with your fuckin chest. Don’t try to pretend it’s about fairness.
When the punishment for expressing yourself on the matter is immediate aggression, and being labeled a bigot and transphobe, possibly getting kicked out of school and losing everything you’ve worked towards up to this point, we can’t rely on women coming forward.
You know… like the same circumstances women face standing up for themselves in every other aspect of their lives.
Which is, of course, why randomized anonymous surveys with large sample sizes show that this is actually a thing for a large number of women who are just too terrified to speak up oh no they don’t, damn. Kind of cuts the legs out from under that sort of “silent majority” argument, which is almost always used to advertise the views of the noisy minority.
Shut up, TERF.
Living in a land of make-believe. Imagined enemies everywhere. It must be exhausting.
This stuff has obviously been in the news, we’re talking about it right now.
https://youtu.be/-Fb48tivB-0?si=mz-rJsvyaYunZNot
Your second link didn’t load for me. Your first was a propaganda network with a woman complaining about a trans girl being beaten by two cis girls. Ki d of seems like the girl in fourth should have been practicing harder like the girls in first and second did. Your news sources are lying, shading the truth, and using loaded language, to make and keep you angry so you don’t make good decisions in life, and you should consider getting new sources.
It’s “been in the news” because it’s an alt right “wedge issue”. There is nothing meaningful here other than to advance hateful ideology to rubes, both siders, and those looking to be anti trans with plausibility
“Look! An instance! It must be happening everywhere all the time because I can point to a time it kinda happened but not really!”
Oh, just go fuck all the way off, bigot.
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Funny how it always comes out once you ask a few questions.
Dude, no matter how you feel, that was some ignorant ass language from LemmyKnowsBest lol.
“Real woman”, “trans man woman”.
Obviously, someone who doesn’t know the first thing about trans people holding strong opinions about trans people.
That’s a big ol fat yikes from me.
Is current testosterone the only consideration? Or could having higher testosterone earlier, even though you’re on par with peers now, give you a musculoskeletal advantage?
Bro I’m weak as shit after 1.5 years on HRT. All the musculoskeletal advantage I have is kinda wide shoulders for a girl.
It was genuinely funny how i couldn’t do pushups or open jars easily anymore.
That’s not a useless anecdote but I was looking more for data on this, if it exists.
I’d also have questions about your ability to build muscle as compared to someone who was assigned female at birth.
As an aside, this is very much outside my area of expertise and if I’ve used the wrong terms during this discussion I’m open to being corrected.
There are some published studies but I won’t link them because they are very specific. They tracked thigh or quad muscles specifically. Feel free to look them up though.
Building muscle is a lot more difficult for me. You could politely ask any trans people if you have more questions about transitioning.
Also don’t worry about saying the wrong thing, you’re all good.
You have one of the longer comments under this post -
Are you familiar with the lifter from this comment? Hoping for an educated debate, as it’s outside my knowledge area.
If we’re considering testosterone to be a PED, perhaps we should ban everyone from sports…
On a more serious note: why not advocate for putting people into “testosterone-level groups”, similar to how boxing, etc, do it with weight classes? Rather than just excluding trans women from competing.
I also feel I have to ask: how do you feel about your niece losing in competitions to cis women who have biological advantages, such as higher (natural) testosterone levels, longer limbs, bigger hands, smaller busts, etc?
There is more to it than just “current testosterone levels” because (like you mention in your question at the end) biological birth sex as a male would likely afford the person with a larger frame, muscles/skeletal structure, bigger hands, longer legs, etc.
And to answer your question: no I wouldn’t have a problem with cis women competing with each other. Obviously, natural differences exist and set people apart. But sport and competition is predicated on a foundation of fair play, personal excellence, and mutual respect among participants.
Any artificial advantage or thumb on the scale, for whatever reason, undermines the integrity of the competition, devalues the effort of athletes, and erodes the spirit of the game.
Naturally occurring differences like extra testosterone, height, or flexibility might be advantages but they aren’t unfair because they are inherent to the individual’s unique physiology and not externally imposed or artificially enhanced. That’s the line we’ve drawn for sport and competition for centuries.
So no, that wouldn’t bother me at all.
So there is no problem then, since by your own word naturally occurring differences aren’t unfair. Trans women who transition even put themselves at a disadvantage compared to pretransition.
Oh and trans women are real women, just like any other woman. They are not second class women, or “kinda women but really not”, they are 100% women. Same goes for trans men. And the whole “biologically male/female” strawmen has never been true but still evolved into this transphobic talking point to justify hate.
Biology isn’t a pseudoscience, if that’s what you meant by “biologically male/female strawmen.”
and trans women are not biologically female. that’s not hatred. they are physically different. two different sexes. that’s not insignificant no matter how much you want to ignore it.
bodies of different sexes are different.
“Biologically male/female” is a strawman? Huh?
This whole argument is so fringe and inconsequential it should really be handled by the board running the organized sport and not a matter of national debate. If the organization clearly states the rules they use to determine to who can compete and you agree to those rules when you sign up then there is no argument.
Just a note, there’s some studies that have shown that a massive proportion of high tier female athletes actually have chromeosone issues that would put them into the intersex category.
Shh, stop. They need their false narrative
So if that trans woman also worked hard, got up at 4am for practice, and also spent weekends training and going to meets, she doesn’t deserve to win after her own hard work?
Not at all in the women’s league, no.
Men have a biological advantage in sports, there’s no way around it. It’s a fact
Does she deserve to win solely because she has the skeleton structure and muscle mass of a biological male from birth.
Is a cis male allowed to compete as a male if he takes the same drugs for 6 months? a year? ahead of the competition?
Honestly, it should be up to whoever is organizing the event.
If you have a problem with how the hosts run their competition, withdraw and/or make your own.
Really depends. For people that never went through puberty of their birth sex there’s effectively no difference in terms of strength.
After adulthood it’s definitely debatable, after a few years of treatment physical capabilities mostly align but not entirely, and while unlikely it would kinda suck for the rest if someone did win olympic gold bc of anatomy differences or something (plus countries with a history of cheating potentially could abuse it by sending an athlete that is not actually on HRT). I also don’t think the ability to compete in high level sports is anywhere near a fundamental human right.
However it would also suck for the transwoman in question having to choose between high level competition in the sport they likely poured their life into and transitioning (as there is no way a transwoman on HRT could ever compete at the highest level vs males in sports unless it’s something where cis women can, too).
Personally I’d argue for pro sports requiring proof of consistent HRT for x amount of time (based on studies of at what point physical capabilitues are equal for the vast majority) should be sufficient. If against all odds we end up with a disproportionate amount of transwomen winning competitions (we won’t) rules could still be changed.
At an amateur level it makes very little sense to restrict transfems, the difference isn’t great after a while on HRT and so much of the point of amateur sports is usually on a social level that if you restrict transpeople from playing/competing with their own gender, you will often remove a large reason for wanting to do that sport in the first place.
Are trans women keeping her from winning competitions? Last I heard they aren’t dominating anything.
Nice job on the appeal to emotion too. It isn’t like trans people still have to put in the work to do well and have their own challenges to overcome. They have to compensate greatly.
To be clear about my opinion on trans people in sports (because we always ignore transmen here), I am waiting for sports and exercise scientists to do more research and make more conclusions. The science is too nebulous on it. Women’s medicine is centuries behind, and trans medicine even further.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/dawnstaceyennis/2022/07/16/trans-swimming-champion-lia-thomas-nominated-for-ncaa-woman-of-the-year/?sh=66cc41192232
1 out of how many? Should we discount feats of atheletes like Lebron James or Michael Phelps?
And to be clear once again, I want more information and data and science behind this. Is this win an anomaly? Due to some biological advantage Thomas has? Is it because they were born male or is there something else? What is the overall data looking for competition?
And once again we’re talking about high level competition which needs it’s own set of rules. For lower division or tiers I don’t think it matters that much.
Is there a point you’re trying to make with that link?
Did you not read the comment i replied to?
Nice strawman. I’m not sure what the best solution is, but burying our heads in the sand isn’t it.
Lia had a very close win in a meet where she mostly placed in the middle of the pack. She wasn’t dominating the meet. Using her well deserved win as an example of “dominating women’s sports” is at the very least extremely disingenuous and amounts to exactly what I identified as the thrust of the example for your argument.
Man, I wish we lived in a world where everyone could celebrate with Lia and her struggles weren’t trivialized by an adolescent understanding of the world instigated by toxic conservative ideology.
Brave to transition. Brave to compete. Brave to win despite no one wanting her to.
As someone who is constantly cast as the underdog, who has to overcome that narrative, Lias story is my story and I’m happy for her.
I’m not attacking her or trivializing her athletic abilities. But pretending that she doesn’t have an unfair advantage over her competition isn’t a good solution to the problem. Sports are separated by gender for good reason. Lia transitioned later in life after she went through male puberty.
Women’s sports are important and must be protected.
From the article:
So she won one competition and got middle of the pack on the rest.
How is this a problem?
The problem is she’s trans. The most important thing to these people is trans people should be treated as lesser woman. If the Michael Jordan of womans swimming showed up and started crushing all the competition because of a biological advantage they would have no problem. Even if genetically she was intersex as long as she was born with a vigina she would be “playing fair.” There is nothing fair about the genetic lottery and competition isn’t about beating every other competitor. At the end of the day these people can’t let go of, “not getting the trophy” and that’s thier biggest issue.
I don’t think people care in friendly matches, but people forget how many young girls’ lives are impacted through scholarships or grants given through high school sports. When these competitions can change the course of your life, perceived fairness becomes much more important, not just for the athletes but their families as well.
My experience has been that even suggesting that someone might not be a hateful monster for questioning trans involvement in competitive sports, gets you banned from communities, and labeled a transphobe on Lemmy.
People aren’t losing their scholarships to Trans women. This is a scenario you made up in your head.
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When climbing started to become a televised sport, they changed the entire format to support televised timings. When they have athletes who are way taller or way shorter, the routes etter needs to take that into account for the setting for the comp.
Honestly, I think the sports and or rulesets could take a pass and see if there’s anything they can do to find a middle ground that can suit trans-athletes and cis-gendered athletes more equally.
That’s said - I’m not very competitive of me, so my opinions Wil always be biased. While I think competitions push the sports I also have seen firsthand the toxicity and negativity high level sports bring. So basically, I think inclusivity and sportsmanship is more important that integrity of the competitive nature.
I’ve heard the same argument from ‘whataboutist’ rightoids from Reddit when they started bitching about Lia Thomas and people blaming Katey Ledecky, a cis woman, for being trans. Also, this same group loves to bitch about Fallon Fox forget about Patricio Manuel, complain about Nyla Rose and twist the story about Mack Beggs.
If your niece loses then maybe you should teach her to lose gratefully rather than just jumping to blame someone else for her shortcomings no matter their gender, height, weight, natural talents, hormone levels, zodiac sign, etcetera
I don’t know any of those names except Katey ledecky.
My niece is a great sport and competes mostly against herself and works on beating her times. I don’t even know how she’d feel about something like that. She’s a great kid and she’d probably grin and bear it.
But I think it’d be horse shit if she had to. We separated men and women’s sports for a reason. We dont let 20 year olds compete in little league. We don’t let Olympians use performance enhancing drugs. Competition and sport needs some bounds for fair play.
Ensuring a level playing field is crucial, acknowledging natural talents and physical differences, while drawing a line at artificial or external enhancements that could skew competition. It’s about maintaining the spirit of fairness and respect in sport, so everyone has the opportunity to compete and excel based on their natural abilities and dedication.
Should we just abolish women’s sport then and have only open competition?
I play women’s sports and we’re fine. Thanks.
At an elite level? Where it’s your source of income? Where you stand to inspire young girls?
If women’s sport is opened to biological males, it is only a matter of time until the top level is entirely dominated by biological males. In most physical sports college men regularly beat women’s world records. It’s just simply not fair.
Yes.
I work like other people.
Coaching and community events.
It’s like you don’t see women who happen to be trans as women.
Maybe your elementary school understanding of this isn’t the best.
Ah yes, being male means that you are always better at all sports than female sportspeople. The mark of maleness is so strong that even after you are no longer male, the maleness lingers and makes you powerful enough to have an unfair advantage and beat all the women. /s
No transperson kept your niece from winning, did they? It’s a boogeyman waved before you to justify making people feel excluded from society because they challenge gender norms.
If a transwoman ever beats my daughter at sport…I’ll be proud of the team for being inclusive. If a transwoman outperforms my daughter and obtains a scholarship ahead of her…I’ll ask why scholarships have to pay for her education.
Society is at fault here, not transwomen.
That’s easy. We just declare “woman” has no solid meaning, it is just whoever says they are a woman. Then we will declare there are zero biological differences between the sexes, some women are just stronger than you. Get gud, scrub. Go against any of these declarations, you are the bigot.
So this is what the deep end looks like.
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