No Stupid Questions

The "issue" seems moot to me, personally. Between the facts that no one is transitioning in order get an upper hand in the sports world and that there are plenty of documented incidents of cis women athletes being falsely flagged as trans women due to their high testosterone levels... I just don't think it really matters. It isn't like there are record breaking trans women dominating the sports world. This "issue" mostly feels like an overt attack on trans people in general than genuine concern over the alleged purity of sport.

The people spearheading these attacks on trans people aren't interested in some nebulous notion of sports integrity, they simply want to further denigrate and attack an already maligned minority. They are concern trolling on a national scale and that I find deplorable and transparent.

I might be biased here, as I really couldn't care less about some Olympic notion of athletic purity, the idea itself feels somewhat eugenic adjacent, but I also think the impact of accepting trans women in sports is ultimately very minimal on the sport world, but huge for the progress of trans rights, something that I think is very important, especially in this day and age.

Furthermore, I think people outside of the propagandists trying to make this into an issue who care about this idea of purity in sports are being taken advantage of by malicious actors (aforementioned propagandists) who do not care about sports purity, but do care about repressing a maligned minority.

It's not even a real issue. The number of trans athletes is extremely small, and none of them are out there setting crazy records.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgender_people_in_sports

No, we absolutely should not mark the records of known transgender athletes in any way. Because once you start down that road you wind up asterisking cisgender athletes whose development is outside the norm.

We could get into a long discussion of transgender persons who do or do not undergo HRT, or how there are already rules against transgender women competing professionally if they aren't on HRT, or whether or not such rules or gendered sports at all are justifiable.

But all of that is just a distraction. The elite in any competitive sport are ALREADY several orders of magnitude beyond the norm, to the point where any advantage a trans woman might have for going through male puberty is essentially a wash with "are you just naturally well-formed for this sport".

It's worth noting, by the way, that there ISNT broadly an athletic benefit to having gone through wrong-gender puberty before medically transitioning. Plenty of athletes have done exactly that, and as far as I know exactly none of them wound up being relatively better among their true gender peers post-HRT than their standing among birth-gendeR peers pre-HRT.

And there have been more instances of cisgender women being wrongly accused of being trans than there are transgender women athletes at all.

I will maybe get destroyed for this comment, as I have in the past, but oh well...

The trans in sports topic shouldn't be considered this binary issue that defines your political alignment or morals.

It undeniably seems more complicated than some make it out to be. Use silly over exaggerated examples: if a man becomes a steroid popping powerlifter professionally, then decides to transition to being a woman, should he then be allowed to compete in women's powerlifting competitions? Over exaggeration, but there's a point isn't there? I don't really know, but it seems like in this thought experiment, she would easily beat out all other competitors. Insert any other sport where men dominate over women due to biology. Is this a bad way to think? If so, why? You made the example in swimming.

I will forever support and vote politically to protect all minorities, including the LGBT community. I will always reject bigotry. But saying this is not a complicated issue, just doesn't seem right. And questioning it in this way, doesn't make me a bigot. Let trans athletes compete in any sport? Categorize them differently? I don't know, Im not sure it's that easy.

At the end of the day, this stuff really is a distraction that creates infighting to shift focus away from more important things. The oligarchy likes this distraction because we're not talking about how they're exploiting all of us. This is the kind of thing where I say "I honestly don't know, but why aren't we taxing the billionaires?"

Every organized sport has some sort of governing body, and that body is concerned with making sure competition is fair. (And taking bribes, right, FIFA?) The people who organize the sport should be able to determine what is fair for their sport. Often, there will be some scientific basis for allowing some people and not allowing others, based on hormones or something like that.

The decisions should be made by people who know the sport and decide what fair competition might look like, not by asshole politicians looking to push an agenda.

My understanding is that there is absolutely no evidence that trans women have an advantage. Once hormone therapy has been going for a while performance shows no statistical difference from women assigned female at birth. I was listening to a report on the radio just yesterday.

Additionally the number of trans athletes is incredibly small.

I've heard that the greatest correlation with Olympic medal tally is the amount of state funding for sports and sport sciences. If we're going to asterisk any records, it should probably be for everyone from wealthy countries.

So, as an elder Millennial, the whole trans thing was foreign to me, and still is to many people my age. We just didn't talk about it like we do now, and when we did, it was always a joke, so the idea made us uncomfortable. I'm not saying it's right, I'm saying that's what a lot of people my age and older were raised on.

My default response to this was to agree that men should not play women's sports.

It was a Reddit conversation that made me change my mind. One person had said If we are banning people who were born with a penis from women's sports because they were born with an unfair advantage over other competitors, why aren't we banning people over 6.5' tall from the NBA? They were clearly born with an advantage that the rest of us don't have. Some people are born smarter, faster, stronger than others, that's just the way it is. There are a disproportionate number of black professional athletes, is that evidence that they were all born with an advantage? Would nearly as many people agree with banning black athletes from professional sports because of this apparent advantage? Of course not. They would call it out as a blatant hate crime, which is exactly what they are doing with trans people.

In all honestly I don't think amateur sports records matter and the people who say it does are only pretending to care about it to push their worldview.

I'll buy "Sanctity of Sport" arguments when pro ports stops being a blatant gambling, alcohol, and exploitation ring. Nevermind the fact that PED use is prolific at the top levels of sport.

Honestly, writing these thoughts down is giving me some existential dread. What does it mean to be human, and why?

Ha. You got to the core of the issue, my friend!

I don't speak for trans people or make any decisions but here's my thoughts:

No, because the people who hold records are already freaks of nature. The common example is Phelps who is biologically built different.
Or cyclists with a VO2 max that is literally unattainable by normies.
Or quarterbacks with vision better than everyone else.
Or, or, or

We're already allowing people with unfair advantages to win everything, why would allowing trans people to compete suddenly change things—especially when they aren't even winning everything?

You know what I'm fine with? A playerbase that is regulated to only accept those who are biologically average.
Them's some sports i might actually watch, tell yew whut

Not an expert, but have read news long enough to notice a few things get overlooked

there are cases where it would be a disadvantage. If the athlete went through full male puberty their skeleton is going to be larger and heavier than someone who went through female puberty, after enough time at typical female hormone levels muscle mass generally decrease to be inline with cis women. It would take more energy to haul your own bones. On the otherside of the coin, more recent transwomen may not have gone through male puberty due to the use of blockers, why should they be penalised

People also tend to focus on transwomen, but conceivably there are sports where transmen might be at an advantage, where a typically lighter smaller frame may be a win. There are also so few trans people competing at a competitive level that as someone who lives outside the american culture wars and tends not to give a shit about sport, it always seems like an such a waste of effort to make a drama out of it

The only way I see things working out is to get rid of seperations. Its just Bathrooms with floor to ceiling stalls or just multiple single person bathrooms, sports just have multiple leagues based on ability.

categorizing sports between women and men separately always seemed weird to me. Why is it not a global ranking? A global ELO system that makes sure every athlete fights other athletes in the same ELO range, doesn't matter man woman because it's based on performance/skill instead.

Good question. I just don't give enough of a shit about sports to have an opinion here. Especially a negative one. Not only that but I've literally seen no trans athletes perform in a televised physical sport ever. So they should go for it and if it's like a clear difference. Idk. Address it then.

I see a lot of people in my town talk mad shit about trans people and immigrants when the extent of their experience outside of media is seeing them one day living life and doing nothing disruptive. This issue always feels the same. Like if a ton of immigrants showed up and started doing... something bad? Fill in the blank here. I think that would be the time to deal with it and have strong opinions that could negatively impact them.

I think having a strong positive opinion that doesn't negatively impact people is great but when it comes to excluding people or hurting people let's see the damage they deal first.

We play sports for fun. Let whoever organizes the event decide.