Posted: Feb 26, 2019 7:36 am
Rachel Bronwyn wrote:Women are never going to be able to compete at an elite level again in many power sports if they're expected to compete against trans women who went through male puberty. Testosterone reduction isn't sufficient to level the playing field. Trans women retain a LOT of athletic advantages due to having gone through male puberty even with testosterone blockers.
I don't think cis women and trans women who didn't experience male puberty should be deprived of opportunities so trans women who did go through male development can play in female leagues. Forming teams based on gender identity alone results in people who went through male development dominating a lot of sports to the exclusion of those who didn't. It defeats the purpose of having women's sports at all if cis women and trans women who used puberty blockers just lose opportunities play and excel to people who went through male puberty.
I don't know what the solution is but I sure don't consider it fair that girls are losing opportunities to compete in spor1ting events because all the girls who beat them have male development and size on their side.
The solution is simple, Rachel, and that is to have competitions in which transgender individuals are excluded. We can't have one sense in which transgendered individuals are not discriminated against and another sense in which non-transgendered individuals are discriminated against. That just yields the conclusion that people discriminate.
I can, of course, envision a world in which no discrimination occurs because nobody competes any more. I don't wish for that; do you? If physical competition were still maximally meaningful, we wouldn't have computer nerds among the financial masters of the universe.
I personally would like to see competition move toward effective recognition of those with multiple abilities, but nobody wants a competition in which there are not clear enough winners and losers. A lot of individuals who achieve peak success in one area move on to develop in other areas as well. Weight-lifters/body-builders/sculptors, perhaps less so.
Thommo wrote:There's absolutely no requirement to compete against women in order to be elite.
The reason it's a problem is that categories are too broad. What kind of fool compares apples and oranges? Elite? Why don't people compete by ways in which their rankings are meaningful? Hint: Rankings are constructed.
What launched this thread?
TMB wrote:My readings across this is that the fundamental segregation between men and women confers advantages on women based upon gender and these arise from this.
There are all kinds of segregation/discrimination we could implement. TMB sees only one. Go figure. That's what you confront in a TMB thread.
TMB wrote:
Then the question is – weight categories are consciously imposed and accepted across certain sport types, what is the basis to do so, and why are these then applicable to divide sport along gender lines?
See? This is supposed to convince us that TMB considers lots of data and knows how to juggle statistics. Consciously imposed? Ooh! Consciousnessnessness, again. TMB considers so many factors, and you, too, can become distracted by them.