Chelsea says "I coulda been the champion."

[UnseenParticipant]

There’s no doubt in my mind that trans people should be able to have full equality in most categories: housing, employment, medical care, etc.

However, women’s sports is a huge ball of wax. Males enjoy muscular and skeletal advantages that give them a huge advantage in most sports such that we’ve segregated them mainly to allow girls and women to be all that they can be and enjoy the rewards of competing and winning.

In the transition, which involves hormone treatent, some of the muscular advantages the biological male has are diminished, but not all. And there are no skeletal changes. As Chelsea explains in this video, this makes it disheartening to compete any longer.

Perhaps we need to create an “other” category for trans females.

NOTE: There is no parallel problem when it comes to trans males, which should tell you all you need to know.

[_Robert_Participant]

I feel that transwomen who compete in girls’ sports reflect poorly on the trans community. How can they think this is fair when they are able to just smoke the field? It is a shame because most young people are very pro-trans, but this forcing-of-will is probably a setback.

[DavisModerator]

There are certainly ways to ensure fairness and balance in transwomen competing in sports. There was already rules in place which ensured that trans-women were taking estrogen, had been doing so for a period of time, had transitioned and other measures which deemed there was no unfair advantage.

Alas, prejudice wins again and again. Under the guise of “fairness”, a swathe of rules came out effectively banning them from competitive sports. For many, with their homone treatment, they are no longer competitive in the mens field, not allowed to play with women. Once again, the new easy targets of prejudice (trans people) find them excluded. The most militant against them, fellow women (non-trans women) threatened by potential competition.

People do not even want to have a discussion about how it can be fair, don’t want to include trans-women in any way in sports and dismiss it’s possibility, even though there are ways to do so in a balanced and fair way. It’s just easier to exclude people, as we’ve always done. Remember, it was just a few decades ago women were excluded from major competitions (and people fought just as vilely against it with similar empty arguments), black people were excluded, even low-class people were excluded from certain sports. It is fascinating how on the one hand, a group of people pride themselves for being from a civilised, progressive, tolerant and inclusive country, and then so easily, with the smallest flick of the wrist, dismiss the mere possibility that trans-women compete in sports. No nuance, no debate. Boom. Excluded. It never ends.

[_Robert_Participant]

Debates won’t matter anyways; courts will decide one way or another and female athletes will probably migrate to certain states. Then it may eventually be decided by the SCOTUS.

[UnseenParticipant]

@ Davis

While I share your concern about prejudice against trans, and while I can put myself in the place of a trans woman who wants to believe that now she’s a real woman in every possible way, that just can’t be. She still has Y-chromesomes and much of her male anatomy, so it’s obvious that fairness is a real and urgent issue. Urgent because natural girls and women are having to compete against trans women right now and because they have only a small window of opportunity to try to be competitive.

People do not even want to have a discussion about how it can be fair, don’t want to include trans-women in any way in sports and dismiss it’s possibility, even though there are ways to do so in a balanced and fair way.

This is a discussion group. Give us some ideas to discuss.

I feel that for the same reason we have segregated female sports from male for the purpose of creating the famous “level playing field” for females, we can establish a third one for trans women.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

Davis wrote:

People do not even want to have a discussion about how it can be fair, don’t want to include trans-women in any way in sports and dismiss it’s possibility, even though there are ways to do so in a balanced and fair way. It’s just easier to exclude people, as we’ve always done.

I don’t think that’s true.  I think that most people want a fair situation but the field is young and we haven’t yet got a “trans women” category in sports.  That would solve the fairness problem in my opinion.

Of course there is the group of bigots who just hate anything trans.  But the rest of us, want fairness and inclusivity.  The question is how to achieve them.

[_Robert_Participant]

Simon Paynton wrote:

Davis wrote:

People do not even want to have a discussion about how it can be fair, don’t want to include trans-women in any way in sports and dismiss it’s possibility, even though there are ways to do so in a balanced and fair way. It’s just easier to exclude people, as we’ve always done.

I don’t think that’s true. I think that most people want a fair situation but the field is young and we haven’t yet got a “trans women” category in sports. That would solve the fairness problem in my opinion. Of course there is the group of bigots who just hate anything trans. But the rest of us, want fairness and inclusivity. The question is how to achieve them.

Having a “trans” category is essentially admitting that trans women are not really biological females. As far as I can tell that equates to transphobia in the minds of many transwomen and advocates.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

_Robert_ wrote:

Having a “trans” category is essentially admitting that trans women are not really biological females. As far as I can tell that equates to transphobia in the minds of many transwomen and advocates.

That would seem to be true.

[UnseenParticipant]

I will have to admit my bias here. I am the father of a girl athlete. She’s well into her womanhood now, but she worked hard as a child and teen and ended up financing her own education by being accepted onto the University of Nevada swim team. Trans female athletes was not a “thing” then and having to compete against “women” still with largely male physiques could possibly have cost her and her family big time.

So, don’t think there are no victims here.

My message to biologically female athletes is a cynical “Why try?”

Like I said, when it comes to most things like employment, housing, medical care, I am all for full equality. However, when it comes to turning the change into a special advantage over others, I find that unethical.

Trans women, unavoidably, will always be “women” with an asterisk. That’s not hate. It’s reality.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

Unseen wrote:

Like I said, when it comes to most things like employment, housing, medical care, I am all for full equality. However, when it comes to turning the change into a special advantage over others, I find that unethical.

I think a “trans women” category would be fair to everyone.  I don’t see how it wouldn’t.  At the moment, biological women get wiped out, and trans women are forced into a conflict they don’t have to be in.

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Simon,

I don’t think that’s true. I think that most people want a fair situation but the field is young and we haven’t yet got a “trans women” category in sports. That would solve the fairness problem in my opinion.

My two thoughts on this subject have always been:

1.) Why can’t they have “A League of Their Own”? Either that or make everything co-ed and deuces wild, no-holds-barred, which would be wild if it were something like ‘rasslin’!
😁

2.) Prior to this, did anyone, of any gender, really give a damn about women’s sports? I don’t even here it come up in women’s conversations.

[UnseenParticipant]

Simon Paynton wrote:

I think a “trans women” category would be fair to everyone.  I don’t see how it wouldn’t.  At the moment, biological women get wiped out, and trans women are forced into a conflict they don’t have to be in.

Something like that should be acceptable to fair-minded people. Unfortunately, that solution may be described by those who want trans women accepted as women in every way as a transphobic position. Many will stick to that position no matter how fairly wrought the solution that’s adopted.

Consider s less touchy and explosive example.

Suppose it becomes possible to surgically fix Tourette’s syndrome, but it has an unexpected side effect of vastly improving the subject’ analytical abilities. Then, suddenly, Whoa, all of the new winning chess grandmasters are people who’ve had this surgery. They win so frequently that almost anyone who hasn’t undergone this Tourette’s fix has become uncompetititive. To make matters worse, the enhancement only works for Tourette’s victims.

The winners will argue, “I always had a talent for chess that my Tourette’s kept hidden.” They will say this because they want to believe it and because they’ve become fantastically competitive at something which not only brings them pride but also income through prize money and coaching opportunities. This is understandable, but I think fair minded folk would see a problem in need of addressing in order to keep the game a sporting proposition for all.

Nowadays, high speed AI-driven computers can beat the best grandmasters just about every time, which makes such matches about as boring as forcing the fastest living humans to run against motorized vehicles or cheetahs. Who cares about that? We still wonder who the fastest humans are.

We have a parallel situation here. When does a needed fix actually function as a windfall enhancement exploitable by only a certain few, many without but some with ulterior motives.

I think trans women need to become all they can be in swimming, running, and all the other gender-segregated sports, but there needs, in all fairness, to maintain fairness for all who compete, not just for the trans women.

Davis is right that simply banning trans women is a terrible solution because it is unfair and prevents them from being all they can be. However, trans women who can function as just another woman most of the time, necessarily have an asterisk to deal with when it comes to  sports that reward strength and muscles.

Simon’s solution is about as fair a solution as there is. Having trans women compete against born-physically female women would be as unfair as having them compete against trans men.

As has been pointed out at least once to my recollection, there is a good reason why we segregated men from women in some sports and, by parallel logic, there are similarly valid reasons for segregating trans women from non-trans women.

We need to let born physically female women back into the sports we created for them. Now, they are losing swimming events by seconds rather then tenths or hundreds of seconds and longer running events by tens or many tens of seconds, to the trans women they compete against. Come on…that’s just wrong.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

TheEncogitationer wrote:

2.) Prior to this, did anyone, of any gender, really give a damn about women’s sports? I don’t even here it come up in women’s conversations.

I think women might say something different.  If it never came up in women’s conversations, that’s because it barely existed compared to how things are now, because men wanted to keep them out.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

Unseen wrote:

When does a needed fix actually function as a windfall enhancement exploitable by only a certain few, many without but some with ulterior motives.

We have to be charitable and not ascribe ulterior motives to people.  We don’t know what their motives are.  Presumably, they want to play sports, and also, yay for trans people.

Unfortunately, that solution may be described by those who want trans women accepted as women in every way as a transphobic position. Many will stick to that position no matter how fairly wrought the solution that’s adopted.

This is an example of ideology over facts in my opinion.  A trans woman is a valid person just like anyone else.  People are allowed to be trans, and it’s fine.  To say that a trans woman is a biological woman, just doesn’t seem true.  This dogmatic ideological position is responsible for much of the conflict we see over trans people I think.  If people didn’t insist on it, everyone could get along a lot better.

[UnseenParticipant]

Simon Paynton wrote:

We have to be charitable and not ascribe ulterior motives to people.  We don’t know what their motives are.  Presumably, they want to play sports, and also, yay for trans people.

I would not presume to judge an individual trans athlete off the top of my head. However, from what I know about people in groups—and trans people are people—some will have self-serving motives, and I stand by that. Self-servingness is what it is and I hesitate to go so far as calling it sinister.

[Author]

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