Showerthoughts

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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted, clever little truths, hidden in daily life.

Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts: 1

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With the recent issues of transgender people in sports, why don’t we move some sports over to a weight-class system? (midwest.social)

submitted 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) by [email protected] to c/showerthoughts

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Obviously this won’t work for all sports, but things like football, track, soccer, it would allow for de-gendered team, even allowing athletes with the skills but not the genetically-endowed physical attributes to have a place to play.

Note: I know very little about sports and being on a sports team, so please point out anything that doesn’t make sense.

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[–] EGG_CREAM 11 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Unfortunately that’s just not true. There are a ton of people who use this as an excuse to oppress, and fuck them. But pound for pound, a person assigned male at birth is still going to have competitive advantage over someone assigned female at birth.

I don’t love the way this study words the problem, but I’ll quote it here: “Male physiology cannot be reformatted by estrogen therapy in transwoman athletes because testosterone has driven permanent effects through early life exposure.”[1]

I really wish it were as simple as it feels like it should be: trans men have the testosterone levels to compete with cis men, and the same for trans women and cis women. It’s really not that simple though, and pretending like the only barrier is hate won’t help things.

1 - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9331831/

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago (2 children)

I could train as hard as possible, for years, and I promise you I couldn't beat a single woman in the WNBA on a 1 on 1 game. I think it is important to remember, that yes, statically, men have an advantage, but each individual is unique. I think it would make more sense 1. Remove the profit motive from sports. 2. Have leagues based on skill, not gender. Of course, that will never happen. Match making in video games is a clear example of how it can work. If I was really into any competitive game, every time I played I'd be playing against people that were roughly equal to me. I suppose that is harder to do in team sports though, especially when there is money involved for the players.

[–] kava 3 points 7 months ago

Yes each individual is unique. But when you pick the top athletes in the world, you're not picking a random subset of the population. You're picking the most extreme examples from the edge of the bell curve.

At these levels, even a 3% difference in ability can mean the difference between 1st place and 600th. And the differences between men and women are much more pronounced than 3%.

Just do some research and look at the differences. Serena Williams, best woman tennis player, got absolutely dominated by 203rd male tennis player.

American women's soccer team got dominated by a high school boy's team. It just isn't there. I know people want to believe all sexes and genders are equal and they should be. But just because they are equal under the law or should receive equal treatment doesn't mean they are the same

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I could train as hard as possible, for years, and I promise you I couldn’t beat a single woman in the WNBA on a 1 on 1 game.

Yeah, but we both know that's because you're a short-ass weakling, be honest.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

That was my point.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Sorry dude, I found being unnecessarily rude to a total stranger amusing, but I agree with your point.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago

Im not disagreeing that there is valid science that can sort this out.

I am saying that the most powerful forces at play are those who just want to fuck with transgender athletes.