To clarify, the pictured poster Caroline Kwan is an ally, not a TERF. The TERFs referred to in the title are the ones ‘protecting a very specific idea of what a woman is’
this post was submitted on 11 Aug 2024
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This is a pretty good take, except that the men's division is also protected. Performance enhancing drugs are not allowed, it is not a free-for-all open division.
I don't think anyone thinks the men's and woman's division should be combined because there is no good way to differentiate the difficult place in the middle; this is a classic heap paradox, just because the division between woman and not woman is difficult does not mean it doesn't exist.
Just one example from speed climbing men's WR = 4.74s, woman's WR = 6.06s; the men are 27.8% faster. No one is arguing that men are more dedicated and train more, that they have access to better nutrition or equipment. Men have a natural advantage; combining the divisions would simply mean that no women could possibly get into the top class competition. This maps across ALL sport.
Well, while mostly true, there are always exceptions.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20240731-the-sports-where-women-outperform-men
Tldr ultradistance events and some shooting
Interesting.
TIL there are people who swim marathons.
Should we have other protected divisions though? Why don't we have a protected division for people not born with attributes that help them? Making a division aimed at women and then not letting the best women compete in it seems rather dumb and it'd be similar to making a division for men who aren't athletic so they can compete without having to be the best.
We do, we have the Para-Olympics. But, it seems you're conflating being good with being scrutinized. The better you are in a protected class, the more you should be scrutinized to retain the class protection. It does not mean you will be disqualified... You may be the best ever in that protected class.
We could make a lazy couch division if we wanted to. I don't think anyone wants that.
Para-Olympics are divisions for people with disabilities. It's not for people without advantages (and I'm not saying there should be, just posing a hypothetical). If we don't allow the best women to compete because they're too advantaged, doesn't that also imply we should have other divisions for less advantaged people too?
Obviously the woman thing we're seeing is just conservatives policing what the idea of a woman is though. They don't actually care about the women or the sport. They were not watching women's MMA (or whatever the event was) before this happened. It still does bring into consideration what divisions we should have though, and whether women's division actually makes sense to have or if it should be something else, and what that should be. We don't have divisions for socio-economic status despite that playing a large role in most sports. Should we?
Just saying it was another type of protected division. I agree, the men's division is also protected to some degree from PED users. There is no clean solution. I like someone else's post about Heap Problems. It's clear there are naturally occurring classes of athlete, but the lines we draw are arbitrary, and that's just how it is. Just like any other science experiment, we must pick and choose variables that make the most sense, as we cannot infinitely slice.
Sports is full of divisions. Age divisions. Weight divisions. Each sport has its own set of rules based on what gives an advantage in that sport.