transgender
Welcome to lemmy.ml/c/transgender! This is a community for sharing transgender or gender diverse related news articles, posts, and support for the community.
Rules:
-
Bigotry, transphobia, racism, nationalism, and chauvinism are not allowed.
-
Selfies are not permitted for the safety of users.
-
No surveys or studies.
-
Debating transgender rights is not allowed. Transgender rights are human rights. Debating transgender healthcare is not allowed. Transgender healthcare is a necessity.
-
No civility policing transgender people. Transgender people have a right to be angry about transphobia and be rude to transphobes.
-
If you are cis, do not downvote posts. We don't like you manipulating our community.
-
Posts about dysphoria/trauma/transphobia should be NSFW tagged for community health purposes.
-
For both cis and trans people: Please alter your username (if possible) to include pronouns (or lack thereof, or questioning) so no one misgenders anyone. details. This rule is important for maintaining a safe place. If you can't change your ID, please let a mod know and include it in your bio.
-
Leftist infighting is not allowed.
Please remember to report posts that break any of these rules, it makes our job easier!
If you are looking for a more secure and safe trans space, we suggest you visit https://hexbear.net/c/traaaaaaannnnnnnnnns. While we will try our best, lemmy.ml/c/transgender is far more open to the fediverse, and also to trolls. One of the site admins of lemmy.ml, nutomic, is also a transphobe, while hexbear is ran mostly by trans people and has a very active trans community.
view the rest of the comments
Ignorant passerby here, and genuinely want to change my mind, but how exactly is it fair for a trans person to compete against a biologically female person?
If we go back to the original reason for this sexist devide, it stems from a fundamental biological difference between two genders. How we identify ourselves has little impact on these biological differences no?
Furthermore I was listening to a podcast recently and they were talking about how the greatest female tennisplayer to have ever lived is would be ranked 2 or 3 thousand in a unisex world ranking. Seeing a worldrecord being set by someone working within the confines of the female body is impressive, seeing that same record broken by someone without the same constraints just devalues the other persons achievement.
Bone density is actually one of the things that absolutely goes down with HRT, they even mention that in the study you cited.
This is all from the study you just linked, if you really are interested in learning maybe you could try reading the sources you're bringing to the table.
Just to close out, again citing the study you provided:
It's almost like this is a non-issue that is being brought up by assholes to discriminate against an out-group.
A reminder that this comm is not for debating trans rights, (rule 4) I've let it slide thus far, but I'm really starting to question my judgement.
Are you interested in defending your statements or learning?
Bone density in trans women actually can end up being lower than in cis women, citation
It's a tiny fraction of the population, even less of whom are going to be athletes. Cis women are perfectly capable of having higher testosterone levels and muscle mass than trans women.
Frankly a far bigger advantage when it comes to competing in sports is being wealthy enough to even have time/money to train for and attend these types of events on a regular basis rather than working to survive.
Don't get defensive then.
The reality is that the 'sanctity' of sports competition is and has been a farce, excluding trans people entirely is a shit way to address whatever supposed problem there is, and the people who are interested in excluding trans people don't give a shit about evidence anyways.
Not sure any cis or trans person can match your density
Wow for a so-called ignorant passerby you sure have a lot of talking points ready. That's amazing.
Wait, so, your solution to "gatekeeping being trans" is to gatekeep trans people?
I have to ask, are you trans yourself?
More than anything, I don't think you really get to have an opinion on what is, or is not, gatekeeping trans people. That's the sort of thing you need to "shut up and listen" to trans folks about. But that's just my take.
[edit: y'know what, this was a stupid post. Ignore this.]
You're welcome to an opinion on trans folks in sport, that's not what I'm speaking to. You don't get to come into a space for trans people, and dictate to us what is, or is not, gatekeeping being trans.
But yeah, pop off with a misleading quote I guess.
I looked up a study on google so now I will explain to all of you what your lives are like. I came here to be the professor not the student.
"Ignorant passerby genuinely want to change my mind" didn't survive a single reply
You used an example to do what? To argue your point, right? So fuck you. Be honest. Reddit brained troll.
Equating transgender women with cisgender men is biologically inaccurate.
The broader issue is discrimination, and if one class of people should be allowed to be singled out and discriminated against.
Isn't that the whole point of women's sports though? To exclude a class of people (men) so that others (women) have a chance to compete on their own?
But maybe that idea itself is flawed. Most high performing long distance runners come from Ethiopia and Kenya, do we create a whites only league?
There are physiological differences contributing to these things too. Why does gender have to be special?
Conversely: why do we segregate men and women for things like chess? There's no difference in ability there.
Maybe those ideas are what's outdated and wrong, and we don't need to erase a certain kind of person. Ignoring that trans people exist isn't as helpful as finding ways to include them
Just, this. Haven't anyone risen the point that in boxing there is segregation by weight? And in some sports by age? Also, clearly, black people in general have genetic superiority in (i think) explosive force and inferiority in swimming because of muscle fiber density.
However, wouldn't segregate athletes by "race" be called racist? Why doing so by "sex" isn't "sexist"?
Why aren't athletes segregate by testosterone levels, however way this should be measured? Or height? Or weight? Or foot length? Or age? Like, poor post-35 athletes, they can't have a fair race against 20-somethings, they have a natural disadvantage. Or, I don't know, just "marks", and let compete people with similar marks together, and let's see what people in different marks or categories have to offer. Anyone know whether if in boxing lighter fights are like faster or more agile than heavier?
All this biologicist criteria of "poor women" is bullshit. Yes, where there is a clear T gap and this gives cis women a fair competition and representation, and it has value, but it is taken to the absurd like with chess, as it's been already said.
Outside of sports, the definition of a "biological women" is also racist and eurocentrist. Like, european cis-women tend to have more hair than east-asian men. And african/black women tend to muscle up way easier than white men. Also, height difference betwen "sexes" isn't a thing in the Andes, it's just not real. And taking andinian people, they may be shorter in height and may not run as fast as a whitie, but take that race to 4000 m above sea level and let's see who can endure half a marathon and is "naturally superior".
I am really fed up by racist and patriarchal arguments trying to hide behind a science with overfunded biases.
As an egalitarian, I also inherently dislike divisions in competition based on demographic. Here's my understanding of why they exist (though my stating the justification here doesn't mean I tacitly agree):
Chess: currently, only about 40 of the 1600 grandmasters are women. To attain a balance, we ought to be encouraging women to play chess. Women-only competitions are a great way to do this. (There are almost no transgender chess grand/masters, so the same logic ought to apply here -- I don't understand any reason other than bigotry to exclude transgender women from such tournaments)
Sports: I think it comes down to a Schelling division. Now sure, there are other genetic advantages, perhaps race or leg length or height or other aspects influence one's athletic ability too -- top basketball players are generally many standard deviations above average height. However, those are spectra -- ranges -- so there's no obvious place to split into two categories. There are basically only two obvious, bright-line, ostensibly binary dichotomies that people tend to believe categorize humans: (a) sex, and (b) disabled status (see: paralympics).
Now, imagine there was a genetic allele that causes humans to be 9 feet tall. About half of humans get this allele. Then obviously we'd add a new category for these super-tall humans, just so that less-tall humans would have the option to compete in sports.
Some sports make divisions on a spectrum, like heavy-weight, medium-weight, light-weight boxing and so on. But these are pretty arbitrary, certainly not Schelling points, so it's less common for sports to use these divisions.
Now, I often find myself thinking, shouldn't those certain cis men who happen by nature to be less able than a typical woman be permitted in the women's category? My gut answer is yes -- but the problem here is that there's just no way to measure someone's natural capacity for ability. There's no bright-line, Schelling-point way to sort out these less-capable cis men. It sucks.
Valid points and I fully acknowledge my oversimplification. I just wanted to express that some of these alternate paths might be more fruitful and easier to solve than just having an apartheid society.
I like the idea of gender essentialism ≈ apartheid
For sure, I am very aware of the overlying issue here. And let it be known that I have always been supportive of the movement.
Biological and genetic differences are always contributing to why some athletes are better than others. Also: the science on trans athlete performance is mixed and unclear.
It's a complicated issue, but I'd sooner reevaluate our attitudes and culture around competitive sports before resorting to creating a lower class of person. Maybe we take these things too seriously.
To expand on this, maybe we just have tiers of competition regardless of gender (like leagues) and people play where the competition is kept even. It might stratify so that there is more mixing of genders in the mid range and trans athletes may also fall into that range (but again: science isn't clear).
Two points:
Top-level sports isn't fair. Most famous athletes are outliers in terms of height, weight, muscle mass, etc. Some, like Phelps, have genetic or developmental differences that give them a pretty significant advantage.
I must admit that the legal definition of 'transwoman' varies from country to country. In India, where I live, a person can legally change their gender without any medical intervention, and such people might have a physical advantage over cis-women. But in the vast majority of countries, they have to take hormones and / or do surgical procedures that reshape their body to be more 'feminine'. Once they do that, they have no significant advantage over cis-women.