this post was submitted on 23 Dec 2023
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/dawnstaceyennis/2022/07/16/trans-swimming-champion-lia-thomas-nominated-for-ncaa-woman-of-the-year/?sh=66cc41192232
1 out of how many? Should we discount feats of atheletes like Lebron James or Michael Phelps?
And to be clear once again, I want more information and data and science behind this. Is this win an anomaly? Due to some biological advantage Thomas has? Is it because they were born male or is there something else? What is the overall data looking for competition?
And once again we're talking about high level competition which needs it's own set of rules. For lower division or tiers I don't think it matters that much.
Did you not read the comment i replied to?
Nice strawman. I'm not sure what the best solution is, but burying our heads in the sand isn't it.
Lia had a very close win in a meet where she mostly placed in the middle of the pack. She wasn't dominating the meet. Using her well deserved win as an example of "dominating women's sports" is at the very least extremely disingenuous and amounts to exactly what I identified as the thrust of the example for your argument.
Man, I wish we lived in a world where everyone could celebrate with Lia and her struggles weren't trivialized by an adolescent understanding of the world instigated by toxic conservative ideology.
Brave to transition. Brave to compete. Brave to win despite no one wanting her to.
As someone who is constantly cast as the underdog, who has to overcome that narrative, Lias story is my story and I'm happy for her.
I'm not attacking her or trivializing her athletic abilities. But pretending that she doesn't have an unfair advantage over her competition isn't a good solution to the problem. Sports are separated by gender for good reason. Lia transitioned later in life after she went through male puberty.
Women's sports are important and must be protected.
From the article:
So she won one competition and got middle of the pack on the rest.
How is this a problem?
The problem is she's trans. The most important thing to these people is trans people should be treated as lesser woman. If the Michael Jordan of womans swimming showed up and started crushing all the competition because of a biological advantage they would have no problem. Even if genetically she was intersex as long as she was born with a vigina she would be "playing fair." There is nothing fair about the genetic lottery and competition isn't about beating every other competitor. At the end of the day these people can't let go of, "not getting the trophy" and that's thier biggest issue.
I don't think people care in friendly matches, but people forget how many young girls' lives are impacted through scholarships or grants given through high school sports. When these competitions can change the course of your life, perceived fairness becomes much more important, not just for the athletes but their families as well.
My experience has been that even suggesting that someone might not be a hateful monster for questioning trans involvement in competitive sports, gets you banned from communities, and labeled a transphobe on Lemmy.
People aren't losing their scholarships to Trans women. This is a scenario you made up in your head.
Maybe they are. You accuse me of making the scenario up, but you literally just did the same thing. You can't possibly know they aren't. If I were a college that wanted to show how inclusive we were, I would absolutely pick a trans athlete for a scholarship, and since there isn't an infinite amount of money and scholarships available each year, it comes at the cost of someone else.
Since they don't tell us who they don't grant things to, there's no particular person who could ever claim victimhood, but it did cost someone who wouldn't have otherwise lost the spot. And not surprisingly, it breeds resentment towards trans athletes, which hurts the movement a whole. It's shitty all around.