Oh my goodness! No, totally wrong, totally false dichotomies. All the challenges thrown up about misogynist violence, sexual harrassment, lack of equal treatment of women’s teams — all of those are about the protection of biological women who have faced discrimination and harassment because of their biological makeup and identity. Of course there is a clear and obvious unfairness in having biological women competing against biological men in many kinds of sports. That ought to go without saying. And one can be a strong advocate for human rights of trans people while at the same time maintaining the rights of biological women, too. And that ought to go without saying, too. Why throw up some gratuitous accusation of transphobia at anyone who wants to protect biological women vis a vis biological men? I normally find myself likeminded with Mano Singham but on this topic I am with Ophelia Benson of Butterflies and Wheels.
An accusation of transphobia is not gratuitous if it’s true.
Something I have never been able to understand about you weird transphobes -- and maybe you can help me here -- why is it that you all seem to think that brains are not biological?
Holmssays
John, yes, that’s the one panel where the guy fairly represents my position. After that one, the accuracy vanishes.
billseymoursays
I’m with #4 and #5, although I don’t get the comment about brains. Maybe it’s too early in the morning. 😎
But I wonder whether trans women will have an unfair advantage in women’s sports if they retain the upper body strength that one normally associates with males. Yes, there’s lots of overlap; but we’re talking about folks at the high end of both curves.
I remember a post by FtB’s Andreas Avester about not wanting to buy too much at the grocery store because of the problem of carrying much weight up several flights of stairs to get to his apartment. The weight he mentioned did seem a bit heavy to me, but not enough to cause a major problem when done only occasionally; and I’m over 70 years old.
And many years ago, I read Martina Navratilova’s autobiography in which she said plainly that middle-ranked male tennis players could regularly beat high-ranked women. She gave her own practice games with her coach as an example.
In the end, it’s all about fairness. The default should certainly be that male/female, cis/trans or racial distinctions should make no difference when it comes to people being permitted to excel; but I can see making exceptions on a case-by-case basis when one group would likely have an unfair advantage.
OTOH, it’s not like we’ve exhibited such fairness in the past. I watched the first two hours of Ken Burns’ Baseball last night. A handful of African-Americans made it to the big leagues in the late 19th century; but they were quickly excluded for no reason other than a particularly ugly form of racism.
brucegee1962says
OK, time for me to jump into the flame pit, since it’s already started.
FIrst of all, I disagree with Jen Sorensen in this cartoon. If I fully support the right of trans people to use whatever restroom they wish, support their right to join the military, respect their pronouns, support their access to medical counseling and puberty blockers at an early age, and would be fully accepting and loving of my own children or colleagues if they came out as trans, but was hesitant on this one issue of sports, does that make me a transphobe?
Secondly, why do we have separate sports for men and women, anyway?
If the answer is for social reasons — locker rooms, physical contact — basically the same reasons people give for separate bathrooms — then we can easily imagine a society in which those distinctions have been overcome. I can’t remember whether it was Aliens or Starship Troopers, but it isn’t hard to imagine a future society where those kinds of gender distinctions are disregarded. In that case, there is no particular reason to have separate mens’ and womens’ sporting categories at all.
Or is the gender division there to ensure fairness in competition — something like weight classes in boxing, or ELO rankings in chess? In that case, segregating athletes by gender seems like a crude divider. Instead, we could do something like the marines do — set up a level of achievement to make the “varsity team,” and allow in anyone who makes the cut regardless of gender. If you can make four out of five free throws and sprint 50 yards in X time, then you’re on the team.
In other words, the point I’m trying to make is that every argument I can think of for allowing trans women to play womens’ sports, also seems like it would be an argument for getting rid of all gender segregation in sports entirely. And I can see legitimate reasons why cis female athletes might be upset about that.
The alternative, if we keep on with gender-segregation but allow trans women to compete with cis women, is that over the next decade, in sports where upper body strength is a deciding factor (like tennis in @7’s example), it is quite likely that we will see more and more record-holders, world champions, and gold medalists who are trans women. No doubt these women will be legitimately hard-working and superbly well-trained athletes who train tirelessly and are in top shape. Nevertheless, the cis women coming in second and runner-up feel will feel unfairly treated, and I’m not sure that feeling will be unjustified.
For what it’s worth, my understanding of what some sports are doing, where testosterone is used as a proxy for gender, may be the best we can do for now. It’s a tough issue, though, and I don’t like cartoons like this that oversimplify it.
Aoife_bsays
So where are all the trans superstar athletes? If it’s as simple as y chromosome equals superior genetics, why aren’t trans folks the top athletes? Keep in mind the Olympics have allowed trans women to compete for years.
mnb0says
Quite some commenters seem to miss the point of the cartoon: the hypocrisy of those who maintain “allowing trans athletes to participate in women’t sports is so unfair!” So let me explain. the problem is hardly as urgent and important as all the other ones mentioned.
Get your priorities right -- some transgender winning a gold medal or being robbed from that opportunity should be much, much lower on the list than all the injustices mentioned. Reread the second panel, please, especially the words “setting aside”. You don’t? Makes me think you don’t care about social injustice either, like that guy in the comic.
So I simply refuse to take sides on the question if transgenders participating in women’s sports.
brucegee1962says
@9
So you’re saying Sorensen’s argument is exactly the same as Dawkins “Dear Muslima” letter. There are other issues that are more important, so why are you bothering about this one? As long as there are large injustices in the world, we shouldn’t care about smaller injustices. Anyway, the only people being hurt are cis female athletes, and I don’t know any of them, so they ought to just shut up already. Gotcha.
Usually that particular argument gets trotted out by the right, but it’s nice to see it’s available to anybody.
Holmssays
#7 billseymour
And many years ago, I read Martina Navratilova’s autobiography in which she said plainly that middle-ranked male tennis players could regularly beat high-ranked women. She gave her own practice games with her coach as an example.
This brings to mind the confident (brash?) challenge issued by the Williams sisters while they were teens experiencing a meteoric rise in rankings. They declared that they could beat any male tennis professional! …So long as he was ranked outside the top 200. Interesting that they would tailor their challenge so if there was no inequality between the sexes, but whatever.
Their challenge was taken up by some guy whose name I don’t recall because he was never anywhere near as famous as the sisters. He was ranked at 203. He took them on one after the other, one set each, and he crushed them both.
The sisters then revised their challenge: they would take any man on… provided he was outside the top 350.
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#8 brucegee
segregating athletes by gender seems like a crude divider. Instead, we could do something like the marines do — set up a level of achievement to make the “varsity team,” and allow in anyone who makes the cut regardless of gender. If you can make four out of five free throws and sprint 50 yards in X time, then you’re on the team.
There is a large problem with that scheme, and I’m surprised you can’t see it given you seem to acknowledge the existence of physical disparity between the sexes. If an athletics team or football team or (etc.) is looking for the best of all applicants to take the available spots, they will all -- or nearly all -- be filled by men (The ones born male btw). The female sex will nealy vanish from teams, and will completely vanish from podium placements.
Have a look at say, sprint times to see what I mean. Compare the fastest women in the Olympics perhaps, to the men competing under equal terms. Go through all of track and field and see how many female competitors make it to the top three if women’s and men’s events were merged. I’d be surprised if there was even a single one.
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#9 Aoife_b
Veronica Ivy.
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#10 mnb0
Hello, Dawkins! I had no idea you commented here.
brucegee1962says
@12
There is a large problem with that scheme, and I’m surprised you can’t see it given you seem to acknowledge the existence of physical disparity between the sexes. If an athletics team or football team or (etc.) is looking for the best of all applicants to take the available spots, they will all — or nearly all — be filled by men (The ones born male btw). The female sex will nearly vanish from teams, and will completely vanish from podium placements.
My argument, I guess, was unclear. My point was that most arguments in favor of allowing trans women to compete against cis women are also arguments for abolishing gendered sports altogether, in a manner like that which I outlined here.
Let me put it another way. Suppose someone got on this thread and made the exact proposal that I made in @8 — that we should no longer have gendered sports at all, and if that meant that cis women and trans men were pushed out of all the top spots, well, tough noogies. I’d like to challenge those supporting Sorensen: would you agree or disagree with that poster? And if you would disagree, what arguments would you use that could not then be turned around and used against Sorensen’s position?
Deepak Shettysays
@Holms
Have a look at say, sprint times to see what I mean. Compare the fastest women in the Olympics perhaps, to the men competing under equal terms. Go through all of track and field and see how many female competitors make it to the top three if women’s and men’s events were merged
Very good. Now do it for Chess or Darts. Do it for sports that physical differences arent really relevant. And your conclusion is ?
It seems to be that the some feminists who argue that systemic problems inhibit womens progress in every aspect of their lives suddenly forget that perhaps it could apply to sports too. Or to paraphrase Neil DeGrasse Tyson once we eliminate other variables perhaps we can talk about inherent biological differences (in his context it was ID and race)
A Lurker from Mexicosays
I don’t understand the fixation with trans women in sports. Losing a foot race is not oppression or violence. There’s plenty of people with whom I could never hope to compete in a variety of things and I just don’t see ho that could negatively impact my life in any way.
The only caveat I can think of would be contact sports where the participants punch, kick or shove each other. Sports where the size difference puts the smaller participant at risk of injury. And even though height, weight and muscle mass is partially defined by gender, it ought to be judged on a case by case basis.
If a trans woman is roughly the same height and weight as her cis woman competitors in a kickboxing tournament, there’s no logical reason to ban her from participation.
If a cis woman is a head taller and 20kg heavier than her cis woman opponent, the match shouldn’t be allowed to happen.
And the same if you reverse their roles.
Fact is that you’ll encounter cis and trans people with a variety of natural advantages and disadvantages, like Michael Phelps having an abnormally long torso, or Caster Semenya having higher than normal testosterone levels. And, unless we’re talking about a contact sport where people can get hurt because they got outmatched, I just don’t see what’s the big deal about any of it.
All around I’d say that if fairness in sports is such a pressing issue, maybe it would make more sense to create different categories like the weight classes in boxing, rather than gender distinctions. And even then you’ll have to deal with anatomical advantages and disadvantages, regardless of how thinly you slice the categories.
lochabersays
Was there something about this in the news recently? I just had an argument with an old coworker about this topic, and then I see it online in a couple different places since, and I’m wondering if it’s just a coincidence.
Honestly, I feel like this is blown out of proportion, and what the bigots are using to demonzie trans women after their “bathroom predator” thing failed miserable. And I also feel that trans people (primarily trans women) are the new go-to target for the bigots now that same-sex marriage has been legalized in much of the U.S. They are just trying for the easiest target.
Honestly, I don’t know what the answer to this is, but I’m not much for sports, so I don’t really care. I’m sure there are some relevant experts out there who have proposed something. But, I remember arguments about this coming up previously, and if a trans women is on hormone therapy, her blood hormone levels are generally “within normal range” for cis women. Whatever that range is, and I believe I’ve heard that a lot of competitive cis women athletes have hormone levels “outside of normal range” (again, for whatever that means…). Not very many people are competitive athletes, not very many people are trans, and there are very, very, few people who are both competitive athletes and trans. This is an engineered problem blown out of proportion to demonize and oppress an already oppressed and vulnerable population.
And then, no one mentions the flip side of this, is that you would then have trans men competing with cis women, where often there actually is a notable difference in muscle mass and testosterone.
And sports aren’t fair. They are inherently unfair. Only games of pure chance are perfectly fair. Many high-level athletes have genetic and other abnormalities.
And think about the repercussions of this, and how any sort of defining criteria will get enforced? Do you really want every athlete, in every school, college, competitive event, etc. to submit to chromosomal testing, hormone monitoring, and physical inspections?
I’m not a terribly weak guy, but if I walked into whatever local women’s powerlifting group right now, I wouldn’t be able to compete with them. Maybe if I trained with them a couple months, I might be able to come in something other than dead last, but I really doubt I would come anywhere close to the top 10%. And if I were to go on a testosterone blocker and supplemental estrogen… Yeah, I would not be able to compete with them at all in that scenario.
We’ve got enough real problems in this world, we don’t need to be worrying so much about fabricated ones like this…
Holmssays
#13 brucegee
Ah, gotcha.
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#14 Deepak
Very good. Now do it for Chess or Darts. Do it for sports that physical differences arent really relevant. And your conclusion is ?
That some sports need sex segregated leagues. I thought that was clear.
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#15 A lurker
I don’t understand the fixation with trans women in sports. Losing a foot race is not oppression or violence. There’s plenty of people with whom I could never hope to compete in a variety of things and I just don’t see ho that could negatively impact my life in any way.
That’s easy for you to say, but some women would like the female sex to have some degree of visibility in sports and athletics. This was made possible by creating female divisions for such endeavours.
If a trans woman is roughly the same height and weight as her cis woman competitors in a kickboxing tournament, there’s no logical reason to ban her from participation.
That’s not correct, on two separate points. First, the position is not that trans women must be banned from participating in sports, as you seem to assume. Rather, the argument is that male bodied people, however they identify, must not compete in the female-specific division. Note also that there is no reciprocal demand (at least as far as I have seen), i.e. there is no demand that trans men be barred from the male division which can be treated as something of an open division. In fact, if a trans man is transitioning, he would be barred from the female division on the basis that he is taking testosterone as part of the transition -- a performance enhancing substance.
Secondly, you are factually wrong about relative strength. Wiki:
“…Males remain stronger than females when adjusting for differences in total body mass, due to the higher male muscle-mass to body-mass ratio…
Gross measures of body strength suggest that women are approximately 50-60% as strong as men in the upper body, and 60-70% as strong in the lower body.[40] One study of muscle strength in the elbows and knees—in 45 and older males and females—found the strength of females to range from 42 to 63% of male strength.[41] Another study found men to have significantly higher hand-grip strength than women, even when comparing untrained men with female athletes.[42] Differences in width of arm, thighs and calves appear during puberty.
Males typically have larger tracheae and branching bronchi, with about 56% greater lung volume per body mass. They also have larger hearts, 10% higher red blood cell count, and higher haemoglobin hence greater oxygen-carrying capacity. They also have higher circulating clotting factors (vitamin K, prothrombin and platelets). These differences lead to faster clotting of blood and higher peripheral pain tolerance.”
Note the portions I italicised: these disparities exist even when adjusting for size. In your example of a woman being “a head taller and 20kg heavier” than a trans woman, there is a pretty good chance that the trans woman is stronger anyway.
Fact is that you’ll encounter cis and trans people with a variety of natural advantages and disadvantages
Yes, but when you talk about athletes, we are talking about people pushing to the limits of the human form. We’re talking about the slim leading edge of the bell curve of human performance, not the chunky middle.
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#16 lochaber
Much of your comment is similar to #15, except
We’ve got enough real problems in this world, we don’t need to be worrying so much about fabricated ones like this…
Dawkins has two accounts on /singham!?
Silentbobsays
Oh look, Holms being a transphobic buffoon again. A day ending in “y” must have rolled around again.
@ 9 Aoife_b
So where are all the trans superstar athletes? If it’s as simple as y chromosome equals superior genetics, why aren’t trans folks the top athletes? Keep in mind the Olympics have allowed trans women to compete for years.
@ 12 Holms
#9 Aoife_b Veronica Ivy.
Hahahahaha.
This is actually a great example of the bullshit from the anti-trans knobheads. Veronica Ivy set a world record… in the 35-39 age group of Masters track cycling. If I recall correctly, the 40-44 and the 45-49 age groups both posted faster times.
With all respect to Dr Ivy (who is a tireless advocate for trans rights, particularly sports), her record was both very niche, and not particularly extraordinary. I know she’d be the first to say (because I’ve seen her say it) that she loses a lot more than she wins. She is by no means dominant in her sport. Her record is a testament to her determination to overcome the horrendous discrimination trans people face because of bigots like Holms.
And yet this is what Holms try to pass off as a “top athlete” and “superstar”. It’s always the same handful of examples they’ve cherry-picked from all over the world: the weight-lifter in New Zealand, the handball player in Australia, a cricketer in England, two black high school track runners in the US. Each one having some modicum of success -- none dominating their sport in any sense at all. It seems the only thing bigots like Holms would consider “fair” is if no trans person ever won anything anywhere ever.
I’m reminded of the bigot in the US who sued to try to have the aforementioned track runners banned on the basis of an insurmountable advantage -- and then accidentally won a race against one of them, undermining her own nonsense:
The fact remains that twenty years of trans participation in sport has lead to no evidence whatsoever of trans people having some inherent advantage.
Holms seems to miss the point of the cartoon -- that the blowhards trying to discriminate against trans people in sport almost always (with some sad exceptions like the unfortunately transphobic Navratilova) have no history whatsoever of fighting for women’s sport, but (like Holms, of course) a long history of bashing trans people using whatever excuse they can come up with.
For example, one of the people whose cause Holms champions is Donald 9″pussygrabber” Trump. Are we supposed to believe this is what a defender of women’s sports looks like?
Silentbobsays
And lest people think I’m resorting to “guilt by association”, my point isn’t that Trump happens to agree with transphobes, but that transphobia is an inherently reactionary, conservative, Trumpist position.
Most women in sport -- like Olympic gold medallist and a two-time FIFA Women’s World Cup champion, Megan Rapinoe -- wholeheartedly support trans inclusion:
I want the trans youth in our country to know they are not alone. Women’s organizations, including the Women’s Sports Foundation, National Women’s Law Center and Gender Justice, along with sports icons including Billie Jean King and Candace Parker, agree that transgender girls and women belong in sports and should be able to participate alongside other girls and women.
Indeed, the Women’s Sports Federation -- a venerable organization set up in 1974 by Billie Jean King and a “voice” of women’s sport if ever there was one says:
if a transgender student transitions after puberty, medical experts increasingly agree that the effects of taking female hormones negate any strength and muscular advantage that testosterone may have provided and places a male-to-female transgender athlete who has completed her transition in the same general range of strength and performance exhibited by non-transgender females who are competing. A female-to-male transgender athlete has no physical advantage before, during or after transition and should be permitted to participate fully on male sports teams.
Those opposing trans inclusion are overwhelmingly like Holms -- ignorant reactionary conservatives (and mostly men) with an irrational hatred of trans people that manifests in many different ways. “Women’s sports”, as the cartoon points out, is just the latest excuse.
Silentbobsays
Incidentally, in case anyone is fooled by Holms’ appeals to “science” (of cisgender men!) @17, I saw a good video the other day about the shenanigans transphobes try to pull to give a veneer of science to their bigotry:
It’s responding to a particular paper by notorious bigot Emma Hilton, but gives a good idea of how their transphobic ideology completely distorts their “scientific” claims.
Needless to say (one would think), studies of cis men are completely irrelevant to trans women because:
1. Cis men do not face the extreme social barriers and discrimination that trans women face that hold them back
2. Even in the happy event of a world free of transphobia, almost all trans sports policies require medical transition, so even if a trans woman has been forced through male puberty by being denied puberty blockers, she will still be physiologically nothing at all like a cis man.
If you want to demonstrate evidence of some inherent advantage of trans women Holms, the minimum would be to demonstrate that trans people are over represented in results. That is, if trans people are half a percent of the population, significantly more than one in two hundred events are won by trans women. {We are, of course, nowhere near this happy state of equality yet.)
lochabersays
#17 Holms:
for some reason, I suspect Dawkins would be more likely to support your claims and concerns than mine.
As to your claims you addressed my arguments in your response to alurker;
“That’s easy for you to say, but some women would like the female sex to have some degree of visibility in sports and athletics.”
So, why is trans people’s desire for visibility in competitive sports any less valid?
And, again, you are comparing the bodies of cis men against cis women. trans women are not cis men, and shouldn’t be compared to cis men. This is just another demonstration of your personal transphobia, where you subscribe to(or at least promote) the default image of a trans woman being basically MCU Thor, but with boobs.
And finally, humans are highly variable. There are a lot of characteristics that tend to be sex-dependent, but even so, there is a huge overlap. The bell curves for a lot of these traits overlap more than they differ. There is more variance from individual to individual within either group, than there is for the average variance twixt the two different groups.
So why is it that you are SO VERY CONCERNED about the potential unfairness of trans women competing in sports, but not about the countless other inequities that actually affect far more people? Like, say, access to adequate medical care and nutrition, access to quality training equipment and instruction? Again, I don’t really care about sports, but I feel fairly certain there are a lot more potential world-class athletes out there who could have been competitive if they had access to better resources, then there are world-class athletes who lost to some hypothetical mythical trans woman athlete.
Sam Nsays
The whole concept of sport competition seems somewhat absurd to me.
Some people win because they have a genetic advantage, like that extreme red-blood-cell producing Scandinavian that wrecked at cross country skiing. Couldn’t get close. He had a mutation that made him excel like mad.
I’d kind of like to just open the grounds to mass doping, but that is seriously harmful to human physiology in many ways.
The whole conception and fixation on physical sport champions is so weird to me. Maybe the answer is to do away with it all.
UC San Diego asked the student body, do you want a football team, or sports associations. They built their facility for a football team. The students voted no. I loved playing co-ed sports of all types.
Ugh. Fuck professional sports and people’s fascinations with various socio-economic and genetic advantages. Like those students at UCSD (which I was one of) I just wanted to play games with people of comparable skill to develop my own capabilities.
I don’t watch any sports that rely largely on physicality anymore. The only sport I find worth watching is Starcraft 2. Go judge me. Scarlett is one of my favorite competitors, although Serral has taken her spot. I’m disappointed that no cis-woman has one a major championship, yet. Though I presume the reason is entirely cultural, there are very, very good cis-female players.
In a sense, I think the whole world so many of you are so invested in is absurd on the face of it.
Sam Nsays
By the way, and I’m sure I will attract contempt for this. I far prefer watching women’s soccer and women’s basketball, on the rare occasions I do. In the former, they don’t flounder around like a baby when they get an unfair hit, like male soccer players do. In the latter, they are far more cooperative and less ‘star’ focused.
Sam Nsays
@21, exactly.
What, if someone has a some genetic mutations that massively increases force output of their actin-myosin motor, that makes them inherently impressive?
The mutation is impressive, for sure. But some woman or man that can laze about, and still compete at the highest level is supposed to impress me?
Some asshole who can afford dressage lessons is supposed to impress me?
Why such a laser focus on just the one inequity?
Holmssays
#18 silentbob
With all respect to Dr Ivy […], her record was both very niche, and not particularly extraordinary.
What a strange description for a cycling performance that was literally the best the world had ever seen within that category. Twice in a row, too.
…She is by no means dominant in her sport.
She was world champion within that category. Also twice in a row. Aoife asked for a top trans woman athlete, and got a 2 time world champion and two time world record setter. If that isn’t enough, what is the (every increasing) cutoff? It suits you to diminish world record/world champion status, because that allows you to indirectly rubbish the idea that the male body retains advantage even after transitioning.
It’s always the same handful of examples they’ve cherry-picked from all over the world: the weight-lifter in New Zealand, the handball player in Australia, a cricketer in England, two black high school track runners in the US. Each one having some modicum of success — none dominating their sport in any sense at all.
Each one is an example of someone excelling in the female league with abilities that would be mediocre in the male league, thereby demonstrating that the male and female leagues are different playing fields. As for the number, how many is enough that you would consider it a noteworthy tendency?
I’m reminded of the bigot in the US who sued to try to have the aforementioned track runners banned on the basis of an insurmountable advantage — and then accidentally won a race against one of them, undermining her own nonsense:
According to your own source, there is no claim that the trans competitor held an ‘insurmountable’ advantage. That was your own addition. There is no contradiction present.
The fact remains that twenty years of trans participation in sport has lead to no evidence whatsoever of trans people having some inherent advantage.
Are you lying, or simply not bothering to check? Transgender Women in the Female Category of Sport: Perspectives on Testosterone Suppression and Performance Advantage
“We have shown that […] evidence for loss of the male performance advantage, established by testosterone at puberty and translating in elite athletes to a 10–50% performance advantage, is lacking. Rather, the data show that strength, lean body mass, muscle size and bone density are only trivially affected. The reductions observed in muscle mass, size, and strength are very small compared to the baseline differences between males and females in these variables, and thus, there are major performance and safety implications in sports where these attributes are competitively significant.”
More details are at each link, and there are plenty more links that I didn’t grab due to time. Recall the World Rugby conclusion of increased injury chance if trans women are permitted into women’s rugby as a further example.
Holms seems to miss the point of the cartoon
No, I got that the cartoon was pointing out the hypocrisy of some of those that are against permitting trans women into women’s leagues. What you didn’t get is that the cartoon makes the assumption that all who oppose trans women in women’s leagues share that hypocrisy. Hence my comment #1 (with emphasis added this time): [The cartoon] accurately captures some of the people commenting on this topic.
Holmssays
And lest people think I’m resorting to “guilt by association”,
You have concluded that I am an “ignorant reactionary conservative” solely on the basis of this one issue, and one of your arguments is that this is an area of some agreement with Trump. Literally a guilt by association fallacy. Further, you appear to define conservative or progressive status on the basis of one’s stance on this single issue, despite the fact that progressives and conservatives have strong agreement on a limited range of issues.
There’s even a common phrase for this specific eventuality: a stopped clock is right twice a day. I’ll bet you agree with conservatives on some issues too.
Most women in sport — like Olympic gold medallist and a two-time FIFA Women’s World Cup champion, Megan Rapinoe — wholeheartedly support trans inclusion:
You cite one individual and one organisation agreeing with you to support ‘most women in sport’… but you ignore the fact that you have also cited women in sport that disagree. Silly.
_______ #21 lochaber
for some reason, I suspect Dawkins would be more likely to support your claims and concerns than mine.
Yes, not surprising given that he studied biology. But my calling you Dawkins was in reference to your ‘Dear Muslima’ comment that I quoted.
So, why is trans people’s desire for visibility in competitive sports any less valid?
It isn’t. The desire for female visibility in sports directly led to the creation of female only leagues in those sports. Are you suggesting that, likewise, the desire for trans visibility in sports should lead to the creation of trans only leagues? That at least would be the logical equivalent, though I am not certain the low population of trans people would lead to a sustainable league in any sport.
And, again, you are comparing the bodies of cis men against cis women. trans women are not cis men, and shouldn’t be compared to cis men.
See the additional information provided in post 25.
And finally, humans are highly variable. There are a lot of characteristics that tend to be sex-dependent, but even so, there is a huge overlap. The bell curves for a lot of these traits overlap more than they differ. There is more variance from individual to individual within either group, than there is for the average variance twixt the two different groups.
But not when you push to the “slim leading edge” of each curve, which I specifically mentioned.
So why is it that you are SO VERY CONCERNED about the potential unfairness of trans women competing in sports, but not about the countless other inequities that actually affect far more people?
Why do you imagine that I am unconcerned by those things? I’ve expressed concerns on multiple of those things you list. They just don’t blow up in the comment section, because they pass without demur.
file thirteensays
This cartoon does an effective job of painting people wanting to protect women’s sports as transphobes. Reminds me of Israel telling us that anti-Zionists are anti-semites.
Deepak Shettysays
@Holms
That some sports need sex segregated leagues. I thought that was clear.
No it isnt clear at all. Because I usually hear 2 types of arguments -- That “real” women are being erased or crowded out or its unfair (== trans women cant participate as women) or there shouldn’t be gender segregated sports (== trans women cant participate as women).
So just to be clear you are saying you are ok with Trans women should be allowed to participate as women in some sports but not all ? How about team sports? are trans-women good there too ? Atleast then the area of disagreement can be narrowed.
Presumably you are also in favor of Basketball championships for short women v/s that for tall women (height also being genetic and all that).
Holmssays
#28 Deepak
Any sport where human sexual dimorphism is at play should have a league for the female sex. This goes for individual pursuits such as track and field, and also team sports like rugby. There are also some games that also have social rather than physiological reasons for a female league, such as chess; I don’t know if there are or are not still some reasons to keep trans women out of such leagues, but the sexual dimorphism argument certainly does not apply there.
John Moralessays
Holms, Mano summed it up: “The cartoonist zeroes in on the subtext.”
But sure — sexual dimorphism, that’s what it’s all about for you. Heh.
A bullshit rationalisation, of course. The actual reason is that you (and those like you) think trans women are actually men. Simple as that.
Holmssays
And I pointed out that it is reductive.
The unfairness caused by dimorphism, but you got close.
brucegee1962says
John Morales, Deepak Shetty, Lochaber,
I have a question for you: do you support having separate leagues for men and women?
If you do, why?
If the answer is that it’s purely social — so women can be around other women, and it doesn’t really matter who “wins” anyway — then, well, learned social behaviors can be unlearned. So is that really a good reason?
Or is it that, as Holms has pointed out, if we disregarded gender then cis women would rarely be able to compete at all?
If, as you say, John Morales, sexual dimorphism isn’t what it’s “all about,” then what is it all about instead? What reason do you have for not getting rid of gendered sports entirely?
@28
Presumably you are also in favor of Basketball championships for short women v/s that for tall women (height also being genetic and all that).
Again, this is an argument that could be used by someone who wanted to get rid of gendered sports entirely. Is that what you want? If not, why not?
@30
A bullshit rationalisation, of course. The actual reason is that you (and those like you) think trans women are actually men. Simple as that.
The difference is, in every other case involving trans people, there is no harm. Despite the yammering of the right, nobody is really harmed when someone uses a bathroom, or lodges in whatever dormitory feels appropriate, or gets married to whomever they feel like marrying. Thus, their gender should be no concern of mine.
This case is the sole exception. There will be demonstrable harm to cis female athletes — whom you, for some reason, seem more than willing to hurl under the bus.
And don’t use the argument “there aren’t many trans athletes, so it doesn’t matter.” The number seems bound to grow, and we may just as well discuss it now as in the future when trans women are inevitably winning high school track meets and Olympic medals.
Deepak Shettysays
@Holms
However you still didnt answer the question. For sports where you feel dimorphism is not in play , do you support trans-women participating as women ?
@brucegee1962
do you support having separate leagues for men and women?
Ideally -- no. pragmatically -- yes? As such I don’t have a problem either way for most sports. There are many things that matter to people that don’t matter to me personally so this would need a much more nuanced answer.
Again, this is an argument that could be used by someone who wanted to get rid of gendered sports entirely.
Holms and others(you?) point to differences between biological men and women as a reason to have separate categories because it would be unfair to women otherwise -- But other genetically determined attributes could have a much larger say on the outcomes even within a biological category. Why does that not bother them, Why arent they arguing to separate out those too if unfairness of genetic attributes is their primary concern ?
What you are alluding to is that we could have categories based on the attributes that matter for that sport rather than sex , for which, sure you could , but thats not the subject at hand. Or as an a analogy , we are arguing for gay marriage whereas you are asking for why not do away with the institution of marriage (As recognized by a government) and just have civil unions .
There will be demonstrable harm to cis female athletes — whom you, for some reason, seem more than willing to hurl under the bus.
So Indian women athletes are “harmed” by allowing women athletes of other countries? -- because likely genetically, Indians are , on average smaller than women, on average of some other countries. Would you phrase it as harm ? In quite a few sports then short women are harmed by taller women. Slow women harmed by faster women. The only reason to phrase it as you did is to arrive at your predetermined conclusion.
Do you actually see a clamor of biological men wanting to transition and all womens sports dominated by transwomen ?
This argument is silly for the simple reason that it is not being had in good faith. Holms is only using this issue because it’s the closest one to where his previously-established bigotry sounds reasonable. Were he to be granted this argument, then he would be talking about how allowing trans women into women’s spaces ‘harms women’ because of hypothetical trauma, and about how the existence of language like ‘people who menstruate’ “erases” women therefore trans-inclusive language does harm, and so on and so forth.
There is no sensible answer for the trans women in sport thing because the only people who raise these issues are only using it as the thin end of a wedge. You will not find anyone honestly willing to say that trans women are women and believe it, while arguing against the sports thing. And not one of them gave shit one about women’s sports before they could use it to hurt trans people.
I invite anyone wondering about the veracity of my claims to inspect Holms’s history on this site and how exactly he got banned from basically every blog but this one, as well as the content on his ‘home’ site, Butterflies & Wheels, a place where he has been known to weirdly ‘report back’ about things on this site.
John Moralessays
Holms:
And I pointed out that it is reductive.
The unfairness caused by dimorphism, but you got close.
Nope, I was spot on.
The only reason you refer to sexual dimorphism is because you think trans men aren’t women.
It’s so obvious; if it were purely a physical thing, you’d be against stronger women competing against weaker women for the same unfairness reason.
FWIW, the Olympics allows trans women to compete in women’s events. If they can do it, why not others?
—
Bruce:
I have a question for you: do you support having separate leagues for men and women?
As much as I support mixed-sex leagues.
Look: I played squash for many years, and our intra-club competition was mixed — it was based on skill at the game, not on gender.
It was great!
So it’s up to whoever sets up the competition, far as I’m concerned.
John Moralessays
PS
There will be demonstrable harm to cis female athletes — whom you, for some reason, seem more than willing to hurl under the bus.
What a ridiculous claim!
Will they no longer be able to strive for personal bests?
Play as best as they can?
Showcase their skill and athleticism?
Get lucrative sponsorships?
Bah.
Holmssays
#33 Deepak
However you still didnt answer the question. For sports where you feel dimorphism is not in play , do you support trans-women participating as women ?
You didn’t ask that earlier. You asked “are saying you are ok with Trans women should be allowed to participate as women in some sports but not all ? How about team sports?” which is a different question, and I answered it.
As for your new question, I specifically stated that the sexual dimorphism argument doesn’t apply, and that I do not know whether there are or are not reasons to keep trans women out.
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#34 abbey
Holms is only using this issue because it’s the closest one to where his previously-established bigotry sounds reasonable.
You are making claims about my own intent. Since you don’t know my intent, and I alone do, I can inform you that you are wrong. But I don’t expect you to bother acknowledging this, given the lie that follows:
Holms’s […] got banned from basically every blog but this one
Time constraints 🙁 further replies when I get home.
marnersays
I too -- at least to some extent – am what some here might describe as a panel one “transphobe”. But we are not all taking about the same thing.
To some, any inclusion of women who underwent male puberty should be disallowed from competitive athletics. I admit to some equivocation regarding brutal sports like MMA or rugby, but ultimately I strongly disagree with this position.
Others insist that sex reassignment surgery be undergone before inclusion. This was the Olympics position from 2003 – 2015. I disagree with this position too.
Still others, say that a period of testosterone suppression along with identifying as a woman should be required. I am again hesitant as to the brutal sports, but this is the bucket where I find myself in mostly full agreement. Certainly, with highly competitive athletics post high school.
Finally, there are those who would include anyone who identifies as a woman regardless of medical transition. There are 16 US states with this policy.
While concerning, I am provisionally ok with this through high school. We really do not have enough data to see how often this will be an issue. If transwomen that have not undergone testosterone suppression start to dominate, we can revisit.
When people argue about this, I am always curious as to which is their bucket.
Marja Erwinsays
A lot of the reasons for separate women’s sports are social. So that girls and women have equal chances to try out sports.
Yes, boys and men have advantages in some sports, and girls and women would have a harder time getting picked for those sports. But a lot of that depends on hormones, thus doping with extra testosterone. Trans girls may not be legally permitted to do anything about that, but trans women by and large try to rid ourselves of the excess testosterone.
At the same time, bullying is part of American schools, and girls may not be safe on the same teams and in the some locker rooms as boys and men. Not that boys are immune, there’s the whole Jerry Sandusky case, but girls are more often targets.
I wasn’t active in school sports growing up, but I was often beaten up in school, once beaten unconscious.
marnersays
@39 Marja Erwin
I am so very sorry that you were abused in school. You did not deserve that. I sincerely hope that things are much better for you now.
Deepak Shettysays
@Holms
and that I do not know whether there are or are not reasons to keep trans women out.
Why are you being evasive ? Either you know of reasons , hence you oppose the inclusion of trans women or you dont know of reasons hence you support or you dont know of reasons but you still oppose. Which is it ? Its your personal opinion being asked for -- not something that you couldnt change tomorrow , if you so chose.
You cant pretend you haven’t thought about this given your interest in this topic.
Silentbobsays
@ 34 abbeycadabra
a place where he has been known to weirdly “report back” about things on this site
It’s a familiar dynamic. Holms… er, home, is a modern version of the slimepit (ironically* enough). A collection of disgruntled reactionary bigoted losers with a grudge against SJWs “the woke” who occasionally venture out of their bigot-bubble to troll the enemy FtB, invariably get their asses handed to them on a plate, and slink back to bigot central to report and lick their wounds. It’s all very pathetic.
* Ironic because guess who coined the term “slimepit” back in the day (or rather the proto-term “pit o’ slime”)?
My observations are about the intentions demonstrated by Holms’s consistently bigoted and insufferable behavior.
If this is not congruent with what is supposedly in his heart, then that is on him, not me. He’s consistently been most active in any thread where there is an opportunity for him to shit on trans women, across many forums, and this is the very behavior he’s been banned for over and over again. His obsession has been demonstrated by his actions, which have been sometimes outright sadistic. They have demonstrated a desire to convince everyone that trans women are men, not out of any sense of justice, but because it hurts the people he likes to hurt.
This is true of a lot of TERFs, incidentally. It is an incredibly cruel ideology.
lochabersays
So, for the sake of argument, let’s bypass whether it’s a legitimate issue or not…
if trans women competing in women’s sports is truly as unfair as so many of you seem to think it is, two questions:
Should trans men be competing in women’s sports then?
And, how do you determine who competes in what categories? Do you want some sort of periodic blood draws to test for blood hormone levels? chromosonal testing? phrenology? manual genital inspections? something else?
Because, while I don’t have anything at hand, I feel that looking at past events, it’s likely that whatever method you promote is far more likely to oppress and abuse cis women athletes than it will be at excluding trans women athletes. And I also suspect that some of those methods will disqualify some current competitive cis woman athletes.
I don’t care about sports, even less so about spectatorship competitive sports. I still hold that this is a very niche scenario, that is receiving undue attention because it’s considered an “acceptable” way for people to voice their transphobia.
Silentbobsays
@ 37 Holms
Time constraints 🙁 further replies when I get home.
Oh please hurry back Holms. I’m sure people are desperate to hear more from a privileged clueless cis bloke who wouldn’t know a trans person from a fire hydrant about why a tiny powerless persecuted minority he doesn’t belong to shouldn’t be allowed to play sport.
Holmssays
#35 John
You keep asserting, you keep being wrong.
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#41 Deepak
I answered your question. I agreed that the argument based on physicality is inapplicable, and stated I know no reason to bar trans women from non-physical pursuits like chess. What I know for sure is that everything I have said so far has only really been applicable to the more physical pursuits, I have not touched on the others at all.
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#43 abbey
They have demonstrated a desire to convince everyone that trans women are men, not out of any sense of justice, but because it hurts the people he likes to hurt.
This is very typical of you. Make sweeping assertions about the internal thought process of anyone that disagrees, and ignore all correction about the person’s actual thought process. You write whatever narrative you want and accuracy be damned.
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#44 lochaber
Should trans men be competing in women’s sports then?
Once they start taking T, no, as that is a performance boosting substance. They can compete in the male division however, because the male division is essentially the open division. And while I don’t have a fully worked and foolproof plan for detection, I’d certainly start with birth records.
Deepak Shettysays
@Holms
I know no reason to bar trans women from non-physical pursuits like chess.
Ok Ill take your word for it -- I think though there is a distinction between the statements “I support the inclusion of trans-women as women in some sports” and “I dont see a reason to bar trans-women from participating as women in some sports”.
Next time we can see about team sports.
Holms continues to live exactly down to my expectations, no matter how he pretends to be the victim (as bigots always do) by abusing the therapy word “narrative”.
To clarify: I have watched him gloat, here and elsewhere, any time there is a news story of a trans woman being upset, or better yet a personal interaction on some social media where he can watch or participate in one being made upset. I have, personally, watched him engage in behaviors that make no sense unless this was the specific objective, such as the entire exchange he touched off about me at Butterflies & Wheels, which included from him and others jabs at my appearance. That’s a thing I have seen many times: when they are in their own spaces, TERF cultists often mock how a trans woman looks (sometimes, as in this case, in strange delusional ways, assuring each other they “can always tell”…). That can’t be framed as fighting for justice or protecting women, that’s just bitter catty bullying, and it is the proof that for them, as with other right-wingers, the cruelty is the point.
I like TER more. Feminists have been about systemic problems, not outliers. Someone even pointed out the olympics, and 2 wins in a race among years of that race among lots of similar races. It’s like pointing to violent individuals to judge a group but with sports victories. Now they’ve gone and set things up so victors can accuse each other of being trans. All that obsession over controlling hormones with many functions, including psychological. We’re such a sick society.
lochabersays
from Holms@46:
“Once they start taking T, no, as that is a performance boosting substance. They can compete in the male division however, because the male division is essentially the open division. And while I don’t have a fully worked and foolproof plan for detection, I’d certainly start with birth records.”
And there it is -- this is just an opportunity for the transphobes to prevent trans folk from updating their birth certificates, which makes a mess of so many other things.
Silentbobsays
@ 49 abbeycadabra
That’s a thing I have seen many times: when they are in their own spaces, TERF cultists often mock how a trans woman looks (sometimes, as in this case, in strange delusional ways, assuring each other they “can always tell”…). That can’t be framed as fighting for justice or protecting women, that’s just bitter catty bullying, and it is the proof that for them, as with other right-wingers, the cruelty is the point.
I looked in there recently to see if it had changed since Trump. Because for years there’s only been two topics: Trump and hating trans people. So I naively thought maybe without Trump it will go back to the feminist humanist blog it used to be. Silly, Silentbob. It just became 100% hating trans people.
A recent post is about the abovementioned Veronica Ivy, a trans professor of philosophy and cyclist (who, needless to say is deliberately misgendered throughout). Apparently, she’s moving back to Canada because of the rise in transphobia in the US starting with Trumpism. This post was mocking her, jeering and sneering and fucking celebrating! I couldn’t believe it. It was like a Nazi jeering at a Jew being forced out of Deutschland, or a redneck mocking a “negro” for fleeing the South. The sheer fucking hateful spitefulness of it. And to think that used to be an FtB blog. I will just never understand how people can be so hateful to a tiny minority that’s never done them the slightest harm. As you say, in no universe could this possibly be conceived as just or righteous.
(I don’t want to link to the post but for veracity’s sake, it’s here: butTERFLIESandwheels.org/2021/they-accepted-his-resignation/)
Holmssays
#47 Deepak
You are correct, “I do not oppose X” is distinct from “I support X”. I am happy to have other people argue that one out as I have no argument one way or the other, and I will read both sides with interest.
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#48 abbey
You have made it clear that you think you get to tell me what my own opinions and motivations are, and you also do not think I get to correct you even though the subject is my own mind. Thus, you are writing the narrative you want and you refuse to accept the possibility of error. Oh and using a word once is far from abuse.
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#51 lochaber
Er, no, it is not all about preventing people modifying their birth certificates. It is about competitive fairness and visibility. As for birth certificates, they are simply an historical record of certain facts about a person at the time of birth. Physical parameters like weight, length and yes, sex. Are people actually pushing to have their sex changed retroactively? Why would this be changed?
Also, did those answers satisfy your original question before you got on to this supposed goal regarding people’s birth certificates?
We can only hope that eventually, somehow, in the far distant future, Holms will eventually come to understand that we aren’t buying his bullshit any more. We’ve seen who and what he is: bad faith and sadism, appropriating real issues for an opportunity to express and spread disgust about a marginalized group.
Sam Nsays
I will say I appreciate Holms use as a foil in this case. This was something I hadn’t thought extensively or carefully about, but generally I prefer to treat people as they prefer to be treated.
I’ve certainly been convinced that trans-women participating in female sports is fundamentally a non-issue.
I understand obsession with top level athletic form and skill, but I still don’t get why everything must be a competition. Why can’t the Olympics be more like rock bands at a festival? Have countries promote the best they believe in, then watch them for a cultural demonstration. You decide which you thought had the most grace or skill given the context. Some people dismiss ice-skating or gymnastics as too subjective. That’s what I love about watching such competition. I’d be happy to watch without the judge scoring and without the medals awarded. We could throw out all these weird obsessive constraints and rules.
More than that: every mention of elite athletics, Olympian or otherwise, is disingenuous at best and an outright lie at worst, because – and you have only to look at the huge pile of state legislation across the USA now to see this – their objective is to ban trans people from participating at every possible level, even for fun in school. The assumption is always that anyone trans must be bad and ruinous, and the whole suddenly-caring-about-women’s-sports thing is just the current hotness of an excuse to try to convince undecided cis people that the mere presence of a trans person is a scourge that must be stamped out.
Holmssays
#54 abbey
In which you lie some more.
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#55 Sam N
Why is it entirely about the Olympics? There are many sporting competitions out there. Also, I might remind you that your lack of interest in athletics and sports is cool and all, you certainly don’t have to have the same interests as others, but… others are interested, and the female divisions were made specifically so that women could be visible at the top end in this endeavour. I agree that it doesn’t matter, or barely matters in lower level competitions such as at the ‘fun run’ level -- I see no reason for those to be stringent. But the top end is a different matter.
Sam Nsays
@57, You’re right. I’m not strongly vested in any of this. Which might make me more dispassionate about evaluating the points delivered here. It’s good you don’t care at all below top-level competition because it is completely irrelevant when playing for fun and to develop skills. But as in the cartoon, I find your claim that it matter at the top-level extremely dubious. I don’t see a substantial harm to cis-women from as an objective point of view as I can manage. Although I can certainly imagine an individual cis-woman here and there becoming very upset because of how they have been taught to think about gender.
Holms, do you have a measurement of trans-female as % of total female population? Do you have a measurement of trans-female at top-level sporting competition as % of the total female at top-level sporting competition? Seems if you must continue down this rabbit hole, that would be a minimum of evidence you would need to consider.
If it ends up that trans-women are about 2-3% of the population, but are 20-30% of players winning championships/gold medals in top level sporting competition, and women are overwhelmingly upset about that, I’d reconsider my viewpoint.
As best I can tell, it is a rarity that a trans-woman is at that level, but when they are, folks like you freak the fuck out, and publicize it like mad, creating a problem where none actually exists.
Sam Nsays
Holms,
btw, when I used the term ‘folks like you’, it’s rather circular, because I’m talking about folks that freak the fuck out about a trans-woman excelling in a competition, no matter the relative rarity.
I assume that you aren’t that guy in the rest of the comic strip (because you stated it). Maybe as abbey suggests, you are being disingenuous, but I really don’t care to spend my time to go around seeing what else or where else you post things on the internet or to make assumptions as you’ve mostly hued to this narrow part of the conversation throughout this thread.
Holmssays
#58 Sam
I don’t see a substantial harm to cis-women from as an objective point of view as I can manage.
You’re not concerned about women being visible. Well that’s nice for you, but women disagreed with that enough that history is replete with examples of them disliking being shoved out of sight. Far from “a few individuals here and there”.
Your entire position seems to be that you don’t find sports interesting (let alone visibility and representation in sports), and so others also shouldn’t.
Holms, do you have a measurement of trans-female as % of total female population? Do you have a measurement of trans-female at top-level sporting competition as % of the total female at top-level sporting competition? Seems if you must continue down this rabbit hole, that would be a minimum of evidence you would need to consider.
I really don’t. A single woman displaced by a male is a woman cheated, and that can come at a huge cost. Sporting scholarships are handed out for high school tryouts, team placements and sponsorship deals as well. This isn’t just visibility and having female as well as male sporting legends, careers can hang on a difference of one position.
As for a freakout… bear in mind that my comment was merely “This accurately captures some of the people commenting on this topic.” I didn’t even italicise the some to make the point more obvious. Look at what others said in response to that tiny comment, and for the simple position (elucidated as the thread went on) that trans women retain physical advantage over women even post transition. Perhaps most of all, look at the absurd hyperbole from abbey. Then tell me who is freaking out.
Sam Nsays
@60, ah, the use of communication. It does help my own thoughts from spinning off. Fair enough points.
I stand by my statement this isn’t a big deal until you take the % of representations and demonstrate it is a serious problem. One male player is not at all the same as one trans-female player. Indeed, how that you phrased that lends credence that you can’t accept trans-women as women.
See John Morales comments. Is it actually affecting visibility? No. Ability to get sponsorships? No. Ability to get scholarships? No.
I really would need to see the percentages before I can begin to view what you describe as a problem.
marnersays
@ Holms
Say someone was assigned male at birth, but identifies as a woman. She took puberty blockers early and never underwent male puberty. When legally able to do so, she had gender affirmation surgery.
I believe you have forgotten that the TERF position is to call all youth trans health care “child abuse”, in order to make absolutely certain that all trans people are forced through the wrong puberty.
lochabersays
And the mask slips yet again…
Again, as abbeycadabra brought up, this is a fabricated “wedge issue” -- it’s been carefully hedged, sculpted, and edited by transphobes, misogynists, homophobes, and other bigots to appeal to people ignorant of the issues at hand and seem “reasonable”, while gradually pushing that individual to embrace the narrative that trans people (and specifically trans women) are predatory their mere existence is somehow harmful to cis women. Granted, these bigots have always been against trans people existing, but lately they have specifically focused on trans people and trans issues. Idle speculation on my end, but I believe it’s partially related to the legalization and wide-spread social acceptance of same-sex marriage -- the bigots pretty much officially lost the culture war on demonizing gay/lesbian people, so they had to find a new, more acceptable target, which became trans people. And then their “bathroom bill” wedge backfired against them, as countless cis women were harassed for not presenting a “feminine” enough appearance. Also, it didn’t help their cause that most people had some experience with bathrooms, even gender-neutral or mixed-gender bathrooms. So they switched to the issue of gender-segregated sports. Because not as many people have experiences with competitive-level sports, and there are often additional layers of regulation beyond just the government involved.
And, as Holms has previously revealed, part of their interest in this wedge issue, is to deny trans people the ability to change information on their birth certificates -- which leads to a growing cascade of issues that make life more difficult for trans people, ranging from mild inconvenience to life-threatening.
And then Holms again attempted to present the issue as a predatory one (complete with a not-so-subtle misgendering…) -- any trans woman making an athletic achievement is “cheating” that achievement from a cis woman. It doesn’t take much imagination to see how transphobes will use this to attempt to deny trans women jobs, housing, education, artistic pursuits, etc.
I don’t comment a lot, but I lurk, and (like abbeycadabra and others have already mentioned…) I’ve also noticed that Holms often shows up in comment threads on a lot of posts about trans issues, and is almost always advancing some transphobic bullshit under the guise of JAQing off or sealioning, or similar bullshit. Enough that I recognized their handle, and am primed to anticipate some sort of bigoted bullshit.
This post isn’t to argue with Holms (You’ve already revealed your goals/motivations, which was enough for me, I don’t care what bigots think, so I have no interest in engaging you directly), but for anyone who happens along this comment thread in the future. Keeping that in mind, I just want to point out that while this thread was progressing, Arkansas banned trans-affirming healthcare for minors, including puberty blockers (which do nothing other than delay puberty). Despite the Republican Governor vetoing it, the state legislature overrode the veto. This is what people like Holms want, and are fighting for. And this bigotry never stops at one target -- if it’s successful, it will find a new target -- other LGBT folk or cis women are the most likely targets, but it won’t stop there either. Even if someone doesn’t care about fairness and equality and freedom, they should at least recognize there is a significant self-interest component to thwarting bullies, predators, and oppressors.
Sam Nsays
Holms, some parting comments (although if you continue to respond, there’s a fair chance I will proceed to).
You seem to be exhibiting one of the worst flaws I view in USA Republicans: That it’s better that 100 innocent people suffer than 1 cheat get away with something.
I just don’t feel the same way. It seems somewhat absurd to me that some guy would pretend to be a trans-female to get a medal (which given he grew up with the male perspective, which is rather toxic in my own experience, doesn’t seem like he or his friends would value it much). If that happens 1 in 100 or 1 in 1000 times. Eh whatever. What a sad human being.
I believe the vast majority of trans women are genuine. Just like I believe your own statements about yourself. You seem to view 1 cheat as being inconsiderable, so let’s let 1000s of innocent people who are earnest suffer for it.
That’s all. I’d prefer to help a lot of people and be cheated every now and then. Maybe this places us at a fundamental impasse, but I’d take a good look at your fellow travelers in that case.
Sam Nsays
Or.. ugh. You really can never accept a trans-woman as a woman. Which may also be the case.
Yes my mind is making some leaps and bounds, but… Your rhetoric is not helping my views on you.
Holmssays
#61 Sam
I stand by my statement this isn’t a big deal until you take the % of representations and demonstrate it is a serious problem.
In this comment, you implicitly accept that it can be a problem, even if only once a certain number of …wins? podium spots? sponsorhips deals? (etc.) are claimed by trans women in women’s sports. If it is not a problem if a single female is displaced, but becomes a problem when some threshold is reached, you have accepted that there is something undesirable in women’s sports being won by trans women and it is just a matter of how many times it happens.
So, what is the threshold?
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#62 marner
You have the cart before the horse. Say we have a space set aside for that subset of humans born female. Someone observed to be male at birth wants in, citing a lack of male puberty. Should that person be permitted in? The affirmative case is the one that needs to be made, not the negative.
Anyway, I’m open to it in principle, but being male but without a male puberty is an intersexed state which requires the attention of sports scientists/physicians. I would give their determination deference.
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#64 lochaber
…it’s been carefully hedged, sculpted, and edited by transphobes, misogynists, homophobes, and other bigots to appeal to people ignorant of the issues at hand and seem “reasonable”,…
You omit from your narrative that there is an entirely separate origin of thought on this issue. I for one saw the trans cause as the logical extension of the gay/lesbian marriage struggle, and was on board early and enthusiastically. I disagreed only when people began asking me to believe or pretend to believe various articles of biological or linguistic silliness. As an example, I dimly recall a falling out with someone on a years-gone blog because they believed that there were no differences between the skeletons of the sexes., and demanded that I fall in line on that claim. I’ve not seen that bit of nonsense repeated in some time, but there are plenty of other silly things since.
The claim that there is no post-transition to being a trans woman is just the latest in that string.
And, as Holms has previously revealed, part of their interest in this wedge issue, is to deny trans people the ability to change information on their birth certificates
Again, this is not a ‘goal’ -- I had no knowledge that there was even a push here. But as already noted, the birth certificate is simply a document of information that was true at the time of birth. You don’t take the length listed there as determinative, do you?
It doesn’t take much imagination to see how transphobes will use this to attempt to deny trans women jobs, housing, education, artistic pursuits, etc.
Damn, you started out fairly reasonably, but now you’re joining in with making shit up about the other team’s goals. What a shame.
___
#65 Sam
I just don’t feel the same way. It seems somewhat absurd to me that some guy would pretend to be a trans-female to get a medal…
I also reject the idea that people transition with the sole goal of winning races more easily. It’s just a natural byproduct of the intersections between ‘people who are trans women’ and ‘people who are sporty’. Some people will inevitably be in both camps, and they will be competing with an advantage if permitted in the female division.
Note the argument made by the local TERF mouthpiece here:
Say we have a space set aside for that subset of humans born female. Someone observed to be male at birth wants in, citing a lack of male puberty. Should that person be permitted in? The affirmative case is the one that needs to be made, not the negative.
This is literally “Prove to us that you deserve to be respected. You’re not a woman unless we gatekeep that it is so.” with the additional deliberate inaccuracy of “observed to be male”. We’ve been over and over this; doctors cannot observe anything at birth other than a guess regarding one usually visible article; they cannot see gametes, glands, chromosomes, gametophores, or future sex hormone production, and they CERTAINLY cannot see future experience of self. All of these simple scientific facts are deliberately elided and waved away by transphobes who are pretending to use science. Note that in this very argument, this VERY response, was a result of you asking whether someone who didn’t experience any of the supposed reasons to exclude a trans woman should be excluded. Holms’s answer of “probably yes” proves his bad faith in making any of these arguments at all.
Holmssays
This is literally “Prove to us that you deserve to be respected. You’re not a woman unless we gatekeep that it is so.”
Starting off with a lie? Failure to be let in a restricted space is not failure to be respected. Also, observation of one (out of many) sex traits is still an observation, and not a guess. Laughable nonsense.
marnersays
@68 abbeycadabra
Yes! Also
being male but without a male puberty is an intersexed state which requires the attention of sports scientists/physicians. I would give their determination deference
The “sports scientists/physicians” for the Olympics have determined that transwomen can compete. And the requirements are not nearly as rigorous as the example I presented. Holms is clearly not willing to defer to the experts.
Holmssays
And other organisations and sports scientists/physicians have done further research, disputing that decision as hasty. I provided three citations for such findings, all of which are more recent than the Olympic Committee decision. Also some errata: in #67, I should have said DSD rather than intersex state.
The awful person’s visible, tangible goalpost moves speak for themselves of his lack of faith. Even in the middle of trying to call me a liar, he motte-and-bailey’s.
John Moralessays
To be fair, this is the last desperate cling-to-a-straw move for transphobes trying to seem reasonable.
The older appeals to the prison argument, the bathroom argument, the misogyny argument having flopped, the appeal to elite sports is the only thing that can still ge traction, as evinced in some of the earlier posts here by rather more well-meaning people.
I note that it’s a tacit admission that in every other sphere of social life, there is no merit to the exclusion of trans people.
Holmssays
#72 abbey
Haven’t changed position, so that’s another lie.
___
#73 John
The current discussion is about sport because that’s what Mano brought up.
John Moralessays
Holms, your comments are ostensibly about sport, but in reality every one of your objections to trans participation is predicated (as I noted @30) on the premise that trans women are men (and, also, that at elite levels in sport any given man will necessarily beat every woman — as if skill were not a factor).
(Do you imagine people can’t see your ontological dependency? You don’t think trans women are men because they are better at sports, you think they are better at sports because they’re men)
Holmssays
#75 John
My posts are entirely about the impact sex has on physical ability, and fair play in sport, predicated on sexual dimorphism and the data showing that this gap is not eliminated by transitioning. Par for the course, you’ve demonstrated amply that you don’t mind making things up about someone else’s thought process.
Here though is an error of yours that you might actually be interested in correcting:
…at elite levels in sport any given man will necessarily beat every woman — as if skill were not a factor
No, I have never claimed that “any given man” will be able to beat an elite female athlete.I have said that male elite athletes will be able to beat female elite athletes, because that is a like for like comparison with the only variable being sex. A female hurdler for example will be able to beat me easily, as I am not a runner of any sort, let alone a hurdler. Go through some track and field events if you like, wiki usually has the large events really neatly organised for easy comparison.
Deepak Shettysays
@John Morales
only thing that can still ge traction, as evinced in some of the earlier posts here by rather more well-meaning people.
Well I still have hope for people who share 7 out of 9 panels with us -- Though sometimes I read the comments on a particular blog and I despair. Anyway I shall go back to being harmed by various men in the IPL now.
@Holms
because that is a like for like comparison with the only variable being sex.
Did I miss the great feminist victory ? Where all other inequalities in life were eliminated and the only disparity in outcomes are due to biological differences?
Holmssays
#77 Deepak
John thought I was comparing male slobs to female athletes. I pointed out that I was actually comparing male athletes to female athletes. Both athletes, with the only variable for which we can control being sex. Are you missing that point deliberately or accidentally?
John Moralessays
Holms, heh. You actually quoted me: “… at elite levels in sport any given man […]”. (my emphasis)
So yeah, the corner to which you’ve painted yourself is so tiny only elite competitors count for your objections, which means school sports and community sports don’t qualify.
(Are you aware of the legal dictum that “hard cases make bad law”?)
I pointed out that I was actually comparing male athletes to female athletes.
Which indisputably means you’re presuming trans women are male, and as I’ve noted multiple times, that’s the actual basis of your objections to their participation in women’s sport — at any level. Only thing stopping you from stating that outright on this thread is that you’re trying to seem reasonable.
—
PS @71:
And other organisations and sports scientists/physicians have done further research, disputing that decision as hasty.
Reminiscent of the tobacco industry, which would use the very same point that some experts didn’t agree that smoking affects health.
(Face it, you’re the traditionalist intolerant reactionary ideologue on this issue)
Holmssays
#79 John
So yeah, the corner to which you’ve painted yourself is so tiny only elite competitors count for your objections, which means school sports and community sports don’t qualify.
You think U18 leagues (and similar) can’t be ‘elite’? 🙂
Which indisputably means you’re presuming trans women are male
Oh, what sex are they then? (I know from experience you won’t answer this as asked)
Reminiscent of the tobacco industry, which would use the very same point that some experts didn’t agree that smoking affects health.
And yet there is data from multiple studies showing that the Olympics and other organisations made hasty determinations.
Face it, you’re the traditionalist intolerant reactionary ideologue on this issue
No I’m just better informed than you, and I’m willing to disagree with people even if we are generally united on many other issues. You have chosen conformity. I get it, it’s much easier.
Deepak Shettysays
@Holms
I was actually comparing male athletes to female athletes.
So am I. according to you elite male athletes are better than elite female athletes because of their sex.
Nothing to do with women
a) are actively discouraged from sports which reduces the pool size. Could India have a woman athlete that could compare with the men ? We’ll never know because so few are allowed to do it. Probably lucky though otherwise they might have harmed the other women who are currently winning.
b) have access to fewer funds and disparity in training. Fewer sponsorships , fewer opportunities to dedicate your life to your sport. Not as good coaches or for that matter competition. Take cricket for e.g. -- compare the amount the men’s team plays , the money , the sponsors, the coaches, the fame v/s the women. Can you really improve to the men’s level when you play 10 games a year against opposition that plays 10 games a year ? But sure the magic male genitalia is what makes Shane Warne turn the ball more or what allows Sachin tendulkar to hit a cover drive better than the women.
c) Stereotypes like the male ideal is the muscular strong types whereas the female ideal is the hour glass figure. The repeated idea pushed on women that their ideal is marriage plus kids and that those who choose a career are selfish ,probably gay and will die alone.
d) Bullying of women and the way they look when they happen to be the on the muscular side -- again active discouraging of the attributes that would be better in sports.
And so on and these are just from the top of my head. Which is why when you say that sex is the only factor , I assumed that feminists have won the war and these inequalities don’t exist any more, right ?
John Moralessays
Holms, I see you’re seeking to do the same thing as you did in that marathon thread where Mano felt compelled to stop it, because I stated you would not stop until you got the last word, and I would prove it. I did.
And may I note that I appreciated his tolerance then, as I appreciate it now.
Anyway, be comforted, I will this time leave it be and let you have the last word, when the time comes.
You think U18 leagues (and similar) can’t be ‘elite’?
I was referring to ‘elite’ (best of the best), not to age groups.
(Point being, by definition, the rest is not the best of the best)
But hey, feel free make your argument why elite U12s need to be gender-segregated, because of fairness.
Oh, what sex are they then? (I know from experience you won’t answer this as asked)
They’re women. Trans women, not cis women, but women nonetheless.
It’s in the very name.
If you want to talk about men, talk about men, not about trans women.
(Or just admit you imagine they’re one and the same)
And yet there is data from multiple studies showing that the Olympics and other organisations made hasty determinations.
Heh.
Yeah, what would the IOC or World Athletics or other major sports organisations know about sport, other than organising premier events? 🙂
Hasty, that’s them.
No I’m just better informed than you …
<snicker>
… and I’m willing to disagree with people
LOL. I’m well known for not being willing to disagree with people, I am!
(That was a literal LOL — my wife comnented on it)
You have chosen conformity.
Heh.
So you hold that conformity is accepting trans women can participate in women’s sport. That’s just the conformist norm, right now. 😉
I get it, it’s much easier.
I love it when people try to patronise me.
Sure, it’s just so much easier to concede trans women are women.
Only special fearless people who buck the trend, like you, can manage to do the hard yakka of saying they’re just men in dresses. Such bravery!
Witness the brave Freeze Peach warrior, standing up against equality and feminism on behalf of that well-known underdog, colonial patriarchy!
Holmssays
#81 Deepak
So am I. according to you elite male athletes are better than elite female athletes because of their sex.
Yes, in many sports the male sex has advantages compared to the female sex. This is extremely well documented, and pointing to social issues which also exist does not remove the documented physical disparity.
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#82 John
I see you’re seeking to do the same thing as you did in that marathon thread where Mano felt compelled to stop it, because I stated you would not stop until you got the last word, and I would prove it.
We can agree that you’re the one that competes for the last word. I don’t do that. I respond if there is something silly to rebut, or a correction to make, or something left unsaid that I think should be added… Whatever seems to be needed to further the conversation taking place.
I was referring to ‘elite’ (best of the best), not to age groups.
And I was pointing out that school sports can indeed have a ‘best of the best’ level of play for the age group.
But hey, feel free make your argument why elite U12s need to be gender-segregated, because of fairness.
Why, when that is not my position?
They’re women. Trans women, not cis women, but women nonetheless.
As predicted, no answer to the question “what sex are they”. How about another: what does the word ‘woman’ mean, and so on what basis do we apply it to some people and not others?
Yeah, what would the IOC or World Athletics or other major sports organisations know about sport, other than organising premier events?
For one thing, yes, they can be hasty if under political pressure. More to the point though, now that new data has come out, and the position they occupy is all scientific and all, there should be no problem exploring the new data. So why the pushback?
No I’m just better informed than you …
Oh, did you study biology at uni? ‘Cos I sure did.
I’m well known for not being willing to disagree with people, I am!
So you hold that conformity is accepting trans women can participate in women’s sport…
On other topics, sure. On this one and on FTB? Conformity.
Holmssays
Ah, somehow the dropped out of that double quote. Probably the brackets wrapped in tags.
Holmssays
Sigh, of course.
John Moralessays
🙂
Deepak Shettysays
@Holms
Last comment for this thread from me.
This is extremely well documented, and pointing to social issues which also exist does not remove the documented physical disparity.
You aren’t answering the question posed. Do the social issues cause a difference in outcome or not -- would women be closer to the male standard in these sports or not (perhaps even equal it in some?). Because your claim is that the only difference is the physical disparity and so according to that position -- removing all these social issues will not make any difference for the sports in question! A very odd position for a feminist indeed. It looks like dislike over the inclusion of trans-women makes you throw other , (and to me much more important issues related to sport and in general) under the bus!
Holmssays
#88 Deepak
Because your claim is that the only difference is the physical disparity
No. Rather, the predominant difference in highly competitive sport, and one that will remain even if all social ills are magically fixed. You don’t have to take my word for it, read a comparative anatomy textbook or google ‘sexual dimorphism’ ‘human’.
And unless John has a sudden attack of bravery and becomes answer my two simple questions…? No, probably not.
John Moralessays
Holms:
And unless John has a sudden attack of bravery and becomes answer my two simple questions…? No, probably not.
Heh. It always comes down to this: for Holms and his ilk, trans women are not women. Only cis women are women.
(Or: how to define a problem away; might as well say a ‘mother’ is someone who gestates and births a baby, and therefore adoptive mothers are not a ‘mother’, no matter that they raise a child they did not gestate)
Holmssays
What sex are they? What does the word ‘woman’ mean, and so on what basis do we apply it to some people and not others?
John Moralessays
See what I mean?
@30: “The actual reason is that you (and those like you) think trans women are actually men. Simple as that.”
@35: “The only reason you refer to sexual dimorphism is because you think trans men aren’t women.
It’s so obvious; if it were purely a physical thing, you’d be against stronger women competing against weaker women for the same unfairness reason. ”
Holms @46: “#35 John
You keep asserting, you keep being wrong.”
@90: “It always comes down to this: for Holms and his ilk, trans women are not women. Only cis women are women.”
Holms @91: “What sex are they? What does the word ‘woman’ mean, and so on what basis do we apply it to some people and not others?”
—
Heh. I keep asserting, because I’m evidently and indisputably right.
The only basis for your objection is that you define ‘woman’ as someone assigned female at birth. That’s it.
Everything else is an effort to rationalise a priori bigotry.
It’s so bleeding obvious!
Holmssays
if it were purely a physical thing, you’d be against stronger women competing against weaker women for the same unfairness reason.
…
The only basis for your objection is that you define ‘woman’ as someone assigned female at birth.
The problem is not that some people within a sex are stronger than others of that sex, the problem is that one sex is stronger than the other. You keep misunderstanding this.
Obviously the solution is to split the sexes. Which leads to the question, what sex is a trans woman? Go for it, brave truthspeaker!
John Moralessays
The problem is not that some people within a sex are stronger than others of that sex, the problem is that one sex is stronger than the other.
Overlapping probability density functions.
The strongest cis men are stronger than the strongest cis women, but many cis women are stronger than many cis men. Fact.
Some women are stronger than other women, so they similarly have an unfair advantage (that’s your ostensible worry, no?) over those women.
(Would you be happy if only trans women who were guaranteed to lose competed? It would sure obviate your supposed concern 😉 )
Go for it, brave truthspeaker!
Says the guy who won’t tacitly admit he imagines trans women are actually cis men.
—
Look: the only bravery is that I can adjust to a changing social milieu.
(You’re just like the people who claimed ‘marriage’ is an undertaking between a cis man and a cis woman when objecting to gay marriage)
John Moralessays
Yes, cis women and trans women are by and large biologically distinct, but the category ‘woman’ is not just a biological category within any social milieu.
Yes, trans women might need to get a prostrate check instead of a pap smear, but that’s not of relevance to their social status as women.
And, of course, many people are genderqueer — neither men not women.
They should count just as much.
Also: Organised sports are a social phenomenon, not a biological one.
As I noted above, far as I’m concerned, it’s up to competition organisers to set the participation criteria: they want only cis women to compete, fine. But if they then suck money from the public teat, then they should abide by whatever criteria that public support requires — and if that means accepting a particular gender, then that’s what it is.
End of the day, bigotry as deep as yours cannot be reasoned away — it’s more of a generational change thing, excepting people like me who can adapt to changing social norms.
Anyway, there’s no point endlessly reiterating things; nothing more remains to be said. So I’m out.
It’s worth mentioning as an aside that the “What sex are they??” gotcha question, likewise the “Define ‘woman’?” one, are more disingenuous bad faith. These are questions that can only be begged, as in, the only way to arrive at the idea that asking them is a good idea is to have predefined (generally incorrect) answers for them.
Besides, regarding ‘ the “define ‘woman'” gotcha… first, define “sandwich”.
Holmssays
Some women are stronger than other women, so they similarly have an unfair advantage
They have an advantage, but not one that is due to sexual dimorphism. There is an advantage purely in being male; a figurative thumb on the scales along this particular axis. And so the sexes are divided to remove this factor.
Says the guy who won’t tacitly admit he imagines trans women are actually cis men.
The subject is sexual disparities. What sex is a trans woman?
Silentbobsays
Absolutely astonishing. I invite readers to observe this -- a classic example of the irrationality of bigotry. Holms has here clearly stated that he only cares about a strength disparity in sports if the stronger person is trans. He doesn’t deny strength disparities exist among cis people. But just flat out states they’re not “unfair” as long as both people are cis. Only if one is trans is there a “thumb on the scales”. In other words Holms doesn’t actually give a fuck about “fairness”. It’s never been about “fairness”. It’s an excuse.
(Incidentally, the strength disparity Holms is clinging to as an excuse for his bigotry doesn’t exist. Modern studies find trans HRT (which is required by most sporting policies) completely eliminates this imaginary advantage.)
Holmssays
Holms has here clearly stated that he only cares about a strength disparity in sports if the stronger person is trans.
Ah no, I clearly stated that I only care if the stronger person was born male. Regardless of whether that person subsequently transitioned, male. Was that an intentional misstatement of my position, or a genuine accident? I suppose that will be demonstrated by whether you take the correction or not.
Incidentally, the strength disparity Holms is clinging to as an excuse for his bigotry doesn’t exist. Modern studies find trans HRT (which is required by most sporting policies) completely eliminates this imaginary advantage.
Silentbob, I have to assume you didn’t even read the damn study because it does not claim that. It points to a reduction in athletic advantage:
“Summary The 15–31% athletic advantage that transwomen displayed over their female counterparts prior to starting gender affirming hormones declined with feminising therapy. However, transwomen still had a 9% faster mean run speed after the 1 year period of testosterone suppression that is recommended by World Athletics for inclusion in women’s events.”
This puts it in line with the studies I referenced waaaaay back in #25.
Holmssays
My god. One of these days, I will actually follow my own advice: always preview.
Yeah! Holms isn’t shitting on ALL trans people, he’s only shitting on trans WOMEN! He’s ignoring everyone else! He’s pointing out that to him, men are always superior to women, and only the people he views as men can be considered to have agency. Trans men, the poor little dears, don’t count.
This accurately captures some of the people commenting on this topic.
Holms, isn’t it your own position that trans women shouldn’t participate in women’s sports?
Oh my goodness! No, totally wrong, totally false dichotomies. All the challenges thrown up about misogynist violence, sexual harrassment, lack of equal treatment of women’s teams — all of those are about the protection of biological women who have faced discrimination and harassment because of their biological makeup and identity. Of course there is a clear and obvious unfairness in having biological women competing against biological men in many kinds of sports. That ought to go without saying. And one can be a strong advocate for human rights of trans people while at the same time maintaining the rights of biological women, too. And that ought to go without saying, too. Why throw up some gratuitous accusation of transphobia at anyone who wants to protect biological women vis a vis biological men? I normally find myself likeminded with Mano Singham but on this topic I am with Ophelia Benson of Butterflies and Wheels.
Ew. Cleanup @3.
@the transphobe at comment #3:
An accusation of transphobia is not gratuitous if it’s true.
Something I have never been able to understand about you weird transphobes -- and maybe you can help me here -- why is it that you all seem to think that brains are not biological?
John, yes, that’s the one panel where the guy fairly represents my position. After that one, the accuracy vanishes.
I’m with #4 and #5, although I don’t get the comment about brains. Maybe it’s too early in the morning. 😎
But I wonder whether trans women will have an unfair advantage in women’s sports if they retain the upper body strength that one normally associates with males. Yes, there’s lots of overlap; but we’re talking about folks at the high end of both curves.
I remember a post by FtB’s Andreas Avester about not wanting to buy too much at the grocery store because of the problem of carrying much weight up several flights of stairs to get to his apartment. The weight he mentioned did seem a bit heavy to me, but not enough to cause a major problem when done only occasionally; and I’m over 70 years old.
And many years ago, I read Martina Navratilova’s autobiography in which she said plainly that middle-ranked male tennis players could regularly beat high-ranked women. She gave her own practice games with her coach as an example.
In the end, it’s all about fairness. The default should certainly be that male/female, cis/trans or racial distinctions should make no difference when it comes to people being permitted to excel; but I can see making exceptions on a case-by-case basis when one group would likely have an unfair advantage.
OTOH, it’s not like we’ve exhibited such fairness in the past. I watched the first two hours of Ken Burns’ Baseball last night. A handful of African-Americans made it to the big leagues in the late 19th century; but they were quickly excluded for no reason other than a particularly ugly form of racism.
OK, time for me to jump into the flame pit, since it’s already started.
FIrst of all, I disagree with Jen Sorensen in this cartoon. If I fully support the right of trans people to use whatever restroom they wish, support their right to join the military, respect their pronouns, support their access to medical counseling and puberty blockers at an early age, and would be fully accepting and loving of my own children or colleagues if they came out as trans, but was hesitant on this one issue of sports, does that make me a transphobe?
Secondly, why do we have separate sports for men and women, anyway?
If the answer is for social reasons — locker rooms, physical contact — basically the same reasons people give for separate bathrooms — then we can easily imagine a society in which those distinctions have been overcome. I can’t remember whether it was Aliens or Starship Troopers, but it isn’t hard to imagine a future society where those kinds of gender distinctions are disregarded. In that case, there is no particular reason to have separate mens’ and womens’ sporting categories at all.
Or is the gender division there to ensure fairness in competition — something like weight classes in boxing, or ELO rankings in chess? In that case, segregating athletes by gender seems like a crude divider. Instead, we could do something like the marines do — set up a level of achievement to make the “varsity team,” and allow in anyone who makes the cut regardless of gender. If you can make four out of five free throws and sprint 50 yards in X time, then you’re on the team.
In other words, the point I’m trying to make is that every argument I can think of for allowing trans women to play womens’ sports, also seems like it would be an argument for getting rid of all gender segregation in sports entirely. And I can see legitimate reasons why cis female athletes might be upset about that.
The alternative, if we keep on with gender-segregation but allow trans women to compete with cis women, is that over the next decade, in sports where upper body strength is a deciding factor (like tennis in @7’s example), it is quite likely that we will see more and more record-holders, world champions, and gold medalists who are trans women. No doubt these women will be legitimately hard-working and superbly well-trained athletes who train tirelessly and are in top shape. Nevertheless, the cis women coming in second and runner-up feel will feel unfairly treated, and I’m not sure that feeling will be unjustified.
For what it’s worth, my understanding of what some sports are doing, where testosterone is used as a proxy for gender, may be the best we can do for now. It’s a tough issue, though, and I don’t like cartoons like this that oversimplify it.
So where are all the trans superstar athletes? If it’s as simple as y chromosome equals superior genetics, why aren’t trans folks the top athletes? Keep in mind the Olympics have allowed trans women to compete for years.
Quite some commenters seem to miss the point of the cartoon: the hypocrisy of those who maintain “allowing trans athletes to participate in women’t sports is so unfair!” So let me explain. the problem is hardly as urgent and important as all the other ones mentioned.
Get your priorities right -- some transgender winning a gold medal or being robbed from that opportunity should be much, much lower on the list than all the injustices mentioned. Reread the second panel, please, especially the words “setting aside”. You don’t? Makes me think you don’t care about social injustice either, like that guy in the comic.
So I simply refuse to take sides on the question if transgenders participating in women’s sports.
@9
So you’re saying Sorensen’s argument is exactly the same as Dawkins “Dear Muslima” letter. There are other issues that are more important, so why are you bothering about this one? As long as there are large injustices in the world, we shouldn’t care about smaller injustices. Anyway, the only people being hurt are cis female athletes, and I don’t know any of them, so they ought to just shut up already. Gotcha.
Usually that particular argument gets trotted out by the right, but it’s nice to see it’s available to anybody.
This brings to mind the confident (brash?) challenge issued by the Williams sisters while they were teens experiencing a meteoric rise in rankings. They declared that they could beat any male tennis professional! …So long as he was ranked outside the top 200. Interesting that they would tailor their challenge so if there was no inequality between the sexes, but whatever.
Their challenge was taken up by some guy whose name I don’t recall because he was never anywhere near as famous as the sisters. He was ranked at 203. He took them on one after the other, one set each, and he crushed them both.
The sisters then revised their challenge: they would take any man on… provided he was outside the top 350.
___
There is a large problem with that scheme, and I’m surprised you can’t see it given you seem to acknowledge the existence of physical disparity between the sexes. If an athletics team or football team or (etc.) is looking for the best of all applicants to take the available spots, they will all -- or nearly all -- be filled by men (The ones born male btw). The female sex will nealy vanish from teams, and will completely vanish from podium placements.
Have a look at say, sprint times to see what I mean. Compare the fastest women in the Olympics perhaps, to the men competing under equal terms. Go through all of track and field and see how many female competitors make it to the top three if women’s and men’s events were merged. I’d be surprised if there was even a single one.
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#9 Aoife_b
Veronica Ivy.
___
#10 mnb0
Hello, Dawkins! I had no idea you commented here.
@12
My argument, I guess, was unclear. My point was that most arguments in favor of allowing trans women to compete against cis women are also arguments for abolishing gendered sports altogether, in a manner like that which I outlined here.
Let me put it another way. Suppose someone got on this thread and made the exact proposal that I made in @8 — that we should no longer have gendered sports at all, and if that meant that cis women and trans men were pushed out of all the top spots, well, tough noogies. I’d like to challenge those supporting Sorensen: would you agree or disagree with that poster? And if you would disagree, what arguments would you use that could not then be turned around and used against Sorensen’s position?
@Holms
Very good. Now do it for Chess or Darts. Do it for sports that physical differences arent really relevant. And your conclusion is ?
It seems to be that the some feminists who argue that systemic problems inhibit womens progress in every aspect of their lives suddenly forget that perhaps it could apply to sports too. Or to paraphrase Neil DeGrasse Tyson once we eliminate other variables perhaps we can talk about inherent biological differences (in his context it was ID and race)
I don’t understand the fixation with trans women in sports. Losing a foot race is not oppression or violence. There’s plenty of people with whom I could never hope to compete in a variety of things and I just don’t see ho that could negatively impact my life in any way.
The only caveat I can think of would be contact sports where the participants punch, kick or shove each other. Sports where the size difference puts the smaller participant at risk of injury. And even though height, weight and muscle mass is partially defined by gender, it ought to be judged on a case by case basis.
If a trans woman is roughly the same height and weight as her cis woman competitors in a kickboxing tournament, there’s no logical reason to ban her from participation.
If a cis woman is a head taller and 20kg heavier than her cis woman opponent, the match shouldn’t be allowed to happen.
And the same if you reverse their roles.
Fact is that you’ll encounter cis and trans people with a variety of natural advantages and disadvantages, like Michael Phelps having an abnormally long torso, or Caster Semenya having higher than normal testosterone levels. And, unless we’re talking about a contact sport where people can get hurt because they got outmatched, I just don’t see what’s the big deal about any of it.
All around I’d say that if fairness in sports is such a pressing issue, maybe it would make more sense to create different categories like the weight classes in boxing, rather than gender distinctions. And even then you’ll have to deal with anatomical advantages and disadvantages, regardless of how thinly you slice the categories.
Was there something about this in the news recently? I just had an argument with an old coworker about this topic, and then I see it online in a couple different places since, and I’m wondering if it’s just a coincidence.
Honestly, I feel like this is blown out of proportion, and what the bigots are using to demonzie trans women after their “bathroom predator” thing failed miserable. And I also feel that trans people (primarily trans women) are the new go-to target for the bigots now that same-sex marriage has been legalized in much of the U.S. They are just trying for the easiest target.
Honestly, I don’t know what the answer to this is, but I’m not much for sports, so I don’t really care. I’m sure there are some relevant experts out there who have proposed something. But, I remember arguments about this coming up previously, and if a trans women is on hormone therapy, her blood hormone levels are generally “within normal range” for cis women. Whatever that range is, and I believe I’ve heard that a lot of competitive cis women athletes have hormone levels “outside of normal range” (again, for whatever that means…). Not very many people are competitive athletes, not very many people are trans, and there are very, very, few people who are both competitive athletes and trans. This is an engineered problem blown out of proportion to demonize and oppress an already oppressed and vulnerable population.
And then, no one mentions the flip side of this, is that you would then have trans men competing with cis women, where often there actually is a notable difference in muscle mass and testosterone.
And sports aren’t fair. They are inherently unfair. Only games of pure chance are perfectly fair. Many high-level athletes have genetic and other abnormalities.
And think about the repercussions of this, and how any sort of defining criteria will get enforced? Do you really want every athlete, in every school, college, competitive event, etc. to submit to chromosomal testing, hormone monitoring, and physical inspections?
I’m not a terribly weak guy, but if I walked into whatever local women’s powerlifting group right now, I wouldn’t be able to compete with them. Maybe if I trained with them a couple months, I might be able to come in something other than dead last, but I really doubt I would come anywhere close to the top 10%. And if I were to go on a testosterone blocker and supplemental estrogen… Yeah, I would not be able to compete with them at all in that scenario.
We’ve got enough real problems in this world, we don’t need to be worrying so much about fabricated ones like this…
#13 brucegee
Ah, gotcha.
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That some sports need sex segregated leagues. I thought that was clear.
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That’s easy for you to say, but some women would like the female sex to have some degree of visibility in sports and athletics. This was made possible by creating female divisions for such endeavours.
That’s not correct, on two separate points. First, the position is not that trans women must be banned from participating in sports, as you seem to assume. Rather, the argument is that male bodied people, however they identify, must not compete in the female-specific division. Note also that there is no reciprocal demand (at least as far as I have seen), i.e. there is no demand that trans men be barred from the male division which can be treated as something of an open division. In fact, if a trans man is transitioning, he would be barred from the female division on the basis that he is taking testosterone as part of the transition -- a performance enhancing substance.
Secondly, you are factually wrong about relative strength. Wiki:
“…Males remain stronger than females when adjusting for differences in total body mass, due to the higher male muscle-mass to body-mass ratio…
Gross measures of body strength suggest that women are approximately 50-60% as strong as men in the upper body, and 60-70% as strong in the lower body.[40] One study of muscle strength in the elbows and knees—in 45 and older males and females—found the strength of females to range from 42 to 63% of male strength.[41] Another study found men to have significantly higher hand-grip strength than women, even when comparing untrained men with female athletes.[42] Differences in width of arm, thighs and calves appear during puberty.
Males typically have larger tracheae and branching bronchi, with about 56% greater lung volume per body mass. They also have larger hearts, 10% higher red blood cell count, and higher haemoglobin hence greater oxygen-carrying capacity. They also have higher circulating clotting factors (vitamin K, prothrombin and platelets). These differences lead to faster clotting of blood and higher peripheral pain tolerance.”
Note the portions I italicised: these disparities exist even when adjusting for size. In your example of a woman being “a head taller and 20kg heavier” than a trans woman, there is a pretty good chance that the trans woman is stronger anyway.
Yes, but when you talk about athletes, we are talking about people pushing to the limits of the human form. We’re talking about the slim leading edge of the bell curve of human performance, not the chunky middle.
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#16 lochaber
Much of your comment is similar to #15, except
Dawkins has two accounts on /singham!?
Oh look, Holms being a transphobic buffoon again. A day ending in “y” must have rolled around again.
@ 9 Aoife_b
@ 12 Holms
Hahahahaha.
This is actually a great example of the bullshit from the anti-trans knobheads. Veronica Ivy set a world record… in the 35-39 age group of Masters track cycling. If I recall correctly, the 40-44 and the 45-49 age groups both posted faster times.
With all respect to Dr Ivy (who is a tireless advocate for trans rights, particularly sports), her record was both very niche, and not particularly extraordinary. I know she’d be the first to say (because I’ve seen her say it) that she loses a lot more than she wins. She is by no means dominant in her sport. Her record is a testament to her determination to overcome the horrendous discrimination trans people face because of bigots like Holms.
And yet this is what Holms try to pass off as a “top athlete” and “superstar”. It’s always the same handful of examples they’ve cherry-picked from all over the world: the weight-lifter in New Zealand, the handball player in Australia, a cricketer in England, two black high school track runners in the US. Each one having some modicum of success -- none dominating their sport in any sense at all. It seems the only thing bigots like Holms would consider “fair” is if no trans person ever won anything anywhere ever.
I’m reminded of the bigot in the US who sued to try to have the aforementioned track runners banned on the basis of an insurmountable advantage -- and then accidentally won a race against one of them, undermining her own nonsense:
Cisgender female who sued beats transgender athlete in high school race
The fact remains that twenty years of trans participation in sport has lead to no evidence whatsoever of trans people having some inherent advantage.
Holms seems to miss the point of the cartoon -- that the blowhards trying to discriminate against trans people in sport almost always (with some sad exceptions like the unfortunately transphobic Navratilova) have no history whatsoever of fighting for women’s sport, but (like Holms, of course) a long history of bashing trans people using whatever excuse they can come up with.
For example, one of the people whose cause Holms champions is Donald 9″pussygrabber” Trump. Are we supposed to believe this is what a defender of women’s sports looks like?
And lest people think I’m resorting to “guilt by association”, my point isn’t that Trump happens to agree with transphobes, but that transphobia is an inherently reactionary, conservative, Trumpist position.
Most women in sport -- like Olympic gold medallist and a two-time FIFA Women’s World Cup champion, Megan Rapinoe -- wholeheartedly support trans inclusion:
Indeed, the Women’s Sports Federation -- a venerable organization set up in 1974 by Billie Jean King and a “voice” of women’s sport if ever there was one says:
Those opposing trans inclusion are overwhelmingly like Holms -- ignorant reactionary conservatives (and mostly men) with an irrational hatred of trans people that manifests in many different ways. “Women’s sports”, as the cartoon points out, is just the latest excuse.
Incidentally, in case anyone is fooled by Holms’ appeals to “science” (of cisgender men!) @17, I saw a good video the other day about the shenanigans transphobes try to pull to give a veneer of science to their bigotry:
Trans Women in Sport: A Response to Hilton & Lundberg
It’s responding to a particular paper by notorious bigot Emma Hilton, but gives a good idea of how their transphobic ideology completely distorts their “scientific” claims.
Needless to say (one would think), studies of cis men are completely irrelevant to trans women because:
1. Cis men do not face the extreme social barriers and discrimination that trans women face that hold them back
2. Even in the happy event of a world free of transphobia, almost all trans sports policies require medical transition, so even if a trans woman has been forced through male puberty by being denied puberty blockers, she will still be physiologically nothing at all like a cis man.
If you want to demonstrate evidence of some inherent advantage of trans women Holms, the minimum would be to demonstrate that trans people are over represented in results. That is, if trans people are half a percent of the population, significantly more than one in two hundred events are won by trans women. {We are, of course, nowhere near this happy state of equality yet.)
#17 Holms:
for some reason, I suspect Dawkins would be more likely to support your claims and concerns than mine.
As to your claims you addressed my arguments in your response to alurker;
“That’s easy for you to say, but some women would like the female sex to have some degree of visibility in sports and athletics.”
So, why is trans people’s desire for visibility in competitive sports any less valid?
And, again, you are comparing the bodies of cis men against cis women. trans women are not cis men, and shouldn’t be compared to cis men. This is just another demonstration of your personal transphobia, where you subscribe to(or at least promote) the default image of a trans woman being basically MCU Thor, but with boobs.
And finally, humans are highly variable. There are a lot of characteristics that tend to be sex-dependent, but even so, there is a huge overlap. The bell curves for a lot of these traits overlap more than they differ. There is more variance from individual to individual within either group, than there is for the average variance twixt the two different groups.
So why is it that you are SO VERY CONCERNED about the potential unfairness of trans women competing in sports, but not about the countless other inequities that actually affect far more people? Like, say, access to adequate medical care and nutrition, access to quality training equipment and instruction? Again, I don’t really care about sports, but I feel fairly certain there are a lot more potential world-class athletes out there who could have been competitive if they had access to better resources, then there are world-class athletes who lost to some hypothetical mythical trans woman athlete.
The whole concept of sport competition seems somewhat absurd to me.
Some people win because they have a genetic advantage, like that extreme red-blood-cell producing Scandinavian that wrecked at cross country skiing. Couldn’t get close. He had a mutation that made him excel like mad.
I’d kind of like to just open the grounds to mass doping, but that is seriously harmful to human physiology in many ways.
The whole conception and fixation on physical sport champions is so weird to me. Maybe the answer is to do away with it all.
UC San Diego asked the student body, do you want a football team, or sports associations. They built their facility for a football team. The students voted no. I loved playing co-ed sports of all types.
Ugh. Fuck professional sports and people’s fascinations with various socio-economic and genetic advantages. Like those students at UCSD (which I was one of) I just wanted to play games with people of comparable skill to develop my own capabilities.
I don’t watch any sports that rely largely on physicality anymore. The only sport I find worth watching is Starcraft 2. Go judge me. Scarlett is one of my favorite competitors, although Serral has taken her spot. I’m disappointed that no cis-woman has one a major championship, yet. Though I presume the reason is entirely cultural, there are very, very good cis-female players.
In a sense, I think the whole world so many of you are so invested in is absurd on the face of it.
By the way, and I’m sure I will attract contempt for this. I far prefer watching women’s soccer and women’s basketball, on the rare occasions I do. In the former, they don’t flounder around like a baby when they get an unfair hit, like male soccer players do. In the latter, they are far more cooperative and less ‘star’ focused.
@21, exactly.
What, if someone has a some genetic mutations that massively increases force output of their actin-myosin motor, that makes them inherently impressive?
The mutation is impressive, for sure. But some woman or man that can laze about, and still compete at the highest level is supposed to impress me?
Some asshole who can afford dressage lessons is supposed to impress me?
Why such a laser focus on just the one inequity?
#18 silentbob
What a strange description for a cycling performance that was literally the best the world had ever seen within that category. Twice in a row, too.
She was world champion within that category. Also twice in a row. Aoife asked for a top trans woman athlete, and got a 2 time world champion and two time world record setter. If that isn’t enough, what is the (every increasing) cutoff? It suits you to diminish world record/world champion status, because that allows you to indirectly rubbish the idea that the male body retains advantage even after transitioning.
Each one is an example of someone excelling in the female league with abilities that would be mediocre in the male league, thereby demonstrating that the male and female leagues are different playing fields. As for the number, how many is enough that you would consider it a noteworthy tendency?
According to your own source, there is no claim that the trans competitor held an ‘insurmountable’ advantage. That was your own addition. There is no contradiction present.
Are you lying, or simply not bothering to check?
Transgender Women in the Female Category of Sport: Perspectives on Testosterone Suppression and Performance Advantage
“We have shown that […] evidence for loss of the male performance advantage, established by testosterone at puberty and translating in elite athletes to a 10–50% performance advantage, is lacking. Rather, the data show that strength, lean body mass, muscle size and bone density are only trivially affected. The reductions observed in muscle mass, size, and strength are very small compared to the baseline differences between males and females in these variables, and thus, there are major performance and safety implications in sports where these attributes are competitively significant.”
How does hormone transition in transgender women change body composition, muscle strength and haemoglobin? Systematic review with a focus on the implications for sport participation
“Objectives We systemically reviewed the literature to assess how long-term testosterone suppressing gender-affirming hormone therapy influenced lean body mass (LBM), muscular area, muscular strength and haemoglobin (Hgb)/haematocrit (HCT).
[…]
Conclusion In transwomen, hormone therapy rapidly reduces Hgb to levels seen in cisgender women. In contrast, hormone therapy decreases strength, LBM and muscle area, yet values remain above that observed in cisgender women, even after 36 months.”
Effect of gender affirming hormones on athletic performance in transwomen and transmen: implications for sporting organisations and legislators
“Objective To examine the effect of gender affirming hormones on athletic performance among transwomen and transmen.
[…]
Transwomen retain an advantage in upper body strength (push-ups) over female controls for 1–2 years after starting gender affirming hormones.
Transwomen retain an advantage in endurance (1.5 mile run) over female controls for over 2 years after starting gender affirming hormones.”
More details are at each link, and there are plenty more links that I didn’t grab due to time. Recall the World Rugby conclusion of increased injury chance if trans women are permitted into women’s rugby as a further example.
No, I got that the cartoon was pointing out the hypocrisy of some of those that are against permitting trans women into women’s leagues. What you didn’t get is that the cartoon makes the assumption that all who oppose trans women in women’s leagues share that hypocrisy. Hence my comment #1 (with emphasis added this time): [The cartoon] accurately captures some of the people commenting on this topic.
You have concluded that I am an “ignorant reactionary conservative” solely on the basis of this one issue, and one of your arguments is that this is an area of some agreement with Trump. Literally a guilt by association fallacy. Further, you appear to define conservative or progressive status on the basis of one’s stance on this single issue, despite the fact that progressives and conservatives have strong agreement on a limited range of issues.
There’s even a common phrase for this specific eventuality: a stopped clock is right twice a day. I’ll bet you agree with conservatives on some issues too.
You cite one individual and one organisation agreeing with you to support ‘most women in sport’… but you ignore the fact that you have also cited women in sport that disagree. Silly.
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#21 lochaber
Yes, not surprising given that he studied biology. But my calling you Dawkins was in reference to your ‘Dear Muslima’ comment that I quoted.
It isn’t. The desire for female visibility in sports directly led to the creation of female only leagues in those sports. Are you suggesting that, likewise, the desire for trans visibility in sports should lead to the creation of trans only leagues? That at least would be the logical equivalent, though I am not certain the low population of trans people would lead to a sustainable league in any sport.
See the additional information provided in post 25.
But not when you push to the “slim leading edge” of each curve, which I specifically mentioned.
Why do you imagine that I am unconcerned by those things? I’ve expressed concerns on multiple of those things you list. They just don’t blow up in the comment section, because they pass without demur.
This cartoon does an effective job of painting people wanting to protect women’s sports as transphobes. Reminds me of Israel telling us that anti-Zionists are anti-semites.
@Holms
No it isnt clear at all. Because I usually hear 2 types of arguments -- That “real” women are being erased or crowded out or its unfair (== trans women cant participate as women) or there shouldn’t be gender segregated sports (== trans women cant participate as women).
So just to be clear you are saying you are ok with Trans women should be allowed to participate as women in some sports but not all ? How about team sports? are trans-women good there too ? Atleast then the area of disagreement can be narrowed.
Presumably you are also in favor of Basketball championships for short women v/s that for tall women (height also being genetic and all that).
#28 Deepak
Any sport where human sexual dimorphism is at play should have a league for the female sex. This goes for individual pursuits such as track and field, and also team sports like rugby. There are also some games that also have social rather than physiological reasons for a female league, such as chess; I don’t know if there are or are not still some reasons to keep trans women out of such leagues, but the sexual dimorphism argument certainly does not apply there.
Holms, Mano summed it up: “The cartoonist zeroes in on the subtext.”
But sure — sexual dimorphism, that’s what it’s all about for you. Heh.
A bullshit rationalisation, of course. The actual reason is that you (and those like you) think trans women are actually men. Simple as that.
And I pointed out that it is reductive.
The unfairness caused by dimorphism, but you got close.
John Morales, Deepak Shetty, Lochaber,
I have a question for you: do you support having separate leagues for men and women?
If you do, why?
If the answer is that it’s purely social — so women can be around other women, and it doesn’t really matter who “wins” anyway — then, well, learned social behaviors can be unlearned. So is that really a good reason?
Or is it that, as Holms has pointed out, if we disregarded gender then cis women would rarely be able to compete at all?
If, as you say, John Morales, sexual dimorphism isn’t what it’s “all about,” then what is it all about instead? What reason do you have for not getting rid of gendered sports entirely?
@28
Again, this is an argument that could be used by someone who wanted to get rid of gendered sports entirely. Is that what you want? If not, why not?
@30
The difference is, in every other case involving trans people, there is no harm. Despite the yammering of the right, nobody is really harmed when someone uses a bathroom, or lodges in whatever dormitory feels appropriate, or gets married to whomever they feel like marrying. Thus, their gender should be no concern of mine.
This case is the sole exception. There will be demonstrable harm to cis female athletes — whom you, for some reason, seem more than willing to hurl under the bus.
And don’t use the argument “there aren’t many trans athletes, so it doesn’t matter.” The number seems bound to grow, and we may just as well discuss it now as in the future when trans women are inevitably winning high school track meets and Olympic medals.
@Holms
However you still didnt answer the question. For sports where you feel dimorphism is not in play , do you support trans-women participating as women ?
@brucegee1962
Ideally -- no. pragmatically -- yes? As such I don’t have a problem either way for most sports. There are many things that matter to people that don’t matter to me personally so this would need a much more nuanced answer.
Holms and others(you?) point to differences between biological men and women as a reason to have separate categories because it would be unfair to women otherwise -- But other genetically determined attributes could have a much larger say on the outcomes even within a biological category. Why does that not bother them, Why arent they arguing to separate out those too if unfairness of genetic attributes is their primary concern ?
What you are alluding to is that we could have categories based on the attributes that matter for that sport rather than sex , for which, sure you could , but thats not the subject at hand. Or as an a analogy , we are arguing for gay marriage whereas you are asking for why not do away with the institution of marriage (As recognized by a government) and just have civil unions .
So Indian women athletes are “harmed” by allowing women athletes of other countries? -- because likely genetically, Indians are , on average smaller than women, on average of some other countries. Would you phrase it as harm ? In quite a few sports then short women are harmed by taller women. Slow women harmed by faster women. The only reason to phrase it as you did is to arrive at your predetermined conclusion.
Do you actually see a clamor of biological men wanting to transition and all womens sports dominated by transwomen ?
This argument is silly for the simple reason that it is not being had in good faith. Holms is only using this issue because it’s the closest one to where his previously-established bigotry sounds reasonable. Were he to be granted this argument, then he would be talking about how allowing trans women into women’s spaces ‘harms women’ because of hypothetical trauma, and about how the existence of language like ‘people who menstruate’ “erases” women therefore trans-inclusive language does harm, and so on and so forth.
There is no sensible answer for the trans women in sport thing because the only people who raise these issues are only using it as the thin end of a wedge. You will not find anyone honestly willing to say that trans women are women and believe it, while arguing against the sports thing. And not one of them gave shit one about women’s sports before they could use it to hurt trans people.
I invite anyone wondering about the veracity of my claims to inspect Holms’s history on this site and how exactly he got banned from basically every blog but this one, as well as the content on his ‘home’ site, Butterflies & Wheels, a place where he has been known to weirdly ‘report back’ about things on this site.
Holms:
Nope, I was spot on.
The only reason you refer to sexual dimorphism is because you think trans men aren’t women.
It’s so obvious; if it were purely a physical thing, you’d be against stronger women competing against weaker women for the same unfairness reason.
FWIW, the Olympics allows trans women to compete in women’s events. If they can do it, why not others?
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Bruce:
As much as I support mixed-sex leagues.
Look: I played squash for many years, and our intra-club competition was mixed — it was based on skill at the game, not on gender.
It was great!
So it’s up to whoever sets up the competition, far as I’m concerned.
PS
What a ridiculous claim!
Will they no longer be able to strive for personal bests?
Play as best as they can?
Showcase their skill and athleticism?
Get lucrative sponsorships?
Bah.
You didn’t ask that earlier. You asked “are saying you are ok with Trans women should be allowed to participate as women in some sports but not all ? How about team sports?” which is a different question, and I answered it.
As for your new question, I specifically stated that the sexual dimorphism argument doesn’t apply, and that I do not know whether there are or are not reasons to keep trans women out.
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You are making claims about my own intent. Since you don’t know my intent, and I alone do, I can inform you that you are wrong. But I don’t expect you to bother acknowledging this, given the lie that follows:
Time constraints 🙁 further replies when I get home.
I too -- at least to some extent – am what some here might describe as a panel one “transphobe”. But we are not all taking about the same thing.
To some, any inclusion of women who underwent male puberty should be disallowed from competitive athletics. I admit to some equivocation regarding brutal sports like MMA or rugby, but ultimately I strongly disagree with this position.
Others insist that sex reassignment surgery be undergone before inclusion. This was the Olympics position from 2003 – 2015. I disagree with this position too.
Still others, say that a period of testosterone suppression along with identifying as a woman should be required. I am again hesitant as to the brutal sports, but this is the bucket where I find myself in mostly full agreement. Certainly, with highly competitive athletics post high school.
Finally, there are those who would include anyone who identifies as a woman regardless of medical transition. There are 16 US states with this policy.
While concerning, I am provisionally ok with this through high school. We really do not have enough data to see how often this will be an issue. If transwomen that have not undergone testosterone suppression start to dominate, we can revisit.
When people argue about this, I am always curious as to which is their bucket.
A lot of the reasons for separate women’s sports are social. So that girls and women have equal chances to try out sports.
Yes, boys and men have advantages in some sports, and girls and women would have a harder time getting picked for those sports. But a lot of that depends on hormones, thus doping with extra testosterone. Trans girls may not be legally permitted to do anything about that, but trans women by and large try to rid ourselves of the excess testosterone.
At the same time, bullying is part of American schools, and girls may not be safe on the same teams and in the some locker rooms as boys and men. Not that boys are immune, there’s the whole Jerry Sandusky case, but girls are more often targets.
I wasn’t active in school sports growing up, but I was often beaten up in school, once beaten unconscious.
@39 Marja Erwin
I am so very sorry that you were abused in school. You did not deserve that. I sincerely hope that things are much better for you now.
@Holms
Why are you being evasive ? Either you know of reasons , hence you oppose the inclusion of trans women or you dont know of reasons hence you support or you dont know of reasons but you still oppose. Which is it ? Its your personal opinion being asked for -- not something that you couldnt change tomorrow , if you so chose.
You cant pretend you haven’t thought about this given your interest in this topic.
@ 34 abbeycadabra
It’s a familiar dynamic. Holms… er, home, is a modern version of the slimepit (ironically* enough). A collection of disgruntled reactionary bigoted losers with a grudge against
SJWs“the woke” who occasionally venture out of their bigot-bubble to troll the enemy FtB, invariably get their asses handed to them on a plate, and slink back to bigot central to report and lick their wounds. It’s all very pathetic.* Ironic because guess who coined the term “slimepit” back in the day (or rather the proto-term “pit o’ slime”)?
My observations are about the intentions demonstrated by Holms’s consistently bigoted and insufferable behavior.
If this is not congruent with what is supposedly in his heart, then that is on him, not me. He’s consistently been most active in any thread where there is an opportunity for him to shit on trans women, across many forums, and this is the very behavior he’s been banned for over and over again. His obsession has been demonstrated by his actions, which have been sometimes outright sadistic. They have demonstrated a desire to convince everyone that trans women are men, not out of any sense of justice, but because it hurts the people he likes to hurt.
This is true of a lot of TERFs, incidentally. It is an incredibly cruel ideology.
So, for the sake of argument, let’s bypass whether it’s a legitimate issue or not…
if trans women competing in women’s sports is truly as unfair as so many of you seem to think it is, two questions:
Should trans men be competing in women’s sports then?
And, how do you determine who competes in what categories? Do you want some sort of periodic blood draws to test for blood hormone levels? chromosonal testing? phrenology? manual genital inspections? something else?
Because, while I don’t have anything at hand, I feel that looking at past events, it’s likely that whatever method you promote is far more likely to oppress and abuse cis women athletes than it will be at excluding trans women athletes. And I also suspect that some of those methods will disqualify some current competitive cis woman athletes.
I don’t care about sports, even less so about spectatorship competitive sports. I still hold that this is a very niche scenario, that is receiving undue attention because it’s considered an “acceptable” way for people to voice their transphobia.
@ 37 Holms
Oh please hurry back Holms. I’m sure people are desperate to hear more from a privileged clueless cis bloke who wouldn’t know a trans person from a fire hydrant about why a tiny powerless persecuted minority he doesn’t belong to shouldn’t be allowed to play sport.
#35 John
You keep asserting, you keep being wrong.
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#41 Deepak
I answered your question. I agreed that the argument based on physicality is inapplicable, and stated I know no reason to bar trans women from non-physical pursuits like chess. What I know for sure is that everything I have said so far has only really been applicable to the more physical pursuits, I have not touched on the others at all.
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#43 abbey
This is very typical of you. Make sweeping assertions about the internal thought process of anyone that disagrees, and ignore all correction about the person’s actual thought process. You write whatever narrative you want and accuracy be damned.
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#44 lochaber
Once they start taking T, no, as that is a performance boosting substance. They can compete in the male division however, because the male division is essentially the open division. And while I don’t have a fully worked and foolproof plan for detection, I’d certainly start with birth records.
@Holms
Ok Ill take your word for it -- I think though there is a distinction between the statements “I support the inclusion of trans-women as women in some sports” and “I dont see a reason to bar trans-women from participating as women in some sports”.
Next time we can see about team sports.
Holms continues to live exactly down to my expectations, no matter how he pretends to be the victim (as bigots always do) by abusing the therapy word “narrative”.
To clarify: I have watched him gloat, here and elsewhere, any time there is a news story of a trans woman being upset, or better yet a personal interaction on some social media where he can watch or participate in one being made upset. I have, personally, watched him engage in behaviors that make no sense unless this was the specific objective, such as the entire exchange he touched off about me at Butterflies & Wheels, which included from him and others jabs at my appearance. That’s a thing I have seen many times: when they are in their own spaces, TERF cultists often mock how a trans woman looks (sometimes, as in this case, in strange delusional ways, assuring each other they “can always tell”…). That can’t be framed as fighting for justice or protecting women, that’s just bitter catty bullying, and it is the proof that for them, as with other right-wingers, the cruelty is the point.
I like TER more. Feminists have been about systemic problems, not outliers. Someone even pointed out the olympics, and 2 wins in a race among years of that race among lots of similar races. It’s like pointing to violent individuals to judge a group but with sports victories. Now they’ve gone and set things up so victors can accuse each other of being trans. All that obsession over controlling hormones with many functions, including psychological. We’re such a sick society.
from Holms@46:
“Once they start taking T, no, as that is a performance boosting substance. They can compete in the male division however, because the male division is essentially the open division. And while I don’t have a fully worked and foolproof plan for detection, I’d certainly start with birth records.”
And there it is -- this is just an opportunity for the transphobes to prevent trans folk from updating their birth certificates, which makes a mess of so many other things.
@ 49 abbeycadabra
I looked in there recently to see if it had changed since Trump. Because for years there’s only been two topics: Trump and hating trans people. So I naively thought maybe without Trump it will go back to the feminist humanist blog it used to be. Silly, Silentbob. It just became 100% hating trans people.
A recent post is about the abovementioned Veronica Ivy, a trans professor of philosophy and cyclist (who, needless to say is deliberately misgendered throughout). Apparently, she’s moving back to Canada because of the rise in transphobia in the US starting with Trumpism. This post was mocking her, jeering and sneering and fucking celebrating! I couldn’t believe it. It was like a Nazi jeering at a Jew being forced out of Deutschland, or a redneck mocking a “negro” for fleeing the South. The sheer fucking hateful spitefulness of it. And to think that used to be an FtB blog. I will just never understand how people can be so hateful to a tiny minority that’s never done them the slightest harm. As you say, in no universe could this possibly be conceived as just or righteous.
(I don’t want to link to the post but for veracity’s sake, it’s here: butTERFLIESandwheels.org/2021/they-accepted-his-resignation/)
#47 Deepak
You are correct, “I do not oppose X” is distinct from “I support X”. I am happy to have other people argue that one out as I have no argument one way or the other, and I will read both sides with interest.
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#48 abbey
You have made it clear that you think you get to tell me what my own opinions and motivations are, and you also do not think I get to correct you even though the subject is my own mind. Thus, you are writing the narrative you want and you refuse to accept the possibility of error. Oh and using a word once is far from abuse.
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#51 lochaber
Er, no, it is not all about preventing people modifying their birth certificates. It is about competitive fairness and visibility. As for birth certificates, they are simply an historical record of certain facts about a person at the time of birth. Physical parameters like weight, length and yes, sex. Are people actually pushing to have their sex changed retroactively? Why would this be changed?
Also, did those answers satisfy your original question before you got on to this supposed goal regarding people’s birth certificates?
We can only hope that eventually, somehow, in the far distant future, Holms will eventually come to understand that we aren’t buying his bullshit any more. We’ve seen who and what he is: bad faith and sadism, appropriating real issues for an opportunity to express and spread disgust about a marginalized group.
I will say I appreciate Holms use as a foil in this case. This was something I hadn’t thought extensively or carefully about, but generally I prefer to treat people as they prefer to be treated.
I’ve certainly been convinced that trans-women participating in female sports is fundamentally a non-issue.
I understand obsession with top level athletic form and skill, but I still don’t get why everything must be a competition. Why can’t the Olympics be more like rock bands at a festival? Have countries promote the best they believe in, then watch them for a cultural demonstration. You decide which you thought had the most grace or skill given the context. Some people dismiss ice-skating or gymnastics as too subjective. That’s what I love about watching such competition. I’d be happy to watch without the judge scoring and without the medals awarded. We could throw out all these weird obsessive constraints and rules.
@55 Sam N
More than that: every mention of elite athletics, Olympian or otherwise, is disingenuous at best and an outright lie at worst, because – and you have only to look at the huge pile of state legislation across the USA now to see this – their objective is to ban trans people from participating at every possible level, even for fun in school. The assumption is always that anyone trans must be bad and ruinous, and the whole suddenly-caring-about-women’s-sports thing is just the current hotness of an excuse to try to convince undecided cis people that the mere presence of a trans person is a scourge that must be stamped out.
#54 abbey
In which you lie some more.
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#55 Sam N
Why is it entirely about the Olympics? There are many sporting competitions out there. Also, I might remind you that your lack of interest in athletics and sports is cool and all, you certainly don’t have to have the same interests as others, but… others are interested, and the female divisions were made specifically so that women could be visible at the top end in this endeavour. I agree that it doesn’t matter, or barely matters in lower level competitions such as at the ‘fun run’ level -- I see no reason for those to be stringent. But the top end is a different matter.
@57, You’re right. I’m not strongly vested in any of this. Which might make me more dispassionate about evaluating the points delivered here. It’s good you don’t care at all below top-level competition because it is completely irrelevant when playing for fun and to develop skills. But as in the cartoon, I find your claim that it matter at the top-level extremely dubious. I don’t see a substantial harm to cis-women from as an objective point of view as I can manage. Although I can certainly imagine an individual cis-woman here and there becoming very upset because of how they have been taught to think about gender.
Holms, do you have a measurement of trans-female as % of total female population? Do you have a measurement of trans-female at top-level sporting competition as % of the total female at top-level sporting competition? Seems if you must continue down this rabbit hole, that would be a minimum of evidence you would need to consider.
If it ends up that trans-women are about 2-3% of the population, but are 20-30% of players winning championships/gold medals in top level sporting competition, and women are overwhelmingly upset about that, I’d reconsider my viewpoint.
As best I can tell, it is a rarity that a trans-woman is at that level, but when they are, folks like you freak the fuck out, and publicize it like mad, creating a problem where none actually exists.
Holms,
btw, when I used the term ‘folks like you’, it’s rather circular, because I’m talking about folks that freak the fuck out about a trans-woman excelling in a competition, no matter the relative rarity.
I assume that you aren’t that guy in the rest of the comic strip (because you stated it). Maybe as abbey suggests, you are being disingenuous, but I really don’t care to spend my time to go around seeing what else or where else you post things on the internet or to make assumptions as you’ve mostly hued to this narrow part of the conversation throughout this thread.
#58 Sam
You’re not concerned about women being visible. Well that’s nice for you, but women disagreed with that enough that history is replete with examples of them disliking being shoved out of sight. Far from “a few individuals here and there”.
Your entire position seems to be that you don’t find sports interesting (let alone visibility and representation in sports), and so others also shouldn’t.
I really don’t. A single woman displaced by a male is a woman cheated, and that can come at a huge cost. Sporting scholarships are handed out for high school tryouts, team placements and sponsorship deals as well. This isn’t just visibility and having female as well as male sporting legends, careers can hang on a difference of one position.
As for a freakout… bear in mind that my comment was merely “This accurately captures some of the people commenting on this topic.” I didn’t even italicise the some to make the point more obvious. Look at what others said in response to that tiny comment, and for the simple position (elucidated as the thread went on) that trans women retain physical advantage over women even post transition. Perhaps most of all, look at the absurd hyperbole from abbey. Then tell me who is freaking out.
@60, ah, the use of communication. It does help my own thoughts from spinning off. Fair enough points.
I stand by my statement this isn’t a big deal until you take the % of representations and demonstrate it is a serious problem. One male player is not at all the same as one trans-female player. Indeed, how that you phrased that lends credence that you can’t accept trans-women as women.
See John Morales comments. Is it actually affecting visibility? No. Ability to get sponsorships? No. Ability to get scholarships? No.
I really would need to see the percentages before I can begin to view what you describe as a problem.
@ Holms
Say someone was assigned male at birth, but identifies as a woman. She took puberty blockers early and never underwent male puberty. When legally able to do so, she had gender affirmation surgery.
Should she be able to compete as a woman?
@62 marner
I believe you have forgotten that the TERF position is to call all youth trans health care “child abuse”, in order to make absolutely certain that all trans people are forced through the wrong puberty.
And the mask slips yet again…
Again, as abbeycadabra brought up, this is a fabricated “wedge issue” -- it’s been carefully hedged, sculpted, and edited by transphobes, misogynists, homophobes, and other bigots to appeal to people ignorant of the issues at hand and seem “reasonable”, while gradually pushing that individual to embrace the narrative that trans people (and specifically trans women) are predatory their mere existence is somehow harmful to cis women. Granted, these bigots have always been against trans people existing, but lately they have specifically focused on trans people and trans issues. Idle speculation on my end, but I believe it’s partially related to the legalization and wide-spread social acceptance of same-sex marriage -- the bigots pretty much officially lost the culture war on demonizing gay/lesbian people, so they had to find a new, more acceptable target, which became trans people. And then their “bathroom bill” wedge backfired against them, as countless cis women were harassed for not presenting a “feminine” enough appearance. Also, it didn’t help their cause that most people had some experience with bathrooms, even gender-neutral or mixed-gender bathrooms. So they switched to the issue of gender-segregated sports. Because not as many people have experiences with competitive-level sports, and there are often additional layers of regulation beyond just the government involved.
And, as Holms has previously revealed, part of their interest in this wedge issue, is to deny trans people the ability to change information on their birth certificates -- which leads to a growing cascade of issues that make life more difficult for trans people, ranging from mild inconvenience to life-threatening.
And then Holms again attempted to present the issue as a predatory one (complete with a not-so-subtle misgendering…) -- any trans woman making an athletic achievement is “cheating” that achievement from a cis woman. It doesn’t take much imagination to see how transphobes will use this to attempt to deny trans women jobs, housing, education, artistic pursuits, etc.
I don’t comment a lot, but I lurk, and (like abbeycadabra and others have already mentioned…) I’ve also noticed that Holms often shows up in comment threads on a lot of posts about trans issues, and is almost always advancing some transphobic bullshit under the guise of JAQing off or sealioning, or similar bullshit. Enough that I recognized their handle, and am primed to anticipate some sort of bigoted bullshit.
This post isn’t to argue with Holms (You’ve already revealed your goals/motivations, which was enough for me, I don’t care what bigots think, so I have no interest in engaging you directly), but for anyone who happens along this comment thread in the future. Keeping that in mind, I just want to point out that while this thread was progressing, Arkansas banned trans-affirming healthcare for minors, including puberty blockers (which do nothing other than delay puberty). Despite the Republican Governor vetoing it, the state legislature overrode the veto. This is what people like Holms want, and are fighting for. And this bigotry never stops at one target -- if it’s successful, it will find a new target -- other LGBT folk or cis women are the most likely targets, but it won’t stop there either. Even if someone doesn’t care about fairness and equality and freedom, they should at least recognize there is a significant self-interest component to thwarting bullies, predators, and oppressors.
Holms, some parting comments (although if you continue to respond, there’s a fair chance I will proceed to).
You seem to be exhibiting one of the worst flaws I view in USA Republicans: That it’s better that 100 innocent people suffer than 1 cheat get away with something.
I just don’t feel the same way. It seems somewhat absurd to me that some guy would pretend to be a trans-female to get a medal (which given he grew up with the male perspective, which is rather toxic in my own experience, doesn’t seem like he or his friends would value it much). If that happens 1 in 100 or 1 in 1000 times. Eh whatever. What a sad human being.
I believe the vast majority of trans women are genuine. Just like I believe your own statements about yourself. You seem to view 1 cheat as being inconsiderable, so let’s let 1000s of innocent people who are earnest suffer for it.
That’s all. I’d prefer to help a lot of people and be cheated every now and then. Maybe this places us at a fundamental impasse, but I’d take a good look at your fellow travelers in that case.
Or.. ugh. You really can never accept a trans-woman as a woman. Which may also be the case.
Yes my mind is making some leaps and bounds, but… Your rhetoric is not helping my views on you.
In this comment, you implicitly accept that it can be a problem, even if only once a certain number of …wins? podium spots? sponsorhips deals? (etc.) are claimed by trans women in women’s sports. If it is not a problem if a single female is displaced, but becomes a problem when some threshold is reached, you have accepted that there is something undesirable in women’s sports being won by trans women and it is just a matter of how many times it happens.
So, what is the threshold?
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#62 marner
You have the cart before the horse. Say we have a space set aside for that subset of humans born female. Someone observed to be male at birth wants in, citing a lack of male puberty. Should that person be permitted in? The affirmative case is the one that needs to be made, not the negative.
Anyway, I’m open to it in principle, but being male but without a male puberty is an intersexed state which requires the attention of sports scientists/physicians. I would give their determination deference.
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#64 lochaber
You omit from your narrative that there is an entirely separate origin of thought on this issue. I for one saw the trans cause as the logical extension of the gay/lesbian marriage struggle, and was on board early and enthusiastically. I disagreed only when people began asking me to believe or pretend to believe various articles of biological or linguistic silliness. As an example, I dimly recall a falling out with someone on a years-gone blog because they believed that there were no differences between the skeletons of the sexes., and demanded that I fall in line on that claim. I’ve not seen that bit of nonsense repeated in some time, but there are plenty of other silly things since.
The claim that there is no post-transition to being a trans woman is just the latest in that string.
Again, this is not a ‘goal’ -- I had no knowledge that there was even a push here. But as already noted, the birth certificate is simply a document of information that was true at the time of birth. You don’t take the length listed there as determinative, do you?
Damn, you started out fairly reasonably, but now you’re joining in with making shit up about the other team’s goals. What a shame.
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#65 Sam
I also reject the idea that people transition with the sole goal of winning races more easily. It’s just a natural byproduct of the intersections between ‘people who are trans women’ and ‘people who are sporty’. Some people will inevitably be in both camps, and they will be competing with an advantage if permitted in the female division.
@62 marner
Note the argument made by the local TERF mouthpiece here:
This is literally “Prove to us that you deserve to be respected. You’re not a woman unless we gatekeep that it is so.” with the additional deliberate inaccuracy of “observed to be male”. We’ve been over and over this; doctors cannot observe anything at birth other than a guess regarding one usually visible article; they cannot see gametes, glands, chromosomes, gametophores, or future sex hormone production, and they CERTAINLY cannot see future experience of self. All of these simple scientific facts are deliberately elided and waved away by transphobes who are pretending to use science. Note that in this very argument, this VERY response, was a result of you asking whether someone who didn’t experience any of the supposed reasons to exclude a trans woman should be excluded. Holms’s answer of “probably yes” proves his bad faith in making any of these arguments at all.
Starting off with a lie? Failure to be let in a restricted space is not failure to be respected. Also, observation of one (out of many) sex traits is still an observation, and not a guess. Laughable nonsense.
@68 abbeycadabra
Yes! Also
The “sports scientists/physicians” for the Olympics have determined that transwomen can compete. And the requirements are not nearly as rigorous as the example I presented. Holms is clearly not willing to defer to the experts.
And other organisations and sports scientists/physicians have done further research, disputing that decision as hasty. I provided three citations for such findings, all of which are more recent than the Olympic Committee decision. Also some errata: in #67, I should have said DSD rather than intersex state.
The awful person’s visible, tangible goalpost moves speak for themselves of his lack of faith. Even in the middle of trying to call me a liar, he motte-and-bailey’s.
To be fair, this is the last desperate cling-to-a-straw move for transphobes trying to seem reasonable.
The older appeals to the prison argument, the bathroom argument, the misogyny argument having flopped, the appeal to elite sports is the only thing that can still ge traction, as evinced in some of the earlier posts here by rather more well-meaning people.
I note that it’s a tacit admission that in every other sphere of social life, there is no merit to the exclusion of trans people.
#72 abbey
Haven’t changed position, so that’s another lie.
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#73 John
The current discussion is about sport because that’s what Mano brought up.
Holms, your comments are ostensibly about sport, but in reality every one of your objections to trans participation is predicated (as I noted @30) on the premise that trans women are men (and, also, that at elite levels in sport any given man will necessarily beat every woman — as if skill were not a factor).
(Do you imagine people can’t see your ontological dependency? You don’t think trans women are men because they are better at sports, you think they are better at sports because they’re men)
#75 John
My posts are entirely about the impact sex has on physical ability, and fair play in sport, predicated on sexual dimorphism and the data showing that this gap is not eliminated by transitioning. Par for the course, you’ve demonstrated amply that you don’t mind making things up about someone else’s thought process.
Here though is an error of yours that you might actually be interested in correcting:
No, I have never claimed that “any given man” will be able to beat an elite female athlete.I have said that male elite athletes will be able to beat female elite athletes, because that is a like for like comparison with the only variable being sex. A female hurdler for example will be able to beat me easily, as I am not a runner of any sort, let alone a hurdler. Go through some track and field events if you like, wiki usually has the large events really neatly organised for easy comparison.
@John Morales
Well I still have hope for people who share 7 out of 9 panels with us -- Though sometimes I read the comments on a particular blog and I despair. Anyway I shall go back to being harmed by various men in the IPL now.
@Holms
Did I miss the great feminist victory ? Where all other inequalities in life were eliminated and the only disparity in outcomes are due to biological differences?
#77 Deepak
John thought I was comparing male slobs to female athletes. I pointed out that I was actually comparing male athletes to female athletes. Both athletes, with the only variable for which we can control being sex. Are you missing that point deliberately or accidentally?
Holms, heh. You actually quoted me: “… at elite levels in sport any given man […]”. (my emphasis)
So yeah, the corner to which you’ve painted yourself is so tiny only elite competitors count for your objections, which means school sports and community sports don’t qualify.
(Are you aware of the legal dictum that “hard cases make bad law”?)
Which indisputably means you’re presuming trans women are male, and as I’ve noted multiple times, that’s the actual basis of your objections to their participation in women’s sport — at any level. Only thing stopping you from stating that outright on this thread is that you’re trying to seem reasonable.
—
PS @71:
Reminiscent of the tobacco industry, which would use the very same point that some experts didn’t agree that smoking affects health.
(Face it, you’re the traditionalist intolerant reactionary ideologue on this issue)
#79 John
You think U18 leagues (and similar) can’t be ‘elite’? 🙂
Oh, what sex are they then? (I know from experience you won’t answer this as asked)
And yet there is data from multiple studies showing that the Olympics and other organisations made hasty determinations.
No I’m just better informed than you, and I’m willing to disagree with people even if we are generally united on many other issues. You have chosen conformity. I get it, it’s much easier.
@Holms
So am I. according to you elite male athletes are better than elite female athletes because of their sex.
Nothing to do with women
a) are actively discouraged from sports which reduces the pool size. Could India have a woman athlete that could compare with the men ? We’ll never know because so few are allowed to do it. Probably lucky though otherwise they might have harmed the other women who are currently winning.
b) have access to fewer funds and disparity in training. Fewer sponsorships , fewer opportunities to dedicate your life to your sport. Not as good coaches or for that matter competition. Take cricket for e.g. -- compare the amount the men’s team plays , the money , the sponsors, the coaches, the fame v/s the women. Can you really improve to the men’s level when you play 10 games a year against opposition that plays 10 games a year ? But sure the magic male genitalia is what makes Shane Warne turn the ball more or what allows Sachin tendulkar to hit a cover drive better than the women.
c) Stereotypes like the male ideal is the muscular strong types whereas the female ideal is the hour glass figure. The repeated idea pushed on women that their ideal is marriage plus kids and that those who choose a career are selfish ,probably gay and will die alone.
d) Bullying of women and the way they look when they happen to be the on the muscular side -- again active discouraging of the attributes that would be better in sports.
And so on and these are just from the top of my head. Which is why when you say that sex is the only factor , I assumed that feminists have won the war and these inequalities don’t exist any more, right ?
Holms, I see you’re seeking to do the same thing as you did in that marathon thread where Mano felt compelled to stop it, because I stated you would not stop until you got the last word, and I would prove it. I did.
And may I note that I appreciated his tolerance then, as I appreciate it now.
Anyway, be comforted, I will this time leave it be and let you have the last word, when the time comes.
I was referring to ‘elite’ (best of the best), not to age groups.
(Point being, by definition, the rest is not the best of the best)
But hey, feel free make your argument why elite U12s need to be gender-segregated, because of fairness.
They’re women. Trans women, not cis women, but women nonetheless.
It’s in the very name.
If you want to talk about men, talk about men, not about trans women.
(Or just admit you imagine they’re one and the same)
Heh.
Yeah, what would the IOC or World Athletics or other major sports organisations know about sport, other than organising premier events? 🙂
Hasty, that’s them.
<snicker>
LOL. I’m well known for not being willing to disagree with people, I am!
(That was a literal LOL — my wife comnented on it)
Heh.
So you hold that conformity is accepting trans women can participate in women’s sport. That’s just the conformist norm, right now. 😉
I love it when people try to patronise me.
Sure, it’s just so much easier to concede trans women are women.
Only special fearless people who buck the trend, like you, can manage to do the hard yakka of saying they’re just men in dresses. Such bravery!
Witness the brave Freeze Peach warrior, standing up against equality and feminism on behalf of that well-known underdog, colonial patriarchy!
Yes, in many sports the male sex has advantages compared to the female sex. This is extremely well documented, and pointing to social issues which also exist does not remove the documented physical disparity.
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We can agree that you’re the one that competes for the last word. I don’t do that. I respond if there is something silly to rebut, or a correction to make, or something left unsaid that I think should be added… Whatever seems to be needed to further the conversation taking place.
And I was pointing out that school sports can indeed have a ‘best of the best’ level of play for the age group.
Why, when that is not my position?
As predicted, no answer to the question “what sex are they”. How about another: what does the word ‘woman’ mean, and so on what basis do we apply it to some people and not others?
For one thing, yes, they can be hasty if under political pressure. More to the point though, now that new data has come out, and the position they occupy is all scientific and all, there should be no problem exploring the new data. So why the pushback?
Oh, did you study biology at uni? ‘Cos I sure did.
On other topics, sure. On this one and on FTB? Conformity.
Ah, somehow the dropped out of that double quote. Probably the brackets wrapped in tags.
Sigh, of course.
🙂
@Holms
Last comment for this thread from me.
You aren’t answering the question posed. Do the social issues cause a difference in outcome or not -- would women be closer to the male standard in these sports or not (perhaps even equal it in some?). Because your claim is that the only difference is the physical disparity and so according to that position -- removing all these social issues will not make any difference for the sports in question! A very odd position for a feminist indeed. It looks like dislike over the inclusion of trans-women makes you throw other , (and to me much more important issues related to sport and in general) under the bus!
#88 Deepak
No. Rather, the predominant difference in highly competitive sport, and one that will remain even if all social ills are magically fixed. You don’t have to take my word for it, read a comparative anatomy textbook or google ‘sexual dimorphism’ ‘human’.
And unless John has a sudden attack of bravery and becomes answer my two simple questions…? No, probably not.
Holms:
Heh. It always comes down to this: for Holms and his ilk, trans women are not women. Only cis women are women.
(Or: how to define a problem away; might as well say a ‘mother’ is someone who gestates and births a baby, and therefore adoptive mothers are not a ‘mother’, no matter that they raise a child they did not gestate)
What sex are they? What does the word ‘woman’ mean, and so on what basis do we apply it to some people and not others?
See what I mean?
@30: “The actual reason is that you (and those like you) think trans women are actually men. Simple as that.”
@35: “The only reason you refer to sexual dimorphism is because you think trans men aren’t women.
It’s so obvious; if it were purely a physical thing, you’d be against stronger women competing against weaker women for the same unfairness reason. ”
Holms @46: “#35 John
You keep asserting, you keep being wrong.”
@90: “It always comes down to this: for Holms and his ilk, trans women are not women. Only cis women are women.”
Holms @91: “What sex are they? What does the word ‘woman’ mean, and so on what basis do we apply it to some people and not others?”
—
Heh. I keep asserting, because I’m evidently and indisputably right.
The only basis for your objection is that you define ‘woman’ as someone assigned female at birth. That’s it.
Everything else is an effort to rationalise a priori bigotry.
It’s so bleeding obvious!
The problem is not that some people within a sex are stronger than others of that sex, the problem is that one sex is stronger than the other. You keep misunderstanding this.
Obviously the solution is to split the sexes. Which leads to the question, what sex is a trans woman? Go for it, brave truthspeaker!
Overlapping probability density functions.
The strongest cis men are stronger than the strongest cis women, but many cis women are stronger than many cis men. Fact.
Some women are stronger than other women, so they similarly have an unfair advantage (that’s your ostensible worry, no?) over those women.
(Would you be happy if only trans women who were guaranteed to lose competed? It would sure obviate your supposed concern 😉 )
Says the guy who won’t tacitly admit he imagines trans women are actually cis men.
—
Look: the only bravery is that I can adjust to a changing social milieu.
(You’re just like the people who claimed ‘marriage’ is an undertaking between a cis man and a cis woman when objecting to gay marriage)
Yes, cis women and trans women are by and large biologically distinct, but the category ‘woman’ is not just a biological category within any social milieu.
Yes, trans women might need to get a prostrate check instead of a pap smear, but that’s not of relevance to their social status as women.
And, of course, many people are genderqueer — neither men not women.
They should count just as much.
Also: Organised sports are a social phenomenon, not a biological one.
As I noted above, far as I’m concerned, it’s up to competition organisers to set the participation criteria: they want only cis women to compete, fine. But if they then suck money from the public teat, then they should abide by whatever criteria that public support requires — and if that means accepting a particular gender, then that’s what it is.
End of the day, bigotry as deep as yours cannot be reasoned away — it’s more of a generational change thing, excepting people like me who can adapt to changing social norms.
Anyway, there’s no point endlessly reiterating things; nothing more remains to be said. So I’m out.
It’s worth mentioning as an aside that the “What sex are they??” gotcha question, likewise the “Define ‘woman’?” one, are more disingenuous bad faith. These are questions that can only be begged, as in, the only way to arrive at the idea that asking them is a good idea is to have predefined (generally incorrect) answers for them.
Besides, regarding ‘ the “define ‘woman'” gotcha… first, define “sandwich”.
They have an advantage, but not one that is due to sexual dimorphism. There is an advantage purely in being male; a figurative thumb on the scales along this particular axis. And so the sexes are divided to remove this factor.
The subject is sexual disparities. What sex is a trans woman?
Absolutely astonishing. I invite readers to observe this -- a classic example of the irrationality of bigotry. Holms has here clearly stated that he only cares about a strength disparity in sports if the stronger person is trans. He doesn’t deny strength disparities exist among cis people. But just flat out states they’re not “unfair” as long as both people are cis. Only if one is trans is there a “thumb on the scales”. In other words Holms doesn’t actually give a fuck about “fairness”. It’s never been about “fairness”. It’s an excuse.
(Incidentally, the strength disparity Holms is clinging to as an excuse for his bigotry doesn’t exist. Modern studies find trans HRT (which is required by most sporting policies) completely eliminates this imaginary advantage.)
Ah no, I clearly stated that I only care if the stronger person was born male. Regardless of whether that person subsequently transitioned, male. Was that an intentional misstatement of my position, or a genuine accident? I suppose that will be demonstrated by whether you take the correction or not.
Silentbob, I have to assume you didn’t even read the damn study because it does not claim that. It points to a reduction in athletic advantage:
“Summary The 15–31% athletic advantage that transwomen displayed over their female counterparts prior to starting gender affirming hormones declined with feminising therapy. However, transwomen still had a 9% faster mean run speed after the 1 year period of testosterone suppression that is recommended by World Athletics for inclusion in women’s events.”
This puts it in line with the studies I referenced waaaaay back in #25.
My god. One of these days, I will actually follow my own advice: always preview.
One day…
@98 Silentbob
Yeah! Holms isn’t shitting on ALL trans people, he’s only shitting on trans WOMEN! He’s ignoring everyone else! He’s pointing out that to him, men are always superior to women, and only the people he views as men can be considered to have agency. Trans men, the poor little dears, don’t count.
Jeez, get it right!
“What sex is a trans woman?”
FEMALE, you disingenuous transphobic turnip!
I am closing this comment thread.
Mano