The radio program On the Media devoted this week’s entire 52 minute episode, titled Trans* Formations, to talking with trans academics, doctors, activists, historians, and artists, starting with a discussion on the many anti-trans laws that are being passed in state legislatures around the country based on various misconceptions and outright distortions. While the earlier efforts to pass bathroom bills seem to have run out of steam, the recent efforts to keep trans women from taking part in sports and athletics seem to be more widespread and successful.
There’s a long history of campaigns to “save the children,” whether they need saving or not. This week, On the Media looks at the latest: an effort to block access to medical care for trans kids. Plus, how years of Hollywood representation — from The Crying Game to Transparent — have shaped the public’s ideas about trans people.
- Katelyn Burns [@transscribe], freelance journalist and co-host of the “Cancel Me, Daddy!” podcast, on the the politics and propaganda behind the recent wave of anti-trans legislation, and Jack Turban [@jack_turban], fellow in child and adolescent psychiatry at Stanford University School of Medicine, on what the science tells us about gender affirming care in adolescence.
- Jules Gill-Petersen [@gp_jls], professor of english and gender, sexuality, and women’s studies at the University of Pittsburgh and author of Histories of the Transgender Child, on the long history of trans children.
- Imara Jones [@imarajones], creator of TransLash media and host of the TransLash podcast, on how trans visibility paves the way toward trans liberation.
- Sam Feder [@SamFederFilm], director of the Netflix documentary “Disclosure,” on how Hollywood representations of trans lives have shaped the public understanding of who trans people are.
I found the program to be highly absorbing and it had a lot of information that I was not aware of.
Here is the full program.
If you follow this link, you can listen to each segment separately.
I had seen the Netflix documentary that is referred to in segment #4 before and my review can be read here.
I have mentioned before that Hollyweird has only ever allowed four representations of Transgender people in film or on TV:
1) Serial killers, sociopaths, monsters (“silence of the lambs”)
2) “Traps”, a slur for sexual predators (“crying game”)
3) Comic relief or grossout (the Matt Bomer film, “ace ventura”)
4) Tragedies who must die by the end (“danish girl”)
Orange is the new black added a fifth category: criminals, inferring that Transgender people choose a life of crime instead of addressing that many of us suffer job and housing discrimination, thus forced to earn a living that doing things society deems a “crime”. That isn’t an improvement.
“POSE” is the first time I have seen Transgender people portrayed the same way as anyone else: working normal jobs, going to school, trying to find happiness. When you show people as human beings, it changes how society perceives them.
Mano, just a note on style -- “transwomen” is considered mildly offensive by some. It’s “trans women” short for “transgender women”. Mashing the adjective and the noun together is thought to place the category above the person, similar to “Chinaman”.
Not a criticism, I know you’re the sort of decent person who cares about things like that.
(Holms, let’s just take it as read you don’t like trans people. You can spare us the usual 50 comments.)
If this is in reference to the various ‘sports bills’ that are coming out lately, it is not a distortion to note that there is a real advantage in strength and speed for trans women, even after years of testosterone blocking.
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#2 Bob
I have a trans person in my circle, and we socialise weekly. Yes, fewer than the number in your life I am sure, but a friend all the same. Maybe spare me your next 50 lies? Thanks.
Holms: That’s your first.
So… clickety-click
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/04/16/five-states-ban-transgender-girls-girls-school-sports-segregating-sports-by-sex-hurts-all-girls/
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/apr/24/alabama-transgender-ban-female-sports-teams
silentbob @#2,
Thanks for the heads up about usage! I’ll bear it in mind. I have corrected this post accordingly.
@3, You have yet to demonstrate this is a real or substantial problem in any sense of the word. But you certainly have a hyper vigilance on the matter. You have not even begun to demonstrate it. Even then you would need to demonstrate that it’s a bigger problem, than say, tall women dominating at basketball. But you haven’t even provided the bare minimum of evidence that there is a disproportionality of trans women participating in women’s sports.
For the past few decades, there have been athletic venues which allow trans women to compete against cis women. If trans women actually did possess significant athletic advantages over cis women “cuz Born Male”, a disproportionately large percentage all top honors earned in such venues should have gone to trans women.
Did this, in fact, happen?
In my experience, people who make noise about “trans women advantage” are uniformly unable to answer that question. They can’t answer it in the affirmative, or at all.
We shall see if Holms can do better than any arbitrary transphobe here.
#6 Sam
The claim made was about athletic advantage due to sex. This is true (or false) independent of whether there are enough people benefiting from this that it rises what what you consider a problem. Last time this came up, I cited papers which back this up. Also, I’ve not claimed that there is a ‘disproportionality’ of trans women competing on women’s teams, only that those that do -- however many there are -- retain some of the advantage of developing male.
Lastly, does it really take hypervigilance -- or vigilance at all -- to notice a topic of interest to me on a blog I read daily? Have a sense of proportion!
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#7 cubist
Same to you regarding the proportionality thing. The trans population is small and the professional athlete population is small; the population resulting from their overlap will inevitably be tiny. Yet this is not relevant to what I claimed.
@8 keep on kidding yourself. I read this blog daily too. You are the only asshole I notice… I+ tried to give you the benefit of my doubt.
Anyone notice that the transphobe started with an accusatory question the they could have answered by watching the video?
Listening to the audio rather.
@2: Correct, “transwomen” is used by transphobes to imply that we’re not “women” we’re “transwomen”. It turns transwomen into a noun rather than trans/transgender being an adjective that modifies the noun “women”. It’s subtle, but important.
As for “advantages” for trans women over cisgender women. Yes there have been papers. By noted transphobes, who also do not…you know…actually test for actual results in sports. Sure, my muscles might be a bit stronger than a cisgender woman’s…but they’re moving bigger bones. And that’s what people always forget. Those papers were intended to provide a cover for discrimination…like…literally one of the authors of one of those papers screamed about why there weren’t more papers that showed her beliefs…so she made a point to go out and find a way to publish one.
Sure we have “bigger bones” and “higher bone density”…but it’s always forgotten how that means we’re carrying a lot more dead weight than cisgender women of a similar mass. I can attest to having a significant loss in upper body strength especially, as well as endurance, after being on estrogen for an extended period of time. My testosterone levels are substantially lower than a cisgender woman’s even though I still have testicles.
So because we’re having to push dead weight around…that means we’re also _slower_.
Also, the idea that I, a 275 pound 5’9” trans woman have an “advantage” against athletic 6’2″ cisgender women is laughable. Oh sure…I know the second argument is that I’m not an athlete…yet it doesn’t matter…I still couldn’t play women’s sports. I’m still being unable to do something anyone else could do, but for me being transgender. It doesn’t matter if _I_ don’t have an advantage, it only matters if ‘some nebulous average transgender woman’ has an advantage.
Thirdly, for trans teens and women who never go through male puberty because they were put on puberty blockers and then estrogen NEVER GET those changes to bone structure (thank goodness, because those changes SUCK) … and yet THEY are also discriminated against for “having an advantage”. (Oh and let’s make it illegal for kids to actually avoid going through the wrong puberty while we’re at it).
Furthermore, to reiterate the _empirical_ evidence that transgender women don’t have an advantage…transgender people have been able to compete in the Olympics since 2004. There have been around 10,000 athletes at the Summer Olympics, and 3,000 at the Winter each Olympiad. So upwards of 40,000 competitors.
How many transgender medalists have their been? Zero.
How many transgender Olympic athletes have their been? Zero.
How many transgender athletes who competed at trials? Two…both for the 2020 games.
Two. And they didn’t make them.
Sure. That’s “domination”.
There’s a reason that transphobes keep using the same few transgender athletes over and over and over again. Because those are the ones who have won.
And that’s it.
There is no “advantage”. The null hypothesis has not been disproven, despite having run that experiment over 40,000 times at the Olympics alone. Even if there is MAYBE a slightly higher strength there is a massive lack of evidence that it actually MATTERS in the end.
But don’t take my word for it. Take a look at what Judge Nye wrote in his epic takedown of Idaho’s anti-trans bill.
https://www.aclu.org/legal-document/hecox-v-little-decision-granting-preliminary-injunction?redirect=legal-document/hecox-v-little-motion-granting-preliminary-injunction
The ‘published papers’ were published by people who are transphobes, and there is no empirical evidence of a problem.
The anti-trans bills are solely due to animus against transgender people, plain and simple.
Oh wait! Maybe we might get our *GASP* first ever openly transgender Olympian?
https://www.cbssports.com/olympics/news/laurel-hubbard-could-become-first-openly-transgender-athlete-to-compete-at-olympics/
It is clear that you did not bother to read the papers I linked in the earlier discussion. One of the three was specifically a study of running times, push-ups and sit-ups, so you’re flat wrong right at the start of your post.
(Hilariously, this is the paper Silentbob then cited on his side of the argument, without noticing that I had already cited it and quoted where they agree with me.)
*sigh* Well it was worth a try (@2).
@ 14 Holms
Oh, you mean the paper that says
is that the one?
I’m glad you’ve come to concede no strength advantage for trans women over cis women then, contrary to what you originally claimed.
But more to the point: If you pay attention to the programme, the point is that republicans don’t actually give a fuck about women’s sport. They have a broad anti-LGBT agenda, and have settled on sport as a wedge issue. They think if they can sell the public on the idea that trans people have some unfair advantage (despite the complete lack of real world evidence), that’s a step towards whipping up hostility toward LGBT people more generally. And here you are dancing like a marionette. You’re being played Holms, you dope. You’re what’s called a “useful idiot”.
@Holms
Nah, I’m not going to play that game, for several reasons.
1. You use the term ‘TRA’ unironically which flags you as transphobic.
2. You’re sealioning…even if I read those papers, you’ll use something else. All the while, never once addressing my arguments which are empirical, since the whole “do transgender women have an advantage” question would imply that there are more frequent winners who are trans women…and…there aren’t. Doesn’t matter how much “advantage” from strength etc people measure, because they’re measuring parts and then using that to justify discrimination of the whole.
3. And that’s what is getting lost in the “debate”… discrimination. You don’t remove someone’s rights unless there is a MASSIVE reason for it. And there isn’t a massive reason. The fact that you talk about “three papers” without once talking about why there isn’t a single (as of yet) transgender Olympian, and the fact that news reports again and again point out that Republican politicians can’t even point out even one example of issues in their home states. They always use Connecticut…why? Because they won…and…that’s pretty much it). There’s nothing there.
Exactly as the Judge Nye in Idaho pointed out in excruciating detail when ruling for the injunction against Idaho.
Bottom line, Holms…you’re arguing for discrimination against a class of people…based on really crappy evidence. Same thing was done to blacks. Similar stuff was done to Jews. According to you, it’s only acceptable to have transgender girls compete as their gender if they all lose.
To paraphrase a quote by another transphobe, “You’re a bigot, Holms.”
Furthermore, since this never seems to get mentioned…this is law discriminates against CISGENDER women and girls as well. For they are subject to tests to prove that they’re “biologically female” (which is bull crap since intersex people exist)…and those tests are not done to boys and men.
And if you like hypotheticals (and I know you do, Holms)…how about this? State championship, and all of a sudden X School’s star athlete is accused of being transgender just before her final race. She either has to subject herself to a genital examination, or genetic testing before being able to compete.
But I suspect you can actually tell me with a straight face that this is “protecting girls”.
Which, by the way, is exactly how right wingers described discriminating against homosexuals. “For the children.”
And how they described discriminating against black people. To protect the (white) girls.
The target may change, but the urge to discriminate never does.
#15 Bob
Maybe if you hadn’t led with a lie… And yes, that paper, which concluded:
Funny how you left off that one sentence. You know, the one that exactly counters your claims about the supposed lack of real world evidence. Or we can go with the conclusion section of the actual paper (rather than the blog post version you linked):
Well look at that, explicit agreement with …me.
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#16 Deanna
Your point 2 jumped out at me. You won’t read scientific studies which lay out empirical data on the topic because apparently providing relevant data is ‘sealioning’… but you expect me to read a judicial opinion? Oh my god. I guess I won’t bother with you further.
@Intransitive:
Try watching Supergirl. Specifically, the character of Nia Nall (Dreamer).
Holms @18:
Do everyone a favour and just stop bothering. Deanna, and just about everyone hereabouts, have your number.
Holms go ahead. Tell us your true, deep down values. Your real concerns. Just so we can laugh at you one more time. You are a hypocritical cretin. Not that that gives me any joy. Human are constructed to be hypocritical. You are an exemplar. I yawn, I laugh I move on. I’m not trans, I don’t feel that pain. I just examine the writhing of a pathetic human being who feels hatred or disgust for what? For what? Go ahead and try to explain it to all of us again?
Here is an announcement.
Whenever transgender issues comes up in this blog, Holms starts to argue endlessly with everyone else, repeating the same points over and over again in an attempt to have the last word. The haranguing destroys the conversational nature of the discussions.
Hence I have made the decision that Holms cannot post comments on this particular topic. It is not a general ban, since his comments on other issues are not that monomaniacal but it could become a general ban if other comment threads are hijacked for this purpose.
So Holms, please take note. No more comments by you on transgender issues will be allowed.
Note: I started writing this prior to Mano writing his comment regarding Holms on transgender issues. So I’ve edited it for a more general audience since he cannot reply.
However, what I’ve written I believe has worth to those learning more about the tactics and ‘evidence’ that transphobes use to argue this position.
I am not going to read those papers (well two of them anyways) because I don’t know where that previous discussion is, and I very likely read them months ago. But you know what? Let’s just pretend you can take away an entire class of people’s rights on the basis of three scientific papers (which you can’t). Let’s even pretend that what those papers concluded was true.
Even if we trans women supposedly still have “strength” for 12 months after going on estrogen…that STILL does not justify preventing trans women from competing AT ALL, FOREVER.
It does not say anything about whether or not that strength has ACTUAL impact on the RESULTS. It does not say whether or not that increase in strength is within natural variation WITHIN cisgender women (again, no matter how good I would play basketball, there is no freaking way that I at 5’9″ would have an “advantage” over a cisgender woman who’s 6’3″ or taller. She will still be stronger and taller than me. And yet, despite that, _I_ couldn’t play. Why are MY rights being infringed because of some ephemeral “average” trans woman in something that all the evidence in ACTUAL RESULTS shows is insignificant?
It’s like claiming the Saturn V rocket is a better rocket that Gemini before actually launching the rocket. Sure, you know it has more thrust…but it doesn’t answer the question DOES IT GET TO ORBIT?
It doesn’t say anything about whether there is an ACTUAL increase in injuries (and don’t bring up Fallon Fox without bringing up how often broken orbital bones happen in women’s MMA…since that never gets mentioned)…oh and notice how it’s always Fallon Fox…because they don’t have any other examples.
It also doesn’t say anything about trans girls and women who NEVER go through male puberty (and again, I point out that at the same time, most of these Republicans are trying to ensure that happens, despite the tens of thousands of dollars it costs to repair the damage from that (and I know, I paid it) let alone the lives it will cost from trans kids killing themselves). Because they’re being othered. How? By being singled out and prevented from playing sports with their peers because three papers say so?
But again, there STILL is no empirical evidence that there is any increase in injuries with trans women participating, nor any increase in results.
I will address one paper Holms mentions…which I assume is this:
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40279-020-01389-3
The lead author is Emma Hilton, who is a noted transphobe. She writes other articles including this:
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11845-020-02464-4
in which she states that:
“We regard the claim that sex is neither fixed nor binary to be entirely without scientific merit—there are two sexes, male and female, and in humans, sex is immutable (disorders of sexual development are very rare and, in any event, do not result in any additional sexes). Such politically motivated policies and statements have no place in scientific journals. It is essential that impartiality be maintained in order to preserve public trust in science as a process dedicated to producing shared knowledge.
We call upon authors and editors to resist non-scientific pressures to suppress honest and accurate discussion of these matters, particularly in the field of medicine where diagnosis, prognosis and treatment can depend on a patient’s sex.”
She is calling for censorship. She is in denial that we even exist. And yet I’m supposed to accept her paper as ‘neutral’? She most certainly has an agenda, which is not discussed in the paper at all.
But let’s address the merits of the actual paper, shall we? I’m not going to quote huge parts of the paper…folks who are interested can read the whole thing or at least the abstract and conclusion.
But that said, why does this sentence never get pointed out by transphobes?
“The research conducted so far has studied untrained transgender women.”
SHE’S NOT EVEN STUDYING ATHLETES.
or
“It is also important to recognize that performance in most sports may be influenced by factors outside muscle mass and strength, and the balance between inclusion, safety and fairness therefore differs between sports.”
SHE EVEN ACKNOWLEDGES THAT PERFORMANCE MAY BE INFLUENCED BY OTHER MATTERS.
And even THEN
“Thus, we argue against universal guidelines for transgender athletes in sport and instead propose that each individual sports federation evaluate their own conditions for inclusivity, fairness and safety.”
OH MY GOD. I AGREE WITH HER. MY STARS AND GARTERS!
I would say that vast majority of trans women accept that we can’t start competing until we’ve spent some time reducing our testosterone levels. That may be a bit more iffy for teens since some may not realize they’re trans until they’re in their teens (I would have been one of these)…however, even then most states still require some time on estrogen. Note that Connecticut specifically does not…which could explain the results of those two trans girls there…but on the other hand CT is hardly alone in this and yet these are the only two girls who ever get mentioned.
I personally would even acknowledge that 12 months may not be enough, though I do point out that even if that’s “early” time continues to march on, and even if there was some minute real life performance benefit, that would likely disappear as time goes on, considering the current lack of empirical evidence of performance enhancement.
Perhaps 12 months isn’t sufficient. That’s a snapshot..maybe it’s 18 months…or two years. Maybe it depends on the sport? Perhaps each sport should have it’s own requirements (which…they do). It’s not like trans women STOP losing muscle mass and bone density after 12 months.
My point is that I think that some amount of time required to have reduced T is at least non-objectionable…and at least 12 months seems reasonable, though I acknowledge that perhaps 18 or 24 months may be more appropriate depending on the sport.
However, despite this paper, Emma Hilton continues to mock transgender people on her Twitter feed:
https://twitter.com/FondOfBeetles
She continues to compare cis gender men to cisgender women in her tweets, rather than transgender women to cisgender women.
She also has in the past, on a social media platform (which I admittedly cannot find now, so perhaps she deleted her account) where she screamed asking why there weren’t tons of papers showing how much “advantage” trans women have…so she went and made one.
But suddenly this paper is used to argue that we should be BANNED FROM ALL WOMEN SPORTS NO MATTER WHAT.
Anyways, since part of reasonable debate is that you should theoretically be able to have your mind changed, so here’s what would change mine:
1. Evidence where P>0.01 rejecting the null hypothesis that there is no change in the positive direction with regards to RESULTS by trans women, at 12, 18, 24 months after having testosterone levels drop below cis women’s amounts.
1a. Evidence of the same for trans girls or women who never go through male puberty.
2. Evidence where P>0.05 (I’m allowing a lower standard for safety reasons) rejecting the null hypothesis that there is no increase in injuries in contact sports including trans women.
2a. Evidence of the same for trans girls who never go through male puberty.
Transphobes always ignore the lack of empirical data, because they know that’s the killer argument. Until they can show that there are ACTUAL EFFECTS beyond hypotheticals that only look at parts of the whole, their arguments have no basis in fact.
And it sure as hell doesn’t justify turning trans women into second class citizens and removing their rights to participate in society.
Transphobes rarely state what would change their mind. The honest ones usually would say “nothing”. The less honest ones would state that we transgender people have to prove that we’re NOT injuring people, or we’re NOT getting better results…which of course is proving the null hypotheses…and proving a negative. And of course puts the burden of proof on the marginalized population.
I think I’ve pretty much said what I can here. There’s a lot that gets unstated, even by allies, and even by trans folk in this ‘debate’. At the base, it’s bigotry, pure and simple, wrapped up in a pretty bow of ‘science’.
@ 23 Deanna
There’s a very good video, almost 45 minutes long, going into a detailed analysis of the Hilton paper and (surprise!) it full of flaws, misrepresentations, specious reasoning, and unsupported conclusions.
@ ^
I say ‘surprise’ sarcastically because as Deanna says Hilton is notoriously anti-trans. She’s part of ‘Sex Matters’ with Maya Forstater, an anti-trans rights campaign group. Forstater is even more notorious as someone who is actually trying to get transphobia legally protected in the UK as though it were a religion.
Hilton has no background whatsoever is sports science, and her paper is a transparent attempt to manufacture some “scientific” evidence to give her prejudice a veneer of legitimacy. It’s not worth the metaphorical paper it’s printed on.
Aha! I found that social media post I was mentioning above.
This is what she wrote in 2019. I guess she metaphorically picked up the Infinity Gauntlet and said, “Fine, I’ll do it myself”. (edited for swearing)
“I am $%#!#$! furious.
How many more studies do we need to prove males are, and remain, stronger than females?”
https://spinster.xyz/@FondOfBeetles/posts/9y4lS5HKrRpVPpQmyu
So…yeah.
@Silentbob: Thanks for the link!
No problem, heckler’s veto wins.
@ 27 Holms
You just can’t help yourself, can you?
Heckler’s Veto Definition
Mate, you’re on a personal blog. Get over yourself. Have a nice cup of tea and a lie down.
@SilentBob That video is excellent.
For others, the tl;dr is that the study basically compares 5’9″ trans women to 5’4″ cisgender women…and taller people have more muscle strength. Which isn’t a shocker. And height is not a dividing quantity when it comes to sports.
Additionally, the study looks at non athletes who only do strength training for 8 weeks…where most benefits in that time are due to improvements in technique, something that is well known in weight training circles.
So in order for me to be ‘fair’ (I’m at that average 5’9″) I’d have to lose upwards of 40% of my muscle mass, so I could be compared to a 5’4″ cis woman.
Which is ridiculous.
Well, what do you know: Transphobe Holmes did not, in fact, have any data to support the “trans woman advantage” notion. More: He asserted he did not need to have any such data.
Such think. Very logic.
Deanna
Does it matter? Would that actually change your mind?
I’ve talked to other trans rights activists, and some have made their position quite clear. I think it was the former Atheist Experience host, forget her name, sorry, who said something like, “even if all elite women-only sporting competitions were exclusively won by trans-women, it would not change my mind, it would not matter, because they are still women”.
I do know that top level high school athletes regularly beat the adult women world’s record for sprinting, and I believe that similar trends hold for most sporting competitions. The historical trend shows a gigantic gulf between top competitors between cis men and cis women, and the historical data strongly suggest that this trend is not due to social factors, leaving only biological development. So, is your position to deny these facts which to me are quite undeniable? Or is it to argue that current transition hormone treatments remove all of these advantages? If so, how do you feel about mandatory rules regarding hormone treatments as a prereq to competing in competitive sports for trans-women? And how would you feel about rules about testosterone levels in trans-women in competitive sports?
It seems to me that we made sex-segregated sports to allow (cis-)women to be able to meaningfully compete in competitive sports because, at some level, they can’t compete with (cis-)men. Right? This is why we historically created women-only sports, right? Otherwise, sex/gender segregated sports are wrong, and we should do away with sex/gender segregated sports as a kind of unlawful discrimination. So, assuming that my reading of the historical purpose is correct, that means that opening up women-only sports to trans-women will allow trans-women to meaningfully compete in competitive sports, but by doing so it would remove that same opportunity from cis-women, which partially defeats the purpose of having sex/gender segregated sports in the first place. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a good answer here besides “the feelings and dignity of trans-women is more important than the reasons why we created sex/gender segregated sports in the first place”, but again, to me, if I were to accept that particular value judgment, I think it would lead me to the conclusion that we should just abolish sex/gender segregation in sports altogether.
PS: I focus on trans-women because, as far as I know, many / most “men-only” sporting competitions are actually open to women too. For the small number which are actually men-only, I would loudly advocate to opening them up to women too. In particular, I know that the Olympic committee has done some shenigans here. IIRC, Olympic shooting sports used to be mixed-sex/gender until a women won, and then they split it to men-only and women-only competitions, which is quite silly to me.
PPS: I’m sympathetic to Holms, but I generally have better things to do than troll blogs looking for an excuse for arguing against trans rights, in part because I agree with trans rights on basically every other issue, and because I am not personally invested in competitive sports at all.
@ 31 GerrardOfTitanServer
While waiting on a reply from Deanna, did you listen to the first segment of the programme in the OP? Because I think it addresses much of what you say.
If it helps put your mind at ease, the venerable Women’s Sports Foundation founded in 1974 by Billie Jean King, and who say
… fully support trans participation in sport. You can read their statement and their reasoning here.
Your concerns about women’s sport don’t seem to be shared by full-time, professional women’s sport advocates.
@31 Gerrard
Don’t do that. Remember that Holms is not ever arguing in good faith. He has strongly motivated reasoning, and is known to participate in mocking trans women for their appearances, a behavior I consider proof of his real agenda.
Sympathizing with Holms here goes against science, compassion, and the professional opinions of every organization actually involved with the issues at hand.
“Does it matter? Would that actually change your mind?
I’ve talked to other trans rights activists, and some have made their position quite clear. I think it was the former Atheist Experience host, forget her name, sorry, who said something like, “even if all elite women-only sporting competitions were exclusively won by trans-women, it would not change my mind, it would not matter, because they are still women”.
Yes it would, at least as far as indicating that there is _some_ sort of advantage for trans women. I come from a scientific background, and if you’re going to be in a reasonable discussion where it’s understood that someone can change their mind, you should be expected to state the minimum that would change my mind.
However, this is not just a scientific debate, which many transphobes would like to imply it is. It’s a political debate using ‘science’ (and cherry picked science at that) to justify removing the rights of a marginalized population.
A statistical significant difference just means that there’s a difference…it does not specify how much that difference has an impact. I personally am not versed on statistical analysis to discuss that aspect, so I don’t.
That said, I want to highlight that using the term “trans rights activist” is used as a banner to display association with transphobes who are fighting to take away our rights. Hence, I immediately suspect your motivation and most people who use that term are not arguing in good faith.
Now, I’m a transgender person…attempts are being specifically done to not only remove me from society. You probably don’t think that’s true. Yet we just had a Supreme Court decision where the question was whether or not a business has the right to fire someone for being transgender. The fact that there was even a question about this indicates how transgender people are actively discriminated against. And the Supreme Court specified that you cannot, which I’ll be honest, came as a shock to most of us.
As for other transgender people, I cannot speak for them. Their opinions are their own, but whether or not some will not change their mind is irrelevant, especially since there are a TON of religious conservatives who definitely won’t, because their animus is dictated by their God (supposedly).
Regardless, given that we have had exactly zero open transgender Olympic athletes of any kind, I think I can safely say that saying that is ridiculous on the face of it, so it’s irrelevant.
“I do know that top level high school athletes regularly beat the adult women world’s record for sprinting, and I believe that similar trends hold for most sporting competitions. The historical trend shows a gigantic gulf between top competitors between cis men and cis women, and the historical data strongly suggest that this trend is not due to social factors, leaving only biological development. So, is your position to deny these facts which to me are quite undeniable?”
Uh…you’re saying that cis men regularly beat cis women achievements in sports? Well, yeah. Now, having done some research on this, there is some debate whether or not this is actually all attributable to physical differences, and not others like opportunity and funding.
But we’re talking about comparing trans women to cis women. So the fact that cis men beat cis women regularly is a complete non sequitur. I do not deny that fact, but that fact is utterly irrelevant.
“Or is it to argue that current transition hormone treatments remove all of these advantages? If so, how do you feel about mandatory rules regarding hormone treatments as a prereq to competing in competitive sports for trans-women? And how would you feel about rules about testosterone levels in trans-women in competitive sports?”
I am on record for supporting such statements, and in fact, in a comment further up I acknowledged that 12 months may not be sufficient, though that may depend on sport. I’d be surprised if 24 months didn’t fully remove any benefit from testosterone, and given how hard it is for me to climb a local hill that I used to climb fairly easily despite being non-athletic, I can attest personally that my strength (stories abound of the first time a trans woman can’t open a jar of pickles) and especially my endurance have been substantially impacted, and that happened for sure by the time I’d been on HRT for 2 years.
Now, do I think that hormone treatments remove all the supposed advantages? I don’t know. We’d need more studies. What I do know though, is that the most commonly cited paper written by a noted transphobe actually compares trans women with an average 5’9” height with cis women with an average height of 5’4”. And height CERTAINLY provides advantages in strength…though that’s countered balanced by increased bone mass as well…the reason those muscles are bigger is because they have to move bigger dead weight. Which isn’t a surprise since those people who can lift 300 pounds have much bigger muscles than those who can lift 100.
Now, I can hear the counter argument already…Aha! Trans women on average are taller! Well, yeah. But…so what? We don’t divide sports by height. We divide them by weight (especially those sports that are strictly strength based). But again, trans women who have gone through male puberty have larger bones…yet atrophied muscles since muscle size is certainly affected by testosterone levels (including my heart muscle which is why my endurance is lower). My T levels are 16x lower than the “low” mark for cis men, and about 2/3 of the average cis women’s.
The reason we don’t divide by height, as that video that was linked to, is that while in some sports (e.g. basketball) height can be an advantage, but being small can be an advantage too…heck, basketball even has the “small forward” position.
You could argue that trans women are on average, taller so we should discriminate against them. But I’m 5’9”. Should I be told I can’t play basketball with women because of my height? Those of us who are taller really, REALLY, wish we weren’t. It can clock us…but even then…there are plenty of cis women who are really tall too. So why aren’t THEY discriminated against?
So, how do I feel about rules about T levels in trans women? I’m totally okay with them. Most sports organizations have those rules already in place, and I’d say that most trans women are fine with them.
But let me ask you a question now…what about trans women who never go through male puberty? Those who know their transgender prior to reaching puberty, are put on puberty blockers, and then the proper hormones later (usually around 16)? They never experience those high levels…their bones don’t change. Their height doesn’t change. Other than having a few differences in sex organs, there’s no significant difference in their development compared to cis women.
Yet they’re discriminated against by these bans as well. Are you okay with this? If so, why?
“It seems to me that we made sex-segregated sports to allow (cis-)women to be able to meaningfully compete in competitive sports because, at some level, they can’t compete with (cis-)men. Right? This is why we historically created women-only sports, right?”
Actually I’m not sure that’s the case. I could be wrong, but I think the reason Title IX exists is because in a lot of cases, especially at the high school level, women-only sports DIDN’T EVEN EXIST. They weren’t funded AT ALL. That’s why women weren’t given the opportunity.
“Otherwise, sex/gender segregated sports are wrong, and we should do away with sex/gender segregated sports as a kind of unlawful discrimination. So, assuming that my reading of the historical purpose is correct, that means that opening up women-only sports to trans-women will allow trans-women to meaningfully compete in competitive sports, but by doing so it would remove that same opportunity from cis-women, which partially defeats the purpose of having sex/gender segregated sports in the first place.”
Except this isn’t the situation where trans women aren’t allowed to participate and are asking to do so. We ALREADY are participating. We’re getting that taken AWAY from us.
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard a good answer here besides “the feelings and dignity of trans-women is more important than the reasons why we created sex/gender segregated sports in the first place”, but again, to me, if I were to accept that particular value judgment, I think it would lead me to the conclusion that we should just abolish sex/gender segregation in sports altogether.”
There are certainly those who advocate that…the ones I’ve seen are mainly those who have studied this much more than me and have indicated that given the same funding and opportunities, cis women can have similar results. However, we’re not in that in that scenario…men still get funded better than women, so I still think it’s valid to have segregation in sports.
But as for not seeing any good answers…again, I point up above (like…I’m starting to wonder if you even read my comments above)…the answer is…and I’m going to use all caps so it’s not missed…
THERE IS NO EVIDENCE THAT TRANS WOMEN ARE SEEING BETTER RESULTS THAN CIS WOMEN.
You say above that “I do know that top level high school athletes regularly beat the adult women world’s record for sprinting, and I believe that similar trends hold for most sporting competitions.” Great! So we should also know the results of athletes who are transgender compared to cisgender.
And yet…nobody on the other side supplies that data.
I can only speculate because I suspect if they’ve done the study (and I’m sure they’re motivated enough to do it)…they’ve found that the results don’t support their position of discriminating against trans women.
Got lots of high school results. Got lots of college results. Got lots of world championship results. Got lots of Olympic results.
And yet…zero transgender Olympic athletes in the last 16 years.
Not one. Nada. Zero. Zilch.
Let me repeat…there have been 40,000 Olympic athletes who have competed in the Olympics since they opened the eligibility up in 2004. NO TRANSGENDER ATHLETES. AT ALL.
In the US there have only been two who even made it to the trials. (P.S. I’m pretty sure there will never ever be an Olympic trans woman gymnast who’s gone through male puberty…).
We’ve literally been running this experiment for 16 years. Yet this never, ever gets acknowledged by those who are arguing to ban us from women’s sports. I wonder why that is…
There is no empirical evidence to support the position that trans women have a competitive advantage. Maybe…MAYBE… trans women might have an advantage in power lifting…and I support actual research into it. But the fact that the papers supporting discrimination compare apples to oranges and never take into account actual real-world results makes me suspect it ain’t there.
But even then…it’s not “trans women’s feelings” that are in question here. You are advocating _removing rights_ from transgender women, to even participate in _recreational sports_. Even if a trans woman has never seen male levels of testosterone in her life. Feelings don’t come into this at all…laws and rights do. And there isn’t even a rational basis to remove those rights, let alone heightened scrutiny.
Now, what about all those examples, usually involving two trans girls from Connecticut, one bike world champion and one or two power lifters?
…
Why is it always those people who are included? Nobody else? That’s anecdotes not data. You don’t take away rights because a handful of high schoolers (who BTW, didn’t have to reduce their T levels…which I argue they should…but yet that’s used to argue that even those who DO reduce their T levels shouldn’t be allowed to compete).
We are being discriminated on the basis of sex (and to be sure, we are…the Supreme Court already ruled on that in Bostok). You don’t do that on the basis of a handful of winners.
Bottom line…there is a ton of data out there that’s available…and would be the best, hardest data they could use.
And they don’t use it.
Because it likely doesn’t say what they want it to say…so they have to obfuscate, compare apples to apples, and use ancedotes instead of data.
“PS: I focus on trans-women because, as far as I know, many / most “men-only” sporting competitions are actually open to women too. For the small number which are actually men-only, I would loudly advocate to opening them up to women too. In particular, I know that the Olympic committee has done some shenigans here. IIRC, Olympic shooting sports used to be mixed-sex/gender until a women won, and then they split it to men-only and women-only competitions, which is quite silly to me.”
I’m curious…would you be okay for trans men to compete as women? If so, why?
As I said previously, there’s no empirical evidence justifying discrimination against trans women. ESPECIALLY trans girls and trans women who never saw male puberty. And the people driving this know that. Just google and see how many Republican politicians who have banned trans girls from competing can’t even come up with a single case where that’s been a problem in their home state.
They always use the same ones…the ones in CT…who never had to reduce their T levels.
And even then…it’s just….those…two.
Why is it just those two? I mean, Connecticut has over 3 million people in it. How many high school sports are played? And yet…all they come up with…is a number of students who can be counted on a single hand.
We’re uncommon, but we’re not that rare. About 1-2% of the population…Let’s be conservative and say 0.5%…there are over 300,000 students enrolled in CT. Let’s divide that into 12 and say 25,000 of them are in 12th Grade.
0.5% of that is 125…there should be 125 trans students in grade 12 now.
And they get 2. From a few years ago.
Two.
TWO.
This isn’t evidence for domination…this is evidence of being trans as being a _detriment_ to athletic achievement. I can’t make that conclusion based on the data…but you sure as heck can’t conclude that trans girls are dominating sports.
Not at the Olympic level.
Not at the high school level.
It’s transphobia. Plain and simple.
I’m not saying you’re transphobic (though by Bayesian thinking, the fact you used ‘transgender rights activist’ makes it more likely you are). But the people driving this sure are.
To abbeycadabra
Noted. Thanks.
…
Deanna
I think you said that we might have invented women’s only sports in the first place because otherwise women didn’t have any access to sports. Again, I want to point out that, as far as I know, most “mens-only” sporting competitions are not men-only. Women can compete and join if they want to and if they can win. I am far from certain here, but your hypothesis that women were explicitly banned from joining the school’s sports teams seems to be wrong.
Your next hypothesis and argument is basically arguing for affirmative action. I think that artificial segregation for adults in order to “remedy” real wrongs as children is not justifiable. I’m mildly against affirmative action, for races, and for genders as you present it. If it really is a problem of access, then we should be addressing that, and targeting that, at an early age. I am strongly in favor of radical changes to accomplish this, but I cannot be favor of legal segregation, of “separate but equal”, even if the motivations are pure.
It’s quite silly to suggest that the whole difference between elite level cis-male athletes and elite level cis-female athletes is due to (childhood) access, funding, training, support, etc. It’s not. It’s due in significant part to developmental biology. For just one facet, we know what testosterone and steroids can do for increasing strength. Surely some of the difference in achievement is (childhood) access, funding, training, support, etc., but there is a substantial portion of the difference that is not, and I cannot seriously entertain the suggestion that the whole of the difference between cis-male and cis-female athletic world records is due to (childhood) access, funding, training, support, etc.
You say “we don’t have evidence yet”, but that seems to be a silly standard. We shouldn’t have to wait for a harm to materialize and happen before we act to prevent the harm. I still think it’s undeniable that cis-men have an insurmountable advantage over cis-women in practically every sport at the elite level, and the world’s records for men and women bear this out.
Still, you want an example. I have one, which should hopefully make my point. I do have one offhand. Because I accept that a trans-woman is a woman if they identify as such, regardless of lack of hormone treatment and sex reassignment surgeries, that means Laurel Hubbard is a woman.
https://www.floelite.com/articles/5064690-transgender-weightlifter-laurel-hubbard-sets-masters-world-records
She has beat all previous women world records. Is she an outlier? Or a sign of things to come. I think it’s a sign of things to come.
Under the current standard that a woman is a woman simply by the mere act of self-identification, as long as there’s money in it and no hormone treatment rules, enough cis-men will lie about their self-identification in order to compete in women’s only competitions and win the money, and they will.
Will hormone treatment rules be enough to prevent this outcome? Maybe. I don’t know.
I think it would be unfortunate if trans-women and cis-men lying about being trans-women came to be the entirety of elite level womens-only sport.
It’s all hypothetical right now (but the evidence seems really convincing to me that it will happen), and I’m not invested enough in sports to really care, and I recognize that even talking about it can appear to give political support to the oppressors of trans people, and that is one of the last things that I want to do, and so I only take part in these discussions rarely, but I still cannot bring myself to agree with affirmative action, and I cannot bring myself to think that it would be ok if trans-women and pretenders came to dominate women-only sports.
PS: Sorry, I didn’t read the whole thread before commenting. Still haven’t. I hope that I don’t engage here much longer.
PPS: About trans-women who take hormone treatments before puberty? I don’t have an answer. I never pretended to have one. It’s a messy, messy problem. I don’t know what to do. It would seem very unfair to refuse access to womens only sports for trans-women who went on continual hormone treatment before puberty. Either we have separation between men-only sports and women-onl sports, or we don’t. If we do, that suggests that someone must be the gatekeeper of who really is a woman. If it’s left purely to how they self-identify on the day, this just doesn’t seem to me to be sustainable or practical. And if we don’t have separation between women and men in sports, then I think that this is a great harm to young cis-women who will see their hopes crushed about being able to compete in sports as one day they probably would see all trans-women or cis-male liars dominating most womens-only sports at the elite level. Again, I don’t know what to do. All options seem to suck.
The gatekeeper option really sucks because in corner cases, there is no fair way to say “this person is definitely a man” and “this person is definitely a woman”, and that’s because there is no identifiable line. Sex is a multi-dimensional spectrum with 99% of people heavily clustered around two peaks, but there are people in the middle of those peaks, and no obvious and fair way to draw a line down the middle because it is a continuous spectrum. Again, I don’t know what to do. Everything about this sucks.
PPPS:
I think that’s what you are doing by advocating for affirmative action, “separate but equal”. And again, I’m not advocating for anything beyond “no affirmative action”. As for womens sports, I don’t know what to do.
I do think that some of the factual assertions / suggestions that are being floated here are quite obviously wrong, specifically the idea that the difference in achievements in elite level competition has nothing to do with innate biological differences in typical men and women.
To Deanna
Specifically, the missing implicit part of one argument.
There is an insurmountable difference at the elite level between cis-men and cis-women. For an assigned-male-at-birth person who grew up as stereotypically male until the age of 25, and then realizes that she’s actually a woman, that realization does nothing to diminish the biological advantages that she has over cis-women. If an top elite level “man” athlete realizes one day that she’s actually a woman, she still retains the ability to (easily) beat all cis-women at her sport. Because the gap between cis-men and cis-women is so wide, under an an assumed rate of approx 1% of people are trans, there would be enough trans-women at the elite level that they would be the majority of top level achievers at the very top elite level in women’s sports. This seems to be to be completely unassailable facts.
With hormone treatment, things change, and I don’t know the answers.
And even given these facts, I don’t know what actions, if any, should be taken.
Gerrard,
But you think you know that trans women should not (must not) compete against cis women, because of biology. So, the action to be taken, in your estimation, must be to deny them the opportunity.
Even though it’s at the elite level — you know, sampling from a bimodal probability density function with slightly different means and slightly less different variances, and comparing local maxima. Quite the small sample, that is.
—
I feel I should note how I like Deanna’s attitude … hm, put it this way: After a number of years, I find trans women tend to get fed up with each new, earnest repeater of PRATTs. So, they tend not to spend so much effort in educating.
Gerrard, you’re being told that, to the extent trans participation in organised sport exists, the doom of which you warn hasn’t eventuated — if anything, the opposite.
An ironic thing is that I’m pretty sure you imagine you’re being all dispassionate and rational and looking at the world as it is and making your determination on the basis of fairness.
(Of course, you’re also looking at trans women as if they were men, but that doesn’t register with you)
@ 35 GerrardOfTitanServer
Hostility to women competing in sport with men is well documented. Any evidence whatsoever sports were segregated to introduce “fairness”, or just making stuff up?
No it isn’t. Affirmative action is policies of explicit preference for underrepresented minorities. All trans people want is inclusion on an equal basis. Treat each the same is not “affirmative action”.
Rubbish. Your link is to a record in the Masters 35-39 age bracket. You don’t seem to know what you are talking about. Are you aware that subsequent to that Hubbard failed to complete a single lift and was trounced by cis women?
Again, you do not know what you are talking about. Every weight lifting sporting body has testosterone suppression rules. The IOC is one year, USA Weightlifting is 2 years.
Trans female weightlifters have been free to compete in the Olympics for nearly 20 years. Why don’t you know?
The what? What evidence? One woman set a niche record?
Quite.
It’s often better to know something about a topic, rather than just wade in making up nonsense off the top of your head.
Yeah, I think I’m done here. I’m not going to continue writing and re-writing the same thing when people keep flatly bringing up strawmen and saying they’re “undeniable” when I spend freaking hours showing why they’re not true.
And the same ancedodal stuff gets brought up, which essentially can be reduced to, “Trans women can compete with women, just as long as they never, ever win.”
We’re told over and over that there’s this rash of trans women dominating sports, and then they come up with the same 5-10 people. If there was true “domination”, you’d see situations like there are in major league baseball or hockey where there are few black players anymore, or basketball, where there are few non-black players. You’d see it in the competetions over and over and over again.
And yet trans women are, in actuality, barely visible.
Trans women domination in women’s sports is a just-so story.
But I will address a couple of points:
“Under the current standard that a woman is a woman simply by the mere act of self-identification, as long as there’s money in it and no hormone treatment rules, enough cis-men will lie about their self-identification in order to compete in women’s only competitions and win the money, and they will. ”
I’m going to use capitals because this point seems to be missed:
I AM COMPLETELY SUPPORTIVE OF TESTOSTERONE LIMITS AND A REQUIRED WAITING PERIOD BEFORE TRANS WOMEN COMPETE WITH WOMEN, AND MOST OTHER TRANS WOMEN ARE TOO.
Self-identity does NOT come into it.
There is NO evidence that there are ANY cis men cheating and going on hormones to get an advantage. This would cause gender dysphoria in the other direction.
Furthermore, again, YOU DO NOT TAKE AWAY PEOPLE’S RIGHTS BECAUSE OF HYPOTHETICALS.
“The gatekeeper option really sucks because in corner cases, there is no fair way to say “this person is definitely a man” and “this person is definitely a woman”, and that’s because there is no identifiable line. Sex is a multi-dimensional spectrum with 99% of people heavily clustered around two peaks, but there are people in the middle of those peaks, and no obvious and fair way to draw a line down the middle because it is a continuous spectrum. Again, I don’t know what to do. Everything about this sucks.”
The sports organizations have…again…GIVEN A TESTOSTERONE LIMIT AND A WAITING PERIOD. You are not responsible for determining this line, especially since you admittedly have not even read this thread. The people who ARE responsible HAVE. They did it in the Olympics 17 YEARS AGO.
And with that, as I said, I’m done.
@John Morales
“I feel I should note how I like Deanna’s attitude … hm, put it this way: After a number of years, I find trans women tend to get fed up with each new, earnest repeater of PRATTs. So, they tend not to spend so much effort in educating.”
Yup. I am actually willing to engage with people who seem to honestly be ignorant of things. But my sensors for people arguing in bad faith, and “sealions” who are “just politely asking questions” who are just trolls who want to waste our time.
So I essentially give the spiel, and see how they react, and see if they _actually_ engage with what I said. Almost all the time, unless they’re people I actually know, they do not. They either ignore the major parts of what I said that are inconvenient to them, they give more anecdotes, or they flat out deny things.
Which Gerald has now done, and so not much point in discussing further.
@SilentBob
“Rubbish. Your link is to a record in the Masters 35-39 age bracket. You don’t seem to know what you are talking about. Are you aware that subsequent to that Hubbard failed to complete a single lift and was trounced by cis women?”
Whoops, hit send too early.
Anyways, to SilentBob…yeah, that’s pretty typical too. Focus only on the wins and never, ever the losses. It’s pretty easy to argue one side of the case when you never ever bring up the counterfactuals. And yet they then claim it’s “undeniable”.
I highly recommend people read Judge Nye’s ruling on the injunction stopping Idaho’s anti-trans sports law. It’s long, since legal rulings usually are, but it’s very, very, very thorough. And it just eviscerates the anti-trans side.
That ruling was just argued on appeal in the 9th Circuit last week, so we’ll see soon whether or not they rule in favor of the appeal or not. I’m not a lawyer, and although the Bostock Supreme Court decision would certainly imply that these laws should get clobbered once the lawsuits are argued in court, with the stacking of the appeals courts over the last 10 years by conservatives, we’re always on edge that some judges will so exactly what Gerald did and just ignore all the evidence against it, and accept the crappy “evidence” for it.
I’ve said the opposite -- many times. I said I don’t know what should be done. I said that I don’t advocate for anything.
…
If you read all of Deanna’s reply, they did briefly touch on and hesitantly advocate for affirmative action as a potential justification for separation of women’s sports from men’s sports.
Sorry, I mispoke. I meant under current cultural norms of whether a person really is a women. I did not mean to address specific sporting regulations.
@GerrardOfTitanServer
“I’ve said the opposite — many times. I said I don’t know what should be done. I said that I don’t advocate for anything.”
You may not think you are, but you are. You’re trying to get plausible deniability, but the fact that you take a substantial amount of time to discuss this means that in some way, you do have skin in the game. I’m not sure what though. And it’s difficult to even ask, because the initial answers given to “why do you care so much?” are just the ‘lowest hanging fruit’.
I’m just finishing listening to an episode of the You Are Not So Smart podcast, which goes into human biases and psychology and thinking, which has long been an interest of mine. The last half of that one goes into why people argue, and why it’s so hard to change someone’s belief about something.
I’m someone who, as part of my identity, values changing my mind when given good evidence. But I also value empirical evidence over theory or hypothesis. And given how complex human bodies are, you can’t just divide things down to just ‘strength’ especially if you’re not standardizing for height. I admit to also having some ‘soldier thinking’ going on since this does directly impact me and others like me, and chipping away at rights has historically led to much more serious violations of rights.
And I suspect a lot of transphobes honestly believe that we’re men. Which is horrible, and I don’t think we can actually change that. It’s very hard to get the prejudices out of someone’s mind…certainly not in a short conversation. It takes months and years to do it. Which is why I look out for dog whistles that indicate transphobia. Essentially if someone uses them, it tells me, “I am not going to change my mind no matter WHAT evidence you give me”.
I’m not sure why Gerrard doesn’t accept the evidence of the utter lack of transgender people at the Olympics. Or why it’s only a trans woman’s wins and never her losses that matter. How can someone possibly say someone is “dominating” if they’re not counting how many wins and losses they have? What placements they have?
You can’t. But most people don’t understand that. They just see a trans woman (and by the way, notice it’s always very unfeminine looking trans woman who are picked…there is definitely misogyny in play too…even for cis women like Caster Semenya).
“If you read all of Deanna’s reply, they did briefly touch on and hesitantly advocate for affirmative action as a potential justification for separation of women’s sports from men’s sports.”
My pronouns are she/her.
Regardless of the actual historical cause for splitting women’s sports from men’s sports, that is irrelevant to the actions being taken by GOP legislatures today. They are currently split, but trans women are being prevented from participating with their own gender. We are not asking to be included, we are demanding to not be excluded.
And something that hasn’t been brought up is that there is more to participating in sports than just straight competition. It’s also doing social activities with people like yourself. I’ve never really felt comfortable with men…I’ve always been more comfortable with women. And yet the goal is to prevent me from participating _with_ my own gender as well as “against” it.
Oh, I forgot to link to that podcast episode:
https://youarenotsosmart.com/2020/12/15/yanss-195-tools-for-creating-positive-habits-making-better-decisions-and-understanding-your-thoughts-feelings-emotions-and-self/
Gerrard, cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alief_(mental_state)
If you want to know the answer how people can think that, I think it’s like this: We take it as a given that the elite level of cis-men are just better at most standard athletics than the elite level of cis-women, and this is due to biology, and not access or other cultural reasons. We take it as a given that trans-women are every bit as capable as cis-men without hormone treatment. Therefore, we believe that the elite level of trans-women without hormone treatment are just better than the elite level of cis-women. Further, the gap between elite level cis-men and elite level cis-women is so wide that even 1% of assigned-male-at-birth persons realized that they were trans at the age of 25, that would be more than enough that trans-women without hormone treatment should and would win every women’s world athletic record.
With reasonable hormone treatment rules for participating in competitive sports, I personally don’t know what advantage, if any, trans-women have, and I profess my ignorance on this topic, and I don’t trust most of the things that the transphobes are saying on this topic because they have already displayed bad judgment on this broader topic, and because their rhetoric sounds eerily familiar to (earlier) racist rhetoric that black people were better runners than white people because of whatever nonsense reasons.
For casual sports, do whatever. Mixed sex/gender, separate sex/gender without hormone treatment rules, whatever. At least, I have no particular feelings in the matter.
If you want sex/gender segregated sports because it makes you feel more comfortable to be around only women -- ok. If you want to make a private club where that happens, then more power to you, but I don’t want government money to be part of such sex/gender segregation. “Separate is not equal”.
Thanks for the link.
“If you want to know the answer how people can think that, I think it’s like this: We take it as a given that the elite level of cis-men are just better at most standard athletics than the elite level of cis-women, and this is due to biology, and not access or other cultural reasons. We take it as a given that trans-women are every bit as capable as cis-men without hormone treatment. Therefore, we believe that the elite level of trans-women without hormone treatment are just better than the elite level of cis-women. Further, the gap between elite level cis-men and elite level cis-women is so wide that even 1% of assigned-male-at-birth persons realized that they were trans at the age of 25, that would be more than enough that trans-women without hormone treatment should and would win every women’s world athletic record.”
Again, none of this is contested by the vast majority of trans women.
“With reasonable hormone treatment rules for participating in competitive sports, I personally don’t know what advantage, if any, trans-women have, and I profess my ignorance on this topic, and I don’t trust most of the things that the transphobes are saying on this topic because they have already displayed bad judgment on this broader topic, and because their rhetoric sounds eerily familiar to (earlier) racist rhetoric that black people were better runners than white people because of whatever nonsense reasons.”
Yup. I’ve tried to find the reference again, but there was at least one sports writer who claimed this.
“If you want sex/gender segregated sports because it makes you feel more comfortable to be around only women — ok. If you want to make a private club where that happens, then more power to you, but I don’t want government money to be part of such sex/gender segregation. “Separate is not equal”.
Okay, but your beef is no longer with trans women specifically. It’s with women in general, and specifically Title IX.
That’s good. Sorry for any miscommunication.
Of course. I’ll separate “separate but unequal” e.g. if women really are at a innate biological disadvantage in sports, then I can support segregating sports on that metric, but I can’t support government funding for “separate but equal”. I’d also prefer to be really sure about any “separate but unequal” system in place, such as by allowing anyone to compete in the “men’s only” competition.
Err. I meant:
> I’ll support “separate but unequal”…