mistermack

Ha ha, you call that logic? There are only two states, good or wrong? And using words like "prove" ? You don't seem to have a clue about logic, that rant is school child level.

I was going on what I've heard from gay people. Stephen Fry, for example, probably the most famous British gay man, said that he was enormously depressed when he realised he was gay, and he determined to accept being gay, but to stay celibate, and he kept to that for a long time. I've heard other people say similar things in the past, of having trouble dealing with the realisation that they were gay. When you're brought up in a fairly homophobic world, it must be hard to get your head around it. Anyway, what do you mean "think like you" ? I write my thoughts down here as clearly as I can, you can quote them directly if you want to criticise. There's no need for your cowardly sneery smears.

Whatever motive you assign to what people say is guesswork. You don't know what they're thinking, any more than I do. And my friend alternates in how he presents, from day to day, and he generally dresses male when meeting up with old friends. (or neutral)

Gender identity is a pretty recent phenomenon, in the numbers we see now. And sexuality is such a complex emotion that you can't rely on what people say is actually what's really in their head. Some people are in real denial, when they realise that they are attracted to their own sex. Homosexuality still has acceptance problems. It must be hard to grow up with all the gay jokes flying around, and then realise you're gay yourself. And it must be worse if you are attracted to straight men (or women, in the case of lesbians) and not gays. The outlook must be pretty bleak, but the option of becoming transgender might appeal as a possible way of getting a non-gay straight partner, and allow you to avoid admitting to yourself that you're gay. I'm only guessing here, but my one trans friend is absolutely adamant that he's not gay. (I haven't discussed it with him but other friends have told me that) And he's still with his long-term female partner. It's obviously a very complicated life to be living.

No, that's just plain silly. In the case of a typical transgender, Lia Thomas for example, the doctor got it exactly right, they identified him as a male baby. If a doctor identified a baby as Napoleon, he would have obviously got it wrong, and would be gently led away and got some help. As would the Lia Thomas doctor, if he proclaimed a clearly male baby, with penis and balls, to be a girl. You're showing signs of desperation, pretty much arguing that black is white.

Well, that's not true. As has been gone into before, there are a tiny minority of intersex people, but they don't affect what's under discussion, because we're not discussing what IS a real woman, we're discussing what's NOT. And that's a man, with XY genetic makeup, born with penis and balls, who's lived past puberty as a male. My case is that is NOT a real woman, and can't be made into a real woman artificially. It would be an artificial woman, produced from a man, using medical artifice. No, they're not. But using the Napoleon example, If I say to you, I identify as Napoleon and I'm happy living my life that way, I'm not necessarily deluded. But if I believe I AM Napoleon, then that's deluded.

I wouldn't have disagreed with that, but I just looked up chess, as a game that has no physical advantage for men, and what did I find? There IS a women's division, and although women CAN compete in major tournaments, they don't get anywhere, and no woman has made the top 100 players as yet. They do have a women's competition to encourage female participation. ( I have no idea if transgender women can play in the women's division )Why Is Chess Separated By Gender? Raising the Bar For Women In Chess - Hercules Chess What's a delusion, for me, is the claim that a man can become a woman, through surgery and drugs. I suspect the female athletes would also view that as a delusion. If not, then they ARE real women, and there can be no valid objection to them competing with other women.

Firstly, in the context of elite women's sport it does do harm, and secondly, it is our choice, not theirs. They can choose how they present. We can choose how we react. That's a basic human freedom. If someone tells me he's Napoleon, I can go along with it, or not, it's up to me. If I don't, and it hurts his feelings, that's not my fault. He's the one with the delusion.

But I personally have already said a number of times that I don't dispute peoples' right to present as any gender they want, and I have a good friend who does just that with no problems on my account. But when it comes to how other people react to that presentation, that's up to them. In the case of female athletes, a great many of them object to the sport that they've dedicated their life to, being hijacked just to pander to what they view as a delusion in some men. If Lia Thomas had REALLY been turned into a woman, she wouldn't have bounced up from a very average performer to near-legendary performance, she's be the same kind of woman as she was a man. It's because she's still a man that she performs so exceptionally as a woman. Indeed, the necessity to even talk about handicapping trans athletes proves the point, that they are still men who need to be artificially clobbered down to women's level.

I really don't care if people label me transphobic. In my own opinion, I'm bullshit phobic, not trans phobic, but anyway, labelling is a lazy substitute for thinking and argument, in my opinion. And people who resort to it are generally the ones who don't post much of any real interest. It's funny that the same people react with horror to any hint of a "woke" label. Even if it's not referencing them. ----------------------------------------------- I would like to stick to reality, so here's a challenge. Do you truly believe that a bit of surgery and some hormones really changes a man into a woman? If so, exactly why? -----------------------------------------------

That sounds more like inbreeding than old age. I've heard it's a mid-west thing.

People are absolutely free to stretch the rules any way they please. By all means have two categories, men's football and women-and-transgender women's football. Start up your own league, and see how it goes. I have my doubts that it will take off, but good luck with it. But if the current women's league was compulsorily "stretched" in that way, I think an XX women's league would spring up and take over. The female athletes themselves don't seem very keen on competing with trans people. Firstly from a competitive standpoint, and secondly from an audience appeal standpoint. Women's sport already struggles to draw spectators, compared to men's sport. (With a tiny number of exceptions.) I think they have the potential to grow their attendance levels, but allowing trans people to compete with them would dent their audience, I believe. (although there could be a 'curiosity bounce' to start with)

Sorry, I've tried reading that three times, and I still can't make sense of what you're saying, or what I'm supposed to be "thinking". I'm arguing that trans people should play within the same rules. That's it in a nutshell.

But what you are unaware of, is that as people get older, they tend to get less gullible with experience. So your dream of new attitudes is just a dream. Many of the people buying idealistic rubbish today will see through it tomorrow. That, and the fact that reality doesn't change with attitudes. You can indulge wishful idealistic fantasies all you like, it doesn't change reality in the slightest. Personally, I'm not against changing attitudes, I'm against false facts. And the big false fact in this topic is that some cutting and stitching, and popping of pills, turns a male into a female. It can do a good job for a person who wants it, and help them with their life. That's absolutely fine. But it's a matter of presentation, not fact.

What the world swimming authorities are saying is that going through puberty as a male bestows physical advantages that persist, long after a person has had reassignment treatment. So lowering testosterone does NOT magically remove the developmental advantages that a male has. Nor does other methods of handicapping that have been suggested. That's why their current specifications for entry in elite female competitions include the proviso that you can't have gone through puberty as a male. I still think it's the wrong argument. Even if you've had surgery and hormone treatment, it won't change a male into a female, so if you were once a male, you are still in that class. All males should be excluded from women's events. It's not discrimination, it's inclusion. Males are included in male events.

Opinions in other words? That's common to any opinion. When you posted I was making stuff up, it falsely reads like I'm inventing facts. You tell me of an opinion that wasn't created in a head !! 🙃

You can do it if you want it. But your statement above contains it's own fatal flaw. Fair competition is a matter of opinion, not fact. If you found a way to level up the playing field with handicaps, then that's fine for a horse race held for the purpose of gambling. Without it, people might not enter the race, knowing that the other horses are better. And the same goes for sailing and bowling etc. But for human athletes, competing for elite status and prizes, it won't be long before the cry of "unfair" comes back. "Why should I be handicapped, surely this is discrimination" !! And the human rights arguments would start all over again. So it's always going to be "unfair" to someone. I believe years ago, Serena and Venus Williams in their prime both took part in "show" matches, after Serena claimed that no man outside the top 500 could beat her. The challenger at the time was ranked about 600, and beat both of them easily, something like 6-1 and 6-2, ( approx from memory ) Specifically ?

That's not really the idea of competing though is it? The idea is to find out who's best, whereas the handicapper does his best to get a dead heat. Even when there is weight classes, the competition is still held to see who's the best flyweight, or middleweight. You could have women middleweights fighting male lightweights, they might be evenly matched, but nobody wants to see it. The spectacle of a male beating up a female would probably cause a riot. And the vice versa would be humiliating for the loser, even though it was a trained female boxer with a weight advantage. There is a woman who transed to male, and fights as a man. I don't know how they approached the hormone treatments. The drugs would be banned for male fighters.

That was given in evidence to a house committee recently, by women who trained alongside him. The swimmer was Lia Thomas, who is 6ft 4". I would have linked the report but I can't find it. I think the evidence was given in the last week. This is about the same topic, but it's not the original that I read. : Lia Thomas exposed 'male genitalia' in women's locker room after meet, Riley Gaines says: Dropped 'his pants' | Fox News No work needed. Men compete with men. Women with women. That's equitable.

Meanwhile, in American swimming, they have gone bonkers. A very average male swimmer has transitioned, and while his times as a man put him way out of the top 100, he's now the fastest "woman" and close to breaking all-time female records. And for a lot of the time, women have been forced to use the same changing room, with a 6ft4" male, with dick and balls hanging out, and if they complained, they were called prejudiced dinosaurs. Sport’s trans issue is here to stay. But at last, the debate is starting to change | International Olympic Committee | The Guardian I prefer Ricky Gervais's take on it, keeping it real : This really is a bad faith argument, because you know perfectly well that men who go transgender are not excluded from sport. They are excluded from women's sport, just like they were from birth, and just like all other men. So it's a deliberate falsification to paint it as blanket exclusion. At least, I'm arguing that they should be excluded from women's competition. Men and women can choose to play each other as much as they like

Of course, Ukraine isn't the only corrupt country by any means. The difference though, is that it's perfectly legal in the USA. And they don't call it corruption there, it's called lobbying and campaign contributions. Is there anyone in the US who actually believes that Hunter Biden is not a crook? Or that his wide knowledge of the natural gas industry is why he was getting paid big bucks from Ukraine, and not at all for back door deals he was doing on behalf of his dad. Joe Biden has certainly been a "friend" to Ukraine since then. Coincidence I expect.

So that's your criteria? The world didn't screech to a halt when Hitler started gassing Jews. Nor when the USA dropped the bomb on Hiroshima. it's going to be a weird world, if that's a valid standard. Meanwhile, in the real world, I favour men competing against men, and women competing against women. Not because you can't level the field artificially, you can. But because it's what people will watch, what people will see a point in, and what people will enjoy taking part in.

I get to decide what I think. And what I type. You have the same powers. On the ground, if transgender M/F athletes were widely allowed to compete against women, I'm pretty sure that a new organisation for women's sport would appear, hosting XX only competition, and it would become the dominant force in women's sport. That's why the major organisations are rowing back from allowing TG participation in women's events. They don't want to be left holding empty events.

As has been said, if people want to play each other, they can. In competition, what you want doesn't come into it. You have to play who is next in line. For women, in a women's competition, that should be other women.