Transgender athletes

[Intoscience]

45 minutes ago, swansont said:

The segregation does not equate to opportunity. That's falsified by a simple glance at history, as I pointed out earlier: women were not permitted to compete in most sports, period. The segregation was part of inequality of opportunity.

e.g. IIRC the 1920 Olympics had 22 sports where men competed, and 6 where women competed. 

Explain to me how this segregation makes 6 = 22 

 

 

Doesn't matter what happened in 1920, and what the intention of segregation was back then. The point is, it works now for the right reasons, simply because in many disciplines men have a clear advantage over women. If you want to ignore this fact then that's your choice. Segregation and classification in the modern era serves a useful purpose, where it allows for more people to compete and be recognised for their performances. That is where the most useful equal opportunity arises. It allows for women to be recognised and respected as equals to their male counter parts and this then should extend out to other sex identities, including the minorities, but not at the cost of the majority. 

Scrap segregation and classification and  open it to everyone and you end up with the vast majority just taking part and a small minority (probably mostly cis males in many disciplines) dominating everyone else.

You cant have equal opportunity with equal outcome. 

Transgender should be included and not discriminated against! We all agree on this, but we need to make sure inclusion and diversity should be fair for everyone, and is not discriminating against others. 

Ok, it might be that its no big deal for transgender women to compete with cis gender women, I'm not an authority to make judgement. I Have my opinions, but my opinions are idealist and not really practically possible, so not very useful. I'm just struggling to understand why the obvious differences in general between cis males and cis females get ignored or diluted in these types of discussions? Especially at the elite levels where those differences can be very significant.     

[swansont]

6 minutes ago, Intoscience said:

Doesn't matter what happened in 1920, and what the intention of segregation was back then.

Yes, it does. The order matters. The claim was "Some sports though have been segregated specifically to ensure Women do have an equal platform." which is past-tense, so what happened in the past is relevant here. That's the historic reason for segregation was not equality of opportunity, and it's not like that system was torn down and then re-instituted.

 

 

6 minutes ago, Intoscience said:

The point is, it works now for the right reasons, simply because in many disciplines men have a clear advantage over women. If you want to ignore this fact then that's your choice.

I'm not ignoring that. I'm trying to make sure that we're discussing fact and not fiction. One of the huge (social/political) issues here is that we are stuck in a binary classification for a not-binary reality (biology) and that has been with us for a long time. But that classification was not about equal opportunity, since that equal opportunity did not exist. 

 

6 minutes ago, Intoscience said:

 

Ok, it might be that its no big deal for transgender women to compete with cis gender women, I'm not an authority to make judgement. I Have my opinions, but my opinions are idealist and not really practically possible, so not very useful. I'm just struggling to understand why the obvious differences in general between cis males and cis females get ignored or diluted in these types of discussions? Especially at the elite levels where those differences can be very significant.     

How are they diluted? They are the reason we have the classifications in the first place. You have round pegs and square pegs, and round holes and square holes. But this ignores the triangular peg (and convincing some that triangular pegs exist), and deciding which hole it goes in.

I don't think anyone has suggested we go from two classification to one.  

 

 

[iNow]

1 hour ago, swansont said:

The claim was "Some sports though have been segregated specifically to ensure Women do have an equal platform."

Thank you for reinforcing this point which seemed so obvious to me. I wasn't the one claiming gender segregation was instituted to ensure fairness for females. It simply wasn't. It too was about exclusion, and that's the point. The claim was made in this thread that segregation was instituted to ensure fairness and that's plainly false. 

 

1 hour ago, swansont said:

I don't think anyone has suggested we go from two classification to one.  

Quite right. It's just another slippery slope strawman style argument... Remarkably similar to the "what's next if we allow gays to marry? People marrying their dog or their sheep or their kitchen table?!!???!11!one12!?" style of argument we encountered in those interactions years ago. 

 

2 hours ago, Intoscience said:

Especially at the elite levels where those differences can be very significant.     

I'll just highlight once more how the legislation being pushed and enforcement mechanisms being used for punishment are NOT focused at elite levels... they're focused on middle school and high school students, and a bit of college. This is about children and how we treat those who don't fit in with our accepted standards as a society. 171 anti-trans bills across fewer than 50 states in US legislatures... just in 2021... and we're only half way through 2021... One hundred and seventy one... and none of them attempt to address the REAL issues causing problems in female sports. 

 

Quote

Research identifies many significant threats to women and girls in sport — including lack of funding and sponsorship, pay inequities, a decreasing proportion of female coaches and administrators, unequal access to participation, underrepresentation in the media, vulnerability to sexual harassment and abuse, hostile climates, and insufficient implementation of Title IX. Yet the Republican lawmakers now rallying to “save” women’s sports do not appear to be tackling these problems.

 

Put simply, talking about those 7 elite level athletes is a red herring, as is framing this as an issue about protecting cis-females. This is about little league, not MLB... kids being transported around in minivans by soccer moms, not LeBron James and Tom Brady... this is about operationalizing and making real the the acceptance of transgendered humans and desire to stop discrimination against them which we both seem to share. 

Edited July 27, 2021 by iNow

[MigL]

3 hours ago, swansont said:

Yes, it does. The order matters. The claim was "Some sports though have been segregated specifically to ensure Women do have an equal platform." which is past-tense, so what happened in the past is relevant here.

Right, in 1920 women weren't allowed to compete in 16 compettions that men participated in.
But since then, also in the past, some sports, including the ones women were barred from in 1920, have become available as an equal platform, for women to compete in.
I don't see why you interpret 'the past' as 100 years ago, but not 60, 40 or 20 years go.

3 hours ago, swansont said:

You have round pegs and square pegs, and round holes and square holes. But this ignores the triangular peg

And we're trying to tell you that triangular pegs don't fit into round or square holes.
Your solution ( without gender categories ) seems to be same pegs and same holes. So that we end up getting rid of 50% of participants ( women ) in competitive sports, because they simply cannot be competitive anymore.
All to benefit INow's 6 competitive trans athletes 😄 .

2 hours ago, iNow said:

The claim was made in this thread that segregation was instituted to ensure fairness and that's plainly false.

The claim was made for some sports.
Obviously not in 1920, but certainly for some sports since then.
Don't be so selective about what is considered 'the past'.

2 hours ago, iNow said:

3 hours ago, swansont said:

I don't think anyone has suggested we go from two classification to one.  

Quite right. It's just another slippery slope strawman style argument...

Then what exactly is being suggested ?
We are told a triangular peg won't fit into a round or square hole, so the choices are either triangular holes for triangular pegs ( as we are suggesting ), or, same pegs and holes.
If you are not suggesting same pegs and holes, are you trying to suggest 'shoe-horning' triangular pegs into square or round holes, thereby mutilating the integrity of the pegs or the holes ?

2 hours ago, iNow said:

I'll just highlight once more how the legislation being pushed and enforcement mechanisms being used for punishment are NOT focused at elite levels.

Then you've been taking part in your own little imaginary discussion, because for 25 pages we've been talking about competitive sports, at the elite level, where athletes earn a living from the competition.
Those have been all the examples presented, along with the suggestion that rules are needed for some cases.
It's a little late to try and spin it as a different argument after 25 pages.

I like discussing things with you INow, but it really bothers me when you imply that anyone who disagrees with you argument is transphobic. Please stop doing that.
Also stop tryng to equate 'stuffing' transwomen into women's competitive sports categories, with gay marriage, or gay rights.
It was explained to you about 22 pages ago why the two are not the same.
One doesn't infringe on anyone else's rights ( gay marriage ), the other does ( transwomen competing against ciswomen ).

[swansont]

11 minutes ago, MigL said:

Right, in 1920 women weren't allowed to compete in 16 compettions that men participated in.
But since then, also in the past, some sports, including the ones women were barred from in 1920, have become available as an equal platform, for women to compete in.
I don't see why you interpret 'the past' as 100 years ago, but not 60, 40 or 20 years go.

You're addressing a different point. These sports were already segregated, which you seem to be agreeing with, meaning the segregation didn't exist in order to facilitate equality. It means equality of opportunity was achieved (or progress was made toward it) which is a different issue, and not the one I was addressing. 

I chose 1920 to show that the segregation in sports dates back at least that far. Giving more recent data is moot in that regard 

 

I strongly suspect that women just started doing these sports on their own, in defiance of men telling them the shouldn't (or couldn't) and they only became accepted on an institutional level after much effort.

 

Quote

And we're trying to tell you that triangular pegs don't fit into round or square holes.

 

But all you have are square and round, and the law says (or at least morals should say) that you can't exclude anyone.

Quote

Your solution ( without gender categories ) seems to be same pegs and same holes. So that we end up getting rid of 50% of participants ( women ) in competitive sports, because they simply cannot be competitive anymore.
 

Whoah. Where did I suggest there should be no gender categories? I did the opposite. I specifically pointed out that AFAICT nobody has suggested this.

16 minutes ago, MigL said:

Then you've been taking part in your own little imaginary discussion, because for 25 pages we've been talking about competitive sports, at the elite level, where athletes earn a living from the competition.

I think we've been talking about both, which may be part of the problem.

[iNow]

1 hour ago, MigL said:

We are told a triangular peg won't fit into a round or square hole, so the choices are either triangular holes for triangular pegs ( as we are suggesting ), or, same pegs and holes.
If you are not suggesting same pegs and holes, are you trying to suggest 'shoe-horning' triangular pegs into square or round holes, thereby mutilating the integrity of the pegs or the holes ?

The shape of the holes is almost entirely arbitrary, ESPECIALLY in sports... a domain where we LITERALLY write the rules however we wish. They're not handed down from on high chiseled into stone tablets. They change every year, and can change to accommodate transgendered humans. 

Some people, however, seem to think there's something invariant about the roundness or squareness of the edges on those holes... that there is tremendous meaning and importance in them being sized PRECISELY as they are today...  while some other people believe the shape of those holes matters far less than how widely or how narrowly they've been bored by the bit.

Being a woodworker, I realize that sometimes some hand filing and sanding is required to make the fit proper... I don't look at a hole I've drilled as if it's perfection that can never again be touched with a tool... I'm more than happy to change bits or switch to a different chisel if the outcome I'm seeking calls for doing so. 

While I do tend to reject the basic premise here that one group of humans are best described as triangles... and while I'm both willing to accept transgendered humans as round and am also advocating that others do the same... My more basic hope is that we at least all focus a bit less on keeping the  existing hole so narrow and rigid and focus a bit more on how we at any time may expand that holes bore width without much consequence... that we may expand it so the "triangles" are no longer seen as so ill-fitting and out of place to so very many of our fellow citizens. 

Edited July 27, 2021 by iNow

[J.C.MacSwell]

At the risk of sounding racist, homophobic, anti-gay marriage, and transphobic, my carpentry experience suggests pounding triangular pegs into round holes is not always a great idea.

[iNow]

Nor is suggesting that only one hole shape and bore type is allowed

[J.C.MacSwell]

19 hours ago, J.C.MacSwell said:

It's not in this:

"Over 80 women’s rights and gender justice organizations support includingtrans girls and women in women’s sports.

 

9 hours ago, swansont said:

How is that not "Treat transgendered women as women and let them compete in women’s sports."? I'm not seeing a distinction here.

The distinction is that it's not coming from women's sports organizations, who would be obligated to come up with an acceptable and workable set of rules, rather than simply make supportive statements.

 

Edited July 27, 2021 by J.C.MacSwell

[swansont]

2 hours ago, J.C.MacSwell said:

The distinction is that it's not coming from women's sports organizations

The Women’s Sports Foundation is not a women’s sports organization. Huh. 

[J.C.MacSwell]

26 minutes ago, swansont said:

The Women’s Sports Foundation is not a women’s sports organization. Huh. 

They are an advocacy group for women's sports. They aren't required to make or enforce the rules for them.

Any other examples you can cite to prove you're missing the point?

The claim was " a majority of women's sports organizations" favoured transgender inclusion in competitive women's sports without caveat. One which INow, to his credit, rescinded.

 

[iNow]

So do high-profile female athletes. Soccer star Megan Rapinoe, former world No. 1 tennis player Billie Jean King and professional basketball player Candace Parker joined nearly 200 other professional, Olympic and collegiate female athletes on an amicus brief contesting the laws.

Close to 1,000 collegiate athletes supported trans athletes in two letters, calling on the NCAA to move championships out of states that passed bans. WNBA players Sue Bird and Natasha Cloud, WNBA coach Cheryl Reeve, U.S. paralympian Alana Nichols and scores of other athletes signed on to a similar letter to the NCAA last year.

[J.C.MacSwell]

2 hours ago, iNow said:

So do high-profile female athletes. Soccer star Megan Rapinoe, former world No. 1 tennis player Billie Jean King and professional basketball player Candace Parker joined nearly 200 other professional, Olympic and collegiate female athletes on an amicus brief contesting the laws.

 

Hard to blame Megan Rapinoe, in the politically polarized US, for talking up one side of this polarization. I can respect that to a degree.

She is one of the best women soccer players in the world. Truly an elite athlete that in many countries would be shunned for her sexual orientation, and not allowed to marry the person of her choice, but has been outspoken for women's and LGBT rights. I absolutely respect her for that.

She also makes half a million dollars a year playing soccer (good for her, I respect that), but whines about making less than men...not men specifically though...male soccer players...damn the gate receipts or any reflection on the economics that has made her quite wealthy...but I guess not wealthy enough...

Billy Jean King is probably better known for beating a 50+ year old man than being #1. No disrespect for her athletic ability or activism on women's sports or LGBT rights, but I have yet to hear any details from her as to how to integrate transgenders into female sports at competitive levels. Also Martina Navratilova, also a former #1 of at least the same calibre, and also an advocate for LGBT rights, has voiced concerns about transgender females competing in female sports...(maybe she's also subconsciously against gay marriage, INow?)

From Wiki quoting Navratilova:

"And what I think I have come to realise, the biggest thing for me, is just that the level of difficulty that trans people go through cannot be underestimated. The fight for equality and recognition is just huge. That being said, still, for me, the most important thing in sports... and you have to remember, trans rights and elite sports are two different things, although of course they are connected. What's the right way to set rules so that everybody feels like they have a fighting chance? It feels to me that it is impossible to come to any real conclusions or write any meaningful rules until more research is done."

2 hours ago, iNow said:

 

Close to 1,000 collegiate athletes supported trans athletes in two letters, calling on the NCAA to move championships out of states that passed bans. WNBA players Sue Bird and Natasha Cloud, WNBA coach Cheryl Reeve, U.S. paralympian Alana Nichols and scores of other athletes signed on to a similar letter to the NCAA last year.

I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest these letters are probably agenda and politically driven, with a fair assessment of the importance of acceptance and sports participation for transgenders, but little if anything about how to fairly integrate transgenders at competitive levels.

 

Edited July 28, 2021 by J.C.MacSwell

[iNow]

I see. Classic no true Scotsman response. I’d have gone another way, myself. 

[J.C.MacSwell]

3 hours ago, iNow said:

I see. Classic no true Scotsman response. I’d have gone another way, myself. 

Except not only is she not putting sugar on her porridge, she eats nothing for breakfast but cornflakes, and she was born, raised and never left New Zealand.

Now make some Venn diagrams, and see if you can figure out the no true polarized American fallacy...

[swansont]

10 hours ago, J.C.MacSwell said:

They are an advocacy group for women's sports. They aren't required to make or enforce the rules for them.

Any other examples you can cite to prove you're missing the point?

The claim was " a majority of women's sports organizations" favoured transgender inclusion in competitive women's sports without caveat. One which INow, to his credit, rescinded.

 

You seem to be speaking of league organizations. “women's sports organizations” is a much more general description.

Non-professional leagues wouldn’t be making such rules. They would be following the laws that apply to them. Professional sports leagues would also be constrained by such laws.

[Intoscience]

16 hours ago, iNow said:

The shape of the holes is almost entirely arbitrary, ESPECIALLY in sports... a domain where we LITERALLY write the rules however we wish. They're not handed down from on high chiseled into stone tablets. They change every year, and can change to accommodate transgendered humans. 

Some people, however, seem to think there's something invariant about the roundness or squareness of the edges on those holes... that there is tremendous meaning and importance in them being sized PRECISELY as they are today...  while some other people believe the shape of those holes matters far less than how widely or how narrowly they've been bored by the bit.

Being a woodworker, I realize that sometimes some hand filing and sanding is required to make the fit proper... I don't look at a hole I've drilled as if it's perfection that can never again be touched with a tool... I'm more than happy to change bits or switch to a different chisel if the outcome I'm seeking calls for doing so. 

While I do tend to reject the basic premise here that one group of humans are best described as triangles... and while I'm both willing to accept transgendered humans as round and am also advocating that others do the same... My more basic hope is that we at least all focus a bit less on keeping the  existing hole so narrow and rigid and focus a bit more on how we at any time may expand that holes bore width without much consequence... that we may expand it so the "triangles" are no longer seen as so ill-fitting and out of place to so very many of our fellow citizens. 

Coming from an engineering background (where precision is important) wouldn't the best solution be to just create triangular holes rather than trying to make them fit round or square ones? 

I agree with you though that the basic premise should not be to describe each group as a particular shape. But this is one of the reasons why we have sub categories, like age, body weight etc... 

If you want to advocate fair and equal opportunity across the whole spectrum of  genders, age, weight etc (which I do). Then categories, sub categories, rules... need to be expanded or amended to accommodate this, especially if there is a potential that by accommodating all, you discriminate against some. 

If the triangle fits neatly into the round hole and there is no issue then fine. But if the triangle is forced into the round hole and the round hole will no longer support the round peg then it needs addressing.  

21 hours ago, swansont said:

Yes, it does. The order matters. The claim was "Some sports though have been segregated specifically to ensure Women do have an equal platform." which is past-tense, so what happened in the past is relevant here. That's the historic reason for segregation was not equality of opportunity, and it's not like that system was torn down and then re-instituted.

 

 

I'm not ignoring that. I'm trying to make sure that we're discussing fact and not fiction. One of the huge (social/political) issues here is that we are stuck in a binary classification for a not-binary reality (biology) and that has been with us for a long time. But that classification was not about equal opportunity, since that equal opportunity did not exist. 

 

How are they diluted? They are the reason we have the classifications in the first place. You have round pegs and square pegs, and round holes and square holes. But this ignores the triangular peg (and convincing some that triangular pegs exist), and deciding which hole it goes in.

I don't think anyone has suggested we go from two classification to one.  

 

 

I don't agree with you on the relevance of the history of segregation. For this discussion I don't see why it is relevant. There are many things in life that get introduced with one intent, only to gain unintended usefulness. 

You agree that we are stuck in a binary system, so you recognise that this system maybe outdated. Yet it is you who insists on trying to fit the triangle peg into either a round or square hole. 

I'm suggesting that there are many shapes, some that can fit in more than one hole and some that won't so require their own hole that is equally recognised . I'm saying lets make all the holes we need for all the shapes we have so that no shape is ever excluded and no hole is ever compromised.  

[iNow]

1 hour ago, Intoscience said:

Coming from an engineering background (where precision is important) wouldn't the best solution be to just create triangular holes rather than trying to make them fit round or square ones? 

If we were building and talking about widgets, perhaps. They’re not widgets, though. They’re humans just like you and me. We’re ALL different from one another in scores of ways, but we generally focus on our similarities instead.

I’ve already clearly stated that I reject the framing of transgendered humans being triangular pegs being put into round holes. I personally find them just as round. I merely ran with the analogy introduced by MigL to engage him on his own terms. 

Your comment about precision in engineering suggests that every other female competing in female athletics are 100% equivalent, cut from a single mold, the same in all ways and tolerances. We both know they’re clearly not, so again (and with respect) I completely reject this rather comical fantasyland style framing of the issue. Humans aren’t cogs, whether cis, trans, or otherwise. 

Edited July 28, 2021 by iNow

[Intoscience]

2 hours ago, Intoscience said:

I'm suggesting that there are many shapes, some that can fit in more than one hole and some that won't so require their own hole that is equally recognised . I'm saying lets make all the holes we need for all the shapes we have so that no shape is ever excluded and no hole is ever compromised.

 

1 hour ago, iNow said:

If we were building and talking about widgets, perhaps. They’re not widgets, though. They’re humans just like you and me. We’re ALL different from one another in scores of ways, but we generally focus on our similarities instead.

I’ve already clearly stated that I reject the framing of transgendered humans being triangular pegs being put into round holes. I personally find them just as round. I merely ran with the analogy introduced by MigL to engage him on his own terms. 

Your comment about precision in engineering suggests that every other female competing in female athletics are 100% equivalent, cut from a single mold, the same in all ways and tolerances. We both know they’re clearly not, so again (and with respect) I completely reject this rather comical fantasyland style framing of the issue. Humans aren’t cogs, whether cis, trans, or otherwise.

Did you not read my response to Swansont? (I've quoted above)^^^

 

On the contrary to your comment that I'm suggesting female athletes are 100% equivalent, I'm clearly suggesting that differences can be many and varied, regardless of gender alone. 

I'm not the one advocating we frame everyone into a couple of specific groups, I'm saying the groups are diverse in many ways so we should try to accommodate this diversity by expanding the options rather than trying to "make fit".

It appears to me that you are the one suggesting we fit as many shapes as we can into just a few holes. I was pointing out that this may not be the best solution.

Edited July 28, 2021 by Intoscience
spelling

[iNow]

20 minutes ago, Intoscience said:

saying the groups are diverse in many ways so we should try to accommodate this diversity by expanding the options rather than trying to "make fit".

I know you aren’t consciously advocating this, but it sounds to me rather equivalent to separate, but equal. We may as well force transgendered athletes to use different water fountains while we’re at it. 

[TheVat]

Given the intent,  and ghastly historical underpinning of Plessy v. Ferguson, I would say none of the views here are equivalent to that. 

Not wild about the peg/hole analogy,  either, but I guess the inner 12 year old enjoyed it.    

If it turns out that transgender women are notably better than ciswomen in sports where explosive strength and/or bone mass matter,  then there's a prima facie case for at least considering alternatives.   At this point,  it seems to this noob that y'all have reached the dull plateau of endlessly talking past each other and circling back on the same arguments.  

[iNow]

16 minutes ago, TheVat said:

I would say none of the views here are equivalent to that. 

Nobody is suggesting equivalency. The suggestion is of one of similarity. 

Edited July 28, 2021 by iNow

[MigL]

I did not introduce the peg/hole analogy.
It was introduced here ...

On 7/27/2021 at 9:17 AM, swansont said:

They are the reason we have the classifications in the first place. You have round pegs and square pegs, and round holes and square holes. But this ignores the triangular peg (and convincing some that triangular pegs exist), and deciding which hole it goes in.

Swansont opened the door; I walked in.

[J.C.MacSwell]

26 minutes ago, MigL said:

I did not introduce the peg/hole analogy.
It was introduced here ...

Swansont opened the door; I walked in.

Before INow accuses Swansont of intentionally or subconsciously attempting to dehumanize transgenders, is it fair to say Swansont was just making an analogy and understood the limitations of it?

[swansont]

4 hours ago, Intoscience said:

I don't agree with you on the relevance of the history of segregation. For this discussion I don't see why it is relevant. There are many things in life that get introduced with one intent, only to gain unintended usefulness. 

Causality makes it relevant. Segregation cannot be caused by equality of opportunity, when equality happened after. There is no equality of opportunity when the platform doesn’t exist.