Transgender athletes

[Moontanman]

While acknowledge my experience in this is highly limited, I've known only one transgendered Male/Female, he/she was... trying to put this delicately, well I'll describe her, about 6'6, muscular, large breasts, huge feet and hands, almost a walking circus act. She went to our church I felt a lot of sympathy towards her, I had extensive talks with her and found out the transition had pretty much brought her life to a halt, she lost her kids to her ex-wife, lost her job because she couldn't stand the hostility from her co workers. Her life was a mess, a horrific mess. I hope it got better as time went on but I have my doubts, she left town for a job and I never saw her again. This was a horror story by any ones measure. 

This thread make me wonder if she would have been better off if the transition had started before or around puberty. One thing is for sure, the transition didn't affect her manliness and I have known very tall women before but she was a fish out of water for sure.  

[naitche]

9 hours ago, Moontanman said:

While acknowledge my experience in this is highly limited, I've known only one transgendered Male/Female, he/she was... trying to put this delicately, well I'll describe her, about 6'6, muscular, large breasts, huge feet and hands, almost a walking circus act. She went to our church I felt a lot of sympathy towards her, I had extensive talks with her and found out the transition had pretty much brought her life to a halt, she lost her kids to her ex-wife, lost her job because she couldn't stand the hostility from her co workers. Her life was a mess, a horrific mess. I hope it got better as time went on but I have my doubts, she left town for a job and I never saw her again. This was a horror story by any ones measure. 

This thread make me wonder if she would have been better off if the transition had started before or around puberty. One thing is for sure, the transition didn't affect her manliness and I have known very tall women before but she was a fish out of water for sure.  

Sad to hear of such a horrific result. 

I good friend I've lost touch with transitioned about 50 years ago, also from a large man, but much better result. An amazon of a woman, who was a game show hostess for a while and married to the host at one time.

She had a dispute over a horse once, resulting in her sitting on the porch with a shotgun waiting for the other guy to show up. 😄 

[Peterkin]

10 hours ago, Moontanman said:

This thread make me wonder if she would have been better off if the transition had started before or around puberty.

That's a very interesting question, though unrelated to sport. There does seem to be a fairly big problem with the identity issue. Children who have been wrongly assigned usually know quite early - age 3-7 - but the adults around them think they're too young to decide. So the transition generally has to wait until the the child is articulate and insistent enough - usually past puberty. 

[AIkonoklazt]

On 5/28/2022 at 3:37 PM, iNow said:

If you say so

  Cool. We’re good for rugby then. Time to move on to ANY of the hundreds of other sports now, yeah?!?

Okay, tennis then.

I saw beecee's remarks regarding the Williams sisters and was really surprised (I used to play tennis when I was younger but don't really follow the sport that closely at all) and found it difficult to believe until I looked up the match he mentioned. There's no way I'd want WTA to disappear in favor of every player going to the ATP if that means the first 200+ places is going to be all men, and all women players are relegated to the side courts of a tournament.

I have a feeling it's going to be similar with things like half-pipe snowboarding but let's talk about tennis first.

[iNow]

Nah. Thx tho

[AIkonoklazt]

On 6/9/2022 at 4:52 AM, iNow said:

Nah. Thx tho

Going to anyway.

Since tennis is also settled as "must be segregated as a sport," let's move on to half-pipe snowboarding. Chloe Kim was already in a league of her own in her Olympic runs but does anyone think that she could even make it through the prelims if she competed with men?

[dimreepr]

This is an interesting article.

https://www.itv.com/news/2022-06-07/emily-bridges-had-physical-threats-after-pms-trans-participation-comments?fbclid=IwAR3Tw8hkw90KofdWb9kZJPRydNwrfErnQEl0GtMVKn_pMT1bOyXnAice6F8

Quote

 

She speaks openly about everything from her treatment by those who run cycling, about the research she's taking part in, to the current and former athletes who say she should never be on the start line with other women.

Bridges is also keen to correct the mass of inaccurate information that’s peddled about her online, like the rumour she only decided to transition when she lost her funding at British Cycling (BC).

"It’s just flat out false. Anyone who is peddling that - it's just completely wrong."

 

 

[iNow]

3 hours ago, AIkonoklazt said:

Going to anyway.

Since tennis is also settled as "must be segregated as a sport," let's move on to half-pipe snowboarding. Chloe Kim was already in a league of her own in her Olympic runs but does anyone think that she could even make it through the prelims if she competed with men?

Cool story, bro

[mistermack]

Modern sport is all about catagories. You have all of those different weight catagories in boxing and weight lifting, to give different sized people a chance to compete. And various catagories of disability too.  Those lacking a leg or a foot get classified.

I would have a category for those lacking a Y chromosome, and an open category open to anyone.

[TheVat]

After all the many pages of incisive postings, I still have the feeling that the two major camps on trans women on womens teams are inherently not reconcilable.  The camp that envisions heavy mesomorphic trans females crushing cis females on a field strike me as not moved by arguments like "well that's quite rare," or "hormone treatments cancel all that"  or "their suicide rates will soar if we don't include them."

One reason such issues are so hard to resolve is that humans have hair-trigger reactions to anything perceived as unfair.  And, with this issue, the data points are so few (because, as many noted, trans women on womens teams in explosive-strength/mass-dependent sports are so rare) that casual perceptions and anxieties can rule, and some will be sniffing for unfairness like bloodhounds. 

I would suggest the debate only really ends with what would be a social experiment.  Let them in for a defined trial period, see what happens, collect data.   And there's the rub - many would not want to be (or have their child be) a guinea pig.

[zapatos]

6 hours ago, AIkonoklazt said:

Since tennis is also settled as "must be segregated as a sport,"...

[mistermack]

1 hour ago, TheVat said:

arguments like "well that's quite rare," or "hormone treatments cancel all that"  or "their suicide rates will soar if we don't include them."

Well, If people are not moved by those arguments, it might be because they aren't true, or not valid.

Murder is rare, the rare argument is a non-starter. Hormones don't cancel out the presence of a Y chromosome from birth. And suicide blackmail is another non-starter, I didn't even know anybody had advanced it.

The problem is that rare or not, one person with a Y chromosome from birth, competing against people who haven't got that, can have major consequences. 

Caster Semenya for example, winning gold, moved every other competitor down by one place. And millions of people watching were left scratching their heads, as to how it could be happening or considered fair. 

[J.C.MacSwell]

6 hours ago, TheVat said:

 

I would suggest the debate only really ends with what would be a social experiment.  Let them in for a defined trial period, see what happens, collect data.   And there's the rub - many would not want to be (or have their child be) a guinea pig.

A few caveats. Make the rules equally inclusive, and equally effective competitively, and equally incentivized, for trans males wanting to compete in male sports.

Fair is fair. If we don't see trans males making inroads toward the top of the male podiums allow them to sue the rule makers for lack of equality. XX chromosome individuals struggling to compete in the female division should be able to transition and compete more favourably in the mens.

Trans males are people too.

[AIkonoklazt]

10 hours ago, zapatos said:

Don't get what you meant by the picture, since the sport is segregated into men's, women's, and mixed. One doesn't impinge on the others, so segregation still apply.

13 hours ago, iNow said:

Cool story, bro

Go back to the footages. Scoring system here: https://www.snowboarder.com/transworld-snowboarding-archive/snowboarding-photos/olympic-judging-explained/

[zapatos]

12 minutes ago, AIkonoklazt said:

Don't get what you meant by the picture, since the sport is segregated into men's, women's, and mixed.

What I meant is that they are not segregated if they play together.

"Segregate: set apart from the rest or from each other; isolate or divide."

'Mixed' is the opposite of 'segregated'.

When blacks were segregated from whites in post-Civil War America, that did not mean you had water fountains for whites, water fountains for blacks, and water fountains that would be used by both blacks and whites.

[AIkonoklazt]

1 hour ago, zapatos said:

What I meant is that they are not segregated if they play together.

"Segregate: set apart from the rest or from each other; isolate or divide."

'Mixed' is the opposite of 'segregated'.

When blacks were segregated from whites in post-Civil War America, that did not mean you had water fountains for whites, water fountains for blacks, and water fountains that would be used by both blacks and whites.

Just because there's a mixed category doesn't mean the sport is not clearly segregated.

• Mixed doubles pairs don't compete with men's pairs or women's pairs
• Mixed doubles limited to Grand Slam / Olympics and not ATP nor WTA tours (obviously)
• There aren't "mixed singles" outside of rare exhibitions 

ATP tour - men's pro tour

WTA tour - women's pro tour

If that's not segregated by sex then what is?

12 hours ago, TheVat said:

After all the many pages of incisive postings, I still have the feeling that the two major camps on trans women on womens teams are inherently not reconcilable.  The camp that envisions heavy mesomorphic trans females crushing cis females on a field strike me as not moved by arguments like "well that's quite rare," or "hormone treatments cancel all that"  or "their suicide rates will soar if we don't include them."

One reason such issues are so hard to resolve is that humans have hair-trigger reactions to anything perceived as unfair.  And, with this issue, the data points are so few (because, as many noted, trans women on womens teams in explosive-strength/mass-dependent sports are so rare) that casual perceptions and anxieties can rule, and some will be sniffing for unfairness like bloodhounds. 

I would suggest the debate only really ends with what would be a social experiment.  Let them in for a defined trial period, see what happens, collect data.   And there's the rub - many would not want to be (or have their child be) a guinea pig.

Not disagreeing with what you've wrote but I'd like to note that sometimes the issue isn't transgender or even identity but medical. Take cases like Caster Semenya's. Caster has undescended testes, and was raised as a girl growing up even though she possess male gonads. She clearly outclasses her women peers but is she to be told to compete with men when she had lived as a female all of her life?

[zapatos]

8 minutes ago, AIkonoklazt said:

If that's not segregated by sex then what is?

You are the one making the claim. You figure out the accurate terminology to describe how the sport is organized.

[AIkonoklazt]

1 minute ago, zapatos said:

You are the one making the claim. You figure out the accurate terminology to describe how the sport is organized.

It's segregated by sex.

[dimreepr]

21 hours ago, TheVat said:

After all the many pages of incisive postings, I still have the feeling that the two major camps on trans women on womens teams are inherently not reconcilable.  The camp that envisions heavy mesomorphic trans females crushing cis females on a field strike me as not moved by arguments like "well that's quite rare," or "hormone treatments cancel all that"  or "their suicide rates will soar if we don't include them."

One reason such issues are so hard to resolve is that humans have hair-trigger reactions to anything perceived as unfair.  And, with this issue, the data points are so few (because, as many noted, trans women on womens teams in explosive-strength/mass-dependent sports are so rare) that casual perceptions and anxieties can rule, and some will be sniffing for unfairness like bloodhounds. 

I would suggest the debate only really ends with what would be a social experiment.  Let them in for a defined trial period, see what happens, collect data.   And there's the rub - many would not want to be (or have their child be) a guinea pig.

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2022/may/25/ricky-gervais-netflix-special-condemned-by-lgbtq-groups-for-anti-trans-rants-masquerading-as-jokes

Quote

 

Ricky Gervais’ new Netflix special SuperNature has drawn criticism for several jokes about trans people, with the US LGBTQ rights group Glaad calling it “dangerous”.

“We watched the Ricky Gervais ‘comedy’ special on Netflix so you don’t have to,” Glaad said in a statement published on Tuesday night. “It’s full of graphic, dangerous, anti-trans rants masquerading as jokes. He also spouts anti-gay rhetoric and spreads inaccurate information about HIV.”

 

I've watched this lecture ("and it is a lecture" - Ricky) twice (because it's very funny and philosophically sound, I highly recommend it), at the beginning he said something like "a lot of people won't get the irony of my lecture" as exemplified by a friend (who's a raving trumpist), who commented on the article "Bloody snowflakes, he's exactly right" and some people in the LGBTQ community (who are raving 'snowflakes')...

9 hours ago, AIkonoklazt said:

Just because there's a mixed category doesn't mean the sport is not clearly segregated.

• Mixed doubles pairs don't compete with men's pairs or women's pairs
• Mixed doubles limited to Grand Slam / Olympics and not ATP nor WTA tours (obviously)
• There aren't "mixed singles" outside of rare exhibitions 

ATP tour - men's pro tour

WTA tour - women's pro tour

Indeed, but it does mean that segregation is entirely arbitrary, because women and men are clearly able to play with each other (pun intended 😁).

Edited June 15, 2022 by dimreepr

[iNow]

11 hours ago, AIkonoklazt said:

It's segregated by sex.

Except when it's not. 

[TheVat]

4 hours ago, dimreepr said:

 

I've watched this lecture ("and it is a lecture" - Ricky) twice (because it's very funny and philosophically sound, I highly recommend it), at the beginning he said something like "a lot of people won't get the irony of my lecture" as exemplified by a friend (who's a raving trumpist), who commented on the article "Bloody snowflakes, he's exactly right" and some people in the LGBTQ community (who are raving 'snowflakes')...

 

Thanks, will have a look.  I've found some of his "cringe comedy" to be funny stuff.  I hope that groups who get fun poked at them can realize that being in a joke is a measure of acceptance.  To me, it says in effect, "There's nothing so awful or so special about you that we can't joke about you the way we do our other friends."  That said, I haven't seen SuperNature and I don't know how many lines it crosses, or in what way.  Sometimes jokes that demean people can be dangerous.  OTOH, sometimes carefully avoiding jokes about people, as if everyone is too polarized and deadly serious, can also be dangerous when it blocks needed societal safety valves and comic relief.   It really depends on the particular joke, eh?

[StringJunky]

50 minutes ago, TheVat said:

Thanks, will have a look.  I've found some of his "cringe comedy" to be funny stuff.  I hope that groups who get fun poked at them can realize that being in a joke is a measure of acceptance.  To me, it says in effect, "There's nothing so awful or so special about you that we can't joke about you the way we do our other friends."  That said, I haven't seen SuperNature and I don't know how many lines it crosses, or in what way.  Sometimes jokes that demean people can be dangerous.  OTOH, sometimes carefully avoiding jokes about people, as if everyone is too polarized and deadly serious, can also be dangerous when it blocks needed societal safety valves and comic relief.   It really depends on the particular joke, eh?

RG isn't anti-any minority. It's important to him to not discriminate, so every group gets it whenever his humour takes him there... he is equal in his piss-taking. I think that's fair. We need humour and astutely observed  ridicule is part of it.

[Phi for All]

3 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

RG isn't anti-any minority. It's important to him to not discriminate, so every group gets it whenever his humour takes him there... he is equal in his piss-taking. I think that's fair. We need humour and astutely observed  ridicule is part of it.

There's a danger in this though. Does he get to use hateful/hurtful words when he takes the piss just because he's making jokes about everybody? Is it OK for him to mimic someone who stutters, as long as he mimics the way everybody else speaks? Is it fair for anybody to be ridiculed as long as it's done to everybody? Isn't that just a great excuse to ridicule everybody? 

I can appreciate not discriminating against people, but I don't think this is always a sound approach. 

[J.C.MacSwell]

2 hours ago, Phi for All said:

There's a danger in this though. Does he get to use hateful/hurtful words when he takes the piss just because he's making jokes about everybody? Is it OK for him to mimic someone who stutters, as long as he mimics the way everybody else speaks? Is it fair for anybody to be ridiculed as long as it's done to everybody? Isn't that just a great excuse to ridicule everybody? 

I can appreciate not discriminating against people, but I don't think this is always a sound approach. 

There seems to be a fine line between barely acceptable and definitely not where potential comedy resides.

[Phi for All]

5 minutes ago, J.C.MacSwell said:

There seems to be a fine line between barely acceptable and definitely not where potential comedy resides.

Comedians who write offensive jokes and deride those who object remind me of pro athletes who don't want to be role models for children. You can't justify being a cunt by claiming your motives are pure and you're just in it for the laughs/competition.