Transgender athletes

[iNow]

1 hour ago, J.C.MacSwell said:

Yes

And what if you were prevented from competing alongside your peers in the sport that you’re passionate about due solely to that “choice” someone else made FOR you at birth?

Would you perhaps be more on my side of the equation of this issue than you are right now today? 

[J.C.MacSwell]

43 minutes ago, iNow said:

And what if you were prevented from competing alongside your peers in the sport that you’re passionate about due solely to that “choice” someone else made FOR you at birth?

Would you perhaps be more on my side of the equation of this issue than you are right now today? 

I might INow. Someone might have to tell me "sorry about this...but you have to play in this other division. You don't qualify for the one you prefer". (though transmales are currently allowed to play against other males with no extra restrictions...since they are considered to be at a disadvantage not an advantage, and can also play against females as they are considered to have no advantage)

I understand your point. But I've understood it for years. 

Now can I ask you whether or not you are in favour of using detrimental drug treatments to compensate for the known XY advantages in sports, in order to allow them to play in competitive fairness (as the IOC would define competitive fairness) against XX athletes?

[iNow]

4 hours ago, J.C.MacSwell said:

Now can I ask you whether or not you are in favour of using detrimental drug treatments to compensate for the known XY advantages in sports

This feels too easy. No, I don’t favor detrimental drug treatments.

I do, however, favor regimens designed in partnership with parents and doctors to support trans individuals in more healthily realizing their true selves in a more wholistic and empathetic manner. 

As to whether or not that treatment confers some competitive advantage depends entirely IMO on 1) the nature, frequency, and intensity of the treatment, and 2) in the specific sport and the nature of the class/division being sought within that sport (i.e. the details matter here and I prefer avoiding broad all encompassing generalizations).

Edited July 18, 2023 by iNow

[Intoscience]

On 7/15/2023 at 12:52 AM, iNow said:

Calling them “personal feelings about their gender” is so dismissive as to be offensive, intoscience. The lack of understanding and empathy embedded here is profound

Why?

If a person is born biologically of a certain sex but "believes/feels" they are of a gender that is different from that which is assigned to that sex then how else would you describe it?

If you believe my understanding and empathy is lacking then educate me rather than assuming! 

This thread and indeed this forum is often full of inconsistencies. It's a science forum, but you are arguing that a person's beliefs trump the scientific evidence? I'm confused, please explain how a person's gender identity can be consolidated by their biological sex if the 2 are opposing? 

If a person is born genetically a certain sex (which they have no control over, and is where my empathy resides) what they choose, feel, believe or otherwise is irrelevant to scientific data. This doesn't mean we should ignore their beliefs or feelings or what ever way you want to frame it, absolutely we should respect and consider with as much empathy as possible. But we should not ignore the facts in doing so either.     

On 7/14/2023 at 5:15 PM, Janus said:

Frankly, I'm a bit confused as to why people have turned this into so much of an issue.

1. I doubt that trans athletes are prevalent enough to make that huge of an impact.

2. In the end, we are talking about an activity that is recreational/entertainment in nature.

I mean, this reminds of of the folks who complained about the College football season being suspended during the pandemic, as they seemed to feel that their not being able to crowd into a stadium to watch the sport of their choice was the end of the world.

Well there is certainly many more important things to worry about in this world that's for sure. But with the current media exposure that this subject (and related) are generating then I guess the discussion is current. At least in Western society. 

1. The argument is  more about opening up the possibility of exploitation than isolated individual cases. 

2. Actually, sport is a massive industry which generates trillions of revenue. Though not life threatening sport is and does provide people with a purpose, career, health and wellbeing and many more positive benefits.    

Edited July 18, 2023 by Intoscience
spelling

[dimreepr]

23 hours ago, J.C.MacSwell said:

I think I've been at least as clear as anyone here as to stating my position, though I don't expect everyone to see it.

Anyone else here against the use of drug treatments to compensate for XY advantages in Sports?

OK, so that's your fundamental reason/excuse (bolded mine); No is my answer, they aren't needed in this argument, until we have actual data from live gameplay...

2 hours ago, Intoscience said:

If you believe my understanding and empathy is lacking then educate me rather than assuming! 

This thread and indeed this forum is often full of inconsistencies. It's a science forum, but you are arguing that a person's beliefs trump the scientific evidence? I'm confused, please explain how a person's gender identity can be consolidated by their biological sex if the 2 are opposing? 

The thing is, for empathy to work one needs to have resonant experiences; for instance, if you've never felt the urge to wear women's underwear, you'll have no idea why a transvestite wants to dress up. 

2 hours ago, Intoscience said:

1. The argument is  more about opening up the possibility of exploitation than isolated individual cases. 

Is it?

When did we decide that?

2 hours ago, Intoscience said:

2. Actually, sport is a massive industry which generates trillions of revenue. Though not life threatening sport is and does provide people with a purpose, career, health and wellbeing and many more positive benefits. 

How would the inclusion of a handful of trans athlete's, alter the revenue in, any sort of, a meaningful way?

It's more likely to increase revenue, at least until the novelty wears off... 😉

[Intoscience]

21 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

The thing is, for empathy to work one needs to have resonant experiences; for instance, if you've never felt the urge to wear women's underwear, you'll have no idea why a transvestite wants to dress up.

No, but I have and still do feel/believe I was born in the wrong body. I suffer from body dysmorphia for one thing. So I can and do find some empathy for people who believe they were born in the wrong body. 

31 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

Is it?

When did we decide that?

Well for me personally yes, opening up the playing field in a way that could be exploited. Granted, only a few individual cases have made the headlines. 

32 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

How would the inclusion of a handful of trans athlete's, alter the revenue in, any sort of, a meaningful way?

Depends on what sporting discipline and at what level. 

Honestly, it's not ever going to affect me personally, so from a selfish perspective I couldn't give a crap who competes with who. 

If you want to promote a left wingest, "in vogue" virtuous, woke driven extremist society, to make you feel better about yourself crack on.  

[dimreepr]

6 minutes ago, Intoscience said:

Well for me personally yes, opening up the playing field in a way that could be exploited. Granted, only a few individual cases have made the headlines. 

Well then, I'm surprised you oppose a playing field for everyone to exploit.

[iNow]

3 hours ago, Intoscience said:

If a person is born genetically a certain sex

I wasn’t aware that newborn infants were genetically tested before having a sex assigned at birth. I’ve also never seen genetic testing mandated as a prerequisite to participation in sports. Do things perhaps work differently where you live than where I do?

3 hours ago, Intoscience said:

Actually, sport is a massive industry which generates trillions of revenue. Though not life threatening sport is and does provide people with a purpose, career, health and wellbeing and many more positive benefits.    

And the argument presented here and elsewhere can be summarized as believing that all 7 of those trans athletes out there seeking acceptance will somehow cause this massive industry to crumble into disrepair and apocalyptic ruin.  

[swansont]

1 hour ago, Intoscience said:

If you want to promote a left wingest, "in vogue" virtuous, woke driven extremist society,

Can you define what you mean by “woke”?

[mistermack]

10 minutes ago, iNow said:

And the argument presented here and elsewhere can be summarized as believing that all 7 of those trans athletes out there seeking acceptance will somehow cause this massive industry to crumble into disrepair and apocalyptic ruin.  

You can summarise it like that. But I think that's a ridiculous summary, considering that you're claiming it covers "elsewhere" as well. 

My own argument is that men who undergo transgender treatment are fundamentally still men, and so should compete against men, not women. Where is that in your summary? I don't think that's an unusual attitude. In fact here in the UK, the public opinion is moving away from "transgender rights".        

Where does the British public stand on transgender rights in 2022? | YouGov   

[TheVat]

29 minutes ago, mistermack said:

My own argument is that men who undergo transgender treatment are fundamentally still men, and so should compete against men, not women. Where is that in your summary? I don't think that's an unusual attitude. In fact here in the UK, the public opinion is moving away from "transgender rights".     

What are your specific criteria for being (still) male?  Not sure I've seen these in a post here in this thread.  

As for posting opinion polls, that is what Americans in some online forums call shouting "scoreboard!"  The science of gender is not determined by popular opinion. 

[Janus]

5 hours ago, Intoscience said:

Well there is certainly many more important things to worry about in this world that's for sure. But with the current media exposure that this subject (and related) are generating then I guess the discussion is current. At least in Western society. 

 

The media exposure is only there due to the people who are making such a big fuss about it. People that. in my opinion, are blowing an issue way out of proportion.  Just because the local news does a story about the guy claiming that the "sky is falling", doesn't mean that there is any credence to his claim.  

 

[mistermack]

1 hour ago, TheVat said:

What are your specific criteria for being (still) male?  Not sure I've seen these in a post here in this thread.  

I believe I did post on that. But to save checking back, I'll go again. In the quote above, I've bolded and underlined being. Being male in humans is easy to define, for the vast majority of people, who do not have rare genetic conditions. It's having the standard XY genetic conformation. 

Identifying as female gender is also easy to define. It's something you choose to do. And undergoing various treatments to accentuate your identifying as female is just that, it strengthens the impression of gender that you project. 

And that's the difference between sex and gender. Sex is something you are, gender is something you choose to present as. (and also feel yourself to be)

If transgender women were actual women, then we wouldn't need the concept of gender ( a 20th century concept for people ), and we wouldn't be having this discussion, because of course women would be allowed to compete against women, in elite women's competitions. The competitive advantage argument would be irrelevant. If you're a real woman, of course you qualify. 

1 hour ago, TheVat said:

As for posting opinion polls, that is what Americans in some online forums call shouting "scoreboard!"  The science of gender is not determined by popular opinion. 

What exactly is the "science of gender" ? I know that sex and science are intertwined, but gender is more of a tool of psychology and social science. It's a construct, an aid. The 'science of gender' is very much a matter of opinion. Some scientists view it as an abandonment of science.  

Robert Winston, Baron Winston - Wikipedia  

[zapatos]

7 hours ago, Intoscience said:

If a person is born biologically of a certain sex but "believes/feels" they are of a gender that is different from that which is assigned to that sex then how else would you describe it?

As the term is commonly used, people are not 'born biologically a certain sex'. They are assigned a label based on what is between their legs. There is no "universal" guide on what defines the sex of a human 'biologically'. Instead, people have made up rules to help them organize and make sense of the world. Long ago when it came to babies it was very simple to glance between their legs and make a determination. But as our knowledge has increased we have learned that sex is not binary and not nearly so simple as what bits they have. Instead we have physical attributes, genetic attributes, hormones, and of course the brain. Some of us here tend to look at sex and gender more holistically. It seems unreasonable to me to dictate to a person their gender based on some skin between their legs when their brain tells them unequivically that is not a correct assessment. 

8 hours ago, Intoscience said:

If a person is born genetically a certain sex (which they have no control over, and is where my empathy resides) what they choose, feel, believe or otherwise is irrelevant to scientific data.

Suggesting that what is going on in their brain should not be considered 'scientific', and a genetic test is the only science that matters, seems to me like you have blinders on. 

[mistermack]

18 minutes ago, zapatos said:

As the term is commonly used, people are not 'born biologically a certain sex'.

Do you have any factual support for that claim?

[CharonY]

22 hours ago, mistermack said:

Being male in humans is easy to define, for the vast majority of people, who do not have rare genetic conditions. It's having the standard XY genetic conformation. 

That is the difference between a human classification system and what is in the natural world. Nature has all the variability, including non-viable, sterile and everything in-between. I.e. they exist. Our classification system is cruder and as you mentioned, mostly ignores rare conditions in most contexts. That does not make them non-existent. 

At minimum we have therefore XY, XX and one big box for all other configurations on the karyotpe level (which by my count exceeds two categories). It should be noted that this is not even all that determines the development of sexual organs. Folks with Swyer syndrome, for example have an XY karyotpe, but develop female genitalia. So the karyotype would be male, but the phenotype clearly female.

 

Gender development is not fully genetic, but has  strong developmental aspects. During childhood we develop something that we associate with our identity and including aspects like sexual orientation (which are further developed during puberty) but also gender identity. While there appear to be genetic dispositions (which are still under investigation), the link is likely quite a bit more complicated. As far as I can tell, no one decides out of the blue to be of a certain gender without some form of identify formed behind that.

[zapatos]

12 minutes ago, mistermack said:

Do you have any factual support for that claim?

Don't be childish. I'm not going to play this game with you.

[mistermack]

10 minutes ago, zapatos said:

Don't be childish. I'm not going to play this game with you.

Since it's a clear factual claim, and not in any way posted as a personal opinion, it's hardly a 'game' to ask you to provide a "citation" to support what you claim is a fact. Or were you just soapboxing? Or maybe the rules don't apply to your posts.

[swansont]

In the last few years, the concept of “sex assigned at birth” has appeared with increasing frequency in U.S. case law on discrimination against transgender people.1 The phrase had been used, at least since the 1960s, to describe an obstetrician’s “casual pronouncement of the newborn as a male or female,” “based upon inspection of the external gen­italia.”2

https://columbialawreview.org/content/sex-assigned-at-birth/

[iNow]

6 hours ago, mistermack said:

My own argument is that men who undergo transgender treatment are fundamentally still men

While it’s not quite an argument, it is a valid summary of your perspective on this topic and I, while disagreeing with your choice and dismissing it as arbitrary, totally accept that.

Much like use of the terms retard and nigger and faggot have thankfully fallen out of favor, I suspect that refusal to accept transitions of birth assigned males to trans females (and their participation in sports) will similarly fall by the wayside as an outdated form of bigotry and prejudice. 

You can either join us on this side of the equation once you finally agree, or simply fall off the proverbial ledger when you die. 

[StringJunky]

1 hour ago, iNow said:

You can either join us on this side of the equation once you finally agree, or simply fall off the proverbial ledger when you die. 

Aye, it's the successful that write the history books.

[mistermack]

3 hours ago, iNow said:

You can either join us on this side of the equation once you finally agree, or simply fall off the proverbial ledger when you die. 

Classic false dichotomy. And anyway, joining you would not alter the facts.

One more convert doesn't make Christianity right. There either was a son of god called Jesus, or there wasn't. Repeating it fervently over and over doesn't alter the facts in the slightest.

And the same applies to the transgender question. Constantly repeating that gender reassignment procedures turn men into real women is just like praying. It doesn't affect reality in the slightest. 

[StringJunky]

42 minutes ago, mistermack said:

Classic false dichotomy. And anyway, joining you would not alter the facts.

One more convert doesn't make Christianity right. There either was a son of god called Jesus, or there wasn't. Repeating it fervently over and over doesn't alter the facts in the slightest.

And the same applies to the transgender question. Constantly repeating that gender reassignment procedures turn men into real women is just like praying. It doesn't affect reality in the slightest. 

'All classifications are arbitrary' is an immutable fact. Humans decide what is what.

Classifying is what we do to turn the continuum of natural phenomena into discrete concepts that we can share with other humans. All of our concepts and associations are constructed. You have been here long enough to know that facts evolve over time in scientific research. This subject is no different.

Edited July 19, 2023 by StringJunky

[swansont]

30 minutes ago, mistermack said:

Constantly repeating that gender reassignment procedures turn men into real women is just like praying. It doesn't affect reality in the slightest. 

You’ve yet to comprehensively define what a real man or woman is (and good luck with that - talk about a false dichotomy!). This is a straw man argument - nobody has asserted this -  there is no such insistence on “real” men and women supported by science. To cast the argument this way misses the whole point, starting with the confusing of sex and gender.

[Intoscience]

6 hours ago, swansont said:

This is a straw man argument - nobody has asserted this -  there is no such insistence on “real” men and women supported by science. To cast the argument this way misses the whole point, starting with the confusing of sex and gender

Then why have categories? Then why do males who feel they have been born in the wrong body want so desperately to become women?

It's hypocritical and inconsistent. 

1. There is no such thing as binary sex just a spectrum
2. Some people born male want to become female 

18 hours ago, dimreepr said:

Well then, I'm surprised you oppose a playing field for everyone to exploit.

I oppose making sporting events unfair and boring

15 hours ago, Janus said:

The media exposure is only there due to the people who are making such a big fuss about it. People that. in my opinion, are blowing an issue way out of proportion.  Just because the local news does a story about the guy claiming that the "sky is falling", doesn't mean that there is any credence to his claim.  

 

Yet there is lots of media exposure & fuss on transgender rights, but we are to dismiss the rights of those affected by this.

Typical. 

13 hours ago, zapatos said:

Suggesting that what is going on in their brain should not be considered 'scientific', and a genetic test is the only science that matters, seems to me like you have blinders on.

Funny how all of a sudden when suits a person's opinion, beliefs and feelings matter in science? Yet if I claimed that aliens are real, and that I was born a human but really I should have been an alien. You would then quickly dismiss this as nonsense, show us the evidence, you need therapy... 

Double standards.

17 hours ago, swansont said:

Can you define what you mean by “woke”?

Yeah sure.

All the nonsense that is being shoved down peoples throats, that is nothing more than a cry for attention and getting rather tedious and boring and promotes nothing positive in society, but actually encourages more contempt and resentment.

The LGBQTAA+1, I mean WTF is this supposed to represent? and what are the people who are supporting this trying to achieve? I think it's insulting and patronising for the people who are gay, lesbian... and people are getting tired of it.

Lets focus on things that really matter like saving our planet, saving near on extinct species, famine, poverty, disease... sustainability for the human race. Kindness & harmony in society, real equality & inclusion...

Or shall we continue to pander to attention seeking people who have nothing else to worry about? Do you think the starving poverty stricken dying people in third world countries give a flying f about people who are complaining about wanting to be identified as "they"? 

And for those that are whining about being born male/female and should have been the opposite. Wow! how insulting to those people who are born disabled. 

I'm very embarrassed that I suffer from body dysmorphia, because I know that I'm very fortunate to be relatively healthy and that there are millions of people who would trade places with me!

Ok, Lets cut to the chase

Educate me please,

1. Define the difference between male & female
2. If there is no difference explain to me why the term male & female exist
3. Define the difference between man & woman
4. If there is no difference then explain to me what the term man & woman represent
5. Assuming the above answers are satisfied, when a man wants to be identified as a woman what does this mean?
6. What if my definition of a man or a woman doesn't match another person's definition of a man or a woman , how do we categorise such?
7. If a person born male claims they are really female what do they mean by this? 
8. Would you say that if a person believes they are something that they are physically not, this would be regarded (scientifically) as a mental issue?

I'm more than happy to change my views on this matter if we can find some consistencies and common ground.