I have lived a long amazing life as a gay man that has been full of everything including an aunt that became an uncle back in the seventies, being chased down city streets by bashers until I finally made it over a chain link fence and into some thorny bushes that ripped me to shreds, and more fist fights than I can remember, with the ugly names being the easy part. Most of my childhood was with taunts and a really sissy nickname that devastated me.

I have great respect for Caitlin Jenner and her remarks-- although I agree with her half the time on most things, I do on this sports thing. The subject is bigger and broader than most are seeing yet. And your decree of how we should be falls flat with me. You are overlooking much in my opinion including the handicapping I mentioned earlier and empathy for everyone involved, not just the ones you label victims.

Most people changed regarding us since I was a kid not because they were told they had to, or because they needed to be politically correct, they changed because they got to know us, slowly but surely, saw us human, good or bad or fabulous or messed up--just as they were--more in common than not--- and finally realized we were good to know. That is how the real change happened, and, will keep happening.

Just like now, lots of Mormons are finding it more difficult to fear Exmos once they get to know us.

In writing my editor taught me to show and not tell. That is good for more than writing.

Thank you, Done & Done.

This is how it’s done. One side speaks, another side speaks, then another and another and then another. Censorship and self-censorship impedes this process, and talking down to others or thinking people too dumb or mean to even be talked to doesn’t help anything.

We use to know this as a culture. Donahue, anyone remember?


“Most people changed regarding [homosexuality] since I was a kid not because they were told they had to, or because they needed to be politically correct, they changed because they got to know us, slowly but surely, saw us human, good or bad or fabulous or messed up--just as they were--more in common than not---“

Exactly so. I couldn’t get to know homosexuals early on if they thought me beneath them or too stupid and mean to be worth knowing. They didn’t exclude me because I was straight, and they didn’t want me to exclude them because they were gay (collectively speaking). The dialogue during the 80s on this issue was fierce, ugly, and many people were hurt, and not just their feelings. Going forward we need to be okay with “slowly but surely”. We’ll get there…

"Going forward we need to be okay with “slowly but surely”. We’ll get there…"

Mormons got the "slowly" part down. Now if they could just get the "surely" part down. haha.

I have a feeling that understanding has a tendency to accelerate its motion over time and perhaps more people can feel part of a whole faster.

Done & Done Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Mormons got the "slowly" part down. Now if they
> could just get the "surely" part down. haha.

Well, if they do, they’ll surely claim to have been there the whole time.

In the late 1970s, I had an argument with a very good friend, not a mormon, about gays. I was anti-gay obviously having been raised mormon. Little did I know what I was headed for.

When I found out he is gay, all I could picture in my mind when he wasn't with me is "he's a monster." After all, I was taught that. I'd call him, hear his voice, and know that he wasn't a monster, that he was a good person. I called him a lot. Enough so that he got weary of my calls. I was a MESS! I couldn't believe God would make someone gay if there wasn't a way out of being gay or at least not be damned just because he was gay.

I've told many people that very thing. Once you get to know gays, you know they are good people. That this doesn't make them someone that God put a curse on or something. My two best friends are my husband's old boyfriends. When one of them walked into his father's funeral in Rexburg some years ago, it was such a relief as here I was with all these Rexburg mormons and I felt lost. There is one that he grew up who is still with his wife, thinks we are nuts for leaving the church, yet he cheats every possible time he can and that could be a few times a day. He stared me down from the stand (he was in the choir) during the funeral.

It was such a huge relief to me to finally figure it out after all the lies the leaders had told me. You can't imagine the shock of my nonmormon friend from back in the 1970s when he found out my husband is gay.

You remind me that decades ago I worked with a young guy whose mother also worked at the same company. He recounted a dinner conversation that his parents had regarding me and another gay guy working there. They decided we were okay and had no issues and actually like us, but they still weren't too sure of the rest of the gays out there.

On the other thread, anybody said:

“Most people my age and younger don't have a problem with this, and for kids born in the 21st Century, gender fluidity is something they live with as part of their daily lives.”

Here’s a relevant and recent Gallop Poll that goes to that perception:

https://news.gallup.com/poll/329708/lgbt-identification-rises-latest-estimate.aspx

Snippets:

“Currently, 86.7% of Americans say they are heterosexual or straight, and 7.6% do not answer the question about their sexual orientation.”

“More than half of LGBT adults (54.6%) identify as bisexual. About a quarter (24.5%) say they are gay, with 11.7% identifying as lesbian and 11.3% as transgender. An additional 3.3% volunteer another non-heterosexual preference or term to describe their sexual orientation, such as queer or same-gender-loving. Respondents can give multiple responses when describing their sexual identification; thus, the totals exceed 100%.”

“One of the main reasons LGBT identification has been increasing over time is that younger generations are far more likely to consider themselves to be something other than heterosexual. This includes about one in six adult members of Generation Z (those aged 18 to 23 in 2020).”

Done & Done,

We may have had the same aunt. For much of our youth, we believed she was a man. She was supremely good to us. And she was fun. She was guarded around most other relatives, which was too bad--they missed out on her kindness and humor.

After I had cancer surgery, I couldn't lift my hands above my eyebrows ... men rushed to help me ... but they never challenged me to arm wrestle ... thank God.

Done & Done Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> And your decree of how we should be falls
> flat with me. You are overlooking much in my
> opinion including the handicapping I mentioned
> earlier and empathy for everyone involved, not
> just the ones you label victims.


Please tell me what you are talking about please.

I have said this before and I'll say it again.

I love you, anybody. You are warm and insightful and brilliant and empathetic.

I disagree with you on this one point; I don't want to see Title IX reversed, which is where I see the logic going. Little straight girls can be victims, too, and eroding the barriers that give them a space to develop and grow and becoming heroic is/would be a mistake.

That said, you will always be one of my favorite posters here. I hope you bear that in mind through these discussions.

I'm confused here.


Who is talking about getting rid of Title IX?

I was talking about inclusion and calling out bigotry when I see it.

Are you saying that trans women (and nobody ever talks about trans men) should not be considered to be female, but just some "other" form of human?

From everything I've read about this, there are many factors that determine what we call "sex" and the human brain is one of those things. If someone has a brain telling them that they are certain sex, that's what they are, end of story. The only difference is that now it's not as acceptable to "force" people to be a gender norm, and law and social rules should reflect that. That's where I'm coming from.


As for the competition part, here's another example for you: People have said that having tall Western women on basketball teams in some Asian countries is unfair and they have limits on the number of "imported" players. That's the type of thing that I think you mean.


Here's another case:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Ratjen

and two more

https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/69911/how-olympic-sprinter-stella-walsh-nearly-lost-her-medals-because-her-autopsy

https://transgriot.blogspot.com/2009/08/gender-drama-at-1936-berlin-olympics.html


Since this has come up repeatedly once again in the context of international sport, thought it was time to point out the history behind why Caster Semenya and other women throughout the 20th and early 21st century have undergone gender testing.

The watershed year for the paranoia behind men competing in women's international sporting events is 1936.

Nazi Germany wanted the Berlin Olympics to be a political showcase for the Third Reich. They set the goal of surpassing the 21 total medals Germany won in the 1932 Los Angeles Games, and one way they sought to do that was sneaking their 'supermen' into the women's events.

To accomplish that goal, the Nazis forced Hitler Youth member Hermann Ratjen to live and compete for three years as Dora Ratjen.

While Nazi Germany did lead all nations in winning 89 total medals and 33 golds at the Berlin Games, one medal they didn't get was in the women's Olympic high jump. Ratjen finished fourth in the event. At the 1938 European championships in Vienna Ratjen did set a then women's world record of 5 feet 5.75 inches in the high jump.

Dora was busted while traveling in Germany after the European championships. While wearing feminine attire Ratjen was spotted at a train station with five o'clock shadow on his face. A doctor was summoned, and the truth about Dora's actual genitalia was revealed. Ratjen was barred from competing in international athletics and went back to his life as Hermann.

Hermann Ratjen told his story in 1957, then faded from the spotlight until his death in April 2008

The 1936 Berlin Games also brought us the drama between bitter rivals Helen Stephens and Stella Walsh.

Walsh set the then 100m world record of 11.7 seconds in 1934 and was the defending Olympic champion. But starting in 1935 Stephens served noticed that she was the up and coming running phenom.

At Stephens' first meet, she not only beat the 'world's fastest woman' in the 50m dash, she tied the world record. Stephens also set a new world record for the 200 meters, a new world record in the standing broad jump, and won the shot put event.

When spectators congratulated her on being the new 'fastest woman in the world' and for beating Stella Walsh, she asked, "Who is Stella Walsh?" That comment got back to Stella Walsh, pissed her off and it was on like Donkey Kong between the two women after that.

In the 1936 Games Walsh chose to run for Poland just as she did at the 1932 Games. It didn't change the fact she was having trouble beating Stephens in the States.

During their careers, Stephens never lost to Walsh in their head to head matchups, and the 1936 100m Olympic final was no exception.

Stephens not only beat Walsh, but ran it in a 11.5 second time that broke Walsh's two year old world record.

Walsh, angry about being beaten by her rival, promptly threw 'that's a man' shade at Stephens which the Polish press amplified. She protested to officials that Stephens was really a man falsely running as a woman because no woman could run that fast.

German officials examined Stephens, pronounced her female, and the protest was disallowed.

This incident was ironic in light of Walsh's tragic December 4, 1980 death at age 69. She was struck by a stray bullet in the wake of a robbery attempt of a Cleveland, OH discount store while unloading her shopping cart to her car.

Her autopsy revealed she had mosaicism, which meant that, chromosomally, she was mostly, but not all, male but had androgynous looks to live her life as and be raised female.

So you can thank Nazi Germany, a bitter rivalry between two sprinters and subsequent eastern Bloc cheating for the current gender testing drama that's occurring now.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/21/2022 02:44PM by anybody.

I'm still a bit confused as to what you guys are complaining about -- just to get that out of the way.



If a group, or government was trying to "force" guys to be girls so to speak to cheat, that would be wrong.



I remember the Kurt Vonnegut story "Harrison Bergeron" from either middle school or high school about future where people are all forced to be "normal" and "equal" and given handicaps to make them that way. Well, that's wrong too. Not everyone is the same. Again, we are talking about a small, small, group of people here.


So instead of Title IX being taken away, what's is more likely is that there's going to be some type of "legal" definition of what is "female" just as there was with "race" at one time. That's why I mentioned the Williams Sisters and I shouldn't have to mention all of the crude comments they get.



https://www.them.us/story/why-banning-trans-people-from-sports-is-wrong


A Doctor Explains Why Banning Trans People From Sports Is Wrong


On March 30, Idaho’s Republican governor Brad Little signed the “Fairness in Women’s Sports Act” into law, a bill that bans trans and intersex girls from competing in women’s athletics at the youth, high school, and college levels. The legislation, passed the day after International Transgender Day of Visibility, states that “athletic teams or sports designated for females, women, or girls shall not be open to students of the male sex,” and specifies that a “dispute” about an athlete’s gender can only be resolved through a physician’s examination of “the student's reproductive anatomy, genetic makeup, or normal endogenously produced testosterone levels.” Of at least nine other states actively considering similar bans on trans women’s participation in women’s sports, Idaho is the first to pass one into law.

Critics were quick to point out the cruelty of the bill’s timing, passed when all gatherings — let alone athletic events — had been cancelled or postponed to stop the spread of the coronavirus. And as Vox reported, there were no openly trans athletes participating in youth or college-level sports in Idaho when the bill passed, either. Coupled with the fact that Governor Little signed legislation barring Idahoans from changing the gender marker on birth certificates on the same day, many saw Idaho’s “Fairness in Women’s Sports Act” as less about “fairness” and more about brazenly attacking the rights of trans people.

These bills promise to hold dire consequences for trans people in the state and in all parts of the country where similar legislation is being pursued. To learn more about the debate surrounding trans participation in women’s sports and the danger posed by bills that prevent it, we spoke to Dr. Vinny Chulani, Director of the Phoenix Children’s Hospital Adolescent Medicine Program, an esteemed practitioner in the field of LGBTQ+ care and an ardent advocate of the rights of trans and gender-nonconforming youth. Below, Dr. Chulani outlines the grave mental health implications Idaho’s bill will wreak, and the medical and scientific misunderstandings that inform such legislation in the first place.

What was your initial reaction to hearing about that bill, particularly the one that was designed to prohibit trans women from competing in women's sports?

I was especially surprised to see the bill go through the Idaho legislature because at the same time that this was happening, we had a very similar house bill here in Arizona, House Bill 2706, which was entitled “Save Women In Sports Act.” What’s especially draconian about what’s going on in Idaho is that they have an additional piece of legislation that bars people from changing their gender marker on their birth certificate. This will be especially harmful because birth certificates are often a person's primary proof of citizenship. They open doors to a wide range of services. This decision is really unfortunate.

What do you see as the main negative consequences of this kind of legislation?

First, there are the implications of this bill on the social and emotional well being of TGNC youth. We have a tremendous body of literature that talks about the benefits of sports participation on confidence and character building, on competence, on coping; there's so much that sport can offer. And we also know that there's a tremendous disparity in the rates of anxiety and depression and suicide among TGNC youth versus their cisgender peers. If anything, we should work to eliminate these disparities by encouraging and engaging all young people in sports. Where 68% of cisgender students are involved in sports, only around 10 to 15% of our transgender youth are, too. This bill creates an additional layer of stigma and therefore deprives young people of the benefits of being able to participate in sports.

The second thing that I think is really an area of concern for me is how this is a decision that is really not based on science. There are so many characteristics that contribute to excellence in sports. And the same attributes don’t always carry over from one sport to the next. You need different skills for golfing than you need for archery, basketball, soccer, or gymnastics. Plus, there's not really any sound body of evidence that speaks to the advantage that testosterone confers. When you take a look at some of the studies that have been done on transgender females in terms of their athletic ability, it overlaps with the range that you would find in cisgender women. There is no body of evidence to suggest that there is an advantage.

The third thing that's really problematic about the law is its implementation, which promises to force women to prove their womanhood… This puts the burden of proof on the accused. Now some might have to submit to a blood test at [their] expense. What does this mean for people that can't afford karyotyping or don't have access to medical care? The other thing that’s crazy about this is that it’s being applied to kids in K-12. That means the rules for participating in K-12 sports will be more stringent than those governing the Olympics. What kind of craziness is that? We’re talking about two clumps of kids that just want to kick the ball around.

You suggested that this kind of legislation is not based on science, but rather opportunistic readings of existing studies. What do those who support preventing trans women’s participation in women’s sports misunderstand most about sex, bodies, and gender?

That these are fixed processes and that transgender women are really men who are homogeneous in terms of their strength and are uniformly stronger than any woman. Bills like Idaho’s fail to recognize the diversity within the transgender female population. They also fail to understand the biology of puberty and where we are presently in terms of treatment, specifically with puberty blockers. Remember that when you take a look at pre-pubertal bodies, assigned male and assigned female bodies look a lot alike; it's not until puberty that they go their different ways under the influence of sex steroids… Nowadays, if you have a patient in early puberty who was assigned male at birth and has gender distress or gender questions, we can use puberty blockers to suppress male puberty. They would not develop the traits that would theoretically afford them the advantage. Yet this child, under Idaho law, would still be excluded.

These bills are coded in the language of fairness. And yet they are being considered and passed at a time when organized sports are not happening. Given that knowledge, do you believe fairness is what is being protected here, or potentially something else?

This law in Idaho has to be viewed in the context of the march that we are seeing in legislative houses across the country. Let's not be ignorant, right? This is part of a larger anti-transgender agenda. Let's not deceive ourselves that it's anything other than that.

Considering the broader anti-trans agenda, what worries you most as bills like the recently passed ones in Idaho continue moving through state legislatures?

How they harm young people through enforcing already existing stigma. Young trans people may choose to not participate in sports. But even if they might not want to participate in sports, at least that option should be there for them. It’s tough enough.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/21/2022 03:19PM by anybody.

You are mixing two different things.

Yes, gender is about all sorts of things and non-cis people should be treated as equal in all governmental, legal, and social ways. The problem is that if you and I agree--as we do--that gender is not binary but rather on a spectrum and apply that principle to sports, there is no spot on the continuum that is more logically fair than any other. In your words, "If someone has a brain telling them that they are certain sex, that's what they are, end of story."

You see? At that point a cis male who wants to win more competitions is empowered to compete not against men but against women. Because who is fit to judge the motivations of that man or the validity of his feelings that in this particular area he is a woman? At that point Title IX and the "separate but equal" principle underlying it become unacceptable and all must compete in the same group.

As someone who spent many years making myself available to pee in a cup on demand, I find your comparisons to other sporting situations inapposite. Sure, people complain about the 6'3" woman swimmer, but but that woman isn't prohibited from competing. Sure, the hormonal tests discriminate against some people--women with typically male levels of sex hormones, men with abnormally high concentrations of male hormones. In fact, those standards are often adjusted, as were WADA's rules on HGH. My view is the rules still have plenty of room for improvement.

But emotional gender is not the same thing as physical gender--as you have implicitly acknowledged. The problem arises when one uniformly treats the former as the latter. Lia's position is not fair to cis women. Hormone treatment does NOT obviate all of the physical differences between cis women and men who experienced the bursts of sex hormones in utero and through puberty.

Skeletal structure and certain neural patterns are permanently different. If you look, for example, at masters competitions in basketball, swimming, weightlifting, track and field, or many other sports, you'll see that in the 75+ and 80+ categories of people whose hormone levels are very nearly the same men still outperform women by a large degree.

And what does the NCAA do if Lia Thomas changes her mind, decides she is a man, and goes off the female hormones? Does the association decide to ding her competitions and give the medals to the second-, third-, and fourth-place finishers? What happens to the young women who dropped out of collegiate swimming due to the frustration they felt by the situation?

There must be a more definite standard than your principle that "if someone has a brain telling them that they are certain sex, that's what they are, end of story."

to win competitions? That would be wrong.

Isn't there some kind of psychological evaluation and screening?


I was 5'8" in the fifth grade and six feet in middle school, and I was called more nasty names than you want know. I don't like seeing that done to other people.


The far right and evangelical media make claims about "de-transitioning" and so forth but again, from medical experts who know about this say it is rare and has more to do with family and societal pressure, etc.


LW, you mentioned unintended consequences in the other thread. Well, that's is what going to happen here -- and it sounds awfully like the "protecting Southern womanhood" argument.


Would you want a "legal" definition of not just sex, but gender and femininity? Height and weight range restrictions for beauty pageants and athletics? BMI restrictions? Muscle-to-fat ratio restrictions? How would this work? Who would decide? Some people might feel that makes them feel "safe" and "protected," but I'd think it's biased and discriminatory.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/21/2022 03:45PM by anybody.

That proves my point that your principle of "what the brain says" does not work. It is not "end of story."

What about someone who is genetically male but for a few years thinks he might be a woman? Or who is on the edge but leaning towards being a woman and sincerely feels s/he should compete as a woman? Is that enough?

What do you do with a genetic male who chooses to live as a woman but then changes his/her mind? Are his/her victories still legitimate or should the history books be changed and the medals reassigned?

And why are your (or my) notions of what is right or wrong relevant? Are those not arbitrary, taking the power to choose away from the individual?

You started by proposing an objective standard: "if someone has a brain telling them that they are certain sex, that's what they are, end of story." But now you are second-guessing that proposition and insisting implicitly on an external evaluation of the athlete's sincerity.

Surely that indicates a fundamental flaw in your argument.

I've never heard of a case of people "faking" it, but I suppose it could happen. There are also brain scans, psych evaluations, etc, but the social costs are too great. Why would you do it? If you were faking it, you'd be found out eventually. If you were not forced or if something else were going on, that would seem to be a psychological problem the same as having amputation sympathy disorder or whatever's it's called.

I don't want to put words in your mouth, but you seem to be leaning towards just banning trans women from competition.


If that's what you are saying, I'm against that as it would be unjust and unfair.


I remember a news video of a TX lawmaker on CNN who was going on about "boys dressed as girls" just swooping in and destroying girl's sports. That's not going to happen either.


Here's another way to look at this: Suppose a girl was doped against her will for years to give her a masculine body and then afterwards she wanted to play sports. She's taller, bigger, and stronger than most other women, and some body changes are irreversible. Do you allow her to play, or just tell her too bad as she now has an "advantage" even though it was given to her against her will?

Recall that I said I don't know what the answer should be. It is easier for me to point out the flaws in your analysis than to offer some purportedly correct "answer." My uncertainty is why I came to this discussion so late.


-------------------------------------------------------
> I've never heard of a case of people "faking" it,
> but I suppose it could happen. . . .
> If you were faking it, you'd be found out
> eventually.

People cheat in sports every single day knowing that they will eventually be caught. In most of the world PED are considered perfectly acceptable in sport and result in lifelong pensions, seats in parliament, etc., even after the cheating is revealed. Some of them earn big endorsement deals for years and are not forced to cough up their wealth; in fact they remain champions. That applies to women who take drugs to achieve male levels of performance as well as to men seeking to enhance their own powers.

I think it is naive to believe that shame or a sense of propriety is a reliable barrier to any sort of cheating.


----------------
> If you were not forced or if
> something else were going on, that would seem to
> be a psychological problem the same as having
> amputation sympathy disorder or whatever's it's
> called.

You really need to choose. You said above that what a person's brain tells them they are is the end of the story. Yet here you are saying that society should have oversight and make judgments about the legitimacy of what that person's brain is telling them.

It was not long ago that psychologists routinely judged non-cis people as mentally ill. I put little stock in what "experts" say about the legitimacy of an individual's feelings and think that standard a dangerous one for you to endorse.


----------------
> I don't want to put words in your mouth, but you
> seem to be leaning towards just banning trans
> women from competition.

And that is why I say I do not know what the answer should be. Trans people should have full rights and I don't know how society can manage that. But eroding the barriers between male competitors and female competitors the way you propose effectively disenfranchises huge numbers of women whose participatory rights depend on physical delineations and should, by your reasoning, additionally be subject to the decisions of people who are in no way disinterested observers.


-------------------
> If that's what you are saying, I'm against that
> as it would be unjust and unfair.

How do you choose between what is fair for non-cis people and what is fair for cis women? I don't know. Yet denying fairness to the latter in favor of the former is not a morally consistent approach.


-------------------
> I remember a news video of a TX lawmaker on CNN
> who was going on about "boys dressed as girls"
> just swooping in and destroying girl's sports.
> That's not going to happen either.

Nope. Boys aren't going to pretend to be girls in order to win competitions. But women--and their coaches--drug women to give them male competitive skills all the time. And the failure to enforce the rules explains why Russians are still in the Olympics and the IOC is widely and appropriately viewed as fundamentally corrupt. Is a woman changing her body chemistry to achieve male powers somehow preferable to a boy dressing in a one-piece swimsuit to win a race?

I don't see much difference--other than the relative honesty of the more conspicuous case.


---------------------
> Here's another way to look at this: Suppose a
> girl was doped against her will for years to give
> her a masculine body and then afterwards she
> wanted to play sports. She's taller, bigger, and
> stronger than most other women, and some body
> changes are irreversible. Do you allow her to
> play, or just tell her too bad as she now has an
> "advantage" even though it was given to her
> against her will?

That is not the case with Lia Thomas. Lia represents a category of people who voluntarily, willfully, choose to use male advantages in female sports. For her, there is no history of compulsion.


----------------
The bottom line is that you started by saying a person's own feelings are determinative and that that's the "end of the story." When pressed, you moved to a different stance, arguing that society or its experts should judge the legitimacy of that person's feelings. That puts you squarely in your critics' camp, agreeing that there must be external oversight.

Once that's agreed, we can proceed to discuss what those societally-determined standards should be.

, it's just plain wrong, so we have to agree to disagree and I'm going to just leave this alone.


This is what Lia Thomas herself says. I'm not a psychologist, I don't know Lia, so I can only go with what's in the media:

https://www.sportbible.com/other/lia-thomas-virginia-student-speak-out-against-trans-swimmer-20220318

https://www.si.com/college/2022/03/03/lia-thomas-penn-swimmer-transgender-woman-daily-cover

"The very simple answer is that I'm not a man," she told Sports Illustrated.

"I'm a woman, so I belong on the women's team. Trans people deserve that same respect every other athlete gets.

"I just want to show trans kids and younger trans athletes that they're not alone. They don't have to choose between who they are and the sport they love."

"I don't know exactly what the future of my swimming will look like after this year, but I would love to continue doing it. I want to swim and compete as who I am."

"I don't look into the negativity and the hate," she added.

"I am here to swim.

"I'm a woman, just like anybody else on the team. I've always viewed myself as just a swimmer. It's what I've done for so long; it's what I love." She's not thinking about wins or records, she insists. "I get into the water every day and do my best."

Prior to transitioning, Thomas admitted she "I felt off" and "disconnected with my body".

said" I was very depressed," Thomas says.

"I got to the point where I couldn't go to school. I was missing classes.

"My sleep schedule was super messed up. Some days I couldn't get out of bed. I knew at that moment I needed to do something to address this."

You are discriminating. You are discriminating against cis women.

That you want to protect people who have historically been the victims of prejudice does not mean your proposed remedy is neutral or fair.

You asked earlier what I meant by a certain paragraph which I found very clear and the only response I could think of was, "Tell me which word you didn't understand and I will try top explain it." But I won't go there--this instead.



The moment someone says they are going to "call others out on their bigotry", they have announced themselves to be "the judge". This is at heart based on arrogance as they claim to be magnanimous as "they" decide whose behavior is acceptable and whose isn't right down to the perceived and often manufactured "micro aggressions" which is the latest darling buzz word of the SJW's. And they then rule on whether the perceived aggression aligns with the fixed agenda of the judge.

This is why you lost me and I am not interested in further discussion. I see too much bias in your words. You talk about inclusion with very exclusionary vocabulary and no thought for the other players and how they are affected--as LW points out with regard to the "cis-women". God I hate all the careful labeling these days. Is anybody just human anymore?

I believe that everyone has the right to be who they are, and I reject discrimination.

That's it.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/21/2022 08:31PM by anybody.

“If someone has a brain telling them that they are certain sex, that's what they are, end of story."

So, If someone has a brain telling them that they are certain race, is that what they are? end of story?

Take Rachel Dolezar, for instance. Is she as black as Caitlyn Jenner is female? Why or why not?

if it is to be accepted that people can choose their gender then how about their age too? so a 50 year old man can identify as a little girl and go back to grade school. Yikes!

Besides you, how many 50 year old men want to go back to fifth grade?

Maca Laca,

"Choose" your gender, ridulous. Sounds like choosing your sexuality.

Excellent question, though I think it deserves a separate thread. People do in fact choose their own race all the time. Sometimes they can make their choice stick, sometimes not.

Rachel Dolezal had adopted black siblings that she grew up with, she attended a historically black college, married a black man. I think it is entirely possible that she identified as black every bit as much as Caitlin Jenner identified as female.

Ironically, Jenner’s “coming out” magazine cover, and the Dolezal firing happened in the exact same week. What are the odds? There was both a lot of support and a lot of opposition for transsexual Jenner. Transracial Dolezal did not receive much support.

Yes, Dolezal was not transparent about being transracial. How many transsexual people were less than transparent? Should they be denied their rights for not being open about being trans?

Isn't the big "shtick" in Mormonism about being an energy being or spirit from the planet Kolob that's been "downloaded" into a mortal human body?

A Kolobian spirit in the wrong body -- wait, we've heard that before -- so how about a Kolobian two-spirit? That would make some Native people hopping mad, so how about a Kolobian trans-spirit that was put into the wrong body...

Humans are some of the least sexually dimorphic creatures. If the game can't include everyone is it worth playing?

Game/sports is all about money anymore. Much less about equitable competition.

anybody being tall. So am I. All my friends were short. My husband is a bit shorter than I am. My boyfriend is about 3 or 4 inches shorter than I am. I always felt like a giant and had a lot of insecurities about being tall when I was young. I was very thin. That didn't make me feel small. That's for sure.

I even thought about having surgery when i got older as I had read about a surgery where you can have some of your lower leg bone taken out.

I don't care that I'm this tall anymore. I'm 6 feet now. I'm 64. I can carry the weight I've gained much better than a short person.

Tall people can be discriminated against, but so can short people.

As far as the transgender swimmer. I don't think they should be swimming with the girls. Hopefully, they can come up with some better way to handle this.

We all have our issues we have to deal with in life. Seems she didn't have such a great swimming record before she started her transition.

Myself, I really don't care about sports that much. This one caught my eye (although I love pro football as my disabled brother loves the Denver Broncos so I started watching football for him). Otherwise, I usually don't pay much attention.

, and my parents had "Jerry Springer" style arguments about it.

My dad was a doctor and was against it.

My mother was barely five feet and in her world a girl who would be over six feet tall and wore over size shoes just should not exist.

http://www.hormonesmatter.com/des-used-stunt-growth-tall-girls/


To treat young healthy prepubescent girls with a known carcinogen to stunt their adult height sounds like a bizarre science fiction experiment, but it is unfortunately true. From 1959 through the 1970s physicians and researchers from the Royal Children’s Hospital and the University of Melbourne, gave adolescent girls of tall stature a powerful estrogenic hormone with a growing list of known side effects called diethylstilbestrol (stilboestrol) or DES.

DES had been used in obstetrics to prevent miscarriage, in farm animals to bulk up livestock before slaughter and to caponise (castrate) chickens from the 1940s through 1970s. Early on, the drug was found to be ineffective in preventing miscarriage and serious side effects including cancer were noted. Indeed, cancer in farm hands caring for animals treated with DES and concern about the effect DES infused meat might have on human health caused the FDA to ban its use in poultry farming in 1958, well before banning its use in human women. Despite the risks associated with this drug, clinicians and researchers in Victoria Australia, funded by governmental agencies and throughout the US, Norway, and elsewhere, thought stunting the growth of tall girls, for purely psychosocial reasons, was a good idea.

The rationale behind treating tall girls was so they could do ballet, buy clothes more easily, and find boyfriends and husbands. DES was used on healthy girls for purely psychosocial reasons. Apparently, being a tall girl was reason enough to consider medical treatment with a powerful, largely untested, synthetic estrogen with mounting evidence of carcinogenicity.

Little consideration was given to the psychosocial effects this drug would have on a young girl including nausea, the immediate onset of menstruation, the sudden development of breasts, and sudden rapid weight gain; and, of course, the long-term health outcomes of this treatment were never a consideration. The only long-term outcome considered was adult height. When meeting the tall women who underwent this treatment, it is reasonable to conclude the treatment did not work. Indeed, most of the research suggests only a 4cm reduction in height.

When I was young I had a friend--I've long since moved away--who went through such pharmaceutical treatment as a child. It had stopped her growth at six feet.

She never expressed regret about the treatment, but it had damaged her pituitary gland and she had to daily medication to compensate. Two or three times a year she'd have a physical episode--heart palpitations, sweating, problems with balance--that required immediate consumption of another medication. If this happened in the presence of others, she'd pass it off as a menstrual phenomenon for the ten minutes or so while she recovered. She was a cheerful woman, a bit ditzy, and would just laugh it off.

I was too young even to ask what the pills were or if there had been other forms of treatment. Nor do I know if she regretted then, or regrets now, having undergone it.