I hope that a rational, objective look at this will end all the squabbling.

But it probably won't...


Why the data shows trans swimming champion Lia Thomas didn’t have an unfair advantage


https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/lia-thomas-trans-swimmer-ncaa-b2044605.html


On 17 March, Lia Thomas became the first openly transgender athlete to win America's top trophy in university sports when she swam to victory in the women's 500 yard (457 meter) freestyle race.

Ms Thomas, 22, won first place in the National Collegiate Athletic Association's (NCAA) first division swimming championship, her final competition as a college athlete.

Amid her success, though, Ms Thomas has become a lightning rod in the debate about trans women in sport, as well as a target for much of the American right.

Her right to compete in women's races, and sometimes her gender itself, has been attacked by sports stars, politicians, activists, her competitors, and even some of her teammates’ parents, as well as protesters at the NCAA championship last week, who argued that her time living as a man gives her an unfair advantage.

Florida's Republican governor Ron DeSantis, who last year approved legislation banning trans women from high school and college women's sports, even signed a proclamation on Tuesday declaring 500-yard runner-up Emma Weyant the "rightful winner".

Yet in all this, there has been scant detail about how Ms Thomas's performance actually compares to other women at her level. The Independent crunched the numbers – and found little evidence that she poses any threat to women's sport.


How hormone therapy transforms trans athletes' bodies

Ms Thomas began swimming at the age of five, and came out to her family in summer 2018. She began to use her new name Lia Catherine Thomas, on new year's day in 2020.

“In a way, it was sort of a rebirth," she told Sports Illustrated in an interview this year. "For the first time in my life, feeling fully connected to my name and who I am and living who I am."

It was May 2019 when she began gender-affirming hormone replacement therapy (HRT), which involves taking supplements of estrogen or testosterone to bring a trans person’s hormones in line with that of a cisgender (or non-transgender) person. This is usually the first step in what's known as "medical" transition, as opposed to social transition (such as changing how you dress).


Men and women typically have naturally different hormone balances, although there is much variation within each sex. As we grow, those hormones cause our bodies to develop in different ways, which is why male athletes tend to perform at higher levels than female athletes.

However, our bodies still retain the capacity to respond to new hormones in adulthood, and so HRT causes radical changes to a person's secondary sex characteristics.

For trans women, that means growing breasts, thinning body hair, changes to their emotions, shifting body fat into an "hourglass" shape, and – most relevantly to sports – drops in muscle mass and strength.

Both the NCAA and the Olympics allow trans women to compete in women's events once they have been on HRT for a certain length of time, and as long as tests show their testosterone is below certain levels. There are different rules for trans men, because their pre-HRT performance is similar to cis women and they tend to gain strength and muscle mass from HRT.

Opponents of trans women's inclusion argue that these changes are not enough to erase the natural advantages of growing up with testosterone. The scientific evidence is mixed, and post-HRT trans women do not currently dominate professional sport.

Ms Thomas skipped the 2020-21 swimming season, and so she has now been on HRT for nearly three years. According to Sports Illustrated, she lost strength and an inch of her height on HRT, making it impossible for her to match her performance.

So how does she perform as a swimmer today?
Thomas won her race – but didn’t break records

Let's look first at Ms Thomas's record in the NCAA. While some of her fastest times have been in other competitions, these are the easiest results to access and compare across multiple years and athletes.

All statistics in this article are for "short course yards" races, meaning they were done in a 25-yard pool.

Ms Thomas won the women's 500 yard freestyle race in 4m 33.24s. She came fifth in the 200 yard race, with 1m 43.40s, and eighth in the 100 yard race with 48.40s.

These were impressive results, but they weren't record-breaking. Though the overall competition saw 27 all-time NCAA records broken, Ms Thomas's times weren't among them.

A whopping 18 of those were broken by Kate Douglass of the University of Virginia (UVA), who now has the fastest times in US college history in the 50 yard freestyle, the 100 yard butterfly stroke, and the 200 yard breaststroke.

"It is easy to see how dominant Kate Douglass has become in the sport," wrote Swimming World. "Many dominant swimmers have had three titles, and even three records, in one meet. But no swimmer in NCAA women’s history has ever won three different strokes in a single meet that involve the breaststroke, let alone three records."

Other records were broken by Katherine Berkoff of North Carolina State University and Alex Walsh of UVA, as well as UVA's medley teams in several events.

According to an Independent search of women's records listed by USA Swimming, the US' national governing body for the sport, Ms Thomas's 500 yard time makes her the 15th fastest college swimmer, about nine seconds behind Katie Ledecky's record in 2017.


Her swimming times are on par with cis women

How do these times compare to other women in the top ranks of US college swimming?

The Independent compiled a dataset of swim times for all top 8 NCAA women's finishers over the last six years of competition in various events. 2020 was excluded because all NCAA championships were cancelled that year due to the pandemic.

In other words, this data only includes the absolute best college swimmers in these events. It goes back far enough to cover Katie Ledecky's 4m 24.06s record in the 500 yard race and Missy Franklin's 1m 38.10s record in the 200 yard race, both of which still stand today.

In this field, Ms Thomas's time in the 500 yards is the eighth fastest out of 56. That is notable because there are only seven events in the dataset, meaning there are some where her time would have only place her third.


In the 100 yard race, her time is 55th out of 56 in The Independent's data, and her time in the 200 yard race is the 31st out of 5.

Her 500 yard time of 4m 33.24 is just above the average (4m 36.07s), while her 100 yard time of 48.18s is just below average (47.06s), as is her 200 yard time of 1m 43.24s (compared to 1m42.85).

The Independent also looked at numbers for the 500 yard men's race, where Ms Thomas has competed at a high level in both men's and women's events, from 2015 to 2021. There, her finishing time is more than 20 seconds below the men's average.
How fast did Thomas swim before going on HRT?

Some critics of Ms Thomas' participation have pointed to her record before transitioning, when she competed in men's races, claiming that moving into the women's has improved her overall position.

Nancy Hogshead-Makar, an Olympic gold medalist swimmer and women's sports activist, wrote that Ms Thomas was "never in that category of standout athlete", while the editor of Swimming World said Ms Thomas had ranked 554th in the men's 200 yard freestyle, 65th in the 500 yard freestyle, and 32nd in the 1650 yard freestyle.

Yet those comparisons may not be fair, because HRT appears to have changed Ms Thomas's capacity over long distances. In men's races, her best events were the 1,000 yard and 1,650 yard freestyle, whereas at this year’s NCAA championship she did not compete in those at all, according to Swimcloud.

Kyle Sockwell, a former NCAA swimmer who helped draw attention to a fake Twitter account impersonating one of Ms Thomas's NCAA competitors, also noted that her 200 yard freestyle time was not at a full championship competition and was not "tapered", meaning she did not reduce her training to rest just before the race, as many swimmers do to maximise performance.


According to a search of USA Swimming records, in the last season where Ms Thomas competed in men's events, she came in ninth across the entire country in the 1,000 yard freestyle and 29th in the 1,650 yard freestyle.

"Lia Thomas was an elite and competitive swimmer while on the men's team at the University of Pennsylvania," says Mr Sockwell. "[The 1650 yard] event would have had Lia in the top 30-34 in the country and right on the bubble of making NCAAs.”

Schuyler Bailar, the first openly trans swimmer in the NCAA men’s first division, who is now reportedly a friend and adviser to Ms Thomas, similarly wrote: “ Lia was absolutely a standout athlete when she was competing on the men’s team... it is far from abnormal or unlikely for an athlete to go from being ranked 11th to 1st in the span of a few years.”

Ms Hogshead-Makar also drew attention to the difference between Ms Thomas's pre-HRT times and her times today. Her best time in the 500 yards was 5.6 per cent slower than before transition, while her 1,000 yards time was 7.5 per cent slower and her 1,650 yards time was 7.2 per cent slower.

That is less than the 10 to 11 per cent gap Ms Hogshead-Makar says is usually found between men's and women's races. However, according to the LGBT sports news site OutSport, the difference in NCAA men and women's records varies by distance: 11.2 per cent for the 200 yards, 7.2 per cent for the 500 yards, and 6 per cent for the 1,650 yards.

It is also possible that Ms Thomas' old times do not represent how fast she'd swim if she had never begun HRT. They date from an earlier point in her evolution as a swimmer, and therefore would not reflect any improvements in her technique or mindset since then.

"This is our only real case study where a competitive male swimmer has transitioned to female and been very competitive as well," warns Mr Sockwell. "It's all very new."
'No one says a cis woman can't compete because she won'

These statistics seem largely in line with those of trans athletes across the world. Although trans women have been allowed to compete in women's Olympics since 2004, none have won a medal.

Yet numbers can only tell us so much. Trans advocates argue that even if trans women were winning more competitions, that would not prove they had an unfair advantage, nor would it justify their exclusion from women's events.

Indeed, it would be strange to contend that trans women should only be allowed to compete in women's sports as long as they never win anything.


"This argument should never have to be made," said Mr Bailar on Instagram this week. "No one says a cis women is allowed to compete because she 'didn’t dominate.' They say 'wow, look how much Katie Ledecky wins by, she’s untouchable, that’s amazing!'

"This isn't to prove that trans women can't be great athletes, or win, or even dominate. It is to prove that people are lying to you in order to turn you against trans women athletes."

In a blog post, Mr Bailar also notes that exceptional athletes are often biologically unusual, from the long-armed Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps to the intersex runner Caster Semenya, who has been subject to baseless claims that she is is secretly a trans woman and was barred from the Olympics unless she undergoes hormone therapy.

The average height of a top US women's basketball player is around 6ft, according to the Washington Post, with the tallest player in 2022 being 6ft 9in. That is not only taller than the average American woman's height of 5ft 4in but also the average man's height of 5ft 9in.

Describing Katie Ledecky, who is cis, Olympic champion swimmer Ryan Lochte even said: “She swims like a guy. Her stroke, her mentality – she’s so strong in the water. I’ve never seen a female swimmer like that.”

Hence, trans advocates ask, why should a woman's gender history be treated differently from these other natural bodily variations, especially when trans women in top competitions are already required to regulate their hormones to stay in play?

That is a question statistics alone cannot answer.

If it were up to me, I’d make all sports co-Ed and forget about what athletes have between their legs.
From what I’ve read, the problem isn’t her competitive advantage, it’s mainly that her team mates feel violated every time they have to share a locker room with her because she has not undergone surgery to remove her penis and is still attracted to women, so they feel like they’re forced to be naked in front of a guy who wants to hook up with them. They don’t think that’s fair to them, from what I’ve read.

exmos: hurr-durr mormonism is irrational supersTition science is great

also exmos: 'her penis'

It’s not me complaining about ‘her penis’, I don’t care.
It’s her team mates, but, screw their feelings! Who are they to complain? They should just sit back, STFU and enjoy it! Right?

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10445679/Lia-Thomas-UPenn-teammate-says-trans-swimmer-doesnt-cover-genitals-locker-room.html

The national media is all on the same page, promoting and celebrating Thomas' "courage" (or whatever) for "coming out." Those who oppose it will be criticized, then disparaged, dismissed, marginalized, and eventually demonized. One small example is how NBC photoshopped Thomas' face, softening it up so Thomas appears more feminine. Check the second image down on this tweet:

https://twitter.com/Sandieannie1910/status/1504593216024231936?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1504593216024231936%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fredstate.com%2Fnick-arama%2F2022%2F03%2F24%2Fphotographer-busts-nbc-for-deceptive-airbrushing-of-photos-of-lia-thomas-n540306

NBC--the same network of Juan Williams and his false "helicopter under fire" story. That detonated explosive charges on a GM pickup to "prove" the gas tank was hazardous. That airbrushed out George Zimmerman's head and facial wounds so he didn't look like the victim of a beating, then edited the 911 tape to make him sound racist.

You're being sold a destructive ideology (transexualism) and a false bill of goods (Thomas as 'hero/ine.')

"Train hard and practice, girl, and if you're realgood you just might make 3rd or 4th place behind some kid(s) with XY chromosomes and hormones that would disqualify you." Think of the authentic women who will be consigned to silver, bronze, and lower ranks, and deprived of university scholarships and other competitive opportunities so that gender Jacobins can advance the sexual revolution yet another egregious extreme.

Anybody asks,

>"Hence, trans advocates ask, why should a woman's gender history be treated differently from these other natural bodily variations, especially when trans women in top competitions are already required to regulate their hormones to stay in play?"

Thomas had the advantage of testosterone forming his bone, height, and muscle structure during puberty and adolescence. However his hormones are currently "adjusted," he still has testes, which still produce testosterone.

Enjoy your silver, bronze, and "participant" awards, girls. And you thought Title IX gave you equality?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/26/2022 05:10PM by caffiend.

caffiend Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> However his hormones are
> currently "adjusted," he still has testes, which
> still produce testosterone.

In an interview about trans athletes, Sports Physicist Joanna Harper stated "Testosterone levels drop quickly after hormone treatment."

Q: "Is it true that the testosterone levels of trans women are similar to cis female levels?"

Harper: "Absolutely. 95% of cisgender* women have testosterone below 2 nanomoles per liter. And in a recent study of nearly 250 trans women, 94% of them had testosterone below 2 nanomoles per liter."

"It doesn't really matter whether the limit is 5 or 10 nanomoles per liter because most trans women are going to be under 2 anyway."


*cisgender: a person whose gender identity and sex assigned at birth are the same


I think it's important to learn a few basics from a science/medicine perspective.

But he still has an unnatural advantage. He's beating Olympic medalists ("I was just cruising!" he bragged) and national collegiate champions. You may be happy with that. I'm not.

caffiend Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> You
> may be happy with that. I'm not.

I'm not really up on the story as I haven't followed it all. I understand that people have pros and cons about the specifics of it.

I just hope that we can all at least know the basics and realities and correct information about the general subject.

I also think the individuals involved deserve to be heard and for us to try and understand issues we may not have been familiar with to date.

Everyone has their particular issues and crosses to bear in this life that can be tough at times, for some much more so than others. I try to see the person.

Understanding the complete scientific picture is more important than a few basics.

While testosterone level in the bloodstream one of the first comparisons that do become equal with hormone therapy, the advantages of a biological male who has gone through puberty go far beyond testosterone levels in the blood.

Bone density, muscle mass, and lung capacity come to mind. While studies have shown that muscle mass does decrease, so far it hasn't shown that it decreases the sufficient amount to cover the inherent advantage due to male puberty. Bone density seems virtually unaffected by hormone therapy and lung capacity shows minimal effects as well.

So, while it is true that hormone therapy removes the advantage of active testosterone levels, it certainly doesn't tell the whole story or come close to justifying that that they have successfully removed all physical advantage.

That's right. The leverage produced by the larger skeletal frame matters, too. The only way to remove the hormonal advantage is to go back in time and prevent the surges that occur in utero and again at puberty--and that is obviously impossible. There's literally no way to neutralize the effects at Lia's age.

What that means, though, is that the present situation is unfair to cis women. It does not provide any guidance about how the participatory desires/rights of non-cis people can be accommodated. That's what is so difficult about this issue: today's "solution" is manifestly unfair to the vast majority of women in sport.

Anybody, I still disagree with you, and I know that you have a hard time with that. I think that one only needs to compare Lia's performance as a man to her performance as a woman. She had a strong, competitive advantage competing as a woman. Her performance as a woman was far better than that as a man. If the hormones did their job, as you argue, wouldn't her performance be about the same both as a man and a woman?

She transitioned after adulthood, after her body had already grown and matured. No, I do not agree that the situation is in any way fair.

Anybody, I don't think that article is as supportive of your position as you say.

It explicitly says the "results are mixed" and, in another place, that there aren't enough cases to answer questions definitively. The rest of the article boils down to, for example, attempts to compare Lia's before and after performances with the caveat that her male times might have improved if she had continued to compete as a man. We are thus asked to presume the truth of a hypothetical that does not in fact exist.

You may ultimately be right. But as your article indicates, Lia is anecdote, not data.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/26/2022 06:32PM by Lot's Wife.

What's Fair?


This isn't an easy question, and it's going to become more pertinent as more trans children grow up and take their place in the world.


What is to be done with them?


There are efforts in several states to institute new forms of discrimination and exclusion and deny their existence -- just like the Nuremberg Laws of the Nazi Era.


Remember that it was not so long ago in the scheme of things that Native and African Americans were not regarded as fully human, but as semi-human animals.


Are we to simply all be TERFs and exclude an entire group of girls and women from all aspects of life and society? To shut the door on them, tell them "you can't be part of the sisterhood," and leave them to face all the bad things that all women deal with without support? That cannot be right. It cannot be right to discriminate carte blanche.


As I've already mentioned, once you start defining who is and who is not "fit to be female" (and usually that means to conform to the desires of men), you open a big can of worms.


So, we go down that road, if you are too tall, too fat, too strong, too smart, or incapable of giving birth, you're just out -- no matter your genetic provenance or not.



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 03/26/2022 07:17PM by anybody.

so literally anyone can claim to be man/woman simply by saying so and that's it

does that work with anything else

I've never heard of attempts to recruit gender variant teens and "convert" them for purposes of athletic competition.


Why Not?


Why are there not full "teams" of newly-minted t-girls out there just to dominate every women's sport if there were a "guaranteed" advantage?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/26/2022 08:27PM by anybody.

why do we even need separate 'mens'/ 'womens' sports in the first place? there's no difference and no advantages on either side (any side) so there's no need for them, just allow all genders to compete togethet

anonyXmo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> why do we even need separate 'mens'/ 'womens'
> sports in the first place? there's no difference
> and no advantages on either side (any side) so
> there's no need for them, just allow all genders
> to compete togethet

100%
If there’s no difference between men and women, lets
Ban women’s Tees in golf!
Let women join the infantry and fight alongside men.
If there’s a war don’t just draft the men, draft women too!
Let women compete head to head with men in MMA, boxing, wrestling, football, basketball, rugby.
And Let them all use co-Ed bathrooms and lockers!
And let’s just get over whatever perceived differences we might have.
Problem solved!
Now to talk MORmONs into that concept when they still think shoulders are porn that makes men feel like raping.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/28/2022 11:27AM by schrodingerscat.

AnonyXmo, when I was attending University at a Big Ten school decades ago, the City Council wrestled with "ladies night" bar specials. It was decided then that anyone who approached the bartender and asked for the $1 ladies' special pina coladas or other offers could enjoy the deal - all they had to do was place the order and be brave enough to state "I am a woman."

So, yes, there's an old and weak example of how anyone can claim to be a woman and it IS so (at least for as long as it takes them to enjoy their $1 ladies' night drink special).

Anybody, you and I are on the same page about trying to be fair. I do not know what should be done for people like Lia. My hunch, based on a ton of experience in sport but not scientifically amassed data, is that adjusting the hormones is not enough inasmuch as skeletal structure (and very possibly neural networks laid down during her "male" period) alone is enough to bestow a significant advantage.

You bring up cis people who are exceptionally tall or strong or fast and suggest they are comparable. I don't accept that. They are who they are as the result of naturally occurring genetic processes: there is no volition, no choice, involved.

As I've said several times, I find this problem perplexing and was hesitant to express my feelings about it. My concern is that we are making decisions that adversely affect Lia's competitors without scientific data demonstrating that her hormonal treatment has fully leveled the playing field.

But since I do not have data-based analysis, I cannot say with certainty what would be appropriate. All I can do is voice my concern about the assumption that equality has been achieved and indicate problems with the studies that people claim with unreasonable assurance support that assumption. The article you cited supports that caution when it acknowledges that the science is inadequate.

Making policy in the dark is usually a bad idea.

Lot's Wife Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> Making policy in the dark is usually a bad idea.

In that we agree.

Estrogen therapy is one thing, but Ms. Thomas had at least 7 years of testosterone exposure/ puberty during which her features- arms, hands, legs feet are now larger, longer, making her a more efficient swimmer, when compared to her smaller peers.

BTW, I self identify as a Clinton, and have written to Bill and Hillary, asking them to formally accept me as one of their children. Despite not receiving a reply from them, they are my real parents, despite what my birth certificate says.

My lds relatives have told me that they will seal me to bill and Hill, upon my passing if I never hear from them.

Maybe if Chelsea and What's-his-name divorce you could get her on the rebound. You never know!

“Them/They” Thomas isn’t the first to venture across gender definitions to compete in athletics. The history of the Olympics has several examples and because of the continuing fraud, gender testing is now a requirement to compete in the Olympics.

It has been a violation to compete outside of one’s gender as tested.

For whatever reason, the inclination of an individual is now honored without regard to the harm done to an entire field of competitors.

Once I was spying on my son, and I dressed up like a man—even with fake wiskers and a sock in my pants. A fellow came up and asked me a casual question about the truck I was driving. I answered with my girly girl voice. I couldn’t help it. He and his son looked at each other and took a step back.

There’s no way for me to complete with men in any venue without being laughable.

That’s why I don’t enter some log-splitting contest.

There’s a fine line between promoting one’s agenda and looking like a horse’s ass.

You want carte blanche for trans at the expense of everyone else. That is your definition of fair.

Caitlin Jenner is right. Chromosomes matter. Physiology matters. Your claim that they don't doesn't change that.

This reminds me of when anti smoking laws started to take effect and smokers were yelling "What about my *right* to smoke anywhere I want?" The answer is your right to smoke ends where my lungs begin.


And your right to compete with women ends where your chromosomes begin.

There is a fair solution but that is not what you are really interested in.

No, they are not looking for a fair solution.

Kathleen Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> No, they are not looking for a fair solution.


Fair is giving Trans athletes their own unisex locker rooms just like we do toilets.

And make all sports Co-Ed.

Why distinguish between ‘men’ and ‘women’ if that’s ‘just an oppressive patriarchal social construct’ and there is no longer any possible way to tell the difference between sexes?

My heavens, anybody. Your source says explicitly that the science is "mixed" and there aren't enough cases let alone studies to support the conclusion you are asserting. Sure, it's evidence and hence important to consider. But the article itself says it's not conclusive.

I'm not sure why you are employing a lower standard than usual for what constitutes scientific proof in this instance. I appreciate your desire to be fair to people; I struggle over that issue here, too. But you are way out in front of your skies on this one.

Evidence? You've got to be kidding. Wanting it to be evidence does not make it so.

in b 4 ~ OPie promotes some staged media narrative ~

More likely than not, Lia Thomas will be banned from competition.

She was one of the first, she's an adult, and she essentially came out of nowhere and won championships.

But the "victory" will be a Pyrric one for fundies.

There are teens alive now who have virtually known no other life except as one living as their innate gender, and your won't know or be able to tell them apart from their cisgendered peers.

There is a generational divide here that cannot be bridged.

Perhaps you can tacitly accept discrimination, but the vast majority of people of my generation and later cannot.

It's a simple as that.

https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2019/01/17/generation-z-looks-a-lot-like-millennials-on-key-social-and-political-issues/psdt_1-17-19_generations-00/


Do you care about your blood type unless you are going to donate blood or need surgery? The day is not far off when all this will be left in the past and it just won't matter what someone's race, DNA, or chromosomes are -- it's just not going to matter.

I predict before mid-century, all of these repressive laws and bans will fall —- and I will still around to see it :)

anybody Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> More likely than not, Lia Thomas will be banned
> from competition.

I'm not sure about that. There are a several women in her situation competing at a high level in various sports, including Laurel Huddart (sp?) in the Olympics. She's also a second-tier athlete whose performances look a lot better, even after hormonal treatment, as a woman than it did as a man. So far the institutional momentum is in your favor.


--------------------
> She was one of the first, she's an adult, and she
> essentially came out of nowhere and won
> championships.

That's not true. She didn't "come out of nowhere."


--------------------
> But the "victory" will be a Pyrric one for
> fundies.

Oh, come on. Some of us who disagree with you here are on the same page about the rights of non-cis people. We just don't yet accept your characterization of "victims" and "victimizers." You really should distinguish between those who quibble with you evidentiarily and those whose values are "fundamentally" different.


------------------
> Perhaps you can tacitly accept discrimination, but
> the vast majority of people of my generation and
> later cannot.
>
> It's a simple as that.

No, it is absolutely not as simple as that. You presume arbitrarily to know what "discrimination" means in this context and you do so with very limited evidence. We both know you wouldn't get away with such sloppy thinking in your day job.


-----------------
> https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2019/01/
> 17/generation-z-looks-a-lot-like-millennials-on-ke
> y-social-and-political-issues/psdt_1-17-19_generat
> ions-00/

Yes, our hope lies in the younger generations. No question.

But that's a red herring. There is potential discrimination on both sides of this issue, and we won't know who the "victims" are until there is solid science.

Moreover the fact that young people are opposed to discrimination does not mean they concur with you. In fact, much of Gen Z thinks you are off the mark.

https://content.api.news/v3/images/bin/df1dc090e4b93060e2ebbca1cab352a7

Or do those college students lose their status as Gen Z-ers because they hold the wrong opinions?


----------------------
> I predict before mid-century, all of these
> repressive laws and bans will fall —- and I
> will still around to see it :)

Yes, well we'll both be around to see whether your prediction is vindicated. One day evidence, rather than visceral impulse, will answer the question.

While it remains to be seen what will happen with trans athletes (and no one seems to care about trans guys, just trans girls), there is just too much hate.


I have tried and tried to understand what motivates these fundies and I can't.


I don't want to live in a "same-same-same" world that's like a twisted version of "Leave It To Beaver" or "Sally, Dick, And Jane." But they do. That's why they like Putin. They just want someone who can snap their fingers like Thanos and remake the world as it was in 1950 or 1920.


I just know that hate is wrong.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/28/2022 08:12PM by anybody.

I care very much about trans-guys. In fact, I'm a little taken aback by seeing the issue framed that way.

But otherwise I agree with every word in your post.

All the "outrage" is about "boys" being "converted" and replacing girls in... sport / pageants / acting or anything they want to scream about, they aren't talking about trans guys -- who face even more difficult medical challenges and ostracism from fundie gynaecologists, etc.


This goes back to my point about men wanting to define women so they can control them. Trans men aren't a threat to male sexuality in their view, so there's not as much bru-ha-ha -- until a trans guy wants to play on the local football team or the like. Then they are going to freak out.

You may well be generally right in your evaluation of society's attitude towards trans-girls. But that does not necessarily mean you are correct in every particular instance.

The opposite of prejudice is not countervailing prejudice but rather a determination not to be ruled by visceral considerations at all. There are any number of "progressive" ideas--including eugenics--that in hindsight turned out to have been horrible mistakes. Taking a binary position on such matters before the facts are established is rash even when not dangerous.

Above, you pointed to the egalitarianism of Gen Z as a reason for hope for the future. I share that hope. But it is inconsistent on the one hand to praise those people only then, on the other, to dismiss as biased the views of Gen Z women athletes. When those women complain about Lia Thomas, they are NOT doing the bidding of patriarchal men.

They deserve to be taken seriously too.

LW, we're not so far apart on this.

But First -- Full Disclosure: I have known a few transpeople. A gender non-conforming gay girl and two trans guys lived in my dorm, one of whom was a classmate who killed himself along with his trans girlfriend in a double suicide. I went to their joint funeral. Later, I worked with both trans male and trans female colleagues, and I've also had a transwoman manager.


I'm not a doctor, nor do I play one on TV, so I can only approach this from a historical and philosophical viewpoint.


"Frankenstein" was written by an 18-year-old girl who created an intelligent, articulate man in a monster's body. All the Monster wanted to know from his maker Dr Frankenstein was "who am I? Why did you make me?" In the movies, it was the assistant's theft of the damaged brain that made the monster a monster. Your brain decides who and what you are, not your parts.


If someone, no matter their physical situation, walks, talks, acts, behaves, and says they are male, female, or neither, no matter the circumstance or situation, and it's not an act, and it's 24/7/365, that's what I have to go with. That person is telling me that's what their brain is telling them.


Some trans people never get surgery -- usually because of financial reasons or because of married partners -- and we all know the horrible state of health care in America, but I admit I don't understand why any female person, cis, trans or neither, would want guy's parts. As you know, some girls do internally, and they don't know or their parents knew and didn't tell them. So, what we are really talking about here is deciding who is and who is not "fit to be female."


I see Lia's situation like Caster Semenya's. According to media reports, she's intersex with ambiguous genitalia. A quick Google search will tell you Semenya wasn't the first female athlete who was like that. When you are talking about top athletes, you are already dealing with people of extraordinary ability. If you are to decide who is feminine enough to be female for sport, how would you do this without it becoming a subjective beauty contest?


I remember a magazine article about body image -- how women perceived themselves (too short, too fat) versus what men wanted women to look like (big boobs), what women wanted to look like (tall, slim, athletic, small breasted), and what women thought men wanted women to look like. The only area of agreement that even came close was what women thought men wanted them to look like. The Williams Sisters don't fit that, nor does Brittany Griner for that matter -- which is why I mentioned them.


Remember the "Alien Nation" series? One of the things on that show was about how the Newcomers were a "menace" because they were biologically stronger and more intelligent than most humans, and the Purists thought they would "take over."


So, LW, if you or the "powers that be" can come up with a "You can compete if you are" list that's not just based on being too tall, muscular, fat, internal vs external parts, or whatever that's fair and based on facts and science and not just a blanket "we think you are evil and the spawn of Satan," I'd be for it. But, as we have all seen, this has been very difficult to do even with people who were identified as female at birth.


Consider this:

Suppose you have a XX girl with CAIS with a vaginal opening but no womb or cervix or some other intersex condition. How is her condition different from that of a trans girl who always had female hormonal levels, never went through male puberty, and has a surgically constructed vagina? As I've mentioned, there are several prominent female actresses, models, and athletes who are like that, but they are treated as fully female, so why would a trans girl not be? Because one is created by nature and the other by science?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/29/2022 10:52AM by anybody.

Anybody, I have two trans people in my life: both trans-guys. One is the daughter of a close friend, and her coming out played a big role in my friend's divorce since her then-husband couldn't deal with it. The other is a friend of my oldest kids and is in our home at least monthly.

I don't understand their emotional lives, but I don't feel I need to. They are just my kids' friends and nice to have around our community center of a home.

I will not take up your challenge and try to design a system that can account for all the variations in human biology and psychology. As I've written above, that is above my pay grade (and educational qualifications). All I'm saying is that a reflexive protection of one category of people at the expense of another is dangerous.

Lot's Wife Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I will not take up your challenge and try to
> design a system that can account for all the
> variations in human biology and psychology. As
> I've written above, that is above my pay grade
> (and educational qualifications). All I'm saying
> is that a reflexive protection of one category of
> people at the expense of another is dangerous.

I'm not saying you have to :)

But everyone is worried about what is a woman, but not worried about what is a man.

Most people responding to this thread--and others like it--show respect for the interests of both sides. Moreover, they all seem to seek a "fair" resolution, with disagreement as to what is or is not "fair."

The problem in part is a failure to realize that "fairness" itself is an elusive goal in almost all contexts of social policy where competing interests and rights are at stake. In such circumstances what is "right" as a social policy is not always what is "fair" when applied to individual cases. In fact, what is socially the right thing is often unfair when applied to individual cases. The reason is that the morality of social policy is often very different from the morality of the individual cases that fall under such policy. Social policy seeks an overall moral stance that transcends the morality and fairness of individual cases in favor of the public good. Thus, when injustice (unfairness) happens in a given case, the question should always be whether a given social policy is warranted given the public interest, not whether it results in unfairness or injustice to a few, or even many. (Of course, in some contexts the Constitution protects individual rights as against social policy.)

Personally, given the above, and the issue in this thread, the question is whether a social policy against transwomen participating in women's sports is warranted notwithstanding cases of unfairness that result. In a context where biological distinctions between men and women (genetic, hormonal, etc.) are evident, and complex, it seems to me that a social policy against such participation is warranted notwithstanding it may be unfair in some individual cases, many of which involve a complex of biological factors that are ambiguous as to their performance effects.

I didn't particularly like the fact that when applying to law school I was rejected by a university admissions department that I knew had accepted a minority applicant less qualified. That was manifestly unfair to me on a personal level, and to many others in a similar situation. Yet, on a social level I believe that affirmative action is moral, just, and warranted for a number of important social and historical reasons. If someone disagrees with that, fine. But such disagreement cannot be based upon the fact that such a policy is unjust to individuals who are not minorities. (Not to change the subject.)

Even the Westminster Dog Show has seven categories—nobody lets an Irish Wolfhound compete with the Bichon.

Then, you have the Best of Show, which is very exciting, but untill then, it’s all in their own categories.

Maybe Westminster Dog Show is a bunch of “fundies.”

It must sure hurt to be a champion-level woman in sports.

Anybody, you remind me so much of myself. I, too, have been on a three-day rant about a something of which I have very little influence. Yet, everyone else is the "unthinking ass."

I've totally worn myself out in tirade overdrive, trying to drive my point home. I'm worn out.

I finally had to say, "Maybe I'm wrong." . . . "Maybe it's me."

that had scenes from the Holocaust.

This was back in the 80s when must-see broadcast TV was still dominant. Later, when I was in school, Yugoslavia broke up and there were scenes of people behind barbed wire on CNN straight out of "Schindler's List" -- only this wasn't a movie.


I swore to myself that when my time came, I would not be silent -- and I would do every thing I could possibly do to speak out against injustice and bigotry. I may just be one person, but in the Information Age, there are a plethora of social media that I can use.

Most of the parents of these trans kids are thirty-somethings like me -- and instead of getting the belt and dragging their kid behind the woodshed to give them a class-A whipping, they listened to what the psychologists told them about their children. People born in the 21st Century don't freak out about this and gender variance is part of their everyday lives.

LGBTQIA+ hatred is the issue that my generation will confront -- and I hope -- finally end -- because it's our parents that are trying to drag the world back to the 1950s.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/29/2022 01:33AM by anybody.

Kathleen Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I finally had to say, "Maybe I'm wrong." . . .
> "Maybe it's me."

Sometimes it *is* everybody else. And yes, that's exhausting.

But always good to keep one's mind open to the possibility we ourselves could be wrong every long once in a while.

But on this, I'm on the right side of history :)

You should check out the thread Soft Machine just put up and really really think about it.


Customization. It's a thing. Has your name written all over it.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/29/2022 01:52AM by Kathleen.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10671179/Trans-cyclist-Emily-Bridges-BARRED-national-championships.html

EXCLUSIVE: Aunt of trans rider Emily Bridges slams 'unfair' decision to ban her from race after female competitors threatened to boycott event - as Sharron Davies says 'It's not transphobic to want fair sport, it's anti-female to not'

Emily began hormone therapy in 2021 and wants to compete as a woman, weeks after competing as a man
However, she has been barred from competing in women's race this weekend while still registered as a man
Sport's international governing body said she's ineligible following row and also hold 'expert panel' on issue
It has been described as a 'fudge' by Sharron Davies, who fears that she will allow her to compete as a woman

'It's not transphobic to want fair sport, it's anti-female to not'


Absolutely.

And, I am tired of people labeling anyone who is trying to sort out the fairness issue idea regarding trans in sports being automatically being "hateful" by those that are pushing for trans to be automatically included no questions asked.

Asking questions and offering physiological evidence is not hate. Labeling those people as hateful is the real hate and is a lazy response in place of well thought out rebuttal.

This is a very complicated discussion that involves the fact that DNA is the building blocks of genes. The genetic coding of our traits is based on now these building blocks are arranged. And, Chromosomes are a contained unit of genes found in every cell of the body.

And any woman who has trained for years and finds herself competing against a biological male should be listened to.

I don't know what the final answer should be, but I know its not yours, anybody. There is more to this than "number crunching" and as the very term implies, it's really number manipulation.

who are genetically and anatomically male but with a vaginal opening or with ambiguous genitalia, and most didn't know they were like this until they were teens.


Are you going to exclude them too?


How are you going to avoid a "who is fit to be female" aesthetic subjective situation?

You aren't getting it. I"m not excluding anyone. Don't say I am. I am saying there are more people's rights involved here than your agenda is allowing. You are a dog with a bone and not considering anything but your bone.

AND. I am not avoiding anything. Stop twisting things to your favor. Let's have something substantial from you besides hate and accusations.

What I am not avoiding is that the issue is bigger than you are allowing yourself to see.

Why don't you address the physiology facts in my post rather than attacking me with your cliches?

Done & Done Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> You aren't getting it. I"m not excluding anyone.
> Don't say I am. I am saying there are more
> people's rights involved here than your agenda is
> allowing. You are a dog with a bone and not
> considering anything but your bone.
>
> AND. I am not avoiding anything. Stop twisting
> things to your favor. Let's have something
> substantial from you besides hate and
> accusations.
>
> What I am not avoiding is that the issue is bigger
> than you are allowing yourself to see.
>
> Why don't you address the physiology facts in my
> post rather than attacking me with your cliches?

I'm not. I'm simply pointing out that this goes beyond a simple XX / XY criteria.

For example, many black women don't fit Western concepts of beauty or feminity, and the same things were said to exclude them from competition. I've heard people say that black people have "extra" muscles and are not anatomically the same as white people -- even though it's not true.

I'm saying that if you are going to *exclude* people from something, you'd better have a fair, objective standard that isn't subjective or arbitrary.

So, you are going to have to decide:

-- Height Limits
-- Weight Limits
-- BMI
-- Fat To Muscle Ratio
-- Bone Density
-- Pelvis Width To Height Ratio
-- Brain Structure

etc, etc to be "fit" to be female for competition.
--



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/31/2022 12:19PM by anybody.

So if you are going to exclude biological females from racing with other biological females "you'd better have a fair, objective standard that isn't subjective or arbitrary".

Knife cuts both ways.

I want fair. I just don't see that in your agenda.

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/aug/06/violation-of-dignity-football-star-had-to-strip-publicly-to-prove-she-was-female


The international footballer Tabitha Chawinga is calling on Malawi’s football authorities to introduce safeguards to protect women from abuse at all levels of the game.

Chawinga, who became the first woman from Malawi to sign for a European football team when she joined the Swedish club Krokom/Dvärsätts IF in 2014, said that she had been forced to strip in public during a match to prove she was female and was regularly trolled on social media about her looks.

“I don’t want other people to face the same. It makes me think, if they are insulting someone they have just met at the football ground, what would they do if I was born in their family. Could they have killed me?” she said in a telephone interview from China, where she now plays for Wuhan Jianghan University FC in the Chinese Women’s Super League and was voted Player of the Year two years in a row.

The 25-year-old, who has captained the Malawi national team and was ranked among the 100 best female footballers in the world by the Guardian last year, said that while playing for a girls’ school team when she was 13 she was forced to undress in front of the opposition to prove she was a girl. Her opponents did not believe she was female because of her physical appearance and how well she played.

“I had never been so devastated and I cried at the embarrassment that I had been exposed to. I wanted to walk out right away but somehow my teammates consoled me and I decided to finish the game,” she said. The incident made her quit the sport for a year.

The same thing happened a year later when she played for the Lilongwe women’s football team DD Sunshine – a move, she said, that was her first step into a professional football career.

I am touched by the plight of all these people but Again you are using cherry picked emotional issues to bolster your position.

I like cutting to the core like Henry Bemis did.

I am also done talking to you because I want to talk only in facts and dragging up every wrong in history is an evasion, not a proof.

[There are already a fair number of intersex athletes] who are genetically and anatomically male but with a vaginal opening or with ambiguous genitalia, and most didn't know they were like this until they were teens. Are you going to exclude them too?

COMMENT: If it is determined that fairness in women's sports is most practically and effectively protected with an identification of 'woman' based upon the anatomical genitalia assignment at birth, then the answer to your question is yes. Will such a policy result in instances of unfairness? Yes. And that is unfortunate.

It is indeed unfortunate that biological facts are not always fair, and that society cannot always rectify such unfairness. It is better in such instances to educate an effected transgender teen about the elusive nature of biological and social fairness, than perpetrate the myth that she is somehow a victim of an immoral social policy of "hate." There are many forms of biological 'victims' that society has limited resources to accommodate. This is one of them.

That said, perhaps someday there will be a complex biological-based algorithm coupled with a simple testing procedure that can serve as a better, fairer, procedure for the protection of women's sports. Until then, a simple criterion of exclusion is entirely acceptable, socially and morally. (IMHO)

+1 Well stated

A male pelvis is different than a female pelvis. That's science. Your pelvis identifies what you are. You can take all the therapy you want. Have all the operations you want. Claim to be whatever. But your pelvis is one or the other.

What's next? Race identity? Am I Chinese because I want to be Chinese?

Exactly. It takes more than hormones in pill form to make a woman, and, to make a sport fair.