Yeah it’s a fairly standard grift now, they point at again random trans women winning (or make them up) and say it’s not fair because obviously trans women are just dudes in wigs, and because that’s what a lot of cis people think (or at most - they know that breast implants are a thing despite the fact trans women avoid them like the plague) and they screech about muh biomechanical males and females and whatnot.
You can explain and show a million times how most trans women have lower Testosterone levels than cis women do (weak biological loose regulation vs the cold perfection of medicine) and it will do fuck all because it’s all pretense, if trans women were wizards who changed completely including genetically they’d still just wanna brand us for it.
So tiring and exhausting. All just screaming into the void. So much bloodlust. Can’t wait for the civil war at this point.
EDIT: ah the bloodthirsty have come here
Trans women are biologically female btw in all ways that aren’t literally just the presence of the Y chromosome, from gonads, to their blood, to gene expression :3
Sports are inherently unfair, and trans women’s strength advantage is lost with transition.
Puberty blockers for minors are thecompromise.
(this would also eliminate the stupid sport shit hence why they wanna ban it)
I have 0.5 nmol/L as a trans woman and have had this level for 10 years since my teens, because I’m trans and suppressing T and raising E is literally what medical transition is.
I’d likely have lower strength as a result and would not be able to win, no matter how much I trained.
The reason Usain Bolt wins the run is because he’s got long legs, someone else could train all their life - and they will never win if they don’t have a bigger advantage.
I want to make this bit crystal clear:
I don’t really give a shit about sports.
If you’d like to just ban all trans people completely and fully then please do so.
But the right-wing think-tanks behind it won’t do any such thing, because then their golden goose - the wedge issue that awakens the bloodlust in the average cis person - kicking a thing in a thing - is what they’re using as a stick to beat trans people with and take our rights to healthcare (this includes minors btw) etc.
I think the truth of the matter is that trans women are seen as just blokes in wigs by the vast majority of cis people and because of weird societal shit that makes it bad, and the reality that human bodies are fairly malleable and vague is hard or undesirable to accept, therefore the easiest solution is to hate trannies, if possible while maintaining the pretense of a moral high ground ala “fairness in sports” despite the fact it’s almost a comtradiction in terms.
Odd that you would focus on testosterone levels instead of muscle mass. It’s certainly true that trans women have testosterone levels comparable with cis women, and also true that they would lose some amount of muscle mass due to that. However, they still retain more muscle than a cis woman would have, in general.
Ah, because testosterone levels hugely influence muscle mass and resultant strength and performance. The longest study on the matter actually ended up with trans women having on average LESS muscle strength than cis women.
I suspect that this study should be repeated on the athlete subpopulations, because I imagine many trans women are actively trying to not be muscular in order to aid transitioning, which is a different goal from those participating in athletics.
…bloodthirst?? Because somebody disagreed with you? How about you calm down instead of being such an extremist. And no, your single study with like 8 people in each group is not more convincing than all of the other studies that you’re deliberately choosing to ignore.
How about you listen to trans women rather than tell someone to “calm down” when addressing one of the main transphobic talking points? And doing so with a ton of evidence and personal experience? Asshole.
No I just have bad grammar lol why does everyone on this website think people are making second accounts, it’s happened so many times and I’ve only been here a couple days
I am not the person who said bloodthirsty, but this whole thread is pretty intense. If you’re not trans maybe it’s hard to see, but people get disproportionately worked up about this topic when they otherwise don’t give a shit about women’s sports, and most female athletes aren’t worried about it. It’s cringe that people are so invested in kicking trans women out of sports.
I really don’t know enough about who has when an advantage, but when that whole drama broke out about that swimmer who won by a landslide that used to be a man, i was browsing some trans/lgbtq boards. Most of them said that it’s more than fair, because men have denser bones and a lot of convincing arguments for her. But then it had me thinking, why are men so dominant in swinning then? (I assume they are, i think professional sports are pretty pointless and shit)
With all that being said, i feel like if you go through a sex change, which should he the most important and dearest thing one could ever do, maybe it’s time to just drop a silly sport for it. Because one of these things is surely more important than the other.
Before HRT, she was a top ranked men’s swimmer. After hrt, on the men’s, she dropped into the 400s. When she had been on HRT long enough to compete as a woman, she was a top ranked women’s swimmer, but was still beaten by several cis women. What’s the issue, exactly?
I can’t parse this sentence as written. I predict that you actually meant, “Who are we talking about?”, and to answer that, Lia Thomas, the trans swimmer who the right focused on as their primary hate figure with respect to their campaign against trans people being allowed to exist.
When you transition, you often lose everything. Family, friends, work, support networks. You name it, every single one of them is impacted, even if they’re not lost completely.
It’s not a “silly sport” it’s community, which can be life saving if you’ve lost most of the rest of it…
Incidentally also, Lia Thomas set a school record. Not a state record, not a national record, not a world record. Her performance just was not that out of line than one would expect from any other woman.
Believe me when I say that I support my LGBTQ+ peeps.
And I concede that I don’t know much about the subject of trans people in sports and physical capabilities.
But in my view, trans women have higher probability to be stronger than most cis female athletes. I’m not saying it happens all the time. But it happens. There is a reason there are competition categories. Even in the same gender, for example, in boxing, there are weight divisions.
So, I don’t know what the solution is. Measure the amount of strength and categorize accordingly? Having an extra “transgender” category? I tell you - I would watch this! Not in a morbid way, but a genuine one, no different from watching women’s soccer or men’s tennis, for example.
But in my view, trans women have higher probability to be stronger than most cis female athletes. I’m not saying it happens all the time.
If they are on hormone blockers and HRT, they honestly do not have a higher probability. That said, it would be pretty fucking invasive to make sure they are taking those consistently.
But then, what’s the solution? If an athlete says “hm, I’ll stop taking this hormone to have a competitive advantage over everyone else,” how’s that different from doing the opposite? (e.g. taking hormones.)
I really don’t have answers to these questions. It’s an important topic, though.
I don’t have a solution and I doubt a perfect one exists but did want to add in info to make sure people are not under the assumption that people on HRT have done support of significant advantage.
For me to have an informed solution, I would have to know how long it takes for muscle to come back once HRT is stopped, what the side effects are of starting and stopping HRT repeatedly, and probably a host of other questions that I do not have the answer to. Trans people are not quick to simply stop taking their hormones and hormone blockers. Considering almost all of them went through years of struggle to transition, stopping them destroys years of progress and some of that can be irreversible. I do recognize that money can convince some people although there is not a ton of money in women’s sports.
The Olympic Committee used to test testosterone levels but had to shelve that because, while rare, cis women occasionally have higher testosterone than the threshold that was set. So they went back to inspecting genitals for a while. They could go back to testosterone level testing for trans women but that is a little discriminatory since it targets them. I don’t have a perfect solution and I’m not sure one exists that isn’t going to piss at least one group off.
Decades ago, when leg prosthetics started to improve to the point that amputees could beat non-amputees in races, I heard people say that athletes would chop off their legs to get prosthetics installed and dominate the competition. Obviously that has failed to happen, despite prosthetics getting better all the time.
In general, trans people don’t stop taking their meds for the same reason runners don’t chop off their legs even if it could theoretically give them an edge.
I’m sorry. I don’t think this is a good analogy. (And I didn’t downvote you.)
For your analogy to work, it has to be the other way around: Abled-body athletes wanting to participate in paralympics competitions and therefore they would “disable” themselves to do so.
Then, some of those athletes would say “you know what, perhaps I could still use one leg against these guys who have no legs from the waist down.”
I’m on Blahaj, I don’t see downvotes and don’t particularly care if people downvote me. Especially if it’s because they’re mad that I do not compromise on trans inclusivity in sports and don’t entertain paranoid fantasies about trans athletes sabotaging their own medical care to allegedly get an edge in sports—something that has not happened. There simply are not many elite trans athletes and those that exist usually perform at a level below their cis competitors. Evidence: trans people have been eligible to compete in the Olympics since the 2000s, and it took until 2021 for a trans person to qualify.
IMO the analogy works when you come at it from the perspective of the hypothetical trans athlete in question. HRT isn’t a placebo, it has real effects and a lot of those effects vanish when you stop taking it. For a trans person that is on HRT for dysphoria, you are going to get all the negative effects of dysphoria anywhere within 24 hours to a week of stopping HRT, which is FAR too short a time for someone’s natal gonads (assuming they even still have them) to come back online and get your hormones back to a level that isn’t “currently in menopause.” It is going to take even more time after that (months, if not years) to get anything that could be considered an advantage. All while suffering from dysphoria.
It sucks. Nobody is going to do it for the same reason an athlete won’t cut off their fucking legs: it’s their body that they have to live in.
Believe me when I say that I support my LGBTQ+ peeps.
No, I don’t believe you.
Because you literally admitted that you don’t know much about this topic, but still came out to argue for the exclusion of one of the most marginalised parts of the LGBTQ community.
Your understanding is one that comes from the talking points of people trying to use sports as a wedge tactic to further ostracise trans folk, and you completely disregard or simply fail to look for the experiences of trans people and the impact these exclusions have on them.
So if you genuinely do support LGBTQ folk, and that sentence wasn’t just a salve for your own conscience, it might be time to stop stepping on the people you claim to support. If you don’t know enough to form a supportive opinion, that’s fine, but stop adding to the voices trying to pull us down…
Friend, I understand your struggle. I’m also part of a marginalized group. I’ll stand schooled and say that I must inform myself more, sure. But don’t characterize me as someone who is trying to put you down.
You’re speaking in absolutes, though. To “completely disregard or fail to look for the experiences of trans people” would mean to say bullshit like “I fail to see how they’re suffering for not being women because trans women are NOT women” - that is to completely disregard it, like you put it. And friend, you don’t know how many heated discussions I’ve had with people, even childhood friends, to defend trans rights, simply because it’s the natural and right thing to do.
So, I’m here to discuss, to be taught, to learn, to gather tools and help to continue defending everyone’s rights, yours and mine.
I’m not talking about excluding anyone. I’m discussing different options that allow inclusion. Are they right or wrong? I don’t know, that’s why I’m asking! But again, don’t accuse me of doing something I’m not doing.
Don’t characterise you as someone trying to put me down?
You’re quite literally arguing to take away my rights from a position of self confessed ignorance.
And when called on it, you ignored literally everything I said to highlight how the biggest problem that needs addressing is about the way you’re being treated.
If you were here to learn, you’d be asking questions, and you’d be listening to what I, a sports playing trans woman has to say. But you’re not asking questions, you’re arguing, and volunteering to exclude folk like me, without even knowing enough to understand why, let alone the impact it has.
Trans people have no track record of consistently out performing cis people in any sport at any level. Literally every example you can think of is a misrepresentation by a media more interested in controversy than fact. Those are your facts.
If your response to that is to argue about it so as to validate the position you’ve already staked out, rather than listening, asking more questions, or simply backing off, then you know what you can do with your support. People calling themselves allies but then arguing to take away our rights hurt more than bigots ever can…
Girl, you’re just too angry to see beyond what you want to see. I’m a good listener, and I know I’m not perfect. Being “hurt” and telling me to “show your support up yours” because we’re not 100% aligned just tells me that you and I could not be friends in real life - not that you care. But that’s okay. Plenty of other friends more open to educate me out there, and I’ll gladly stand corrected before them without being called “worse than a bigot” without knowing my full story (the irony.)
Again, you’ve acknowledged literally nothing that I’ve said, to focus on how you are the hard done by one.
You also mispresented me. I didn’t say you were worse than a bigot, I said people like you hurt more than bigots do. A bigot can’t let me down, because all they know is hate. But when the people that are meant to be allies call for you to lose rights? It hits harder than bigots do.
I could give a shit whether we would get on in real life. Us getting on should have nothing to do with your support. What I care about is that you’re arguing for exclusion of trans folk. The fact that your support relies on education from trans folk that you perceive as more reasonable simply means that your support is conditional. And conditional support isn’t really support
I disagree with you when you say you didn’t imply that I was worse than a bigot. Because if bigots hurt on purpose, and I hurt more than bigots, then what does that make me? “I’m not saying you’re a killer, I’m just saying that your actions murder people.” Semantics.
What should I acknowledge? That I am arguing for the exclusion of trans people? Did I say “hey, trans folks must be banned because of this or that”? I stated my views and I said I’m open to being schooled. But you’re acting like when Trump says “that was a nasty question” to reporters who ask questions, instead of freaking answering the question. Or what did I miss?
And hopefully you’ll hear out my reasons when I say this, but yes my support for trans folks is conditional, just like with the support I give to everyone else. Here is why: I support the inclusion of gay people. But some gay people think that trans people are not part of the community (TERFs, they are called?) So my support ends there. If someone says “I can’t believe your support for gay rights is conditional” I’ll just tell them to pound sand - because I won’t tolerate anybody who tells me that trans people should not exist, not even gay people.
So you have my full support. But that supports ends where the right of others to peacefully co-exist is threatened. If you don’t think this is okay, that’s your problem.
Your inclusion ends where others are excluded. I think cis women may be excluded from a sport if some trans folks participate in it. Where are their rights? That’s the argument. Let’s discuss. Is that bigotry? Absolutely not. Is it ignorance? Possibly! Am I wrong? Tell me so without berating me! Others have done the same and provided me with study materials in this very thread, and I’ve been reading.
But some gay people think that trans people are not part of the community (TERFs, they are called?) So my support ends there.
That’s conditional support for their ideas, not for their rights.
My point wasn’t that your support for the ideas of trans folk is condition. My point was that your support for our rights is conditional, based on your own personal assessment of whether we deserve some particular rights that everyone else has…
Your inclusion ends where others are excluded. I think cis women may be excluded from a sport if some trans folks participate in it.
This is an example of what I’m talking about. “I want to exclude the super vulnerable people from sports, so that the more privileged, and less vulnerable folk don’t feel uncomfortable”.
It’s text book bigotry… You don’t mean it to be bigotry, because your position isn’t shaped from hate. But it still hurts vulnerable folk, and empowers the people who do hate us. All whilst you smile and tell us that you support us, and worst of all, genuinely believe it…
Others have done the same and provided me with study materials in this very thread, and I’ve been reading.
And yet here you are, still arguing for our exclusion… Even if you haven’t read it yet, and may change your mind in the future, the fact that you’re willing to frame exclusion of trans folk as acceptable until convinced otherwise should make you question your biases. It doubt it will, but it should…
But in my view, trans women have higher probability to be stronger than most cis female athletes. I
Given this belief, is there a reason trans women have never taken Olympic medals despite having nearly 20 years to do so? That would seem to be evidence against that perspective. If any trans women are more capable at sport than cis women shouldn’t at least one have been world class?
Theres a trans female weightlifter Laurel Hubbard who made it to the Olympics in 2020. Passed every Olympic requirement for trans women to compete. Big hubbub about biological advantage and all that from the critics. She was in the competition one would most expect dominance from someone assigned male at birth. She had three lifts. She failed three lifts. Placed last in her group. So much for that.
Really very few, I think it’s only in the last few years that any have qualified. Which, again, is a pretty solid argument against, “Trans women are driving cis women out of sport!”.
That’s a good point, but for the sake of the argument, can trans women compete in women’s Olympic sports? As in, are they really allowed? Given your previous comment, I’m going to say yes, but I’d like to be sure…
They are allowed. As [email protected] pointed out, Laurel Hubbard competed in weight lifting and failed all three lifts and placed last in her category. She was expected to medal.
Anything you say followed by “but” is completely meaningless, know that all the “LGBTQ+ peeps” here you claim to support now know to avoid you like the plague
You’re going to make me go full godwin. Imagine saying “I support my Jewish friends and what happened to them at the Holocaust was heinous. But what Israel is doing to Gazans is inexcusable” then someone telling you “anything after the ‘but’ is meaningless, and all the Jewish community here will avoid you like the plague.”
I was with you until that last part lol. I’m not ready for a war.
But yeah, no evidence will persuade people. They have super intense beliefs about trans people because they saw something on Fox News or their social media feed. Confirmation bias and whatnot
Yeah. I went from being a fairly progressive trans liberationist to a bit more conservative transmedicalist arguing that sports and healthcare are issues best settled by science and attempt to focus on dysphoria and the physical literal aspects of everything but even that does not work.
No matter how much evidence cis people simply do not believe you, no matter what you say: trans women = bio men or maybe have even more testosterone and thus muscle mass, no matter what they think everyone transitioned because trauma or some psychological social bullshit they made up in their stupid fucking battle of the sexes.
They mostly are either too evil, or too stupid to understand us and I don’t really give a shit which is which anymore. It’s not always true, but it’s a safe assumption.
And yeah I don’t want a war either ofc, but I see no other end to society in general as it is now.
They mostly are either too evil, or too stupid to understand us and I don’t really give a shit which is which anymore. It’s not always true, but it’s a safe assumption.
You have become what you hate, congrats on your bigotry.
It’s obvious who has won here. You have evolved from someone who didn’t want to be mindlessly hated to someone who is obsessed with mindlessly hating others. You have 100% switched teams because they beat you into it, and you lacked the strength to resist them. Get back to who you once were, it was undoubtedly much better than this vile bigot you’ve become. It’s sad to see people collapse onto the other team, I hope you manage to make it back.
It won’t help. Bigotry doesn’t get better for separation, it gets worse. People need exposure to the other, to see that trans people aren’t some kind of media trope monster, just people. Being an out trans person is one of the best things that people who have passing privilege can do, to reduce the stigma of being trans in society and remove trans people from the scary caricature the media loves to sell.
Yeah it’s a fairly standard grift now, they point at again random trans women winning (or make them up) and say it’s not fair because obviously trans women are just dudes in wigs, and because that’s what a lot of cis people think (or at most - they know that breast implants are a thing despite the fact trans women avoid them like the plague) and they screech about muh biomechanical males and females and whatnot.
You can explain and show a million times how most trans women have lower Testosterone levels than cis women do (weak biological loose regulation vs the cold perfection of medicine) and it will do fuck all because it’s all pretense, if trans women were wizards who changed completely including genetically they’d still just wanna brand us for it.
So tiring and exhausting. All just screaming into the void. So much bloodlust. Can’t wait for the civil war at this point.
EDIT: ah the bloodthirsty have come here
Trans women are biologically female btw in all ways that aren’t literally just the presence of the Y chromosome, from gonads, to their blood, to gene expression :3
Sports are inherently unfair, and trans women’s strength advantage is lost with transition.
Puberty blockers for minors are the compromise. (this would also eliminate the stupid sport shit hence why they wanna ban it)
Removed by mod
Name names, please. I’m not aware of any trans women setting multiple world records, and if it’s happening, I’d like to know.
Most of those articles are either disingenuous, if not outright false. How? Glad you asked.
The whole issue is disingenuous to begin with. Sports is a competition of genetic freaks and is fundamentally unfair.
The reason you see black women win at athletics is also because they have more T on average lmfao.
In fact, restrictions on trans women’s T levels often end up banning black women. https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2021/07/two-cis-black-women-banned-olympics-natural-testosterone-levels/
https://www.aclu.org/news/racial-justice/the-international-olympic-committee-is-failing-black-women
I have lower T than them btw so as a trans woman I’d actually be fine, and probably at a disadvantage to them
These are the latest rules if I’m not wrong:
https://www.iaaf.org/news/press-release/eligibility-regulations-for-female-classifica
The limit is reducing to 5 nmol/L to enter.
I have 0.5 nmol/L as a trans woman and have had this level for 10 years since my teens, because I’m trans and suppressing T and raising E is literally what medical transition is.
I’d likely have lower strength as a result and would not be able to win, no matter how much I trained.
https://academic.oup.com/jes/article/5/Supplement_1/A792/6241278
The reason Usain Bolt wins the run is because he’s got long legs, someone else could train all their life - and they will never win if they don’t have a bigger advantage.
I want to make this bit crystal clear:
I don’t really give a shit about sports.
If you’d like to just ban all trans people completely and fully then please do so.
But the right-wing think-tanks behind it won’t do any such thing, because then their golden goose - the wedge issue that awakens the bloodlust in the average cis person - kicking a thing in a thing - is what they’re using as a stick to beat trans people with and take our rights to healthcare (this includes minors btw) etc.
I think the truth of the matter is that trans women are seen as just blokes in wigs by the vast majority of cis people and because of weird societal shit that makes it bad, and the reality that human bodies are fairly malleable and vague is hard or undesirable to accept, therefore the easiest solution is to hate trannies, if possible while maintaining the pretense of a moral high ground ala “fairness in sports” despite the fact it’s almost a comtradiction in terms.
Removed by mod
The eleven paragraphs are a pretty light explanation all in all, but that’s life, shit’s pretty complicated.
Roadblocks? What are you even on about?
Odd that you would focus on testosterone levels instead of muscle mass. It’s certainly true that trans women have testosterone levels comparable with cis women, and also true that they would lose some amount of muscle mass due to that. However, they still retain more muscle than a cis woman would have, in general.
I think it’s legitimate to ask if that’s fair.
Ah, because testosterone levels hugely influence muscle mass and resultant strength and performance. The longest study on the matter actually ended up with trans women having on average LESS muscle strength than cis women.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8090355/
I don’t actually give a single shit about sports btw.
But this is a good example, this issue brings out the inherent bloodthirst many cis have towards trans people.
I suspect that this study should be repeated on the athlete subpopulations, because I imagine many trans women are actively trying to not be muscular in order to aid transitioning, which is a different goal from those participating in athletics.
…bloodthirst?? Because somebody disagreed with you? How about you calm down instead of being such an extremist. And no, your single study with like 8 people in each group is not more convincing than all of the other studies that you’re deliberately choosing to ignore.
deleted by creator
Removed by mod
How about you listen to trans women rather than tell someone to “calm down” when addressing one of the main transphobic talking points? And doing so with a ton of evidence and personal experience? Asshole.
Calm down. And no, there has not been a “ton” of evidence. So far I’ve seen a grand total of one actual study, and it’s a very small one.
Telling someone to calm down twice is like the definition of trolling lmao
Are you admitting that you’re the same person on two accounts? That’s really pathetic you know. Can’t your ideas stand on their own?
No I just have bad grammar lol why does everyone on this website think people are making second accounts, it’s happened so many times and I’ve only been here a couple days
Real talk though what was bloodthirsty about that comment?
I am not the person who said bloodthirsty, but this whole thread is pretty intense. If you’re not trans maybe it’s hard to see, but people get disproportionately worked up about this topic when they otherwise don’t give a shit about women’s sports, and most female athletes aren’t worried about it. It’s cringe that people are so invested in kicking trans women out of sports.
I really don’t know enough about who has when an advantage, but when that whole drama broke out about that swimmer who won by a landslide that used to be a man, i was browsing some trans/lgbtq boards. Most of them said that it’s more than fair, because men have denser bones and a lot of convincing arguments for her. But then it had me thinking, why are men so dominant in swinning then? (I assume they are, i think professional sports are pretty pointless and shit)
With all that being said, i feel like if you go through a sex change, which should he the most important and dearest thing one could ever do, maybe it’s time to just drop a silly sport for it. Because one of these things is surely more important than the other.
Before HRT, she was a top ranked men’s swimmer. After hrt, on the men’s, she dropped into the 400s. When she had been on HRT long enough to compete as a woman, she was a top ranked women’s swimmer, but was still beaten by several cis women. What’s the issue, exactly?
There isn’t one and they know it.
HowWho are we talking about?Edit: autocorrect
I can’t parse this sentence as written. I predict that you actually meant, “Who are we talking about?”, and to answer that, Lia Thomas, the trans swimmer who the right focused on as their primary hate figure with respect to their campaign against trans people being allowed to exist.
Thank you. I’ve corrected my question, and yes, I meant “who.”
Man, the right sucks.
When you transition, you often lose everything. Family, friends, work, support networks. You name it, every single one of them is impacted, even if they’re not lost completely.
It’s not a “silly sport” it’s community, which can be life saving if you’ve lost most of the rest of it…
Removed by mod
Ah the classic “fight bigotry with bigotry” approach. Let me know how your hate is working out for you.
Incidentally also, Lia Thomas set a school record. Not a state record, not a national record, not a world record. Her performance just was not that out of line than one would expect from any other woman.
Believe me when I say that I support my LGBTQ+ peeps.
And I concede that I don’t know much about the subject of trans people in sports and physical capabilities.
But in my view, trans women have higher probability to be stronger than most cis female athletes. I’m not saying it happens all the time. But it happens. There is a reason there are competition categories. Even in the same gender, for example, in boxing, there are weight divisions.
So, I don’t know what the solution is. Measure the amount of strength and categorize accordingly? Having an extra “transgender” category? I tell you - I would watch this! Not in a morbid way, but a genuine one, no different from watching women’s soccer or men’s tennis, for example.
If they are on hormone blockers and HRT, they honestly do not have a higher probability. That said, it would be pretty fucking invasive to make sure they are taking those consistently.
But then, what’s the solution? If an athlete says “hm, I’ll stop taking this hormone to have a competitive advantage over everyone else,” how’s that different from doing the opposite? (e.g. taking hormones.)
I really don’t have answers to these questions. It’s an important topic, though.
I don’t have a solution and I doubt a perfect one exists but did want to add in info to make sure people are not under the assumption that people on HRT have done support of significant advantage.
For me to have an informed solution, I would have to know how long it takes for muscle to come back once HRT is stopped, what the side effects are of starting and stopping HRT repeatedly, and probably a host of other questions that I do not have the answer to. Trans people are not quick to simply stop taking their hormones and hormone blockers. Considering almost all of them went through years of struggle to transition, stopping them destroys years of progress and some of that can be irreversible. I do recognize that money can convince some people although there is not a ton of money in women’s sports.
The Olympic Committee used to test testosterone levels but had to shelve that because, while rare, cis women occasionally have higher testosterone than the threshold that was set. So they went back to inspecting genitals for a while. They could go back to testosterone level testing for trans women but that is a little discriminatory since it targets them. I don’t have a perfect solution and I’m not sure one exists that isn’t going to piss at least one group off.
It is indeed a complicated subject.
Thank you for your insight.
Decades ago, when leg prosthetics started to improve to the point that amputees could beat non-amputees in races, I heard people say that athletes would chop off their legs to get prosthetics installed and dominate the competition. Obviously that has failed to happen, despite prosthetics getting better all the time.
In general, trans people don’t stop taking their meds for the same reason runners don’t chop off their legs even if it could theoretically give them an edge.
I’m sorry. I don’t think this is a good analogy. (And I didn’t downvote you.)
For your analogy to work, it has to be the other way around: Abled-body athletes wanting to participate in paralympics competitions and therefore they would “disable” themselves to do so.
Then, some of those athletes would say “you know what, perhaps I could still use one leg against these guys who have no legs from the waist down.”
I’m on Blahaj, I don’t see downvotes and don’t particularly care if people downvote me. Especially if it’s because they’re mad that I do not compromise on trans inclusivity in sports and don’t entertain paranoid fantasies about trans athletes sabotaging their own medical care to allegedly get an edge in sports—something that has not happened. There simply are not many elite trans athletes and those that exist usually perform at a level below their cis competitors. Evidence: trans people have been eligible to compete in the Olympics since the 2000s, and it took until 2021 for a trans person to qualify.
IMO the analogy works when you come at it from the perspective of the hypothetical trans athlete in question. HRT isn’t a placebo, it has real effects and a lot of those effects vanish when you stop taking it. For a trans person that is on HRT for dysphoria, you are going to get all the negative effects of dysphoria anywhere within 24 hours to a week of stopping HRT, which is FAR too short a time for someone’s natal gonads (assuming they even still have them) to come back online and get your hormones back to a level that isn’t “currently in menopause.” It is going to take even more time after that (months, if not years) to get anything that could be considered an advantage. All while suffering from dysphoria.
It sucks. Nobody is going to do it for the same reason an athlete won’t cut off their fucking legs: it’s their body that they have to live in.
Indeed. I didn’t want to suggest that that scenario was real - just a thought experiment. But of course you have a point. Thanks for the insight.
No, I don’t believe you.
Because you literally admitted that you don’t know much about this topic, but still came out to argue for the exclusion of one of the most marginalised parts of the LGBTQ community.
Your understanding is one that comes from the talking points of people trying to use sports as a wedge tactic to further ostracise trans folk, and you completely disregard or simply fail to look for the experiences of trans people and the impact these exclusions have on them.
So if you genuinely do support LGBTQ folk, and that sentence wasn’t just a salve for your own conscience, it might be time to stop stepping on the people you claim to support. If you don’t know enough to form a supportive opinion, that’s fine, but stop adding to the voices trying to pull us down…
Friend, I understand your struggle. I’m also part of a marginalized group. I’ll stand schooled and say that I must inform myself more, sure. But don’t characterize me as someone who is trying to put you down.
You’re speaking in absolutes, though. To “completely disregard or fail to look for the experiences of trans people” would mean to say bullshit like “I fail to see how they’re suffering for not being women because trans women are NOT women” - that is to completely disregard it, like you put it. And friend, you don’t know how many heated discussions I’ve had with people, even childhood friends, to defend trans rights, simply because it’s the natural and right thing to do.
So, I’m here to discuss, to be taught, to learn, to gather tools and help to continue defending everyone’s rights, yours and mine.
I’m not talking about excluding anyone. I’m discussing different options that allow inclusion. Are they right or wrong? I don’t know, that’s why I’m asking! But again, don’t accuse me of doing something I’m not doing.
Can you share your knowledge now?
Don’t characterise you as someone trying to put me down?
You’re quite literally arguing to take away my rights from a position of self confessed ignorance.
And when called on it, you ignored literally everything I said to highlight how the biggest problem that needs addressing is about the way you’re being treated.
If you were here to learn, you’d be asking questions, and you’d be listening to what I, a sports playing trans woman has to say. But you’re not asking questions, you’re arguing, and volunteering to exclude folk like me, without even knowing enough to understand why, let alone the impact it has.
Trans people have no track record of consistently out performing cis people in any sport at any level. Literally every example you can think of is a misrepresentation by a media more interested in controversy than fact. Those are your facts.
If your response to that is to argue about it so as to validate the position you’ve already staked out, rather than listening, asking more questions, or simply backing off, then you know what you can do with your support. People calling themselves allies but then arguing to take away our rights hurt more than bigots ever can…
Girl, you’re just too angry to see beyond what you want to see. I’m a good listener, and I know I’m not perfect. Being “hurt” and telling me to “show your support up yours” because we’re not 100% aligned just tells me that you and I could not be friends in real life - not that you care. But that’s okay. Plenty of other friends more open to educate me out there, and I’ll gladly stand corrected before them without being called “worse than a bigot” without knowing my full story (the irony.)
Again, you’ve acknowledged literally nothing that I’ve said, to focus on how you are the hard done by one.
You also mispresented me. I didn’t say you were worse than a bigot, I said people like you hurt more than bigots do. A bigot can’t let me down, because all they know is hate. But when the people that are meant to be allies call for you to lose rights? It hits harder than bigots do.
I could give a shit whether we would get on in real life. Us getting on should have nothing to do with your support. What I care about is that you’re arguing for exclusion of trans folk. The fact that your support relies on education from trans folk that you perceive as more reasonable simply means that your support is conditional. And conditional support isn’t really support
I disagree with you when you say you didn’t imply that I was worse than a bigot. Because if bigots hurt on purpose, and I hurt more than bigots, then what does that make me? “I’m not saying you’re a killer, I’m just saying that your actions murder people.” Semantics.
What should I acknowledge? That I am arguing for the exclusion of trans people? Did I say “hey, trans folks must be banned because of this or that”? I stated my views and I said I’m open to being schooled. But you’re acting like when Trump says “that was a nasty question” to reporters who ask questions, instead of freaking answering the question. Or what did I miss?
And hopefully you’ll hear out my reasons when I say this, but yes my support for trans folks is conditional, just like with the support I give to everyone else. Here is why: I support the inclusion of gay people. But some gay people think that trans people are not part of the community (TERFs, they are called?) So my support ends there. If someone says “I can’t believe your support for gay rights is conditional” I’ll just tell them to pound sand - because I won’t tolerate anybody who tells me that trans people should not exist, not even gay people.
So you have my full support. But that supports ends where the right of others to peacefully co-exist is threatened. If you don’t think this is okay, that’s your problem.
Your inclusion ends where others are excluded. I think cis women may be excluded from a sport if some trans folks participate in it. Where are their rights? That’s the argument. Let’s discuss. Is that bigotry? Absolutely not. Is it ignorance? Possibly! Am I wrong? Tell me so without berating me! Others have done the same and provided me with study materials in this very thread, and I’ve been reading.
That’s conditional support for their ideas, not for their rights.
My point wasn’t that your support for the ideas of trans folk is condition. My point was that your support for our rights is conditional, based on your own personal assessment of whether we deserve some particular rights that everyone else has…
This is an example of what I’m talking about. “I want to exclude the super vulnerable people from sports, so that the more privileged, and less vulnerable folk don’t feel uncomfortable”.
It’s text book bigotry… You don’t mean it to be bigotry, because your position isn’t shaped from hate. But it still hurts vulnerable folk, and empowers the people who do hate us. All whilst you smile and tell us that you support us, and worst of all, genuinely believe it…
And yet here you are, still arguing for our exclusion… Even if you haven’t read it yet, and may change your mind in the future, the fact that you’re willing to frame exclusion of trans folk as acceptable until convinced otherwise should make you question your biases. It doubt it will, but it should…
Given this belief, is there a reason trans women have never taken Olympic medals despite having nearly 20 years to do so? That would seem to be evidence against that perspective. If any trans women are more capable at sport than cis women shouldn’t at least one have been world class?
Theres a trans female weightlifter Laurel Hubbard who made it to the Olympics in 2020. Passed every Olympic requirement for trans women to compete. Big hubbub about biological advantage and all that from the critics. She was in the competition one would most expect dominance from someone assigned male at birth. She had three lifts. She failed three lifts. Placed last in her group. So much for that.
Yup. Quietly dismissed by so-called “skeptics” tho
How many trans women compete in olympic sports in women’s categories? Genuine question.
Really very few, I think it’s only in the last few years that any have qualified. Which, again, is a pretty solid argument against, “Trans women are driving cis women out of sport!”.
That’s a good point, but for the sake of the argument, can trans women compete in women’s Olympic sports? As in, are they really allowed? Given your previous comment, I’m going to say yes, but I’d like to be sure…
Yes, since the early 2000s.
Thanks. Today I learned.
They are allowed. As [email protected] pointed out, Laurel Hubbard competed in weight lifting and failed all three lifts and placed last in her category. She was expected to medal.
Thanks. Good to know.
On the other hand, if you put a transman with the women, he will have a clear advantage and it wouldn’t be fair.
Anything you say followed by “but” is completely meaningless, know that all the “LGBTQ+ peeps” here you claim to support now know to avoid you like the plague
Jesus. What a weak, generalizing argument.
You’re going to make me go full godwin. Imagine saying “I support my Jewish friends and what happened to them at the Holocaust was heinous. But what Israel is doing to Gazans is inexcusable” then someone telling you “anything after the ‘but’ is meaningless, and all the Jewish community here will avoid you like the plague.”
I just hope you’re a troll.
I guess the hypocrisy is lost on you. Frankly I’m inclined to believe you’re a right wing troll trying to make trans people look bad at this point.
I was with you until that last part lol. I’m not ready for a war.
But yeah, no evidence will persuade people. They have super intense beliefs about trans people because they saw something on Fox News or their social media feed. Confirmation bias and whatnot
It’s not hard to find evidence to support the skepticism about trans women in sports:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33648944/
I’m curious what evidence you’re talking about?
Yeah. I went from being a fairly progressive trans liberationist to a bit more conservative transmedicalist arguing that sports and healthcare are issues best settled by science and attempt to focus on dysphoria and the physical literal aspects of everything but even that does not work.
No matter how much evidence cis people simply do not believe you, no matter what you say: trans women = bio men or maybe have even more testosterone and thus muscle mass, no matter what they think everyone transitioned because trauma or some psychological social bullshit they made up in their stupid fucking battle of the sexes.
They mostly are either too evil, or too stupid to understand us and I don’t really give a shit which is which anymore. It’s not always true, but it’s a safe assumption.
And yeah I don’t want a war either ofc, but I see no other end to society in general as it is now.
We need a fucking trans-ethnostate.
You have become what you hate, congrats on your bigotry.
If you don’t understand why a trans person would need to assume that cis people don’t understand trans people, you’re really just proving the point
Removed by mod
It’s obvious who has won here. You have evolved from someone who didn’t want to be mindlessly hated to someone who is obsessed with mindlessly hating others. You have 100% switched teams because they beat you into it, and you lacked the strength to resist them. Get back to who you once were, it was undoubtedly much better than this vile bigot you’ve become. It’s sad to see people collapse onto the other team, I hope you manage to make it back.
LMAO they took down my meme comment
Why the new account? Did you get banned for being a vicious bigot on your last one?
It won’t help. Bigotry doesn’t get better for separation, it gets worse. People need exposure to the other, to see that trans people aren’t some kind of media trope monster, just people. Being an out trans person is one of the best things that people who have passing privilege can do, to reduce the stigma of being trans in society and remove trans people from the scary caricature the media loves to sell.