Transgender and sports

[TheGoldStandard]

Me (an average male basketball player) playing against the best female basketball players in high school and jr high and dominating them is absolutely true. They had no chance against me.
As for the average male not being similar to the average female in physical nature google agrees with me. Average male is 5 feet 9 inches and 197 lbs. Average female is 5 feet 4 inches and 170 lbs. Those height and weight disparties would never be allowed to box or wrestle or compete in mma against each other for a reason. That doesn't take into account the other differences such as coordination, leaping ability, strength, speed, etc that the average male is also superior in comparison to the average female.

Yes, average male athletes are much bigger than average female athletes. No question.

Same reason we have size restrictions in pee wee football as kids at that stage have large physique differences at that stage. Larger kids are line only to protect the smaller players.

The trans women that are winning women's competitions would not be competing at near the level if they competed against biological males in the majority of instances (i.e. the trans weightlifter in the olympics would be leaps and bounds below the mens minimum qualifier). I'm not even sure how someone can argue against this with a straight face.

By middle school and high school it begins to even out, and tryouts tend to weed out the less athletic folks, at least in the bigger more competitive schools.

And as competition increases (college then NBA/WNBA using bball as any example) the top athletes rise up. WNBA women simply cannot compete against NBA men physically. There is a reason only one woman was ever drafted in the NBA (by the Jazz) but never played.

These same characteristics flow through to lower levels of competition.

If It becomes the societal norm for biological males identifying as females to compete in women's sports, on average these trans athletes will have a physiological advantage over cisgender females, and you'll see it at an even greater rate.

Right now I'd guess many trans athletes play in their biological sport for many reasons, societal pressure and discrimination being a key driver.

I'm not sure who is pressing a narrative here that a trans person is trying to fool anyone. I think they are dealing with a difficult phsiological/psychological issue where their brain and body don't jive. That does not mean cisgender females should be penalized or lose out on opportunities like scholarships, etc.



We all know the suicide rate for trans people is sky high no matter how much support they have (I can't imagine what I'd feel like if I couldn't indentify with my biological gender). Whatever side someone is one, we should all agree that this group needs love and support, even if many disagree how that support should be supplied. I think we can be respectful of everyone's rights without enhancing or taking away rights of others.

That said, I don't think cisgender women athletes should necessarily lose out on potential opportunities whether it is playing time, scholarships, etc. And ultimately, they should decide, not me.

An open division makes more sense to me.

 

[One Brow]

Exactly. because the average male is similar to the average male in physical nature. The average female is similar to the average female in physical nature. But the average female isn't similar to the average male in physical nature. That is the reason for the seperation imo. I was a decent basketball player but not good enough to play at the college level (maybe a salt lake community or something). I played basketball against the female basketball team members in high school and jr high. The very best females I played against were WAY worse than I was. I could beat them with ease. And I wasn't even that good.

However, if there were a female player as good as you (I likely played with a couple back in the day), they would be allowed on the girl's team anyhow, right?

 

[One Brow]

By middle school and high school it begins to even out, and tryouts tend to weed out the less athletic folks, at least in the bigger more competitive schools.

You just contradicted yourself. Size differences and athleticism do not tend to even out, they become more pronounced as kids mature. The reason it gets handled differently is that pee-wee leagues and high school leagues have different goals for their athletics programs and their athletes.

If It becomes the societal norm for biological males identifying as females to compete in women's sports, on average these trans athletes will have a physiological advantage over cisgender females, and you'll see it at an even greater rate.

You do realize that this physiological advantage fades over time as the transition proceeds, right?

That does not mean cisgender females should be penalized or lose out on opportunities like scholarships, etc.

Not qualifying for an athletic scholarship is not a penalty, and getting an athletic scholarship is not a right. Millions of girls already don't get that opportunity. This position is only supportable if you take the position that trans women are not real women, and therefore need to be excluded from this particular woman's space. Is that your position?

I have a trans family member, and I fully support them. We all know the suicide rate for trans people is sky high no matter how much support they have (I can't imagine what I'd feel like if I couldn't indentify with my biological gender). Whatever side someone is one, we should all agree that this group needs love and support, even if many disagree how that support should be supplied. I think we can be respectful of everyone's rights without enhancing or taking away rights of others.

That said, I don't think cisgender women athletes should necessarily lose out on potential opportunities whether it is playing time, scholarships, etc. And ultimately, they should decide, not me.

All cisgender women, or just those are are marginally good enough that they can qualify for a scholarship by the exclusion of trans women?

 

[Archie Moses]

This is a difficult one for me. Not really so much in Junior High and High School, as I think as taxpayers for public education we shouldn't view sports at that level as a means of determining who the most superior specimen is at a given sporting activity, but at that level we should be teaching sportsmanship, hard work, working towards a goal, dealing with defeat, being a good winner, etc..

But I'm going to try to stay out of the weeds on this, so I'm not going to get super detailed on what kind of criteria might be appropriate. As someone who never participated in high school level team sports and who has never been a parent of a person who has, I am not very qualified to address specifics on the issue.

What I will talk about is the continuing effort to delegitimize the sincerity of transgender people. This idea that they are playing a trick on us and we have to be smart enough not to fall for it.

I have made lengthy posts about this in the past and those threads ultimately got closed. But this is the essence of the transgender issue in the U.S., it is that people think that transgender people are lying about who they are. It is automatically denied by anti-trans people when put in that context, but they continue to betray the truth. They will always fall back into the idea that transgender identity is a lie, it is illegitimate and that it is important to not be fooled by it. It is the root of almost every anti-trans argument I have ever seen. It is why anti-trans people smugly mis-gender the trans people they are talking about, because they are proving to their fellow anti-trans friends that they will not be fooled and that they are not afraid to say so.

If public school sports are about teaching, in any capacity at all, then within *reason, transgender people should be allowed to play in the sport as the gender they identify as. At that level it should not matter at all if one athletic student is faster, scores higher, or whatever else. Safety should be considered, which is true regardless of transgender athletes.

I don't think college level sports should be considered amature sports or that the athletes should be considered "student athletes." At that level it is a business, money is being made and athletes are maneuvering for lucrative opportunities, not to mention scholarships. I think at that level there should be some kind of standards that account for testosterone levels of transgender athletes and other relevant factors that I'm not really qualified to get into specifics of. I think people using transgender identity specifically for sporting opportunities is EXTREMELY unlikely (anyone who wants me to go on about that aspect, just ask and I'll likely post 500 words about how I feel about that) but I care enough about transgender rights that I'm more than willing to take this issue away from the anti-trans community by placing restrictions on some transgender athletes so that the bigots can STFU unless they want to fully admit their hate and malice towards the trans community in general.

Love you, my man.

 

[Gameface]

Me (an average male basketball player) playing against the best female basketball players in high school and jr high and dominating them is absolutely true. They had no chance against me.
As for the average male not being similar to the average female in physical nature google agrees with me. Average male is 5 feet 9 inches and 197 lbs. Average female is 5 feet 4 inches and 170 lbs. Those height and weight disparties would never be allowed to box or wrestle or compete in mma against each other for a reason. That doesn't take into account the other differences such as coordination, leaping ability, strength, speed, etc that the average male is also superior in comparison to the average female.

There is so much overlap in school age kids where there are males that would hardly be competitive on the female teams and some females that could reasonably compete on a male team. Almost no one is "average" in reality.

But that's not even the important part of what you're saying. You are making a mistaken assumption that a transgender female is simply a male who makes a verbal declaration that they are female and therefore wish to play on the female teams. I'm going to again avoid getting into how absolutely unlikely it is that a person would publicly identify as a female simply so that they could participate in female sports and focus on something that I think you might be missing... Testosterone. No, I'm not saying you're low on testosterone. But almost all transgender females are on testosterone blockers. That's why I said "within reason*" in an earlier post. Because I think there should be some length of time from when a transgender female begins taking HRTs (testosterone blockers included for transgender females) and when they can start participating in sports as a female. I don't know what other criteria should, could or might be considered, and that's why I left the "reasonable*" part vauge.

The average male to female transgender person who has been on HRT medication is not just a male dressed up as a female. That transgender female would not be anything close to the average male in physical strength even if they were the prototypical "average" male previously.

And I love you man, but this again is an argument from the position that transgender females are lying about who they are. That in reality they are just males dressed up as females.

There is a very real difference between someone in drag and someone who is transgender.

 

[Gameface]

Yes, average male athletes are much bigger than average female athletes. No question.

Same reason we have size restrictions in pee wee football as kids at that stage have large physique differences at that stage. Larger kids are line only to protect the smaller players.

The trans women that are winning women's competitions would not be competing at near the level if they competed against biological males in the majority of instances (i.e. the trans weightlifter in the olympics would be leaps and bounds below the mens minimum qualifier). I'm not even sure how someone can argue against this with a straight face.

By middle school and high school it begins to even out, and tryouts tend to weed out the less athletic folks, at least in the bigger more competitive schools.

And as competition increases (college then NBA/WNBA using bball as any example) the top athletes rise up. WNBA women simply cannot compete against NBA men physically. There is a reason only one woman was ever drafted in the NBA (by the Jazz) but never played.

These same characteristics flow through to lower levels of competition.

If It becomes the societal norm for biological males identifying as females to compete in women's sports, on average these trans athletes will have a physiological advantage over cisgender females, and you'll see it at an even greater rate.

Right now I'd guess many trans athletes play in their biological sport for many reasons, societal pressure and discrimination being a key driver.

I'm not sure who is pressing a narrative here that a trans person is trying to fool anyone. I think they are dealing with a difficult phsiological/psychological issue where their brain and body don't jive. That does not mean cisgender females should be penalized or lose out on opportunities like scholarships, etc.



I have a trans family member, and I fully support them. We all know the suicide rate for trans people is sky high no matter how much support they have (I can't imagine what I'd feel like if I couldn't indentify with my biological gender). Whatever side someone is one, we should all agree that this group needs love and support, even if many disagree how that support should be supplied. I think we can be respectful of everyone's rights without enhancing or taking away rights of others.

That said, I don't think cisgender women athletes should necessarily lose out on potential opportunities whether it is playing time, scholarships, etc. And ultimately, they should decide, not me.

An open division makes more sense to me.

I largely agree with you. I think at the college level and olympics there should be much stricter guidelines for who can compete as a female or a male. There is real financial incentive at this point (and I think college athletes should be paid, which is a different topic, but whatever). Also people are setting "world records" and or records for what a human female or a human male has been able to accomplish in that specific event.

As I said in one of my earlier posts, I want to take this wedge away from the anti-trans crowd and concede the issue at those levels for the sake of the trans community at large, which as far as I have seen has a very below average interest in sports. These very few trans athletes who are competing at these high levels are giving anti-trans people a winning argument for being anti-trans and I want to take this issue away from them.

Oh and I'm not "pressing the narrative that trans people are trying to fool anyone." But I sure the **** do see it in almost every anti-trans persons arguments, just not in so many words. It is there and it is the basic premise of most anti-trans hate. To be clear, I'm NOT calling people who don't want trans people to compete in sports anti-trans. I think this is a very difficult issue. I find it one that is very difficult to be confident in my position on.

 

[gandalfe]

Huh. I had not heard about this.

Bloomberg - Are you a robot?

 

[Gameface]

Huh. I had not heard about this.

Bloomberg - Are you a robot?

Well **** everything I've said in this thread so far,.

I honestly think this is bad for the wider transgender community. This is not the way to gain acceptance, not at all.

 

[One Brow]

Huh. I had not heard about this.

Bloomberg - Are you a robot?

People who were AFAB were being denied participation in female sports because of a high testosterone level. It's not like there is a male testosterone level and a female level; there is overlap in the spread that two sexes have.

It's not like the IOC is opening the doors to any person saying they are transgender. One of the 10 points in the document emphasizes the need for fairness, including not allowing athletes to compete when they have a disproportionate advantage or when they are not living the gender they wish to compete as.

It's better to read the actual guidelines than rely on the news summary.

 

[TheGoldStandard]

You just contradicted yourself. Size differences and athleticism do not tend to even out, they become more pronounced as kids mature. The reason it gets handled differently is that pee-wee leagues and high school leagues have different goals for their athletics programs and their athletes.


You do realize that this physiological advantage fades over time as the transition proceeds, right?


Not qualifying for an athletic scholarship is not a penalty, and getting an athletic scholarship is not a right. Millions of girls already don't get that opportunity. This position is only supportable if you take the position that trans women are not real women, and therefore need to be excluded from this particular woman's space. Is that your position?


All cisgender women, or just those are are marginally good enough that they can qualify for a scholarship by the exclusion of trans women?

I didn't contradict myself, athleticism is more than strength. It is agility, coordination, etc. It is SO much more than testosterone. Multiple studies show that men tend to have a greater ability for motor skills such as aiming, catching, and throwing, whereas women were better in tasks where precision and fine hand ability are needed. Also, biological males are taller, have bigger hands, and are less prone to certain injuries. Height, hand size, and gross motor skills don't change as part of a transition, so no, you are wrong.

Tell the cisgender females that they aren't penalized be not getting a scholarship, spot on the team, etc. If it is not a right, then why are you pushing for a trans female to have something that is not a right? Odd.

And I'm not sure what you mean by "real woman". I have a trans nephew, and I consider him to be a man. What is a "real man?" A transwoman is not a cisgender woman. Do you disagree?

 

[One Brow]

I didn't contradict myself, athleticism is more than strength. It is agility, coordination, etc. It is SO much more than testosterone. Multiple studies show that men tend to have a greater ability for motor skills such as aiming, catching, and throwing, whereas women were better in tasks where precision and fine hand ability are needed. Also, biological males are taller, have bigger hands, and are less prone to certain injuries. Height, hand size, and gross motor skills don't change as part of a transition, so no, you are wrong.

None of that remotely touches upon my objection to your claim that athletic ability tends to even out in middle school and high school, and it's quite clear the opposite happens. Athletic ability differentiates even more strongly, not only between assigned sexes but also within assigned sexes.

Tell the cisgender females that they aren't penalized be not getting a scholarship, spot on the team, etc.

OK. To whom would you like me to say this? The putatively lower-tier Division I athlete who now has to take a scholarship in Division II? The putatively lower-tier Division II athlete who now has to take a partial scholarship in Division III? The Division III athlete who was pushed out?

If this is about finding the best AFAB athlete, those athletes will still be in Division I. If this is about opportunities for a disadvantaged group (women), can you say that trans women are less disadvantaged than cis women and keep a straight face? If it's neither of these, then what is the core issue, really?

If it is not a right, then why are you pushing for a trans female to have something that is not a right? Odd.

My position has been pretty clear that I am pushing for allowing sport organizations to make their own rules. For example, in comment #140 in this thread, in response to one of your comments, and before that in #128. You're smart enough to understand that positions don't always have to be black-or-white. Why do you think you are having trouble digesting my position on this issue? Why do you object if some organization wants to allow trans women to compete as women?

And I'm not sure what you mean by "real woman". I have a trans nephew, and I consider him to be a man. What is a "real man?" A transwoman is not a cisgender woman. Do you disagree?

I was trying to understand the reasoning behind your position. I consider both trans women and cis women to be women, period, and therefore both are real women. Do you disagree?

 

[One Brow]

We'll have to agree to disagree. Having coached pee wee through high school football, and played 3 sports from a young age and basketball in college, while athleticism as one ages, it normalizes. We make "xmen" or put X on the biggest kids in pee wee, and either make them play D or not touch the ball on O. Simply because they are too big, strong and athletic compared to the other kids. The most athletic kids at this age tend to stay more athletic than their peers, but the gap is not as large. We see it time and again with out kids, which is why we focus on building skills and not relying on athleticism. I'm assuming you didn't play organized sports from middle through high school, or you would have seen the same thing.

As a matter of fact, I did play sports as a kid and in high school. The less athletic kids in the high school couldn't have even made the high school team, and if they had been offered a spot anyhow, they would have flattened by the better athletes even more than they were at age 8. It makes me wonder if you so much as ever walked down a high school hallway as an adult, your position here reeks of athletic privilege.

Height chart for boys

Note the standard deviation in height rises from 5.6480cm at age 8 to 7.7717cm at age 16. Do you really think other sorts of gaps narrow, and height is the only one where the SD increases?

But this is all veering of the point. A biological male's physiology provides an unfair advantage in many sports, even if that person makes a determination they are female and takes estrogen or blocks testosterone.

In athletics of all sorts, people with certain body types/features haver advantages over people with other types/features (naturally, the type/feature can vary based on the sport). Sports is inherently unfair, physically.

A biological males physical makeup, will provide advantages due to length, hand size and body make up in many sports. So I agree, they are real women, but women that had a distinct advantage over their cisgender counterparts that if a biological female had the same advantages of similar growth hormone and testosterone for years, they'd likely be banned from competition.

Testosterone regulations in women's athletics - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

So far, only the IOC/IAAF and the Indian government seem to be restricting athletes based on testosterone levels, and the former is reconsidering those restrictions. Even then, the restriction are only for runners at 400m to 1 mile. I admit I don't know nearly enough about running to understand why hand size matters, could you explain that?

So, it seems that at the NCAA and lower levels, there is no testosterone limit. Perhaps you have other information.

Imagine a dominant male swimmer that transitions. They are going to have an unfair advantage that derived from their biological makeup.

Which advantage they will lose as the hormone treatment progresses. I'm more than happy to let the sports bodies decide how much progression is needed.

As to your last point, I consider cis and trans women to be women, but they are different, which is why we have the terms cis and trans. I assume you are married, but assume you were single, since you consider cis women and trans women to be "women, period" would you date and have intercourse with a trans woman?

I don't know. I recognize that I have some transphobia in me. I'm not proud of it.