Transgender MEGATHREAD

[Razgovory]

In American English, we sometimes say that a winning athlete or team "wanted it more".  If a highschool kid lops off his own dick so he can win a plastic trophy, then I think we should give it to him.  He very clearly wanted it more.

[Josquius]

Transgender bathrooms, or sports is fine.  I honestly don't see what the big deal is. 

You can't see the big deal wiht a physical men competing against women because he is classified as such by his external appearance?

Even with teens, I'm not sure I'd go along with it.  Sports practionners derive a great deal of mental boost from their competitions.  If they constantly lose, we risk creating other self-esteem problems in them.  That is one of the reason why we have female sports, so all players have equal opportunity.  The best female hockey players could never compete with the NHLers. 

There's no problem for younger kids, but once puberty arrives, I see a huge problem of fairness.  If a young girl wants to play her favorite team sports with boys, that's her choice.  But if girls play in their own league they shouldn't be forced to play against teenage boys much bigger and much stronger than they are.

That's a fake quote. What are you playing at?

On sports I'd generally go with trans rights but a sweeping "everything is OK" is just as wrong as a sweeping "ban them all"

[Barrister]

In American English, we sometimes say that a winning athlete or team "wanted it more".  If a highschool kid lops off his own dick so he can win a plastic trophy, then I think we should give it to him.  He very clearly wanted it more.

A trans woman doesn't need to 'lop off their own dick' in order to be a trans woman.  They probably don't even need to take female hormones to be a trans woman.

[viper37]

Transgender bathrooms, or sports is fine.  I honestly don't see what the big deal is. 

You can't see the big deal wiht a physical men competing against women because he is classified as such by his external appearance?

Even with teens, I'm not sure I'd go along with it.  Sports practionners derive a great deal of mental boost from their competitions.  If they constantly lose, we risk creating other self-esteem problems in them.  That is one of the reason why we have female sports, so all players have equal opportunity.  The best female hockey players could never compete with the NHLers. 

There's no problem for younger kids, but once puberty arrives, I see a huge problem of fairness.  If a young girl wants to play her favorite team sports with boys, that's her choice.  But if girls play in their own league they shouldn't be forced to play against teenage boys much bigger and much stronger than they are.

That's a fake quote. What are you playing at?

[/quote[
Duh! that was Raz, sorry!

[viper37]

In American English, we sometimes say that a winning athlete or team "wanted it more".  If a highschool kid lops off his own dick so he can win a plastic trophy, then I think we should give it to him.  He very clearly wanted it more.

All they need to do is dress like a girl and claim they are female.

[DontSayBanana]

Transgender bathrooms, or sports is fine.  I honestly don't see what the big deal is.

You can't see the big deal wiht a physical men competing against women because he is classified as such by his external appearance?

Even with teens, I'm not sure I'd go along with it.  Sports practionners derive a great deal of mental boost from their competitions.  If they constantly lose, we risk creating other self-esteem problems in them.  That is one of the reason why we have female sports, so all players have equal opportunity.  The best female hockey players could never compete with the NHLers. 

There's no problem for younger kids, but once puberty arrives, I see a huge problem of fairness.  If a young girl wants to play her favorite team sports with boys, that's her choice.  But if girls play in their own league they shouldn't be forced to play against teenage boys much bigger and much stronger than they are.

Bull. You're assuming males are automatically bigger and stronger than females, and even if we were to take that as a given, that problem could be sidestepped with something like weight classes in wrestling. I wouldn't want to take a tackle from either Venus or Serena Williams, and they're tennis players, not NFL linebackers. Shoot, you should see the girls that made it through tryouts for my high school's field hockey team- half of them could pretty easily bowl the football team right over. Point being, declaring yourself as transitioning MTF to play against women isn't the "easy button" that you and some others are making it out to be.

[DGuller]

  Males in top levels of sport are automatically bigger and stronger than females.  Maybe you wouldn't want to take a tackle from Venus or Serena Williams, but you're not playing tennis at the top level.  Males playing tennis at the top level would have no problem beating Serena.  Males at a #200 level would have no problem beating Serena at her peak, for that matter. 

The fact that some women are stronger than some men at your local gym says nothing about professional sports, where all competitors are at the far tail of the distribution.

[The Brain]

I don't see how "women's professional sports would be inconvenienced by allowing transwomen" leads to "transwomen shouldn't be allowed in women's professional sports".

[Josquius]

There are already pretty tight restrictions on who counts as a woman in professional sports with even some cisgender women falling foul of the rules.
Over the years they've changed just how they define who counts as a woman to try and avoid this happening but that just means they shift to excluding other people. There is no easy one size fits all approach to defining who is a woman.
Nobody thinks Andy Murray could wake up tomorrow and go "you know... I could just enter Wimbledon as Alice Murray next year and earn myself a few quid".

What really pisses me off about this transwomen in sport thing is the way those opposed to it so ridicule this position that nobody holds whilst simultaneously going for the absolute nuclear option themselves of ban all trans women from all sport.

At top levels the rules obviously need to be fairly strict but when it's just kids in amateur contests? They can slacken off a lot. if somebody decides to become trans just so they can win at sports... Then more fool them. Pretty idiotic thing to do.

It's a really bad faith topic all round, the skinny end of a wedge anti LGBT folk want to drive in against the whole group. Particularly worthy of scorn when they try and claim to be on the side of women's rights. It's interesting they always want to look at extreme theoretical examples rather than the very real edge cases that need to be solved to try and get to a solution.

[Admiral Yi]

There are already pretty tight restrictions on who counts as a woman in professional sports with evenant cisgender women falling foul of the rules.
Over the years they've changed just how they define who counts as a woman to try and avoid this happening but that just means they shift to excluding other people. There is no easy one size fits all approach to defining who is a woman.
Nobody thinks Andy Murray could wake up tomorrow and go "you know... I could just enter Wimbledon as Alice Murray next year and earn myself a few quid".

What really pisses me off about this transwomen in sport thing is the way those opposed to it so ridicule this position that nobody holds whilst simultaneously going for the absolute nuclear option themselves of ban all trans women from all sport.

At top levels the rules obviously need to be fairly strict but when it's just kids in amateur contests? They can slacken off a lot. if somebody decides to become trans just so they can win at sports... Then more fool them. Pretty idiotic thing to do.

It's a really bad faith topic all round, the skinny end of a wedge anti LGBT folk want to drive in against the whole group. Particularly worthy of scorn when they try and claim to be on the side of women's rights. It's interesting they always want to look at extreme theoretical examples rather than the very real edge cases that need to be solved to try and get to a solution.

What is this position no one hold that you refer to?

I think one big difference is the importance on high school and college sports that you guys don't have.  If someone held a gun to my head and said pick only one, I'd say ban them from amateur sports and let them play pro.

The thing about the bad faith edge is a convincing argument from a tribalist POV: we can't let the bad guys win.  It's less convincing to someone trying to decide based on the merits.

[Solmyr]

How many high school boys do you think are willing to pretend they are girls in order to win more at sports?

[Berkut]

How many high school boys do you think are willing to pretend they are girls in order to win more at sports?

How many well meaning high school humans who are physically male, with male norm speed and strength, but identify as girls, ought to be allowed to compete against the high school JV girls basketball team?

I don't understand this argument that basically amounts to "There aren't that many!"

So what? The rules for sports participation in high school and college are not based on there being some number that as long as we stay under it, we don't have to concern ourselves with the physiological differences between biological men and women on women's sports teams.

Notice that noone if complaining about women playing on mens teams? I wonder why that might be.

I am involved with boys and girls high school and college sports. I don't care how rare it is - I know that one talented boy playing on a girls basketball team is going to turn every game they play in into a farce. Are there *some* girls who might be able to play at their level? Sure.

What does that have to do with anything? Because there is some theoretical female somewhere who could theoretically play at the males level won't do the average, mediocre, completely typical girls basketball team full of completely typical 10th grade female basketball players deal with someone on the other team who outweighs them all by 50 lbs, is twice as fast, and half a foot taller. And that male won't be the exception - they would just be the average boys basketball player.

And if you can have one, why not two on your team?

You don't have to be some kind of transphobe to notice that this is going to be a problem.


And the problem in non-team sports would be radically more extreme. A single talented track athlete who is physiologically male but identifies as female is going to absolutely dominate at a level that is simply not fair.


There are physiological differences between males and females. Inevitable differences, in fact. They are different on average, and they are even more different once you start selecting for athleticism.

[Berkut]

It's a really bad faith topic all round, the skinny end of a wedge anti LGBT folk want to drive in against the whole group. Particularly worthy of scorn when they try and claim to be on the side of women's rights.

What about the bad faith of assuming that anyone who cares about this that doesn't agree with you are "anti LGBT" folk?

Is it not possible to have an opinion about this that does not align with your own, but is in fact held in good faith?

If so, is it not in fact bad faith to ascribe to anyone holding such an opinion...bad faith?

[Josquius]

It's a really bad faith topic all round, the skinny end of a wedge anti LGBT folk want to drive in against the whole group. Particularly worthy of scorn when they try and claim to be on the side of women's rights.

What about the bad faith of assuming that anyone who cares about this that doesn't agree with you are "anti LGBT" folk?

Is it not possible to have an opinion about this that does not align with your own, but is in fact held in good faith?

If so, is it not in fact bad faith to ascribe to anyone holding such an opinion...bad faith?

"You just call everyone who disagrees with you a nazi!" - an expression that you see far more often than anyone actually being called a nazi.

I'm speaking about anti LGBT people. I never said anything close to that includes everyone who isn't me.

[Berkut]

It's a really bad faith topic all round, the skinny end of a wedge anti LGBT folk want to drive in against the whole group. Particularly worthy of scorn when they try and claim to be on the side of women's rights.

What about the bad faith of assuming that anyone who cares about this that doesn't agree with you are "anti LGBT" folk?

Is it not possible to have an opinion about this that does not align with your own, but is in fact held in good faith?

If so, is it not in fact bad faith to ascribe to anyone holding such an opinion...bad faith?

"You just call everyone who disagrees with you a nazi!" - an expression that you see far more often than anyone actually being called a nazi.

I'm speaking about anti LGBT people. I never said anything close to that includes everyone who isn't me.

Where are these anti-LGBT people in this thread? Who are you arguing with?

When you are engaged in a discussion with actual people who are actually responding to your posts, it seems reasonable to presume that your responses to their posts are intended to be for them, so that when you say something like "It's a really bad faith topic all round" and "...skinny end of a wedge anti LGBT folk" it seems reasonable to assume that the "folk" in question are in fact those making the argument that this isn't as simple as you claim it to be.

Indeed, I am not sure there is any way to interpret that in any other fashion - you certainly don't make any effort to discriminate in your blast at " bad faith...all around" and "anti LGBT folk" from those who you are discussing the topic with.

But I guess at the end of the day we are agreeing - it is in fact perfectly possible to have a perfectly good faith discussion about this topic where nobody inbvolved, even those who do think trans people should be restricted (in some fashion) from gender specific sports, is motivated by being "anti LGBT".

Of course, that makes the observation that it is a "Bad faith topic all round" kind of non-sensical. But whatever.