Trans-gender women set to set collegiate records in multiple swimming events

[The Brain]

The question seems to me pretty simple.

Transgender women who transition after puberty are going to have developed physiologically in a way that makes them clearly rather different then non trans-gendered women. You would not allow women to take testoserone in order to grow more muscle mass, and then compete in women's athletics for a reason - it creates an unfair (and uninteresting) sport.

Is a transgendered woman a woman? I don't think there is an answer to that question that is useful here.

The question is whether a transgendered women who transition after developing physiologically as a man for a decade different physiologically in a relevant manner from a biological woman such that allowing them to compete becomes something of a farce.

I think the article makes it pretty clear that the answer can be "yes".

A decade ago? There was a case where a bio man who identified as a woman competed in high school field hockey, and dominated the sport. People said "Its one person, in high school sports, who really cares?" The answer was "the other people who have to compete against and with him care, of course" but they were ignored. Too minor, doesn't matter.

So today it is a transgendered woman who for the first 22 years of her life was a biological male athlete who was good enough to compete at the higher levels of male athletics, and who after transitioning to womens sports immediately became by far the best athlete in their sport at their level. Is Lia Thompson a woman? I would answer "yes" for the purposes of how she should be treated outside of athletics. Inside the world of competitive college womens sports, I would note that whether she is a woman or not, she is definitely not playing on the same physiological playing field as non transgendered women.

This problem isn't going to go away. It is going to get worse, because why wouldn't it?

FWIW I hope I don't come across as poo-pooing anything. My involvement in the discussion is primarily because I think the question is intellectually interesting. If I have any mild personal concern it's that I think it's best if society doesn't make rules based on a popularity contest, but instead makes them based on sound principles. I have seen it happen in Sweden in a number of instances (unrelated to transgender questions), and I think it's fraught with risk and ultimately harmful.

Edit: in case of messerschmitt: "isn't democracy a big popularity contest? Hmm?" Sure if you must, but I think you know what I'm talking about here. Making different rules for different parties based on the popularity of the various parties, and not on the most popular principles.

[Berkut]

I think the current rule in the NCAA is completely based on the certain knowledge that if you make the rule in any way nuanced such that it would deny someone like Lia Thompson the right to compete in womens sports, the outrage and mob reaction would be career ending for whomever came up with a sane rule. Hence we have an insane rule that lets someone who physiologically is clearly not simply a woman like all the other women (and this is obvious when you look at her - no breasts, very lean, almost certainly a muscle/mass ratio that is well outside the typical range for even elite female athletes) compete as a women after undergoing the NCAA mandated 1 year of hormone treatment.

I actually think garbon response of "it doesn't matter" is actually tangential to the right answer. The number of people transitioning is small. Doing so is an immense choice, with serious and profound consequences that isn't going to be taken lightly. We don't need a system or process that has to handle thousands of cases. We just need one that can handle a few cases, and hence it can and should be nuanced. When did the athlete transition? What is the outcomes, physiologically of that transition from an athletic standpoint? What is the compettive natre of their sport as it related to physiology? In some cases, I think the answer to those questions are going to be, in fact "It doesn't really matter". They were not elite before, and they are not going to be elite after, so no big deal.

In some cases, like this one, there is pretty clearly a situation where their previous identity as a man, and the nature of their transition, is going to mean that their ability to compete as a woman is dominated not by their talent, but simply by their latent male physiology. They should be allowed to continue to compete as a man, and disallowed to complete as a women. This could be a legal finding that could be challenged in court, to make sure that such findings are in fact based on the merits of the case, rather then simply some bigot who doesn't like transgendered people.

[DGuller]

Binary? Women's sports is, as the name implies, for women (whatever exactly that means, but it certainly doesn't include non-women). Non-women may come in all kinds of sexes, it doesn't affect women's sports.

I don't think we should be going by the implications from the name of the sport.  Sports were also named more than a century ago, and we've established that things from a century ago are not helpful here.  Most men's sports, if not all, actually do allow women to compete, so the name of the sport is actually not a good guide for 2021.

If you're fine with non-women competing in women's sports then what's the problem?

No, I'm not fine with that, as that would moot the point of women's sport.  The point I was making is that the one word in the name of the sport does not embed in it the restrictions or the reasoning behind the sport's existence.  Sports that are called women's sports were created as restricted categories to allow people who didn't have male physical characteristics to compete.  It's not like sports were bifurcated where women go left and men go right, even though a naive reading of the sport names could lead you to believe that.  In actuality, one is an open category and another is a restricted category, and the point of a restriction in a restricted category is to keep out competitors with crushing sex-rated advantages.

[DGuller]

FWIW I hope I don't come across as poo-pooing anything. My involvement in the discussion is primarily because I think the question is intellectually interesting.

I personally don't find it interesting in the least.  In order to have an intellectual discussion you need to have an open discussion.  On this topic, it's a discussion between people playing dumb, pretending that only transphobes can see a problem here, and people who have to consider their words very, very carefully in order to avoid getting a Navratilova treatment.  That's the exact opposite of an intellectually interesting discussion.

[Legbiter]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10310305/Female-competitor-speaks-saying-IMPOSSIBLE-beat-UPenn-transgender-swimmer-Lia-Thomas.html

Yeah. This, well....this is bullshit. This just does not make any sense.

Let men troll womens' sport into oblivion. This is what they wanted. Let them eat their own cooking.

[Admiral Yi]

FWIW I hope I don't come across as poo-pooing anything. My involvement in the discussion is primarily because I think the question is intellectually interesting. If I have any mild personal concern it's that I think it's best if society doesn't make rules based on a popularity contest, but instead makes them based on sound principles. I have seen it happen in Sweden in a number of instances (unrelated to transgender questions), and I think it's fraught with risk and ultimately harmful.

Who's trying to turn it into a popularity contest?

[The Brain]

FWIW I hope I don't come across as poo-pooing anything. My involvement in the discussion is primarily because I think the question is intellectually interesting. If I have any mild personal concern it's that I think it's best if society doesn't make rules based on a popularity contest, but instead makes them based on sound principles. I have seen it happen in Sweden in a number of instances (unrelated to transgender questions), and I think it's fraught with risk and ultimately harmful.

Who's trying to turn it into a popularity contest?

Some of the people who think that equality is great except when it has a negative impact on something they care about.

[Berkut]

FWIW I hope I don't come across as poo-pooing anything. My involvement in the discussion is primarily because I think the question is intellectually interesting. If I have any mild personal concern it's that I think it's best if society doesn't make rules based on a popularity contest, but instead makes them based on sound principles. I have seen it happen in Sweden in a number of instances (unrelated to transgender questions), and I think it's fraught with risk and ultimately harmful.

Who's trying to turn it into a popularity contest?

Some of the people who think that equality is great except when it has a negative impact on something they care about.

Who are those people?

[The Brain]

FWIW I hope I don't come across as poo-pooing anything. My involvement in the discussion is primarily because I think the question is intellectually interesting. If I have any mild personal concern it's that I think it's best if society doesn't make rules based on a popularity contest, but instead makes them based on sound principles. I have seen it happen in Sweden in a number of instances (unrelated to transgender questions), and I think it's fraught with risk and ultimately harmful.

Who's trying to turn it into a popularity contest?

Some of the people who think that equality is great except when it has a negative impact on something they care about.

Who are those people?

I don't have a list of names. Like DG almost read correctly, the question interests me, not the discussion.

[Admiral Yi]

Some of the people who think that equality is great except when it has a negative impact on something they care about.

The existence of women's sports is predicated on inequality.  If "equality" trumps every other consideration then the only consistent position is to advocate abolishing women's sports.

[The Brain]

Some of the people who think that equality is great except when it has a negative impact on something they care about.

The existence of women's sports is predicated on inequality.  If "equality" trumps every other consideration then the only consistent position is to advocate abolishing women's sports.

Why would equality trump every other consideration?

[Admiral Yi]

Why would equality trump every other consideration?

I don't think it does, which is why I'm arguing for excluding trans women from women's sports.

[The Brain]

Why would equality trump every other consideration?

I don't think it does, which is why I'm arguing for excluding trans women from women's sports.

In your mind, is it beneficial to society if determining where transwomen can be discriminated against is based on some generally applicable principles, or is it better if it is decided for different industries/facilities/activities on an individual basis?

[Berkut]

Why would equality trump every other consideration?

I don't think it does, which is why I'm arguing for excluding trans women from women's sports.

In your mind, is it beneficial to society if determining where transwomen can be discriminated against is based on some generally applicable principles, or is it better if it is decided for different industries/facilities/activities on an individual basis?

This is not a discussion about where transwomen can be discriminated against.

[The Brain]

Why would equality trump every other consideration?

I don't think it does, which is why I'm arguing for excluding trans women from women's sports.

In your mind, is it beneficial to society if determining where transwomen can be discriminated against is based on some generally applicable principles, or is it better if it is decided for different industries/facilities/activities on an individual basis?

This is not a discussion about where transwomen can be discriminated against.

I don't follow.