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

[Admiral Yi]

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?

I think generally applicable principles should be applied to different facilities/activities (industries???) as they are relevant.

E.g. security and peace of mind in women's shelters, fairness in sports, etc.

[viper37]

Is she a woman or not? Not a rhetorical question.

DNA will be pretty clear on that

we must assert our independance from such petty things as science.  If biology does not conform to whatever social norms we like, then we must change biology to fit the norm.

I've seen that before, but I can't remember where.  Anyway, LGBT activists will agree 100% with that statement.  If some group of country decides gays & trans are subhuman beings, let by no mean science stand in the way of their moral norms.

[Sophie Scholl]

Oh joy. My random drive-by of Languish and another Trans topic. Fuck off and die to some of you. 
To those who stuck up for Lia as a woman and as a women's athlete, thank you. 
I'm betting she actually has lower T levels than most of her ciswomen teammates and has for quite a while. That's what HRT does. She's been on T suppressors and anti-androgens in addition to e for years now and those old cismale levels of T are long gone. Her body development is, in my opinion, less beneficial than someone like Michael Phelps. I'd like to say I'm surprised by any of this transphobic nonsense here, but it keeps happening and the same people are involved each time. So... yeah. Bye again.

One last item. A slightly less biased and more nuanced article:
https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-news/ivy-league-swimming-champion-becomes-target-transphobic-rhetoric-rcna9074

[Eddie Teach]

So much hostility, where is it coming from? 

[Tamas]

So the argument is that "she" is the Phelps of female swimming - a woman who won the women's genetic lottery on birth?

[Tamas]

So much hostility, where is it coming from? 

You cannot push trans rights past a point without trampling on women's rights, the only way to mask or deny that is to aggressively shut down discussion.

[DGuller]

So much hostility, where is it coming from? 

You cannot push trans rights past a point without trampling on women's rights, the only way to mask or deny that is to aggressively shut down discussion.

Fuck off and die.

[chipwich]

So much hostility, where is it coming from? 

You cannot push trans rights past a point without trampling on women's rights, the only way to mask or deny that is to aggressively shut down discussion.

Fuck off and die.

I fucked and killed your mom

[Eddie Teach]

But which of the two of you disappointed her more?

[grumbler]

I fucked and killed your mom

When she said that she would rather die than experience sex with you again, she wasn't asking to be killed. 

[Berkut]

Oh joy. My random drive-by of Languish and another Trans topic. Fuck off and die to some of you. 
To those who stuck up for Lia as a woman and as a women's athlete, thank you. 
I'm betting she actually has lower T levels than most of her ciswomen teammates and has for quite a while. That's what HRT does. She's been on T suppressors and anti-androgens in addition to e for years now and those old cismale levels of T are long gone. Her body development is, in my opinion, less beneficial than someone like Michael Phelps. I'd like to say I'm surprised by any of this transphobic nonsense here, but it keeps happening and the same people are involved each time. So... yeah. Bye again.

One last item. A slightly less biased and more nuanced article:
https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-news/ivy-league-swimming-champion-becomes-target-transphobic-rhetoric-rcna9074

Summary:

People who don't agree with me are trans-phobic assholes who should be ignored.

She isn't as amazing as Michael Phelps, the best male swimmer of all time, so clearly there is no issue here.

I am so confident in the rational strength of my argument, I am going to call everyone who disagrees with me bigots and then leave. BUH  BYE.

[DGuller]

Benedict Arnold, here is a very pragmatic question for you.  Clearly you think you're right on this issue, and so right that there can't be any debate on it.  Let's assume that it is indeed the case.  In that case, why would you want to make it so easy for people who are catastrophically wrong to dismiss everything that you're saying due the frankly unhinged way you're saying it? 

I don't think anyone changes their minds instantly during a debate, that's a naive notion that ignores the emotional realities of human beings.  However, when good arguments meet open minds, some processing happens offline, and eventually minds are slowly converted.  Not all minds, not all the time, but things shift on the margins, and few issues had as rapid of a genuine shift in public sentiment as LGBT issues.  Do you think you've done the best you could to facilitate the genuine shift here?

[The Minsky Moment]

The existence of women's sports is predicated on inequality.

Just so.  The very idea of separate men and women's sports is offensive to the principle of equality - it would not (and should not) be tolerated in other contexts.  It can only be justified by pragmatic reasoning: that do otherwise would effectively marginalize women in areas of sporting competition where physiological tendencies are understood to give men a decisive advantage.

The "Berkut position" is that even if one as a matter of principle accepts that post-puberty transitioning trans women should be accorded the respect of being treated as the gender with which they identify, the same pragmatic reasoning that drives the otherwise unprincipled separation of men and women in sports should also bar their participation in "women's" sports, because of alleged innate physiological advantage.

The response as I understand it is twofold:
1) The physiological advantages of post-puberty transitioning trans women are not materially significant.
2) Even if they were material, the pragmatic justifications for the sake of sporting competitiveness are not sufficient to justify to affront to the dignity and self-conception of those who would be excluded. 

#1 is relatively easy to deal with - it poses a factual dispute that can be addressed - if not necessarily definitively resolved - by scientific evidence and analysis.

But #2 presents a fundamental clash of principles and values that can't be avoided.  My own take is more to the garbon position - I would err to towards treating all with respect, even at the cost of causing some upset to the pragmatic justifications for separating women's sports.  But I might feel differently a I were a young woman who had dedicated her life to competing in swimming, track, etc. . .

[Tamas]

The existence of women's sports is predicated on inequality.

Just so.  The very idea of separate men and women's sports is offensive to the principle of equality - it would not (and should not) be tolerated in other contexts.  It can only be justified by pragmatic reasoning: that do otherwise would effectively marginalize women in areas of sporting competition where physiological tendencies are understood to give men a decisive advantage.

Yes and I think the danger here is cultural: the relative physical weakness of females vs. males have been used since the start of history not "just" to physically oppress women but more importantly it's been one of the basis for the political/ideological turning of females into second class human beings. The last 100 years have seen big improvements in it but it's still pretty far from being gone, especially on a global level (I'd say on a global level barely a dent is being made into this discrimination).

Introducing true equality into sports would mean the disappearance of females from the top and medium tiers of physical sports. I don't know how much it would hurt the fight for women's equality but for sure it would not help.

On the other hand, this mockery of women's sport and elimination of all perceived dignity in the sport -which IS a source of pride and dignity for those women competing in it, like it or not- cannot possibly help the case of trans people.

[Grey Fox]

Why does BA feels so strongly about this?