Languish.org

To spare the feelings of offended Euro Cup fans and to respond to Jake.

Yes, I do think identifying as a gender other than your own is a choice.

I don't see how it can be a biological imperative, in the way that homosexuality is an imperative.  Sexual arousal is a physical response, and as has been demonstrated, homosexual arousal exists in the animal kingdom.  Identifying as a gender is an intellectual activity, since as has been pointed out "gender" is a social construct, a basket of expectations, tendencies, norms, etc.

That leaves the possibility of a pyschological imperative, which is perhaps where the real debate lies.  In the olden days (i.e. when Silence of the Lambs was written) sex change clinics would screen applicants for suitability, which of course means not every applicant was considered suitable.  Was it because they weren't sincere enough?  Too frivolous?

That contrasts with the present day when it seems not that hard to find a doctor who will prescribe hormone blockers to adolescents.

Quote from: Admiral Yi on July 14, 2021, 09:05:14 PM
That leaves the possibility of a pyschological imperative, which is perhaps where the real debate lies.  In the olden days (i.e. when Silence of the Lambs was written) sex change clinics would screen applicants for suitability, which of course means not every applicant was considered suitable.  Was it because they weren't sincere enough?  Too frivolous?

That contrasts with the present day when it seems not that hard to find a doctor who will prescribe hormone blockers to adolescents.

Hormone blockers are supposed to be temporary and have no lasting effects, hence why the doctors will prescribe it.  Just like they prescribe anti-depressant and recommend the patient to undergo therapy/counseling.  With the blockers it theoritically gives time to the teen to explore his/her feelings with a psy.

Modern psychology avoids confronting people.  If you see a shrink and tell him all your co-workers are plotting against you, he won't try to dissuade you of that line of thought, unless you exhibit violent tendancies (murder or suicide thoughts).

There lies the problem, imho: You see a shrink, tell it you feel like you're really a woman born in a man's body and there will be zero contradiction.  And I kinda feel like we see much more transgenders in places where homosexuality is still perceived as sinful.  A man is attracted to other man?  It must be because he's really a woman, then it's totally normal, heteronormative to love men.

I feel like there aren't a ton of serious studies on gender dysphoria, and there's a serious over-diagnosis going on.

FWIW, every transgender person that I know (and I know a fair few), it has minimal impact on their sexual preferences. I am/was good friends with three MtoF people, two of whom are still attracted primarily to women just like they were before they started transitioning. So I'm not really in line with your assertion that it's an excuse to be gay.

Totally ignoring the fact that in most places now it's a hell of a lot easier to be gay than transgender.  :rolleyes:

Quote from: merithyn on July 14, 2021, 10:21:14 PM
FWIW, every transgender person that I know (and I know a fair few), it has minimal impact on their sexual preferences. I am/was good friends with three MtoF people, two of whom are still attracted primarily to women just like they were before they started transitioning. So I'm not really in line with your assertion that it's an excuse to be gay.

Totally ignoring the fact that in most places now it's a hell of a lot easier to be gay than transgender.  :rolleyes:

Who said it's an excuse to be gay?  :unsure:

Quote from: merithyn on July 14, 2021, 10:21:14 PM
FWIW, every transgender person that I know (and I know a fair few), it has minimal impact on their sexual preferences. I am/was good friends with three MtoF people, two of whom are still attracted primarily to women just like they were before they started transitioning. So I'm not really in line with your assertion that it's an excuse to be gay.

It's a not a 100% fact, and it's not an excuse.  More of a way for the brain to reconcile someting that is deeply ingrained as being "wrong".  If you're raised in a social unit that considers homosexuality a mortal sin, there's a lot more chances you'll feel wrong growing up, if you are gay.


There's the spillover effect that is certainly not neglible.  It can happen that a tween or a teen is uncertain of his feelings, his attractions, his identity.  Sometimes, you just feel wrong.  You don't know what you are.  Then society offers you a ready-made solution: you're of the wrong sex.  Everything you feel isn't right with you can be put on this.

Like it or not, for mammalian apes like humans, gender is determined by biology.  Some people are born with two sexes, it happens.  It could also happen that someone is really born with a "female brain" inside a male's body.  But to the extent it is happenning now, I seriously doubt it.  I've never heard of a male gorilla or chimpanzee adopting female behaviour.  There are living things who can be both male&female at different point in their lives.  I think some insects will switch their gender to another if there's a shortage of the other sex for reproduction.  But with apes? Even dogs? Cats? Racoons? Rabbits? Pigs? I don't think any mammal can switch their gender after birth.  Female spotted hyenas have penises like males, but it's not gender dysphoria at all. 

QuoteTotally ignoring the fact that in most places now it's a hell of a lot easier to be gay than transgender.  :rolleyes:

And in most of these places there will be less transgenders than in more restrictives places.  Like the US, or Brazil, or Iran.
In 2008, the BBC reported that Iran carries out more sex change operations than any other nation in the world except Thailand. The government provides up to half the cost for those needing financial assistance, and a sex change is recognized on the birth certificate.[1] Since 2017, the government has provided transgender persons financial assistance in the form of grants of up to 5 million tomans ($400~ USD

Be a transgender, get financial aid.  Be gay, get stoned to death.

You know, I have a lot of thoughts about the current moment of transgenderism.  I've even known several TG people.  There's BuddhaRhubarb, of course (who I once met in person pre-transition, and remain FB friends with).  But there was a former sportswriter buddy of my dad who transitioned.  There's a fraternity brother of mine (does that make her my fraternity sister?  but I digress).  My kids former nanny who we still keep in touch with transitioned, then detransitioned.

But I don't know if I'm really qualified to give opinions, and this is a fairly sensitive topic I'm not sure I wish to share my opinions anyways.

But what I do know is my belief that, all other things being equal, we should treat people as they would like to be treated and call them what they would like to be called.

I really wish Buddha was still posting here. I think these are important discussions, but at the end of the day, all of us only have second hand (or further removed) knowledge of the subject. It's like if someone asked me about child raising of which I have no experience. Sure, I have some opinions on it, but at the end of the day they will almost certainly be significantly less well informed than the ones of the parents on the forum.

Doesn't mean this shouldn't be discussed here, but I think it's something worth keeping in mind.

Quote from: Syt on July 15, 2021, 01:23:44 AM
I really wish Buddha was still posting here. I think these are important discussions, but at the end of the day, all of us only have second hand (or further removed) knowledge of the subject. It's like if someone asked me about child raising of which I have no experience. Sure, I have some opinions on it, but at the end of the day they will almost certainly be significantly less well informed than the ones of the parents on the forum.

Doesn't mean this shouldn't be discussed here, but I think it's something worth keeping in mind.

I'm kinda glad Buddha isn't giving some of the childish that appears to repeatedly show up around this topic here.

Well, yeah, there's that too.

I am on the same page with both Syt and BB and will refrain from discussing the topic.

QuoteFWIW, every transgender person that I know (and I know a fair few), it has minimal impact on their sexual preferences. I am/was good friends with three MtoF people, two of whom are still attracted primarily to women just like they were before they started transitioning. So I'm not really in line with your assertion that it's an excuse to be gay.

On this I've actually seen the transphobes using this as an argument against trans people.
There is data to show gay trans-women are more numerous than cis lesbians.
I guess they figure it shows they're just predators in waiting or something. Though to my mind it does seem to suggest there's some relation between sexuality and being trans. I can't recall ever seeing any solid investigations into this.

Quote from: viper37 on July 14, 2021, 09:37:38 PM

Quote from: Admiral Yi on July 14, 2021, 09:05:14 PM
That leaves the possibility of a pyschological imperative, which is perhaps where the real debate lies.  In the olden days (i.e. when Silence of the Lambs was written) sex change clinics would screen applicants for suitability, which of course means not every applicant was considered suitable.  Was it because they weren't sincere enough?  Too frivolous?

That contrasts with the present day when it seems not that hard to find a doctor who will prescribe hormone blockers to adolescents.

Hormone blockers are supposed to be temporary and have no lasting effects, hence why the doctors will prescribe it.  Just like they prescribe anti-depressant and recommend the patient to undergo therapy/counseling.  With the blockers it theoritically gives time to the teen to explore his/her feelings with a psy.

I do wonder whether this misconception is key to why so many people are aghast at hormone blockers?
They seem so very common sense to me when you've got a trans kid- put off making the decision until they're old enough to do so.

QuoteAnd in most of these places there will be less transgenders than in more restrictives places.  Like the US, or Brazil, or Iran.
In 2008, the BBC reported that Iran carries out more sex change operations than any other nation in the world except Thailand. The government provides up to half the cost for those needing financial assistance, and a sex change is recognized on the birth certificate.[1] Since 2017, the government has provided transgender persons financial assistance in the form of grants of up to 5 million tomans ($400~ USD

Be a transgender, get financial aid.  Be gay, get stoned to death.

Iran really is fascinating with its outlook on these things.
Its something you'll never see reliable numbers on but I do wonder how many gay guys get registered as trans and to what extent they are able to avoid transitioning.

Quote from: Tyr on July 15, 2021, 06:17:35 AM

QuoteFWIW, every transgender person that I know (and I know a fair few), it has minimal impact on their sexual preferences. I am/was good friends with three MtoF people, two of whom are still attracted primarily to women just like they were before they started transitioning. So I'm not really in line with your assertion that it's an excuse to be gay.

On this I've actually seen the transphobes using this as an argument against trans people.
There is data to show gay trans-women are more numerous than cis lesbians.
I guess they figure it shows they're just predators in waiting or something. Though to my mind it does seem to suggest there's some relation between sexuality and being trans. I can't recall ever seeing any solid investigations into this.

Quote from: viper37 on July 14, 2021, 09:37:38 PM

Quote from: Admiral Yi on July 14, 2021, 09:05:14 PM
That leaves the possibility of a pyschological imperative, which is perhaps where the real debate lies.  In the olden days (i.e. when Silence of the Lambs was written) sex change clinics would screen applicants for suitability, which of course means not every applicant was considered suitable.  Was it because they weren't sincere enough?  Too frivolous?

That contrasts with the present day when it seems not that hard to find a doctor who will prescribe hormone blockers to adolescents.

Hormone blockers are supposed to be temporary and have no lasting effects, hence why the doctors will prescribe it.  Just like they prescribe anti-depressant and recommend the patient to undergo therapy/counseling.  With the blockers it theoritically gives time to the teen to explore his/her feelings with a psy.

I do wonder whether this misconception is key to why so many people are aghast at hormone blockers?
They seem so very common sense to me when you've got a trans kid- put off making the decision until they're old enough to do so.

This beautiful story seems to confirm you can go back and forth and your body will take it:

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/apr/20/the-dad-who-gave-birth-pregnant-trans-freddy-mcconnell

QuoteMcConnell, 32, started taking testosterone at 25 and had "top surgery" to remove breast tissue a year later. He considered a hysterectomy, but never went through with it – partly because he had not ruled out the possibility of having children. In the film, we see how discombobulated McConnell becomes when he stops taking testosterone as he tries to conceive, using a sperm donor, and his body, in effect, goes into reverse. He starts having periods again ("I don't like the idea that I've got tampons in my bag," he winces); his facial hair gets wispier, his hips broaden, his tummy softens and he starts to speak less from his chest and more from his throat. "Every time I think about it, I think, 'What the fuck am I doing?'" he says. At one point, a tearful McConnell sobs into the camera in the middle of the night: "I feel like a fucking alien.

Quote from: Tamas on July 15, 2021, 08:09:33 AM
This beautiful story seems to confirm you can go back and forth and your body will take it:

That's not really true.  Many of the physical changes from male levels of testosterone are permanent (vocal cords and enlargement of the clitoris being the initial two I'm thinking about) and surgery can only do so much to reverse them.  Similarly re: the female hormonal suite and breasts.

Quote from: Admiral Yi on July 14, 2021, 09:05:14 PM
Yes, I do think identifying as a gender other than your own is a choice.

What kind of discussion were you expecting when you started this thread with that line?

Quote from: Tyr on July 15, 2021, 06:17:35 AM

Quote from: viper37 on July 14, 2021, 09:37:38 PM

Quote from: Admiral Yi on July 14, 2021, 09:05:14 PM
That leaves the possibility of a pyschological imperative, which is perhaps where the real debate lies.  In the olden days (i.e. when Silence of the Lambs was written) sex change clinics would screen applicants for suitability, which of course means not every applicant was considered suitable.  Was it because they weren't sincere enough?  Too frivolous?

That contrasts with the present day when it seems not that hard to find a doctor who will prescribe hormone blockers to adolescents.

Hormone blockers are supposed to be temporary and have no lasting effects, hence why the doctors will prescribe it.  Just like they prescribe anti-depressant and recommend the patient to undergo therapy/counseling.  With the blockers it theoritically gives time to the teen to explore his/her feelings with a psy.

I do wonder whether this misconception is key to why so many people are aghast at hormone blockers?
They seem so very common sense to me when you've got a trans kid- put off making the decision until they're old enough to do so.

The argument against putting potentially trans kids on hormone blockers goes something like this:

We have very little peer reviewed scientific evidence on the long-term safety of hormone blockers.  These drugs were designed to delay puberty in children who have early, or precocious, puberty, and weren't studied to give to adolescents in the normal age range for puberty.

The second argument goes something like this: in most gender clinics the overwhelming majority of kids who go on puberty blockers wind up going on to take cross-sex hormones, so the notion that you're just "buying time" is a fiction.  Finally we don't have good evidence about how many youths with adolescent gender identity disorder will naturally desist over time as they grow older and come to accept their natal sex.

Quote from: Barrister on July 15, 2021, 11:41:06 AM

The argument against putting potentially trans kids on hormone blockers goes something like this:

We have very little peer reviewed scientific evidence on the long-term safety of hormone blockers.  These drugs were designed to delay puberty in children who have early, or precocious, puberty, and weren't studied to give to adolescents in the normal age range for puberty.

The second argument goes something like this: in most gender clinics the overwhelming majority of kids who go on puberty blockers wind up going on to take cross-sex hormones, so the notion that you're just "buying time" is a fiction.  Finally we don't have good evidence about how many youths with adolescent gender identity disorder will naturally desist over time as they grow older and come to accept their natal sex.

Surely these two cancel each other out？
That a majority of kids on puberty blockers will go onto decide to transition does tend to show that most of them don't just grow out of it?

Quote from: Tyr on July 15, 2021, 11:47:10 AM

Quote from: Barrister on July 15, 2021, 11:41:06 AM

The argument against putting potentially trans kids on hormone blockers goes something like this:

We have very little peer reviewed scientific evidence on the long-term safety of hormone blockers.  These drugs were designed to delay puberty in children who have early, or precocious, puberty, and weren't studied to give to adolescents in the normal age range for puberty.

The second argument goes something like this: in most gender clinics the overwhelming majority of kids who go on puberty blockers wind up going on to take cross-sex hormones, so the notion that you're just "buying time" is a fiction.  Finally we don't have good evidence about how many youths with adolescent gender identity disorder will naturally desist over time as they grow older and come to accept their natal sex.

Surely these two cancel each other out？
That a majority of kids on puberty blockers will go onto decide to transition does tend to show that most of them don't just grow out of it?

So again - I'm not advancing the argument, I'm not saying it's my opinion.  It's a complicated debate with strong argument on both sides.

The argument is that transitioning tends to become a self-fulfilling prophecy once you medically transition.  It's one thing to be a girl who identifies as trans, allows her body to develop naturally, then comes to accept her gender, as compared to someone who starts cross-sex hormones, has top surgery.

There was a famous court case in the UK where a young woman, Keira Bell, in part sued a gender identity disorder clinic for allowing her to medically transition at age 15.  She was successful.  Googling her name brings up this version of her story in her own words.  https://www.persuasion.community/p/keira-bell-my-story


The flip side argument of course is that if a youth truly does "know" they are trans, then delaying transition and allowing them to go through their natural puberty can be psychologically harmful and certainly will decrease their chances at being able to "pass" later on in life.

Quote from: Barrister on July 15, 2021, 01:12:12 AM
But what I do know is my belief that, all other things being equal, we should treat people as they would like to be treated and call them what they would like to be called.

Different things.

George wants to be addressed as Georgina and considers herself a female.
Go with it.

But as a society, we have to wonder at the increase in such people who firmly believe they are of the wrong sex.  In the short term, we have to go with it to avoid potential suffering down the line.  But when the state is asked more and more to perform surgeries, plastic or otherwise to make some people feel better about themselves, it's our duty to ask&wonder why it is happening.

Maybe they are wrong.  Maybe we are wrong. But I feel we are going way too easy on them.  A woman declares herself a man and, within a very short time frame, she can have her breasts removed to appear 'male'.  It's a serious procedure.  And modern psychology doesn't want to really confront its patients about their beliefs.  And doctors will follow the advice of psychologists&psychiatrists who are unwilling to confront people about their beliefs.

I do not think science has reached a definitive conclusion on this, on what is happening, yet, we are going full ahead in listening to activists of all kinds instead of real, hard science.  And just like with homosexuality in the 80s and 90s, scientists feel pressure to not touch this subject...  It's a vicious circle.  And sometimes, we maim people for life because of a wrongful diagnosis in the first place.  Many of the people who go all the way in express regrets later on.  Many will never fully transition.  So, clearly, something his happening and must be scientifically investigated.  Without the Woke Brigade's interference.

maybe it has always been so, but those who expressed themselves in that way were beaten or worse.

Quote from: crazy canuck on July 15, 2021, 12:58:09 PM
maybe it has always been so, but those who expressed themselves in that way were beaten or worse.

Possibly, I am not an expert in LGBTQ+ history.

However, we do study covid-19 and its effects on patients while managing not to beat or do something worst to those afflicted.
Since the comparison to a disease may be afflicting some people's feeling, I'd just say that modern science has done a lot of behavioral & brain studies without beating or killing its subjects for the fun of it.

I do not think it is at all warranted that scientists wanting to express opinions and/or publishing studies in this field be subjected to cancel culture as they are now, as they were earlier on (to a lesser degree), when they were studying homosexuality.

Quote from: Barrister on July 15, 2021, 12:11:01 PM
So again - I'm not advancing the argument, I'm not saying it's my opinion.  It's a complicated debate with strong argument on both sides.

The argument is that transitioning tends to become a self-fulfilling prophecy once you medically transition.  It's one thing to be a girl who identifies as trans, allows her body to develop naturally, then comes to accept her gender, as compared to someone who starts cross-sex hormones, has top surgery.

NP. I get you're just explaining it.
Though I really disagree that there are particularly great arguments from the anti trans side.
So much of what I see there is really transparently bad faith. Claiming to hide behind a shield of science whilst totally not understanding the science at all.

As to transitioning a self fulfilling prophecy... That's the point of hormone blockers. They aren't transitioning. They just delay  natural development until someone can make a decision.
I could see an argument against them if they were handed out like candy... But I don't believe they are. They're pretty tightly controlled unless it seems very likely someone is trans.

As to people just having to get used to it.... Yeah. That's the kind of argument that at least I can understand from Conservatives. A "accept your fate, grin and bare it" one. But there's no need for that in the 21st century West.

Quote

Maybe they are wrong.  Maybe we are wrong. But I feel we are going way too easy on them.  A woman declares herself a man and, within a very short time frame, she can have her breasts removed to appear 'male'.  It's a serious procedure.  And modern psychology doesn't want to really confront its patients about their beliefs.  And doctors will follow the advice of psychologists&psychiatrists who are unwilling to confront people about their beliefs.

This is not the impression I get from trans people at all.
From all reports I've heard it's a pretty difficult arduous process where most are rejected and you really have to learn how to jump through hoops to get anywhere.
I've read several stories of people being rejected for not dressing feminine enough and the like.

As to trans people being more common today... I really don't think that's the case.
Quite ironically I think there's a bit of a similarity between trans people and nazis here. Where historically they would have been the village weirdo, relegated to the fringes of society, today they're allowed to live full normal lives and have contact with others in the same situation by the Internet.

Quote from: viper37 on July 15, 2021, 01:31:39 PM

Quote from: crazy canuck on July 15, 2021, 12:58:09 PM
maybe it has always been so, but those who expressed themselves in that way were beaten or worse.

Possibly, I am not an expert in LGBTQ+ history.

However, we do study covid-19 and its effects on patients while managing not to beat or do something worst to those afflicted.
Since the comparison to a disease may be afflicting some people's feeling, I'd just say that modern science has done a lot of behavioral & brain studies without beating or killing its subjects for the fun of it.

I do not think it is at all warranted that scientists wanting to express opinions and/or publishing studies in this field be subjected to cancel culture as they are now, as they were earlier on (to a lesser degree), when they were studying homosexuality.

I have to admit, I do not understand your point.

Quote from: Tyr on July 15, 2021, 03:40:10 PM

Quote from: Barrister on July 15, 2021, 12:11:01 PM
So again - I'm not advancing the argument, I'm not saying it's my opinion.  It's a complicated debate with strong argument on both sides.

The argument is that transitioning tends to become a self-fulfilling prophecy once you medically transition.  It's one thing to be a girl who identifies as trans, allows her body to develop naturally, then comes to accept her gender, as compared to someone who starts cross-sex hormones, has top surgery.

NP. I get you're just explaining it.
Though I really disagree that there are particularly great arguments from the anti trans side.
So much of what I see there is really transparently bad faith. Claiming to hide behind a shield of science whilst totally not understanding the science at all.

As to transitioning a self fulfilling prophecy... That's the point of hormone blockers. They aren't transitioning. They just delay  natural development until someone can make a decision.
I could see an argument against them if they were handed out like candy... But I don't believe they are. They're pretty tightly controlled unless it seems very likely someone is trans.

As to people just having to get used to it.... Yeah. That's the kind of argument that at least I can understand from Conservatives. A "accept your fate, grin and bare it" one. But there's no need for that in the 21st century West.

So maybe it's a difference between N America and the UK.  As I mentioned earlier there was a lawsuit in the UK over youth transitioning and the court ruled things had been too lax.

But here's a podcast I listened to a couple of months ago.  The host interviews Dr. Erica Anderson, a trans woman gender clinician from the Bay Area (so can hardly be accused of being anti-trans).  In it she criticizes other clinicians for being much too quick to just start handing out hormones (I'm very broadly paraphrasing as I didn't listen to it recently).

https://barpodcast.fireside.fm/bonus8

As to "having to get used to it"... so the diagnosis is one of Gender Identity Disorder.  Nobody is saying "too bad just live with it".  Clearly for a number of people the best way to treat gender identity disorder is to socially then medically transition.  But for some number of youths (we don't know how many) GID does appear to go away over time.  So wouldn't "watchful waiting" be a better approach for some rather than immediately going on a life-long hormone treatment which can have some very serious side-effects?

That's the point of puberty blockers.
They delay making a decision either way.

Does "being much too quick" mean they are acting outside of regulations?

Quote from: The Brain on July 15, 2021, 04:16:40 PM
Does "being much too quick" mean they are acting outside of regulations?

There are no regulations, as in legally binding rules.

There is the WPATH Standards of Care (by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health) which does outline standards for how to treat people with GID / gender nonconformity, but they are not binding (and this was what Dr. Anderson was criticizing other clinicians for not following).

Quote from: Barrister on July 15, 2021, 04:24:17 PM

Quote from: The Brain on July 15, 2021, 04:16:40 PM
Does "being much too quick" mean they are acting outside of regulations?

There are no regulations, as in legally binding rules.

There is the WPATH Standards of Care (by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health) which does outline standards for how to treat people with GID / gender nonconformity, but they are not binding (and this was what Dr. Anderson was criticizing other clinicians for not following).

Maybe the practice of medicine ought to be regulated. :hmm:

I admit I find it very weird and I have a hard time understanding it, but my personal hang-ups shouldn't cause other people grief.  If a person feels that their gender is different than their sex, I'll respect that.  Calling someone by their preferred pronoun is no problem.  It's always good to be polite.  Transgender bathrooms, or sports is fine.  I honestly don't see what the big deal is.  It's not like there is a tide of transgender about to drown us.  I think it's fairly rare. Yi may have a point about gender being a mental thing rather purely physical, but does that matter?

Live and let live.

Easy enough.

Jacob I think instead of pasting a reply, you just edited my own post in your own words.  If you don't mind I think I'll delete my post.

Quote from: Barrister on July 15, 2021, 06:19:05 PM
Jacob I think instead of pasting a reply, you just edited my own post in your own words.  If you don't mind I think I'll delete my post.

Oh no! Sorry about that!

The two buttons are RIGHT next to each other. I think this the first time I've hit submit and been unable to fix it. Sorry about that  :Embarrass:

Quote from: Jacob on July 15, 2021, 06:24:05 PM

Quote from: Barrister on July 15, 2021, 06:19:05 PM
Jacob I think instead of pasting a reply, you just edited my own post in your own words.  If you don't mind I think I'll delete my post.

Oh no! Sorry about that!

The two buttons are RIGHT next to each other. I think this the first time I've hit submit and been unable to fix it. Sorry about that  :Embarrass:

No prob - it looked like an honest mistake.

Oh, and just to clarify:  I don't think that the quote that I credited with was something I actually wrote.

Quote from: Razgovory on July 16, 2021, 08:27:14 AM
Oh, and just to clarify:  I am a golden God. Rock on, Jefferson City!

:hmm:

Quote from: Razgovory on July 16, 2021, 08:27:14 AM
Oh, and just to clarify:  I don't think that the quote that I credited with was something I actually wrote.

No it was not.  Jacob just fucked up when he was trying to reply to something I wrote.

I deleted the fake quote that was in my post earlier.

Let's all just forgot about this....

I think we need to clear the air.

Go right ahead :hug:

Jacob is the best moderator any one could possibly hope to have.

Quote from: crazy canuck on July 16, 2021, 01:27:47 PM
Jacob is the best moderator any one could possibly hope to have.

Jacob, stop it!

 :lol:

If a post is edited, it says so at the bottom of the post...

Quote from: Jacob on July 16, 2021, 01:32:29 PM
:lol:

If a post is edited, it says so at the bottom of the post...

Not if edited fast enough. :shifty:

Quote from: Jacob on July 16, 2021, 01:32:29 PM
:lol:

If a post is edited, it says so at the bottom of the post...

Jacob is the kingiest of Kings.

Quote from: crazy canuck on July 15, 2021, 03:50:13 PM
I have to admit, I do not understand your point.

There would be more surprising things in this world.
Just let scientists do their work.  Eventually, we'll see.

Quote
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.

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.

Quote from: viper37 on July 16, 2021, 06:38:03 PM

Quote from: Tyr on July 15, 2021, 03:40:10 PM
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"

Quote from: Razgovory on July 16, 2021, 09:21:55 PM
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.

Quote from: Tyr on July 17, 2021, 02:44:58 AM

Quote from: viper37 on July 16, 2021, 06:38:03 PM

Quote from: Tyr on July 15, 2021, 03:40:10 PM
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!

Quote from: Razgovory on July 16, 2021, 09:21:55 PM
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.

Quote from: viper37 on July 16, 2021, 06:38:03 PM

Quote
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.

 :rolleyes: 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.

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".

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.

Quote from: Tyr on July 18, 2021, 03:22:22 AM
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.

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

Quote from: Solmyr on July 18, 2021, 04:54:39 AM
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.

Quote from: Tyr on July 18, 2021, 03:22:22 AM

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?

Quote from: Berkut on July 18, 2021, 09:27:34 AM

Quote from: Tyr on July 18, 2021, 03:22:22 AM

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?

:rolleyes:
"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.

Quote from: Tyr on July 18, 2021, 10:11:43 AM

Quote from: Berkut on July 18, 2021, 09:27:34 AM

Quote from: Tyr on July 18, 2021, 03:22:22 AM

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?

:rolleyes:
"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.

Quote

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.

That a guy can just declare themself a woman on a whim and instantly get access to women's sports (and women's spaces et al)

Why would you ban them from high school but not pro? At pro level you get people pushing their bodies to the absolute limits. This can amplify any natural advantages, factor in the prize money and you can bet if it was a simple case of "I am a woman now so let me enter the women's event" some would do it.
At hs level... Less so. Also worth considering if a tend woman is 16  it's likely they avoided male puberty, so it just stinks of petty politics to try and artificially exclude them from stuff cis girls get to do.

And yeah. It's depressing people just trying to get by in their life is being made a political issue. I don't buy that they actually care about women's rights. Its interesting that this stuff tends to come from those with no prior interest in women's well being or sports. That they're grasping for such an extreme position too... It's purely cynical.

Quote from: Berkut on July 18, 2021, 10:41:01 AM

Quote from: Tyr on July 18, 2021, 10:11:43 AM

Quote from: Berkut on July 18, 2021, 09:27:34 AM

Quote from: Tyr on July 18, 2021, 03:22:22 AM

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?

:rolleyes:
"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.

I'm not arguing with anyone. Not every discussion needs to be a black and white argument.
You seem to be the one trying to claim its a simple argument. My entire point was its really not despite there being a definite effort out in the world to frame it that way.
Youre going in loops with the rest of the post and I've no idea what you're trying to say or how to respond.

Quote from: Tyr on July 18, 2021, 01:41:42 PM

Quote

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.

That a guy can just declare themself a woman on a whim and instantly get access to women's sports (and women's spaces et al)

They cannot do that now because the rules do not allow it.

There appears to be at least some kind of effort to get those rules changed to allow people who identify as women but have male physiology to compete in womens sports at some levels.

Is that true, or is that not true?

If true, it is perfectly reasonable to consider that carefully and do so in a manner that has nothing to do with being "anti-LGBT".

If it is not true, then there is no argument.

Quote

Why would you ban them from high school but not pro? At pro level you get people pushing their bodies to the absolute limits. This can amplify any natural advantages, factor in the prize money and you can bet if it was a simple case of "I am a woman now so let me enter the women's event" some would do it.
At hs level... Less so. Also worth considering if a tend woman is 16  it's likely they avoided male puberty, so it just stinks of petty politics to try and artificially exclude them from stuff cis girls get to do.

"Artificially" exclude them? Who is arguing in bad faith again?

There is nothing "artificial" about recognizing that there is in fact a difference between male and female physiology, and how that applies to athletic capability at all levels.

Many people say "Hey, if someone finds their sexual identity so critical that they are willing to undergo the physical, emotional, and social risks involved in identifying as something other than their born gender, there is no way they would do that just so they could get onto a girls team!"

OK. I don't see the point though - it doesn't matter what motivated them - they could have the most pure possible motives. It would still mean that they have a significant competitive advantage over their female peers when it comes to athletic competition.

Finally, the ability to compete in even high school is insanely unfairly distributed anyway. In most schools, even making an varsity sports team is competitive and by its very nature exclusionary. There are MANY, indeed MOST, students who by virtue of their simply bad genetic luck, or environmental factors, who cannot compete at the level necessary to make a high school sports team. Why is having the bad luck of being born a different gender then you identify as so different from the bad luck of being too short for basketball or too slow to run sprint?

If their sexual identity is so critical to them (and I absolutely believe that it is), giving up something most of your peers don't get to do anyway seems like a small, even trivial, price to pay compared to the other prices paid for that.

Quote

And yeah. It's depressing people just trying to get by in their life is being made a political issue. I don't buy that they actually care about women's rights. Its interesting that this stuff tends to come from those with no prior interest in women's well being or sports. That they're grasping for such an extreme position too... It's purely cynical.

Quote

I think there are two sides of cynicism here, and yours is fully as cynical as those who actually don't care about women's sports, and just as political.

Quote from: Tyr on July 18, 2021, 01:41:42 PM
That a guy can just declare themself a woman on a whim and instantly get access to women's sports (and women's spaces et al)

And what do you think the reality is?  Is there some long involved process to be eligible to play women's sports?  I don't know myself and since you seem to know I would be happy to be informed.

QuoteWhy would you ban them from high school but not pro? At pro level you get people pushing their bodies to the absolute limits. This can amplify any natural advantages, factor in the prize money and you can bet if it was a simple case of "I am a woman now so let me enter the women's event" some would do it.
At hs level... Less so. Also worth considering if a tend woman is 16  it's likely they avoided male puberty, so it just stinks of petty politics to try and artificially exclude them from stuff cis girls get to do.

For the reason I stated in the post you quoted.  At least in the US, high school and college sports are important to the people who play them.

QuoteAnd yeah. It's depressing people just trying to get by in their life is being made a political issue. I don't buy that they actually care about women's rights. Its interesting that this stuff tends to come from those with no prior interest in women's well being or sports. That they're grasping for such an extreme position too... It's purely cynical.

I get the feeling the my comment which generated this response didn't register at all. :huh:

Now either there are three groups of people--(a) the virtuous, woke, and right people, (b) the evil cynical right wingers who have no interest in women's sports, and (c) people who oppose trans participation in women's sports for non-evil reasons--or there are just two.  The good guys and the bad guys.

I point out that to people who decide on the merits (I'm putting myself in that category) it's irrelevant what the evil right wingers are thinking.  And you respond by doubling down on how evil the right wingers are, but your language this time is not distinguishing these beliefs as only belonging to evil right wingers, now it sounds like you think anyone who opposes trans paticipation in sports is evil, cynical, etc.

The idea that equality should end the moment it inconveniences something as non-critical as competitive sports seems weird to me. Kind of an odd hill to die on.

Quote from: The Brain on July 18, 2021, 04:45:05 PM
The idea that equality should end the moment it inconveniences something as non-critical as competitive sports seems weird to me. Kind of an odd hill to die on.

Who has such an idea? Can you point them out to us?

Quote from: Berkut on July 18, 2021, 05:09:50 PM

Quote from: The Brain on July 18, 2021, 04:45:05 PM
The idea that equality should end the moment it inconveniences something as non-critical as competitive sports seems weird to me. Kind of an odd hill to die on.

Who has such an idea? Can you point them out to us?

People who think that even if transwomen are women, they shouldn't be allowed in women's sports.

Quote from: The Brain on July 18, 2021, 05:11:22 PM

Quote from: Berkut on July 18, 2021, 05:09:50 PM

Quote from: The Brain on July 18, 2021, 04:45:05 PM
The idea that equality should end the moment it inconveniences something as non-critical as competitive sports seems weird to me. Kind of an odd hill to die on.

Who has such an idea? Can you point them out to us?

People who think that even if transwomen are women, they shouldn't be allowed in women's sports.

Let's keep a sharp eye out for them!

Quote from: The Brain on July 18, 2021, 05:11:22 PM

Quote from: Berkut on July 18, 2021, 05:09:50 PM

Quote from: The Brain on July 18, 2021, 04:45:05 PM
The idea that equality should end the moment it inconveniences something as non-critical as competitive sports seems weird to me. Kind of an odd hill to die on.

Who has such an idea? Can you point them out to us?

People who think that even if transwomen are women, they shouldn't be allowed in women's sports.

If equality is the goal, then concepts like "women's sports" have to go.  Just have everyone have equal access to any given competitive sport, and let the chips fall where they may.  All of the issues around trans participation disappear.

Quote from: grumbler on July 18, 2021, 07:17:48 PM

Quote from: The Brain on July 18, 2021, 05:11:22 PM

Quote from: Berkut on July 18, 2021, 05:09:50 PM

Quote from: The Brain on July 18, 2021, 04:45:05 PM
The idea that equality should end the moment it inconveniences something as non-critical as competitive sports seems weird to me. Kind of an odd hill to die on.

Who has such an idea? Can you point them out to us?

People who think that even if transwomen are women, they shouldn't be allowed in women's sports.

If equality is the goal, then concepts like "women's sports" have to go.  Just have everyone have equal access to any given competitive sport, and let the chips fall where they may.  All of the issues around trans participation disappear.

Indeed

Quote from: grumbler on July 18, 2021, 07:17:48 PM
If equality is the goal, then concepts like "women's sports" have to go.  Just have everyone have equal access to any given competitive sport, and let the chips fall where they may.  All of the issues around trans participation disappear.

Well put, and exactly where I've landed. My point a few posts back was that gendered sports implicitly makes assumptions about an athlete's body type which are increasingly unreliable. If this is really about player equality, we have to group in terms of kinetic potential. If this is really about player safety, we have to group in terms of body mass. No substitutions for the actual quantitative data. Anything else is stereotyping, and that kind of bias can easily snowball into anti-trans problems.

Increasingly unreliable?

Really? How is the unreliability of "assumptions about athletes body types" increasingly unreliable? Or an assumption to begin with?

I am very confident that the physiology around human anatomy has not changed significantly in some time, and is not changing now.

Quote from: DontSayBanana on July 18, 2021, 09:57:56 PM

Quote from: grumbler on July 18, 2021, 07:17:48 PM
If equality is the goal, then concepts like "women's sports" have to go.  Just have everyone have equal access to any given competitive sport, and let the chips fall where they may.  All of the issues around trans participation disappear.

Well put, and exactly where I've landed. My point a few posts back was that gendered sports implicitly makes assumptions about an athlete's body type which are increasingly unreliable. If this is really about player equality, we have to group in terms of kinetic potential. If this is really about player safety, we have to group in terms of body mass. No substitutions for the actual quantitative data. Anything else is stereotyping, and that kind of bias can easily snowball into anti-trans problems.

This, right here, is why the right makes so much hay out of the left's bonkersness.

"Anything else" is stereotyping.

So fucking what? We stereotype all the time. We just assume that humans beings have two legs, which clearly is not always true! We assume people have two eyes, and yet many do not!

We should only work on relevant data! Stop stereotyping! No assuming that humans have two hands, and hence can actually drive a car that requires a hand on the steering wheel and another on the gear shift! We make all cars operable by someone without any hands, because to do otherwise is a "stereotype", and MUST lead to "anti-people without two hands" problems!

You know, we can manage to just assume that most people have two legs, even while we accommodate the reality that some do not. The reality is that most human beings are cis, and we can accomodate the fact that most is not all without throwing out perfectly useful groupings that have served us just fine like "women's sports".

Christ, who the hell would want to go watch a basketball game where everyone in the game is carefully measured to all be exactly the same.

This is some kind of Gattica level shit right here.

Quote from: Berkut on July 18, 2021, 10:11:02 PM
Increasingly unreliable?

Really? How is the unreliability of "assumptions about athletes body types" increasingly unreliable? Or an assumption to begin with?

I am very confident that the physiology around human anatomy has not changed significantly in some time, and is not changing now.

I am pretty sure that a person taking hormone therapies (as part of a gender transition, for example) has a different anatomy than anything that was commonly seen before, say, 1940.  I am very confident that anyone's "very confident" statements about transgender issues are unwise.

Quote from: grumbler on July 18, 2021, 10:22:13 PM

Quote from: Berkut on July 18, 2021, 10:11:02 PM
Increasingly unreliable?

Really? How is the unreliability of "assumptions about athletes body types" increasingly unreliable? Or an assumption to begin with?

I am very confident that the physiology around human anatomy has not changed significantly in some time, and is not changing now.

I am pretty sure that a person taking hormone therapies (as part of a gender transition, for example) has a different anatomy than anything that was commonly seen before, say, 1940.  I am very confident that anyone's "very confident" statements about transgender issues are unwise.

I'll keep that in mind if someone makes "very confident statements about transgender issues".

Quote from: Berkut on July 18, 2021, 10:17:27 PM
This, right here, is why the right makes so much hay out of the left's bonkersness.

"Anything else" is stereotyping.

So fucking what? We stereotype all the time. We just assume that humans beings have two legs, which clearly is not always true! We assume people have two eyes, and yet many do not!

We should only work on relevant data! Stop stereotyping! No assuming that humans have two hands, and hence can actually drive a car that requires a hand on the steering wheel and another on the gear shift! We make all cars operable by someone without any hands, because to do otherwise is a "stereotype", and MUST lead to "anti-people without two hands" problems!

You know, we can manage to just assume that most people have two legs, even while we accommodate the reality that some do not. The reality is that most human beings are cis, and we can accomodate the fact that most is not all without throwing out perfectly useful groupings that have served us just fine like "women's sports".

Christ, who the hell would want to go watch a basketball game where everyone in the game is carefully measured to all be exactly the same.

This is some kind of Gattica level shit right here.

:lol:   Wow.  A strawman wrapped in an enigma inside a riddle.  Who besides you has suggested that they favor "a basketball game where everyone in the game is carefully measured to all be exactly the same?"

The point of the entire transgender issue is that groupings like "women's sports" are no longer so useful, because usefully defining "women" in a sporting context s no longer serving us "just fine," as you argue.  Rene Richards observed that, had she transitioned when she first wanted to at age 26, she'd have won the next ten Wimbledon's Women's Championships, easily (competing against men at that time, she won 5 of the next ten US Opens) and taken pretty much every other championship she wanted.  Would that have been evidence of your "perfectly fine" grouping?

"If this is really about player equality, we have to group in terms of kinetic potential. If this is really about player safety, we have to group in terms of body mass."

He did.

Quote from: grumbler on July 18, 2021, 10:30:29 PM

Quote from: Berkut on July 18, 2021, 10:17:27 PM
This, right here, is why the right makes so much hay out of the left's bonkersness.

"Anything else" is stereotyping.

So fucking what? We stereotype all the time. We just assume that humans beings have two legs, which clearly is not always true! We assume people have two eyes, and yet many do not!

We should only work on relevant data! Stop stereotyping! No assuming that humans have two hands, and hence can actually drive a car that requires a hand on the steering wheel and another on the gear shift! We make all cars operable by someone without any hands, because to do otherwise is a "stereotype", and MUST lead to "anti-people without two hands" problems!

You know, we can manage to just assume that most people have two legs, even while we accommodate the reality that some do not. The reality is that most human beings are cis, and we can accomodate the fact that most is not all without throwing out perfectly useful groupings that have served us just fine like "women's sports".

Christ, who the hell would want to go watch a basketball game where everyone in the game is carefully measured to all be exactly the same.

This is some kind of Gattica level shit right here.

:lol:   Wow.  A strawman wrapped in an enigma inside a riddle.  Who besides you has suggested that they favor "a basketball game where everyone in the game is carefully measured to all be exactly the same?"

The point of the entire transgender issue is that groupings like "women's sports" are no longer so useful, because usefully defining "women" in a sporting context s no longer serving us "just fine," as you argue.  Rene Richards observed that, had she transitioned when she first wanted to at age 26, she'd have won the next ten Wimbledon's Women's Championships, easily (competing against men at that time, she won 5 of the next ten US Opens) and taken pretty much every other championship she wanted.  Would that have been evidence of your "perfectly fine" grouping?

Trans-women excluded. Problem solved.

I think this is one of those issues where everything is more obvious that people pretend.  Women's sports is usually a category from which some people are excluded.  It's not a mirror of men's sports, where usually no one is excluded (men just happen to have such an advantage that they're the only ones competing in men's sports). 

Why do we have a category that excludes some participants?  We have them in order to allow people who don't have male physical advantages to be competitive in their own category.

Quote from: DGuller on July 18, 2021, 11:24:50 PM
I think this is one of those issues where everything is more obvious that people pretend.  Women's sports is usually a category from which some people are excluded.  It's not a mirror of men's sports, where usually no one is excluded (men just happen to have such an advantage that they're the only ones competing in men's sports). 

Why do we have a category that excludes some participants?  We have them in order to allow people who don't have male physical advantages to be competitive in their own category.

Exactly. Notice nobody is demanding that men transitioning to women be excluded from mens sports, or care if women transitioning to men want to play mens sports - although that is likely just as "unfair" as NOT letting a man transitioning to a women play womens sports.

Hell, I don't pretend to know what the right answer is - I suspect the best we are going to do is take it as a case by case basis, and let local organizations make the call.

And yes, that does mean that some of those local organizations will make bad calls, some of them are likely even to be motivated by bad faith assholes.

I don't see how sports is significantly different from every other part of society. If transwomen are women then the "separate but equal" attitude leaves a bad taste in the mouth. There has always been arguments put forward against equality, but THIS time they are correct? I don't see it.

If transwomen are women, then as soon as you internally accept that they are, the "problem" of having transwomen in women's sports disappears. In the words of En Vogue: free your mind, and the rest will follow.

Quote from: The Brain on July 19, 2021, 02:36:55 AM
If transwomen are women, then as soon as you internally accept that they are, the "problem" of having transwomen in women's sports disappears.

If I internally accept they are women, the problem still exists as long as little girls and their parents think it's unfair.

Quote from: Admiral Yi on July 19, 2021, 03:55:30 AM

Quote from: The Brain on July 19, 2021, 02:36:55 AM
If transwomen are women, then as soon as you internally accept that they are, the "problem" of having transwomen in women's sports disappears.

If I internally accept they are women, the problem still exists as long as little girls and their parents think it's unfair.

The point being?

Quote from: The Brain on July 19, 2021, 04:24:38 AM
The point being?

The point being the problem does not disappear.  Which is different than your point, which is that it disappears.  My point is in opposition to your point.

Quote from: Admiral Yi on July 19, 2021, 04:30:51 AM

Quote from: The Brain on July 19, 2021, 04:24:38 AM
The point being?

The point being the problem does not disappear.  Which is different than your point, which is that it disappears.  My point is in opposition to your point.

My guess is that you know what I wrote, and only pretend not to.

Brain, if it helps, you could think of "women's sports" as "cis-women's sports" and both trans woman and cis-women as subsets of women. Then your bit of sophistry falls apart.

I guess a summary is that we have two competing concepts:

1. Gender is a social construct defining an undefined set of attributes which are vital for a person's identity, but most definitely do not include their birth sex and resulting physiological attributes like hormone balance and shape of genitals. Therefore, division of society into genders is desired, but considering birth sex during gender division is undesired and morally wrong.

2. The difference between the two default birth sexes define physical differences which should be accounted for in certain areas of life to minimise the impact of these differences on equality within society. Most notably in sports. The classification of people into genders can be utilised for this purpose.


Now quite obviously both of these concepts cannot survive in parallel. Either women's sports will go away, closing down a route of self-fulfillment to near-50% of the population that's currently open (in the developed world, anyhow), or society will tilt back toward the concept of your birth sex bearing a relation to your gender.

Quote from: Eddie Teach on July 19, 2021, 06:18:21 AM
Brain, if it helps, you could think of "women's sports" as "cis-women's sports" and both trans woman and cis-women as subsets of women. Then your bit of sophistry falls apart.

If transwomen are women then "women's sports" isn't cis-women's sports unless you discriminate against transwomen.

FWIW my impression is that many people do indeed think of women's sports as sports that are only for cis-women. Just like many people don't want transwomen in all kinds of settings.

Quote from: The Brain on July 19, 2021, 06:34:59 AM

Quote from: Eddie Teach on July 19, 2021, 06:18:21 AM
Brain, if it helps, you could think of "women's sports" as "cis-women's sports" and both trans woman and cis-women as subsets of women. Then your bit of sophistry falls apart.

If transwomen are women then "women's sports" isn't cis-women's sports unless you discriminate against transwomen.

FWIW my impression is that many people do indeed think of women's sports as sports that are only for cis-women. Just like many people don't want transwomen in all kinds of settings.

Nobody has addressed Berkut's point though: the people who don't want transwomen in all kinds of settings (and these definitely exist) do not want trans men in those settings either. Yet nobody seem to be complaining about allowing trans men to compete in men's sports. This seem to indicate that opposition to trans women in women's sports goes at leas partially beyond general transphobia.

Quote from: Tamas on July 19, 2021, 06:39:10 AM

Quote from: The Brain on July 19, 2021, 06:34:59 AM

Quote from: Eddie Teach on July 19, 2021, 06:18:21 AM
Brain, if it helps, you could think of "women's sports" as "cis-women's sports" and both trans woman and cis-women as subsets of women. Then your bit of sophistry falls apart.

If transwomen are women then "women's sports" isn't cis-women's sports unless you discriminate against transwomen.

FWIW my impression is that many people do indeed think of women's sports as sports that are only for cis-women. Just like many people don't want transwomen in all kinds of settings.

Nobody has addressed Berkut's point though: the people who don't want transwomen in all kinds of settings (and these definitely exist) do not want trans men in those settings either. Yet nobody seem to be complaining about allowing trans men to compete in men's sports. This seem to indicate that opposition to trans women in women's sports goes at leas partially beyond general transphobia.

They don't want transwomen in women's sports because it would inconvenience them or others, in a way that transmen in men's sports would not (and AFAIK many or most "men's sports" have been open to persons of any sex for a long time, so transmen are a bit of a non-issue). I don't doubt that it would, in some cases probably a lot. It is not at all obvious to me, however, that avoiding inconvenience should trump equality. Is that the lesson we should teach our kids? Possibly, but for now I remain unconvinced.

QuoteThey don't want transwomen in women's sports because it would inconvenience them or others, in a way that transmen in men's sports would not (and AFAIK many or most "men's sports" have been open to persons of any sex for a long time, so transmen are a bit of a non-issue). I don't doubt that it would, in some cases probably a lot. It is not at all obvious to me, however, that avoiding inconvenience should trump equality. Is that the lesson we should teach our kids? Possibly, but for now I remain unconvinced.

Plus the whole chauvinistic 'think of the poor innocent girlies that non-conformists are absolutely desperate to rape' factor.
Men? Meh. That never happens to men. They can handle themselves.

Quote from: Admiral Yi on July 18, 2021, 04:26:14 PM
And what do you think the reality is?  Is there some long involved process to be eligible to play women's sports?  I don't know myself and since you seem to know I would be happy to be informed.

In top level stuff there are set criteria for who qualifies as a woman and is legible to take part in women's sports. See for instance Caster Semenya and a few others like her over the years. Cis-women who are excluded from women's sport because they fall foul of these criteria.
The exact criteria differ from sports to sport I believe, they're down to the sports governing body to define. In caster's case the current barrier (it has changed a lot over the years) is down to testosterone levels and if she wanted to compete she'd have to take testosterone blockers.
Trans women must meet these just like anyone else- which sometimes they do.
In amateur sports...can't say any of the trans women I know are particularly sporty (I imagine this is very common) so I can't really say how it works. Though I'd imagine its very much a "if you're a woman then you're a woman" setup. Certainly becoming a woman officially is no easy matter in the UK.

Quote

For the reason I stated in the post you quoted.  At least in the US, high school and college sports are important to the people who play them.

Professional sports are important to the people who play them and millions of others too.
I get if you wanted to bar trans people from both but just HS seems odd.

Though generally on the 'important to people who play them' factor- this is where sympathy completely drops out. If you're only concerned with winning then you're doing it wrong.
I speak as someone who had big problems with this myself when I was a kid, "Its not the winning its the taking part" is a lesson that really needs hammering into people from an early age. Learning to lose with grace is a good thing. A very valuable lesson.

Quote
I get the feeling the my comment which generated this response didn't register at all. :huh:

Now either there are three groups of people--(a) the virtuous, woke, and right people, (b) the evil cynical right wingers who have no interest in women's sports, and (c) people who oppose trans participation in women's sports for non-evil reasons--or there are just two.  The good guys and the bad guys.

I'd say there are 4.
1: Those who want to push back LGBT rights and see sports as a great avenue to do this.
2: The majority. Normal people who are fine with how things are and don't see any reason to setup trans bans everywhere and probably don't really recognise this is such a huge issue for the bigots. They have lives to live. Stuff to do.
3: Pro-LGBT people who see what the transphobes are up to and are trying to rally defence against it on all fronts.
4: A small minority of nerdy folks who are genuinely interested in where to draw the line for gender qualification in professional sports.

Quote
I point out that to people who decide on the merits (I'm putting myself in that category) it's irrelevant what the evil right wingers are thinking.  And you respond by doubling down on how evil the right wingers are, but your language this time is not distinguishing these beliefs as only belonging to evil right wingers, now it sounds like you think anyone who opposes trans participation in sports is evil, cynical, etc.

They are.
There's simply no excuse for this nuclear option.
"Let anyone wake up, declare themselves a woman, do absolutely zero to transition and take part in womens sports of every level" and "Ban all trans women from taking part in any sport ever" are the two sides of the retarded coin on this one.
This is a coin which is fairly heavily weighted to one side.

Quote from: Berkut on July 18, 2021, 02:34:11 PM

Quote from: Tyr on July 18, 2021, 01:41:42 PM

Quote

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.

That a guy can just declare themself a woman on a whim and instantly get access to women's sports (and women's spaces et al)

They cannot do that now because the rules do not allow it.

There appears to be at least some kind of effort to get those rules changed to allow people who identify as women but have male physiology to compete in womens sports at some levels.

Is that true, or is that not true?

Untrue.
As Jacob covered earlier however its a popular tactic by the anti-LGBT brigade, try and reframe reality so they're just the poor innocent victims of this really big serious issue, just trying to defend common decency from those nasty lefties who won't be happy until every boy is forced to wear a dress.
So you do see people presenting this vision of reality a fair bit. The actual truth of things is pro-trans rights people are solidly on the defence these days.

Quote
If true, it is perfectly reasonable to consider that carefully and do so in a manner that has nothing to do with being "anti-LGBT".

If it is not true, then there is no argument.

Someone still needs to consider the technicalities of exactly who qualifies. As I said its something professional athletics has been struggling with for decades.
However it certainly is possible to take a firmly anti-LGBT stance on this with those folks making the noise being committed to a total ban.
But its not a big argument no.

Quote
"Artificially" exclude them? Who is arguing in bad faith again?

There is nothing "artificial" about recognizing that there is in fact a difference between male and female physiology, and how that applies to athletic capability at all levels.

There's a difference between 200kg six foot tall women and skinny ones with dwarvism too.

Quote
Many people say "Hey, if someone finds their sexual identity so critical that they are willing to undergo the physical, emotional, and social risks involved in identifying as something other than their born gender, there is no way they would do that just so they could get onto a girls team!"

OK. I don't see the point though - it doesn't matter what motivated them - they could have the most pure possible motives. It would still mean that they have a significant competitive advantage over their female peers when it comes to athletic competition.

Lots of cis-women have competitive advantages over other women too. Thats life. Yet still athletics has pretty arbitrary constantly shifting barriers in place to exclude some they deem to have too much of advantage.
And with these barriers set where they are...some trans people are still able to qualify.
If you have a better idea of where to draw the line then lets hear it, there clearly needs to be one somewhere if you're trying to define the bounds a "woman", however that line without a doubt doesn't lie at an arbitrary "Ban anyone who has the slightest hint of manliness"

Quote
Finally, the ability to compete in even high school is insanely unfairly distributed anyway. In most schools, even making an varsity sports team is competitive and by its very nature exclusionary. There are MANY, indeed MOST, students who by virtue of their simply bad genetic luck, or environmental factors, who cannot compete at the level necessary to make a high school sports team. Why is having the bad luck of being born a different gender then you identify as so different from the bad luck of being too short for basketball or too slow to run sprint?

If their sexual identity is so critical to them (and I absolutely believe that it is), giving up something most of your peers don't get to do anyway seems like a small, even trivial, price to pay compared to the other prices paid for that.

So you aren't good enough to qualify for your school team? OK. Thats that. It sucks but there's only a finite number of slots and some people just aren't good at sports.
So...best just jack in the exercise stuff altogether since you've never going to be becoming pro?
Thats exactly the kind of attitude that needs firmly stamping out. We need to be encouraging more kids, not just those who are particularly gifted, to get involved in sports and forming healthy lifelong habits.
Banning trans people from this is just ridiculous.

Quote
I think there are two sides of cynicism here, and yours is fully as cynical as those who actually don't care about women's sports, and just as political.

Que?

Quote from: DontSayBanana on July 17, 2021, 10:46:06 PM
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.

Serena Williams could not compete against Rafael Nadal or Roger Federer.
At this level, it makes a huge difference.  Even amongst teen, it will.   Not that some women can't beat men on some sports, but at similar level of training and aptitude, the males will perform better.

There's reason why sportsfights are seperated between weight classesé

Reading a really interesting LRB article (reviewing Female Husbands: A Trans History and Before Trans: Three Gender Stories from 19th Century France) and it opens with a great story:

QuoteJames Allen was working for a London shipwright when he was killed by a falling piece of timber in 1829. He had been married to his wife, Abigail, for more than twenty years. The medical students who performed the autopsy declared Allen's body anatomically female, but the coroner continued to call the deceased 'he' because 'I considered it impossible for him to be a woman, as he had a wife.' The marriage certificate convinced the coroner to ignore Allen's anatomy: social gender trumped biological gender. The rest of the community agreed. Allen wore trousers, had a wife and was called James. He was 'sober, steady, strong and active'. Of course he was a man. Only after Allen's death, as news of the autopsy spread, did some people begin to express different opinions: they'd always noticed his lack of facial hair, they said, and oddly high voice. But, even then, for every person who feminised Allen in retrospect, another insisted on his masculine traits - a face roughened by a life spent outdoors, large hands hardened by decades of work as a groom and sawyer.

Solution:

Pass a law that defines two broad categories of athletic groupings.

Category #1 is unrestricted. Anyone can play, doesn't matter what their anything is (except for age groupings).

Category #2 is restricted. You can play in category two only if you are cis-female, or you get an exemption from your local sports organization. Said exemptions is defined, by law, as being some kind of sport specific evaluation of your ability to compete in that sport, at that level, based on your actual physiological profile at the time the exemption is asked for, broadly based on there being some accepted median range of size, speed, or whatever relevant, objective, and reasonable measures that sport might consider for maintaining competitive balance.

And write into this theoretical law the demand that said exemption MUST be granted to anyone meeting the criteria, but only for those who are actually undergoing or have undergone medical transition to female (in order to exclude this from being a way for males who simply cannot compete in the first category from competing in this category instead).

That gives an avenue for legal redress if someone thinks they are being excluded by the Evil Anti-LGBT folks.

Now, if you don't get the exemption, because in point of fact you are outside the median range of competitiveness for the traditional womens sport, it's not like you cannot play sports - you can play in the unrestricted division, at whatever level your talent allows.

Quote from: Sheilbh on July 19, 2021, 08:50:19 AM
Reading a really interesting LRB article (reviewing Female Husbands: A Trans History and Before Trans: Three Gender Stories from 19th Century France) and it opens with a great story:

QuoteJames Allen was working for a London shipwright when he was killed by a falling piece of timber in 1829. He had been married to his wife, Abigail, for more than twenty years. The medical students who performed the autopsy declared Allen's body anatomically female, but the coroner continued to call the deceased 'he' because 'I considered it impossible for him to be a woman, as he had a wife.' The marriage certificate convinced the coroner to ignore Allen's anatomy: social gender trumped biological gender. The rest of the community agreed. Allen wore trousers, had a wife and was called James. He was 'sober, steady, strong and active'. Of course he was a man. Only after Allen's death, as news of the autopsy spread, did some people begin to express different opinions: they'd always noticed his lack of facial hair, they said, and oddly high voice. But, even then, for every person who feminised Allen in retrospect, another insisted on his masculine traits - a face roughened by a life spent outdoors, large hands hardened by decades of work as a groom and sawyer.

I like how if someone noticed something that was anatomically TRUE, they were "feminizing" him in retrospect. I suppose the coroner who noticed he had a vagina was doing that as well.

It is an interesting story, but I see it as interesting in BOTH aspects - how we can as a society define sexuality, but we cannot change actual physiology just by wishing it were so. His "masculine" traits were not at all actually masculine by their nature - any women who identified as a women who worked outdoors doing "rough" work would have those exact same traits. And if we called her a "man" because she had rough hands and a weathered face, we would very rightly be called out for THAT.

But it is a biological fact that cis women do have less facial hair, and do have a higher voice, along with a host of other physiological and psychological differences. Some of those we have the power to change now, which is great.

Quote from: Berkut on July 19, 2021, 08:56:27 AM
Solution:

Pass a law that defines two broad categories of athletic groupings.

Category #1 is unrestricted. Anyone can play, doesn't matter what their anything is (except for age groupings).

Category #2 is restricted. You can play in category two only if you are cis-female, or you get an exemption from your local sports organization. Said exemptions is defined, by law, as being some kind of sport specific evaluation of your ability to compete in that sport, at that level, based on your actual physiological profile at the time the exemption is asked for, broadly based on there being some accepted median range of size, speed, or whatever relevant, objective, and reasonable measures that sport might consider for maintaining competitive balance.

And write into this theoretical law the demand that said exemption MUST be granted to anyone meeting the criteria, but only for those who are actually undergoing or have undergone medical transition to female (in order to exclude this from being a way for males who simply cannot compete in the first category from competing in this category instead).

That gives an avenue for legal redress if someone thinks they are being excluded by the Evil Anti-LGBT folks.

Now, if you don't get the exemption, because in point of fact you are outside the median range of competitiveness for the traditional womens sport, it's not like you cannot play sports - you can play in the unrestricted division, at whatever level your talent allows.

Glad you put the exemption stuff in otherwise its a non-solution of basically just doing everything the anti-trans people want with leaving things mostly as they are today but with some renaming, I've seen that a lot.

This broadly works, though there's a lot of unanswered questions in it and it sits a bit dodgy that the burden of proof heavily lands on the girls to prove themselves; they've likely already had enough trouble with this shit to begin with. I really think there should be an assumption of good faith in this stuff, at low levels at the least. Someone wants to enter the olympics then damn right they should face tests, but if you just want to join a local amateur cricket team?... It'll really serve to dissuade people from taking up sport.

Also there's the unresolved grand problem at the core of all this, key to providing an answer but which few seem to want to address, of just who counts as a cisgender woman?
Science no longer regards sex as a simple binary, we now know its binomial, and we can only expect in the future more and more people to be aware of the fact if they don't sit at a neat extreme.
This is something experts have grappled with for decades so I don't expect anyone here to have a good answer and I couldn't begin to guess where one lies.

Kind of how, as Berkut just suggested, if one wants to toss the entire gender-based sports "structure" out...then perhaps the best alternative is a more general-skill-based/weight-class ranking, depending on if it is team-based, or a single-person sport.  Team-based might be something like Baseball's AAA-etc. system.  I think many high schools do this too (at least in Washington state they seemed to), where "larger" schools, with more resources/population were in one class/league, and the lesser schools in a lesser one.

And one went into tossing the whole Best Actor/Actress system in the Oscar's/etc. as well, but not cut the total awards in half, some kind of translation there might be needed as well.

Quote from: Tonitrus on July 19, 2021, 10:33:27 AM
Kind of how, as Berkut just suggested, if one wants to toss the entire gender-based sports "structure" out...then perhaps the best alternative is a more general-skill-based/weight-class ranking, depending on if it is team-based, or a single-person sport.  Team-based might be something like Baseball's AAA-etc. system.  I think many high schools do this too (at least in Washington state they seemed to), where "larger" schools, with more resources/population were in one class/league, and the lesser schools in a lesser one.

And one went into tossing the whole Best Actor/Actress system in the Oscar's/etc. as well, but not cut the total awards in half, some kind of translation there might be needed as well.

There you have the consideration of which factors are the most important.
I mean; sure with top level boxing its simple with weight matters, all that muscle. But with high school baseball how would you do it?

I must say I do like the thought of a <190cm basketball league.
Of course the 189.9cm guys would just dominate but...hey ho.

Came across an article a while ago about a mother who'd regularly allege that girls on teams playing against her daughter's team were trans. She'd demand that they be taken off the team, as this was in US state with a ban on trans girls in HS sports. She'd typically focus on girls with short hair and/ or star players just before a match. This - as you can imagine - was frequently pretty traumatizing for the cis- girls who just wanted to play, and who suddenly had their gender identity publicly questioned. The mom was active in some sort of "keep trans girls out of girls sports" movement, so she'd have a bit of political and social media heft behind her too, IIRC.

Given the politically charged nature of this topic, I think we shouldn't be surprised to see more of this.

I don't have a strong sense of how frequent and harmful false allegations that cis- girls are trans- are going to be with bans on trans athletes vs how frequent and harmful trans- girls participating is going to be to cis- girls in things like high school sports, but if we're looking at protecting children we should consider that as well, IMO.

So say there are laws to exclude trans girls from girls sports at a high school level, how is it handled and enforced?

Does every girl participating require some sort of doctor's note on file to certify they're cis before they can join the soccer team (or whatever)? Or is it okay to train with the team, but their cis status just has to be verified before competitive matches against other schools? Or do we just rely on trans girls self-identifying and not joining, knowing they're not wanted? If we do, how should we handle allegations that someone is trans and have somehow slipped through the exclusion net? Who makes those calls - teachers, coaches, the school board, the girl's family doctor, some other medical professional, some sort of special body in charge of certifying authentic cis status?

How do we deal with intersex athletes?

Given how high school athletics is a pathway to college and pro-athletics, are we going to make sure the high school standards for being cis- match up with those at higher levels? Or are we okay with athletes who could potentially qualify for college scholarships using whatever rules the college has being denied the opportunity to train and compete because the high school's criteria are more stringent?

Quote from: Tyr on July 19, 2021, 10:38:15 AM

Quote from: Tonitrus on July 19, 2021, 10:33:27 AM
Kind of how, as Berkut just suggested, if one wants to toss the entire gender-based sports "structure" out...then perhaps the best alternative is a more general-skill-based/weight-class ranking, depending on if it is team-based, or a single-person sport.  Team-based might be something like Baseball's AAA-etc. system.  I think many high schools do this too (at least in Washington state they seemed to), where "larger" schools, with more resources/population were in one class/league, and the lesser schools in a lesser one.

And one went into tossing the whole Best Actor/Actress system in the Oscar's/etc. as well, but not cut the total awards in half, some kind of translation there might be needed as well.

There you have the consideration of which factors are the most important.
I mean; sure with top level boxing its simple with weight matters, all that muscle. But with high school baseball how would you do it?

I must say I do like the thought of a <190cm basketball league.
Of course the 189.9cm guys would just dominate but...hey ho.

If you went with a completely non-gender, strictly some kind of measurable height/weight kind of classes....that would be the end of women's sports.

Because the thing is, a 5'7", 150lb boy, on average, is going to be stronger and faster than a 5'7" 150lb girl.

The men's Olympic entry standard for the marathon is 2:11:30 (though there are ways to get in without meeting the standards). The world record for a women's marathon is 2:14:04.

Using 69kg weightlifting at the 2016 olympics (a weightclass that exists for both genders), the last place male had a total of 296 kg (excluding those that didn't get a qualifying score). The gold medal woman was 261 kg.

I can't dream of running as fast or lifting as much as a world class woman, but women would basically be excluded from top level competitions without separate divisions.

Quote from: Berkut on July 19, 2021, 09:01:56 AM
I like how if someone noticed something that was anatomically TRUE, they were "feminizing" him in retrospect. I suppose the coroner who noticed he had a vagina was doing that as well.

Well the coroner didn't - the coroner ignored the fact that he had a vagina - and isn't that the right phrase given that people commented on it in retrospect.

QuoteIt is an interesting story, but I see it as interesting in BOTH aspects - how we can as a society define sexuality, but we cannot change actual physiology just by wishing it were so. His "masculine" traits were not at all actually masculine by their nature - any women who identified as a women who worked outdoors doing "rough" work would have those exact same traits. And if we called her a "man" because she had rough hands and a weathered face, we would very rightly be called out for THAT.

Sure - although the point is a woman at that point would not have worked outdoors doing that "rough" work. This is like the way pale skin for women was seen as more desirable (which lasts well into the 20th century in Western cinema). Obviously there were women working on farms etc but there were not female stable hands or shipwrights. It is precisely that there is that socially constructed gender and the coroner chose to prefer that over biological sex (as did many other contemporaries. A woman could not have a wife, could not do that job etc therefore Allen continued to be a "he" despite biological sex.

I'd also slightly distinguish sexuality. It is incredibly difficult to talk and think about sexuality and gender identity before those concepts really exist and there is a blurriness here of homosexual women using gender as a cover for their sexuality v women living a different gender for other reasons (some, no doubt, because it was easier and freer than being a woman; some probably because their gender identity didn't match their place in society). I can't remember the name but there is an incredible book about the letters between spinsters/maiden aunts in Victorian Britain - because after they reached about 30 at which point their irredeemable spinsterness had been confirmed it was socially acceptable for them to move in and live together. There are some letters that have survived that suggest incredibly close relationships that were quite possibly basically lesbian - but there are other scholars who dismiss it (on the routine ground that people just wrote letters like that to their same sex friends back then). But for women of that class there was an alternative - it may well be for working class/poorer women that actually being a man was an easier way to marry the woman they loved.

Although - my default assumption on any period drama is that spinsters/maiden aunts are living a very happy and fulfilling sapphic life that just isn't the focus of that show :lol:

There's a few really interesting stories in the review - I find the Female Husbands ones more interesting because they are poorer, more working class:

QuoteFemale husbands expressed their masculinity through their choice of clothing, names, behaviours and, above all, their labour and their marriage status. As tavern keepers, soldiers, sailors, mountebanks, builders and itinerant tinkers, they rejected the belief that those born female couldn't do men's work. Husbands were not born, but made. Because most people believed that marriage could exist only between a man and woman, having a wife was just as convincing a proof of manhood as physical strength, a long stride and a tendency to drink too much and get into fights.

Some female husbands remained in stable unions for decades. Others, revealed to have been born female, moved to new places and continued to live as men, or were forced to dissolve their marriages, in some cases resuming female attire. The way women responded to their female husbands varied with the state of their relationships. Some wives pressed charges. In 1838, Henry Stoake, an oven builder from Manchester who had lived as a man since his late teens, was exposed by his wife of 22 years. Angry that he was holding back her housekeeping allowance, she sought a legal separation and tried to secure a claim to his assets by telling her lawyer that Stoake had been born female. (In fact, her revelation cast doubt on whether she was legally married at all.) Other wives stood by female husbands who ended up on the wrong side of the law. When George Wilson was arrested for vagrancy after fainting in a New York street in 1836 (there wasn't yet a crime of dressing as the other sex to charge him with), Elisabeth, his wife of fifteen years, fetched him from the police station to the house the couple shared with her father. Samuel Bundy, born Sarah Paul, a sailor, was jailed in 1760 on a charge of fraud for marrying a woman (his initial defence was that a shark had eaten his penis). Bundy was reportedly visited in prison by a dozen women to whom he had paid court; his wife refused to press charges and eventually he was released. Nine months later, living as a woman, Bundy married a man.

Female husbands troubled their communities because they proved it wasn't always straightforward to tell men and women apart, despite the notion of 'opposite sexes'. The consequences of this unease could be severe. In 1746, Charles Hamilton, an itinerant quack doctor in the southwest of England, was reported to the authorities by his wife of two months for 'pretending herself a man'. He was publicly whipped in four different towns, then sentenced to six months' hard labour. (By the time Hamilton's story surfaced in a Boston newspaper, he was reported to have had fourteen wives.) But many female husbands were supported by their communities, and press coverage could be sympathetic. James Howe began to live as a man in 1732, aged sixteen, and had been married for thirty years before his desperation at being blackmailed by a childhood acquaintance led him to reveal his secret. After his friends and neighbours learned that Howe had been born female, they took the news in their stride. The blackmailer was sentenced to four years in prison for extortion. A widely circulated account of the trial, Manion notes, portrayed Howe as 'a person of integrity – despite their gender ambiguity'.

[...]

In both these books, gender has more to do with habit than biology. According to Manion, female husbands knew that 'what makes a man is not the sex they are assigned at birth but the life they live.' In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle argued for a form of knowledge he called practical: one learns to become a swimmer by swimming. One might say that a person becomes a man by living as a man. Mesch proposes that gender isn't a label so much as a story, although judging by these accounts, it's not just one story but many. The stories trans people told about themselves often collided with the way others understood them. Family members, neighbours, employers, spouses, lovers, police officers and doctors could make or unmake the tale and the teller.

Trans people encounter resistance not only because they challenge widely held notions about gender but also because they threaten society's conformist tendencies. Dieulafoy, for example, found much more acceptance than Rachilde, because Dieulafoy's masculinity served the French imperial state. The press lauded them as an 'intrepid explorer' whose Persian expeditions added treasures to the Louvre. The same holds true for some of Manion's female husbands. Robert Shurtliff, an American soldier in the War of Independence, also known as Deborah Sampson, was celebrated for acting out of the 'purest patriotism' and without 'any selfish motives'. When the British soldier James Gray revealed that he had once been Hannah Snell, he was treated as a hero. By contrast, the deliberately perverse Rachilde, determined 'to be strange or nothing at all', was denounced, censored and pathologised. When a judge found Albert Guelph guilty of vagrancy in 1856, he claimed that he had 'harmed the entire community'.

As society's ideas about gender changed, so too did attitudes towards female husbands. After the rise of feminism in the 1840s, female husbands became associated with the growing numbers of women eager to vote, go to college and work in jobs formerly reserved for men. The press began to fret that a once eccentric phenomenon might soon become widespread. In 1883, the New York Times announced that 'many women ... if they had the opportunity, would select other women as husbands rather than marry men.' Although reports of female husbands remained rare, agitation about gender-crossing intensified. With the rise of sexology in the 1880s, doctors and journalists began to see female husbands as lesbians, that is, as more female than husband. Sex, now considered a fixed biological essence, began to trump gender: no longer a person successfully living as a man, the female husband was a deviant woman.

It is striking that it's only in the 1860s that there starts to be legislation against cross-dressing. It's interesting to which the extent to which biological sex has primacy is a relatively modern invention - in part to do with the rise of science but also the application of science to classify/characterise humans.

QuoteBut it is a biological fact that cis women do have less facial hair, and do have a higher voice, along with a host of other physiological and psychological differences. Some of those we have the power to change now, which is great.

Sure - but I don't think anyone's disputing that. The thing that seems interesting to me is how important (or not) biological facts have been at different points.

Quote from: Eddie Teach on July 18, 2021, 10:49:33 PM
Trans-women excluded. Problem solved.

You already lost that argument in court in 1977.  Your problem is going to be squaring that fact with a system that allows fair competition.

QuoteSure - but I don't think anyone's disputing that. The thing that seems interesting to me is how important (or not) biological facts have been at different points.

Philosophy Tube did a video on a related topic recently.
Basic TLDW that its really weird our society places such gigantic importance on this one factor (sex) of who we are.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koud7hgGyQ8

Quote from: garbon on July 15, 2021, 01:44:47 AM

Quote from: Syt on July 15, 2021, 01:23:44 AM
I really wish Buddha was still posting here. I think these are important discussions, but at the end of the day, all of us only have second hand (or further removed) knowledge of the subject. It's like if someone asked me about child raising of which I have no experience. Sure, I have some opinions on it, but at the end of the day they will almost certainly be significantly less well informed than the ones of the parents on the forum.

Doesn't mean this shouldn't be discussed here, but I think it's something worth keeping in mind.

I'm kinda glad Buddha isn't giving some of the childish that appears to repeatedly show up around this topic here.

This. So, so much this. See you all in another few months. Maybe.  :glare:

Quote from: Jacob on July 19, 2021, 11:11:48 AM
Came across an article a while ago about a mother who'd regularly allege that girls on teams playing against her daughter's team were trans. She'd demand that they be taken off the team, as this was in US state with a ban on trans girls in HS sports. She'd typically focus on girls with short hair and/ or star players just before a match. This - as you can imagine - was frequently pretty traumatizing for the cis- girls who just wanted to play, and who suddenly had their gender identity publicly questioned. The mom was active in some sort of "keep trans girls out of girls sports" movement, so she'd have a bit of political and social media heft behind her too, IIRC.

Ugh.  I didn't think about that.

Quote from: Sheilbh on July 19, 2021, 11:43:13 AM

Quote from: Berkut on July 19, 2021, 09:01:56 AM
I like how if someone noticed something that was anatomically TRUE, they were "feminizing" him in retrospect. I suppose the coroner who noticed he had a vagina was doing that as well.

Well the coroner didn't - the coroner ignored the fact that he had a vagina - and isn't that the right phrase given that people commented on it in retrospect.

The coroner most certainly did notice that it was a women, since that is the one who revealed that in fact it was a woman.

He may not have decided that meant much, but you don't know that those who remarked that in retrospect she had very little facial hair or a high voice did either. They were just noticing something factual.

Quote from: Tyr on July 19, 2021, 07:10:50 AM

There's a difference between 200kg six foot tall women and skinny ones with dwarvism too.

Do you think England's female football team could win against England's male football team?
Do you think an American footbal women's elite team could stand a chance against the best collegial american football players?

I've watched hockey.  A lot of hockey.  Women and men's game.  Only the American and Canadian teams are worth shit, but even there, there's no way these ladies could compete against junior players.  They're not fast, not strong enough.  And among the junior players, only 0.16% of them, end up in the NHL and not all of them get a full contract.

Where is the fairness in that?

In combat sports, we discriminate by body mass.  Between x and y kg, you fight in a category.  Between y and z kg, another category.

But here we are, saying it shouldn't matter at all if one of the girls is 50 pounds heavier than the other during a boxing match. There's a bit of hypocrisy with this point of view, don't you think?

Quote from: Jacob on July 19, 2021, 11:11:48 AM
I don't have a strong sense of how frequent and harmful false allegations that cis- girls are trans- are going to be with bans on trans athletes vs how frequent and harmful trans- girls participating is going to be to cis- girls in things like high school sports, but if we're looking at protecting children we should consider that as well, IMO.

Everything should be considered, and all false accusations should be severly reprimended.  One should not exclude the other.

Quote
How do we deal with intersex athletes?

Are there that many to begin with?

Quote from: Berkut on July 19, 2021, 06:41:19 PM
The coroner most certainly did notice that it was a women, since that is the one who revealed that in fact it was a woman.

The coroner didn't:

QuoteJames Allen was working for a London shipwright when he was killed by a falling piece of timber in 1829. He had been married to his wife, Abigail, for more than twenty years. The medical students who performed the autopsy declared Allen's body anatomically female, but the coroner continued to call the deceased 'he' because 'I considered it impossible for him to be a woman, as he had a wife.'

This may be a common language thing - coroners here (I think especially back then) are normally lawyers. But they're a type of judge who hear an inquest sometimes with a jury to determine the cause of death. Someone else does the autopsy and the coroner hears the evidence. So in this case the medical students did the autopsy and discovered Allen's biological sex - the coroner decided to disregard that because of the fact of Allen's marriage to a woman.

Edit: Looking it up the coroners inquest is there to decide who the deceased was and how, when and where they died - so this would probably have been an issue in deciding "who" the deceased was and the coroner decided they were James Allen.

QuoteHe may not have decided that meant much, but you don't know that those who remarked that in retrospect she had very little facial hair or a high voice did either. They were just noticing something factual.

I'm just going from the article which says that the comments about faical hair or high voice were in retrospect given that I've not read the book :lol:

But also it strikes me as more likely that we'd have a record of individuals speaking to the press after the scandalous discovery of a local man being biologically female, rather than a prospective record about a sawyer on a shipyard in 1820s London.

Quote from: viper37 on July 19, 2021, 07:17:23 PM

Quote from: Tyr on July 19, 2021, 07:10:50 AM

There's a difference between 200kg six foot tall women and skinny ones with dwarvism too.

Do you think England's female football team could win against England's male football team?
Do you think an American footbal women's elite team could stand a chance against the best collegial american football players?

I've watched hockey.  A lot of hockey.  Women and men's game.  Only the American and Canadian teams are worth shit, but even there, there's no way these ladies could compete against junior players.  They're not fast, not strong enough.  And among the junior players, only 0.16% of them, end up in the NHL and not all of them get a full contract.

Where is the fairness in that?

Whats with the completely irrelevant questions?
Nobody wants England men to play against England women.

Quote
In combat sports, we discriminate by body mass.  Between x and y kg, you fight in a category.  Between y and z kg, another category.

But here we are, saying it shouldn't matter at all if one of the girls is 50 pounds heavier than the other during a boxing match. There's a bit of hypocrisy with this point of view, don't you think?

Who says that?
Wasn't what we just talked about copying boxing in other sports rather than copying other sports in boxing?

Quote from: Tyr on July 20, 2021, 03:16:21 AM

Quote from: viper37 on July 19, 2021, 07:17:23 PM
In combat sports, we discriminate by body mass.  Between x and y kg, you fight in a category.  Between y and z kg, another category.

But here we are, saying it shouldn't matter at all if one of the girls is 50 pounds heavier than the other during a boxing match. There's a bit of hypocrisy with this point of view, don't you think?

Who says that?
Wasn't what we just talked about copying boxing in other sports rather than copying other sports in boxing?

That still does not work.

a 5'8" 185lb man is not equivalent to a 5'8" 185lb women. Or pick your height and weight, it doesn't matter.

Quote from: Berkut on July 20, 2021, 08:13:39 AM

Quote from: Tyr on July 20, 2021, 03:16:21 AM

Quote from: viper37 on July 19, 2021, 07:17:23 PM
In combat sports, we discriminate by body mass.  Between x and y kg, you fight in a category.  Between y and z kg, another category.

But here we are, saying it shouldn't matter at all if one of the girls is 50 pounds heavier than the other during a boxing match. There's a bit of hypocrisy with this point of view, don't you think?

Who says that?
Wasn't what we just talked about copying boxing in other sports rather than copying other sports in boxing?

That still does not work.

a 5'8" 185lb man is not equivalent to a 5'8" 185lb women. Or pick your height and weight, it doesn't matter.

Which I mentioned.
Deciding exactly what the factor you use to draw your category boundaries with just brings us back to square one.

Quote from: Tyr on July 20, 2021, 08:22:12 AM

Quote from: Berkut on July 20, 2021, 08:13:39 AM

Quote from: Tyr on July 20, 2021, 03:16:21 AM

Quote from: viper37 on July 19, 2021, 07:17:23 PM
In combat sports, we discriminate by body mass.  Between x and y kg, you fight in a category.  Between y and z kg, another category.

But here we are, saying it shouldn't matter at all if one of the girls is 50 pounds heavier than the other during a boxing match. There's a bit of hypocrisy with this point of view, don't you think?

Who says that?
Wasn't what we just talked about copying boxing in other sports rather than copying other sports in boxing?

That still does not work.

a 5'8" 185lb man is not equivalent to a 5'8" 185lb women. Or pick your height and weight, it doesn't matter.

Which I mentioned.
Deciding exactly what the factor you use to draw your category boundaries with just brings us back to square one.

Hence why this is not a actual solution to a "problem" that barely actually exists.

You cannot have a category of people allowed to play a sport where the intent, the very purpose of defining such a category, is to allow women to play sports against other women, while pretending like there is no such thing as a woman that can be simply defined biologically.

We all know what womens sports is, and always has been. Don't change it.

Allow a process for those transitioning physically to allow them, when appropriate, to participate. It is the very definition of the case where the individual circumstances simply demand some kind of exception be made. It will happen very, very rarely. Make a general rule that applies 99.9% of the time, and then allow and define an exception process to handle the 0.1%.

QuoteHence why this is not a actual solution to a "problem" that barely actually exists.

You cannot have a category of people allowed to play a sport where the intent, the very purpose of defining such a category, is to allow women to play sports against other women, while pretending like there is no such thing as a woman that can be simply defined biologically.

So do so.
The people responsible for doing this have been trying and failing for decades.

QuoteWe all know what womens sports is, and always has been. Don't change it.

It has changed many times over the years.
But agreed that we don't need to start introducing special laws just to exclude trans people.

The feral cat that's adopted us as it's new home is female, though it does spend a lot of time out at nights, isn't sterilised, but still hasn't had any kittens.

I'm fairly certain that this cat referred to as "she" is in fact male cat. All the other pet cats that have owned us have been female, so not sure what a boy cat looks like down below; but one thing I'm not gonna do is google for images of cat genitalia!

In this instance the notion of gender is rather fluid and at least here, a social construct.  :)

Quote from: mongers on July 20, 2021, 10:21:47 AM
The feral cat that's adopted us as it's new home is female, though it does spend a lot of time out at nights, isn't sterilised, but still hasn't had any kittens.

I'm fairly certain that this cat referred to as "she" is in fact male cat. All the other pet cats that have owned us have been female, so not sure what a boy cat looks like down below; but one thing I'm not gonna do is google for images of cat genitalia!

In this instance the notion of gender is rather fluid and at least here, a social construct.  :)

If he is an un-neutered adult male cat, the balls are hard to mistake for the female reproductive organ.

If she is a female and you want to keep it, I recommend sterilisation unless you want semi-annual trips to a shelter (or ending up with dozens of cats in short order). :contract:

Sex has no bearing on a cat's desire to be out and about at night, in my experience.

Quote from: mongers on July 20, 2021, 10:21:47 AM
The feral cat that's adopted us as it's new home is female, though it does spend a lot of time out at nights, isn't sterilised, but still hasn't had any kittens.

I'm fairly certain that this cat referred to as "she" is in fact male cat. All the other pet cats that have owned us have been female, so not sure what a boy cat looks like down below; but one thing I'm not gonna do is google for images of cat genitalia!

In this instance the notion of gender is rather fluid and at least here, a social construct.  :)

You can't normally see their penis unless they're, er, aroused (when it's bright red).

But they have a pair of furry little balls you can't miss.

Quote from: Barrister on July 20, 2021, 10:40:02 AM

Quote from: mongers on July 20, 2021, 10:21:47 AM
The feral cat that's adopted us as it's new home is female, though it does spend a lot of time out at nights, isn't sterilised, but still hasn't had any kittens.

I'm fairly certain that this cat referred to as "she" is in fact male cat. All the other pet cats that have owned us have been female, so not sure what a boy cat looks like down below; but one thing I'm not gonna do is google for images of cat genitalia!

In this instance the notion of gender is rather fluid and at least here, a social construct.  :)

You can't normally see their penis unless they're, er, aroused (when it's bright red).

But they have a pair of furry little balls you can't miss.

Thank you very much and Tamas too, but again ...

I AM NOT GOING TO GO LOOKING FOR A CAT'S DANGELY BITS.  :mad:



:P

Quote from: mongers on July 20, 2021, 11:33:54 AM

Quote from: Barrister on July 20, 2021, 10:40:02 AM

Quote from: mongers on July 20, 2021, 10:21:47 AM
The feral cat that's adopted us as it's new home is female, though it does spend a lot of time out at nights, isn't sterilised, but still hasn't had any kittens.

I'm fairly certain that this cat referred to as "she" is in fact male cat. All the other pet cats that have owned us have been female, so not sure what a boy cat looks like down below; but one thing I'm not gonna do is google for images of cat genitalia!

In this instance the notion of gender is rather fluid and at least here, a social construct.  :)

You can't normally see their penis unless they're, er, aroused (when it's bright red).

But they have a pair of furry little balls you can't miss.

Thank you very much and Tamas too, but again ...

I AM NOT GOING TO GO LOOKING FOR A CAT'S DANGELY BITS.  :mad:



:P

Okay, okay... I read you loud and clear.  You don't want to spend the effort to go looking.

So I'm here to help.  Here's a picture of cat testicles.

(https://previews.123rf.com/images/lufimorgan/lufimorgan1905/lufimorgan190500089/123731579-close-up-of-cat-testicles-balls.jpg)

That looks a lot like a pussy

Quote from: mongers on July 20, 2021, 11:33:54 AM

Quote from: Barrister on July 20, 2021, 10:40:02 AM

Quote from: mongers on July 20, 2021, 10:21:47 AM
The feral cat that's adopted us as it's new home is female, though it does spend a lot of time out at nights, isn't sterilised, but still hasn't had any kittens.

I'm fairly certain that this cat referred to as "she" is in fact male cat. All the other pet cats that have owned us have been female, so not sure what a boy cat looks like down below; but one thing I'm not gonna do is google for images of cat genitalia!

In this instance the notion of gender is rather fluid and at least here, a social construct.  :)

You can't normally see their penis unless they're, er, aroused (when it's bright red).

But they have a pair of furry little balls you can't miss.

Thank you very much and Tamas too, but again ...

I AM NOT GOING TO GO LOOKING FOR A CAT'S DANGELY BITS.  :mad:

:P

We had a few male cats growing up, and never once saw their pee-pee.

Then I cat-sat for someone who had to go a trip/military duty for about a month...that guy had his pecker out all of the time.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/oct/08/i-thought-my-boyfriend-of-10-years-was-going-to-propose-then-he-told-me-he-was-transgender

Quote'I thought my boyfriend of 10 years was going to propose – then he told me he was trans'

It was 3am and I'd had a lot to drink; two reasons why I was pressing my boyfriend of 10 years on why he hadn't yet proposed. We were strong and happy, and loved each other madly, so his reticence seemed ludicrous to me when sober, let alone drunk. I suspect it was my ceaseless questioning that ultimately blew a fuse in his brain, because that's when he told me his secret.

When I woke up, he was gone. I watched his WhatsApp status like it was the heart monitor of an ailing relative. The second I saw "online", I called and asked him to come home. To talk. To answer the questions that I'd scribbled illegibly on a half-folded piece of A4 paper.

He walked through the door and sat down, his face masked with fear. "What were you trying to tell me?" I asked hopefully, all too aware of how different things can look when alcohol is no longer shaping your every thought.

"I have gender identity issues," he blurted, eyes fixed on the floor. "I just ... don't identify with being male," he said. My throat thickened. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I knew this person better than anyone in the world, but could in no way reconcile him with the words coming out of his mouth.

"Well, what do you identify with?" I pleaded, panicking.

"I don't know – like, non-binary, or ... " Oh my God, what was he about to say? " ... trans." The word flooded my body with a surreal disbelief.

I was already sure, cold and emphatic: this was done. We were done. "But why?" he implored.

"Because I can't be ... I don't want to be with a woman." It was surprising to me how obvious this fact was, because everything else was suddenly underwater.

"But I don't know how far it will go yet," he said. "I don't know anything yet. Except that our relationship is more important than my gender."

My questions were redundant. Their purpose was to establish where we go from here, but in the private theatre of my mind, the curtains closed at every turn. Soon, my sister was outside. I tried to articulate why I'd asked her to collect me and why I had a suitcase. She knew something was wrong, of course, but she had no idea of the magnitude.

"He ... He ... thinks he might be ... ans." I couldn't get it out of my mouth.

"What? What are you saying, Feebs?"

"He thinks he might be trans." We stood on the dark street, cobbles glossed with rain, and wept. Her tears soaked my shoulder, and mine hers. We drove back to hers. I sat in silence, numb, watching the rain blur the brake lights in front of me while she continued to sob – for me, for him, and I guess for the future brother-in-law she'd just lost.

For a week in January, she held my hand every night while I stared at the ceiling, watching her alarm clock announce the time in a glaring sequence of oblongs: 12.10am. 2.36am. 3.30am. 5.05am. 6.16am. The second 7am hit, I got in the shower just so I could cry in peace.

My new therapist was a large woman with a kind face whose accent I couldn't decipher. She worked from a light-flooded conservatory, which seemed sensible given the dark and endless trauma she mined from people's lives. I spilled the story chaotically. "He was so sympathetic when I was on my period," I yelped. "He would practically sprint to the shop to buy me ibuprofen or tampons. Is that because he wished he was having periods?" Her response was reassuringly rational. "If he was jealous of you, it would have manifested in anger, not kindness. He was kind to you because he loved you, and didn't like seeing you in pain." I realise now that I was focusing on the trivial in order to avoid the stark truth: that the person around whom my world revolved was disappearing, and I was just stuck here, waiting for them to go.

At once gender was all around me, screaming in my face. Forms asking me if I am male, female or whether I'd prefer not to say. How many times had he dared himself to tick something other than "male"? Every time I used a public loo I wondered if he wanted to use the women's. Munroe Bergdorf was making history as the first transgender woman on the cover of Cosmopolitan magazine. Had he bought a copy? The trans flag emoji appeared every time I wrote the word "trans" on WhatsApp (142 times a day). It was at once the most shocking and casual thing in my life. I surveyed women everywhere, as if every fifth person might be trans. Then there were the subtle, bordering-on-comical triggers at every turn. The Trans by JanSport-branded backpack on the train, and an article titled "Time to transition", about city folk fleeing London for somewhere leafy. It was inescapable. On the political stage, the UK government was being rightly condemned for failing to ban conversion practices for trans people. In Ukraine, many of them were denied safe passage at the border, while in the US protesters were rallying against conservative anti-trans bills. It was a time of global reckoning, and a long overdue one at that, but selfishly I yearned for some respite.

...

I thought this was an interesting/complicated account of being the partner of someone who came out as trans. Long-read, rest of text in the link.

That's a lot of words to just say "I hate trans people more than I loved the love of my life."

No idea who this person is or what else they've said but as reasons for a break up go this seems a fairly good one and not automatically transphobic either.
I'm all for LGBT rights but I'm just not into men. Nought wrong with that

Quote from: grumbler on October 08, 2022, 10:28:54 AMThat's a lot of words to just say "I hate trans people more than I loved the love of my life."

:huh:

I didn't get that at all. Did you read the full thing?

Quote from: garbon on October 08, 2022, 11:04:52 AM

Quote from: grumbler on October 08, 2022, 10:28:54 AMThat's a lot of words to just say "I hate trans people more than I loved the love of my life."

:huh:

I didn't get that at all. Did you read the full thing?

I read what was posted.  Let's look at the evidence:
1.  She wanted to marry a guy, so in love with him was she.  The instant he confessed gender confusion, she dropped him and moved out.  He thought love more important than gender issues, she didn't even consider that idea for a moment.

2.  The author writes that "I was focusing on the trivial in order to avoid the stark truth: that the person around whom my world revolved was disappearing, and I was just stuck here, waiting for them to go."  No, he was not disappearing.  Just her false perception of him.

3.  Lines like "The trans flag emoji appeared every time I wrote the word "trans" on WhatsApp (142 times a day). It was at once the most shocking and casual thing in my life" don't sound empathetic at all.  She is "shocked" by the trans flag emoji.

4. She "surveyed women everywhere, as if every fifth person might be trans."  Why such a paranoid feeling, if she doesn't fear trans people?

5.  She observes that "the UK government was being rightly condemned for failing to ban conversion practices for trans people."  What should the UK government's failure to ban conversion procedures for trans people be "rightly condemned?"

None of it seems sympathetic for her former partner, or trans people in general, except perhaps the reference to "In Ukraine, many of them were denied safe passage at the border" assuming that "them" was trans people (its a pronoun without antecedent).  The rest seemed like her being shocked and dismayed to discover that trans people really existed.

I was certainly very surprised that she concluded that their relationship was over immediately; that seemed pretty cold to me.

So you didn't read all of it, got it. Might be issue of where it had naturally break and I didn't post rest of it.

For what it is worth, I thought the full article showed a woman who was struggling with supporting a person she loved while dealing with it blowing up the life she had planned.

Quote from: Richard Hakluyt on October 08, 2022, 12:18:14 PMI was certainly very surprised that she concluded that their relationship was over immediately; that seemed pretty cold to me.

She has sex with him later...

I haven't read the full article, is it explained what prompted the guy/gal to transition? What was missing from his/her life that a man could not do/achieve that switching to be a woman enabled/allowed her?

That's what I remain ignorant on with gender-transitioning in general: how is it not a terribly sexist concept?

EDIT: what I mean of course, is that I am having trouble seeing the "point" to it unless you believe that certain behaviours/roles are gender-exclusive and you cannot adopt them unless you change your gender.

Quote from: garbon on October 08, 2022, 12:57:45 PMSo you didn't read all of it, got it. Might be issue of where it had naturally break and I didn't post rest of it.

For what it is worth, I thought the full article showed a woman who was struggling with supporting a person she loved while dealing with it blowing up the life she had planned.

Agreed. I thought it was interesting and not unsympathetic.

If she's not bi or lesbian it doesn't seem cold not wanting to be with a woman.

Strikes me as the opposite of transphobic really.
I recognise you as a woman so as a straight woman no more sexy time.

Given that her partner did not themselves know how they identified, it seems quite anti-trans to just assign them the worst possible gender identity from the girlfriend's POV, and then use that imposed identity to justify leaving the relationship.

Remember, she had no issues with "his" gender expression until he put a name on it, and then it was "I can't tolerate you."

Maybe she couldn't tolerate indecisiveness. 

Quote from: Razgovory on October 09, 2022, 06:50:53 PMMaybe she couldn't tolerate indecisiveness.

I can't decide whether that is admirable, or not.

Quote from: grumbler on October 09, 2022, 06:04:48 PMand then use that imposed identity to justify leaving the relationship.

No one needs to justify leaving a relationship you possessive creep.

Quote from: chipwich on October 09, 2022, 09:39:01 PM

Quote from: grumbler on October 09, 2022, 06:04:48 PMand then use that imposed identity to justify leaving the relationship.

No one needs to justify leaving a relationship you possessive creep.

 :huh:   What bug crawled up your ass?  Everyone needs to justify their controversial actions to themselves.  I'd be interested to hear how you justified to yourself the decision to call me a "possessive creep."