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Trans women have no advantage in elite sport, new report finds (www.thepinknews.com)

submitted 2 years ago by ada to c/lgbtq_plus@beehaw.org

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[-] __chelsea__@beehaw.org 5 points 2 years ago

This is it, exactly.

Every time I've gone and looked into it, the research seems to indicate that trans women who've been on HRT for a year or two do retain some advantages due to testosterone-fueled puberty, but those advantages they may retain are well within the bounds of what's expected between cis women. In other words, sure, maybe a trans woman is taller than she'd be had she not gone through T-puberty, but there are cis women who are also tall, and we're not banning them on that basis. The same goes for any other advantages they (trans women) retain.

[-] blackhole@kbin.social 4 points 2 years ago

We are banning them specifically because they gained that advantage by going through puberty as a gender they aren't competing as. And none of those other women competitors had the ability to do that.

That is the difference. And I think that's a fine reason to ban someone from competing (AT A HIGH LEVEL, NOT CHILDREN'S SPORTS).

[-] __chelsea__@beehaw.org 9 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

And I'm saying that's a bogus reason to ban trans women from women's sports. If their advantage is no greater than that of the advantages between cis women, then including medically transitioned trans women in women's sports does not un-level the playing field.

ETA: The way that we control for the testosterone-fueled changes a trans woman's body undergoes in puberty is by requiring them to be on HRT (including T suppressors) for a long enough amount of time that those advantages become negligible and they can fairly compete with other athletes, not by outright banning them. It's ridiculous and more than a little offensive to act like outright banning trans women from high level competition is the right thing to do.

[-] 15Redstones@feddit.de 3 points 2 years ago

Emphasis on medically transitioned.

Some people seem to think that lgbt activists want to make it so that any male athlete could just put on a wig, say "I'm trans now", steal medals from women and then detransition the next day. (As depicted in that Futurama episode.)

Letting trans people who have medically transitioned for several years compete is a very different beast from letting anyone who claims to be trans compete.

[-] __chelsea__@beehaw.org 3 points 2 years ago

Absolutely. It's still a bit arbitrary, but at least there's data and established history to back this up as a viable way for trans women to compete. It's how we've been doing things in most major sports already, if they have any policy for trans athletes at all. It's worked out fine, I have yet to see any example of a trans athlete that is blowing her competition out of the water, so to speak. All of their examples are heavily cherry picked and misrepresented to look poorly on the trans community, but at closer inspection are anything but that.

That said, there are still some problems. For one, focusing on T-levels ends up with people like Caster Semenya, a cis-woman with a condition that means she produces a bunch of testosterone, being barred from competing.

[-] blackhole@kbin.social 1 points 2 years ago

You think it's a bogus reason. I disagree, simple as that.

It doesn't mean I'm being transphobic though. And everyone on here claiming I am is hurting our ability to have reasonable discourse. How do you expect to change the minds of anyone, if the very first thing you all do is to tell someone who disagrees with you that they are transphobic, and then seek to silence them.

[-] raresbears 2 points 2 years ago

Should I be banned from women's sports? I mean I've been through a male puberty which according to your criteria would seem to make it an immediate no, but I'm also 5'6 and for various reasons likely have a lower than average bone density. Would I be competing with an 'unfair advantage'?

[-] blackhole@kbin.social 1 points 2 years ago

At a competitive, high level. Yes. Recreational sports? Children's sports? Just for fun sports? Of course not.

Professional? Yes. You should not be allowed to compete in the women's division, due to the fact that you went through puberty as a male. In my opinion.

[-] raresbears 1 points 2 years ago

I mean the question here is what advantage it confers me isn't it

[-] blackhole@kbin.social 1 points 2 years ago

No, that's not the question. And I think all of you are missing that point.

The question is what are the rules? And the rules are you need to be born a female and have had gone through puberty as a female to be eligible to compete in a females division of sports, because that's what the rules are. For everyone.