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Transgender swimmer Lia Thomas out of Olympics after losing legal battle
(www.theguardian.com)
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this post was submitted on 12 Jun 2024
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Genetics are predominantly on the favor of the male side unfortunately.
I have a lot of trouble accepting claims like this when Lea Thomas is beaten by cis women all the time.
It’s not a claim, it’s genetics, and what’s wrong with accepting that some people are better than others? It just gives her an unfair advantage from genetics(hormones in this case) helping her. It won’t make her a top athlete, who claimed that?
Would be different if the top male athlete did it, like say Phelps, there would not a be a women who could compete with them. That’s just friggen genetics.
Either genetics predominantly favor biological males, in which case a world-class swimmer like Lea Thomas should win virtually every meet, or it's more complicated than that.
There will always be outliers on both sides yes, but take the top 10% of male and female athletes and put them against each other, and the men would win 80% of the time. Because they are genetically predominately better at the stuff required for athletics. Wider hips aren’t really great for running for example…
Reality of often disappointing.
Lea Thomas is in the top 10% and does not win 80% of the time.
Does Crosby win 80% of the time? Mcdavid? Brady…?
Give your head a shake dude.
It's not my fault that your claim does not match reality, at least when it comes to swimming.
It’s not a claim… it’s the result of genetic study….
Wide hips aren’t great for running, not every woman has wide hips, but most do. So yeah some are going to be able to do it.
Now, almost every man doesn’t have wide hips, so they have inherent advantage right there.
She wasn’t the TOP male swimmer, I’m sure if we look at her fastest time as a male it would be slower than the top female. Her going over won’t suddenly make her faster, it just means the competition is easier….
First of all, she was never male any more than a gay person isn't heterosexual before telling people they're gay. She competed on a man's team before coming out of the closet and was rated sixth fastest "man" in the nation at the time. Now she's being beaten by CIS women. Sounds like whatever advantage she had when she was on that team doesn't exist anymore, which, again, suggests it's more complicated than just genetics.
Why people are so against the idea of "it's more complicated than that" and think anything biological has such a simple answer is just kind of sad because it shows such ignorance of basic science.
Edit: Thanks for proving it, downvoters. Let me guess- you also think a single gene is responsible for eye color.
Pardon my ignorance, what would you call someone preop and refering to them in the past tense? Especially when competing?
If someone was married, it wouldn’t be wrong to refer to them at that time as straight or call it during their “straight phase” and we are simplifying it. Especially if you don’t know their full story.
Sounds like you’re just looking for a fight in the comments, imma bounce.
If I wanted to answer your question, I would tell you that "presenting as" is the preferred term, but since I'm just looking for a fight, I won't tell you that.
Except her pre-transition fastest 1000 free was faster than the record for female 1000 free.
To add on to that. Her pre-transition time was ~24 seconds slower than the male record and post transition her 1000 free was about 32 seconds slower than the female record. So if anything she was preforming better in her categories before she transitioned.
Her ranks when swimming against men were 554th in the 200 freestyle, 65th in the 500 freestyle, and 32nd in the 1650 freestyle. Those ranks are now, when competing in the women's team, fifth in the 200 freestyle, first in the 500 freestyle, and eighth in the 1650 freestyle.
Her time for the 500 freestyle, where she is ranked #1 against women, is over 15 seconds slower than her personal bests before medically transitioning, and even THEN she was only 65th in the event against men. The same event where she was 65th is now 15 seconds slower and ranked #1. That's the gulf between the two events.
I just pasted this-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lia_Thomas
But, you are correct. She ranked those numbers eventually. Do you know when she ranked that low? After she started taking hormones.
Which proves my point that it's more complicated than just genetics.
That's not a very thoughtful argument. This is about comparing the top percentages of athletes. Lea Thomas is not 100% the best woman swimmer in the world, since she does lose sometimes to the best women. But when she competed against men she lost every single time. It's about the top 0.1% of women swimmers not being able to compete with the top 10% of male swimmers. Lea Thomas wasn't even close to the top 10% of men but instantly became the top 1% for women. No, all men aren't instantly the best female athletes. But in a lot of sports the absolute best women's athletes can't compete with even average teenage boys.
That's not true.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lia_Thomas
In general, sure, but not all men are more muscular and stronger than all women.
Furthermore, even if, say 90% (or even 100%) of the heavyweight category were men, it would still be fairer for everyone.
No but taking the top 10% from each male and female athletes and putting them against each other, the men would still be on top 80% of the time.
Citation needed.
There is a thousand, but I find this Pretty interesting myself
The conclusion has absolutely nothing to do with what you previously wrote ...
Did you read it all? Or just skip to the conclusion?
The introduction had great links with their why they are doing this study.
I read it. The conclusion tells what the study learned, and it has absolutely sfa to do with the original statement.
Maybe try and stay on topic instead of throwing shit around hoping some will stick.
Please read the entire thing. You would see how it was on topic if you did, that’s how I know you haven’t.
But like I said, that's fine. The point is that we would then be categorizing people not according to their gender but by factors that directly affect their athletic performance.
Another benefit would also be that it would allow a wider range of people to participate at the national and international level, seeing as it would not remove all but those women and men who possess the optimal physical traits required for that particular sport.
That’s starting to sound a little like an eugenics competition….
I would say the opposite, in fact.
Eugenics is the belief and practices that aim to "improve" the genetic quality of a human population to meet an idealized optimal standard. Under my proposed system, you could argue it would allow for a greater diversity of individuals that would be able to compete, and therefore would lower the necessity of having the optimal physical traits required in order to take part in each sport.
Back to the discussion. It would basically be this if we took the 10% of each and put it into 4 categories.
Group A 85%men 15% women
Group B 70%men 30% women
Group C 55%men 45%women
Group D 5%men 95%women
It just doesn’t work. You would be hand picking less qualified men to compete with the women just to fill it up.
On what basis doesn't it work, though? I'm still not sure I understand what the problem is with your example.
Another way of looking at it is that we would in fact be widening the criteria of who would be considered "qualified".
In only one group would the women win a significant portion of the events? You basically created an Olympics with a bottom 25% female category, and 3 male categories. The women can already compete with the men if they want to, but they want medals too, not just to be there…. The best women would be overshadowed by the best men, you would only be showing off the worst of the top female athletes.
Expanding? When you need a d list male to compete with a b list female? Come on.
Ah yeah, I see what you mean. Fair point.