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submitted 7 months ago by jeffw@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world
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[-] Hillock@feddit.de 40 points 7 months ago

Sport is such an unfair world, trying to find equality and justice in it is futile. We don't want kids taking growth hormones to boost their chances of making it into the NBA. But that also means we crush the dream of plenty of people. Athletes with asthma can't use their inhaler under certain circumstances. A few years ago an UFC fighter with Asthma got his win overturned because he used an inhaler inbetween rounds.

There was a huge discussion about allowing prosthetics in "regular" competition. Turned out at the time that proshetics weren't advanced enough to give an advantage. But I think we all know that this is only a matter of time. And eventually a hard ruling needs to be made that dictates in which direction sport goes.

Banning athletes who take as many hormones, hormone blockers, and other mediaction as transwomen usually take is 100% something that needs to happen. Especially considering that in certain leagues the usage of these substances is the only reason that transwomen are allowed to compete. That feels against the spirit of sport and TUEs. But untill more data exist, I doubt a useful ruling can be made.

What I don't like about the whole discussion is going for the "They aren't real women" argument. That feels degrading and hurtful for everyone involved. I don't want cis or transwomen to have to undergo inspections to determine their gender.

[-] whoreticulture@lemmy.world 26 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

But the "hormones" you generically refer to, aka fucking estrogen lol, and hormone blockers Trans women take aren't an advantage. Ask any trans women, they make you weaker....

Like why point out trans women when trans MEN are taking a hormone that actually promotes strength and athleticism? TERF vibes

[-] derf82@lemmy.world 28 points 7 months ago

They make you weaker, perhaps, but are you at the same level as a cis woman who was never exposed to that level of testosterone?

And trans men are just competing against men that naturally produce those same hormones.

It is simply a complex issue that defies a simple answer.

[-] Takumidesh@lemmy.world 14 points 7 months ago

There are plenty of cis women that have higher natural t levels than men, that's why many sports already required people stay under certain t levels before trans sporting rights were even in the question.

[-] derf82@lemmy.world 20 points 7 months ago

The effects of increased testosterone last a long time, even if it’s being blocked. And how exactly are testosterone levels being monitored? When? When, if ever, do the athletic advantages of male puberty and testosterone wear off?

People have reasonable and legitimate concerns beyond accusations of transphobia. Sweeping those concerns under the rug and acting like they are unfounded will earn the trans community little support.

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[-] whoreticulture@lemmy.world 10 points 7 months ago

Every woman has variations in their hormone makeups and history. Besides, the pool of trans women athletes is just so small, and the amount of vitriol is so disproportionate and obviously rooted in transphobia.

[-] derf82@lemmy.world 13 points 7 months ago

The variations between biological men and women are larger and more significant than those between women.

And it isn’t that insignificant. Lia Thomas won an NCAA title, beating an Olympic silver medalist. Laurel Hubbard went to the Olympics. She lived as male 35 years before transitioning. She had given up weightlifting decades earlier. But at that age with little training, she suddenly qualified for the Olympics.

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[-] SeaJ@lemm.ee 23 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Banning athletes who take as many hormones, hormone blockers, and other mediaction as transwomen usually take is 100% something that needs to happen.

Those hormone blockers block testosterone and the hormones they take are estrogen. Those are not exactly performance enhancing actions. In fact, they do the opposite. If anything, we should be making sure that trans women competing in sports should be taking hormone blockers and estrogen.

You need to re-examine your take because it is truly baffling.

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[-] naevaTheRat@lemmy.dbzer0.com 36 points 7 months ago

If you're position is excluding trans women from sport because of vibes you're just a transphobe.

There is no rabid hoard of transwomen waiting to overrun sport and sweep the awards. Until recently this wasn't even an issue, the Olympics has allowed trans women to compete from like 2000. Where are the medals?

We're a tiny population who generally perform worse than natal women because our T is lower. Despite all the contrived "just asking questions" about skeleton size or whatever nonsense there is no clear picture of advantage. At any rate tall women aren't banned from sport. Even women with PCOS aren't banned from sport.

We don't have seperate leagues for people raised in stable households on good diets and yet that's got performance benefits that swamp anything from having a slightly higher forearm to middle finger ratio or whatever insane thing people bring up.

This whole thing is completely drummed up and is just an acceptable way for the general unease cis people feel about trans people to be voiced.

[-] jeffw@lemmy.world 15 points 7 months ago

We don't have seperate leagues for people raised in stable households on good diets and yet that's got performance benefits that swamp anything from having a slightly higher forearm to middle finger ratio or whatever insane thing people bring up.

This is actually a really good point. There’s no much natural variation in body types and hormone levels.

[-] Feddyteddy@lemmy.sdf.org 8 points 7 months ago

It is interesting that you bring up the fact that not many transwomen are winning medals. Would it be a problem if they were? If so, what percent of women's medals going to transwomen would make you decide that transwomen shouldn't be allowed in women's sports?

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[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 27 points 7 months ago

In general, and I'm sure some people here will be incensed at the suggestion, people do not give a shit about women's sports and the only time many of them do is when they find out a "man" is competing in them.

[-] Manos@lemm.ee 23 points 7 months ago

Women care about women's sports.

[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 36 points 7 months ago

A lot of them don't. Just like a lot of women are against subsidized pre and post-natal care. Just because you're a woman doesn't mean you care about women's issues.

And, based on what I've seen, the vast majority of complaints about this come from men anyway.

[-] Catoblepas 19 points 7 months ago

Most of the women in women’s sports who are asked support trans inclusion (somewhat sport dependent, some sports are historically more queer friendly than others) and find equal pay to be a much bigger issue for women’s sports. For some reason nobody who is “concerned” about women’s sports wants to hear that, though. 🤷‍♂️

[-] Feddyteddy@lemmy.sdf.org 8 points 7 months ago

The reason for women getting paid less in sports is due to advertisement revenue. Not as many people watch women's sports, so advertisers pay less. This results in female athletes getting paid less. I know that economics is not everyone's strong point, but you really don't have to get very deep into it to understand this concept, all it takes is an open mind and the willingness to learn something new.

[-] Catoblepas 10 points 7 months ago

“Female athletes are more concerned about equal pay than trans people in sports.”

“Ah yes but you see, nobody watches or cares about women’s sports so equal pay is impossible.”

Yes, thank you for illustrating why female athletes are more concerned about that than a manufactured hysteria from the right, lmao.

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[-] LainTrain@lemmy.dbzer0.com 22 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Yeah it's a fairly standard grift now, they point at again random trans women winning (or make them up) and say it's not fair because obviously trans women are just dudes in wigs, and because that's what a lot of cis people think (or at most - they know that breast implants are a thing despite the fact trans women avoid them like the plague) and they screech about muh biomechanical males and females and whatnot.

You can explain and show a million times how most trans women have lower Testosterone levels than cis women do (weak biological loose regulation vs the cold perfection of medicine) and it will do fuck all because it's all pretense, if trans women were wizards who changed completely including genetically they'd still just wanna brand us for it.

So tiring and exhausting. All just screaming into the void. So much bloodlust. Can't wait for the civil war at this point.

EDIT: ah the bloodthirsty have come here

EDIT2: for all the people below saying I'm being too extreme just a reminder that I did not even say anything mean in this comment. Still downvoted to oblivion and disagreed with like some extreme take. You take from that what you will.

Trans women are biologically female btw in all ways that aren't literally just the presence of the Y chromosome, from gonads, to their blood, to gene expression :3

Sports are inherently unfair, and trans women's strength advantage is lost with transition.

Puberty blockers for minors are the compromise. (this would also eliminate the stupid sport shit hence why they wanna ban it)

[-] ieatpillowtags@lemm.ee 20 points 7 months ago

Odd that you would focus on testosterone levels instead of muscle mass. It’s certainly true that trans women have testosterone levels comparable with cis women, and also true that they would lose some amount of muscle mass due to that. However, they still retain more muscle than a cis woman would have, in general.

I think it’s legitimate to ask if that’s fair.

[-] LainTrain@lemmy.dbzer0.com 13 points 7 months ago

Ah, because testosterone levels hugely influence muscle mass and resultant strength and performance. The longest study on the matter actually ended up with trans women having on average LESS muscle strength than cis women.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8090355/

I don't actually give a single shit about sports btw.

But this is a good example, this issue brings out the inherent bloodthirst many cis have towards trans people.

[-] ieatpillowtags@lemm.ee 8 points 7 months ago

…bloodthirst?? Because somebody disagreed with you? How about you calm down instead of being such an extremist. And no, your single study with like 8 people in each group is not more convincing than all of the other studies that you’re deliberately choosing to ignore.

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[-] papertowels@lemmy.one 8 points 7 months ago

I suspect that this study should be repeated on the athlete subpopulations, because I imagine many trans women are actively trying to not be muscular in order to aid transitioning, which is a different goal from those participating in athletics.

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[-] elbarto777@lemmy.world 14 points 7 months ago

Believe me when I say that I support my LGBTQ+ peeps.

And I concede that I don't know much about the subject of trans people in sports and physical capabilities.

But in my view, trans women have higher probability to be stronger than most cis female athletes. I'm not saying it happens all the time. But it happens. There is a reason there are competition categories. Even in the same gender, for example, in boxing, there are weight divisions.

So, I don't know what the solution is. Measure the amount of strength and categorize accordingly? Having an extra "transgender" category? I tell you - I would watch this! Not in a morbid way, but a genuine one, no different from watching women's soccer or men's tennis, for example.

[-] ada 17 points 7 months ago

Believe me when I say that I support my LGBTQ+ peeps.

No, I don't believe you.

Because you literally admitted that you don't know much about this topic, but still came out to argue for the exclusion of one of the most marginalised parts of the LGBTQ community.

Your understanding is one that comes from the talking points of people trying to use sports as a wedge tactic to further ostracise trans folk, and you completely disregard or simply fail to look for the experiences of trans people and the impact these exclusions have on them.

So if you genuinely do support LGBTQ folk, and that sentence wasn't just a salve for your own conscience, it might be time to stop stepping on the people you claim to support. If you don't know enough to form a supportive opinion, that's fine, but stop adding to the voices trying to pull us down...

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[-] HopeOfTheGunblade@kbin.social 13 points 7 months ago

But in my view, trans women have higher probability to be stronger than most cis female athletes. I

Given this belief, is there a reason trans women have never taken Olympic medals despite having nearly 20 years to do so? That would seem to be evidence against that perspective. If any trans women are more capable at sport than cis women shouldn't at least one have been world class?

[-] Stern@lemmy.world 13 points 7 months ago

Theres a trans female weightlifter Laurel Hubbard who made it to the Olympics in 2020. Passed every Olympic requirement for trans women to compete. Big hubbub about biological advantage and all that from the critics. She was in the competition one would most expect dominance from someone assigned male at birth. She had three lifts. She failed three lifts. Placed last in her group. So much for that.

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[-] jeffw@lemmy.world 13 points 7 months ago

I was with you until that last part lol. I’m not ready for a war.

But yeah, no evidence will persuade people. They have super intense beliefs about trans people because they saw something on Fox News or their social media feed. Confirmation bias and whatnot

[-] ieatpillowtags@lemm.ee 9 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

It’s not hard to find evidence to support the skepticism about trans women in sports:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33648944/

I’m curious what evidence you’re talking about?

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[-] ieatpillowtags@lemm.ee 8 points 7 months ago

Can't wait for the civil war at this point.

EDIT: ah the bloodthirsty have come here

I guess the hypocrisy is lost on you. Frankly I’m inclined to believe you’re a right wing troll trying to make trans people look bad at this point.

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[-] twig@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

I have said it before and I'll say it again: this issue exists to stir up controversy. Very few people can ever be professional athletes, but lots of people suffer as a result of the hostility generated by this debate.

Also, very few people talk about trans men in sport. There's no real justification for excluding trans men from sport other than fragile egos of male athletes being scared of being outperformed by an afab athlete.

Also also, if we're making the argument that people with higher exposure to testosterone for a short duration in their life have increased athletic performance (which to be clear is kind of true but not actually relevant for all trans women), then I have to remind you that anabolic steroids can benefit athletes for up to a decade, which is exactly much fucking longer than these drugs remain detectable in an athlete's system.

Also also also, professional sport is stupid and doesn't deserve this much attention. It certainly shouldn't be allowed to stir up this much hate toward regular ass trans folks just wanting to live their damn lives, but it does have that effect.

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this post was submitted on 30 Mar 2024
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