You should march for a Trans category in sports not for the domination of women's sport. Can you not see that girls are being wiped off the podiums and smashed and physically harmed by Trans identified women? Is this okay for you? I want to understand your thinking.
I thought about your comment a lot. So, what I would like to see is any date, seriously researched data that supports the argument that cis-girls are be systematically defeated and physically harmed by trans athletes. I can find none. Oh, anecdotes, one, two, three, where a trans girl actually won a competition. But absolutely no data - anecdotes are not data. In reality these same trans girls are being regularly defeated in competition. The data suggest, as I argued, that trans girls have no significant advantage, as a group. They win sometimes, lose sometimes, just like cis-gendered girls win sometimes, lose sometimes. In addition, there are far too few trans girls in sheer numbers to wipe anybody off a podium. Physical harm demands the same kind of research. I can find no systematic research that says trans girls are harming cis girls with any more frequency than cis girls are being accidentally harmed by other cis girls, as happens in competitive sports. In sum, girls win over other girls for many reasons, few of which have to do with being trans - like better training, natural body size (height, weight among all girls, for example. And there are too few trans girls who want to be in competitive athletics to ever change this reality. I welcome any systematic, researched data that shows otherwise.
Thank you for your thoughtful response. It’s refreshing to have a conversation instead of a shouting match. There doesn’t seem to be enough data either way. This paper seems fair but again there is no conclusion. I still feel that girls need their own category. Your point that there isn’t enough Trans athletes for them to compete as a separate category should be taken into consideration too. I can’t conclude anything however the discussion needs to continue.
I continue to study the research on this issue. My preliminary conclusion is that there is more emotion than reason in the debate. It is always hard to deal with emotional issues in the political arena; facts don't persuade. But I am pretty persuaded right now that "fairness" is a mistaken appeal to emotions, via anecdote and picture. It portrays the problem in a picture: a 6.5" strapping young boy with big shoulders who is going to wipe out any competing girl. But that's not who is trying to play sports on the trans side; that's still, somehow locked in the binary - "boys competing against girls." Trans kids are not that. But try changing what social media likes to do to create stereotypes and rile people up. This is a much deeper discussion. Thanks for your thoughtful response, as well.
I read the link you attached, which was very interesting. In general, the MD is quite reasonable about the issue. But he also does not take a lot of things into account. So, with apologies for this long post, here are the main issues I had.
Doesn’t discuss testosterone relative to other factors that distinguish performance. For example, height is described as an “unfair advantage” by the interviewer. But height can differ among cis-gendered girls, conferring an “unfair advantage.” Hand size can differ among cis-gendered females.
He doesn’t deal with the reality that cis-gendered girls differ among themselves with respect to testosterone levels, some of them overlapping significantly with male levels. The Olympics used to make this a test, but has now dropped it and simply just rules out any trans athletes, an excessive exclusion.
He doesn’t deal with chromosomal patterns for humans that are not XY or XX, though these are often found among females and among males, making even gender assigned at birth problematic. Science shows there are not just two genders as the chromosomal level.
He makes a distinction before and after puberty, but I have found research that suggests that even after puberty, hormones reduce testosterone levels, muscle mass, and structural body changes to the point where there is little advantage left. Or, to put it another way, where that advantage is so small that other non-gender related things like height (some women are taller than others), or weight (some women are built for weight-lifting; others are not), or training advantages matter more than transness.
The MD says: “I worry that scientific facts will be used to bludgeon each other and that we won't come to a consensus because our feelings are so heightened.” I worry the opposite; that this issue will be decided by the “feeling” that it is “not fair” and the science that suggests that it is fair will be swept away.
Above all, he doesn’t deal with the reality that this is, in fact, a very small problem. There are not hordes of trans girls in girls’ sports. There are not many “boys” deciding to become “girls” just to win at sports – the hormonal regime transforms whole bodies and is not fund to go through; I don’t know any “boy” who would want to do that just to win a swim race. And there are so few trans girls that doing proper scientific studies, which need large samples, are extremely difficult.
What you're discussing is professional sport, which is monitored carefully. In amateur sports there is another story going on, therefore that's why I think the principle of it heightens emotions and rightly so. There have been several cases in Ireland where boys have played as girls on girls teams in schools GAA (Irish rugby) and indeed in soccer and other team sports, and they have hurt the girls. These boys would not have been picked for boys teams as they didn't make the grade. They tower over the girls and have an obvious advantage. I would guess that most of these types are not taking any kind of medication, nor are they tested for testosterone levels, they are just take advantage of the current culture war and people are afraid to speak out against them.
I'm all for protecting genuine trans people but I do think boys and men take advantage of this outlet for an easy win, particularly in schools. That's why I think it shouldn't be allowed across the board. Girls need to be protected from harm, as do all children. There are always sneaky children looking to win over girls, or get a teacher fired, which you may have read about as we made the International papers. Some types of people take advantage when they can, on both sides I may add.
I would stand by Trans people if they were to march for their own categories in sport, as I referred to in my first comment. We have a bigger issue here, the pervasive nastiness that has leaked into both the right leaning side, and the left leaning side, which leaves genuinely vulnerable people exposed. Something has to change.
Again, you are relying on anecdote, not research or data. I do not see a wave of boys trying to pretend to be women in order to win. We need to be careful not to pick up what is presumed to be real but appears in a highly lie-laden context like social media. I take none of my data from social media; try to research all of it. And I am specifically not researching professional sports. That’s a whole other thing. My focus is precisely school sports for non-professionals.
You should march for a Trans category in sports not for the domination of women's sport. Can you not see that girls are being wiped off the podiums and smashed and physically harmed by Trans identified women? Is this okay for you? I want to understand your thinking.
I thought about your comment a lot. So, what I would like to see is any date, seriously researched data that supports the argument that cis-girls are be systematically defeated and physically harmed by trans athletes. I can find none. Oh, anecdotes, one, two, three, where a trans girl actually won a competition. But absolutely no data - anecdotes are not data. In reality these same trans girls are being regularly defeated in competition. The data suggest, as I argued, that trans girls have no significant advantage, as a group. They win sometimes, lose sometimes, just like cis-gendered girls win sometimes, lose sometimes. In addition, there are far too few trans girls in sheer numbers to wipe anybody off a podium. Physical harm demands the same kind of research. I can find no systematic research that says trans girls are harming cis girls with any more frequency than cis girls are being accidentally harmed by other cis girls, as happens in competitive sports. In sum, girls win over other girls for many reasons, few of which have to do with being trans - like better training, natural body size (height, weight among all girls, for example. And there are too few trans girls who want to be in competitive athletics to ever change this reality. I welcome any systematic, researched data that shows otherwise.
Thank you for your thoughtful response. It’s refreshing to have a conversation instead of a shouting match. There doesn’t seem to be enough data either way. This paper seems fair but again there is no conclusion. I still feel that girls need their own category. Your point that there isn’t enough Trans athletes for them to compete as a separate category should be taken into consideration too. I can’t conclude anything however the discussion needs to continue.
https://newsroom.uw.edu/blog/expert-science-wont-resolve-debates-about-trans-athletes
I continue to study the research on this issue. My preliminary conclusion is that there is more emotion than reason in the debate. It is always hard to deal with emotional issues in the political arena; facts don't persuade. But I am pretty persuaded right now that "fairness" is a mistaken appeal to emotions, via anecdote and picture. It portrays the problem in a picture: a 6.5" strapping young boy with big shoulders who is going to wipe out any competing girl. But that's not who is trying to play sports on the trans side; that's still, somehow locked in the binary - "boys competing against girls." Trans kids are not that. But try changing what social media likes to do to create stereotypes and rile people up. This is a much deeper discussion. Thanks for your thoughtful response, as well.
I read the link you attached, which was very interesting. In general, the MD is quite reasonable about the issue. But he also does not take a lot of things into account. So, with apologies for this long post, here are the main issues I had.
Doesn’t discuss testosterone relative to other factors that distinguish performance. For example, height is described as an “unfair advantage” by the interviewer. But height can differ among cis-gendered girls, conferring an “unfair advantage.” Hand size can differ among cis-gendered females.
He doesn’t deal with the reality that cis-gendered girls differ among themselves with respect to testosterone levels, some of them overlapping significantly with male levels. The Olympics used to make this a test, but has now dropped it and simply just rules out any trans athletes, an excessive exclusion.
He doesn’t deal with chromosomal patterns for humans that are not XY or XX, though these are often found among females and among males, making even gender assigned at birth problematic. Science shows there are not just two genders as the chromosomal level.
He makes a distinction before and after puberty, but I have found research that suggests that even after puberty, hormones reduce testosterone levels, muscle mass, and structural body changes to the point where there is little advantage left. Or, to put it another way, where that advantage is so small that other non-gender related things like height (some women are taller than others), or weight (some women are built for weight-lifting; others are not), or training advantages matter more than transness.
The MD says: “I worry that scientific facts will be used to bludgeon each other and that we won't come to a consensus because our feelings are so heightened.” I worry the opposite; that this issue will be decided by the “feeling” that it is “not fair” and the science that suggests that it is fair will be swept away.
Above all, he doesn’t deal with the reality that this is, in fact, a very small problem. There are not hordes of trans girls in girls’ sports. There are not many “boys” deciding to become “girls” just to win at sports – the hormonal regime transforms whole bodies and is not fund to go through; I don’t know any “boy” who would want to do that just to win a swim race. And there are so few trans girls that doing proper scientific studies, which need large samples, are extremely difficult.
Thanks for sending it on.
What you're discussing is professional sport, which is monitored carefully. In amateur sports there is another story going on, therefore that's why I think the principle of it heightens emotions and rightly so. There have been several cases in Ireland where boys have played as girls on girls teams in schools GAA (Irish rugby) and indeed in soccer and other team sports, and they have hurt the girls. These boys would not have been picked for boys teams as they didn't make the grade. They tower over the girls and have an obvious advantage. I would guess that most of these types are not taking any kind of medication, nor are they tested for testosterone levels, they are just take advantage of the current culture war and people are afraid to speak out against them.
I'm all for protecting genuine trans people but I do think boys and men take advantage of this outlet for an easy win, particularly in schools. That's why I think it shouldn't be allowed across the board. Girls need to be protected from harm, as do all children. There are always sneaky children looking to win over girls, or get a teacher fired, which you may have read about as we made the International papers. Some types of people take advantage when they can, on both sides I may add.
I would stand by Trans people if they were to march for their own categories in sport, as I referred to in my first comment. We have a bigger issue here, the pervasive nastiness that has leaked into both the right leaning side, and the left leaning side, which leaves genuinely vulnerable people exposed. Something has to change.
Again, you are relying on anecdote, not research or data. I do not see a wave of boys trying to pretend to be women in order to win. We need to be careful not to pick up what is presumed to be real but appears in a highly lie-laden context like social media. I take none of my data from social media; try to research all of it. And I am specifically not researching professional sports. That’s a whole other thing. My focus is precisely school sports for non-professionals.
I found some statistics for you. Professional sports this time. It’s not insignificant.
https://hecheated.org/Totals_results_2020s.html
Character cannot be legislated. Cruelty must be handled wisely.