Historical note: I'm splitting this topic out from the Higher Education thread, since this doesn't directly have to do with higher ed. If you're curious how the current version of this thread started, go there.

Both in that thread, and the last time this topic came up, it was prompted by comments having to do with transgender athletes. In the other thread, that was related to comments made by Martina Navratilova. That thread and those comments are probably still worth a look, and I'm also referencing that thread since I'm certain I'm going to want to just copy/paste some of my posts at some point. A good source of information about how existing sports regulatory bodies work and some of the science that's relevant to the topic can be found here: On Transgender athletes and performance advantages.

However, since it's been correctly pointed out that the social/political issues involving trans rights and identity are much broader than sports, I've re-titled this thread to be about the general topic of social issues related to transgender identity, e.g. conceptualizations of gender, legal rights related to transgender identity, issues of harassment/discrimination, and so on.

Also, if you wish to participate in this thread, please bear in mind this note from the forum guidelines:

Are there any examples of transgender men competing in the highest levels of physical sport for men such as athletics, swimming or cycling?

My experience with this issue is that it primarily has involved transgender women competing in the highest levels of physical sport for women with Caster Semenya being the obvious example (although arguably she comes within the term of an "intersex" woman - see article below).

With the latest CAS decision rejecting Caster's plea against the IAAF rules which mandate that athletes (including her), who have specific disorders of sex development, reduce their level of testosterone I think that is only fair if it is not something that is naturally inherent for a woman to produce likewise. But I only say that if it is perceived and it has been tested to give an unfair advantage because on its face I can understand why this new rule would be regarded to be discriminatory.

https://www.bbc.com/sport/athletics/48102479

This seems pretty innacurate to me. Intersex has absolutely nothing to do with transgender. The way you wrote it, you are implying there is an argument she is transgender. Could you articulate what that that argument may be? Semenya's case does not seem particularly relevant to the transgender issue at all, except tangentially in the broader argument of who is included in "female" only sports.

Being charitable, maybe you felt the need to try to link this to transgenderism because of the thread tittle, and maybe the thread title could be broader.

It's not clear to me that intersex and transgender are completely unrelated in this context (or even more generally); the fundamental questions about competitive advantage and the problem of how we conceptualize splitting competitors into different groups (e.g. men and women) would be similar for the two.

The questions about competitive advantage are not really political, per se, more just a science question and a problem for sports regulators to worry about. It's mostly the second part -- relating back to broader questions about how people perceive sex and gender as categories -- which tie in to politics and the social world. But there again both intersex and transgender (whether distinct or not) are relevant to that question about gender/sex categories in the same way: both complicate the idea of a fixed binary, one for sex and the other for gender. So I don't think it's egregious to group them in that context.

My understanding of trans is it involves changing your gender identity, and AFAIK Semanya has always “lived in the world” with one identity.

I don’t see any argument she is transgender. Maybe my conception of transgender isn’t complete?

The distinction you're making makes sense and I don't think it would be correct to call her "transgender" -- I wasn't disagreeing with you on that in particular.

I just mean I don't think it's too weird for someone to think of her case when the topic of transgender athletes is brought up, because in both cases the discussion is about what kinds of competitive advantages are fair, and how we conceptualize categories like "man" and "woman" in relation to dividing competitors into groups.

Seems like the answer to a lot of these hot topic items boils down to, maybe, but we don't know for sure.

Bruce Jenner would have been a good example if this were 30 years ago

My immediate opinion would be that there are still advantages to trained athletes that transition over. There are a lot of muscular and skeletal differences between men and woman, and some of them are genetic.

To give an example that would make me raise my eyebrow: If a guy was competing in high school and he was like 7th or 8th best in a state not known for track, but then transitioned and was winning national titles in college. I feel like that would be a bit wonky.

Maybe it would be useful to set the boundary.

What about someone who is biologically XY male, who identified as such, who changes their identity to female with no phenotypic altering transition.

Should this person be able to compete as a woman at the HS, college, or professional level?

Lets assume the person is genuine in their identity change-- but declines to undergo any surgery or hormone therapy, which as I understand is perfectly acceptable.

Maybe the same effect (99.0th pct -> 99.9th pct) will surface with trans men. In other words, maybe the key variable - if there is an unfair advantage - isn't muscular and skeletal differences but more hormone therapy related. Who knows.

What are you talking about? Stop doing that. Your uncharitable mind reads don't even come close to representing me. Just stop. It's not clever and totally transparent. It doesn't reflect well on you
Why do you keep doing this? I have made a single post on the subject with a single sentence of my own. I extracted a quote from the article that refers to her as intersex

"Another interesting case of boundaries and testosterone in sports"

Quote:
I get that you have no shame but this isn't just about you. The last time you did this you got wookie to put on his over sized shoes, red nose, and clown himself. Be considerate of others
victory in what? I'm having a discussion on a complicated issue. As i learn my opinions will change. The science behind all of this will help us understand things better and should shape our beliefs. It will take time. That doesn't mean we will come to an agreement or share beliefs but any sensible person will shift their position on these issues over time considering how much we don't know. I don't know why you would think I'm "claiming victory". Perhaps constructive conversation/debate/argument, isn't your thing. If you think you have all of this figured out, good luck with that. Ideologues over simplify things and think they have it all figured out. Don't be one of those
As I pointed out, these issues are complicated. I made my main issue crystal clear. At what age should we allow a minor to participate in hormone therapy? Why, how, etc? That's a question, please come up with an answer or perhaps walk back your absurd outburst. Slighted has no shame, do you?

On the topic of where this wrestler should compete? They definitely shouldn't compete with girls while on PED's. That's cheating. They should compete against boys with some stipulations. This isn't basketball or tennis. In combat sports athletic commissions usually won't allow a 30-0 fighter compete with someone who has a record of say 1-1. She should compete with boys if her coaches can vouch that she would be competitive and its not dangerous. This is also why they have weight classes. Wrestlers get slammed. Some wrestlers might not even feel comfortable participating in a total mismatch

I this case in particular it looks like there would be no problem having them compete with the boys. I generally think boys/men division shouldn't really exist except for the aesthetics of it. It should be open division and a womens division. You should still call it mens division for the aesthetics because it might come across as a bit demeaning to single out womens sports as inferior/protected for no real reason at all. Just call it mens and womens divisions and if women qualify to compete with men, they can

2016: Craig Telfer is ranked 200th
2017: Craig Telfer is ranked 390th
2018: Craig Telfer 'transitions to female'
2019: CeCe Telfer is national champion

https://world.wng.org/2019/05/built_in_advantage

The first time you posted the picture of the wrestler, you were posting it as proof that "the ideology" was now taking over "the real world" https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/s...postcount=282:

That last sentence was proven false.

You then go on to show a pile of more things as evidence that "the ideology" is out there pissing all over what you perceive to be scientific truth without ever articulating what you perceive to be the scientific truth.

The second time you posted the picture, I have to concede you didn't post the picture and declare victory. You declared victory, and then posted the picture: https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/s...&postcount=324.

As far as you being a naive seeker of knowledge and interested in finding a fair and just means for trans athletes competing: bull****. If you gave two ****s about actually figuring out how to respectfully draw the line that takes into account all parties concerned, you'd go and read some things by trans athletes and female athletes on the subject rather than popping in here with your piping hot takes demanding to be disproven and posting links that deliberately mis-gender trans athletes and even edits direct quotes to substitute non-preferred pronouns for the athlete in question.

ETA: oh wow, I looked up what that magazine is. It is a conservative Christian publication founded "to challenge the assumptions and activities of the liberals and to return the Southern Presbyterian denomination to its biblical moorings." Man, who's the one bringing ideology into this debate? That's your idea of looking into "the science behind all this?"

Yes, posting a story of a teenager on hormone therapy is proof that the ideology is leaking in to the real world. If that wasn't the case they wouldn't be on hormone therapy. Like fundamental christians wouldn't simultaneously trying to be "praying the gay away" and endorsing hormone therapy. Those are contradictory positions.

You didn't answer the questions though, at what age is it appropriate to give minors hormone therapy? Why? how?

Obviously I raised a very valid and real point. These are real issues. The decision to give minors hormone therapy is clearly ideologically driven. Your disdain for anyone that doesn't agree with you and authoritarian nature makes it difficult to discuss actual issues. It seems like you need to be trained how to deal with people that don't agree with you.

False, at least insofar as "ideology" being something you think is something unscientific or counterfactual.

I'm not sure

False, as above.

Physician, heal thyself.

Oh but of course it is. Juan Valdez isn't getting worked up and posting reams of text because he's worried about the integrity of women's athletics. Framing transgender issues in terms of some people getting an unfair advantage at sportsball is a way to trivialize the actual issues these people face like harassment, suicide, discrimination, etc.

Some definitely aren't but some are certainly keen on the integrity of women's sports.

This story kind of reminds me of the outrage over the boy scouts being forced to allow girls into their camps. A few mins of googling showed that the stories were mostly full of **** and the boy scouts were basically allowed to do what ever their heart desired.

I'm interested in looking more into this to find out if there is any legitimacy to this stuff but the CeCe Telfer story at first look is definitely ****ed up.

Renée Richards

Quote:

Renée Richards (born August 19, 1934) is an American ophthalmologist and former tennis player who had some success on the professional circuit in the 1970s, and became widely known following male-to-female sex reassignment surgery, when she fought to compete as a woman in the 1976 US Open.

.....

The United States Tennis Association began that year requiring genetic screening for female players. She challenged that policy, and the New York Supreme Court ruled in her favor, a landmark case in transgender rights.[2] As one of the first professional athletes to identify as transgender, she became a spokesperson for transgender people in sports.[3][4][5] After retiring as a player, she coached Martina Navratilova to two Wimbledon titles.

...

Richards was inducted into the USTA Eastern Tennis Hall of Fame in 2000.[18] On August 2, 2013, Richards was among the first class of inductees into the National Gay and Lesbian Sports Hall of Fame.[19]

Richards has since expressed ambivalence about her legacy, and came to believe her past as a man provided her with advantages over her competitors, saying "Having lived for the past 30 years, I know if I'd had surgery at the age of 22, and then at 24 went on the tour, no genetic woman in the world would have been able to come close to me. And so I've reconsidered my opinion."[20][21]

FYI

Comparing professional athletics in the 70's to today is pointless in every regard, including this one.

To be fair, it's at least a take from a trans person. A bunch of straight cis men posting articles from conservative Christian ideologues on the integrity of women's athletics without ever citing a trans person is pretty laughable.

I agree with you that those other issues are more important. I may need to re-title the thread, but I have no objection to making the conversation broader.

I think people focus on sports in part because it's an area where the importance of physiological sex differences is obvious. So it's useful for people who want to argue that there is no distinction between sex and gender, or who want to argue for the importance of fixed binary categories based only on physical sex.

On the other hand, I also think it provides a useful opportunity to try to clarify the relationship between gender identity and physical sex, and by comparison it should be clear how little sex differences matter in a lot of other gendered contexts. It also allows us to clarify some of the complexity related to even purely physical differences, e.g. in the blog I linked in the OP. So while I agree that we shouldn't limit the topic to sports it seems like an OK place to start.

The main point of the post you quoted was that all paths on this topic lead back to the question about how social categories are constructed. I expect that changing attitudes on topics like harassment and discrimination also means helping people reconceptualize gender and sex, including recognizing the distinction. Beginning with sports may also be a tactical choice by motivated partisans, but I think they're wrong if they believe that it's a tactical choice that guarantees that they win an argument.

Castor Semenya is not trans. She is female by birth and was even forced by the Olympic IAAF to take a gender test.

She has very high testosterone relative to almost all women.

It has been speculated she is not XX chromosome but rather xxy or xy and with both female sex organs along with internal testes. This is far from substantiated.

There have been a few instances of trans women competing at the highest level. Just check wiki. Adios posted a famous one that seems to apply.

Not really sure the best way to handle trans women. It certainly seems unfair to let them compete immediately after transitioning in their prime at the highest levels. In high school, not sure, esp if not particularly dominant.

Regardless this does not apply to Castor who should be allowed to compete without restriction.

Well, I think (right or wrong) his concern is broadly the integrity of society and this is a canary in the coalmine situation in his mind. I don't think he has any particular interest in the integrity of female athletics or trans rights issues.

But it is probably a viewpoint held by a large number of people, including XX women who aren't too thrilled with the idea of having to compete in sports against XY women. So just being dismissive and handwaving it away as racism, although it may make you feel better in the short term, is probably a poor strategy from a pragmatic standpoint.

I think it is a tactic that is being pushed by, and working well, for people arguing for more conservative views, for obvious reasons. I don't really see very many progressives voluntarily choosing to take the argument here. I have seen a lot of articles about trans women winning track races pop up over the last couple years, and none of them view this in a particularly favorable light.

The Canary in the coal mine from Juan is a female to male trans who wants to compete with boys but is forced by the state of Texas to compete against their birth sex.

It's straight BS and you are contributing to the lies. Disgusting on both of you.

Well, the only thing I agree with is that you have a lot of disgust for people you dont perceive as being in your tribe, which is typical in moralizing activist minded people. Once you made up your mind to be disgusted, I dont think arguments even matter anymore, so I won't either of our time by engaging in a meaningless debate.

Then you might as well cut out the male / female categories in sports all-together, which would in turn render biological females' participation in top-level physical sports completely moot.

I don't care zilch about people's gender identification, but that does not remove physical differences in potential muscle mass and aerobic capacity between the sexes.