I think when people say it's a challenging issue they mean in the sense that it's very difficult to come up with a solution that would leave all parties happy. It's not difficult to come up with some rules that account for trans people, it's difficult to do it in a way that doesn't simply ignore the wants and needs of the people raising the issue.

The simplest solution would just be that whatever sex your doctor assigns you at birth is the sex your stuck with for sport, and to ban the taking of hormones which affect performance within high level sport (which I'm sure you're onboard with).

But the problem with that is that this issue has only come to prominence because that's the very thing that people are asking not to be tied to. Answering their requests with a decisive "No" is definitely simple but I don't think it would put an end to things.

And even if we take this approach of biological sex, it's going to have some issues. We've already seen the likes of Semenya challenged and sent off for the humiliation of "testing" to see if she's really a man or a woman. I know high level athletes go through all sorts of tests over their time but there seems to be a particular indignity about that. If it had been the policy you can easily imagine how many athletes might have been subject to that kind of scrutiny and speculation. The Williams sisters would have, probably every female weight lifter, or a lot of the ones from throwing events just for a start would likely get the accusations thrown at them and then have to submit to the humiliation. At the very least, people who want to keep their "biological sex" private can't participate in sport.

On the side of people who are actually trans, some of them that have transitioned early, not gone through the puberty they otherwise would have, they aren't getting all the benefits of being cis. Some of them are performing significantly lower or higher than they otherwise would have, so to say they have to compete as their sex assigned at birth is to say "You can't compete". Which, again, is a simple answer but not one likely to satisfy the very people raising the question. This might be an issue that's settled by the science to some degree if consensus forms as to what level of performance is gained or lost by the various therapies, but it's never going to draw a neat line.

As a last thing, when you say "no one is forced to participate" the response you're going to get is that it's a bit like saying "no one is forced to drink at water fountains" while sticking certain people to one side and giving them a worse fountain. I know that's a bombastic comparison, and I know there's an intuition that sport is different to that, and I have that intuition too, but it's not an easy argument to make. What trans people are asking for is not to be segregated in sports, for at least some of them to be able to participate in their chosen division, and just saying "No" doesn't settle the issue for them.

I think Bladesman hits the nail on the head. It's easy to see logic in simple answers, but for our predecessors it was at one point also easy to see the logic in sports being far too dangerous for women to participate in. That isn't to say this is directly comparable, but it is a warning against seeing simple answers.

I think there is a desire for sports to be relatively fair, and there is a desire not to deny people participation in sports. Both of those are, as far as I am concerned, laudable motivations. Unfortunately, it seems that in this particular case they are in some instances at odds with each-other.

Perhaps our generation (I'm assuming most people here are of somewhat equal age) is simply not the one to resolve this, since we might be a bit to deep into our own perceptions. Newer generations might be able to discuss this issue more freely and constructively and see solutions we wouldn't consider.

Yeah, this is one of those issues where I hope when I'm old and a bit senile if I repeat the ideas of "my day" people will smile and nod and then talk about how awkward it was when they're in the car on the way home. The kids will sit and wonder why old people seem so nice but used to think such wrong things.

TO be fair Caitlyn Jenner is pandering and a hypocrite.

Only switched her position on trans athletes once she needed republican votes. Prior was very supportive of trans athletes.

I find that the way to see if you're wrong on this issue is to just substitute the word 'black' or 'jew' in place of transgender.

oh ffs you need a timeout for trying to pull that one

This is incredibly dumb from several angles.

It works for gay rights too.

I feel this issue people tend to work from the top down and not the bottom up. That is, they centre their analysis first around what happens at the absolute pinnacle of sport like a trans woman competing in the olympics. At the top, things like preserving the integrity of the sport, winning, etc are at their paramount importance.

I like to work instead from the bottom up. Let's take 14 year olds at the local schools track and field event. I believe sports brings so much value here. Having people be involved, active, part of a community, etc etc these are the types of things that have a lot of value. In this space, we know that trans kids really suffer in many ways with suicide being perhaps the most consequential. Having trans kids be able to be part of sports in a way that actually reflects their own identity is important, more important I would say, then sort of maximally focusing on preserving some platonian ideal of integrity in sport, however that is interpreted. We just want kids to be welcome and engaged in sport, trans or cis.

Now I don't necessarily think that the 14 year old school event implies a certain choice at the Olympics. Lines can be drawn somewhere, if they must. However, I think what happens at the Olympics is actually much less importance than what is happening at schools all around the world, and we should focus our analysis at this level more.

I get that.

But I think it is the framing that is the problem.

No one expected or had the foresight to know biological sex would be separated from gender and so when that split happened and the terms
'Man' 'Woman' went with gender all the sports definitions just followed and thus now a transwoman can compete with biowomen.

If instead of trying to awkwardly work around that the various sporting authorities, starting with the IOC simply said 'we are re-aligning sports categories not based on gender but based on biological sex as that ensures everyone can compete and a fair playing field for all', I think there is no argument anyone can really level to counter that.


Saying 'but I want privacy and thus should be able to compete as a transwoman against biowomen' is not an argument. It is substituting the acceptance of unfairness for their privacy and sorry but that is not what sport is about.

So while I agree not every will be happy that should not be the goal.

Some of these guys also want to compete against able bodied males.




at first there was a desire to accommodate them out of a sense of 'fairness'.
Some argued when the tech was young and they still could not win, 'what is the harm'?

But the tech is advancing so fast that there is no doubt that able bodied runners would never be able to compete.

So do we consider that these 'enhanced' runners might feel bad or left out and let them compete anyway and just destroy the concept of a level playing field?

Joke?

So you basically agree with my OP.

Some of our assumptions do overlap, but I think the devil is in the details and it is less obvious how to “compensate” the small percentage at the top who are harmed than you suggest.

One argument would be that for many trans people the therapies they've gone through would leave them at a significant disadvantage when competing with their sex assigned at birth. Then there's the issues about say having a trans man on an AFAB team when it comes to changing rooms (because part of being on a team is being a part of the camaraderie), or even just wanting to be part of a men's group.

Another argument is the one I made about subjecting people to the humiliation of gender/sex inspections. Because that wouldn't apply just to trans people. If that were the policy then it would have to be applied to any man or woman for whom anyone raised the question. If someone says Serena William's looks too masculine, she's got to go through all the checks and the publicity with it. Someone says Christiano Ronaldo is a bit too androgynous, better check his junk and do some genetic tests. I don't know about you but I've always enjoyed the idea that if I join a club then I don't have to worry about someone wanting to pull my trousers down and check I'm definitely male. If you want to exclude trans people you still have to check all the a lot of other people to find out who's who.

It's going to work for what ever your heart desires. You got Cuepee thinking you just made a big league joke. He's still fairly new in these neck of the woods.

Caitlyn is an amazing intelligent woman that privileged male sexists would like to see torn down.

Possibly. And I don't mean this flippantly, but there are a lot of things people can choose to do to themselves that might leave them at a competitive in sport.

I don't think sport owes them an adjustment to another playing field where they will be advantaged because they now find themselves disadvantaged.

I don't really see that as a big issue. If the person is accepted on the team to begin with, and they go thru battles and trials together to win as a team, I think they get over the change room thing pretty quick.

Sure some bigots won't but hetero men were forced to get over women (reporters) and gay men being in the change room with them and the implications that has for their privacy, and while some squawked at first, they pretty quickly learned to get over it.


Again not to be flippant but I don't think participation in sport without restrictions is a right.

I do believe 'a fair playing field' is the highest ideal one can attempt to bring sport unless we get rid of the competition nature of sport and change it to 'everyone gets a medal'.

If sport is simply about socializing and having fun then I totally agree with you.

However if Sport is about training and testing oneself at the highest levels of human achievement and proving that out through competition and it involves scholarships and big pay, etc, then a 'level playing field' must be the ideal pursued in my opinion.

You cannot, imo, pretend biowomen have a fair place to always compete and to test that ideal, to train life long to be the best, to pursue that scholarship or professional contract and then have a transwomen, switch in a day and wipe out their records and achievements and take those scholarships and professional jobs and pretend that is a level playing.


Sometimes choices (which I fully support everyone having truly) have consequences and perhaps the choice of becoming a transfemale at age 30 with all the male body development benefits that brings, cannot just walk into competition against biowomen. Perhaps it means competing based on biology against those who you share that with and whom you competed against for much of the prior 30 years.




We are asking the biowomen to take the cost of loss of competitiveness and inability to compete because of a transwomen choice because some are saying it would be wrong to have the transwoman loss competitiveness to biomen and maybe not have an ability to compete.

We are saying 'yes choice does have cost but to the biowomen. Not the Transwomen'.

I'll guess that as long as the libs her, the privileged male sexists will be happy to have her on their team. Politics making strange bedfellows and all...

That's supposed to say "as long as the libs hate her".

Has no one informed Cuepee that the compliment of trans is cis, not “bio woman”. Come on.

Biowomen are screwed.

Not at all. Look at that long time misogynist Jimmy Kimmel who just called Kaitlyn an A-hole. These privileged sexists are obviously not on team Kaitlyn.

I studied cis in college.

I would assume that Jimmy Kimmel would be considered one of the people that is making my point there and not yours.
I don't think he's voting GOP.
*eta-- not really my point either.

Not sure what your point is. He's one of the most privileged white sexist males this world have ever seen. You never saw the man show, ffs?!?