Is that even a goal?

Tell me what situation you think 'everyone' will be agreeable to 'all'?

What the 'goal' needs to be is a 'fair playing field' something you are avoiding addressing and won't even say matters.



No one is offering that solution, so why are you stuffing strawmen?

Trans can still compete and can do so in a level playing field with my solution. It is just categorized by biological sex, which means they are in a pool of participants where they ALL have the same advantage and not by gender where they would be in a pool where they would disadvantage the other participants.


Sorry but this argument you keep making is not one that makes sense.

Sure there can be abuse in sport. That is a truism. The answer to that is not to say then 'that therefore means we should just throw out the idea of a level playing field'.


For competitive sport, it is an ideal that MUST be in place. Sure there can other ideals to compliment it but if you do not have a level playing you do not have competitive sport. Certainly not in a meaningful way, especially when you put scholarships and pro sports salaries in to the mix.

The very word 'competition' entails fair play.

Usain Bolt entering the woman's 100M dash is not competition.

If the playing field is not level and you have one group so advantaged that it makes the outcome of the sport a given that is not competition.

Nonsense.

Open participation was always predicated around a level playing field not to the exclusion of it.

Nonsense.

Low bars to entry was always predicated around a level playing field not to the exclusion of it.


Nonsense.

Participation again was always predicated around a level playing field not to the exclusion of it.


Exactly. We recognized that WITHOUT create a level playing women WOULD NOT be able to compete on a fair playing field and thus would be excluded and thus divisions were NEVESSARY to create that level playing field.

Right.

See my exchange with Tame above as we both make that point.

If you are going to destroy the ENTIRE reason they created women's division to begin with, so women could have a division with a level playing field where they could compete, then you destroy women's sport and might as well just have one open division where anyone good can compete.

False.

You are just saying words that are not accurate.

We created divisions SPECIFICALLY so there could be a level playing field where people could compete against those who have no advantage over them.

Once and ONLY once that is established do the other factors come in. But they CANNOT be unhinged from that original premise.

If what you say is true then Males who were not Trans, historically who tried and could not make the men's team and got cut, as the last cut would have been able to go play in and dominate the women's sports.

What possible reason, using your logic could you give for excluding them? The men's team has 10 spots. This guy is number 11 and therefore gets cut and cannot play. He is excluded. But he can make the women's team and be number 1 and get the scholarships and the pro job by playing there.

Explain to me why you exclude him?



My view is that what we refer to as a Men's division should be instead called an 'Open Division'.

Across all sport, especially competitive sport, it is an Open Division. Women won the right to be able to ALSO compete there if they were good enough to make it.

So a woman good enough to make it to the NBA or NFL (as a kicker, for instance) is not currently denied.

That woman brings no inherent advantage to the Open Category and that is why she can compete there too.

That solves your wrestler issue.

Blades I don't need you to reply to the above long back and forth as I think we are saying nothing new there.

I do want you to answer this one question if you will? And answer it directly and not by deflection.

If has to do with this point by you above and how if you allow the 'Fair Playing Field' to be undone you would deal with my question below?


--------------------


If what you say is true then Males who were not Trans, historically who tried and could not make the men's team and got cut, as the last cut would have been able to go play in and dominate the women's sports.

What possible reason, using your logic could you give for excluding them? The men's team has 10 spots. This guy is number 11 and therefore gets cut and cannot play. He is excluded. But he can make the women's team and be number 1 and get the scholarships and the pro job by playing there.

Explain to me how and why you exclude him? Give me the logic.

And also explain if you would or would not allow enhanced humans like this to compete in regular sport as some of them been fighting to?

I'll be direct as I can. I think the problem is still that you're potentially begging the question here. As I've said, the question of whether trans people have an advantage in sport is an open one because not all trans people are the same or had the same treatments. It would certainly be the case if the next open I fought at I put myself in the women's division that I'd have a huge advantage. That wouldn't be true if I'd never gone through male puberty and been on hormone therapy for years. That's why I've said a kind of blanket rule might be an overly simplistic idea.

Which takes me to Paralympians head on. When Oscar Pistorius wanted to compete in the Olympics not just the Paralympics, this question wasn't settled by our intuitions on what is and isn't a "level playing field". People did research, they did science, they calculated the efficiency of the energy transfer in the blades, they calculated the return of energy in the spring of the blades. And they determined he should be able to compete.

So all I'm saying is that while we could have made everything easy and said "If you're an amputee then you're out" we explicitly didn't, because we thought that fairness actually involved some extensive study, objective criteria. We TRIED to include him. I'm just saying that we should take the same kind of approach to trans people. If it comes out at the end that some people still can't be included for reasons of fairness, then I guess we'll have to grudgingly accept that. What I don't accept is that it's immediately obvious that all trans people are at a clear advantage, or that part of sport isn't trying to be inclusive. It's more complicated than you cherry-picking pictures of a trans weightlifter, and the kind of thing I'm proposing is exactly the kind of charity we did extend to disabled athletes.

Is that direct enough?

NO not at all as the initial premise here is a false one and needs to be removed.

Not every man who cannot make the NBA are the same. A bio male person could be the very last cut and almost good enough to make the NBA and another bio male could be just terrible at basketball and not able to make any team.

Not very enhanced person with technology are the same either. Some have very expensive top notch tech, and other very basic tech.


The premise of a fair playing field NEVER is about individuals specifically.


So you need to simply remove the individualistic component. And you need to address the question as it was originally created to address which is in Group A versus Group B.

There is no debate that Group B, transwomen who are biologically male have a biological advantage over biological women when it comes to sport as a group.

So please readdress my question as per the above.

We SPECIFICALLY created a special category for the amputees so THEY COULD HAVE A LEVEL PLAYING field.

We gave them a space (Special Olympics) where they could compete and no able bodied person Trans or CIS can say 'I should not be excluded. Inclusiveness demands you let me compete against them'.


So not sure why you think that helps you. You are making the argument for a special category for Trans athletes which would be a level playing field where they compete against other Trans only.

Do you not see that?

Genuine question, you know Oscar Pistorius competed at the Olympics, right? It was determined at that time that his blades didn't give him an unfair advantage. I'm confused at to why you think the blades would be a point against me.

We didn't just say "Sorry, there's a blanket ban on all amputees and we treat them all the same". There was extensive evidence based discussion about the precise merits of a specific disability and the equipment they used.

So you are going to avoid answering my question while asking me to answer yours.

OK. I think that is very bad faith but I will answer.

Blade Athletes (technology enhanced athletes) are examples of what starts off as 'well intentioned' accommodation that is later ruled properly to be an unfair advantage and thus prohibited.

So it DOES support my point and not yours.


It is asinine to think the Blade Athletes (any technology enhanced) should be allowed to compete in able bodied sports and call that a fair playing field.

What is often done is a logical fallacy and that is what you are doing.

The logically fallacy is to asses it by 'where the technology is TODAY' and rule 'oh they are not winning thus it is ok to let them compete'.

A blade athlete, like any athlete has to train their physical biological strengths of stamina, strength, etc.

But a blade athlete who comes in 5th today in a race can also go back to the Engineering department and say 'I have more money now and need you to make these prosthetics lighter, stronger and faster. I will spare no expense. You need to engineer me springs that will make me the fastest person on the planet'.

And as technology advances that would be possible.

I feel you are just trolling in this discussion if you say that is a fair playing field. To simply be able to go to engineers and say 'tweak this and make it better' to get a better result without doing anything different in your training routine.

But I will believe you are not trolling and this is just the type of insane rationalizations people try to put themselves thru to justify this in their head.


Tell me, as we now see these type of 'body exoskeleton suits' that allow people to lift things like they are using a fork lift, do you think a person wearing one should be able to enter weight lifting competitions and compete against able bodied persons?




Because it is immensely fair to say to them 'you can compete against the able bodies when the technology is young and not good enough to let you win but as soon as it becomes good enough that you cannot lose, we have to kick you out'.

The terms are 'cis' and 'trans' not "bio-women".

Its sort of hard to know where to jump in with your position, but I think it is a good idea to begin at the broadest and most general spot:

I don't really see your worry here. For a context of young kids competing at their local highschools, which are you more worried about: trans kids feeling discriminated and left out of sport, or some hypothetical where a cis male kid is trying to game the system and compete against the girls? I look at the suicide rate of trans kids, for instance, and it seems completely obvious than banning them from being able to run the 100m with other girls is outrageous. Maybe somewhere between here and the olympics preserving a "level playing field" becomes important enough to flip that analysis, but surely we should be try to be inclusive of trans kids in schools?

I get why that question would look like a gotcha, but that's not how I meant it.

The reason I asked is because you've posted the picture several times as if there's just been some blanket ban on that kind of athlete when the reality is that it was genuinely allowed in an Olympic event. That speaks to my point that we do in fact try to be inclusive, even if ultimately the answer's no.

Further it wasn't based on mere appeal to an ideal fairness, and it certainly wasn't an issue settled by our intuitions. It was a hard science question that's been settled based on data and research, and even then has turned out to be a very difficult question to settle. That's why from my perspective it seems glib of you to post those pictures as if that were a simple matter. I certainly don't have the technical knowledge or the data to make a decision over blades, I don't know if you do either. I wouldn't call it a simple problem the way you've done over trans athletes.

I'm not sure which question you think I didn't answer but if it's this one:
Then, no, I'm not making that argument. That's one on the list of proposed solutions. Where I am being a bit weaselly is that I haven't advocated for any particular solution. I've just been arguing that it's complicated and there doesn't currently seem like an option favourable for all parties. And then, sure, to some extent I'm just being a contrarian, but it's not trolling. I'm trying to get you to see that the kind of simplistic blanket approach doesn't really solve the issue when the issue is trans people wanting to be integrated into all parts of society as they way identify.

To make it clear, I'm on board with the idea that there might be some sports, some people, where that kind of inclusion isn't possible while preserving the integrity of the sport. And then I think it's okay if we choose to keep the sport over the inclusivity. What I've said is that I still strongly believe that inclusivity and openness of competition IS an ideal of sport. I've also made the case that keeping trans people out of their preferred category has or could lead to all sorts of weird consequences, like for instance a high school wrestler who is destroying girls in her category but isn't allowed to compete with the boys - exactly the scenario that you're supposed to be trying to avoid. And when I pointed out the potential for abuse, your response was essentially abject dismissal.

You can disagree with me on this, you can think I'm not really saying much, but I promise you this isn't a topic I'm trolling about. I'm trying to get you to see that, yes, I completely agree that if people can select their categories on a whim that that could destroy women's sports, but on the other hand we have this historically maligned group where the bulk of them just want to be accepted and allowed in. And yet we're literally talking about publicly humiliating women like Semenya just to keep them out. If you want a fallacy from me, maybe it's that that's an appeal to emotion, but maybe I'm pointing out that there will be negative consequences to your proposed solution, and at least some of those consequence will be to the cis women for whom you're trying to protect.

This is getting to convoluted and I am concerned you are trolling as many who do not believe in Trans rights offer extreme examples pretending they support trans rights when in fact they don't.

Lets simplify.

The issue of the blade runners is one where they TRIED to use inclusiveness as the bar but REALIZED after that it created an unlevel playing field and thus that became the deciding issue.

So NO it does not support your view as inclusiveness WITHOUT a level playing is considered unacceptable.

A simplified set of questions for you.

Do you understand that with Blade Runners and Power Suit Lifting technology that there are two aspects of 'HOW THE ATHLETES PERFORMANCE WOULD IMPROVE?"

First is their physical training like any able bodied athlete.

Second is technology enhancements such as strong, lighter and new composite materials.

Do you accept that technology tends to have an exponential improvement curve meaning an enhanced athlete today who might have a suit that makes them barely competitive could have a suit or enhancement tomorrow that makes them untouchable by non enhanced individuals?


The US military and others are pursuing technology that an individual could wear to destroy all distance running events, weight lifting events and other.

Would you allow it to be used against normally abled humans in competition in the name of inclusiveness?

I think this is entirely backwards thinking.

I was a decent athlete who was good enough to make my teams and start generally but I was not all star level, nor was I getting any scholarships.

That could depress me or other males in my position. Some might even commit suicide who pursued sport too zealously and who failed to achieve their goal.

The answer to that is not to allow those boys then compete in the womens sports where they would the best.

Yes you can rationalize 'what is the harm', 'only a few would likely go over', and thus say it is fair based on that but that is now how logic works.

If it is fair, it is fair whether 1 person does it or if as many do it as normal cis women competing exist. That is what a level playing field means.

So you have to contemplate a scenario where cis women are out competed due to large numbers and thus unable to participate.

Does that cause suicides? Does excluding the cis men who cannot make cis men sports but could if only you let them compete for spots on cis women sports?

We are truly in absurd territory on this debate where people are trying to backward rationalize saying it is 'OK to destroy the premise of a Fair Playing Field' because of these other considerations of here.

Dealing with depression or mental illness that might occur due to not being able to compete in CIS Girl sports, whether it be a young cis boy or a transgender girl, is not rectified by ruining the level playing field. It is rectified by getting that CIS male or tranwoman help with coping skills.

Or stick solely to recreational sports where I say they should do away with any such requirements and put 'participation' as the ideal.

You say extreme examples, but I think all my examples have been both current and in the actual world. I haven't gone down the rabbit hole of weird hypotheticals. Furthest I went was maybe the gymnasts, but then I picked that specifically because of the abuse that's occurred in that sport. Meanwhile you're asking me about the future of cyborgs in sport.

I'll go through the list here:

Sure, those are two aspects.

Sure, technology improves. I'll say yes.

I think my answer is no with a but. We already have sports like Formula 1 where the entire goal of the sport is to provide your competitor with superior tech. I could imagine that being a sport for new technologies too, but if you mean that kind of thing taking place alongside Usain Bolt running naturally, then obviously no.

So I don't see how my answers change anything here. I think I've been as direct as I can with your questions.

At this point I don't think we're going anywhere. I'm happy to leave it open to the room and see if anyone else thinks I'm trolling. And I'll just leave it to you to consider whether any of my examples or hypotheticals were really extreme or whether they were grounded in the real world.

You make no sense. NONE.

YOU are already arguing that this guy



should be able to run alongside Usain Bolt in the name of inclusiveness.

And yet you admit his tech could be improved by engineers in a way Usain Bolt may not be able to compete and thus he should be in a 'new nascar like division'.

It sounds like you are saying 'as long as they are losing or it is close it is ok but once they start winning they must go to a special new division'?

Is that your argument as I want to get that clear before I layer that on to the Trans debate?


To be clear...

If our blade runner friend does nothing new but simply goes in to his Engineering University or gov't partner and says I am close but cannot quite win, I need you to improve the Technology. And he gets improvements via new advanced materials (nano tech) that makes it so he can run up to speeds many times faster than Usain Bolt or any human should they be able to compete or should they get their own special categories to compete against 'same' in an attempt to ensure level playing fields?

And this is real world considerations TODAY that are going on in the 'advanced tech' debate.

The party is united on the base issue of "we don't really recognize transgenderism as something normal that should be accepted". The problem is there isn't really a good/obvious way to turn that into a platform or laws. It is a small percentage of the population and only in very specific situations can it possibly matter, so republicans are forced to seek these edge cases out. When you are neither motivated by helping a lot of people nor helping a minority a huge amount you're left with extremist nonsense like genital inspections for HS sports which even conservatives can think is massive overkill for the issue at hand.

Basically, like many issues today, the Republican platform on transgender issues has a very large trolling component. And the question that divides conservatives is when do you stop trolling and be reasonable.

First thank you for dropping the "bio-women" nonsense. However, I think you can go one step further to more inclusive language. Saying "normal cis woman" adds literally nothing to "cis woman" beyond trying to emphasize how normal it is to be a cis woman and by extension not normal to be a trans woman. Just call them cis and trans.



You and I agree that in general letting cis boys who are not top athletes compete in girls school sports doesn't make much sense. However, that isn't the proposal. The proposal is to let trans girls compete in girls events at the local school. I don't think those two proposals are equivalent or logically dependent on each other, so your argument against allowing cis boys to compete with girls is logically irrelevant. Two of several reasons I think the two proposals are not equivalent is firstly the trans community is consistently demanding that trans girls be allowed to compete with girls but there isn't a corresponding demand for less-than-scholarship boys to compete with girls, and secondly that the suicide rates of trans kids and cis kids are quite substantially different.


We can all hold on to many values at the same time. So I value integrity and fair playing fields in sport. I also value trans kids feeling included and part of the sport community, because I think participating in sports has tremendous benefits and people feeling excluded can cause real harm. I suspect you value both of those things too. In my mind the tensions between these values depend on the circumstances. So if I'm just talking about kids at a local school playing baseball, well its a pretty minor relaxation of the value of level playing fields in sport to allow trans kids, and a pretty important jump in helping them feel included and so forth. I might resolve those tensions differently at the olympics.

I also think 'destroy' is a pretty strong word here. For instance, I don't think some people should be able to run only 90m in a 100m race. Most of the level playing field premise in sports will still be preserved. But at the same time, sports are always intrinsically unfair (taller people in general are selected for basketball etc) and so to whatever degree that allowing a trans kid to compete in the sport of their gender is perceived as unfair, it isn't obvious we have utterly "destroyed" the value of level playing fields.

Since I do not agree with this i need you clarify and once we clear this up, we can address the rest.

If your premise, from your prior post for why trans kids should be allowed to compete despite a unfair playing field is, as you stated... "...kids feeling discriminated and left out of sport..."

I then absolutely see no reason why a cis kid, who is being discriminated against and left out of sport if he can not make the cis male team, and is banned from competing in the woman's team that accepts transwomen, who even just declare via words with no surgery or hormones.

That seems like very clear discrimination against the cis male to say 'if you will not say the words 'I identify as trans' then you can compete', but if you do say those words, you can compete in the woman's category.


How do you rectify that 'only a singular statement' is a bar used to discriminate and not want that fixed?

Let's enumerate two potential positions:

Position A: Trans girls can compete in girls events at the local school
Position B: Anyone can compete in girls events at the local school.

I support position A and reject position B. My understanding is you reject both positions; indeed, the way I read your previous post was effectively saying 'Position B is bad for these reasons'. Since I believe our disagreement is on Position A, I don't think there is much benefit to talking about Position B that I believe we both reject.

In this post, however, it appears you are effectively arguing 'Someone who supports Position A should support Position B too"'. That is, it is an argument saying if you support Position A, you are forced to support this other position that is bad. I disagree. As I described earlier, I think the two positions are not logically equivalent for a number of reasons. Perhaps the simplest of these is just that I don't see any groundswell of advocacy from cis boys to compete in girls events. Do you? As in, that position doesn't seem to solve some identified social problem out there. For instance, I think we might be able to lower suicide rates of trans kids by having them feel included in sports with others of their gender, but I don't see a narrative for how having cis boys compete in girls events is going to lower their already lower suicide rates?

I also don't think "very clear discrimination against the cis male" is supported by your argument. I understand, I believe, the attempt at sort of logical consistency you are aiming for, despite me disagreeing with it, but even if that worked out I don't think it gets you to this statement.

NO.

As i read your position you are saying you disagree with Position B (the cis male blocked from competing while the Gender fluid transfemale simply declaring (no drugs, no surgery) can) because reasons A, B, C would make that not fair for them to do so.

I am arguing you cannot distinguish in any meaningful way how A, B and C are different in the two cases.

But if you can clarify that for me, it would useful.

Here it is a again.

Participant 1 - is a Gender Fluid person who is biologically male and today identifies as a male. He is competing in a track event today and gets 6th place and earns no scholarship to university.

Participant 1 - the very next day identifies as Female and enters the women's event and gets 1st place and thus earns a scholarship.


Participant 2 - happens to be Participant 1 best friend and is a CIS male. He finishes 5th in the same event his friend finished 6th in.

He wants to, but is excluded from participating in the Womens event simply because he will not say he is gender fluid and a female today.



Besides that sole distinguishing factor of the 'good faith declaration' what do you think differentiates these two?

Do you think it is fair to keep Participant 2 when in all other regards he shares the exact same 'fair playing field' with Participant 1 who is allowed to compete?

Ok. Well then, can you be explicit and tell us all which of the following you support and which you don't support:

Position A: Trans girls can compete in girls events at the local school
Position B: Anyone* can compete in girls events at the local school.

*possibly anyone excludes top athletes, in your view, I couldn't tell, but I reject B regardless.

I'm a bit concerned we're having an arguing in bad faith. I mean that descriptively, not condescendingly. As in, the sense I have is neither of us thinks that B is a good idea, and we're having a silly reductionist argument about B when the real debate is over Position A and we should just debate that on its merits directly.



I believe I've already fairly clearly identified that I think these scenarios are quite different and that supporting Participant 1's inclusion in sport does not imply we should necessarily support Participant 2s. Indeed, this seems like an unnecessary relabeling of my 'A' and "B'. The main distinction is now 'trans' has been replaced with 'gender fluid', a distinction I'm not sure you think is significant but is perhaps added to your scenario to make it sound more extreme and flippant? Let's continue with 'trans' unless your scenario only works with 'gender fluid'. I'll also modify the scenario by dropping the 'for a scholarship part', as I think it is best to find common ground in the broadest, lowest category first, and then after that we can work up towards scholarships all the way to olympics to see where there is disagreement. So perhaps imagine 14 year old school girls baseball team type of thing. Our question is should trans girls and/or cis boys be allowed to play on that?

As this seems to be the sticking point I'll elaborate further on why I do not think Position A implies Position B or, alternatively, why supporting Participant 1s inclusion does not imply I similarly support Particpant 2s inclusion in general. Let's consider the generic trans person first. For a trans person not able to join the sports team of their gender, this can be very directly harmful to them as it excludes participation in sports (which I think are very valuable) except in a way where they feel their identify is being diminished. We know that transgender kids experience substantial discrimination that leads to many poor outcomes, one of which is a depressingly high relative rate of suicide for trans kids. By having them included in these communities that align with their gender, they can feel welcome, included, and participate in the valuable actions of sports. Its for these reasons and more that a large amount of advocacy from the trans community tells us that trans people would indeed want to participate in this way. So there is this clear harm to the trans person that comes from excluding them.

Now let's consider Participant 2. Presumably they don't feel otherized and excluded by society, don't feel they are forced to associate in a way that violates their gender identity, don't have the same kinds of suicide rates, and so forth. It isn't even clear to me why Participant 2 would want to compete against girls and I see effectively zero advocacy from groups representing cis boys about how important it is for them to be on girls teams, do you? They certainly can still participate in sports of the exact gender they identify with and thus that tension isn't present.

Given these qualitative difference, I reject that supporting the inclusion of Participant 1 necessarily implies supporting the inclusion of Participant 2. Perhaps it will be helpful for you in understanding this to know I generally tend more towards a utilitarian or consequentialist viewpoint. I think the harm between the two participants is different and thus take different views. So I find your framing as a sort of logical implication where "if you support A you must support B for the same reasons" crucially flawed as it takes in no analysis of the relative harms.

I am saying 'No' to your attempt to dismiss Position B as not worthy of exploration as 'we both agree on the point you put forth about Point B'.


It is not that we agree on Point B (we do) but what the logic of our agreement exposes that is important.


Position B - fundamental aspects of proof are X, Y, Z. We both agree to X, Y, Z.


I can demonstrate that X, Y, Z are the same underlying aspects of Position A we are disagreeing on. You say 'leave considerations of Position A aside', which shows the inconsistency of your position. That you accept logic for one scenario and reject the same logic for the next.

So to be clear, since you have confused me even further are you saying a Gender Fluid person who can be cis one day and trans the next should not be able to compete as trans?

So you say. Yet I have layed out - three times now - why I do NOT think they are the identical X,Y,Z, and you have yet to actually engage with what I said. I think the harm coming from preventing a trans person from joining the sports community of their gender is greater than the harm in your scenario. Your claim was that the "sole distinguishing factor" between the two scenarios was just words the one said and the other didn't, but I disagree. I look for instance at the suicide rates among trans kids which immediately suggests the harm to denying trans kids sports of their gender can be distinguished.

I'll ask it to you plainly? Do you think the average harm to a trans person being denied access to the sports team of their gender is IDENTICAL in degree and substance to the harm of denying a cis boy from joining a girls sports team?



Indeed. However, I dispute your logic. So we are having this whole side argument about the "logic" of whether someone supporting basic inclusion of trans girls is necessarily forced to agree with supporting inclusion of cis males in girls sports as well. Neither of us thinks cis males should be generally. Regardless of how we resolve this attempt to force my "logically" into accepting Position B, we ae still going to be left disagreeing on Position A so why not just focus on Position A on it merits?

Let me put it a different way: is the basis of your rejection of trans inclusion ENTIRELY based on this logical argument that if we accept trans inclusion then we also have to accept cis boys joining girls teams? Because if not, why the **** are we having this argument?



I made no such claim. In one post you were using trans, and in the next using gender fluid. I don't think the difference really matters - I'm happy having either playing on the girls baseball team at school - but I think it'd be best we just continue with 'trans' as the example we are talking about in part so we don't go down rabbit holes of defining exactly what each new term means. I also have noticed a lamentable pattern where when people try to make trans people as ridiculous as possible by flippantly suggesting they are just changing their identity "the very next day", and I want no part in that type of characterization regardless of whether you were or were not leaning into that.

Let me address this first as it may answer more in that regard.


You are conflating things in ways that while perhaps well intentioned, make no sense.


There is no harm being done someone not able to play a sport because they have made choices which go against the rules or participation.

This is not a trans specific comment. It is a truism.

What that truism does not mean is that someone may not realize a range of emotions including intense sadness. That can be a result. I knew of a kid who trained to make the Olympics and did not make it, she was two spots off of being an alternate and ended up committing suicide in high school.


What we DO NOT DO, is say 'everyone makes the Olympics' because some may get sad and commit suicide if they cannot.

I do not say that dismissively. It is to show how flawed the logic is to try and use the fact that some people may not like the result to then say 'there should be no set rules or barriers to entry'.

So I reject that entire reasoning.

You are saying the entire concept of a fair playing field must be thrown out because a certain group of people has other issues and adding one more issue may make them commit suicide and therefore sports must have no gaiting criteria that provide for a level playing field.

So I am not going to dance around that argument and answer a bunch of other questions built on a premise that is so fundamentally flawed.

This thinking is entirely result of the current 'everyone should get to participate' culture in anything and everything they want regardless of rules because all that matters is how I feel about it. 'I must be indulged'.

And to these points, the reason we use OTHER examples in argumentation is to expose flaws in arguments that may not be as clear otherwise.

I believe you don't want to answer ANY of my questions on them because you have thought them through and do not like the answer.

If you go back to my example with Participant 1 and cannot articulate a reason why they should be able to participate and get the Girls Scholarship and why Participant 2 should be excluded, I think you know that is because you can find no good reason.

In that example Participant 1 and 2 are basically the same person in every measure except on the days when Person 1 identifies as female. NO other change.

It would be discrimination by definition to say unless Person 2 does what Person 1 did and says those same words, he cannot compete. He cannot gain that reward of the scholarship.

Despite the two of them being on the exact same level playing field you find a reason to exclude him, and you find a reason to allow Person 1 to enter the female field despite that NOT being a level playing field.

uke_master your position that biologically born male who never needs to ever consider taking any drugs or doing any surgery and can just 'declare' identifying as being Female as enough to then compete in women's sport destroys the concept of women's sport for Biological women as a grouping, as having a place where they can compete on a level playing field.

Do you accept that?

Do you understand the only way biological women as a group will have any places in the 'womens' grouping is if few enough transwomen do not cross to take all the top spots.

It is entirely outside their power or hands. And sure you might speculate or guess not enough transwomen will cross to take all the top spots but you will create a system where it if that happens, too bad. As that is the rule.

Do you understand that?

Ok. I think it is a bit silly to insist semantically that a trans person denied access to the sports of their gender receives no "harm" but instead could have "intense sadness". For instance, if the "intense sadness" leads to suicide, I'd surely call that a "harm". I'd also be a bit more careful what I call a "choice". But either way, this doesn't really affect the argument. Participant 1 and Participant 2 are - statistically speaking - going to experience very different "emotions" for very different types of reasons, and the consequences those emotions bring like "suicide". So I don't evaluate the harm (or whatever term you prefer to call it) equivalent and thus find your claim that I must logically accept both for the same argument fails.


I'm very sorry to hear that.


I don't think any of those bolded things. In general I share your values regarding sport having rules that aim to have a fair playing field. I just don't think this is the only relevant value. So when I advocate for a young trans girl to be able to join her school's baseball team, its because the weight of values around inclusion, and supporting people who are ostracized in society, and encouraging people to join sports etc etc etc these collectively dominate the value of a level playing field in this specific context. For a different context - say the Olympics - I might weight the values differently. I think a big part of the problem with you understanding my argument is that you are forcing it as a sort of binary "everything thrown out" or not at all along one value, where I am taking more of a consequentialist approach that looks at a weighted balance of many factors.

Didn't you just answer your own question? A trans female will presumably experience being denied access to a female sport qualitatively and quantitatively different than a cis male being denied access to a female sport. Only one of these two participants is being denied the opportunity to engage in a sport consistent with their gender, unable to feel truly included and welcomed. And we know statistically that trans people are the ones that are facing the much higher rates of suicide, among many other measures, and so we shouldn't just pretend like all these peoples experiences are going to be identical and they are "basically the same person". No, the experiences of a trans woman and a cis man are going to be, in general, different. Ditto when talking about gender fluid people if you so insist, a relevant quote from Harvard Health is that "For some youth, gender fluidity may be a way to explore gender before landing on a more stable gender expression or identity.". This sound like exactly the type of thing where being able to be welcome and included and valued in youth sport consistent with their current gender expression would be a valuable thing, and is likewise would presumably not be a factor for Participant 2.

I do not. I think this has been elaborated earlier enough to convey the big idea, but in short I see a balance between a bunch of values, of which a level playing field is one, and it depends a lot on the context. I don't see this as a black or white issue where if you ever let a trans girl on the local school's girls baseball team you have completely "destroyed" the concept of a level playing field.

I'm not worried by this slippery slope. At the bottom, when we're talking about young trans kids being able to access local school sports teams and the like, I just don't think this is a worry at all. Support them, love them, include them. I don't really see any universe where suddenly trans girls have pushed out all of youth sports. At the very top, the Olympics, we have a story with one case of the first trans person to be able to compete, with suppressed testosterone below the Stockhold consensus 10 nanomoles per litre. Those thresholds can be debated - I don't care to do so - but again nowhere close to this slippery slope.