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Well the debate centers around whether this would in fact upend women's sports and that is not absurd to talk about it
It is absurd because it would upend the sport for women. Only someone committed to talking points can't see that. We actually have real world examples of this happening but somehow you're still on the fence about it?
We do have real world examples, correct. But it has not upended women's sports in the slightest. Hence the debate
Sounds exactly like something that someone with no skin in the game would say.
I am on the fence with this. I don't support either side
That’s fine if it goes that way. Better then the alternative which is urban problems.
I think we need to agree on what "upended" means otherwise this disagreement will just end up in a fight over semantics.
Agreed but couldn't you have made this same argument for years? How many schools have girls football teams? How many schools have boys field hockey teams?
Agreed. Allowing blacks into MLB basically ended the Negro baseball league. I don't hear too many people complain about that.I am on the fence with this. I don't support either side
But I find the argument that this would end women's sports as we know it unpersuasive.
When it happens they will have their own urban problems. Unless you are under the impression 10s of thousands of people are moving out into the middle of nowhere in Idaho. As someone who worked housing booms in multiple states people move to existing urban areas .
Right, but what you aren't grasping is that behind that 10-13% is a bell curve. While I don't have actual numbers the actual male population being able to compete at that top female level is huge. Again, the fastest 100m time ever for a female (and one suspected might be on the juice) is 10.49s. When you are talking about a raw percent she is #1 out of all women ever (but let's say it is just from the 80s on). That probably puts her at 1/5,000,000,000 conservatively. Top boys *high school* sprinters routinely beat that mark. That mark wouldn't have even come close to qualifying for the men's ncaa 100m final in 2019. The greatest 100m women's mark ever isn't much more than a participation ribbon when compared to men. We are likely looking at tens of thousands of men who could surpass that time in the last 40 years - maybe even break 100,000.
The reason that the three runners that appeared on FOX originally sued is because Connecticut already lets trans women compete in women’s athletics and has done so for at least a few years. I believe there are several other states that have had the same policy, also for years. But it doesn’t seem like there are dozens of trans women winning all the races, it seems like there are only a few. Why do you think that is?
In rereading your post I do think this is at least part of the disagreement between the opposing views. Participation in high school sports, to me, is often about other things besides the things you describe above.
I think part of the reason may be because it hasn’t been widely socially acceptable for the past few years. I can see that possibly changing over the next few. Not saying that’s a good or bad thing, but once more folks are open to the idea of trans females competing in girls/women’s athletics, I think it will become more common. Ultimately, however, it will be limited by the relatively small population of trans women who are athletically inclined. I don’t buy that AMAB athletes will become trans simply to dominate in girls/women’s sports outside of a couple isolated instances.
This is just conjecture on my part, but my guess is that the number of trans women who actually want to compete in women's sports is probably pretty low. I keep coming back to "What would I do if I were in this person's shoes?" I'm not trans of course, but it's impossible for me to believe that I would want to compete seriously against women, especially if I was going to win. It would be mortifying.
That's not what a 10% performance gap means (as used in Hilton-Lundberg article cited earlier). It doesn't mean that 10% of males are better than all females. It means that males, on average, are 10% better than females.
Yes, a lot in this area is changing and who knows what the future holds. I agree that this issue more problematic if, say, the top ten female runners in the state are all trans. We're not there yet and I'm still skeptical we ever will be. I'm not trying to pretend there's no issue, I just think preventing all trans people from participating creates more problems than it solves.
I agree that we wont see the plot of ladybugs play out on a regular basis, but one thing I wonder about and I fully admit to not knowing the science here, but what happens if you take a few months off from hormone therapies?
The executive order was just signed. It's just getting started. For years the International Olympic Committee and World Athletics had time requirements and testosterone level requirements. It's only been the last year or two they've started to rethink that. We're at the dawn of trying to ignore sex in athletics day.
The problem with your hypo from my perspective is that I can't really think of any sporting events that resemble it at all. Serena Williams would lose to all the top male tennis stars but she would absolutely crush an ordinary male tennis player. Can you think of an example of a sport where the elite female athletes are worse than all males are? Or even worse than an average male? Somewhere in this thread I posted a link to the most popular high school sports for women, I don't think what you're describing comes anywhere close to reality for any of those sports. The closest one is probably basketball I guess but even there I think a good female high school player is generally much better than some guy picked at random.
How anyone supports this is quite unbelievable to me. Those girls look absolutely disgusted - as they should be.
Not a random guy, but any top-100ish high school basketball recruit would absolutely destroy the WNBA
I was basing it on this article from 2019:
The policy in Connecticut has been the same since 2013. I don't know the history in those other states but it seems like we should have some significant data so that we don't need to just be speculating all the time.
That paints a pretty clear picture, doesn't it. I just wanted to see what the example we had looked like and it jumped right out of the camera at me. All be it one example and brief, it doesn't seem like that's doing any good for any of those involved there.
This solution still seems to ignore the fact that forcing trans females into a "male" categorization can cause severe trauma to those individuals. If the argument is "purity of competition outweighs any trauma or damage to trans females", then I'm not sure I agree, but at least we can have the debate.
I don't know what the realistic percentages would be in different sports for the proportion of guys that could best the top female.
Right, that's my point. Opponents of the policy keep wanting to focus exclusively on this small number of elite athletes. There are millions of other kids playing high school sports that aren't elite, have no expectation of ever getting a scholarship or winning a championship, but still get great value from the experience..
Both of those states leave it up to the individual districts. You're speculating that we should have some significant data.
nysfl2 is understating his point. It's not just the top 100-ish recruits. It's literally every single D1 recruit.
Well, I wouldn't call it speculation to rely on what seem like credible sources on the internet. But it seems like you have some information that I don't about how prevalent this is.
I think that's the main debate - to me, that level of trauma would have to be pretty severe to justify denying the top female athletes the chance to win district and state titles, scholarships, etc.
I actually agree with you but I am just wondering if you had a problem with Jackie Robinson upending the Negro baseball league?
Do you have the number of districts that allow trans women and the number of trans women in each? The number of complaints and the individual issues? If not, it’s speculation to say we have enough data.
Yeah, I have some concerns about basketball because: 1) it's a semi-contact sport; 2) size is super important; and 3) a single great player can make a bigger difference than in most other sports. I'm not sure exactly how I come out on basketball, especially in college. But I don't think we need to do every sport the same way. The issues in basketball are not the same as the issues in track or swimming or rowing.
You can’t use race an example because it’s politically incorrect to do so. We aren’t there yet with sex being equal in sports.
Right, but it sounds like you were there for a different reason than the top runners on your team (if you had any). I played high school football. Two of my teammates ended up playing in the NFL. We were on the same field for similar but not the exact same reasons. When you are talking about a trans athlete crushing the competition, those at the top *getting crushed* are usually there for more than just participation or personal improvement. I am equally opposed to steroid use. I mean, let's say you were a clean top athlete, but in your most important race you got beat and you knew for a fact that every single runner who beat you was using PEDs. Would you think that was fair? Would you think it was fair if those runners got free rides to college and you didn't? Or even got to compete in more exclusive races that you didn't qualify for? That is the frustration many of these girls feel. They feel they are getting cheated and their hard work is being diminished - I happen to be in complete agreement with them.
We had segregated baseball leagues because society at the time had a problem with race-mixing. We also had segregated schools, segregated train cars, segregated water fountains, etc. That was a policy based on plain old racism.
I didn't say we necessarily have "enough" data but it seems like we should have had some data if many states have had this policy for several years, like that Hartford Courant article said. I'll take your word for it that the article misrepresented the true state of affairs.
I agree that not all sports are remotely the same for the purpose under discussion.
This has got to be one of the most disingenuous questions I have ever seen. Seriously, are you just trolling at this point or do you really think integrating racially segregated sports is a similar comparison to integrating women's vs. men's sports?
Agreed. I just think that in assessing the policy, we need to look at everyone impacted (or not impacted) - the trans kids, the kids that are playing but have no chance of getting a scholarship or anything, and the top athletes that are trying to get scholarships and awards. It feels to me like opponents of the policy are looking almost exclusively at the relatively small group of elite cis female athletes. I agree that those kids have their own interests, and that those interests can sometimes be hurt by the policy. But I also think there's a much larger group of athletes for whom the policy makes little to no difference. And I think for trans athletes the policy is a huge plus. So by focusing only on elite cis female athletes, it gives a misleading impression of the impact of the policy as a whole.
Well, if the steroids are being used to enhance performance in sports, I'm in complete agreement with you. But that's not what is going on here. People don't transition to be better at sports. They transition for other reasons. I'm not a doctor so I don't have a good example but I would feel differently about your steroids example if the athletes were taking steroids not to be good at sports, but because they had some serious medical condition and steroids were the appropriate treatment (but the steroids also had the side effect of making them good at sports).
Except the are for the purposes of this thread. The EO discussed in the OP does not distinguish between different sports or different types of sports.
Well this thread has gone on a lot of tangents. I’m generally in favor of the policy but if I were to criticize the EO it would be for exactly this reason.
No one is going to rule that transgenders can participate as long as they don’t win. It’s all or nothing.
