Noted re Quinn although they were one player on a team of otherwise cis women who won gold. It takes an extreme amount of misogyny to discount the efforts of their teammates. It also seems that the team didn’t sweep, and only won gold in a kickoff so like hardly evidence of some inherent superiority of trans people at sport.
I could go through the team and find someone else with something unusual about them and you would have to accept that this trait could be just as responsible for the win.
As trans women do not dominate sport, nor do trans men, there is no evidence suggesting a need for separate leagues. As I noted in my example, sports is about community and competition. At this point excluding trans people is not warranted on a defense of competition and would harm community. Again as per the example because there are not enough trans people to form leagues and the social context means funding and interest would be inadequate to support athletes it would be a defacto ban on at least trans women. Trans men can probably hold their own in open classes which is no doubt where they probably want to compete.
If it becomes a problem then there are other options to explore beyond outright bans. Remember most athletes are not Olympians, they are school kids, uni students, community members. Most sport is done for very low stakes on local or regional scales, what sport is the 1 trans woman in a school year meant to play if she’s banned?
This leads to biology language. Just refer to what you mean. Do you mean chromosomal sex? that is a strange thing to talk about as most people don’t know theirs we can’t see it, touch it, smell it whatever. Do you mean secondary sex characteristics? primary sex characteristics? do you mean people that have undergone a male or female puberty? Do you mean tall and short people? weak and strong people? people with hormones at a certain level? what is it that you’re actually trying to talk about?
The problem becomes a lot more solvable if we start actually talking about it accurately. Maybe trans men can never get a win in javelin throwing, maybe trans women dominate. Ok so if that happens and we look at why and it turns out that idk elbow knobbliness is a huge factor then we can set up leagues binning people into ranges. Whatever is reasonable, we can go granular if needed, a trans man who took puberty blockers and transitioned might have no abnormal disadvantage and visa versa for a trans woman.
If you start trying to legislate based on arbitrary shit you’re going to necessarily exclude some cis women, even if you don’t think trans women are real women that should still bother you. Like racists targetting black women with accusations of being trans because they have more masculinised secondary sex characteristics, or women getting awards stripped from them because they were later diagnosed with some hormone abnormality.
It’s ok, you’re right although the subtext of the thing is “are trans women beating cis women at a statistically anomalous rate” and so individual medals are really the matter at hand is all I mean to point out. I also made no claim no trans women had won, rather that there is no flood of medalists. There’s like that weight lifting woman that went from high men’s rankings to flunking all her lifts after HRT for example. Which based on what we know of estrogen aromatisation and T effects on metabolism is what we’d expect really.
The trans “movement” is not new actually. you know that famous picture of the Nazi book burning? Guess what they were burning. We’ve been documented and treated in western medicine for at least 100 years. Other cultures have their own understandings of gender and analogous things go back to before we have records.
So if you want to talk about chromosomes talk about chromosomes but I have to ask why? I get the impression you’re largely ignorant of endocrinology. Please correct me if I’m wrong here, I only know what I had to learn plus a couple of textbooks casual reading. Chromosomes don’t determine shit. Genes in chromosomes may cause (and usually do) expression of certain proteins which may cause (and usually do) expression of certain hormones, which again usually cause tissue changes. Stuff like getting jacked doesn’t happen because Y chromosome, it happens because androgenic hormones like T and DHT bond with receptors in specific tissues causing metabolic changes. Cis women generally have higher T and DHT than trans women (because E and T aromatise into each other and T makes DHT, trans women usually take antagonists for T [an antagonist is a chemical that fits into a slot but not in the correct way to activate the slot. Blocking the activation by the intended hormone/drug]).
Normally none of this matters tremendously, unless you’re say on hormonal birth control, treating male pattern baldness, trans, have insensitivity disorders or whatever. Then all the wonderful and terrible subtly of what causes human sexual characteristic expression does matter. So if we’re concerned about muscle mass chromosomes don’t matter, as someone who was XY but completely insensitive to androgens (rare but hard to say how rare specifically since most people don’t get gene sequenced) is indistinguishable from a cis woman unless we examine the statistics of children she births if she does. Or for a trans woman who has undergone HRT for some period longer than the lifetime of muscle cells such that the muscles have all been replaced under normal female conditions chromosomes also don’t matter.
I am only trained in physics, I will not speculate on the inner lives of penguines. I am not sure of penguins are offered HRT, or how hormones in penguins and sexual expression work. I suggest you ask a domain expert if such a person exists. If we have a batch of penguines with various sex hormone interventions active and they are analogous to primate sex hormones then I would be comfortable endorsing nuanced and specific language. If there is anything applicable from physics I have learned it’s that the universe is staggeringly complex.
I am not an expert on all sport. I think things should be determined with sensitivity to their context and according to evidence. E.g. sports where muscle mass matters a lot should probably have hormone level monitoring for all participants for a couple of years prior to catch both unusual health conditions and cheating or something whereas other sports timelines and requirements may be different. I am not an expert, it would be utterly ridiculous for me to suggest definitive guidelines.
They’re awful. But online comments aren’t about the hardline conservatives, they’re about people who might see dissent to reactionary views and start asking questions.
Ugh I fucking hate it though. “Debate me, debate me no I won’t do independent research that challenges my biases debate me now or I’ll voice a stance against you undefended”. They’re vegan and I think a woman too, so you fucking know they’d be exhausted if someone started doing this to them about either of those things.
Alas, that’s the problem. Empathy is often too weak, intersectional solidarity is necessary. Until every cage and every chain is broken we’re just all damned to this pointless struggle, gaining privilege and then terrified that the next struggle will take what little we won.
Don’t patronise me. My lived experience is trans tolerance massively backsliding since the 2000s.
I never had anyone ban me from sport for example. People like you are part of the problem, I don’t get the luxury of stepping out of debates for the freedoms of people like me because the audience will simply see an echo chamber reenforcing their ignorant biasies.
you are not a friend, you are not an ally, you are a political obsticle.
For fucks sake look at yourself, own your damned opinions. you want trans people to face more barriers to a full and happy life, you lend your voice to a crowd that chants for our extermination, you want policies that would leave trans women at least unable to compete. Your friend felt she couldn’t wrestle because of some silly policy at a school that didn’t require HRT? No trans woman on HRT would be able to compete with men. you wonder how her life might be different? what scholarships she might have got? you want that fate for all of us, whether it’s your intention or not.
You are cruel and discriminatory, thoughtless in your callous disregard launching your uninformed opinions into the public arena at a time that’s rather fraught. you have the privilege to do so and you use it cruelly and recklessly. No different to those men “just asking questions” about abortion rights, or gender pay gaps. No different from carnists sealioning about food intolerances or desert islands to distract from factory farming.
You are hurting people with your privilege. You can either take a look inside yourself and reflect, wonder why your behaviour doesn’t line up with the good and sensitive person you hold yourself to be. Or you can dismiss the pain you’re causing as oversensitive internet nutters being extremists and blithely continue.
It’s your choice, you’ve made a heroic change on at least one issue standing up for the vulnerable in the face of ridicule and the knowledge that you were raised to be party yo great harm. Do you have the courage for another? m
Noted re Quinn although they were one player on a team of otherwise cis women who won gold. It takes an extreme amount of misogyny to discount the efforts of their teammates. It also seems that the team didn’t sweep, and only won gold in a kickoff so like hardly evidence of some inherent superiority of trans people at sport.
I could go through the team and find someone else with something unusual about them and you would have to accept that this trait could be just as responsible for the win.
As trans women do not dominate sport, nor do trans men, there is no evidence suggesting a need for separate leagues. As I noted in my example, sports is about community and competition. At this point excluding trans people is not warranted on a defense of competition and would harm community. Again as per the example because there are not enough trans people to form leagues and the social context means funding and interest would be inadequate to support athletes it would be a defacto ban on at least trans women. Trans men can probably hold their own in open classes which is no doubt where they probably want to compete.
If it becomes a problem then there are other options to explore beyond outright bans. Remember most athletes are not Olympians, they are school kids, uni students, community members. Most sport is done for very low stakes on local or regional scales, what sport is the 1 trans woman in a school year meant to play if she’s banned?
This leads to biology language. Just refer to what you mean. Do you mean chromosomal sex? that is a strange thing to talk about as most people don’t know theirs we can’t see it, touch it, smell it whatever. Do you mean secondary sex characteristics? primary sex characteristics? do you mean people that have undergone a male or female puberty? Do you mean tall and short people? weak and strong people? people with hormones at a certain level? what is it that you’re actually trying to talk about?
The problem becomes a lot more solvable if we start actually talking about it accurately. Maybe trans men can never get a win in javelin throwing, maybe trans women dominate. Ok so if that happens and we look at why and it turns out that idk elbow knobbliness is a huge factor then we can set up leagues binning people into ranges. Whatever is reasonable, we can go granular if needed, a trans man who took puberty blockers and transitioned might have no abnormal disadvantage and visa versa for a trans woman.
If you start trying to legislate based on arbitrary shit you’re going to necessarily exclude some cis women, even if you don’t think trans women are real women that should still bother you. Like racists targetting black women with accusations of being trans because they have more masculinised secondary sex characteristics, or women getting awards stripped from them because they were later diagnosed with some hormone abnormality.
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It’s ok, you’re right although the subtext of the thing is “are trans women beating cis women at a statistically anomalous rate” and so individual medals are really the matter at hand is all I mean to point out. I also made no claim no trans women had won, rather that there is no flood of medalists. There’s like that weight lifting woman that went from high men’s rankings to flunking all her lifts after HRT for example. Which based on what we know of estrogen aromatisation and T effects on metabolism is what we’d expect really.
The trans “movement” is not new actually. you know that famous picture of the Nazi book burning? Guess what they were burning. We’ve been documented and treated in western medicine for at least 100 years. Other cultures have their own understandings of gender and analogous things go back to before we have records.
So if you want to talk about chromosomes talk about chromosomes but I have to ask why? I get the impression you’re largely ignorant of endocrinology. Please correct me if I’m wrong here, I only know what I had to learn plus a couple of textbooks casual reading. Chromosomes don’t determine shit. Genes in chromosomes may cause (and usually do) expression of certain proteins which may cause (and usually do) expression of certain hormones, which again usually cause tissue changes. Stuff like getting jacked doesn’t happen because Y chromosome, it happens because androgenic hormones like T and DHT bond with receptors in specific tissues causing metabolic changes. Cis women generally have higher T and DHT than trans women (because E and T aromatise into each other and T makes DHT, trans women usually take antagonists for T [an antagonist is a chemical that fits into a slot but not in the correct way to activate the slot. Blocking the activation by the intended hormone/drug]).
Normally none of this matters tremendously, unless you’re say on hormonal birth control, treating male pattern baldness, trans, have insensitivity disorders or whatever. Then all the wonderful and terrible subtly of what causes human sexual characteristic expression does matter. So if we’re concerned about muscle mass chromosomes don’t matter, as someone who was XY but completely insensitive to androgens (rare but hard to say how rare specifically since most people don’t get gene sequenced) is indistinguishable from a cis woman unless we examine the statistics of children she births if she does. Or for a trans woman who has undergone HRT for some period longer than the lifetime of muscle cells such that the muscles have all been replaced under normal female conditions chromosomes also don’t matter.
I am only trained in physics, I will not speculate on the inner lives of penguines. I am not sure of penguins are offered HRT, or how hormones in penguins and sexual expression work. I suggest you ask a domain expert if such a person exists. If we have a batch of penguines with various sex hormone interventions active and they are analogous to primate sex hormones then I would be comfortable endorsing nuanced and specific language. If there is anything applicable from physics I have learned it’s that the universe is staggeringly complex.
I am not an expert on all sport. I think things should be determined with sensitivity to their context and according to evidence. E.g. sports where muscle mass matters a lot should probably have hormone level monitoring for all participants for a couple of years prior to catch both unusual health conditions and cheating or something whereas other sports timelines and requirements may be different. I am not an expert, it would be utterly ridiculous for me to suggest definitive guidelines.
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For honesty’s sake I have not enjoyed talking with you, I have consumed about 2 L of port and missed a night’s sleep coping with the stress.
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you’re a condescending asshole to everyone then
They’re awful. But online comments aren’t about the hardline conservatives, they’re about people who might see dissent to reactionary views and start asking questions.
Ugh I fucking hate it though. “Debate me, debate me no I won’t do independent research that challenges my biases debate me now or I’ll voice a stance against you undefended”. They’re vegan and I think a woman too, so you fucking know they’d be exhausted if someone started doing this to them about either of those things.
Alas, that’s the problem. Empathy is often too weak, intersectional solidarity is necessary. Until every cage and every chain is broken we’re just all damned to this pointless struggle, gaining privilege and then terrified that the next struggle will take what little we won.
Don’t patronise me. My lived experience is trans tolerance massively backsliding since the 2000s.
I never had anyone ban me from sport for example. People like you are part of the problem, I don’t get the luxury of stepping out of debates for the freedoms of people like me because the audience will simply see an echo chamber reenforcing their ignorant biasies.
you are not a friend, you are not an ally, you are a political obsticle.
deleted by creator
“They”?
For fucks sake look at yourself, own your damned opinions. you want trans people to face more barriers to a full and happy life, you lend your voice to a crowd that chants for our extermination, you want policies that would leave trans women at least unable to compete. Your friend felt she couldn’t wrestle because of some silly policy at a school that didn’t require HRT? No trans woman on HRT would be able to compete with men. you wonder how her life might be different? what scholarships she might have got? you want that fate for all of us, whether it’s your intention or not.
You are cruel and discriminatory, thoughtless in your callous disregard launching your uninformed opinions into the public arena at a time that’s rather fraught. you have the privilege to do so and you use it cruelly and recklessly. No different to those men “just asking questions” about abortion rights, or gender pay gaps. No different from carnists sealioning about food intolerances or desert islands to distract from factory farming.
You are hurting people with your privilege. You can either take a look inside yourself and reflect, wonder why your behaviour doesn’t line up with the good and sensitive person you hold yourself to be. Or you can dismiss the pain you’re causing as oversensitive internet nutters being extremists and blithely continue.
It’s your choice, you’ve made a heroic change on at least one issue standing up for the vulnerable in the face of ridicule and the knowledge that you were raised to be party yo great harm. Do you have the courage for another? m