Racism, sexism etc in sport.

Out of curiosity, have there been cases of woman>man transgender athletes who want to compete with the men? The issue only seems to arise the other way around.

 

Yes. https://www.thepinknews.com/2019/04/04/transgender-athletes-why-fair-compete/

 

Not true. 3 transgender athletes in the Olympics.
Quinn.
Laurel Hubbard
Alana Smith.
All 2021.

 

Yes, the article is from 2019. Three out of many thousands. Doesn’t suggest transwomen enjoy a major sporting advantage. Three trans Olympians is a negligible figure, indeed an anomaly. Hitherto you have disapproved of employing anomalies to disprove a general rule.

 

It doesn't have to. You said "none" and 2 minutes on Google said otherwise.
It's about fair competition. No horses in a dog race, no dogs in a horse race. Unless we can prove that neither has an advantage. And there, the jury is firmly out. Your mind may be made up, but people who do this for a job are still debating it.

Edit -3 trans Olympians are a negligible figure or an anomaly. Olympic athletes are an anomaly. 11,300 last year, across the whole world population of 8 Bn. That's just over 1 in a million, 0.0001% of the whole population, or maybe (my estimate) ~0.0005% of the population aged 18-35 because obviously we are excluding those too old or young to be of competitive age. Trans people are an anomaly (0.1% trans women in the UK, 0.06% non binary, some others). The number of people in both groups is obviously very small. But not zero.

 

Thanks. But that is a website by its own definition committed to sustaining one point of view. And my impression is that the vast majority of cases is of man>woman trans wanting to compete as women. There have also been no complaints, as far as I know, but perhaps you know, of male athletes complaining of unfair competition from trans athletes.

 

I’m relieved that you’re acknowledging the lack of conclusive proof on both sides of the debate. The entirety of your previous contributions were predicated on the belief that there existed a self-evident physical advantage to transwomen in sport, and that that view was incontrovertibly supported by science.

 

Yes of course it provides a partisan view. And I’m sure a cursory search will reveal articles that adopt the opposite view.

My point is that it is a highly contested arena and far from the supposedly definitive situation that some of contributions made in the course of this thread describe.

 

No they weren't. Why don't you try reading what I actually write and then replying to that, instead of what you's like to reply to? I'll give you a summary of things that I have reported as fact:
1. Men outperform women in most sports (incontrovertibly supported etc)
2. Men are generally bigger and stronger (incontrovertibly supported etc) (This was what you suggested was "irrelevant" earlier.)
3. Men have a male puberty, women a female one in which body shape and size changes (incontrovertibly etc)
4. The skeletal and body morphology changes that arrive in and post puberty are non reversible (science fact)
There you go. The rest is open to debate, but the above are just facts.
You may attempt to pull apart my argument as me presenting my opinions as facts, but this is just the usual straw man nonsense.
As far as my opinions go, back on Sunday I wrote:

so my position has not changed.

Further to this last point, I note that you haven't offered any insight as to how, given the facts above, trans women can meaningfully compete against non trans women.

 

Yes, in the sense of group behaviour, rather than being actually good at something.

 

At the 2017 swimming world championship (for a random example) the winner of the women's 100m butterfly swam 55.53s. This would have placed her 57th in the heats for the men's event. 3.5s away from last qualification spot. The man who came 25th in qualification could give her a 3s head-start and produce a close race.

You are conflating a gulf with 'pronounced genetic advantage'. It's disingenuous.

 

Your summary is characterised by sleight-of-hand. None of the four points you highlight lead to a conclusion, supported by science, that transwomen have a biological advantage in the field of sport. But you have consistently asserted that trans status does confer advantage, and that advantage is verified by science. My position is such claims are unsustainable in the absence of conclusive proof. That is the essence of our exchange.

Do continue to respond, if you are inclined, as robustly as appropriate. However, please do not engage in deliberate falsehoods. In post #11 I responded to a post, stating that Venus Williams non-trans status was irrelevant in relation to her bigger and more powerful physique vis a vis most other women tennis players, certainly not in the context of how you present it in point 2 of your previous post.

 

In a sense it boils down to a natural versus an artificial advantage. Whatever one's ideology, it is a fact that a trans woman made the decision to become a woman and take hormones and (in some cases) undergo surgery. While the Williams sisters were born big and strong. Granted that there is no across-the-board, incontrovertible, universal truth that an ex-man will always be stronger than a woman. But the fact that lifelong female athletes are complaining but lifelong male athletes are not complaining that they have to compete against ex-females seems to indicate that this is the case.

 

Why are you ignoring the key point that sports are divided by sex, not gender. You are arguing that female sports should be mixed sex.

 

There is no sleight of hand in my posts. Read them again, quote them if you wish, then reply to them if you want. But please stop telling me what you think I said and then replying to that. It's getting really bloody tiresome.

 

Is it not true that an 'average' male athlete not getting onto podiums in the male events can when transitioned to female suddenly start getting podium finishes in the female events/competing for podium finishes? I realise this is a complex and highly emotive topic but my gut feeling is this is unfair to natal females.

 

I entirely agree, the exchange is becoming somewhat monotonous, not to mention entrenched and unproductive- which echoes the wider debate. I made post #4 in this thread that stated my belief that any biological advantage possessed by a trans women in a female sporting event remained an assumption. You replied to my post (#9) to deny that it was an assumption, rather, you asserted it was a biological fact.

That is not what I think we both said- that is what we both said. And five pages later, the discussion has made minimal progress.

 

Yes, why not? As I stated earlier, one way out of the impasse may be to abolish gender categories and initiate categories based on height, weight etc. as in certain other sports.

Would anyone disagree that the quality of women’s football has improved dramatically over the last decade or so? Or perhaps the quality was always there- it’s that the women’s game is now taken as seriously as the men’s. In either case, it’s undeniable that the top women’s footballers exhibit skills comparable to male players. So, although there are no physically demarcated categories in football, why not have mixed football. Why should women’s smaller physique be any impediment in specific positions. There are plenty of examples of male players in possession of small frames and diminutive stature, who are amongst the greatest players in history. Luka Modric, Lionel Messi and David Silva off the top of my head.

 

Sorry, I don’t understand your point. What do you mean “conflating a gulf with 'pronounced genetic advantage”?

 

The point I made then, an now, is that make puberty is no assumption, but a biological fact. These changes are for the most part irreversible. No assumptions. But still you won't listen to this simple statement, 5 pages on!