Any advantage a trans woman may or may not have is not universal to trans women though.
A 4’4" trans woman is not going to thrive at basketball, regardless of any bone density or whatever.
This is kind of the point, you have trans women who are just as diverse in both their natural physical attributes as well as varied in the degree to which their body has changed from hormone therapy, depending on factors like age when they began transition, their personal biological response to the replacement, and how long they’ve been undergoing transition.
This is why “trans” in and of itself is not actually a useful category to blanket ban people from athletics. It only is if you operate by stereotype. In which case it opens questions like “Women from the netherlands tend to be taller, should that category be banned from sports based on their natural advantage?”
If you have an advantage because of something that occurs naturally in you, and you’ve gone through puberty as a woman, then it’s fine.
If you have an advantage because you went through puberty as a gender other than what you’re competing as, then it falls outside of the advantages we are willing to accept.
It is a simple measure, but it’s also completely arbitrary. You are then making a judgement solely based on the fact that they are trans, not anything to do with actual advantage or fairness.
I’m not trying to be inflammatory or imply you’re a bad person because of this, but that is a position based purely on transphobia. Unconscious transphobia maybe, but if you broke your motivations down for yourself honestly I think you’d see that that was really all there was behind your reasoning ultimately.
Any advantage a trans woman may or may not have is not universal to trans women though.
A 4’4" trans woman is not going to thrive at basketball, regardless of any bone density or whatever.
This is kind of the point, you have trans women who are just as diverse in both their natural physical attributes as well as varied in the degree to which their body has changed from hormone therapy, depending on factors like age when they began transition, their personal biological response to the replacement, and how long they’ve been undergoing transition.
This is why “trans” in and of itself is not actually a useful category to blanket ban people from athletics. It only is if you operate by stereotype. In which case it opens questions like “Women from the netherlands tend to be taller, should that category be banned from sports based on their natural advantage?”
I think it’s really simple.
If you have an advantage because of something that occurs naturally in you, and you’ve gone through puberty as a woman, then it’s fine.
If you have an advantage because you went through puberty as a gender other than what you’re competing as, then it falls outside of the advantages we are willing to accept.
That’s all there is to it, really.
It is a simple measure, but it’s also completely arbitrary. You are then making a judgement solely based on the fact that they are trans, not anything to do with actual advantage or fairness.
I’m not trying to be inflammatory or imply you’re a bad person because of this, but that is a position based purely on transphobia. Unconscious transphobia maybe, but if you broke your motivations down for yourself honestly I think you’d see that that was really all there was behind your reasoning ultimately.