• Shapillon@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    Competing by sex is pretty pointless.

    It is true that the average male human has some physical advantages on the average female human.

    Otoh the variability amongst people of the same sex is wider than that average difference. This effect is reinforced in professional sports because it tends to attract outliers.

    And then for trans athletes, most of that difference gets smoothed by a well adjusted HRT applied fpr a few years.

    • CapeWearingAeroplane@sopuli.xyz
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      4 months ago

      We have divided a bunch of sports into “open class” and “women only” (some sports use “men only” and “women only”) because the difference between men and women is large enough that

      1. Women would be unable to compete at a professional level otherwise

      2. A lot of sports would be directly dangerous for women (see: contact sports without weight classes)

      Nobody argues that it’s pointless to have weight classes. How is that different from having classes based on (a proxy for) levels of testosterone?

      One of the best male 1500m runners today, Jacob Ingebritsen, beat the current women’s WR by almost 4 seconds when he was 15 years old. Women can be amazing athletes, and watching women compete at the top level is amazing. That’s why we need a class where they can compete, just like we need weight classes in many sports.