In 2016, Steven van de Velde pleaded guilty to three counts of raping a 12-year British schoolgirl. On Sunday, the registered sex offender was knocked out of the Paris Olympics.
It’s not the Olympic organizers’ job to disqualify someone based on how immoral, criminal, of poor character or despicable a person is (on who’s laws anyway?). This is a major failure on the country’s olympic committee selecting these people to represent themselves to the world.
On the one hand that’s supposedly to do with competitive advantage. It makes sense to try to even the playing field, which should have nothing to do with objection on ‘moral’grounds. I’d argue this is mostly a good thing given the iffiness of many groups’ morals.
Case in point, your exact examples, which brings me to the other hand. Banning trans athletes on ‘fairness’ grounds is bullshit. In most sports there’s no known competitive advantage. Where there’s an imbalance they tend to show disadvantage. The rare cases with an advantage for trans athletes tend to disappear the moment you correct for size/weight, which is not something we’d exclude cis athletes for. None of your examples should have happened. They do not hold water on fairness grounds, and any moralistic reasons behind it are reprehensible.
Cool, thanks for sharing. I know that the criteria is sketchy at best, but interesting to see where the line is drawn, and how this is still a “problem” that the IOC are facing.
Pretty interesting read, but far from conclusive. As they said in the study. 15-23 random people from each group gathered from social media isn’t exactly what I would call bulletproof.
Just by going through male puberty you would have a physical advantage by being taller.
Obviously it’s a murky subject on the topic of intersex and transgender athletes participating in the ladies’ competition. However on the whole, the focus is on matters related to achieving a fair competition to a sport rather than someone’s morality. The IOC, with consultation from a multitude of countries, dropped many of the testosterone and sex testing criteria for this year, where before the 2016 olympics, trans and intersex athletes were barred completely without genital surgery.
It’s not the Olympic organizers’ job to disqualify someone based on how immoral, criminal, of poor character or despicable a person is (on who’s laws anyway?). This is a major failure on the country’s olympic committee selecting these people to represent themselves to the world.
Yet they’re more than happy to disqualify and otherwise exclude people based on their biology. Curious… 🤔
On the one hand that’s supposedly to do with competitive advantage. It makes sense to try to even the playing field, which should have nothing to do with objection on ‘moral’grounds. I’d argue this is mostly a good thing given the iffiness of many groups’ morals.
Case in point, your exact examples, which brings me to the other hand. Banning trans athletes on ‘fairness’ grounds is bullshit. In most sports there’s no known competitive advantage. Where there’s an imbalance they tend to show disadvantage. The rare cases with an advantage for trans athletes tend to disappear the moment you correct for size/weight, which is not something we’d exclude cis athletes for. None of your examples should have happened. They do not hold water on fairness grounds, and any moralistic reasons behind it are reprehensible.
Who have they disqualified?
Transgender and intersex athletes.
https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1143198/restrictions-transgender-paris2024-games
https://www.vox.com/culture/364032/trans-athletes-olympics-2024
https://www.thenation.com/article/society/trans-athletes-paris-olympics/
https://www.reuters.com/sports/athletics/were-being-hounded-french-transgender-sprinter-decries-olympics-ban-2023-05-09/
https://www.leidenlawblog.nl/articles/are-transgender-and-intersex-athletes-banned-from-the-olympics
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/article/2024/jun/12/transgender-swimmer-lia-thomas-out-of-olympics-after-losing-legal-battle-swimming
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/transgender-athletes-banned-from-track-and-field-competitions-rules-tightened-for-semenya
https://www.context.news/socioeconomic-inclusion/which-sports-will-allow-trans-athletes-at-the-paris-olympics
Cool, thanks for sharing. I know that the criteria is sketchy at best, but interesting to see where the line is drawn, and how this is still a “problem” that the IOC are facing.
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It’s almost like that isn’t even true and you’re just a transphobe and misogynist.
Pretty interesting read, but far from conclusive. As they said in the study. 15-23 random people from each group gathered from social media isn’t exactly what I would call bulletproof. Just by going through male puberty you would have a physical advantage by being taller.
Obviously it’s a murky subject on the topic of intersex and transgender athletes participating in the ladies’ competition. However on the whole, the focus is on matters related to achieving a fair competition to a sport rather than someone’s morality. The IOC, with consultation from a multitude of countries, dropped many of the testosterone and sex testing criteria for this year, where before the 2016 olympics, trans and intersex athletes were barred completely without genital surgery.
Sure, but how did they end up selecting him and why can’t they recall him?
That is a very good question and quite shameful for the Dutch Olympic Committee that they did not.