Sounds like someone is preparing for Presidential run for office.
Speaking as a Californian, unfortunately, he probably is.
The guy who ruined San Francisco got the credentials to ruin California. Now he’s gearing up to ruin what’s left of the country
When you culture is so much about cOMpEtItiOn that you forget that sports are just a made up thing for witch we get to make whatever rules we like. Gender segregation in sports isn’t that eternal either.
If you’re that worried about different abilities competing, install a tiered system like the Special Olympics.
EDIT: Interesting read: https://daily.jstor.org/gender-incommensurability-in-sports/
What if the separation of competitions, “said to be a natural consequence of the differences between men and women,” is actually is “just a tool to create those differences”?
Maybe different brackets based on measured testosterone level? The highest tier can be super buff dudes on steroids. Sounds interesting.
Yeah, we should totally focus on something so vanishingly rare and trivial it almost doesn’t exist instead of the myriad of real world, life and death problems.
It is trivial, but at the same time, this issue is a cultural flashpoint, extremely politicized, and also potentially a vote winner/loser. It’s very unfortunate.
I’m not sure what the answer is, but the US just voted for a neo-fascist regime, and some of these cultural/identity issues may have played a role in that.
It’s a tightrope, for sure.
All I can say for sure is that whatever the Dems were doing didn’t and won’t work moving forward. Whether it’s true or not, the perception of the democratic party seems to be that they care more about identity than everyday issues. For everyone’s sake, it might be time that they attempted to change that perception.
That’s how you lose elections. You just say “x issue is not that important” and wonder why voters who think it’s important don’t vote for you
We don’t need solutions for wealth inequality nor housing crisis nor cost of living issues nor the rise of fascism.
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It’s not that simple, you need to understand the effects that Hormone Replace Therapy has on the body. Men and trans women physically do not have the same type of body and the studies even shows trans women perform worse than cis women in most areas.
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Transgender women performed worse than cisgender women in tests measuring lower-body strength.
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Transgender women performed worse than cisgender women in tests measuring lung function.
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Transgender women had a higher percentage of fat mass, lower fat-free mass, and weaker handgrip strength compared to cisgender men.
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Transgender women’s bone density was found to be equivalent to that of cisgender women, which is linked to muscle strength.
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There were no meaningful differences found between the two groups’ hemoglobin profiles. Hemoglobin (Hb) plays a crucial role in athletic performance by facilitating improved oxygen delivery to muscles. Elite endurance athletes may exhibit up to a 40% higher level of Hb compared to untrained individuals. Moreover, heightened levels of Hb typically correlate with enhanced aerobic performance.
You’re allowed to feel however you like, but I need you to understand that it is only a feeling, not something backed by scientific observation of reality. Saying you don’t hate anyone is at odds with letting your gut feeling take the side of bias.
This is why it’s so crucial to never submit to a right wing framing on any issue. I have a goddamn trans brother, and I didn’t know about these specific facts at all. I hate the misinformation zeitgeist.
this!
it’s the most insane thing that I’ve been on the flip side of this rhetoric coming from that part of the political spectrum as well. when I told my brother I was transitioning (MtF), he freaked out and said I was going to lose muscle mass and all my strength. of course that’s part of what estrogen does, and is kinda the point, but I find it silly that they admit it and simultaneously refuse to admit it.
I hope I wasn’t coming off as someone who is upset with the existence of trans individuals. I have had trans friends. Who I housed at my home when they were kicked out of their homes. I have helped and been an ally before I knew what an ally was. I saw the mod deleted my comment. But I wasn’t trying to be mean or anything.
Well, no. Not exactly. I do think you are using “I have black friends so I can’t be racist” sort of logic to not be critical of your original comment. But I never thought you were coming from a place of malice or outright bigotry, just one of ignorance. There is a lot of propaganda around anti-trans legislation, so I truly can’t fault you for not understanding the nuance of endocrinology.
Yet having said that, the fact that you and your ex argued about this intensely enough that you split , that you describe her stance as “devout” and that yesterday you saw this thread as an opportunity to bring the story up. Well… it speaks to bias that apparently you still hold. I believe you were not trying to be mean, but when you talk about “the physical differences between men and women” as a way to argue for trans exclusion than you clearly do not understand the community or the issues we face, much less be an ally.
At a certain point, intent or former trans friends just doesn’t matter.
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I have 4 sisters. I just couldn’t see myself allowing them
Why do they need you to allow them?
He doesn’t. that was a figure of speech.
Idk, man, kind of a sus one
Do not engage with such bullshit. This is such a fucking non-issue, that is ultimately more about demonizing one of the most marginalized minorities in history, rather than “protecting” anyone.
Yes, but the problem is that the right engages with these issues. It allows them to score points. The left should have never been in a position where it was arguing in favor of trans women in women’s sports. It allows the ghouls on the right to dodge the economic and social issues that really matter.
You cannot let the right’s reactions control what you do. You’ll never win if you let that happen.
That’s the mistake that centrist triangulators like Newsom keep making.
When America shifts to the left on economic issues, that benefits all Americans, especially vulnerable groups like the trans community. The issue of trans athletes in women’s sports helps no one. It doesn’t help trans people. How does trans atletes in women’s sports benefit trans people at large? It only causes hostility against the trans cause and against progressive politics.
Oh, because it worked so great last election. Tell me, how man seats for the Democrats pick up?
The left should focus on real problems that matter to people in material ways. The right wants to make major cultural battles over some tiny fraction of people. They don’t “engage with these issues”, they create them. If you feel the need yo constantly defend yourself from every manufactured right wing outrage, you have already lost. By engaging, you legitimize their narrative. Focus on improving peoples’ lives in measurable ways.
You know what’s more unfair? Targeting transgender kids.
Yeah I’m not touching this with a ten foot pole. This is so low priority.
The way I view it is they claim to believe in a free market. I don’t know of any leagues off the top of my head that aren’t companies. If one company chooses to do it one way and it is actually bad for business, another company would replace them if it was actually an issue. But being that it isn’t that big of a deal, no rival companies have surfaced to replace them.
The government runs schools that have teams, so it can control this
Well I assume when talking from a government perspective, the conversation is going to inevitably become about highschool sports and whatnot. Where I still definitely don’t want to touch this with a 10 foot pole!
Sports are games.
Games are supposed to be inclusive and fun.
Society taking games deathly serious (and equivocating it with academic merit, aka serious pursuits) is the problem.
People rioting and murdering if the game didn’t work out for their team is the problem. Putting billion dollar stakes on games is the problem.
Trans people or any people wanting to play games with their friends should be what society fosters and nurtures as the entire fucking point of society’s existence. Something something… planting trees something something knowing they’ll never sit under…
Nope? let’s bring on the climate change induced extinction then. If our values are hyper competitive, dog eat dog bullshit from labor to fucking games, we should go extinct.
Have you ever watched women’s sport vs. men’s…? Like cmon lmao.
Have you seen how big some NFL guys can get?? Imagine putting one of those guys in a women’s league? Put an NBA all-star in the women’s league? Imagine Mike Tyson in his prime fighting a woman. People would be hospitalized every minute
This crazy shit is what turned everyone off of Democrats this time around. All for like the maybe 10 trans athletes this would even apply to
Sports are a pathetic institution when they’re more about competition than fun.
Life is competitive enough.
That’s your opinion, which I completely respect. But a lot of people make a living from sports and allow themselves to pull their families out of poverty because of it. Are you going to take that away from them because there’s a double digit number of trans people that this even applies to?
You sound like you don’t watch professional sports enough in a way to understand what I’m saying, which is fine but also why I’m trying to make this point
Trans people or any people wanting to play games with their friends should be what society fosters and nurtures as the entire fucking point of society’s existence. Something something… planting trees something something knowing they’ll never sit under…
Coed teams exist. They’re finding issue with mtf athletes playing against a league of individuals who didn’t go through puberty as a male. That’s clearly an advantage, and to say otherwise is to ignore science altogether.
Maybe the solution is non-gendered weight classes for sports, or just more coed teams. Idk
Edit: yall will convince yourselves of anything lol. Really wild the dumb shit some people will say
What about trans women who transitioned before puberty? What about cis or intersex women with elevated levels of testosterone? What about sports where it has been shown that after a long enough period of medical transition trans people have no significant advantage over their cis counterparts?
You appeal to science yet fail to cite a single source, so let me do it for you:
They’re finding issue with mtf athletes playing against a league of individuals who didn’t go through puberty as a male. That’s clearly an advantage, and to say otherwise is to ignore science altogether.
That would be an argument worth discussing if the Nazis weren’t also trying to ban puberty blockers and frothing at the mouth claiming the trans agenda is coming for their kids. But no, right now, that’s a garbage bad faith argument, because it already has an obvious answer. That’s how they poison the discussion.
Ah, yes, let’s make laws specifically banning 2-5 children from ever having fun.
Like… what the fuck is wrong with you that you think a law targeting under 10 people in the entirety of the US is justified and not literally just bullying those kids on a national level to hope they fucking commit suicide? A law to tell 5 kids, specifically, that fuck them and they’re not allowed to have fun is god damn crazy.
https://www.newsweek.com/how-many-transgender-athletes-play-womens-sports-1796006
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So you’re saying that people like Michael Phelps should be excluded from competing in sports due to the famous athelete’s “biological advantages”?
The women’s section is separate from the open section specifically so that women can get their place to compete without being dominated by men’s biological advantages over them. Micheal Phelps is competing in the open section, which is… Well… Open. Also please leave strawmanning to the conservatives.
You missed my point.
If the argument is that unfair competition due to “biological advantages” should be reduced then I agree. Sports should be segregated by performance classes and open to all genders.
But if the point of segregating sports is to make space for women in sports, then excluding trans women is nothing more than discrimination on par with excluding black or disabled women. Trans women deserve not to have to play with the boys too.
If the argument is that unfair competition due to “biological advantages” should be reduced then I agree. Sports should be segregated by performance classes and open to all genders.
That’s probably the ideal solution, but the problem is that nobody’s gonna watch anything except the top leagues. I mean watching the kinda good but not really amazing people’s football league just isn’t an appealing prospect, unless I misunderstood what you meant by performance classes. The whole point of this debate (other than conservatives shitting on trans women anyway) is that you need a framework where:
1-trans people can compete, 2-cis women aren’t unfairly disadvantaged and 3-that people would actually watch.
I’m frankly not sure such a thing exists.
This is a really stupid argument. The thing that makes athletes special is their biology.
There’s a reason that DK Metcalf towers over all of the cornerbacks in the NFL. He’s a biological specimen that has incredible agility, height, muscle mass, and speed.
https://www.baltimoreravens.com/news/d-k-metcalf-proves-he-s-an-athletic-freak-at-combine
Michael Phelps also has a biological advantage that very few humans have.
None of this excludes them over their competition.
I’ll just copy my reply to the other guy.
The women’s section is separate from the open section specifically so that women can get their place to compete without being dominated by men’s biological advantages over them. Micheal Phelps is competing in the open section, which is… Well… Open.
Thanks for the gibberish. So many words to say absolutely nothing.
Please tell me what these “issues” are, with peer reviewed scientific sources. There are no significant advantages to a “male puberty” that are not countered by HRT. Furthermore, the same people touting trans kids for their supposed “advantages” are the same people forcing them to develop those “advantages” by restricting their access to healthcare before puberty begins.
The cruelty is the point.
There are no significant advantages to a “male puberty” that are not countered by HRT.
Uh… Palm size? Heart and lung size? Height? Don’t get me wrong I recognize this for the culture war bullshit it is, but there is some truth to this that needs to be addressed.
Edit: I only read the conclusion (and wouldn’t be able to tell if the methodology is flawed anyway) but I found this.
So shouldn’t we eliminate all players who may have physical advantages? What about a woman from birth who grows to 6’5"? Seems like that’d be an unfair advantage when playing against other women who may be only 5’10".
Athletes have always leveraged unfair advantages in sports. There’s a reason there’s super tall players in basketball and short ones in gymnastics. May be they should enforce that average height of teams must match global averages. Countries with fewer resources just can’t support athletes in many sports so why not make that more fair?
There’s research showing that some women athletes (i.e., born with female reproductive organs) have higher testosterone levels than many men, and even some male athletes. So why are they allowed to compete in women sports instead of men?
There’s a lot of ways to make sports more fair. Banning transgender people without fair science based facts is not one of them and is plain bigotry. It’s like saying an athlete on anti-depressants should be banned because they are happier and more motivated so have an unfair advantage.
Games are supposed to be fair. Unless you’re going to completely desegregate men and women’s sports, there’s a real biological argument to be made here. To pretend otherwise is delusional.
There is zero biological argument because you cannot make two categories based on sex which encompass everyone.
Example 1:
A cis woman with a genetic mutation which incrases her testosterone levels into the range of cis men. Should she be banned from female competitive sports?
Example 2:
A cis woman with XY gonadal dysgenesis. She has XY chromosomes but the Y chromosome is mutated and doesn’t function as it should which causes a “female” phenotype. Should she be banned from female competitive sports?
Example 3:
A trans woman in the 95th percentile of men with regards to physical strength. She is in the 10th percentile of women after transitioning. Should she be banned from female competitive sports?
Example 4:
A trans woman with Klinefelter syndrome and XXY genes. She has naturally very low levels of testosterone and she doesn’t require testosterone blockers after transitioning and taking estrogen. Even before transitioning she had less muscle mass, weaker bones and wider hips than the average man as a result of her low testosterone. Should she be banned from female competitive sports?
Example 5:
An African woman who would be in the 1st percentile of man if she were one, both in terms of physical attributes (size, muscle mass, heart size) and competitive results. Some “scientists” argue her race makes her less of a woman and more of a man. Should she be banned from female competitive sports?
There is zero risk of these people “replacing” cis women by the way. Yes, their performance may be greater than that of comparable cis women without any genetical mutations beyond a certajn point.
Yet risk is calculated as [severity] * [likelihood]. And due to the low likelihood stemming from their very low prevalence in the general population, there is no reason to ban them.
Women’s sports is about representation of women. Trans women are part of that group, cis women with genetic mutations are part of that group, racial minorities are part of that group. You cannot exclude some women and claim this group is “fair” and representative.
Make a trans league if there’s really such a demand for it. Problem solved.
A separate but equal league? Sure sounds appealing to many to segregate trans people into their own categories.
May as well apply it to bathrooms as well while we’re at it.
What, the same way biological males and females are “segregated” in sports?
May as well just make bathrooms with individual stalls/rooms. Then everyone will shut up about this stupid crap.
I don’t care what you got going on down there at the end of the day, but you’re on some crazy shit if you think it’s fair to make trans women that have gone through puberty compete against other women. It’s just simple biology, nothing evil about that.
Do you believe segregating a minority group making up 1-2% of the population will not have discriminatory effects? That there will be equal access to funding, scholarships, competition and sport leagues?
You can’t seriously believe this. Isn’t it plainly obvious that this would be an excuse to ban trans people from doing any sports? That any sports club will just argue there aren’t enough trans people to allow them to be members?
And I’d seriously like to know how it is unfair for cis women to have to compete against trans women in chess. Right now trans women are barred from competing in any women’s leagues regardless of when they started transitioning by the way.
How do trans people have any advantage in hundreds of other sports, from gymnastics to ballet to competitive diving - all of which have a more or less significant artistic element?
By the way, there are already discriminatory regulations barring certain cis women in the name of “fairness”:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Testosterone_regulations_in_women's_athletics
Also, what a coincidence:
At the 2020 Olympics a number of athletes, all from African countries, were withdrawn from their events because they did not meet the eligibility regulations.
Sure sucks for these Africans that they “randomly” happened to not meet these criteria. It couldn’t possibly be that certain ethnicities are more or less likely to have certain genetics.
If there’s a demand for it it will happen. And chess isn’t a real sport lol It’s as much a sport as “competitive gaming”
In some sports there are weight classes, because being a certain weight gives you an inherent biological advantage on average over people of a different weight. The weight classes allow anyone to find well-matched competition regardless of their biology.
Women’s sports vs Men’s sports is a similar idea. Separate people by some biological classification that’s often tied on average to an advantage at the sport, so that everybody has the chance to play against someone of a similar baseline.
That division doesn’t have to exclude trans people, but it does mean that a line gets drawn somewhere. And yes, that line might include some cis people with a genetic abnormality getting excluded as well, and some cis men with a genetic abnormality might be included.
If you want to draw the divisions by something like muscle mass or testosterone levels instead of trying to define sex and gender clearly enough for this purpose, that would probably be easier, although “low testosterone sports” doesn’t have the same marketability as “women’s sports” lol.
The weight classes allow anyone to find well-matched competition regardless of their biology.
That’s true. In professional boxing there are 18 weight classes from 46.3 kg (103 lb) to 101.6 kg (224 lb) plus the unlimited weight class. Only very few adults are excluded as the vast majority weighs more than the lower bound.
But with sex-based roles? Two don’t really make a fair competition, do they? I mean, otherwise there wouldn’t even be a need for per-sport subclasses.
Trans people and people with certain genetic mutations are very, very common though. We’re talking about more than 1% of people here. Shouldn’t there be a need to ensure they too can compete fairly?
Imagine if in the early 1900’s it was discovered that left-handed people are on average slightly better at math than right-handed people. As a reaction, all left-handed people are excluded from math scholarships as they have an unfair advantage over right-handed people. Would you consider this fair? After all, they only made up ~2% of the population and we have to draw the line of who gets a scholarship and who doesn’t somewhere.
But with sex-based roles? Two don’t really make a fair competition, do they? I mean, otherwise there wouldn’t even be a need for per-sport subclasses.
Sports is full of divisions. Division by age is the most common, followed by division by skill, and division by sex. Some sports use extra divisions by weight. Some find age/sex/skill to be enough. In some sports, especially at lower age or skill levels, co-ed is common (division by sex is not used). There are also divisions for people with physical disabilities, sometimes with tweaks to the rule to accommodate.
In all cases, the purpose of these divisions is to find a balance where everyone can get a fair matchup.
Trans people and people with certain genetic mutations are very, very common though. We’re talking about more than 1% of people here. Shouldn’t there be a need to ensure they too can compete fairly?
Absolutely 100%. I think everybody should be able to participate in sports, and I think that rules about sex divisions should be modified to account for trans people and people with gender-related disorders. I don’t think just letting people choose a division is fair though, there should be rules for consistency and fairness.
The border of the divisions is always at least somewhat contentious because people just before the cutoff have an advantage. Many high-level athletes have similar birth dates because they were born just before the age cutoff growing up. Being slightly older in the age divisions gives an advantage, and that leads to performing well, which leads to feedback loops such as coaches and parents and the kid noticing the good performance and focusing on the sport more. This ends up in more kids who were at the edge of their age range growing up becoming successful athletes as adults.
Also with weight-based divisions, it’s typical in higher skill levels to body-build to slightly above the cutoff and then avoid drinking water for a day to get slightly below the cutoff.
No line you draw will be perfect, but you do have to draw a line somewhere.
Imagine if in the early 1900’s it was discovered that left-handed people are on average slightly better at math than right-handed people. As a reaction, all left-handed people are excluded from math scholarships as they have an unfair advantage over right-handed people. Would you consider this fair? After all, they only made up ~2% of the population and we have to draw the line of who gets a scholarship and who doesn’t somewhere.
There are a some problems with this analogy. Scholarships are very different from competitions (although sports scholarships exist, which is a whole other topic to discuss…). Also the gender case is looking at the edge cases of an existing cutoff, which is not the case about left handed people, unless you want to hypothetically add they might have some relation to some other grouping.
I’ll offer some analogies that I think might be similar. What about someone with developmental issues who was held back in school? Would it be fair for the other kids if they get to play sports with the younger age group because of their mind? Would it fair for the kid who was held back to have to play in the older age group because of their body? What about someone who has a condition affecting their weight? Should that condition let them compete in a lower weight class? I’m not saying I have the answers to these scenarios, btw. I think a lot of it comes down to a case-by-case basis, and guidelines with leeway for exceptions are probably better than strict rules.
Not placing a value judgement on this, but you can probably expect a lot of Dems to distance themselves on trans issues. It’s a group of issues that takes up a lot of air, and divides the party, while uniting republicans.
It’s so fucking dumb to capitulate to Republicans on any of these issues, because they’ll just find some other bullshit to fabricate into a huge deal amongst their base of morons. Stand behind your beliefs you fucking cowards.
It really doesn’t seem that hard to just constantly disprove the lies they’re telling, over and over, until eventually the people who are still sane in this country understand what a non-issue the conservatives are freaking out over. I feel the same way about their “migrant crime” myth, which Democrats also immediately capitulated to and started campaigning on fixing despite crime statistics clearly demonstrating migrants do not commit crimes at a higher rate than the general populace.
It’s almost like standing up for their beliefs was never the goal, and they’ll just say whatever makes their corporate donors happy.
I mean, the counter-argument is, why spend time on issues that not even your own voters agree on? I think the majority of voters, on either side of the aisle, probably do not actually know any trans people personally, which is why it’s so easy for Rs to paint them as what they want. That lack of personal stakes makes it hard issue for people to get behind. And, frankly, I think there’s a lot of assuming in online discussions that every democratic voter is on board with the idea that sex and gender are different things, but I think in actuality rather a lot of them are probably either uncomfortable with the idea or just unsure. And then when you get into questions like whether prepubescent children should be able to medically transition…there’s just going to be a lot of people not on board with that, which is precisely why it’s a point Republicans hammer on.
Here’s what I think really gets to the root of why Newsom is doing this: a lot of those Democratic voters probably feel like they can’t express their true feelings on the matter for fear of being labeled a transphobe. So Newsom is, in essence, giving cover to those people (who are probably a significant portion of the liberal wing of the party) to say “maybe I’m not really fully on board with all this trans stuff yet,” specifically picking out women’s sports to rally around because polling shows that people are overwhelmingly against trans women participating in women’s sports. And it also serves as him separating himself from those Democrats, i.e. the ones who completely fucked up what may have been the most important election in the history of the country. This is a very calculated maneuver, and it probably has nothing to do with his personal beliefs - because he’s a politician and I don’t think successful politicians believe in much of anything. And I think you will see lots of other Dems do similar.
It’s stupid because their donors do not want them moving left, so they continue to pander to these nonexistent folks that they think will move away from the republican party to vote for them, leaving behind their actual base, who will simply not vote.
Would be sick to get to vote for someone who actually had opinions and goals and stood for something. If we want to vote for just the general prevailing opinion we should just run an LLM and train it on superbowl commercials and cable news.
And they have an opportunity to show cowardice.
Sadly. You’re correct. The existence of people like me is a wedge issue. >_<
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