The International Cricket Council has become the latest sports body to ban transgender players from the elite women’s game if they have gone through male puberty.
The ICC said it had taken the decision, following an extensive scientific review and nine-month consultation, to “protect the integrity of the international women’s game and the safety of players”.
It joins rugby union, swimming, cycling, athletics and rugby league, who have all gone down a similar path in recent years after citing concerns over fairness or safety.
Fuck this. Sports are games, they shouldn’t be taken this seriously. Like, for example, Micheal Phelps has webbed feet and freaky monster lungs but nobody’s banned him from swimming events for that. Every human is different, people need to fucking accept that sports can never be totally fair and realize that’s not what this is about.
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How about adding a third category instead: a free for all category where all genders are welcome to compete and can use as much steroid as they want.
I’ve always said baseball needs to just say fuck it and let guys go nuts. I want to see someone throw a 108mph fastball that gets clobbered 600ft.
While I think people should be allowed to do anything they want with their bodies, I understand that sports leagues don’t want the athletes to push boundaries and destroy their bodies with stupid amounts of steroids.
I think that gender specific leagues need to go the way of the dodo but while they’re here they’re essentially weight/strength classes and most transwomen are more fairly matched against AMAB men than AFAB women.
Ideally, we could just realize that having multiple league levels based on body type would be much more equitable.
most transwomen are more fairly matched against AMAB men than AFAB women.
Source?
And backing up your claim, thank you!
I just want you to know that the study that was posted is trash. Here’s link to a comment on that same study by 3 professors from the same journal https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40279-023-01928-8
And here’s a quick TL;DR from the conclusion of the comment on the study is that the original study’s scientific basis is dubious at best, it hasn’t been properly peer reviewed, despite not being properly peer reviewed this article is being shared and used as a basis for shaping policies.
That doesn’t surprise me, but I wasn’t aware of that. Thanks!
No worries at all. I know this is a really sensitive subject and it’ll basically require a change in how we view sports leagues and gender to resolve.
Not only do I think this study is complete non-sense, but 3 other professors at the same journal published their comments and concerns with this study and how it’s being spread around as though it’s fact when in truth, the “science” in it is rubbish.
Here’s a link to the article in PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37726582/
PubMed unfortunately doesn’t have a transcript, but you can read the transcript here (or click on the link next to DOI in PubMed that I linked above): https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40279-023-01928-8Here’s TL;DR from the conclusion of the comment on the study is that the original study’s scientific basis is dubious at best, it hasn’t been properly peer reviewed, despite not being properly peer reviewed this article is being shared and used as a basis for shaping policies.
And besides, even if the original study were true, wouldn’t transgender athletes would be winning at a rate higher than their prevalence in sports? Considering about 1% of people are transgender, they should win 1% of the time, but that doesn’t happen, because any advantage is entirely fictitious.
And even if there was an advantage, there are lots of people who have a biological advantage. That’s just a part of sports that’s impossible to eliminate because we’re not all robots running on the exact same hardware and software.
You aren’t factoring in how many people win as a %. Only like .01% of people compete at the top level of sports, if 1% of people are Trans it’s going to take a while to actually hit someone that is both talented enough to be relevant and trans.
As a trans woman who works out but doesn’t really do sports because people make them suck, I have to say that I don’t think that study is correct based of my experiences. Trans women often have lower testosterone than cis women after being on hrt for a while (2 years max typically, but it can be sooner). When I started hrt, literally only about 2 weeks later I noticed massive muscle atrophy and I literally couldn’t even help my father move heavy furniture that I doubt I would have had a problem with before. After that I decided to start lifting and it’s been a few months since then I am still not as strong as I used to be.
It really depends on the sport imo. Trans women may retain some more muscle and some parts of the skeleton are largely unaffected, but muscle elasticity, hip rotation, flexibility, and endurance all end up being more dependent on hormones than birth sex in the long term. How much these things matter varies a lot from sport to sport, and the current system is not sufficient to balance these traits even among people of the same sex. Multiple leagues based on broad body types sounds reasonable, but I have no idea how complicated the rules would have to be to make it completely fair, given we already accept a great deal of unfairness currently.
I’d look to wrestling as an example - it manages to have several leagues of weight classes that participate… but yea, it’d be a pretty big change.
Petite women compete against tall women all the time though
That’s why I think weight/strength classes are the way to go - we arbitrarily divide sports in half by gender and it makes most body types uncompetitive.
The problem is that there’s too much money on the line. If certain performance enhancing drugs (like testosterone) are allowed, every athlete will be required to take them if they want to compete at the highest level. Athletes are known to favor short-term gains over long-term health consequences, and they’re pressured by their environment to do so as well.
Capitalism ruining good things, as always. In the case of trans men on testosterone, though, who cares? I feel like that just levels the playing field for them generally. And as a trans woman? Estrogen has fucked up my body’s ability to build muscle if anything. These arguments all boil down to excuses.
Even on estrogen, the power level is nowhere near equal to born women. I personally think that the only fair solution is to have separate trans divisions, but there’s the question whether there are enough contenders for that. Even women often have problems, I know a kickboxing slender woman who constantly complains about not being able to find competitors and always having to compete at a severe disadvantage.
Says who? Why segregate sports in the first place? Why can’t they just exist for the sole purpose of fun? Does it really matter if trans people have a advantage? Are you that afraid of trans people succeeding? Is any of this really enough to justify dehumanizing trans+intersex people and shunting them out of another public space?
Why is it dehumanizing to have a separate division? Is it dehumanizing for women to have a separate division?
You can do sports for fun, but not the one with the money behind it. The one without the money behind it is not the one you can see in broadcasts, it happens elsewhere. Because broadcasts cost money, and so those are interlinked.
So, the whole topic is only about the one with the money behind it, aka the one not done for fun.
Because trans people are their gender, and because intersex and nonbinary people exist too and we all deserve to have access to the same opportunities as others. That means the big, televised sports too. Gendered divisions don’t give cis women a fair chance at a national platform either, comparatively and oftentimes unduly sexualize the players. If you want any given game to be fair every single team should have a certain distribution among height/weight classes if not among genders as well. There is no reason I see most sports can’t be coed either if this is practiced. It’s almost like it was never about fairness in the first place… 🤔
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That means the big, televised sports too.
I never said otherwise.
If you want any given game to be fair every single team should have a certain distribution among height/weight classes if not among genders as well.
That works for a team sport, but what about sport for a single person, like kickboxing/grappling/tennis/etc?
Damn straight the reason why people play sports is to have fun.
It’s makes me sick these commentators are their hiding transphobia in their “competitive arguments”.
We don’t need to have these invasive requirements to test someone’s hormones just let people play their gender identity. No human deserves to be excluded from having fun when they only got one life.
Sport is the most boring show on TV by far, and yet the actors are paid insane amounts. The fandom is the most toxic bullshit out there and the show runners encourage it.
Cancel sport already, it’s really dumb.
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The ultimate reason it’s wrong to ban transgender people from competing in athletics competitions is that the implication is that testosterone can be considered a performance enhancing drug – even if the athlete in question is well within hormonal levels of any other cisgender athlete in the same sport.
If that’s the case, then it opens the door to banning other athletes for exceeding the testosterone limit, and guess what? Cisgender women with African heritage naturally produce more testosterone than the average woman world-wide. So banning transgender athletes leads to potentially banning African women which is obviously racist and wrong to do.
Also, poly cystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) is a condition that affects about 1 in 10 women and a very common side effect of PCOS is elevated testosterone levels. So 1 in 10 women would be banned for medical reasons outside of their control. And banning people for a medical condition is ableist and obviously wrong to do.
And, ultimately, sports aren’t fair. We try to make them equitable by making the rules universal, but biological advantages are just part of sports. If we start banning athletes for hormones, why not ban athletes for being taller than average? Why not ban athletes for having better vision than average? Or better peripheral vision? Or faster reflexes? If only the absolute average, or below average people were allowed to compete then nearly half of all people would be unable to compete.
Plus, the vast majority of athletes say that they don’t want transgender people to be banned from their respective sports.
And not to mention that it’s just rude to exclude transgender athletes, and if it were truly such an advantage to be transgender then why aren’t transgender people winning tournaments left and right? About 1% of people are transgender, so if transgender people are winning 1% of all tournaments then that would mean that they’re exactly on exactly equal footing with their competitors. But I suspect that less than 1% of tournament winners are transgender which means that transgender people are actually at a disadvantage, which again, is fine because sports are inherently unfair as I outlined above.
At the end of the day, transgender athlete bans hurt everyone, and anti-transgender jerks are just making a big stink about it because it sounds reasonable on it’s face to uninformed people and so it’s a good wedge issue to bring up. Anti-transgender people don’t care about the sports they’re “trying to save”, they just hate transgender people and want to see them suffer, and anyone who entertains their non-sense is complicit (probably unknowingly) in that suffering.
So please, those of you who are reasonable, shut down any discussion of transgender sports bans.
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From your link
Harper analyzed self-selected and self-reported race times for eight transgender women runners of various age categories who had, over an average 7 year period (range 1–29 years), competed in sub-elite middle and long distance races within both the male and female categories. The age-graded scores for these eight runners were the same in both categories, suggesting that cross-hormone treatment reduced running performance by approximately the size of the typical male advantage.
That reminds me of the swimmer Lia Thomas who placed 6th and 2nd before starting HRT. Raced against men after starting, which dropped her down drastically. Then when she raced against women she resumed being a top 10 athlete, winning her race (didn’t even brake female records mind you, just won her race).
The study has some bias imo. For starters most studies I’ve looked at say 2 years is when the strength levels start to even out, while most measurements from this one are from a year. The major exception being a study from 2004 that only looked at mass not strength.
When this study does look at strength it very specifically looked at grip strength and leg strength (this is where I got suspicious of bias). Trans women have larger hands due to our skeletons being forged during male puberty, which could account for the differences in grip strength (easier to grip/more muscles being used when there is more hand to use). And as for the part looking at thigh and quadriceps strength: every cis woman I know has significantly stronger legs than they do their upper body and that is for both the ones that go to the gym and the ones that don’t. It is completely possible (and not even mentioned which is where the feeling of bias comes from) that HRT has less of an effect on leg strength than it does upper body/core. If cis women who go through an estrogenized puberty have stronger legs than arms then it stands to reason that trans women would loose less muscle mass in their legs than their arms.
Edit: bias might be the wrong word here, maybe closer to an oversight than outright bias
Edit 2: found a more recent study that states endurance things like running and swimming level out by around 2 years, with most things level out after about 4 with the exception of upper body strength. Which is still declining in trans women past that point
https://academic.oup.com/jcem/advance-article/doi/10.1210/clinem/dgad414/7223439
So the 1 year that is recommended is too soon for trans women athletes to start competing, but for endurance sports like racing and swimming it should be fine by 2 years. Other sports may need more time, but also we shouldn’t be delaying the lives of trans people for so long. We need to find a good middle ground because it’s not like exceptional cis women don’t exist in those same sports.
This is all also completely ignoring that if a trans women starts hrt before puberty then there is no real difference. So the real solution is to let trans teenagers transition.
Thanks for the detailed response! Interesting
That study is irrelevant and their findings don’t change anything about my answer. That study could say “African women have more lean muscle mass and are taller than the average athlete” and you wouldn’t be sharing that study around saying that African women shouldn’t be allowed to compete with other athletes because that’s racist and stupid.
And besides, taking an extreme example and comparing it to the average is dishonest. The best way to determine if transgender athletes are actually dominating in sports is their top level tournament wins. As I said, about 1% of people are transgender, so about 1% of tournament winners should be transgender if everything is even. Anything above, means an advantage and anything below means a disadvantage.
So where are all the transgender people absolutely dominating tournaments above the average of transgender prevalence?
You can’t show me that because it doesn’t happen, and even if it did happen, that’s just sports! You simply can’t ban people for a biological advantage in a hobby where biological advantages are literally everywhere. Height, vision, reflexes, agility, intelligence, etc.
Take a note on how the other user responded to my question. You instead responded with hostility, good luck convincing anyone if that’s how you engage with a genuine attempt to discuss the topic
I apologize if you’re not a transphobe, but you reposted a singular study whose findings are trash at best and outright bigotry at worst. I think it’s natural for me to assume you’re a transphobe trying to troll considering I specifically said:
…anti-transgender jerks are just making a big stink about it because it sounds reasonable on it’s face to uninformed people and so it’s a good wedge issue to bring up. Anti-transgender people don’t care about the sports they’re “trying to save”, they just hate transgender people and want to see them suffer, and anyone who entertains their non-sense is complicit (probably unknowingly) in that suffering.
So please, those of you who are reasonable, shut down any discussion of transgender sports bans.
Of course trying to continue the discourse would make me assume that you’re transphobic. You should have been more clear if that’s not the case. Regardless, it shouldn’t take away from my point. Again though, I apologize if you posted it from a perspective of honest discussion, but I hope you understand that this topic is often a target of trolls who seek to muddy the water by “just asking questions” in bad faith.
You don’t get to decide what people can and cannot discuss. And if someone replying was transphobic then maybe responding calmly and rationally would help change their mind. Just calling people transphobes does more to turn people away from your cause than just not replying
You’re just some person on the Internet arguing for the sake of arguing. For trans people these arguments are used to slowly erase our rights. Don’t demand civility from people you help oppres because you were board.
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Yeah, something like weight classes in boxing/wrestling/MMA. Brock Lesnar vs Uriah Faber (yes, I haven’t watched MMA in a while) isn’t a good match for multiple reasons: Brock has way more muscle so he can hit a lot harder, but his muscles also make him a lot slower than Uriah who can use quick moves and grapples to his favor.
Women are naturally weaker than men, it’s a fact. A man can change on the surface (physically appearance) after becoming a woman, but his bone structure and ability to build more muscle is still there.
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African women out perform lots of athletes in nearly all sports, should they be banned from competing? No, of course not, that’s bigotry. Trans women don’t out perform cis women or there would be overwhelming evidence that they’re winning tournaments constantly over cisgender women. Where’s the evidence? Good luck finding it, because it doesn’t exist, because it’s not true.
And as I pointed out, sports are inherently unfair. It’s not cheating to have a biological advantage. It’s only cheating if you break the established rules of the actual game. Being more intelligent than your opponent in chess is not cheating, but moving a piece during your opponents turn is. See the difference? One is a biological advantage which is fine, the other is breaking a rule within the sport itself which is not fine.
I think that for us to move forward as a society we either need to drop leagues altogether (and just accept that female athletes in some categories will be vanishingly rare) or adopt body-type based leagues that are more fair in grouping up competitors according to their inherent bodily advantages.
In theory trans women are superwomen and then in reality they’re weaker and derpier than the top female athletes and all of this is just a scare tactic because these theories havent played out in the real world at all.
On the sports angle, esports looked like it would finally be the place for me to be a fan because the athletes are relatable to me. But no, they got bought up by the Saudis, so all I get for relatable media is drag queens and furries or whatever.
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Except they just don’t. The idea that trans women are going to dominate women’s sports simply has not played out in reality, despite the fact that trans women have been allowed to compete in women’s divisions for many years before these bans.
I don’t know how else to put that. The feared outcome just has not happened, despite regulations being more lax than they are now.
Further proof of this is found, ironically, in the examples brought up by people pushing this fear. It’s the same small handful of trans competitors, most of which did not make any significant impact. If trans women were dominating women’s sports, they would have more, and better, examples.
TERFs have been raging for months over a trans women finishing 6171st in a marathon. People still bring up a specific trans MMA fighter as if she was destroying the competition, when in reality she had a mediocre record, lost to a cis women with a mediocre record, and retired back in 2014. Trans women have been allowed to compete with women in the Olympics since 2004, with looser hormone regulations than those currently in place, yet we saw the first one compete only in 2020 where she didn’t even medal.
The strongest example is one swimmer who was also very strong when she previously competed against men. And people ignore that she still lost to cis women in multiple events. They ignore that her times dropped dramatically after starting HRT.
The fears have not played out in reality.
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You live in a fantasy land then, because here in reality, it simply has not.
If its so prevalent, please show some examples.
Source
Are these trans women dominating women sports leagues in the same room with us?
Serious response: look for statistics for trans women consistently kicking cis women out of cis sports to the point your position predicts they would. They don’t exist. Sports leagues that allow trans women require them to undergo hormone therapy for specific amounts of time, which levels the playing field. Ironically, this requirement is preventing cis women from competing.
Personally, I don’t give a shit about sports, but anyone with a minimum of intellectual honesty understands that if the claim
Trans women out-compete cis women in nearly all sports they are allowed in. Its nonsense to say otherwise.
were to be true, it would be easy to find outrageous situations where all athletes with any possibility of winning in certain leagues would be trans women, but these cases don’t exist. The closest thing this kind of arguments are accompanied by are specific cases of trans athletes who are successful, which must necessarily exist due to statistics, unless what you want are ludicrous rules that forbid them from participating no matter the reality of their physiology.
jcs?
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But biologically, there is a lot of difference between a cisgender man and a transgender women on HRT.
You can argue that residual advantages remain, that’s reasonable. But to just talk about trans women as if they are basically just cis men is both inaccurate, and offensive.
I think you raise valid points. My counter argument to you would be this: how does the average strength/dexterity/whatever measurement of sports of cisgender woman compare to the average transsexual woman? While one transsexual woman can still be beat by many women, it could arguably be unfair that their transition put them in the top ranking of the women’s league, even if they aren’t number 1.
To be clear, that wasn’t the argument that I was making. In my comment I was only pushing back on the common tendency in these discussions to talk about transgender women as if they were simply cisgender men. People say, uncritically, things like “oh it’s common sense to ban [transgender women] because we know that men on average are faster and stronger”. But transgender women on HRT are significantly different, biologically, to cisgender men.
It’s perfectly fine to talk about advantages remaining after HRT is started, and for how long they remain. But that isn’t what is happening when people talk about transgender women as if they were cisgender men. That is completely ignoring the effects of HRT, making a proper discussion of the relevant facts impossible.
It’s also worth pointing out that, transgender women make up 0.5-1% of all women. So it shouldn’t surprise us if transgender women make up 0.5-1% of top female athletes. That’s proportional.
In reality transgender women are under-represented at the highest levels. While even singular examples of transgender athletes performing well are treated as obvious proof of advantage. That’s very lop-sided rhetoric.
The discussion around this topic is terrible, with a lot of people being quite confidently incorrect about basic empirical facts, while arguing theory.
I’m not here to argue on these points, I’ve done that enough in my life. Just stopping by to let you know that the term “transsexual” is outdated and shouldnt be used. Transgender is the proper term
Thxs from Nikki
I appreciate the correction. Though I do ask that if you say it’s outdated, you provide at least a brief explanation as to why. My understanding was that transgender was for those who identified as a different gender than their own, and transsexual were those who had medical procedures to change their physical sex.
The term transsexual came first, long time ago (I dont care to look it up rn, early 1900s i believe), as we learn more about it we came to realize that gender and sex are completely seperate mentally, hence why its frowned upon to use the term. Lots of hateful people use it knowing this.
Medical transition or not, a transgender person is who they describe, the lengths at which you go to in order to affirm this vaires (Personally I am on the fence on bottom surgery, but basically need HRT). Medical transition is only a part of being transgender, so theres no need to seperate by using the old term, as it stopped being used by us and has been largely picked up by people who think we belong in the looney bin, or just people who (understandably) dont spend all day thinking about their gender.
Transgender women are women not men. Get out of here with that hate.
It’s not hate, biologically they’re still men. Sex changes and HRT doesn’t change your chromosomes.
TBH I could live with it if the world accepted and honored trans people, and trans people recognized that the biological legacy of their birth sex makes it unfair for them to compete in gender segmented sports. Maybe someday we’ll find a better way to segment sports. Maybe not.
We already found a way in weight classes, but nobody will use it for some reason
Seems like weight class would mostly break down into men’s and women’s anyway, but I guess it would allow for exceptions. Weight class doesn’t seem ideal for all sports though. And even if used, you’d have to have class divisions for each position. Because basketball centers are just bigger and heavier than forwards generally. Perhaps height classes would be just as relevant for basketball. It could all work, but it would be really complicated. And I think smaller men would be afraid to compete in a mostly-women league because, by old world values, winning over women would have no glory, but losing to them would have tons of shame. I wonder if any women would actually want to be the only woman in their league, too. Perhaps it’s about more than just physical ability? Anyway interesting topic.
whatever we should change to would be better than the blind seperation of sexes we have now, whatever we come up with has to pass the prerequisite of overcoming transphobia first. thats unfortunately gonna be a larger hurdle than the sports
i try not to think about it, it makes me mad lol
It’s generally not a blind separation of sexes, it’s an everyone league and a women’s league. Two leagues explicitly exist to protect women/give them a chance.
Except this just doesn’t happen
Source? I thought current evidence said HRT does a good job at leveling the playing field
I’m going to go out on a limb and say that not many users on Lemmy follow Cricket or understand it fully. My comment isn’t going to cover if the decision by the ICC is correct (or otherwise) but to provide a little insight into the men and women’s games
Speed / pace is a noticeable difference between the sexes. I don’t believe there are any current female players that consistently bowl pace over 120km/h. In contrast, male pace bowlers generally try to meet a consistent speed of 135km/h for the same role. The upper bounds for men is roughly 160km/h and maybe only one or two pro players globally can do this.
There are enough men’s bowlers who can bowl at 150km/h. At this speed an average batter would find it difficult to see the ball. Arguably batters in baseball receive faster pitches but at 150km/h+ including the ball bouncing makes it incredibly difficult to face.
The batting is also different but it might be harder to explain to a non-cricketing audience why this is.
To add extra weight to this comment. It is a common tactic to attempt to “bounce” a batter out, which basically means bowling with enough speed at such a short length that it comes towards the body, and especially, the head. If a batter is unprepared, it usually requires getting out of the way because trying to play a shot is likely to end up with you getting out or struck by the ball.
The ball is much harder and denser than a baseball and even a famous up and coming professional, international, batter died when he failed to get out of the way and was struck in the head.
Basically, there is a very real safety concern for players when it comes to something like this.
This isn’t about male bowlers though. The physiology of transgender people changes very quickly after starting Hormone Replacement Therapy. Do you have data on transgender women and bowling in cricket? Because data relating to male bowlers is not applicable.
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Cricket is like Blurnsball, right?
it’s slowly becoming that, yeah.
Just make it third category.
- female sports won’t get affected
- fairness will increase
- fans can watch their own "cup of coffee "
- possible pretenders will no longer be motivated by easy winning
It’s own category with like 5 people in each sport. Great idea.
What is the alternative though that won’t ruin female’s sports that was built as part or followup of female’s emancipation ?
The one where trans women play in the women’s league and trans men in the men’s. If it causes any sort on unfairness we would have seen it by now.
We have. That’s why it’s a dumb idea.
Where? All the hyped up news stories have been titles like “trans woman destroys women in insert sport here” but if you look into it they took 600th or something and beat maybe 10 women.
That is what tons of folks fights against. But i agree it makes sense. However, is taking testosteron considered doping for females or is it OK? if it’s OK, why other “chems” are not allowed?
The testosterone for trans men is just to get to the levels that average cis men have, I’m pretty sure they test for excess testosterone. Some medication is allowed for sick athletes that is considered doping for anyone who isn’t sick, like the therapy for increasing blood oxygen levels which is a common form of doping but is a valid treatment for some illnesses.
Medication for sick people seems kinda different thing to me than being healthy and chumming chems to gain muscles.
So testosterone for female( born) athletes should be allowed until they reach avg male(born) level? Is that really a thing we want to introduce into sports ? Will steroids also count as getting to avg male upper muscle mass ? Where is the line? Won’t that make female athletes either obsolete or force them to chems chumming which then can cause them health issues given that most of them propably don’t plan to transition and might want start families etc?
For trans men they get like an injection of testosterone, they aren’t getting it to play sports, it’s medication for dysphoria. I haven’t said anyone else other than trans men should be taking it and definitely nothing about steroids.
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Imo we should get rid of the distinction by gender and just use weight classes, or whatever attributes are appropriate for a given sport.
Avg Joe can weight about or even less than avg Jane but he still outperforms her in physical activities. It’s gonna be quite hard. But i can see it working as one of the many params in complex evaluation formula which never will be finished in sense every year someone will come up with exceptions and new paralela.
That’s true for grouping by gender as well, probably even more so. Genetic lottery means some will always be better at a given sport than others of the same gender putting in the same effort. But it’s so engrained in our thinking that we don’t even perceive it as a problem, instead we tell those with physical disadvantage that they were just not made for a certain sport.
So we are far from competing with perfect here, and being able to pick other attributes to group by should enable us create much more evenly matched groups. I mean, right now we just use one deciding factor for everything and call it a day. And that’s before we get into the whole gender discussion.
Regarding the actual formulas, I think we just need to find good tradeoffs between fairness and practicality. Of course even a perfectly fair system will fail if it doesn’t work in practice, but I think we can do much better than just using gender in pretty much all cases.
You’ve just killed all of women’s sports by relegating them to the bottom tiers, congratulations.
Some sports do it based on what kind of puberty you went through.
As a significant number of the physical advantages come through going through male puberty.
That could be a good start.
Which sports do that?
A quick Google gave me this:
Several international governing bodies including World Athletics, World Aquatics and World Rugby have restricted trans women who had undergone male puberty from participating in the female category
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgender_people_in_sports
Oh i misunderstood i though you said that if someone is born one sex but get to transiaion by chems in puberty they are allowed.
No, it depends which puberty they go through.
You can trigger whatever puberty you want by taking hormones/medication.
This is just a complete non solution to the problem and effectively just ends up with trans people being banned from sports altogether.
“Trans” sports teams/leagues (whatever that means) can’t really exist at the amateur local level anywhere but the biggest citiess due to there being not a lot of trans people, and even less trans people who want to play sports.
The struggle to even get enough trans guys or trans girls to form a team for football or whatever would be a challenge in and of itself, and then this team would pretty much have to fly across the country (or possibly to a different country altogether) to even play a match.
This is not a reasonable solution for anyone but the people who want to ban trans people from sports.
The second issue is that this is just fear mongering and not an actual issue to be solved but that’s being argued all over this thread already.
What is your suggestion than?
Trans people should be allowed in the sports of their gender provided they’ve been on HRT consistently for some time
The length can be argued but 2-3 years seem to be enough.
However those sport associations claim they had researches done and conclusions were that it is not fair due to difference in physical abilities and it brings health risk for female athletes.
2-3 years doesn’t change lung size or bone density. There is a lot of stuff that doesn’t change once it’s developed.
Just make a separate league
Two categories:
- Women
- Open
Perfectly fair and simple.
It’s already the case, most sports allow for women to play in men’s leagues… But they don’t. And trans women would suffer the same way cis women would in men dominated categories (or would they? Depends on the sport I guess, nobody would complain about trans women in F1 Academy I bet)
nobody would complain about trans women in F1 Academy I bet)
Fox news was complaining about a trans woman getting a participation medal in the London Marathon, which is a mixed event anyway. Never underestimate how much these people hate trans people.
Right, I’m sure they’ll find a dumb excuse to hate on us.
You say that, but trans women are banned from playing in women’s chess. https://www.espn.com/espn/story/_/id/38210181/fide-bans-transgender-women-women-chess-events
chess has a history of being very black and white.
Yeah I forgot about that… They’re just so hateful haha there’s no reason remaining
Exactly.
women as females or identifier ? Open is males + trans females + trans males ?
Identity is irrelevant. The separation exists so that women get fair competition.
Women as in someone who was born as, and always has been, biologically female.
Open means everyone, unrestricted.
I see so in other words keep it stricly male and female category and let female to enter male category by choice.
Then we are where se are with people lobbing for change.
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I’m not sure i follow. So you basically suggest to keep male and female categories but rename them? Or do you suggest to devide female category to stronger and weaker ?
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Well that;s how we got male and female categories. But now we got in between who are apparently weaker than males but can often easily top females. Obvious decision would be to go for certain win.
There are obviously people who misuse it unjustly to get to the top. Where is the line to become weaker? Would you lower rewards for weaker category to motivate folks to move to stronger one, wouldn’t that make females left at the tail all the time ?Removed by mod
In priciple i agree but … i can imagine that it’s pretty simple to just give weak performance on the test day then win every competition ever after but just sightly ahead of females.
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Hej, I‘ve seen quite a few comments using weird expressions to refer to trans women here, so to clarify, a trans woman is not:
- a scientific male (trans women are scientifically women)
- a biologically born male (Biologically born? Yes. Male? No.)
- a biological male (as, usually, biological markers such as anatomy, hormone levels, chromosomes and behavior in trans women are ambiguous)
A trans woman is:
- a woman (female) who was assigned male at birth
- often, but not always, a person who has gone through testosterone puberty, but identifies as female
Just use the words trans woman and cis woman, it‘s concise, correct and respectful. I‘m not saying that there are no differences between trans women and cis women, but simply that trans women are women. If you disagree with that, go watch ContraPoints or PhilosophyTube.
Consequently, the international cricket council should call it the elite cis women‘s game from now on, that would just be consistent.
I am still confused. My understanding was that trans people change their gender. This is something I am able to wrap my head around because gender (man/woman) is a human construct anyway and people should have the freedom to choose where they are on that spectrum.
But isn’t sex a genetic thing that can’t be changed? If it’s the case that a person can choose whether they are male or female then science is going to need new terminology to replace male/female for XY and XX because the words science used to use have been commandeered to mean something more like gender?
In particular when referring to humans, the definition of sex is ambiguous, as is the term “biological male”. And I think this problem is intrinsic: Gender and sex are complicated (with many different markers which may be congruent for many people, but are not for trans and intersex people), and the usefulness of categories depends on context. For example, in a dating context, gender might be a useful category. In a medical context, sex is not a useful category for trans and intersex people: It’s not sufficient information, and sometimes ambiguous.
I agree that it would be nice to have other words than for XY/XX chromosomes (or small vs large gametes), this would make the language more exact and inclusive. However, I (and others) dislike the term “biological male”, because I think it exists only to create a category that equates cis men with trans women. Even if we agree on defining “biological male” as a person having XY chromosomes, in a sports context this is an unhelpful category because there are large differences between XY cis men and XY trans women. When there is apparently so much concern for fairness and safety, why not ask the big questions: How can we make sports inclusive, safe and fun for everyone (including trans people!), regardless of genetics? Are sex or gender useful categories to separate competition — or are there other, more useful markers? (And maybe even: Are international competitions as we have them now a desirable system?)
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However, I (and others) dislike the term “biological male”
I dislike the lack of an enclosing comma. Would you, pretty please, fix that?
Uh oh, someone is conflating gender and sex again, despite claiming to be a trans ally.
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Studies have shown that after around 2 years of HRT the strength of trans women level out to the average of cis women. The only things that really stay the same are things like bone length /bone density, and it’s not like there are no cis women with dense bones that are tall.
Edit: taken from another comment of mine:
found a more recent study that states endurance things like running and swimming level out by around 2 years, with most things level out after about 4 with the exception of upper body strength. Which is still declining in trans women past that point
https://academic.oup.com/jcem/advance-article/doi/10.1210/clinem/dgad414/7223439
So the 1 year that is recommended is too soon for trans women athletes to start competing, but for endurance sports like racing and swimming it should be fine by 2 years. Other sports may need more time, but also we shouldn’t be delaying the lives of trans people for so long. We need to find a good middle ground because it’s not like exceptional cis women don’t exist in those same sports.
This is all also completely ignoring that if a trans women starts hrt before puberty then there is no real difference. So the real solution is to let trans teenagers transition.
Aren’t their trans women who don’t take HRT?
That compete in sports? No.
The vast-vast majority of trans women take HRT and many of the ones that don’t, don’t because of a lack of access.
Makes sense thanks for the explanation. Yea, I figure it’s way less common for a trans woman to not want to go the HRT route if they have the ability to, but I know a few must exist.
They do exist and they are just as valid, but they’re definitely not the ones competing in sports (plus there are already requirements for trans women to be on HRT before competing in women’s leagues)
Trans women aren’t biologically men.
Sorry if my English is a bit weird. If they have the chromosomes (XY), then yes.
Being a man is not xy chromosomes. It’s a social construct normally situated around expressing masculinity in general, with no clear foundation. If you’re referring to male/female, this is also a social construct that fails to account for chromosomes outside of the xx/xy chromosome binary.
Hormones are the biggest genuine factor when it comes to sports and transwomen have generally the same athleticism as ciswomen due to HRT; and vice versa with men.
No, chromosomes are not a social construct. They are physical structures in cells that carry genetic information and play a fundamental role in biological processes, including determining an individual’s sex. The concept of chromosomes is grounded in biology and genetics, not social constructs.
You can spin it all you want, but women are getting destroyed in sports by transwomen because they have physique of a man like bone structure and muscle mass.
chromosomes are not a social construct
True, they exist in the physical world! But what chromosomes mean to us is indeed a social construct. Who cares what some little dingle in your nucleus says? People who follow socially constructed divisions in society based on this arbitrary physical thing, that’s who. 💝
but women are getting destroyed in sports by transwomen
Can you PLEASE share a source for this? No one will source this claim but it keeps getting upvoted
Last time my comment got deleted… I don’t know if it were the link or something else.
Just search for it on YouTube “Five Times Trans Athletes Beat Thousands Of Women In Their Sports”
… your source is a YouTube video listicle??
EDIT lol it’s 3 minutes of text on still images and some of the most transphobic shit
XY are male right?
So males can give birth according to you
That’s a “rare” (or should I say “exclusive” since multiple family members have it?) mutation, being like “only XX females can give birth right? Shows link Checkmate transphobes!” isn’t really proving anything. It’s a genetic mutation.
It’s as close to saying “people that can’t feel pain are superhumans” when they’re usually the opposite and have to live life in fear of constantly hurting themselves, sometimes severely, and being unaware of it.
The point is that chromosomes are clearly not what deterimes sex if a female was born with XY chromosomes. Genetic mutations are a part of life and we literally can’t know the percentage of females born with XY without testing literally everyone. Your mom could be XY and you’d never know unless she got tested. So if chromosomes don’t determine sex what do? Saying it’s a genetic mutation is a thought terminating cliche and allows you to continue living life without thinking deeply on the subject. Which, imo, is pretty anti-science.
Genetic anomalies don’t at all make something invalid. Did you know red hair is/was a genetic mutation? Does that make red hair not a hair color?
“There’s only black brown and blonde everything else is a genetic mutation”
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Tell me you didn’t read the link without telling me you didn’t read the link. The case study is from a woman who was born with a vagina and ovaries and gave birth but upon a genetic test was revealed to have XY chromosomes.
(here’s the part where you pretend to have read it all along in your response)
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Our conceptualization of chromosomes and how we relate them to being “man” or “woman” is a social construct. This is what I was referring to.
Transwomen are heavily taken out of context by the media in sports and I have yet to see any actual evidence that transwomen shouldnt be allowed in sports for women. Hormones play the most significant factor
Any actual evidence
Getting first place or breaking records in women’s sport suddenly should be clear as day.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/mar/21/transgender-weightlifter-breaks-womens-record/
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/dec/5/transgender-swimmer-lia-thomas-smashes-womens-reco/
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/feb/24/terry-miller-andraya-yearwood-transgender-sprinter/
https://nypost.com/2023/03/30/male-powerlifter-enters-womens-event-breaks-record/
Laurel Hubbert is 45 years old, far from her “prime.” Regardless, even if someone wins a tournament just because they’re trans doesn’t conclude they had an advantage.
I cannot find any direct sources from Avi Silverberg. Many of the sources that exist present Avi as a male who just pretended to be a woman to protest against trans inclusion in sports.
Megan Cortez-Fields is literally in highscool sports getting death threats. The two races she won she didn’t even win by big margins: https://ramapoathletics.com/documents/2023/11/18/2023_Cougar_Splash_Results_-_Final.pdf
In your terry miller / andrya yearwood link a doctor, Joanna Harper, directly agrees with me about hormones being the biggest factor. Chromosomes are not really important. I don’t believe trans individuals should compete with others of their gender without also having the same hormones.
Almost every athletic success any trans woman has is like this: not particularly outstanding compared to other women in the same sport, and not even close to the stats of men. The media just intentionally skews it to reinforce the confirmation bias of bigots. There are hundreds of sporting events everyday.
Social construct is the separation of gender from sex. In many languages it doesn’t even make sense because fe/male is used for animals or wo/men for humans while gender and sex are represented by single word.
This whole argument of “gender vs sex” is ridiculous and always has been. Biology is what matters, not what words you use to refer to yourself or others.
You_irl
I’m definitely not a conservative Republican, far from it. I love how people immediately jump to conclusions on here based on one statement.
I don’t give a damn what bathroom you use.
IMO this is like arguing whether a tomato is a fruit or a vegetable.
Trans women and trans men are significantly closer to being intersex.
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Some trans women are different to most biological men.
There are a lot of trans people who don’t go through transition.
Those are not the trans people being spoken about I’m sports discussions though. Pretty much every sport that allows, or has previously allowed, trans people to compete in the division fitting their gender has had regulations around HRT and maintaining target hormone levels for a period of time before being allowed to compete.
The word you’re looking for is biologically.
Thanks
Simply because there is a huge difference, biologically, between a cisgender man and a transgender women who is on HRT.
You can argue that there is still residual advantages remaining after transition, that’s fine. But to call them men is both plainly incorrect, and also offensive.
Why did my comment get removed?
Hmm I wonder
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Safety of the players? How do trans women playing cricket endanger cis women?
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100%, but the hardness of a cricket ball doesn’t change with who’s using it. A really really hard ball moving really really fast is still a really really hard ball moving really really fast, so it’s not like there’s some significant difference in danger posed. And even if there was such a big danger posed by someone assigned-male-at-birth playing cricket, why would it still be perfectly fine for men’s cricket?
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You’re replying to a comment chain saying that it’s for their safety and you’re not actually discussing that claims by saying they’re likely to be exhausted. The damage a ball traveling that fast can do is similar to men and women, I would imagine, and in the men’s league that risk is obviously not something that prevents the game from being played.
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Again, we’re talking about throwing “essentially rocks” at speeds that are insanely fast no matter who’s doing the throwing. When you’re talking hard objects being thrown at such high speeds towards people in protective gear, the difference in danger (even if that danger is significant) is going to be minimal. If women “are far more likely to be exhausted” at the end of a match, they’re more susceptible to really bad injuries from any cricket ball moving at such a high speed. A trans woman throwing the ball isn’t going to pose much more risk, definitely not enough for safety to be a factor in banning trans women from women’s cricket.
I think there’s definitely a discussion to be had in regards to what’s fair and how we approach fairness and sports in a world that’s accepting of trans people. However, the moment you go out and pretend that there’s some safety risk posed by trans women in sports, you unjustifiably paint them as threats to cis women, and that’s completely unacceptable.
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Hmm, fair point. I can see how increased ball velocity and decreased reaction speed could make an injury more likely. Nevertheless, I still have these doubts:
- How much of a difference actually is there in reaction speed? I have a hard time believing that there’s enough of a difference for a biological female be unable to dodge a throw where a biological male would.
- Going with the previous question, is this alleged difference in exhaustion actually observed to a great extent among professional cricket players?
- Are these safety factors really significant as to be part of a reason to ban transgender players? If a cis woman came around that bowled significantly faster than other cis women in the sport, would it be reasonable to want them banned from the sport or to portray them as a threat to other players?
Unless there really is some big safety concern, still seems absurd to ban people on these metrics and tell people that you’re protecting the other players by doing it. With the evidence I’m aware of, it still seems minimal to me, and we’ve seen BS reasoning for banning trans women in other women’s competitions (e.g., chess). While I can’t say with confidence that there’s no decent argument in support of a ban, I still don’t think safety is part of it.
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As someone who is not an athlete and not really interested in sports as a spectator either, I’ve used arguments like that before in good faith. Why is it a problem? Most people never get the chance to compete at a high level in any kind of athletics, full stop. Participants at the highest level are all, necessarily, exceptional individuals.
Can you help me understand what makes that particular exception to be so important? Why would women who have undergone one puberty or the other cast aspersions? Like you said, there are methods like testing hormone levels to ensure a level playing field. Given that, it seems like the only aspersions to be cast would be that their history somehow makes them less of a woman, which I can’t agree with.
I can’t speak for everyone but ime when people use the argument they are often more interested equality or inclusion at all costs. Their good intentions blind them to the fact that womens’ sport has spent centuries trying go gain validity / parity with mens’ sport.
But isn’t the whole reason for women’s sports trying to gain validity about inclusion? Doesn’t parity mean, in another word, equality?
I’m not really sure I understand the difference, is all I’m saying. And again, speaking as someone who mainly thinks about sports by wishing they made my life less of a hassle when there’s a road closure for some game I don’t care about.
Participants at the highest level are all, necessarily, exceptional individuals.
Bullshit. High level athletes, artists, chefs, etc. aren’t exceptional by god-given talent, but by relentless pursuit of that skill. Some of the best football (soccer) players of all time had unwanted physical builds or even small “defects”. Some of the best volleyball players were way shorter than their peers. The problem with having trans women competing on the same field as cis women in most sports is that the biological advantage they might get far surpasses the most rigorous training they could do, i.e. it becomes about genetic makeup.
The problem with having trans women competing on the same field as cis women in most sports is that the biological advantage they might get far surpasses the most rigorous training they could do, i.e. it becomes about genetic makeup.
The implication of this is that a trans woman who hasn’t devoted her life to the sport will be able to compete at the highest levels. I think that is patently wrong. Most trans women, like most other women, would never have a chance at that without having devoted their lives.
On top of that, many women (and likely trans women though I can’t say for sure) do devote their lives to a sport but still never make it to the highest levels of competition. It’s obviously not just about “god-given talent” as you said, but exceptional circumstances are a necessary condition. Not necessarily in the same way and the same set of conditions for every athlete, but every top-level performer is, necessarily, exceptional.
The implication of this is that a trans woman who hasn’t devoted her life to the sport will be able to compete at the highest levels
There’s no such implication. They’d still have to train, but there’d be an inherent advantage. A common example used to justify the division of sports between male and female categories is grip strength – the female world record is ~65kg, whereas the male average is ~50kg. A trans woman who underwent male puberty would have an unfair advantage, on average.
A common example used to justify the division of sports between male and female categories is grip strength – the female world record is ~65kg, whereas the male average is ~50kg.
I’ve seen this statistic before in this context. What I hadn’t seen (despite trying to find it) is any data on trans women’s grip strength, or how well grip strength correlates to athletic ability. I don’t disagree that trans women have had different life circumstances than cis women, and that those circumstances likely give them an advantage in many different sports. What I don’t think follows from that is this advantage being an unfair advantage, especially since every top level athlete has advantages (inherent and otherwise) that have led them to their position.
As I understand it, “male puberty” does confer some definite athletic advantages, but hormone therapy and other processes undergone by trans women largely mitigate those advantages. What I can’t say (and haven’t seen discussed scientifically or otherwise) is whether or to what degree those advantages remain “unfair” or even significant.
Lotta bigoted users are really going mask off on this thread huh
That is the whole point of “trans women in sports” discussions. That’s why conservatives selected this issue to push.
They can act like concerned people when in reality they dgaf and never were interested in them in the first place
For real. These people are brain dead.
fairness or safety
my ass…
(edit to clarify: the only concern in making these decisions are the fragile egos of cis people)
I’m all in for all of us holding hands and walking into the sunshine. But if someone has a concern about a potential unfair advantage because their oponent used to be male/female, they are automatically labeled as having “fragile ego”? That sounds very condescending. What should they do, just walk it off because you don’t like it?
They should make tests for all sports and decide if there is a potential advantage to be gained from being born male/female and decide on a case by case basis. If there is none, perfect, game on!
I think there was a scandal in the US with a swimmer some time ago? My wife used to play tennis as a child and she said it was brutal when they were training and playing against males. It was a completely different level.
Also not a big fan of being called “cis”, to me it sounds offensive.
Cis is the term that just means you are the gender you were born, you aren’t trans.
not a big fan of being called “cis”
If you aren’t trans, then you are cis.
If you aren’t gay, then you are straight.
Do you also dislike being called straight?
I remember those same kinds people in high school saying “I’m not straight I’m normal”
So I’m gonna guess his response would be “I’m not cis I’m normal”
Which the only correct reply is…
That’s right sweetie/bro! Transitioning is a normal thing to do if it makes you feel happier.
I’m ok with being called straight.
based account
♥ 💕 ♥ 💕 ♥ 💕 ♥
Oh my god get over yourself cis is not offensive.
Fucking cislord scum.
Now that? That would be offensive.
Who gets to decide that for me? You? Thanks for making that decision for me.
I mean you can be offended by whatever you want.
But “cis” is a Latin prefix which is simply the antonym of “trans”. It holds absolutely no value judgement.
So it’s a strange thing to find offensive.
You can find anything offensive, but it doesn’t mean that social norms have to accept it. Do you take offense to being called your race? What about doctors using medical terminology to describe something like your muscles? These are the same things: descriptive words that were created without your input that you have no say in. It’s language, and it’s weird to get offended by a word being used in a non-inflammatory way.
You’re welcome, my cis friend. (I’m also cis, just not a fucking baby about it its not hard)
Keep your cis to yourself.
It hangs out on accident sometimes
If you’re offended by being a homosapien that doesn’t change what you are. Cisgender is a rational scientific term. See transalpine Gaul and cisalpine Gaul for a reference as to why.
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honestly his use of the term superhuman athlete makes the whole thing just silly. men are not automatically superhuman athletes either but in many physical sports they might as well be compared to women. Mens sports generally allow both sexes so are open to all, womens are basically so that women athletes have an outlet where they can reasonably succeed. Otherwise its like chess tournaments always allowing computers.
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yes the best female athlete can beat some male athletes but the best male will always outperform females where physical strength is an issue. Just look at any olympic events male/female side to side or that one male tennis pro while a pro was ranked something like 100 and smoke serena who was ranked 1 among women. Look at all the olympic races, weight lifting, etc male/female side by side.
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this is not an idea, its just facts plain and simple https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Olympic_records_in_athletics# your physical strength idea only works if you put forth the idea that pretty much every competition is reliant on it. strength speed endurance. its all men. its not about willingness to be an athlete its just about having a doable categorization. This is why combat competitions besides having seperate mens and womens also have weight classes.
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[1] If this issue is so clear cut, then I wonder why like any guidance by medical organizations for transitioning people state clearly “expect muscle and strength loss at the level that it might affect your grocery carrying experience” (like this https://www.wpath.org/publications/soc ). [2] Don’t forget junk science has targeted women of color, intersex women, and even normal women with high testosterone levels https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2021/07/sport/athletics-testosterone-rules-negesa-imali-running-as-equals-dsd-spt-intl-cmd/ for exclusion from female sports. [3] Now to your “academic” points. Your first reference is written by an inarticulate person reciting long debunked gender stereotypes in some third-world journal, without even backing it up. Low quality article all around, appears like a targeted attempt to give academic substance to age-old stereotypes. In contrast Scientific American has published that “trans girls belong to women’s sport” https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/trans-girls-belong-on-girls-sports-teams/ since “there is no scientific case for excluding them” and “a visualization of sex as a spectrum” https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/sa-visual/visualizing-sex-as-a-spectrum/ which I guess debunks all certainties of the said article. [4] Your second reference is a cherry pick from an article that states exactly the opposite “The 15-31% athletic advantage that transwomen displayed over their female counterparts prior to starting gender affirming hormones declined with feminising therapy.” (from the abstract), so what you have written might be just a little bid …dishonest? [5] And the third is a N=1 case study of one champion? It compares a single person before and after hormones to the “established sex differences”? Come on! I could even bring in articles on your side of the argument that could be more hard to debunk. The Karolinska Institute study is one for example http://biorxiv.org/lookup/doi/10.1101/782557, who went to great lengths to skew the sample to make a seemingly neutral contribution. [6] Look for systematic studies, cherry picking is cheating: Here is a systematic review https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5357259/ It is inconclusive whether testosterone drives athletic performance, and studies are inconclusive about trans women having unfair advantages. But they do point out that prejudice stigma and violence is a factor for transgender athletes. If anyone wants to be fair has to factor in the shit trans women will take in male sports, plus that some male athletes may find it unfair to compete them in case they recognize them as women. Also some athletes and commentators have switched sides about their prior strong rhetoric on the matter https://www.thedailybeast.com/mma-fighter-rosi-sexton-apologizes-to-fallon-fox-for-transphobic-comments and I think Joe Rogan himself apologized to.
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My fist thought was “why does the International Criminal Court care”
