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Transgender Athletes

Did you ever answer whether you thought intentionally misgendering someone was a form of harassment?

It's a loaded question, because "harassment" is a legal concept under the federal anti-discrimination statutes. I happen to litigate those types of cases, among other things, including harassment cases brought by transgendered persons. In the employment context, the general rule is that, to rise to the level of "harassment" for purposes of the anti-discrimination statutes, the treatment at issue must be sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the working conditions. Courts generally conclude that one instance of intentional misgendering is not "severe," but repeated instances of intentional misgendering can be "pervasive" enough to rise to the level of harassment. Exactly where the line is drawn between "pervasive" and "not pervasive" is difficult to say in the abstract, but I think it is safe to say the line is somewhere between "once" and "every day."

I agree with that rule. I think we ought to call people what they want to be called and, when refusing to do so is based on a protected characteristic, that refusal can lead to harassment if sufficiently pervasive. Incidentally, I would arrive at the same conclusion outside of the transgender context, such as a cisgender gay or effeminate male who people call a "she" or a cisgender lesbian or masculine woman who people call a "he." Same diff.
 
Sincere question: if someone has the biological make-up of a male but identifies as a female, what is the specific harm of having them compete against biological males?
 
It’s a special kind of brain rot that all of a sudden turns people all over the country into experts on Connecticut girls’ track and field to justify their hate.

Someone's been salty ever since he got called out for jumping the vaccine line.
 
I think everyone on this thread should take three minutes and twenty seven seconds to watch this video

Hell, I think everyone in the world should take three minutes and twenty seven seconds to watch this video

well what about the sanctity of connecticut high school track records, huh? what about that?
 
Sincere question: if someone has the biological make-up of a male but identifies as a female, what is the specific harm of having them compete against biological males?

It’s a loaded question because harm is a legal concept...
 
You don't seem to realize the implication of your admission that, in the end, your position is the result of a value judgment. The fact remains that 99.98% percent of humans are clearly male or female, and, as you admit, the only reason you conclude that sex is a continuum is because you think concluding otherwise will hurt the feelings of the .02%. That's certainly your prerogative, but I think that in any other setting, you would conclude that a 99.98% incidence rate of two binary outcomes is close enough to call the system binary.

Also, I know I've posted this before, but I was a biology major at Wake. I haven't thought about it in a while, but I'm familiar enough with the terms and concepts that you can skip the pedantry.

That there is the key. It’s a matter of how willing you are to disregard the needs of the 0.02% (I don’t know if that number is correct) and what cost does it incur on the other 99.98% (I don’t know if they number is correct) to address the needs of the 0.02%. Pretending the the system is binary, and not multi state or continuous, allows you to disregard the people that don’t fit the binary system as abnormal, without addressing the value judgement of whether or not we as a society care about those people with low frequency pheno/genotypes.
 
Some of this discussion is becoming fixated on the .02% number, which I'm not sure if birdman meant to use to represent actual % of those who are trans. It's a higher percentage. About 1.4 million Americans identify as trans, which is .58%. This is more people that the population of 10 states (individually, not cumulatively). This is a self-reported number, and with the prevalence of transphobia is most likely underreported. Some studies have the the prevalence of trans people as high as 2.3%, but that is probably too high and factors in some chromosomal variety that wouldn't manifest itself in being trans. While not conclusive, and there is disagreement, I think the actual percentage is somewhere between .7-1.7%

Sincere question: if someone has the biological make-up of a male but identifies as a female, what is the specific harm of having them compete against biological males?

To your question, I think the video posted by MHB spells out a lot of it. I'd be interested in your thoughts on that video. But for trans kids, there is harm - to be consistently told, "no, you're a boy" and "you don't know yourself," etc. You can see how that manifested in Mr. Boulware's daughter, the harm that caused her. You can also see why suicidal ideation is high among trans kids (and in general) living in a culture that reacts to them in that way.
 
Some of this discussion is becoming fixated on the .02% number, which I'm not sure if birdman meant to use to represent actual % of those who are trans. It's a higher percentage. About 1.4 million Americans identify as trans, which is .58%. This is more people that the population of 10 states (individually, not cumulatively). This is a self-reported number, and with the prevalence of transphobia is most likely underreported. Some studies have the the prevalence of trans people as high as 2.3%, but that is probably too high and factors in some chromosomal variety that wouldn't manifest itself in being trans. While not conclusive, and there is disagreement, I think the actual percentage is somewhere between .7-1.7%



To your question, I think the video posted by MHB spells out a lot of it. I'd be interested in your thoughts on that video. But for trans kids, there is harm - to be consistently told, "no, you're a boy" and "you don't know yourself," etc. You can see how that manifested in Mr. Boulware's daughter, the harm that caused her. You can also see why suicidal ideation is high among trans kids (and in general) living in a culture that reacts to them in that way.

The 0.02% is from WakeBored and as I noted in my last post I don’t know if it is in correct.
 
Some of this discussion is becoming fixated on the .02% number, which I'm not sure if birdman meant to use to represent actual % of those who are trans. It's a higher percentage. About 1.4 million Americans identify as trans, which is .58%. This is more people that the population of 10 states (individually, not cumulatively). This is a self-reported number, and with the prevalence of transphobia is most likely underreported. Some studies have the the prevalence of trans people as high as 2.3%, but that is probably too high and factors in some chromosomal variety that wouldn't manifest itself in being trans. While not conclusive, and there is disagreement, I think the actual percentage is somewhere between .7-1.7%



To your question, I think the video posted by MHB spells out a lot of it. I'd be interested in your thoughts on that video. But for trans kids, there is harm - to be consistently told, "no, you're a boy" and "you don't know yourself," etc. You can see how that manifested in Mr. Boulware's daughter, the harm that caused her. You can also see why suicidal ideation is high among trans kids (and in general) living in a culture that reacts to them in that way.

The 99.98% number is the percentage of people whose biological sex is identifiable by looking at them. The discussion took a turn toward whether sex is binary or on a continuum, and that figure is relevant to that question.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12476264/
 
The 99.98% number is the percentage of people whose biological sex is identifiable by looking at them. The discussion took a turn toward whether sex is binary or on a continuum, and that figure is relevant to that question.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12476264/

This 2002 paper is specific to intersex, not transgender, and more specifically it addresses chromosomal sex mismatching with phenotypic sex, which, sorry if it's pedantic, is not the only way to be transgender.

If the term intersex is to retain any meaning, the term should be restricted to those conditions in which chromosomal sex is inconsistent with phenotypic sex, or in which the phenotype is not classifiable as either male or female.
 
The 99.98% number is the percentage of people whose biological sex is identifiable by looking at them. The discussion took a turn toward whether sex is binary or on a continuum, and that figure is relevant to that question.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12476264/

This is a study on intersex individuals, not necessarily transgender.

And while Fausto-Sterling takes an expansive view on intersex (meaning the 1.7 - 2.3% is likely higher than actual), this article takes a very restrictive view. The prevalence is not near a consensus view, and there is sufficient research to cast doubt on sex as a binary.

Further, do you know much about Leonard Sax? He's a psychologist in the vein of James Dobson who advocates for strict gender roles and authoritarian parenting styles.

This is probably distracting from the discussion of the thread.

Did you have a reaction to the video MHB posted?
 
This 2002 paper is specific to intersex, not transgender, and more specifically it addresses chromosomal sex mismatching with phenotypic sex, which, sorry if it's pedantic, is not the only way to be transgender.

No shit dude. The paper combats the argument that sex is a continuum, which is the argument you were making.
 
No shit dude. The paper combats the argument that sex is a continuum, which is the argument you were making.

How does focusing in on the infrequency of one specific type of chromosomal based deviation combat the argument that there are all sorts of genotypic and phenotypic manifestations of non-binary sex and gender identities?
 
Aren’t we conflating sex and gender?

Yes, but, in my defense, I was originally trying to demonstrate that, even if you only consider the biological sex component of gender, which is what conservatives tend to do and what Junebug was arguing, the world is a lot more complex than a simple binary male and female model.
 
How does focusing in on the infrequency of one specific type of chromosomal based deviation combat the argument that there are all sorts of genotypic and phenotypic manifestations of non-binary sex and gender identities?

Gender is genetic now?
 
You don't seem to realize the implication of your admission that, in the end, your position is the result of a value judgment. The fact remains that 99.98% percent of humans are clearly male or female, and, as you admit, the only reason you conclude that sex is a continuum is because you think concluding otherwise will hurt the feelings of the .02%. That's certainly your prerogative, but I think that in any other setting, you would conclude that a 99.98% incidence rate of two binary outcomes is close enough to call the system binary.

Also, I know I've posted this before, but I was a biology major at Wake. I haven't thought about it in a while, but I'm familiar enough with the terms and concepts that you can skip the pedantry.

I'll say it again:
...but we're not telling kids who only have 9 fingers or kids who have 11 fingers that they can't play with kids who have 10 fingers. So, ok. You can hold on to your precious model if you're talking about broadly applicable statements about biological characteristics of humans. You are factually correct in saying "most humans are cisgender." But when you start making rules about what people can and cannot do and those rules rely upon a cisgender identity, you're going to exclude people and that's not ok. Here we are today. Just because we've historically built society to fit the majority does not mean that's the most appropriate way to continue moving forward. ESPECIALLY once we realize the detrimental effect our rules have on those that don't fit their rigidity.

Geeze. I swear, just last night I had to get on my stepkids' case about apologizing... when you realize you did something that has hurt someone else -whether you meant to or not - you apologize and you fix it. As a society we're realizing more and more that so many of our rules have been hurting folks for decades. If you've not been hurt by the rule, time for you to apologize (or at the very least recognize its hurtfulness) and figure out how we can do better for everyone.

You prejudiced turds are grown adults. Why is this so hard to understand? Zero aspects of your life are being impacted here and you are arguing like somehow YOU are now going to be harmed by changing the rules. You are exhausting.
 
Did you have a reaction to the video MHB posted?

Yes. Hard cases make bad law.

I feel for his daughter, but I'm more concerned about the biological female who doesn't make the team because a biological male took her place or the opposing team that loses to his daughter's team because she hit puberty and turned into a 6 foot 6 shit brickhouse. We have separate women's sports for a reason--if we had open athletics only a very small number of women would be capable of competing with men--and allowing biological males to compete against biological females undermines that purpose. Even if the number of trans girls playing women's sports is relatively small, put yourself in the shoes of a father who has to console his biological female daughter who finished second in states to a biological male whose coach told her to slow down so she didn't win by so much. That's just not fair or right.

I know the rejoinder will be "something something Usain Bolt" but allowing biological males to compete against biological females is vastly different from Usain Bolt smoking the competition. Men's sports are open, and we marvel when people are so gifted they dominate the best in the world, but the very existence of women's sports is predicated on them being limited. In most sports, average men dominate even the best women. Allowing biological males to compete against biological females has the potential to make a mockery of the very concept of women's sports, and I think we should be more concerned about protecting the integrity of women's sports--not to mention the women who play them--than allowing biological males--who could play on men's teams (if they are good enough)--compete against biological females.
 
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When we’ve asked you a similar question about putting yourselves in the shoes of a parent whose child was killed by the police, wasn’t your response something like “meh, it doesn’t concern me because it doesn’t happen that often.”
 
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