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Transgender Athletes

DeacsPop

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I am sure this topic has been discussed before but I am curious on everyone's take.
I consider myself socially liberal and far from excluding anyone from the choices they make with their lives. Be who you want to be; do with your body what makes you happy.
But I am firmly against transgender athletes in competitive, high school, college or pro sports. It just makes the playing field uneven and in my mind, unfair.
Thoughts??
 
It’s pretty much a bunch of sports nobody gives a shit about (Olympic sports) until transgender athletes are allowed to compete.
 
A much more widespread problem is keeping performance enhancing drugs out of sports. Let's work on solving that problem for the sake of competition equity before we start focusing on a problem that us almost non existant.
 
while i can see the unfairness argument i also think there are myriad other ways transgender folks are shit on in society so i don't really GAF if they get a win here or there.
 
Pop, explain the process by which trans athletes have to qualify to play sports and what you think is unfair about it.
 
essentialism is so very simple and so deeply stupid
 
Why do you care? Why did this even cross your mind? Do you have literally nothing else occupying your thoughts
 
Agree that the scope of this issue is very small. Also agree that trans women should not be allowed to use their natural levels of testosterone and other biological characteristics to gain an unfair advantage in women's sports.
 
To your actual point. While not enough research exists to speak definitively, there is evidence that within a year of hormone therapy, most of the competitive advantage is mitigated.

Further, we celebrate biological advantages in others: Shaq had a career because he was 7'1" and 325 lbs. (and being a trans woman is more common than being over 7 feet tall). Michael Phelps has dominated swimming partially because of the biological advantage of a body that has looser ligaments and produces less lactic acid.

The heart of the discussion is the denial of the existence of trans people. It's not that people have an issue that a trans woman might compete, it's that in their mind, trans women aren't women and it's really a man competing with women. The same argument is true with the bathroom bills.

like bym said, I'm fine with a competitive advantage if it means moving toward the recognition of full personhood for trans folks.
 
The heart of the discussion is the denial of the existence of trans people. It's not that people have an issue that a trans woman might compete, it's that in their mind, trans women aren't women and it's really a man competing with women. The same argument is true with the bathroom bills.

this
 
There is significant discussion of this issue on another one of these threads on the 1st page
 
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To your actual point. While not enough research exists to speak definitively, there is evidence that within a year of hormone therapy, most of the competitive advantage is mitigated.

Further, we celebrate biological advantages in others: Shaq had a career because he was 7'1" and 325 lbs. (and being a trans woman is more common than being over 7 feet tall). Michael Phelps has dominated swimming partially because of the biological advantage of a body that has looser ligaments and produces less lactic acid.

The heart of the discussion is the denial of the existence of trans people. It's not that people have an issue that a trans woman might compete, it's that in their mind, trans women aren't women and it's really a man competing with women. The same argument is true with the bathroom bills.

like bym said, I'm fine with a competitive advantage if it means moving toward the recognition of full personhood for trans folks.

That's because that's what it is. Saying that doesn't make me a denier of the "existence of trans people."
 
That's because that's what it is. Saying that doesn't make me a denier of the "existence of trans people."

I think it does. And if there is another way to take what you're saying, please let me know. But to say that trans women are not women, but are actually men, does it not deny the existence of trans women, only allowing only that they are men who have a delusion?
 
It’s hard to assume the same people who don’t want them to use the bathroom are thinking of everyone’s best interest in sports.

Pop, Junebug, what are your issues with the hormone therapy process and standards?
 
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