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Transgender Athletes

I appreciate the fact that you are thinking outside the box to come up with a solution. I think that is what is going to have to happen at some point.

I don't know that much about testosterone levels - how much do they vary naturally? Like if you tested 100 born male athletes would their testosterone levels all fall within a pretty narrow range - or what? Do champion athletes within a gender typically have higher testosterone levels than lower performing athletes (assuming none of them are juicing)?

Testosterone levels are very variable among human males.
 
Thanks for writing all that. More to think about and respond to later.

But I agree about the compounding problem of "fairness" -- hence the Vonnegut reference. If you haven't read it, I recommend! It's only about a ten minute read and easily Google-able.

Theoretically, the only truly fair competition would be everyone together in a single open race. (And even then you've got the dopers etc.)

Re: the biology stuff. I've found those analogies about sexual fluidity and sex determinism useful in the past in refuting arguments about gender and sex binaries. Humans I suppose are also sexually dimorphic and I think pointing that out is useful rather than discriminatory. It's just difficult because, as you say, to offer competitive sports to kids we have determined the fairest way is to divide up by sex and by age. Talented kids may play up a year. Talented women may join or practice with boys' teams.

But I think it's fair to say that as a society we have long valued certain "innate" traits over their alternatives: intelligence, beauty, strength, perception, nurturing, etc.

*(acknowledging these are mostly culturally- constructed and not objective)

I don't think anybody would make the argument that a not-intelligent person should be allowed on a school QuizBowl team. But maybe if we develop cognitive enhancements in the future we'll be having that debate too.

The main crux for me here is that a transwoman may carry in her biology innate qualities usually only found in biological men that give her an advantage over all other women that don't have it, whatever it is (e.g. height, muscle mass, length).

The biggest problem is that the cultural conversation should be framed in terms as nuanced as the biological one but instead assholes can't help being assholes about it

Equity is a better goal than equality
 
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Everyone should just run/swim their own race by themselves. That way all the little snowflakes can each win a state title and all you libtards can be happy.

Trying to figure out who the snowflakes are here -- leaning towards the old, white, bigoted lawyers who get insanely triggered by run/swim races that have nothing to do with their fat old asses.
 
Everyone should just run/swim their own race by themselves. That way all the little snowflakes can each win a state title and all you libtards can be happy.

C'mon. Try to be better than this.
 
If someone can take drugs to alter/weaken their body which allows them to compete and dominate the college female athletes, why can't a female athlete also take a drug to become stronger in order to at least have a chance (not get lapped twice) against the new competition? Shouldn't both be allowed to take a performance enhancer to make it equal?
 
If someone can take drugs to alter/weaken their body which allows them to compete and dominate the college female athletes, why can't a female athlete also take a drug to become stronger in order to at least have a chance (not get lapped twice) against the new competition? Shouldn't both be allowed to take a performance enhancer to make it equal?
Because taking drugs to make your body weaker is not equivalent to taking drugs to make the body stronger?

Also it's more complicated than that. Suppressing testosterone is probably closer to taking supplemental iron to correct a deficiency than it is to doping or something enhancing
 
Re: the biology stuff. I've found those analogies about sexual fluidity and sex determinism useful in the past in refuting arguments about gender and sex binaries. Humans I suppose are also sexually dimorphic and I think pointing that out is useful rather than discriminatory. It's just difficult because, as you say, to offer competitive sports to kids we have determined the fairest way is to divide up by sex and by age. Talented kids may play up a year. Talented women may join or practice with boys' teams.

I don't the sex switching examples are just analogies. Human males and females are not strictly dimorphic. It's a bimodal distribution, sure, but males are modified females actually. A penis is an enlarged clitoris. A scrotum is an inverted uterus. Testis are modified ovaries...etc. etc. The distribution comes from the fact that, for example, clitoris/penis size runs from very small to quite large, with most being either very small (i.e. a few mm) or quite large (>13cm), but there sizes all in between. The functions are mostly dichotomous, yes, but the structure and form are bimodal distributions.

Anyway, I think the reality is that sex and gender are much more complicated subjects than most biology classes (below the colleagiate or maybe grad school level) teach or society believes. And, that we either have to just accept that sports are not that wildly important and it's ok for the occasional record to be broken by a trans woman, or we have have to create a new system of competitive classes to accommodate the actual diversity of human phenotypes. Option one is probably easier.
 
I don't the sex switching examples are just analogies. Human males and females are not strictly dimorphic. It's a bimodal distribution, sure, but males are modified females actually. A penis is an enlarged clitoris. A scrotum is an inverted uterus. Testis are modified ovaries...etc. etc. The distribution comes from the fact that, for example, clitoris/penis size runs from very small to quite large, with most being either very small (i.e. a few mm) or quite large (>13cm), but there sizes all in between. The functions are mostly dichotomous, yes, but the structure and form are bimodal distributions.

Anyway, I think the reality is that sex and gender are much more complicated subjects than most biology classes (below the colleagiate or maybe grad school level) teach or society believes. And, that we either have to just accept that sports are not that wildly important and it's ok for the occasional record to be broken by a trans woman, or we have have to create a new system of competitive classes to accommodate the actual diversity of human phenotypes. Option one is probably easier.

Well put. I think my calling it an "analogy" comes from my anthropocentric approach to evaluating the world (as opposed to how i value it), but you're right in clarifying where it can be useful and where it can be too facile.

That's why interdisciplinarity is so important: humanism can theorize those places like gender and identity where science hasn't the tools or methodology. Our understanding of gender performance largely comes from the work of literature and philosophy people. And eventually trickles down to the rest of us to argue about a couple of decades later
 
"We fully support Lia Thomas in her decision to affirm her gender identity and to transition from a man to a woman. Lia has every right to live her life authentically," the letter says. "However, we also recognize that when it comes to sports competition, that the biology of sex is a separate issue from someone's gender identity. Biologically, Lia holds an unfair advantage over competition in the women's category, as evidenced by her rankings that have bounced from #462 as a male to #1 as a female."
 
Tough situation that, I think, needs a little more thoughtful review about implementation. I think I would lean towards letting her compete. If she wins the race she wins. NCAA champ or whatever. I would probably lean towards not allowing records to stand if/until this type of situation is better thought through.
 
Tough situation that, I think, needs a little more thoughtful review about implementation. I think I would lean towards letting her compete. If she wins the race she wins. NCAA champ or whatever. I would probably lean towards not allowing records to stand if/until this type of situation is better thought through.
Seems tricky to let her compete but not let records stand.

Very delicate situation all around
 
"We fully support Lia Thomas in her decision to affirm her gender identity and to transition from a man to a woman. Lia has every right to live her life authentically," the letter says. "However, we also recognize that when it comes to sports competition, that the biology of sex is a separate issue from someone's gender identity. Biologically, Lia holds an unfair advantage over competition in the women's category, as evidenced by her rankings that have bounced from #462 as a male to #1 as a female."

that's a really powerful "however" after their claims of full support and an endorsement of her right to more than just bare life
 
that's a really powerful "however" after their claims of full support and an endorsement of her right to more than just bare life

I think we have to examine the purpose of having separate competitions for male and female. Even if we affirm a persons reasoning for gender/sex transitioning, that doesn’t currently change the purpose of differentiating male and female sports.
 
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I think we have to examine the purpose of having separate competitions for male and female. Even if we affirm a persons reasoning for gender/sex transitioning, that doesn’t currently change the purpose of differentiating male and female sports.

So we should get rid of the womens basketball team ?
 
So we should get rid of the womens basketball team ?

It depends, what is a woman? Strictly regarding sports, are the two genders of male and female defined by mechanical physical characteristics? Or is it something else? I’m not trolling here - I consider Lia Thomas to be a woman. Having said that, Lia Thomas’s physiology defies the intended purpose of differentiating male/female sports.
 
I think we have to examine the purpose of having separate competitions for male and female. Even if we affirm a persons reasoning for gender/sex transitioning, that doesn’t currently change the purpose of differentiating male and female sports.

Huh?
Hard to believe some of the ideas I read here.
But then again I have to remember it’s the Tunnels and anything and everything is possible.
Kind of like Alice in Wonderland…….no wait…..
 
Or we could not change everything about society for .1% of the population
 
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