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Transgender Athletes

Admittedly I’m not familiar with the story. Is the assumption that she didn’t train very hard to swim like she does? How do her times stack up to male collegiate swimmers? I would guess she’s not just rolling up to the pool after taking some hormones and she also spent her life training for this moment.

Assuming all that’s true, then either she’s going through an incredibly difficult process to steal some accolades from women OR she’s a really good swimmer who happens to be misgendered. At the end of the day, in competition someone wins and everyone else loses. Some kids grew up with access to a club pool and swim coaches, and some kids didn’t. Since when is there inherent fairness with how swimmers arrived to their blocks?
 
scooter84 said:
I give up, I should have known better. Why do we split athletic competition by male/female? Are there inherent physical differences? If so, do you think those differences go away after a year of hormones? If not, how is it fair to those born female to have to compete with trans females?

And I realize this is not a widespread problem as the numbers are small, but if one of the females on that team was your daughter or sister or whatever, you might feel differently. Or maybe you wouldn't, actually. But I sure would.
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There is actual research on these questions. You could read about the transition and see that according to places like Cleveland Clinic or Mayo Clinic, it takes 18-24 on average to transition fully from man to woman. The hormone therapy actually includes anti androgen as the first step, which blocks testosterone and it’s effects on the body. One of the first effects seen is loss of muscle mass. Unlike estrogen, testosterone is a fast acting short half life hormone and the effects of blocking it will be seen relatively quickly, within a month. Estrogen on the other hand is slower acting and longer lasting so much of the 18-24 month period is about developing woman characteristics, not losing male characteristics. Anyway the short answer to your fist set of questions is, two years after you start the transition from man to woman the process is complete.

As to your second set of questions, how about considering the reverse. What if you were the parent of a trans kid that wanted to compete in swimming? Your child had gone through a physically and emotionally exhausting 2-years long medical procedure and then they started training daily to, getting up at 4am, etc., to peruse their love of swimming only to find that people want to exclude your kid from the team and competition. How would you feel? You can appeal to emotional heart strings on both sides of this issue.
 
Deacfreak07 said:
Admittedly I’m not familiar with the story. Is the assumption that she didn’t train very hard to swim like she does? How do her times stack up to male collegiate swimmers? I would guess she’s not just rolling up to the pool after taking some hormones and she also spent her life training for this moment.

Assuming all that’s true, then either she’s going through an incredibly difficult process to steal some accolades from women OR she’s a really good swimmer who happens to be misgendered. At the end of the day, in competition someone wins and everyone else loses. Some kids grew up with access to a club pool and swim coaches, and some kids didn’t. Since when is there inherent fairness with how swimmers arrived to their blocks?
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Right. Trans people also wake up at 4am for years on end to train for competition, but they also have the added burden of a multi year physically and emotionally difficult medical procedure to endure. They can’t just declare one day “I’m a woman” and the next day start raking in the NCAA records and awards.
 
No one is telling her she can’t compete. She just needs to be good enough to make the team associated with her birth sex.
 
WakeBored said:
No one is telling her she can’t compete. She just needs to be good enough to make the team associated with her birth sex.
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Do you believe that she’s undergoing gender reassignment for NCAA medals?
 
I like the way that DF07 wove a little class warfare into the narrative while admitting he knows nothing about the story.
 
Deacfreak07 said:
Admittedly I’m not familiar with the story. Is the assumption that she didn’t train very hard to swim like she does? How do her times stack up to male collegiate swimmers? I would guess she’s not just rolling up to the pool after taking some hormones and she also spent her life training for this moment.

Assuming all that’s true, then either she’s going through an incredibly difficult process to steal some accolades from women OR she’s a really good swimmer who happens to be misgendered. At the end of the day, in competition someone wins and everyone else loses. Some kids grew up with access to a club pool and swim coaches, and some kids didn’t. Since when is there inherent fairness with how swimmers arrived to their blocks?
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Her times went from bottom barrel D1 male times, to top tier best in the NCAA for women.

Again don’t care about this as long as it’s not a safety thing, which in swimming it’s not.
 
myDeaconmyhand said:
Breaking News: Male swimmer accomplishes childhood dream of dominating women’s swimming competitions for basically no financial compensation and intense social derision
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yeah, it's all there on the table, fellas.

maybe this woman just wants to own pubs
 
have there been instances of cis competitors saying it's not fair or is this just some made up thing by conservatives, "won't someone please think of the girls !"
 
BarcaDeac said:
have there been instances of cis competitors saying it's not fair or is this just some made up thing by conservatives, "won't someone please think of the girls !"
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That should include a ?, not just an ! .
 
I wouldn't be surprised if we get one of those God is Dead-type movies of some evil (perverted) trans woman competing in some sport
 
I mean technically God is non-binary gender fluid. Wants to be a woman, wants to be a man, wants to be a man and slap some tits on himself, a woman with a dick bigger than Wakebored, just a thought and it’s done!
 
sailordeac said:
set up separate competitions only for transgender athletes, simple really
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Just do away with gender based competition divisions and go to body metric based divisions, like weight classes in wrestling and boxing. I mean, tall people have an advantage in swimming too. The arm length and extra lung capacity of a 6'0" woman might give her few seconds advantage over a 5'3" woman. Longer reach when heading for the wall, stronger spring action on the initial dive and when turning off the wall because the lever length of her leg bones give more mechanical force, longer intervals between breath breaks... Is that fair?
 
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