• Makhno@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    48
    arrow-down
    23
    ·
    edit-2
    2 days ago

    Trans people or any people wanting to play games with their friends should be what society fosters and nurtures as the entire fucking point of society’s existence. Something something… planting trees something something knowing they’ll never sit under…

    Coed teams exist. They’re finding issue with mtf athletes playing against a league of individuals who didn’t go through puberty as a male. That’s clearly an advantage, and to say otherwise is to ignore science altogether.

    Maybe the solution is non-gendered weight classes for sports, or just more coed teams. Idk

    Edit: yall will convince yourselves of anything lol. Really wild the dumb shit some people will say

    • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      23
      arrow-down
      12
      ·
      3 days ago

      They’re finding issue with mtf athletes playing against a league of individuals who didn’t go through puberty as a male.

      Good news! Puberty blockers exist and have been studied and used for literal decades for other reasons.

      That’s clearly an advantage, and to say otherwise is to ignore science altogether.

      The science says 2-3 years of hormone therapy levels the playing field and there’s no more advantage.

      In fact, women who haven’t transitioned often have an advantage because their testosterone levels can be higher than women who have transitioned.

      And that’s the crux of the issue: human variation.

      • Cryophilia@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        15
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        3 days ago

        The science says 2-3 years of hormone therapy levels the playing field and there’s no more advantage.

        Would you be opposed to a requirement that trans women wanting to compete in women’s leagues undergo 3 years of hormone therapy before being allowed to play?

        • straightjorkin@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          11
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          2 days ago

          I think most trans people would agree that’s reasonable, but at that point, you also have to talk about the bans on transition for minors, which would affect a minors ability to have that time frame met, and then their ability to play.

      • NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        8
        arrow-down
        3
        ·
        3 days ago

        Puberty blockers exist and have been studied and used for literal decades for other reasons.

        In the case of a trans woman having not went through puberty as a male then yeah true enough as far as I know.

        The science says 2-3 years of hormone therapy levels the playing field and there’s no more advantage.

        Are you sure about that? Because I looked it up and (after a few instances of “we have no idea but maybe not”) I found this. I’ll also admit that I only read the conclusion so I can’t make any guarantees for the quality of the paper.

        In fact, women who haven’t transitioned often have an advantage because their testosterone levels can be higher than women who have transitioned.

        Yeah that’s the thing: Testosterone is only one part of athletic ability. The paper lists some parameters that are either not affected or affected but not reduced to within the average range of cis women, but the obvious example would be height.

        • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          5
          arrow-down
          8
          ·
          3 days ago

          The paper does what all transphobes, and coincidentally most sexists, do when this subject comes up:

          Pretends that the average woman has a shot at high level athletics even at just the college level.

          If there’s scholarships on the line, the people getting them are going to have certain natural advantages on top of busting their asses for years at the sport.

          To quote an old Utah Jazz coach:

          You can’t coach height

          So when you compare the average 22 year old woman to an elite college athlete, you’re gonna a very large gap. Just like comparing an average 22 year old guy to whoever just won the Heisman trophy.

          The difference is larger in women. Because the average guy is more likely to have played sports growing up, and those gains in coordination when you g last for life.

          And that’s not even it.

          There are just soooooooooo many reasons why this who thing is overblown fearmongering designed to get idiots mad at a very small very vulnerable group.

          Of all the things to be mad about right now, your mad at tops, absolutely tops, double digit young non-paid athletes.

          Just fucking why?

          If it’s not transphobia, what other reason do you care to still be going thru this thread desperately trying to have the same argument?

          • NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            6
            arrow-down
            3
            ·
            2 days ago

            If it’s not transphobia, what other reason do you care to still be going thru this thread desperately trying to have the same argument?

            Well I care about the truth for its own sake, but you can also call it pedantry. I recognize that this is culture war bullshit by conservatives meant to demonize trans people for what’s mostly a non-issue, but setting aside conservatives being conservatives it is a debate worth having. And I have nothing better to do, that helps too.

    • Emily (she/her)@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      19
      arrow-down
      10
      ·
      3 days ago

      What about trans women who transitioned before puberty? What about cis or intersex women with elevated levels of testosterone? What about sports where it has been shown that after a long enough period of medical transition trans people have no significant advantage over their cis counterparts?

      You appeal to science yet fail to cite a single source, so let me do it for you:

      An individual’s sex does not determine their success or failure at any athletic event despite the high level of competition. This can be demonstrated when looking at not average outcomes, but the level of overlap among outcomes… While sex differences do develop following puberty, many of the sex differences are reduced, if not erased, over time by gender affirming hormone therapy.

    • TowardsTheFuture@lemmy.zip
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      20
      arrow-down
      13
      ·
      3 days ago

      Ah, yes, let’s make laws specifically banning 2-5 children from ever having fun.

      Like… what the fuck is wrong with you that you think a law targeting under 10 people in the entirety of the US is justified and not literally just bullying those kids on a national level to hope they fucking commit suicide? A law to tell 5 kids, specifically, that fuck them and they’re not allowed to have fun is god damn crazy.

      https://www.newsweek.com/how-many-transgender-athletes-play-womens-sports-1796006

        • oakey66@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          12
          arrow-down
          9
          ·
          3 days ago

          This is a really stupid argument. The thing that makes athletes special is their biology.

          There’s a reason that DK Metcalf towers over all of the cornerbacks in the NFL. He’s a biological specimen that has incredible agility, height, muscle mass, and speed.

          https://www.baltimoreravens.com/news/d-k-metcalf-proves-he-s-an-athletic-freak-at-combine

          Michael Phelps also has a biological advantage that very few humans have.

          https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/we-celebrated-michael-phelpss-genetic-differences-why-punish-caster-semenya-for-hers/2019/05/02/93d08c8c-6c2b-11e9-be3a-33217240a539_story.html

          None of this excludes them over their competition.

          • NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            6
            arrow-down
            4
            ·
            3 days ago

            I’ll just copy my reply to the other guy.

            The women’s section is separate from the open section specifically so that women can get their place to compete without being dominated by men’s biological advantages over them. Micheal Phelps is competing in the open section, which is… Well… Open.

        • knightly the Sneptaur@pawb.social
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          20
          arrow-down
          9
          ·
          3 days ago

          So you’re saying that people like Michael Phelps should be excluded from competing in sports due to the famous athelete’s “biological advantages”?

                • knightly the Sneptaur@pawb.social
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  5
                  arrow-down
                  3
                  ·
                  2 days ago

                  Depends on what the point is.

                  If the point is to give everyone a chance to compete fairly then breaking the sport into tiers based on ability makes sense and gender segregation would be unnecessary.

                  If the point is to make space for women to participate in sports, then excluding certain kinds of women because of some personal characteristic outside of their control would defeat the purpose. Trans women deserve not to have to play with the boys too.

          • NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            13
            arrow-down
            6
            ·
            3 days ago

            The women’s section is separate from the open section specifically so that women can get their place to compete without being dominated by men’s biological advantages over them. Micheal Phelps is competing in the open section, which is… Well… Open. Also please leave strawmanning to the conservatives.

            • knightly the Sneptaur@pawb.social
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              8
              arrow-down
              6
              ·
              edit-2
              3 days ago

              You missed my point.

              If the argument is that unfair competition due to “biological advantages” should be reduced then I agree. Sports should be segregated by performance classes and open to all genders.

              But if the point of segregating sports is to make space for women in sports, then excluding trans women is nothing more than discrimination on par with excluding black or disabled women. Trans women deserve not to have to play with the boys too.

              • NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                7
                arrow-down
                2
                ·
                3 days ago

                If the argument is that unfair competition due to “biological advantages” should be reduced then I agree. Sports should be segregated by performance classes and open to all genders.

                That’s probably the ideal solution, but the problem is that nobody’s gonna watch anything except the top leagues. I mean watching the kinda good but not really amazing people’s football league just isn’t an appealing prospect, unless I misunderstood what you meant by performance classes. The whole point of this debate (other than conservatives shitting on trans women anyway) is that you need a framework where:

                1-trans people can compete, 2-cis women aren’t unfairly disadvantaged and 3-that people would actually watch.

                I’m frankly not sure such a thing exists.

                • knightly the Sneptaur@pawb.social
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  6
                  arrow-down
                  2
                  ·
                  edit-2
                  2 days ago

                  If we can only have two of those three then ditching the commerciality of it all would be my preference. Sports are actually worth watching when they aren’t just an excuse to extract profit from professional and collegiate athletes.

                  Realistically, we can’t have 3 in any case. Women’s sports gets a tiny fraction of the viewership as it is and I don’t see the inclusion or exclusion of trans women affecting those numbers much.

    • BeanGoblin@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      17
      arrow-down
      16
      ·
      3 days ago

      Please tell me what these “issues” are, with peer reviewed scientific sources. There are no significant advantages to a “male puberty” that are not countered by HRT. Furthermore, the same people touting trans kids for their supposed “advantages” are the same people forcing them to develop those “advantages” by restricting their access to healthcare before puberty begins.

      The cruelty is the point.

      • NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        21
        arrow-down
        7
        ·
        3 days ago

        There are no significant advantages to a “male puberty” that are not countered by HRT.

        Uh… Palm size? Heart and lung size? Height? Don’t get me wrong I recognize this for the culture war bullshit it is, but there is some truth to this that needs to be addressed.

        Edit: I only read the conclusion (and wouldn’t be able to tell if the methodology is flawed anyway) but I found this.

        • CmdrShepard42@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          14
          arrow-down
          12
          ·
          3 days ago

          So shouldn’t we eliminate all players who may have physical advantages? What about a woman from birth who grows to 6’5"? Seems like that’d be an unfair advantage when playing against other women who may be only 5’10".

          • Cryophilia@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            17
            arrow-down
            3
            ·
            3 days ago

            I mean by your logic we should just eliminate women’s leagues entirely and make everything coed.

            • CmdrShepard42@lemm.ee
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              4
              arrow-down
              5
              ·
              edit-2
              2 days ago

              That’s not my logic, that’s your logic. Some people are born with genetic traits that make them good at certain sports, and that’s always been the case. Your argument is that it’s unfair if people have advantages and should be banned, so why not take it all the way instead of nitpicking here and there?

    • Uruanna@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      7
      arrow-down
      5
      ·
      edit-2
      2 days ago

      They’re finding issue with mtf athletes playing against a league of individuals who didn’t go through puberty as a male. That’s clearly an advantage, and to say otherwise is to ignore science altogether.

      That would be an argument worth discussing if the Nazis weren’t also trying to ban puberty blockers and frothing at the mouth claiming the trans agenda is coming for their kids. But no, right now, that’s a garbage bad faith argument, because it already has an obvious answer. That’s how they poison the discussion.

    • ofcourse@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      7
      arrow-down
      8
      ·
      edit-2
      3 days ago

      Athletes have always leveraged unfair advantages in sports. There’s a reason there’s super tall players in basketball and short ones in gymnastics. May be they should enforce that average height of teams must match global averages. Countries with fewer resources just can’t support athletes in many sports so why not make that more fair?

      There’s research showing that some women athletes (i.e., born with female reproductive organs) have higher testosterone levels than many men, and even some male athletes. So why are they allowed to compete in women sports instead of men?

      There’s a lot of ways to make sports more fair. Banning transgender people without fair science based facts is not one of them and is plain bigotry. It’s like saying an athlete on anti-depressants should be banned because they are happier and more motivated so have an unfair advantage.