Transgender athlete

[PureX]

I completely disagree with your concept of what constitutes fairness. Being able to try your best, by itself, doesn't make a competition fair. A fair competition involves the winner being decided by who trained the most/best and who made the best decisions through the match/game.

That only becomes a factor if the competitors are otherwise relatively equally matched.

 

[PureX]

What I am saying is that both open and women only competitions are unfair. The rules of each sport benefit a certain group of people to the point whoever is not part of this group has no chance of winning.

Allowing trans women in women only competitions would merely shift the current 'Oh, you are too short so you can't play basketball competitively' to 'Oh, you didn't go through male puberty so you can't play competitively'.

No one cares about short people being essentially unable to play basketball. Why should we care if cisgender women eventually become essentially unable to play basketball?

You seem to think sport is about what people want to see people do as opposed to what the participants themselves want to do. Sport can be a positive and healthy experience for anyone at any level. Which is why we should try to make it available to people at any level. It's not about watching, it's about doing. And for the doing to work, the participants need to be somewhat equal in ability. Or it just becomes pointless and discouraging.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

What I am saying is that both open and women only competitions are unfair. The rules of each sport benefit a certain group of people to the point whoever is not part of this group has no chance of winning.

Allowing trans women in women only competitions would merely shift the current 'Oh, you are too short so you can't play basketball competitively' to 'Oh, you didn't go through male puberty so you can't play competitively'.

No one cares about short people being essentially unable to play basketball. Why should we care if cisgender women eventually become essentially unable to play basketball?

Hey, at least you're honest about not caring about women's sport. So there's that.

 

[Augustus]

I am well aware of who he is. He is a huge exception at that height. There are 520 nba players right now and the shortest is 1,77m. I don't see why a chance close to 0% is much better than a 0% chance. Both to me are in the 'too unfair' category.

If height is such an unfair advantage, why don’t the 2 meter tall women beat out the 180cm men?

No single metric is remotely comparable to “has undergone male puberty” when identifying the best performers in any highly athletic sport.

 

[Koldo]

You seem to think sport is about what people want to see people do as opposed to what the participants themselves want to do. Sport can be a positive and healthy experience for anyone at any level. Which is why we should try to make it available to people at any level. It's not about watching, it's about doing. And for the doing to work, the participants need to be somewhat equal in ability. Or it just becomes pointless and discouraging.

Being a pro, at many sports, is not healthy. Quite the opposite.

 

[Koldo]

Hey, at least you're honest about not caring about women's sport. So there's that.

ROFL. It is not that I don't care about women's sports. I am just saying sports have always been unfair.

 

[Koldo]

If height is such an unfair advantage, why don’t the 2 meter tall women beat out the 180cm men?

No single metric is remotely comparable to “has undergone male puberty” when identifying the best performers in any highly athletic sport.

Because the male puberty has a bigger impact on performance than height. Which, however, doesn't mean that height is not an unfair advantage in basketball.

The fact that a certain physical advantage has a bigger impact than others doesn't suddenly make all other advantages fair.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

ROFL. It is not that I don't care about women's sports. I am just saying sports have always been unfair.

Okay...
"Why should we care if cisgender women eventually become essentially unable to play basketball?"

So perhaps you didn't mean that as a rhetorical statement.
For me, I think women's sport is important. If 'cisgender women become essentially unable to play' I'm really not sure what we're trying to achieve here, since...as I mentioned earlier...the destruction of women's leagues would also destroy opportunities for transgender athletes at the same time.

Women's sports are a big part of my life, and of 1 of my children's lives. They are a smaller part of my wife and another child's life. I see them as positive, and the healthy body image, allowance as a female to be strong, aggressive and decisive and be publically lauded for it, camaraderie, etc are all things I value.

Allowing trans athletes full access at lower levels (for basketball) makes sense to me, and I'm glad we do it.
Those are competitions where players are graded based on ability and age. They are also feeder comps to elite levels. If trans athletes are given full rights to play in women's competitions at the elite level is really the only open question in my mind.

I don't really understand your position, since you mostly just seem to be arguing in the negative (ie. Sports are unfair anyway)

Nothing in life is 'fair' by that measure, and fair appears a somewhat nonsense concept if defined in that manner.

Sports competitions are either open to everyone (eg. NBL/NBA) or have rules in place to create a protected space to enable a healthy competition (eg. WNBL/WNBA). All we are really discussing here is what the rules in those closed competitions should be.

Again, unless you're arguing that all competitions should be 'open'. Which seems ridiculous, and without reason, rationale or purpose.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Transgender requires drugs and surgery which is not natural. This is not natural, but is closer to cyborg. The bylaws of Athletics do not allow the use of drugs or cyborgs. This should eliminate any transgender, who uses additives of any kind. They should. need to wait to change until after their athletic career is over.

Blood doping, where one extracts their own blood, and then later inject extra blood; before competitions, is illegal. This is natural, but it is still illegal. So why can transgender compete with a cocktail of drugs?

Testosterone and any other substance listed under the Anabolic Agents section of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) Prohibited List are prohibited at all times, including “other substances with a similar chemical structure or similar biological effect(s).” This catch-all allows for the possibility that there are many .

Why do trans get to cheat, since testosterone and estrogen are not allowed by the bylaw of athletics? If a straight girl was to take testosterone, she would be expelled.

Sports has to be consistent; either make it wide open to drugs or keep it clean for all. If you wish to change into another fender and also wish to be an athlete, you should need to wait to transform, after your career is over, so nobody gets to cheat.

People with body images that wish they had more muscle mass, cannot use this as an excuse to do steroids in sports. If this was a Lefty legal loophole, many would claim this body image defense, so they could cheat to win.

Athletes are able - within strict guidelines - to take drugs prescribed by a doctor to treat a medical condition.

Also, being trans <> taking performance-enhancing drugs.

 

[Koldo]

Okay...
"Why should we care if cisgender women eventually become essentially unable to play basketball?"

So perhaps you didn't mean that as a rhetorical statement.
For me, I think women's sport is important. If 'cisgender women become essentially unable to play' I'm really not sure what we're trying to achieve here, since...as I mentioned earlier...the destruction of women's leagues would also destroy opportunities for transgender athletes at the same time.

Women's sports are a big part of my life, and of 1 of my children's lives. They are a smaller part of my wife and another child's life. I see them as positive, and the healthy body image, allowance as a female to be strong, aggressive and decisive and be publically lauded for it, camaraderie, etc are all things I value.

Allowing trans athletes full access at lower levels (for basketball) makes sense to me, and I'm glad we do it.
Those are competitions where players are graded based on ability and age. They are also feeder comps to elite levels. If trans athletes are given full rights to play in women's competitions at the elite level is really the only open question in my mind.

I don't really understand your position, since you mostly just seem to be arguing in the negative (ie. Sports are unfair anyway)

Nothing in life is 'fair' by that measure, and fair appears a somewhat nonsense concept if defined in that manner.

Sports competitions are either open to everyone (eg. NBL/NBA) or have rules in place to create a protected space to enable a healthy competition (eg. WNBL/WNBA). All we are really discussing here is what the rules in those closed competitions should be.

Again, unless you're arguing that all competitions should be 'open'. Which seems ridiculous, and without reason, rationale or purpose.

Let me put it this way: What exactly is the reason to prevent trans women from playing in women's sports if not because it would be unfair to cisgender women (since male puberty would give a very significant edge to trans women)?

If the sole reason is fairness, why the heck no one cares about all the other cases of unfairness in sports, such as short players being essentially unable to play basketball competitively at professional levels?

Are we supposed to care about fairness in sports or not? If we are not, then there is no reason to prevent trans women from playing at women's leagues (unless one thinks trans women don't count as women). If however we are supposed to care about fairness, then where are all the rules designed to make sports more inclusive to people, such as short people in basketball? Why don't they exist?

 

[PureX]

Being a pro, at many sports, is not healthy. Quite the opposite.

Once the money gets involved, everyone suffers one way or another.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

Let me put it this way: What exactly is the reason to prevent trans women from playing in women's sports if not because it would be unfair to cisgender women (since male puberty would give a very significant edge to trans women)?

If the sole reason is fairness, why the heck no one cares about all the other cases of unfairness in sports, such as short players being essentially unable to play basketball competitively at professional levels?

Are we supposed to care about fairness in sports or not? If we are not, then there is no reason to prevent trans women from playing at women's leagues (unless one thinks trans women don't count as women). If however we are supposed to care about fairness, then where are all the rules designed to make sports more inclusive to people, such as short people in basketball? Why don't they exist?

Why are you stopping at allowing trans women into women's sport if it's all unfair anyway?
Just make all competitions open. Right?

 

[Koldo]

Why are you stopping at allowing trans women into women's sport if it's all unfair anyway?
Just make all competitions open. Right?

Or make rules towards inclusiveness in open and women's categories, or create even more categories.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

Or make rules towards inclusiveness in open and women's categories, or create even more categories.

What rules do you want to add that make open 'more inclusive'?????

And what is an example of these hypothetical additional categories?

 

[Kfox]

I completely disagree with your concept of what constitutes fairness. Being able to try your best, by itself, doesn't make a competition fair. A fair competition involves the winner being decided by who trained the most/best and who made the best decisions through the match/game.

That's fairness also. There are a lot of things that constitutes fairness; what both of us said is on that list. But just because a person is genetically gifted to do better at a particular sport than another does not mean the genetically gifted athlete cheated. Otherwise nothing is fair because no 2 people are exactly equal; there is always going to be an advantage/disadvantage no matter how slight from one person to the other

 

[Koldo]

What rules do you want to add that make open 'more inclusive'?????

And what is an example of these hypothetical additional categories?

Let me be clear: I was talking about inclusiveness in the sense of making it so most people who train hard can play competitively. Therefore, if we were to look at the demographics of basketball players we wouldn't be able to see any specific dominant group (such as tall people). If there is a better word for that, let me know. I definitely wasn't saying it in the sense that the rules must not forbide someone from playing, because that already happens.

An example of an hyphotetical additional category is: Male max X meters height category. Where X could be something like 1,85.

 

[Koldo]

That's fairness also. There are a lot of things that constitutes fairness; what both of us said is on that list. But just because a person is genetically gifted to do better at a particular sport than another does not mean the genetically gifted athlete cheated. Otherwise nothing is fair because no 2 people are exactly equal; there is always going to be an advantage/disadvantage no matter how slight from one person to the other

Unfairness =/= Cheating.
Cheating is unfair, but not the only way for unfairness to take place.
Complete fairness is not gonna happen, obviously, because our bodies are different. But there are sets of people that are biologically similar to each other to the point competitions between them are going to be pretty close to fair.

 

[Kfox]

Let me be clear: I was talking about inclusiveness in the sense of making it so most people who train hard can play competitively. Therefore, if we were to look at the demographics of basketball players we wouldn't be able to see any specific dominant group (such as tall people). If there is a better word for that, let me know. I definitely wasn't saying it in the sense that the rules must not forbide someone from playing, because that already happens.

An example of an hyphotetical additional category is: Male max X meters height category. Where X could be something like 1,85.

IMO what you are asking for is absurd because there is no activity where everybody will be equal and one person does not have an advantage over another; that's impossible.

 

[Kfox]

Unfairness =/= Cheating.
Cheating is unfair, but not the only way for unfairness to take place.
Complete fairness is not gonna happen, obviously, because our bodies are different.

So if you are not asking for non-cheating, and you are not asking for fairness, what are you asking for?

But there are sets of people that are biologically similar to each other to the point competitions between them are going to be pretty close to fair.

how close does it have to be in order to be considered close to fair?

 

[Augustus]

Let me be clear: I was talking about inclusiveness in the sense of making it so most people who train hard can play competitively. Therefore, if we were to look at the demographics of basketball players we wouldn't be able to see any specific dominant group (such as tall people). If there is a better word for that, let me know. I definitely wasn't saying it in the sense that the rules must not forbide someone from playing, because that already happens.

An example of an hyphotetical additional category is: Male max X meters height category. Where X could be something like 1,85.

No one wants to watch 5 different NBA height class competitions, and most recreational teams can’t form 5 different height classes either.

Instead of having men’s and women’s competitions let’s ruin pro sport and make amateur sport largely unworkable

It amazes me people make such ludicrously unrealistic proposals simply due to the question of transwomen in sports.