Ok, so you are ok with the trans girl in the OP competing with biological girls?

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Do you not understand that sometimes people can be in a position to not have an opinion because they are not informed enough or don’t think the available information is comprehensive enough?

some girls were essentially bikini bottoms for running...

Yes.

Ok, so you have no opinion on the trans girl in the OP being able to compete against biological girls, is that correct?

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Correct

DSW can not understand. These things never stop him from opining based on whatever the far left talking point is.

First, she's 13, and therefore well within the window for onset of male puberty. Assuming we're still talking about the girl in the OP, I think I skipped about 100 Yeeper-DSW "clarification" posts.

That aside, even if "the science" is conclusive that there's no performance advantage to the pre-pubescent male over "biological" female, I still have issues.

One is consistency. It might be "unfair" to let a trans girl play and compete with women for years - until the first hint of male puberty - and then pull the carpet from underneath her. It might be better for long-term well-being to have a continuous, consistent set of playmates and competitors. I say might. I'll let genuine scientists answer that. It just seems like a tradeoff to me, with its own pitfalls.

The second, is I feel the decisions - at any age - regarding things like hormone blockers and surgeries to be 100% based on the well-being of the person. And zero % on meeting some sports rule. The scenario of a high school freshman trans girl going on hormone blockers not purely for dysphoria symptom relief, but because of state scholastic rule VXV.14.a so she can continue to compete as a girl is borderline horrifying to me. Those decisions are between kids, their parents, and doctors. Sports officials or state legislators should have near-zero influence, even indirectly.

I felt the same way about Caster Semenya. (not trans, but some similar issues). For a short period she went on hormone blockers to meet a sports rule, and described it as an utterly awful part of her life. That's wrong. She might disagree with me, but I think it might have been more ethical to tell her, "You're a female in many ways. But you have testes. I'm sorry, your Olympic-level competition cohort is other people with testes." (I'm just assuming here that she has testes that produce T, though her precise physiology is understandably private. It seems consistent with what we know about her.)

As I said. Put it in the rules. If it's not in the rules then I shouldn't argue. But if it is a concern then I'd look at the rules. One thing to note is this was a local race and the girl in question it said had been identifying as a girl since I think I read 3rd grade. People in the community probably knew her.

I don’t disagree with any of that. I feel very similar with respect to the blockers and cannot echo enough how the sport is secondary to individual overall well-being.

Why would you block Caster? Aren’t all high level athletes like that genetic lottery winners anyway? You want to make the call which lotteries are ok to win which ones are not? At that point won’t you just be picking the winners? Just silly to punish her for winning too big in the genetic lottery.


This is a diffuse topic that has lots of nuance and is going to require rules that have lots of nuance. I don’t think allowing this 12 year old girl to compete in cross country is really a problem here for anyone. At the Olympic level I could see there being a much finer line, but fucking 12 year old cross country should not have that strict of a line.

Are you demanding 12 years run in bikini bottoms? Because I don’t think we should require that.

So, if people in the community knew her, not sure what the means to you. Does that mean that you think she can race, or cannot race? (with girls)

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The gonadal hormone axis and male puberty are likely the primary differential between male and female athletic performance. And it's not a small differential. Not small at all. The large differential in performance due to gonadal hormones is a very large part of what led to the creation of women's sport.

To suggest it's just like me not being in the NBA because Lebron got a better roll of the dice, is, I think, disingenuous.

It is not disingenuous, because you make it seem like there is a clear line between Caster and every other woman. But that is not true, there is not some clear distinct line. In reality Caster was just an extreme end of a continuum. Any line you draw is deciding where on that line the genetic lottery is too good. Are you going to make it at under developed testes? How under developed is allowed? What about one? What about other organs that have xy cells and produce more male like hormonal levels, while other cells are XX?

And comparing to Lebron is silly, since he is not competing in the wmba. There isn’t another league for Lebron to compete in. A non-disingenuous comparison would be Serena Williams or something.

It doesn't mean that I think anything. It means that people in the community may support her, or they may be saying it's time to compete with her biological sex. Maybe they have seen her beating all the girls easily now as compared to a year or too ago. Maybe they accept her and don't care. It's the community and people in general that matter.

I agree that people matter. But if (hypothetically) they accept her and don't care, then should it be ok for her to race? Or not? Do community wishes override other concerns?

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If there are constructs in place then those constructs need to be respected. Different rules and guidelines exist for recreational events, competitive events, school events, town events, non-sanctioned races, sanctioned races, etc etc etc.

The answer to your question is whatever rules are agreed long ahead of time must be respected and adhered to by whomever is voluntarily participating in said event. Regardless of how the community feels.

Why is this difficult?

chaparral wrote:

In reality Caster was just an extreme end of a continuum.

At some point we need a definition of "woman" for women's sports. Someone brought this point up earlier. If it's "what you choose to identify as" there are going to be very real implications to the nature of women's sports - it could change considerably from what it's considered to be for the last 50-100 years. A few years ago we might have though the #'s would be so small we could just let it pass. But it appears that the numbers may bring the issue to a head. (no pun intended)

If it's "you went through male puberty" then it'll be more consistent with that the historical intent for women's sports has been.

Quote:

And comparing to Lebron is silly, since he is not competing in the wmba. There isn’t another league for Lebron to compete in. A non-disingenuous comparison would be Serena Williams or something.

You're making my point for me. Lebron has a league to compete in that is not the WNBA. Because it would be inappropriate for him to compete in the WNBA. Regardless of what his gender identity is. You agree?


Edit: *competitively inappropriate. I don't care about social or cultural stuff on the basketball court or otherwise. I'm all for trans women being able to freely integrate with biological women in many other ways.


The recent NCAA women's championship was the most-watched basketball game since 2019. Not women's. Not college. *Basketball game*, full stop. It'd be a shame if the Lia Thomas version of an NCAA basketball player were to utterly shut down Caitlin Clark or Angel Reese. Because any run of the mill biological male D-1A player could shut them down at will. Not a shame because I don't like people like Lia. I hope Lia has a happy, successful life. As a woman or whatever path she chooses. I'm not in the least bit angry about her. I just think sports needs to take stock of the competitive implications and possibly make some tough decisions.

Not difficult in any way. Just trying to understand the nuances of different people's views.

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You know sports exist. You’re familiar with sports. You understand there are different levels of sports. So you understand sports operate within an organization that sets rules and guidelines.

Unless the town gets together for each cross country meet and takes a straw poll the day of each event to decide what rules to abide by that day then you understand that there is some governing body that sets the regulations/rules/guidelines in accordance with any number of variables. The community’s opinions don’t fucking matter. Nothing matters except for the rules that are already in place. If the community wants to change those rules then they need to go through the proper channels to tackle that problem.

This is a simple equation. You do seem to be making it difficult.

It’s a sport where someone uses their clitoris or penis to paddle across a pond or lake or, alternatively, you can use it like a sail. It depends on how windy it is. (No offense, windy!)

Again, its not difficult in any way. Just trying to understand the nuances of different people's views. Is that OK with you?

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This may be tangential to the discussion you’re having but, the Fourteenth Amendment and Title IX are not at the race director’s or local community’s discretion. We have to decide whether and how those federal laws protect trans women’s desire to compete with cis women. If the answer is that they do provide some protection — a hotly debated point — then that constrains what the race director or local community can do (at least in the case of a government-sponsored race).

Not at all tangential and you are correct. I think it’s quite relevant I just assumed that was a given. I didn’t specifically say it because I assume that was already accepted.

So you’re saying it’s worthwhile for me to try to understand nuances of people’s views on how many outs they think baseball should have? What’s your opinion if everyone in the stadium got together and agreed that there should be 5 outs?

Should we care if some people in yhe community felt that the men’s and women’s high school soccer team should share players for matches?