Transgender and sports. Mentally debating myself

[Quackers]

I’m posting this because I am conflicted as to how I feel. I read an article on CNN about a transgender athlete encountering resistance while trying to compete. I will post the link to the article below. What are your thoughts?

Just so no one thinks I’m trying to shit stir without giving an opinion, I’ll say that I can understand the argument in regard to the natural testosterone this athlete has benefited from compared to the other girls. What is the common ground or the solution here?

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2810857-andraya-yearwood-knows-she-has-the-right-to-compete?utm_source=cnn.com&utm_campaign=editorial&utm_medium=referral

[violetpastille]

1. In a long article I think the most important line is this one

"The kids began yelling back at them, 'This is our meet, not yours. What's wrong with her competing?'"


Let's defer to those whom the competition is for.
Gen Z kids are different. What took our generations decades to come to terms with takes them months.

There is no such thing as "fair" but there is such a thing as "right".

[FreepFryer]

2. +1. Well said, and better yet, concisely so. (n/t)

[Quackers]

3. Would it be better then, moving forward to just abolish gender segregated sports? nt

[WhiskeyGrinder]

8. Not for women, including Andraya, or women's sports.

[MineralMan]

4. Another important line in the article was:

"She came in second." Also, her times are not at collegiate levels yet. She's a runner, but she has tough competition out there. She's a very good runner, but she came in second in that race. Some other girl beat her.

Her teammates don't care. Neither should anyone else. That's my opinion, anyhow.

[Quackers]

5. Even though she didn't get first, it's only a matter of time until someone raises the issue when

a transgender athlete does win. Then their victory is overshadowed with the whole, it’s because they’re transgender argument again. Wouldn’t it make sense to just get rid of gender segregated sports?

[MineralMan]

7. It doesn't make sense to get rid of sports for separate genders.

Overall, there are enough differences to make that impractical. However, I see no reason to prevent transgender people from competing in the gender they believe themselves to be. It's unlikely that anyone is going to pretend to be transgendered just for an athletic advantage. I can't imagine that happening. There are too many other challenges to anyone who is different.

Really, it's not nearly as big a problem as people make it out to be. As an athlete, the individual in the story will find very, very tough competition as soon as she leaves her small town, high school environment. She is not guaranteed success, by any means.

I wish her the best of luck, and wish people would just let her be who she is and compete without controversy. It's just not that big an issue. Truly it is not.

[Quackers]

10. I think another commenter helped me order my thoughts.

What has had me feeling torn is the fact that I take testosterone every two weeks. There is an advantage to it. Does the fact that she has that advantage unfairly influence the other athletes? I’m not trying to single her out and apologize that I’m coming across that way. For me, this is about sports as a whole, not just her case. In sports, players can be banned for having a chemical advantage. Even in cycling, you can be banned for doping if your have high levels of red blood cells in your system.

[jberryhill]

29. Uh, waddya mean "until... when"....

https://nypost.com/2018/10/16/transgender-cyclist-slams-bigots-after-winning-world-championship/

Cycling’s first transgender world champion has fired back at heated criticism surrounding her breakthrough victory at the 2018 UCI Masters track championships.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

6. Testosterone is what makes the biggest difference in athletic performance.

Not breasts, not penises, not makeup. If society wants separate men's and women's sports, and wants to use those separate sports to determine scholarships and professional careers, it by definition will have to draw a line that is socially acceptable while respecting as many lived realities as possible. Measuring testosterone levels is an imperfect but possible option. The NCAA's policy also seems to be a good one, but applied to high school subjects minors to invasive knowledge-sharing about their own health history. It's a knotty problem, the solution to which will become clearer as the kids who support Andraya get older and can help shape policy.

[Quackers]

9. This is where my mind was tracking too. The testosterone is what will give the advantage.

I take testosterone injections every two weeks myself. There is a significant benefit to it.

[Dr. Strange]

11. Seems to me there's two ways you can go.

Option A: eliminate gender discrimination and have everyone compete on the same field.

This would have a negative effect on college sports in terms of athletics (and Title IX, etc). But you'd have the advantage of not having to worry about where each of the 60+ genders fall. For example, a pangender individual doesn't have to be be assigned to a category (male/female) that doesn't work for them.

Option B: use biology

The only reason we have segregated athletics is because we believe (rightly or wrongly) that certain categories have explicit advantages over others. We don't have middle schoolers competing against college students in basketball. We don't place 135 lb wrestlers against 190 lb wrestlers. For a sport like running, there is a belief that men have a physical advantage over women, and therefore we've opted for segregating male and female runners. That belief might be faulty, in which case, we should switch to option A above. However, if this belief is rooted in reality, then to decide how to continue segregating, it would make sense to ask where the advantage comes from. If it comes from biology (which sex you were born as), then that should be the dividing line. If the advantage comes from identity (how you identify), then that should be the dividing line. Although the self-identifying has the same issue as mentioned above: if someone identifies as non-binary, where do they go? The male/female segregation seems to be based on biology, so if we're going to continue segregating, then biology is the only factor that would make sense.

[FreeState]

13. There is a third option (and possibly more)

Treat the transgendered individual as the gender they express.

another take on it here:

https://medium.com/@transphilosophr/why-its-fair-for-trans-athletes-to-compete-against-women-bb7a45ef1b42

[Dr. Strange]

14. Then why segregate on the basis of gender?

How someone expresses themselves has no bearing on athletic competition. Your sex at birth arguably might.

Edit to add: Looking at that article, I think there might be an argument for allowing someone to compete as female if they've undergone hormone adjustments. Maybe that would reduce/eliminate the biological bias. But then we have the question of someone who decides not to undergo this treatment. If someone is born a male, but identifies as female and does not want to physically change their body, is it "fair" to let them run as a female? And specifically, I think the question is whether it's fair to the women who they are competing against.

[FreeState]

18. I dont think there are a lot if teenage runners (Edited)

I dont think there are a lot if teenage runners or athletes in general that have transitioned that dont take either a blocker or hormone treatments. I dont have any statistics to back that up though, just my exposure in the community over the years.

It's an interesting question, and I tend to always fall to the rights of the individual first.

Edited to add, to compete in the Olympics you must undergo hormone therapy for at least two years:

In 2003, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) ruled that it was fair for transgender athletes to compete in the Olympics, providing that they underwent hormone replacement therapy for at least two years prior to competition, had genital reconstruction surgery to reflect the gender with which they identified and changed their gender identity on all legal documents. http://www.excellesports.com/news/trans-athletes-unfair-advantage-sports/

[Oneironaut]

12. To be transgender is to be constantly invalidated and vilified.

- You are not a real (man or woman), and you never will be.

- You cannot use the correct bathroom, but you cannot use the other bathroom either

- You cannot play in sports. Should you win, it’s because you have an advantage. If you’re FTM, then you shouldn’t participate either - you’re simultaneously too strong for the girls and too weak for the boys.

- You’re making it up / have mental issues. Being transgender is a mental illness (that we ironically don’t think should be treated, just ridiculed).

- You’re inherently dangerous - stay away from our kids!


Imo, the people who feel so strongly and angrily about this would have felt the same way about black and white desegregation. They have the same mental flaws and bigoted personality traits that cause them to be prejudiced now. I bet, for 99% of them, this isn’t just about sports. It’s about invalidating and destroying a segment of the population they don’t think should be allowed to exist.

Like the bathroom issue, this story, for example, is a rallying cry for bigots. It’s not about the sports. Like with most organized bigotry, the stated issues they have with us is a smokescreen for what they’re really trying to do. They’re wonderful bull crap artists.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

15. +1000

As somebody who is Transgender (MTF), I couldn't agree more with everything you've written here. Thanks.

[FreeState]

20. +1 n/t

[Ms. Toad]

16. The question is not as sharply refined as you may believe.

There are cis women who are barred from competing at various levels because their testosterone is too high. Similarly, there are men with lower testosterone than the level that would disqualify cisgender women from competing in women's events.

Although it comes up explicitly in conversations about trans athletes - it is not exclusively a question related to trans athletes.

In 2015, however, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) upheld Indian sprinter Dutee Chand’s appeal against the “hyperandrogenism” rule. It concluded there was no convincing scientific evidence that women with elevated testosterone levels had a performance advantage over others.

For example, 16.5% of men had a testosterone level below 8.4 nanomole per litre (the lower limit of the normal male reference range). Some were unmeasurably low. And 13.7% of the elite female athletes had a level higher than 2.7nmol/l, the upper limit of the normal reference range for women. Some were in the high male range.

. . .

Thus, there was a complete overlap of testosterone levels between male and female elite athletes. This challenged existing knowledge, which had assumed there was no such overlap.

http://theconversation.com/fair-play-at-the-olympics-testosterone-and-female-athletes-60156

[Dr. Strange]

17. That's a hell of a thing.

Maybe that would be the way to segregate events: measuring hormone levels. If we could come up with a complete list of what chemicals truly affect athletic ability, then maybe this would be the way to go. Probably a little early yet, but it will be interesting to see where the science leads.

[Quackers]

19. Thank you for that article!

I’m just not as informed on this as I would like to be. I take testosterone injections every two weeks so I do notice a difference. My levels were in the 200’s on my last blood draw before they started the meds.

[Ms. Toad]

22. You're welcome -

I remember the 2016 Olympic controversy & went lookig for one of the articles I read back then.

My foster son takes T; and my high school sweetheart is working to recover from a lifetime of what she describes as testosterone poisoning. Having known both of them for years before and after hormone hormone therapy I notice differences. Although in both instances, what I notice more than hormone-related changes is how much happier they both are.

[jberryhill]

28. Yup - this is best left to the biologists and the sport governing bodies

What amazes me is that people think this is a "simple thing".

It's not a simple thing, nor has it ever been.

Top performing athletes are unusual physical specimens in the first place. That they may have all sorts of genetic and hormonal circumstances is not unusual in view of the fact that they are unusual people in the first place.

[Alea]

21. They better get it figured out soon or we'll start hearing

"With the exception of childbirth, men really can do everything better than women, including being a woman"

[CreekDog]

24. Are you in the long line of transphobes to accuse transgender women of not really being women?

Last edited Wed Dec 19, 2018, 08:29 PM - Edit history (1)

We've had that battle here before.

[Alea]

26. How could you possibly get that from my post?

The quote was from another person, probably a repuk. Note the grr emot. Because it pissed me off.

[CreekDog]

23. Add this thread to the long list of people worried that transgender individuals will cheat us all

Last edited Wed Dec 19, 2018, 08:33 PM - Edit history (3)

The premise is that transgender rights are an innovative way to cheat us and take advantage of the binary gender society that heaps love and advantage on them at every turn.

That's bullshit.

Stop trying to fix the tiny problem while ignoring the huge one.

This is a ridiculous topic.

[H2O Man]

25. +1

[oberliner]

30. Saying "This is a ridiculous topic" is a pretty good way to shut down dialogue on anything

This is a discussion forum. The poster seems to be coming from a genuine place. Why not simply present your views?

[CreekDog]

31. If you're agreeing with the premise of the OP, then that is proof my complaints are legit

Because whenever there is a legitimate complaint by a mistreated minority group, you're always along shortly to undermine the complaint.

Discussion groups need white males popping in to say that discrimination by that group's members isn't really happening, isn't that bad or is misunderstood.

It's what you bring to this place.

[oberliner]

33. If you think my response is agreeing with the premise of the OP, then that is proof of my point

That some people would rather shut down a discussion than have one.

[Ms. Toad]

32. BTW - it is transgender, not transgendered, and it is not "the"

Problematic:

Transgender should be used as an adjective, not as a noun. Do not say, "Tony is a transgender," or "The parade included many transgenders."


"transgendered"
The adjective transgender should never have an extraneous "-ed" tacked onto the end. An "-ed" suffix adds unnecessary length to the word and can cause tense confusion and grammatical errors. It also brings transgender into alignment with lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer. You would not say that Elton John is "gayed" or Ellen DeGeneres is "lesbianed," therefore you would not say Chaz Bono is "transgendered."

https://www.glaad.org/reference/transgender

[CreekDog]

34. Fixed. Thank you.

[jberryhill]

27. I believe the question is best left to the sport governing bodies and the experts

Humans do not neatly fall into male and female, and the problem of dealing with various types of intersex individuals is not a new one in sports.

The medical experts and the sport governing bodies are the appropriate ones to make rules in this complicated area.

As with any sport, once the rules are established, the athletes compete in accordance with them.

[obamanut2012]

35. Just stop

Good grief.