Matrim Fox Cauthon

41 minutes ago, DaveSumm said:

Are those my only two options? I was making a point; you can’t have your cake and eat it. Either biological sex exists and there are those who aren’t born into the sex they wish they were, or it’s big murky slippery nothing and then, what are trans people complaining about? What do you mean you weren’t born into the sex you wanted? How are you defining sex? 

I don't think that your point that you are making is particularly good here. It still frames sex in terms of a simple binary rather than as bimodal while also presenting a false dilemma with a splash of slippery slope.

Biological sex exists, which is also has not been argued otherwise, but it's generally understood by biologists as bimodal rather than binary, which is something that even Jerry Coyne agreed about in his 2018 blog post before he started complaining about wokeness. Sex being bimodal effectively puts sex on a spectrum, even if populations tend to clump around two primary modes. 

As I said before, I am not the best equipped person to answer your questions about what trans people are complaining about, which probably should be directed in good faith towards people who are trans or gender non-binary. Again, here I am assuming good faith with your questions, and I would hope that you would give them the time of day to listen earnestly and genuinely without making silly arguments such as identifying as an ewok doesn't make people ewoks. I would also advise caution with viewing the gender identity of trans people simply as something that they "want" rather than how they are or identify. 

That said, let's go back to your earlier point here: "Either biological sex exists and there are those who aren’t born into the sex they wish they were,..." The issue is that you are again conflating (1) the existence of biological sex with (2) biological sex existing as a binary and possibly (3) defining biological sex simply in terms of gametes.

Earlier I mentioned phenotypic sex, which includes gametes, chromosomes, but it also includes things like brain hormones/chemistry, other genetic markers, outward appearance, development, etc. Phenotypic sex generally plays a much bigger part than simply genotypic sex (e.g., gametes, chromosomes, etc.) when it comes to trans identities because these issues involving their brains, genetics, hormones, and their development, etc. may impact their gender identity and dysphoria. So there can be an incongruence between their mind and their birth assigned sex. However, the degree of correction or gender-care treatment required will vary with each individual trans person. But often the people who put a lot of personal research into this issue tend to also be trans people or people only slowly realizing they are trans who are trying to make sense of their experiences around their gender and their birth-assigned-sex. 

I would welcome to be corrected by any trans person if my information above is incorrect as I cannot really speak from a place of trans identity, dysphoria, etc. 

3 minutes ago, DaveSumm said:

Ran hasn’t said anything that I would’ve expected anyone else to have been reprimanded for.

That is certainly your opinion, and that's all I'll say more on that matter. 

3 minutes ago, DaveSumm said:

Leaving aside this heavily biased assumption of their opponents motivations, it’s an interesting point because it can be levelled at both sides.

Keep in mind that three scientists have been linked as "credible" - Colin Wright, Richard Dawkins, Jerry Coyne - who have all maligned their opponents by accusing them of just being "woke," which is one helluva dogwhistle. Many have also gone to speak on right wing talk shows, news outlets, or right wing propaganda shams like PragerU. Dawkins has even endorsed and platformed Helen Joyce, an anti-trans activist. Do you think that these scientists are so gullible or naive that they are unaware of how their views on the subject matter are being used by right wing pundits to further anti-trans rhetoric? 

3 minutes ago, DaveSumm said:

If biological sex is so elusive, what exactly is it that trans people want to transition to or from? What is it that they wish they were born as? Can’t every one of your responses be levelled at any answer they might give in reply? 

I am not the person who is best equipped to answer these questions as I am not trans nor gender queer; however, do you have good faith interest in what answers that trans people may give you or are these questions more of a rhetorical formality for a bad faith gotcha game? 

39 minutes ago, DaveSumm said:

Sorry, you don’t get to call this a hyperfixation if you’re continually asking Ran what he means by biological sex. He’s responding to challenges that sex isn’t binary, in which case he’s unavoidably going to bring up gametes. I don’t think anyone wants to be talking about gametes page after page,

I haven't asked Ran anything of the sort. I mostly stopped interacting with him because getting into an argument with the owner is simply a no-win scenario where abuse and insults can be lobbed by one party but not the other. It's not like I can report him on the board when he does such things. I probably should have avoided replying to him entirely but as he directly quoted me, it seemed appropriate to respond. 

From what I gather, Ran has mostly been insisting that gametes are biological sex. Most scientists, from what I gather, believe that sex stems from a series of phenotypic factors, which includes but is not limited to gametes.

However, the hyperfixation on gametes as biological sex is fairly recent phenomenon. Before that, most people would argue that chromosomes represented a person's biological sex. This was even true for anti-trans activists. But when that proved to be a lot more messy, the argument of biological sex shifted to gametes. Gametes certainly represent a much clearer binary for people who want sex to be a simple binary, so many anti-trans activists have fairly recently latched onto "biological sex = gametes," despite the aforementioned fact that "sex > gametes."

39 minutes ago, DaveSumm said:

I just can’t understand why you don’t just concede this simple point - 

Because a person's sex is more than just that person's gametes. It may be more accurate to say that sex is mostly bimodal, but this is generally what "sex on a spectrum" means, as bimodal is not strictly a simple binary. 

Edit: By any chance did you read the link that I posted earlier? I will link it HERE so you do not have to go digging through the thread again. 

10 minutes ago, Ran said:

 What then is the third sex?

Sex is binary. There is one or the other. Variations of sexual traits, on the other hand, are bimodal, sure.

If you are so easily upset by people constructing strawmen positions, why do you do the same here? People arguing in the existence of a sex-spectrum not claiming that a third sex exists. It even misunderstands the point. Simply having a third sex would invalidate sex-as-a-spectrum. Your last point is largely what most people who argue for sex-as-a-spectrum mean: i.e., people have variations of sexual traits. This is why scientists typically apply a more phenotypic sex model when it comes to evaluating the sex of an individual rather than simply the gametes. If you want to apply science, then fine, but understand that a person's sex is more than just an individual's gametes.

10 minutes ago, Ran said:

People are making this overly complicated, and it seems counter-productive to me because it looks a lot like trying to erase biological sex from consideration when figuring out appropriate policies, and I think most people are going to object to that when you start to apply that logic to policy problems.

To me it looks like you are trying to oversimplify sex to an elementary school level binary understanding, particularly with a hyperfixation on a person's gametes as their "biological sex."  

"Biological sex = gametes" is also scientifically not true. It's an overly simplistic understanding that is derived from a human desire to reduce sex to a simple binary. People only started identifying gametes with "biological sex" after those people who believed that chromosomes equated to biological sex got crushed by science. 

When we determine the "sex" humans or other animals, we are not looking just at gametes alone. That is bad science. The sex of a human or other animal is a sum of elements and markers that includes but not exclusive to gametes. Biologists will also use markers like sexual dimorphism, internal/external genitalia, chromosomes, hormone expression, behavior, neurological elements, etc. It's about a phenotypic sex model over andg against a singular aspect of genotypic sex. 

This likely factors into the problem with a lot of discussion. There are people who insist that gametes proves that biological sex is binary. However, those who view sex as a spectrum are using the phenotypical model in which is a person's sex is a sum of gametes, chromosomes, secondary sex expressions, brain chemistry, and behavior. 

1 minute ago, Spockydog said:

Just because we are so shit, doesn't make children fit to govern. 

For Christ's sake. It's not like they are governing as POTUS or the UK PM. They have a single seat on a local city council for one ward of Peterborough City. 

8 minutes ago, TrackerNeil said:

@Matrim Fox Cauthon, I'll admit this your response isn't what I expected, and I appreciate the effort you took to write this. I'll reply.

These feel like social concerns, and as I stated upthread I never feel the need for science to tell me why I should be a decent person.

Maybe you don't, but I do think that some people do. More importantly, I think that there are people who are weaponizing science in order to dehumanize trans people and justify not being decent people. 

8 minutes ago, TrackerNeil said:

I think there are explanations for these things to be found that lie outside the belief of sex as spectrum, or even sex as binary.  But I am curious--can you cite some specific "evolutionary changes and adaptations in humans' that are explained by sex as spectrum that are not well explained by a binary approach?

I cannot. I enjoy evolutionary zoology as a long-time childhood interest, but I'm not a scientist. It's just something that I would potentially be curious about and consider when looking at human evolution because sometimes certain genes can get selected, altered, or magnified through these sort of odd cases. I'm not well-versed in human genetics or its intersection with the complexities of biological sex to cite a case. It's possible that a geneticist could tell you where and how these sort of unconventional cases could trigger changes in human traits. But sometimes scientists be like, "somehow Palpatine has returned" and humans have somehow gained this trait somewhen. 

6 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

Kemi is favourite for next leader, Suella is 3rd. How far can these fuckers sink? 

Neither of these two individuals would survive PMQs, whether as PM or as opposition leaders, without looking like complete fools who are out of their league. Neither of them can boast of strong performances in Parliament as it is. 

26 minutes ago, TrackerNeil said:

EDITED TO ADD: Something that bugs me about the notion of sex as spectrum is that I don't know where it gets us. I mean, germ theory teaches us how disease spreads, evolutionary theory helps explains the way species develop, but what does sex-as-spectrum tell us about the natural world? Sex is a reproductive strategy, and for nearly every animal on the planet, and (I believe) all mammals, and certainly human beings, reproduction requires a small-gamete producer plus a large-gamete producer. The binary explains how that works; the spectrum doesn't. If a notion put forward as science doesn't explain the natural world, I don't see the value.

What you find perplexing about science here is what I find absolutely amazing. It's something that I have always loved about biology, nature, and life on our planet: it's weird and strange. Our fundamental understanding of our world is not as simple as we make it out to be. Life does not conform to our "conventional" understandings, which are not always as longly-held as we project them into the past. The more that we learn about life on our planet through science, the more that it challenges our own assumptions about ourselves as humans. Sex, reproduction, and gender are no different in this regard. 

I think that the gamete binary doesn't really explain how that gender works anymore than XY and XX chromosomes explains male and female. In school, we often learn incredibly complex science but at an incredibly superficial, if not false, level of understanding simply as a way to communicate and introduce basic ideas for advanced science. Then you learn that there are men with XX chromosomes and women with XY chromosomes out there and that there are other combinations than just these two. And I think that the disgustingly dehumanizing temptation here is to sweep all of these individuals under the rug and label them as "freaks" or "abnormalities." 

However, none of this is really something that is necessarily apparent to us because the truth of the matter is that we aren't evaluating the "maleness" or "femaleness" of a person based on chromosomes that we can't see. I don't know what my own chromosomes look like. I also don't know what my gametes look like. There is a lot about me as an individual on a scientific level that I mostly infer from outward appearances or what society is telling me is normal. 

Much like chromosomes, gametes offer only an incomplete understanding of "male" and "female." The problem with how gametes are often used in this discussion, particularly in regards to gender, is that they are not the complete picture. There is more to a person's sex or gender than their gametes and chromosomes. I suspect that for most people, genitalia was and still is probably how most people were initially identified as male or female at birth. There are people we would conventionally identify as "women" or assign female at birth because doctors and parents would see female genitalia but once puberty hits it turns out that these women produce male gametes. 

I think that there has been a strong desire by some people in society to continue seeing gender and sex in a binary because that's what they know. They know "male" and they know "female." They have words for this. They don't have words for how complex the science really is. They have religion and society telling them that there are "males" and "females." Men are from Mars and women are from Venus. This binary is easy to understand, and there is a strong desire to keep it that way for a variety of reasons - and let's be frank here - including transphobia, homophobia, and misogyny. Much as the earlier article that I linked says... 

Quote

From an anti-trans perspective, the appeal of gametes is that they only come in two flavors: egg and sperm. Indeed, I have seen gender-critical activists assert that there is “no third gamete” or “no gamete in between sperm and egg.” But of course, this isn’t truly a binary outcome, as a significant number of people do not make any gametes, either due to infertility or because they’ve had their testes or ovaries removed. Are such people “sexless” according to this gamete-centric scheme?

In apparent recognition of this giant hole in their logic, some gender-critical activists have taken to adding qualifiers to their claims, for instance, saying that females are “the sex that all going well produces large immobile gametes (eggs),” or who “do or did or will or would, but for developmental or genetic anomalies, produce eggs.” Those links will take you to critiques of such qualifying language and their unforeseen ramifications.

Frankly, this is the same circular reasoning and goalpost shifting that gender-critical activists constantly engage in. Their starting premise (and desired conclusion) is: There must be a strict binary because that would define trans people out of existence. When we discuss how gender identity and gender expression vary in the population, they claim that “gender” is somehow completely divorced from “biological sex” (it isn’t, see video). When they insist that genitals are the primary determinant of sex, we point to trans and intersex people who fall outside of those expectations. When they shift from genitals to sex chromosomes, or the SRY gene, we point to even more exceptions there. So now they’re championing gametes, but once again, there are always exceptions. Because human beings, like all animals, display some degree of sexual variation.

No one, including transphobes, was talking about trans people in terms of gametes twenty years ago! Why are they talking about it now? Because gametes are the new warfront by which a woman becomes defined as a woman. Congratulations, women, out there! What makes you a woman are your eggs. It astonishes me, but also cynically not, that the desire to exclude transwomen from being women is so strong that people want to erase a hundred years of feminism that sought to liberate women from this sort of reductionistic understanding that defines women in terms of their reproductive faculties. 

So for me, the value of seeing sex-as-spectrum is explaining why and how so many people, whether they realize it or not, do not necessarily conform to the social binaries that we have constructed in society around sex and gender nor should they necessarily be expected to conform to those binaries. I would like to think that scientifically understanding the complexity of sex-as-a-spectrum helps us further the cause of gender equality on society because none of us are as male or female as we may think that we are. I think that it helps further reproductive rights for all individuals in society. The scientific value of sex-as-spectrum helps us explain human reproduction and human genetic variance. It helps us explain why these two people who may otherwise look male and female by our conventional understandings can't make babies. It also helps us develop better social and medical healthcare for all individuals. It helps us explain evolutionary changes and adaptations in humans. There are possibly a variety of traits that we have acquried in our genetic code that were derived from "unconventional" reproduction somewhere in our past as humans. 

If you don't know where sex-as-a-spectrum gets us in terms of our scientific understanding, my recommendation would be to look at what academic resources are out there because this is an issue being talked about by biologists, medical researchers, and obviously gender studies academics who are all interested in sexual development, gender, and reproduction. 

Just now, TrackerNeil said:

Oh, she was a piece of work on that program! Her argument was basically: "I am a biological creature and not a robot, and my identification cards/papers all say I am female. Therefore I am a biological female." If I got a fake ID with the right markings, I could as easily say that I am an actual Ewok, because, hey, my driver's licence says so and I have hair, too. 

Regardless of the merits of her argument, this here does not strike me as someon trying trying "to speak from humility" about this topic. 

29 minutes ago, DaveSumm said:

He’s an evolutionary biologist, so biological sex is smack dab in the middle of his field of expertise. 

His specialty is not the biological sex of humans nor has he been involved in modern day research around that topic. He is an evolutionary biologist who has worked mostly in animal behavior and gene selection. His last academic paper in his field was in 2004, when he basically switched to being a public figure for the New Atheist movement. I'm not sure if any of his academic papers have focused on the complexities or issues around the biological sex of humans. Jerry Coyne, who was linked earlier, specialized in fruit flies. It seems pretty obvious to me that people whose views are most pertinent for this subject are the ones who actually research and publish about the subject being discussed. 

35 minutes ago, DaveSumm said:

Why wouldn’t I?

Regardless of arguments about whether God exists or not, his views about religion and religious history are laughably shallow. I can't recall encountering anyone who takes his opinions or arguments seriously within the field of religious studies. Usually the only people impressed by Dawkins's views on the subject are try-hard edge lord bros on the internet who imagine themselves as "critical thinkers" and like to dunk easy baskets on religious fundamentalists while complaining about feminism and Anita Sarkeesian. 

19 minutes ago, DaveSumm said:

I know we’re well past the point of making much progress in this debate, but for what it’s worth, this is exactly how it feels on the other side of the debate too. That the attempt is to eliminate any means by which one might successfully identify what, 20 years ago, was called a woman. First gender meant gender, sex meant sex. But now sex doesn’t mean that. We’ll have woman, but not female. OK you can’t have female either. It’s not realistic to expect someone debating something like sports, or medical practices, or any issue where birth sex is relevant, to be muscled out of every term other than ‘those who were assigned female at birth’ or ‘those who potentially could or used to or do produce microgametes’.

Woman vs female makes the most sense to me. They’re short words, nobody needs to say female unless they mean female and not woman. They’re words everyone already knows. I think it’s a losing game to try and remove that ground from the discussion.

Well, no. One side looks for new various ways to exclude transwomen from what it means to be a woman, which has massive political, social, psychologial, and health repercussions for trans people as well as cis people who also fail to meet this ever evolving criteria. The other side wants to include transwomen into what it means to be a woman, which does not mean erasing ciswomen from what it means to be a woman. It means widening rather than contracting our understanding of "woman." So while you may feel that this is exactly how it feels on the other side of the debate, then it is only superficially so because the stakes, motivations, and consequences are different.

5 minutes ago, DMC said:

You know things are going off the rails when Richard Dawkins is deputized into the argument.

He's a behavioral ecologist who is pretty infamous for outdated opinions on topics outside of his field that you would expect your embarrassing grandfather to say Thanksgiving. Of course there would be people who would find a kindred spirit in Dawkins. 

1 hour ago, Conflicting Thought said:

Yeah, not the first time they use "questionable" sources to make a point. I mean if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck and cites shit like a duck then maybe, just maybe...

I found this YouTube video of someone talking about Dawkins's comments and the misunderstandings about biological sex and gametes. Much to my complete lack of surprise, apparently the aforementioned Jerry Coyne gets mentioned in this video as well as someone who came to the defense of Dawkins. Much as you say here, with all this anti-trans talking point smoke, it's hard not to suspect a fire. 

https://youtu.be/2Fj-B09L_uo?si=EW7gByFtbF1Xl_bu

1 minute ago, Conflicting Thought said:

Yeah, not the first time they use "questionable" sources to make a point. I mean if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck and cites shit like a duck then maybe, just maybe...

...you gotta check what gametes the duck has. 

38 minutes ago, TrackerNeil said:

To add to what @Ran has said, we know that sex isn't about chromosomes because of what we see in nature. Although in humans chromosomes determine (not define) sex, there are some animals for which that is not the case. In some crocodiles sex is determined by the temperature at which the eggs are incubated, but crocodiles are still male or female. So sex is something else...it's gametes one produces or would have the function to produce. 

(That italicized part is there to head off "Are post-menopausal women still women?" objections.)

Jerry Coyne, Emeritus Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Chicago, has written a good bit on this topic, and I recommend him. (He is also a staunch defender of evolutionary theory, which you wouldn't think still needed defending but this is America.)

Your article by Jerry Coyne is already off to a great start: 

Quote

And it’s especially galling that biologists, of all people—even evolutionary biologists, who should know better—will assert that sex is not a binary. I was appalled, for instance, when the Society for the Study of Evolution (SSE), of which I used to be President, issued a woke-ish statement that  neither sex nor gender were binary (see link below). That’s misleading for both terms, but especially for sex. Do they not know the evolutionary rationale for having distinct and separate sexes? (Answer: yes they do, but they’re trying to be woke.)

If you are using the term "woke" unironically to describe this, it kind of undermines any claims of trying to speak from scientific objectivity on the matter of biological sex. 

Earlier there were appeals to common sense and what regular people grew up understanding as a woman. Now it's gametes, as if this was something that the aforementioned common person easily grasps through common sense. From best I can tell, gametes are just the latest and newest goal posts that are being shifted in a long debate about what it means to be a woman. The writing on the wall seems to be finding whatever criteria can be used to exclude transwomen from womanhood. 

ETA: Potentially disagreeing with what an emeritus evolutionary scientist has to say about sex and gender does not mean disagreeing with evolutionary theory. So let's cut that one ahead of the curb as well. 

ETA: Here is an interesting blog post by a biologist talking about how the obsession with gametes has become the latest in a series of talking points used by transphobes. 

58 minutes ago, DaveSumm said:

Then you’re never going to convince anyone of anything.

That's not true, and I know that it's not true because I was someone who was convinced. You know how I was convinced? Because I listened to trans people who humbled me time and time again with their lives and experiences, much the same way as was the case with gay and lesbian rights before that. If you looked through old archives of this forum, you would find a much younger me who was skeptical of SSM and even gays and lesbians. Now I'm in a queer relationship with a trans man. My opinions evolved because people convinced me that I was wrong about what I previously felt was "common sense" or the ideas about gender and sexuality that I grew up with. 

ETA: This is one reason why seeing some of the people who challenged my past homophobic views in this forum now seemingly suspicious of trans rights feels so heartbreaking to me. 

3 minutes ago, DaveSumm said:

To be clear, it’s the tendency to intentionally obfuscate one’s meaning when discussing it that I’m calling a ridiculous language game. I’m not saying there’s anything silly about the actual debate subject itself, far from it. I personally think we would be better off if we all subscribed to the definition that trans women were women, at which point the mantra would become as pointless as asking if Granny Smiths were apples.

But that doesn’t mean I’ll say to someone discussing it that “I think all women should be allowed to participate in women’s sports”, because it comes across as baiting them into a trap. I wait for them to inevitably disagree, say “ah ha, so you don’t think trans women are women!” Another transphobe successfully unmasked, another debate averted.

There has to be some space for this debate to actually take place, even if you don’t like the language the other side uses.

Regardless of the opinions of people here, I don't think that our society can get to the space where actual debate can happen until we can first agree that trans women are indeed women. As I mentioned before in relation to women's sports, there are a number of plaintiffs in these lawsuits against transwomen athletes who inherently view this debate not as "should transwomen be allowed to compete alongside ciswomen?" but, rather, as "why are men being allowed to compete with women?"

Much as @mormont notes, there is undeniably an anti-trans prejudice at place in this debate, and there are many of such transphobic people who use things like the Cass Review and transwomen in women's sports as the "motte" to their more transphobic baileys. And there are many transphobes who do use people claiming to be interested in more nuance (i.e., the moderates) as their useful idiots to hide their transphobia behind. This tried and proven tactic by the right has very much been the case for nearly every social issue - gender equality, race and ethnicity, gay rights, etc. - that you can possibly name. 

1 hour ago, TrackerNeil said:

Ok, let me drop the example and ask the question once more. Am I required to change a specific belief because someone I find objectionable agrees with me on that specific belief?

You are not required to change your beliefs for any reason. You can hold all the objectionable beliefs that you want to for whatever the reasons, good or bad. 

2 hours ago, TrackerNeil said:

I want to say this is delicately as I can: these issues do not just affect trans people. 

No one is saying otherwise. 

2 hours ago, TrackerNeil said:

Right now, a group of athletes is suing the NCAA over this. A group of athletes is suing Connecticut over this. A detransitioner is suing Kaiser Permanente. None of these litigants are trans (so far as I know), and all are claiming to have suffered losses from public or private policies about gender issues. 

2 hours ago, TrackerNeil said:

It's easy to just shrug and say that these plaintiffs are hateful bigots, and that they are just whining or reacting from thwarted entitlement, but the fact is they exist and we as a society have to deal with them.

It easy to say that because several of the plaintiffs listed in the articles have publically voiced transphobic views. I feel comfortable saying that they are transphobic because they have said that they do not believe that transwomen are real women, but are just men posing as women, and they are repeatedly misgendering trans athletes, then we are dealing with people who actively deny and/or show hostility to trans identities. 

For example, Swimmer Riley Gaines, who is a plaintiff cited in the NCAA lawsuit, repeatedly and intentionally misgenders Lia Thomas, refers to Lia as a biological male, openly denies that transwomen are women, believes that these are men posing as women, believe that transwomen are men invading women's sports and safe spaces, which is pretty easy to see on her X/Twitter account. There are a number of other plaintiffs I have looked up who have voiced similar opinions, namely denying that transwomen are women. A number of plaintiffs view athletes like Lia Thomas not as transwomen but as "men." 

To be clear, I don't think that this is true for every plaintiff. Not every plaintiff misgenders Lia Thomas. However, I would be wary about how my views or willingness to lend my name to a lawsuit would amplify hateful voices who deny the gender identity of trans athletes or trans individuals outside of sports. 

And I think that we also have to be careful about who is backing these interests. In the case of the athletes suing Conneticut, they are being primarily backed by the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian legal advocacy group with vested interest in opposing abortion, opposing LGBTQ+ rights, and expanding "religious liberty" in schools. The two trans athletes are primarily being represented by the ACLU. This personally raises all sorts of red flags for me about the nature of the lawsuit. Is the Alliance Defending Freedom actually interested in protecting women? FWIW, the ADF refers to the two trans women athletes as "men," with their website framing this case as "Should men be allowed to compete in women's sports?" 

You are correct that we as a society have to deal with them, but I think that we also must be careful with how our decisions as a society also empower hate or reinforce harmful views regarding women who may be trans, intersex, or cis but perceived as outside the "norm." I also think that we have to be careful about the powers that be that are behind the scenes in these lawsuits. Because I don't think that their interests are necessarily all that concerned about feminism or what's best for women either. In many cases, there is an undeniably visible anti-trans undercurrent to these movements against trans athletes competing. 

18 hours ago, TrackerNeil said:

Emma Vigelund of The Majority Report takes this point of view, and although I don't agree with it, it is a point of view that is coherent and understandable. If one thinks inclusion trumps competitive fairness, well, then the answer is clear. I think that gets complicated when scholarships, money and career advancement are on the line, but it's clear.

Transitioning involves one helluva set of hurdles to jump through just for a handful of transwomen to maybe get a small piece of that action. And depending on when they begin that transitioning process, it could require that they lose their prime athletic years or even those early years where recruitment happens. And if they are transitioning during these times, they risk losing their athletic scholarships, they are not earning money, they are not competing in athletic competitions, and they are not advancing their athletic careers. 

Moreover, in many cases, they are potentially downgrading their own athletic capabilities by transitioning and their own earnings by competing in women's sports rather than men's sports. And there is no guarantee that they will have similar levels of athletic performance as before because transitioning affects every individual differently. I think the idea that transwomen are potentially transitioning for the sake of these things often presumes a level of bad faith on their part, and it doesn't necessarily consider what is also lost in the process. 

I think that the concern for feminism in sports is laudable, but I think that feminism (a) also requires a place for transwomen, and (b) requires understanding how there is often an anti-feminist element that is part of the transphobia that seeks to exclude transwomen from sports. As @Kalbear mentioned before, the concern about testosterone levels or even just transwomen athletes "invading" women's sports has resulted in cis women also being targeted with various accusations. There are ciswomen at the upper athletic levels who have naturally higher levels of testosterone who have faced allegations of doping or somehow of being "trans infiltrators." There have been cis women at all levels of athletics who have been accused of being trans and thereby cheaters. Cis women are being subjected to "purity tests" because their own various athletic advantages are being called into question as "unfair." 

21 minutes ago, Ran said:

How do I see them? Say it plainly, please. You're allowed to call me a transphobe, if you feel that fits the bill.

Yes, Ran. I suspect transphobia. At the very least, I think that it makes you a "useful idiot" for transphobes and their talking points, because a lot of what you are posting here are the sort of things that anti-trans people will and do regularly subject trans people to as evidence for invalidating their gender identity. That may not be your intention but it's what your words enable. Likewise, I've seen far too many people who on the one hand claim that they are pro-LGBTQ+ issues out of one side of their mouth while making anti-LGBTQ+ remarks out of the other side of their mouth, much in the same way that someone can claim to be pro-feminism while also making sexist remarks. You are welcome, of course, to believe that transphobia does not apply to you, much as JK Rowling does not believe that the term applies to her. She believes that she's protecting women from dangerous men. 

However, I also know that my trans partner and many of their trans friends are regularly made to feel like second class citizens of their gender because of comments like yours and others in this thread. I know this because they have complained and distressed about many of your talking points before. I know that comments like what you make do trigger their dysphoria and social anxieties. I know that that comments like yours often serve to remind them that they are not "real men" or "real women" in the eyes of many people when it comes to equal status or recognition.

And when you procede to basically sidestep karradin's length post about trans athletes and then gaslight karradin with your bit about how she must view the special olympics poorly, then yeah, I think that transphobia potentially fits the bill or at least gives me some reason to suspect as much. Okay. Maybe you didn't mean to be transphobic in that instance, but I don't think that gaslighting her makes anyone view things better. 

Do you think that your comments are making karaddin and other trans posters in this forum feel welcome or that you genuinely believe their gender identities are valid? That they are equally female or equally male as cisgendered females and males? What do you think that your comments here are communicating to trans people on this forum? Would your posts here give reason for them to believe that you are their ally, especially when you talk over their experiences or gaslight them? 

14 minutes ago, Ran said:

People are fooling themselves into thinking that hormone suppression is all you need to level the playing field between transwomen and ciswomen, in many sports. Per the study I noted earlier, hormone suppression and estrogen therapy for transwomen soldiers lowered their run time advantage over ciswomen from 12% to ... 9%. Because length of stride, narrowness of hips and angle of motion, etc., all play a factor in these things, and they don't go away due to hormones.

Height and length of reach matters in a lot of sporting events. Transwomen will on average have advantages there. 

There was an article recenting on the NYTimes that talks about this very issue based on a study by the Olympics themselves. While transwomen may have some advantages in some aspects, those aspects were overblown, not least because trans women were frequently disadvantaged in other areas when compared to cis women: 

Quote

All of the participants played competitive sports or underwent physical training at least three times a week. And all of the trans female athletes had undergone at least a year of treatment suppressing their testosterone levels and taking estrogen supplementation, the researchers said. None of the participants were athletes competing at the national or international level.

The study found that transgender female participants showed greater handgrip strength than cisgender female participants but lower lung function and relative VO2 max, the amount of oxygen used when exercising. Transgender female athletes also scored below cisgender women and men on a jumping test that measured lower-body power.

... 

Athletes who grow taller and heavier after going through puberty as males must “carry this big skeleton with a smaller engine” after transitioning, he said. He cited volleyball as an example, saying that, for transgender female athletes, “the jumping and blocking will not be to the same height as they were doing before. And they may find that, overall, their performance is less good.”

Just now, Ran said:

So the athletes in the Special Olympics are just some "rainbow glitter"? 

This says a lot more about how you see them than you seem to realize.

Just like how your comments in this thread speaks volumes about how you see trans women. 

1 minute ago, Ran said:

Nope. Is being mendacious so easily come to you?

Not as easily as ad hominems come to you. 

1 minute ago, Ran said:

I'd already cited at least one Olympic sport where trans athletes aren't at all an issue.

Ah, yes. You cited competitive horse jumping. How gracious of you!