Treatments for trans children and politics, world-wide

[Kalbear]

26 minutes ago, TrackerNeil said:

I think the argument "very few people are affected" is a dangerous one, because it cuts both ways. If one argues that any unfairness in athletics is of little concern because there aren't very many trans women competing, someone else could argue that employment discrimination against trans women in, say, the sciences, also wouldn't matter. After all, just how many trans women scientists are there? 

Seems to me that if something is unfair, it's unfair no matter how many people are affected. 

Except the number of people affected so far is zero.

[karaddin]

That logic isn't even consistent, you're trying to make it sound like excluding the small minority from sport is on the same spectrum as protecting them in science. Protecting the minority groups access to sport is actually aligned with protecting access to employment.

[Conflicting Thought]

You asked karaddin for her opinion, what did you think of what she said to you? Did you changed your mind?

[Tears of Lys]

1 hour ago, Conflicting Thought said:

You asked karaddin for her opinion, what did you think of what she said to you? Did you changed your mind?

Are you speaking to me?  If so, I've already said I have the utmost respect for Karaddin and wish her well in all things.  I always read her posts and find them to be thoughtful and well presented.

I guess my primary point is it's facile and misleading to just label all folks who are wanting to know more about this complicated subject as "TERFs" and transphobic.  For one thing, you run a huge risk of alienating people who could be your friends.  The NYT article brings up some topics that deserve a more thoughtful consideration. 

Is it possible to treat both trans women and cis women with equal fairness?  Maybe it's not.  If not, tell me why.         

[BigFatCoward]

8 hours ago, Week said:

Are you familiar with scrimmages? Do you have video? Do you think they were playing full tilt? You need to make a number of bizarre and aggressive assumptions in order for this 'example' to have some relevance to be used as a cudgel against transwomen's rights and dignity. Take a moment, let some introspection percolate.

I'll refrain from the valid label here out of TrackerNeil's request but y'alls transphobia is quite determined.

Surely if anything I'm being misogynistic rather than transphobic here.

There is video (EDIT there isn't i was sure there was but its actually a different proffesional team playing a bunch of 15 year olds), you can see that technically the women were better, physically they aren't in the same league. Do you think women that were so dedicated that they are the best in the world voluntary rolled over and let a bunch if 15 year old beat them?  You are just as guilty of making assumptions to support your argument here as I am.

You should refrain from that label, because it would be bullshit.  There are very legitimate scientific arguments as to why trans women should not compete with cis women if fairness is the most important factor (and if you think inclusivity is more important more power to you, i won't argue against that position, i will argue against people who say there isn't an advantage though), far far far more science says this than the opposite. You might say that science is biased based on who is carrying it out and that's a fair position in some cases, but not all. And certainly not enough to discredit the wealth of data that's out there. 

You might not agree with them, and if you value inclusively more than fairness that's fine, but the kneejerk leap to 'trans phobia' every time someone make any argument against trans inclusivity in top level sports, is boring and weak as fuck. 

 

Edited April 25 by BigFatCoward

[BigFatCoward]

6 hours ago, Kalbear said:

Okay, you should be able to then tell me what trans woman is out there currently that is absolutely dominating her sport.

Or were you insinuating that Serena Williams is trans?

Because to my knowledge the number of professional or even amateur athletes that are trans and are crushing their sport is...zero.

If you don't, why are you talking about it then?

Whether they are currently is irrelevant, you make rules now before there are issues so people know where they stand. 

Emily Bridges would be one example though. Her performance trajectory very much would have had her winning Olympic medals this cycle.  She was an outstanding cyclist pre transition and her performance held up very well post transition.   And this is why trans only events is also problematic, 2 people who were performing at the same level before transition could be miles apart afterwards, like i've said many times, there are no easy answers here. 

You can't begin to have the conversations when someone has dictated years of their lives to competing at the highest level then pull the rung from under them. 

That would be extremely unfair on the athletes. 

Edited April 25 by BigFatCoward

[TrueMetis]

I've seen people calling for trans women to be banned from chess, darts, and fucking pool. Which suggests to me the "reasonable concerns" are just a cover for a bunch of bigots. Sometimes you need to look at who is using the same argument you are, and maybe just stop. To use a hopefully uncontroversial example, Anita Sarkessian's media analysis was shallow, boring, feminism 101 crap. But she also had a bunch of Nazis hounding her, so I could leave that alone so as not to hurt someone already going through hell.

But hey, if fairness is so important that you're crying over some skateboarder who got 17th instead of 16th but was also beaten by an 11 year old maybe spare a thought for the runner who's only ever had a dirt track who has to compete against someone who trains in a billion dollar facility, or the athlete who has to work 2 jobs to afford to travel to competitions competing against someone who was selected by their country at 12 and has had to focus on nothing but their sport since. Realize sports aren't fair, fairness isn't actually a god damn concern, and maybe that should be a focus before we decide that the most important thing in the world is to take joy away from some of the most vulnerable people on the planet.

[BigFatCoward]

13 minutes ago, TrueMetis said:

I've seen people calling for trans women to be banned from chess, darts, and fucking pool. 

before we decide that the most important thing in the world is to take joy away from some of the most vulnerable people on the planet.

The difference in performance in darts and chess are almost certainly environmental, with cue sports there could be a very very small advantage (size and cue power), not enough for me to think it should be legislated against. 

Nobody has said they can't play sports for the joy as far as I can tell. 

Edited April 25 by BigFatCoward

[TrueMetis]

13 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

The difference in performance in darts and chess are almost certainly environmental, with cue sports there could be a very very small advantage (size and cue power), not enough for me to think it should be legislated against. 

Nobody has said they can't play sports for the joy as far as I can tell. 

I've seen people flipping shit about trans women participating in a literal fun run, they've attempted to ban or have banned trans kids from playing on their high school teams which is pretty much the only place a teenager can expect to be able to regularly play sports. What the fuck are you talking about?

[BigFatCoward]

32 minutes ago, TrueMetis said:

I've seen people flipping shit about trans women participating in a literal fun run, they've attempted to ban or have banned trans kids from playing on their high school teams which is pretty much the only place a teenager can expect to be able to regularly play sports. What the fuck are you talking about?

 

Nobody here. And those people are fucking idiots.

Edited April 25 by BigFatCoward

[BigFatCoward]

Shit, I've got to stop drunk posting, I'm not changing my position, but my spelling and grammar has taken me ages to correct this morning and I'm not even half finished.  I've got a meeting in 10 mins so if you find anymore gibberish and/or gobbledegook i need to correct, please PM me. 

Edited April 25 by BigFatCoward

[TrackerNeil]

9 hours ago, TrueMetis said:

Realize sports aren't fair, fairness isn't actually a god damn concern, and maybe that should be a focus before we decide that the most important thing in the world is to take joy away from some of the most vulnerable people on the planet.

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.

[Kalbear]

11 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

Whether they are currently is irrelevant, you make rules now before there are issues so people know where they stand. 

Emily Bridges would be one example though. Her performance trajectory very much would have had her winning Olympic medals this cycle.  She was an outstanding cyclist pre transition and her performance held up very well post transition.   And this is why trans only events is also problematic, 2 people who were performing at the same level before transition could be miles apart afterwards, like i've said many times, there are no easy answers here. 

You can't begin to have the conversations when someone has dictated years of their lives to competing at the highest level then pull the rung from under them. 

That would be extremely unfair on the athletes. 

I think you can do that, and until you really are having an issue you absolutely should. There is nothing that stops these sport bodies from making very fast rules. In fact they've already done so in other cases that don't involve trans athletes. This isn't constitutional law, it's fucking high school sports and in a few cases small niche sporting events. 

More importantly I don't think that as a rule sports needs legislation about fairness whatsoever. That's entirely up to those sports leagues. If you need the government to step in and set rules about sporting it should be for either the commercial aspects or literal cases of breaking the law (like Larry Nassar). Why should the government get involved? 

What is so critical that any government needs to dictate how a sports league of any size runs their system?

[BigFatCoward]

24 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

I think you can do that, and until you really are having an issue you absolutely should. There is nothing that stops these sport bodies from making very fast rules. In fact they've already done so in other cases that don't involve trans athletes. This isn't constitutional law, it's fucking high school sports and in a few cases small niche sporting events. 

More importantly I don't think that as a rule sports needs legislation about fairness whatsoever. That's entirely up to those sports leagues. If you need the government to step in and set rules about sporting it should be for either the commercial aspects or literal cases of breaking the law (like Larry Nassar). Why should the government get involved? 

What is so critical that any government needs to dictate how a sports league of any size runs their system?

I never said governments. Sporting bodies make the rules.

But the problem with that is different sports have very different rules, some degree of consistency would be better for everyone imo.

[Kalbear]

1 minute ago, BigFatCoward said:

I never said governments. Sporting bodies make the rules.

But the problem with that is different sports have very different rules, some degree of consistency would be better for everyone imo.

Eh. I don't think you need that. I don't think you need the rules governing FIFA to apply to rec league soccer. I don't think you need Olympic rules to govern high school diving. 

I think that at MOST you can take what @karaddin said as the base point and then rule on case by case basis as you go, because the actual amount of people affected is so small that individual judgments can be reasonable. You absolutely do not need to make a blanket condemnation of it or a blanket restriction based on hypotheticals, especially across all sports. And you really, really don't need to create a separate league or set of leagues for sports as a response. 

And yeah, you might get results that aren't fair to some people. Which is true all the time. Especially in sports. You'll also get some results that are MORE fair to some people. 

[Tears of Lys]

29 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

/snip

More importantly I don't think that as a rule sports needs legislation about fairness whatsoever. That's entirely up to those sports leagues. If you need the government to step in and set rules about sporting it should be for either the commercial aspects or literal cases of breaking the law (like Larry Nassar). Why should the government get involved? 

What is so critical that any government needs to dictate how a sports league of any size runs their system?

Except I can think of many instances where government DID dictate how a sports league of any size ran their system.  Mostly to the benefit of sports in general.  I'm sure you can too.  

Legislating "fairness" can come in many guises.  

[Kalbear]

Just now, Tears of Lys said:

Except I can think of many instances where government DID dictate how a sports league of any size ran their system.  Mostly to the benefit of sports in general.  I'm sure you can too.  

Legislating "fairness" can come in many guises.  

Sure, but those dictations were to add inclusion, not to add exclusion. Note that when the government has stepped in and said things need to change it was to give athletes either more rights (like the NCAA with NIL) or more access (like Title IX). I'm fine if the government wants to make things more expansive, but there are a very, very scant few cases where the government stepped in to regulate a sport, and none that I can find that restricted athlete access. 

[BigFatCoward]

6 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Eh. I don't think you need that. I don't think you need the rules governing FIFA to apply to rec league soccer. I don't think you need Olympic rules to govern high school diving. 

I think that at MOST you can take what @karaddin said as the base point and then rule on case by case basis as you go, because the actual amount of people affected is so small that individual judgments can be reasonable. You absolutely do not need to make a blanket condemnation of it or a blanket restriction based on hypotheticals, especially across all sports. And you really, really don't need to create a separate league or set of leagues for sports as a response. 

And yeah, you might get results that aren't fair to some people. Which is true all the time. Especially in sports. You'll also get some results that are MORE fair to some people. 

I've been quite clear I only think that rules should govern high end sports. Olympics/world championships etc. Nobody needs to tell a 14 year old they can't play hockey with their mates. 

Edited April 25 by BigFatCoward

[Kalbear]

Just now, BigFatCoward said:

I've been quite clear I only think that rules should govern high end sports. Olympics/world championships etc. nNobody needs to tell a 14 year old they can't play hockey with their mates. 

Okay, but that is literally what the other proposals have been about. And the Olympics/world championships for all the sports out there already have ways to deal with this if they need to, and in fact have already done so in one case (and even that was shitty). 

So what is the problem?

[Tears of Lys]

The problem is that anyone who questions this topic in ANY way is labeled as TERF or transphobic.  My previous post of an in-depth examination of this topic (which was deleted due to the fact I copied the entire article from the New York Times) explained all the nuances AND from both sides.  This topic deserves more than a knee-jerk reaction, which I'm not saying YOU do, but a few others in this thread are prone to.  

Might I also take this opportunity to say I embrace my trans sisters and their struggles for acceptance.  But I also am a feminist and don't wish to see cis girls shunted to the side either.