cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/66087691
The International Olympic Committee will prohibit transgender athletes from participating in women’s sports, starting at the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
The new policy, approved by the IOC’s executive committee Thursday, requires all athletes to undergo a genetic test to compete in women’s sporting events at the Olympics.
Since you seem to be arguing this point in genuine good faith, and that’s increasingly rare, I wonder what your opinion would be of a woman with a genetic mutation which causes her to produce elevated testosterone, wanting to participate in women’s sports.
Keep in mind, this genetic mutation, which does happen to cisgender women, has a measurable effect on these women’s athletic performance.
This is not a gotcha question, and I’m not trying to trick you. Just genuinely curious
The whole point of the Olympics is people who are the absolute pinnacle of human ability competing against each other. If they were genuinely born like that, then that’s just how things go, just like how some people are taller or stronger than others.
Well, unfortunately, I was genuinely born a woman. Though everyone, including myself, got it wrong for about 20 years.
I believe that to compete in woman’s sports early on in my transition might have given me an advantage (emphasis on might. I would’ve had to be an already athletic trans person, which is an overlap of a rare category and an ultra rare, but it does happen and obviously needs to be accounted for.) But at this point? After taking estrogen for a decade, any ‘bonus’ muscle mass I got from having extra testosterone (which can happen to cis women too, as a reminder) is definitively gone. I actually lost it on purpose because it gave me dysphoria, but even if I hadn’t it would be gone by now. I’m tall for a woman, but that’s it at this point. I’ve met taller (presumably) cis women than me too. I also think they should be allowed to compete against other women.
So, with that being said a trans man, who is superior to cis men, should be allowed to participate or no? If they are at the pinnacle, why not?
So you don’t actually give a shit about being fair or logical, just targeting trans women
I’d ask a question as well, if most strength dominated women’s sports end up being won by trans men would you be surprised?
Assuming Nike is throwing money at them for sponsorships and the like do you not assume men will be attracted to that, and top level women’s sports leaders will end up being entirely trans men?
Trans men who take testosterone, I believe, are disqualified from women’s olympics because it’s considered performance enhancing. Though I’m sure they’d prefer to compete with other men, you’re right that if they were able to compete against women they would likely beat most of them in strength based competitions because they have more testosterone than the average woman. Not more than ANY woman, mind you.
Would that be problematic? For sure. I’d liken it to how every high school quarterback wants to be a professional football player. Good for the spectacle, very bad for the humans sacrificing their life upon on altar of sport in the hope they are chosen. I’m generally against professional sports as an industry, though I’ve nothing inherently against sporting competitions and think they’re wonderful.
You may have realized already that your question applies to a much smaller subset of the population. We’re often considered a statistical outlier we’re so rare! In that way, it’s very similar to other genetic differences.
Strength competitions should be divided by weight class already, I’m sure we both know that. Assuming they won’t be, they should apply to everyone regardless of gender, since we know that won’t happen, I think it’s reasonable to ask that trans people be allowed to compete. With the caveat that they perform the same tests as everyone else, and be kicked out for doping like anyone else. Which would probably require us to define acceptable levels of hormones for cis AND trans people in each category, which we really should be doing already (and I believe we are, if I remember correctly. There was a cis woman who was booted for having high testosterone).