Opponents say [Washington state] voters were persuaded at least partly because the initiative and its boosters exploited deep-seated prejudices and misunderstandings about transgender people to erode their rights.
Opponents say [Washington state] voters were persuaded at least partly because the initiative and its boosters exploited deep-seated prejudices and misunderstandings about transgender people to erode their rights.
Lol you seriously just don’t get it do you.
Google about the time Serena and Venus Williams said they could beat any man outside the top 200. Remember they were ranked number 1 in women’s tennis and were absolutely crushing the women’s league back in 1998 when this happened.
They played a man who was number 203 and he absolutely smoked both of them. If you watch it you can tell he’s not even trying, something the Williams sisters even acknowledged in the interviews after. After that match, the Williams sisters, the best 2 players in women’s tennis went on record and said if they had to compete in the men’s league they didn’t even think they’d be able to place, and the level of competitive difference was ‘insane’. That’s straight from the mouths of the 2 best women in the world at their sport, and to this day the GOATed 2 competitors of their sport.
I’ve been involved in martial arts for almost 35 years now. I’ve been instructing for almost 20 of those years. I was professionally competitive back in the Pride days. I’ve trained with some of the best women fighters in the world, and none of them could beat me, and when I did I wasn’t even competitive or ranked. I’d even concede the fact that several of those women’s technique and form was better than mine. But the strength and speed differences are too great to be ignored. In the same weight class it’s not even competitive. I’ve given up 2 whole weight classes to women in practice before and it’s still not competitive. I can easily overpower women who are trained fighters who have almost 80lbs on me. The differences between a biological man and woman are insane.
Which brings me to the trans people in sports debate. I don’t think it’s fair at all for trans people to compete. A biological woman can be disqualified permanently for competing in virtually any league if it’s found she’s taken testosterone even once. Because testosterone creates PERMANENT changes to musculoskeletal mass. No amount of HRT can undo the differences in muscle mass and bone density that a person gets when he goes through puberty as a male. And as far as women who transition to men… they’re taking testosterone supplimentally and can too easily mask doping methods behind their HRT treatments. It’s far too easy for trans men athletes to cheat.
There are some crazy people out there who are saying that HRT should be over the counter and should be available to children because of this. Which is insane. First, I wouldn’t trust any life long decision I’dve ever made until I was around 22, and that might be being generous in retrospect. Second HRT has some serious side effects and should be an absolute last resort. I still think the attempt should be made to try and make someone comfortable in their own body and definitely need some psych approval before making such a life altering decision. And finally… you need to be out of puberty before you start playing around with major hormones like that. The teenage years are crazy enough with all that and you really want to pile on more? Why not force feed them LSD while you’re at it CIA style? I think it might be less mentally damaging.
Final note and it’s more a vent than anything. A trans supporter seriously told me that I’m transphobic because I said I wouldn’t date a trans person as I’d be uncomfortable with that. They took this to mean that I didn’t accept them as a woman fully, which on reflection is kinda true, on a sexual attraction level it would be hard for me to resolve mentally that this person who is now definitely a woman wasn’t once a man. I think it’s equally ridiculous that my sexual preferences can be dictated by others and if I’m uncomfortable with intimacy of that nature that somehow makes me a bigot, especially when I’ve gone out of my way to accommodate and support the trans community. I’ve always supported the gay community, even back in the 90s and early 2000s living in an area where… you just didn’t in those days. When a guy came out in our conservative school back in the day, I literally defended him, and went to bat at 5 to 1 odds. And no gay guy ever said I had to be on board with dating one of them to support the community.
And yes, despite being against trans people competing in sports and being uncomfortable with dating a trans person, I still consider myself to be a supporter of the community. I believe everyone has a right to be happy, and if that’s what it takes, go for it. And push comes to shove you’d better bet I’ll do what I can to protect a trans person should they need it, as I would stand up for any victim to any bully. Hopefully I’m not just branded ‘transphobic’ and seen as an enemy when I disagree with you on a few points.
I know people think we seperate men and women’s sports out of safety for women, but historically the reason was they just didn’t want women doing things (shocker i know). People just started thinking it was for “female safety”.
In their minds tho, it’s a man playing with women, which is a legitimate concern to them. Even people who think positively about trans people will cite that as their concern, just like you have.
Kind of insane thinking that not wanting to date a trans person makes you transphobic. Thats like getting upset a former slave owner doesn’t think positively about black people after slavery ended. Expecting people to suddenly wake up and feel differently about something is not a successful strategy.
People dont want to hear this because to flip sides quick, in THEIR minds, anything less than full trans support means you are actively calling for a trans genocide. And nothing can change THEIR minds either. Politicians love this. We will be stuck in an eternal tug of war where they will never have to address other issues and this one will never be resolved.
IMO the solution for now, which isnt fair to the trans community, would be that if you are trans then you give up competitive school sports. Intramural, YMCA, bar league, etc etc are still fine. You can still play, just not in competitive high school or college sports. And that would be a sacrifice each and every trans person would make.
Because the right celebrates they finally kept “those pesky trans kids” out of their sacred sports… and then what? Do you think they would want trans kids out of school altogether? Slippery slope fallacy style? I dont think they would get nearly as much support for that as they currently have for the sports topic.
Racism still exists but its gotten much better after the racists started dying off and younger kids saw skin color was not a reason to hate people. The same will happen with trans people. Right now its “weird” or “scary” for some people, but their kids will be a bit more open to it. Theres no way to speed this up. Sometimes we have to endure the circumstances of our time.
Dude separation of men and women’s events goes back to ancient Greece. The first olympics thousands of years ago was segregated by sex. Maybe Christo-fascists framed it that way but honestly it’s always been because pound for pound a woman just doesn’t compete with a man and it’s inherently not fair.
And yes seriously, I didn’t want to have a relationship with a trans person and multiple people labeled me as a transphobe over it which is totally not the case. I was friends with her before and after she transitioned and it was… weird for me and something I didn’t want. That to me was particularly insane, like, what more do you want from me?
I’m glad you at least have a sane and middle of the road thinking, and can see that there are at least levels to support.
Cool anecdote or whatever, but just because you feel a certain way doesn’t change the facts. Study after study after study shows transgender athletes do not have any advatanges over their cisgender peers after long term HRT. If trans folks could easily cheat and gain an advantage, why aren’t they? It’s not like trans people are mystical elves who do no wrong; there are absolutely evil trans folks out there, so why aren’t they dominating sports leagues with their supposed inherent biological advantages? How come we just gotta hear about some whiny woman who tied for 5th place in a swim competition one time?
Nobody cares about what you think proper trans care should be because that’s a discussion that should be between a person and their doctor. If a doctor says the best treatment for folks is to do the macarena every morning, your opinion and feelings don’t matter on the subject. Transgender youth are mostly recommended puberty blockers which is a not a permanent treatment, but if they are being perscribed HRT then that is a decision that came into play after the patient discussed things with their doctor.
You wanna be an ally? That’s fine, but stop trying to drive the bus when you obviously have no idea what you’re talking about. The best thing you personally can do is to shut up and sit in the back.
Your own study that you just linked acknowledges a higher lean mass difference WHICH MEANS THEY HAVE MORE MUSCLE. The study says this doesn’t ‘necessarily automatically translate to greater athletic ability’ which personally I think is horseshit.
Nor does it address differences in musculo-skeletal mass. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10641525/
It is absolute horseshit you think the science is squarely in your corner on this, because it most DEFINITELY isn’t.
What part of what I said above disagrees with you that this should be between a trans person and their doctor? That’s literally what I said. Unless consensus has changed post-puberty HRT is how they do things, blockers are used until puberty stops. There are advocates out there who are saying give the HRT and blockers OTC not understanding you can’t take both, and think that such a thing should be OTC and at the child’s decision alone which is INSANE.
Personally don’t plan on shutting up especially when you still haven’t addressed how you keep someone undergoing hormone treatments from beating doping in sports too. There are definitely issues with cheating already with the cis crowd, and it is actually much much easier for someone who’s taking hormones already to dope. Their levels can drop back down quicker during testing making it harder to detect cheating and steroid use.
Also it’s patently ridiculous to merge women’s and men’s leagues as Venus and Serena showed, and what my personal anecdote was about. Women can’t compete on the same level as men physically with sports. It’s ridiculous that Chess is separated by men and women’s leagues sure. But anything physical? You’re joking right? Or you’ve never done sports?
Again your feelings do not matter. The study I linked and the study you linked say the same thing. I’ve bolded the relevant text for the illiterate.
From my link, “While transgender women exhibited higher lean mass than cisgender women, their physical fitness was comparable. Current evidence is mostly low certainty and has heterogenous quality but does not support theories of inherent athletic advantages for transgender women over cisgender.”
From your link, “While data are still scarce, the limited information available does not suggest that trans men and trans women have much, if any, athletic advantage post-transition. Indeed, in most cases they perform more similarly to those matching their gender identity, or somewhere between cis men and women.”
It doesn’t matter what you feel like the truth is. It doesn’t matter what you call horseshit because your words are not as reliable as the statements of doctors and researchers. Nobody cares that you’ve done your own research because you aren’t an expert if you obviously can’t read.
As for your argument about advocates of OTC, that’s a nice strawman to build up, but until I see doctors widely recommending over the counter HRT for trans youth to self medicate, it’s meaningless to get all pissy about it. It’s the equivalent of claiming, “Someone on Twitter told me they advocate for drunk driving so I think we should just ban cars all together.”
And I don’t know what should be done about sports, but that’s because I’m not a sports medicine expert and clearly, neither are you. It’s great that you really like sports and value the integrity of the field or whatever, but your feelings about your hobby should have no bearing on wider social policy.
Again, hotly debated topic and even by their own results there ARE differences. Lean muscle mass IS greater in trans female athletes. Doping is easier to conceal in trans male athletes.
Bold assumption that I didn’t go to college and don’t have a bachelors in Exercise Science. I mean all I’ve ever wanted to do in life is train athletes lol.
But hey you can believe what you want and I’ll certainly continue believing what I do. I think your problem is largely that most sports at the moment, the sports medicine experts ARE advocating against trans athlete participation. The opinions of the researchers and scientists in those studies concluded that lean muscle mass doesn’t result in a competitive advantage. That is totally NOT the consensus of the field at large, and why people educated on the subject like myself are leery of the political impact on studies like this. Lean muscle mass as percentage of body weight remains the best predictor of physical ability. That’s not even addressing musculo-skeletal differences which deals with how muscle attaches to the skeleton or how muscle structurally forms, which IS different between the sexes, and unfortunately, presently HRT doesn’t affect, those differences persist regardless of puberty blockers present in prepubescence. So… tech has to get better to transition more completely.