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submitted 6 months ago by jeffw@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world
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[-] Hillock@feddit.de 23 points 6 months ago

Sport is such an unfair world, trying to find equality and justice in it is futile. We don't want kids taking growth hormones to boost their chances of making it into the NBA. But that also means we crush the dream of plenty of people. Athletes with asthma can't use their inhaler under certain circumstances. A few years ago an UFC fighter with Asthma got his win overturned because he used an inhaler inbetween rounds.

There was a huge discussion about allowing prosthetics in "regular" competition. Turned out at the time that proshetics weren't advanced enough to give an advantage. But I think we all know that this is only a matter of time. And eventually a hard ruling needs to be made that dictates in which direction sport goes.

Banning athletes who take as many hormones, hormone blockers, and other mediaction as transwomen usually take is 100% something that needs to happen. Especially considering that in certain leagues the usage of these substances is the only reason that transwomen are allowed to compete. That feels against the spirit of sport and TUEs. But untill more data exist, I doubt a useful ruling can be made.

What I don't like about the whole discussion is going for the "They aren't real women" argument. That feels degrading and hurtful for everyone involved. I don't want cis or transwomen to have to undergo inspections to determine their gender.

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[-] twig@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

I have said it before and I'll say it again: this issue exists to stir up controversy. Very few people can ever be professional athletes, but lots of people suffer as a result of the hostility generated by this debate.

Also, very few people talk about trans men in sport. There's no real justification for excluding trans men from sport other than fragile egos of male athletes being scared of being outperformed by an afab athlete.

Also also, if we're making the argument that people with higher exposure to testosterone for a short duration in their life have increased athletic performance (which to be clear is kind of true but not actually relevant for all trans women), then I have to remind you that anabolic steroids can benefit athletes for up to a decade, which is exactly much fucking longer than these drugs remain detectable in an athlete's system.

Also also also, professional sport is stupid and doesn't deserve this much attention. It certainly shouldn't be allowed to stir up this much hate toward regular ass trans folks just wanting to live their damn lives, but it does have that effect.

[-] Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 6 months ago

Also, very few people talk about trans men in sport.

Very few people talk about trans men in general. Virtually all the defense for anti-trans policies and laws is built around rhetoric about protecting women from "men in dresses" or the like. One thing trans men succeed at is gaining the social invisibility cis men tend to have.

Which is weird, because if you believed the usual progressive rhetoric about gender you'd think trans men would be viewed as women trying to steal men's patriarchal privilege for themselves and would be treated as even more of a problem than trans women. Rather than anti-trans rhetoric being mostly concerned with maintaining protected spaces for women.

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[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 6 points 6 months ago

In general, and I'm sure some people here will be incensed at the suggestion, people do not give a shit about women's sports and the only time many of them do is when they find out a "man" is competing in them.

[-] Manos@lemm.ee 23 points 6 months ago

Women care about women's sports.

[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 27 points 6 months ago

A lot of them don't. Just like a lot of women are against subsidized pre and post-natal care. Just because you're a woman doesn't mean you care about women's issues.

And, based on what I've seen, the vast majority of complaints about this come from men anyway.

[-] Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 points 6 months ago

Most of the women in women’s sports who are asked support trans inclusion (somewhat sport dependent, some sports are historically more queer friendly than others) and find equal pay to be a much bigger issue for women’s sports. For some reason nobody who is “concerned” about women’s sports wants to hear that, though. 🤷‍♂️

[-] whoreticulture@lemmy.world 4 points 6 months ago

Wow, I honestly thought Lemmy would be less transphobic. This totally rational comment downvoted for no reason. If most women in sports aren't concerned about trans women being there, why are all these assholes concerned about it.

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[-] naevaTheRat@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 6 months ago

If you're position is excluding trans women from sport because of vibes you're just a transphobe.

There is no rabid hoard of transwomen waiting to overrun sport and sweep the awards. Until recently this wasn't even an issue, the Olympics has allowed trans women to compete from like 2000. Where are the medals?

We're a tiny population who generally perform worse than natal women because our T is lower. Despite all the contrived "just asking questions" about skeleton size or whatever nonsense there is no clear picture of advantage. At any rate tall women aren't banned from sport. Even women with PCOS aren't banned from sport.

We don't have seperate leagues for people raised in stable households on good diets and yet that's got performance benefits that swamp anything from having a slightly higher forearm to middle finger ratio or whatever insane thing people bring up.

This whole thing is completely drummed up and is just an acceptable way for the general unease cis people feel about trans people to be voiced.

[-] jeffw@lemmy.world 8 points 6 months ago

We don't have seperate leagues for people raised in stable households on good diets and yet that's got performance benefits that swamp anything from having a slightly higher forearm to middle finger ratio or whatever insane thing people bring up.

This is actually a really good point. There’s no much natural variation in body types and hormone levels.

[-] zerog_bandit@lemmy.world 5 points 6 months ago

If this is all drummed up, then why do transgender athletes have such a problem with competing in the all-comers category instead of the women's category, which is reserved for XX born females who have all of the disadvantages you describe above since birth?

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this post was submitted on 30 Mar 2024
146 points (78.1% liked)

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