From a biological perspective, the women being banned here are not just men and as far as I'm aware cannot realistically compete in the men's division any more than any other woman. Practically these changes bar women athletes with certain medical differences from competing in the Olympics.
I'm not an expert so idk whether that's fair or not but that's what this decision is doing.
To be fair, that could be said of many other medical conditions as well, especially chromosomal abnormalities such as Down Syndrome. Many humans, from the moment they are born and through no fault of their own, have virtually no hope of ever competing in the Olympics let alone winning, just because at such competitive extremes, any significant genetic disadvantage takes you out of the running.
Like most things in biologicy, categorization is a nightmare unless you have a very specific use case in mind. In this case I'm talking about women phenotypically and socially (including self-identity) and especially athletes assigned female at birth. These women are clearly not just "males".
I think you're falling for Sticker Swap Fallacy. The goal is to have fair match-ups in sports. Gender and sex are two possible labels to use to assist with this, but they're imperfect enough that we probably ought to not use them as the primary differentiator.
The solution is simple: class every sport like boxing.
Pick a sports-relevant metric and split into divisions. Some sports will naturally fall into gendered divisions, while others will have varying degrees of co-ed competition among competitors of similar ability.
The way out of this is not to pick a better scissor of sex or gender, it's to pick a better scissor of ability.
This "solution" can really only be proposed by someone who has not played sports. This would simply result in women being unable to compete in sports professionally, outside of a couple small niches like ultra long distance swimming and a couple sub-disciplines of gymnastics.
It really depends on the way classes are divided. Dismissing the general concept demonstrates a fear of change rather than a legitimate openness to fair play.
No it doesn't, and no it doesn't. Proposing this concept demonstrates a profound ignorance of what competition at the top level of sports actually looks like.
The concept is just bad, unless your goal is to prevent women from being able to make a living playing professional sports.
The thing is, we're already using a scissor for ability, just a poor one with the exact problem you describe - it renders trans women unable to make a living playing professional sports. Throwing one group under the bus for another cannot be avoided so long as sex or gender are part of sports divisions.
You are clearly out of your depth. Have you ever competed in high level sports? Please don't speak on things you know nothing about. It takes a lot of gall to tell someone 'please let go of the need for this' when they are pointing this out. I will do no such thing, but I likely will give up trying to educate you.
I won't respond further unless you pick an example sport, and propose how your "scissor for ability" would work, in concrete detail. If you do this, I will be happy to explain why this would result in neither women _nor trans women_ having any chance to make a living as professional athletes.
I have competed in reasonably high level sports, and my wife was US Masters duathlete of the year a few years ago (with me as her coach). I think you're wrong, though it's easy to see why.
Currently, with sex-based categories, a woman can be declared "the best in the world" and most people won't waste much time on the question "yeah, but could she beat the best men?" (granted, some will). They will accept that, e.g. she has the fastest time over 26.2 miles in the world right now, even though a few hundred or a few thousand men worldwide are faster.
If you use performance based metrics to create the categories (the way that road cycling does, for example, though still within gender divisions), that "title" would go away, and likely a woman would only be "the best in the world in division X", other than in (as you noted) some endurance, climbing and gymnastics sports where an elite subset of women could potentially be the best of "top" category.
It isn't completely obvious that this is a negative - how much of a change it would be would depend on a lot of other changes (or lack thereof) in how sport was organized. Certainly if it continued to focus on only the top division, then women would be shut out of most opportunities to be professional. But that's not inherent in the design. I do concede, however, that it is quite a likely outcome of such a category structure.
Let's use the present scissor and the current state of affairs, which at present excludes some women for the sake of others. Which, I'll remind you, comes with all of the problems we currently experience.
From a biological perspective, the women being banned here are not just men and as far as I'm aware cannot realistically compete in the men's division any more than any other woman. Practically these changes bar women athletes with certain medical differences from competing in the Olympics.
I'm not an expert so idk whether that's fair or not but that's what this decision is doing.
To be fair, that could be said of many other medical conditions as well, especially chromosomal abnormalities such as Down Syndrome. Many humans, from the moment they are born and through no fault of their own, have virtually no hope of ever competing in the Olympics let alone winning, just because at such competitive extremes, any significant genetic disadvantage takes you out of the running.
I'm barred from the Olympics, due to my too short legs and flat-footedness, for the high jump event.
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Like most things in biologicy, categorization is a nightmare unless you have a very specific use case in mind. In this case I'm talking about women phenotypically and socially (including self-identity) and especially athletes assigned female at birth. These women are clearly not just "males".
As far as I understand the ontology of human phenotype, it is unchanged by use of cross-sex hormone therapy.
what is your expertise in this area? fox news?
It would not be fair, because the point of having divisions is allow women to compete in a competition that is not dominated by men.
> It would not be fair, because the point of having divisions is allow women to compete in a competition that is not dominated by men.
Really, what it is is being dominated by Testosterone. Also why we ban steroid use, and many other things along the same lines.
I would suggest that most Olympians - both female and male (whatever your definition) likely have a higher than normal amount of that hormone.
I think you're falling for Sticker Swap Fallacy. The goal is to have fair match-ups in sports. Gender and sex are two possible labels to use to assist with this, but they're imperfect enough that we probably ought to not use them as the primary differentiator.
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/C7LcpRtrHiKJRoAEp/sticker-sh...
The solution is simple: class every sport like boxing.
Pick a sports-relevant metric and split into divisions. Some sports will naturally fall into gendered divisions, while others will have varying degrees of co-ed competition among competitors of similar ability.
The way out of this is not to pick a better scissor of sex or gender, it's to pick a better scissor of ability.
This "solution" can really only be proposed by someone who has not played sports. This would simply result in women being unable to compete in sports professionally, outside of a couple small niches like ultra long distance swimming and a couple sub-disciplines of gymnastics.
I do not consider that to be a good thing.
It really depends on the way classes are divided. Dismissing the general concept demonstrates a fear of change rather than a legitimate openness to fair play.
No it doesn't, and no it doesn't. Proposing this concept demonstrates a profound ignorance of what competition at the top level of sports actually looks like.
The concept is just bad, unless your goal is to prevent women from being able to make a living playing professional sports.
The thing is, we're already using a scissor for ability, just a poor one with the exact problem you describe - it renders trans women unable to make a living playing professional sports. Throwing one group under the bus for another cannot be avoided so long as sex or gender are part of sports divisions.
Please let go of the need for this.
You are clearly out of your depth. Have you ever competed in high level sports? Please don't speak on things you know nothing about. It takes a lot of gall to tell someone 'please let go of the need for this' when they are pointing this out. I will do no such thing, but I likely will give up trying to educate you.
I won't respond further unless you pick an example sport, and propose how your "scissor for ability" would work, in concrete detail. If you do this, I will be happy to explain why this would result in neither women _nor trans women_ having any chance to make a living as professional athletes.
I have competed in reasonably high level sports, and my wife was US Masters duathlete of the year a few years ago (with me as her coach). I think you're wrong, though it's easy to see why.
Currently, with sex-based categories, a woman can be declared "the best in the world" and most people won't waste much time on the question "yeah, but could she beat the best men?" (granted, some will). They will accept that, e.g. she has the fastest time over 26.2 miles in the world right now, even though a few hundred or a few thousand men worldwide are faster.
If you use performance based metrics to create the categories (the way that road cycling does, for example, though still within gender divisions), that "title" would go away, and likely a woman would only be "the best in the world in division X", other than in (as you noted) some endurance, climbing and gymnastics sports where an elite subset of women could potentially be the best of "top" category.
It isn't completely obvious that this is a negative - how much of a change it would be would depend on a lot of other changes (or lack thereof) in how sport was organized. Certainly if it continued to focus on only the top division, then women would be shut out of most opportunities to be professional. But that's not inherent in the design. I do concede, however, that it is quite a likely outcome of such a category structure.
Let's use the present scissor and the current state of affairs, which at present excludes some women for the sake of others. Which, I'll remind you, comes with all of the problems we currently experience.
Doesn’t Boxing use weight classes?
Weight classes within gender classes. Women would have no chance to compete against men of identical weight, all else equal. Men have more lean mass.
Sounds like lean mass would be the right way to structure divisions then.
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No it is not. They vote for Trump simply because they are assholes.
Considering his party plans for women as such, none of them cares about women, actually
For most of the sports there is no men's division - it's open for everyone.