Exactly. It's impossible to have both inclusion and fair play. We have to pick one, and as a parent of daughters who compete at fairly high levels it's more important to preserve the integrity of women's sports.
Exactly. It's impossible to have both inclusion and fair play. We have to pick one, and as a parent of daughters who compete at fairly high levels it's more important to preserve the integrity of women's sports.
Is there not an option to have inclusion at grassroots level and fair play as the level of competition gets higher?
Sure, I guess that's an option for youth sports in the prepubescent age groups. As a practical matter most youth sports leagues and schools aren't going to hassle with sex screening tests for little kids.
But once puberty hits everything changes. My teenage daughter played travel club volleyball on a pretty good team, and during practice they would occasionally run drills with the boys team. Even at that age the difference in hitting power and vertical was enormous, and those differences only grow larger with age. Men and women are literally playing different games. Beyond just fairness, forcing girls to compete against biological males becomes a safety risk due to concussions from taking a ball to the head.
males competing against males are also at risk by taking a ball to the head :).
I think male female trans etc . can compete if analysed by sports branch basis. Male x female in contact sports like karate boxing taekwondo is not fair. However i think the difference is negligible in shooting, archerty, curling etc.
You believe that women are genetically more susceptible to concussions than men are?
https://healthcare.utah.edu/healthfeed/2024/09/uneven-playin...
“Women tend to have thinner skulls than men, along with smaller neck muscles, which can predispose female athletes to getting a concussion,” says Sarah Menacho, MD, a neurosurgeon and neurocritical care specialist at University of Utah Health. “Data shows that women are also more likely than men to report concussion-related symptoms, and these symptoms can persist for a longer time period prior to recovery than in male athletes.”
Huh, didn't know that.
Yes. It's not a matter of belief, sex differences in concussion risk have been extensively studied.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-sports-concus...
In my experience competing in different things, that's typical: Local organizations are free to set their own local rules, but once you cross over into events that make you eligible for higher level competition they have to strictly abide by the national level rules. I couldn't use my results from grassroots competitions to qualify for national level events, generally.
It’s not even a level thing[0]. I think the physical advantages that come with male puberty are significant even at 14-15.
https://www.cbssports.com/soccer/news/a-dallas-fc-under-15-b...
So, where are the scores and scores of trans athletes dominating women's sports? If this is the sort of problem all the people crowing about it think it to be, we should have women with poorly fitting athletic gear and facial hair all over the place taking golds from ciswomen. We don't.
Like this is literally just fucking with transpeople for nothing and I am wide open for correction on this if anybody can find an actual incident of something of note happening, but until then, it's just weird reactionaries screaming into the void as far as I'm concerned, and the outcomes will be largely the same: more invasive procedures for ciswomen to endure, and excluded athletes who did nothing wrong apart from be who they are.
This is a matter of principle, fair play, and safety. Whether it's a tiny number or "scores and scores" is irrelevant.
If you're looking for specific incidents then start with this site. I can't vouch for it being completely accurate but you can use it as a starting point for further research to educate yourself about the issue.
https://www.shewon.org/
FYI - shewon is entirely self reported and does no verification. It includes events such as local town fair bean bag throwing competitions.
It also classifies a trans person winning anything as ~3 losses since "a non-trans person may have shifted the entire bracket" moving 2nd -> 1st, 3rd -> 2nd etc... The entire site is hypebole and should not be used as a serious reference lol.
> This is a matter of principle, fair play, and safety. Whether it's a tiny number or "scores and scores" is irrelevant.
What if it's 0?
> If you're looking for specific incidents then start with this site.
A deeply unbiased source, I'm sure.
Anyway I'd love to but all their archive links are the same. Looks like someone wrote a for loop incorrectly. But to be blunt, this is the exact same sort of nonsense as VAERS and deserves exactly the same dismissal: Compiled data assembled from the public with no verification, by people with no credentials, with a clear axe to grind.
Edit: Also, a SHIT LOAD of these are for second/third/whatever place, not even for wins. If reality backed the assertions made, transwomen should be DESTROYING women in sports.
There actually does have to be a lot of them, frankly, because otherwise it is just a nothingburger. Just a burger with a whole lot of nothing.
Cmon guy, you can't ask for a source and then dismiss the one provided without critically examining it.
You're complaining that it's using publicly available data? Would you rather private anecdotes?
> Also, a SHIT LOAD of these are for second/third/whatever place, not even for wins.
Not sure why this is relevant - is being cheated out of second place less of a misdeed than being cheated out of first?
Sorry part of my reply got cut off.
> What if it's 0?
It's not 0, and anyone engaging honestly knows it.
To make another vaccine analogy: claiming it's a small number and therefore it doesn't matter is identical to the people who said Covid vaccines weren't important because the disease didn't wipe out more than x% of the population.
In fact, it's because of the vaccines that this is the case.
And it's because of resistance to men in women's sports that the problem is not larger.
> Cmon guy, you can't ask for a source and then dismiss the one provided without critically examining it.
I did examine it. From the outset it looks like self-reported nonsense, hence the comparison to VAERS. Examining further, yes, it's self-reported nonsense, and also it's broken so I can't even really look into it in detail. The one example that is highlighted with sourcing is about a transwoman golfer who won ONE event. One. Looking through her win/loss record, she seems broadly pretty good, but hardly what one would expect if the narrative being pushed here is true.
> You're complaining that it's using publicly available data? Would you rather private anecdotes?
It's literally private anecdotes! Anyone can submit to that thing, the form is one click away from the homepage.
> Not sure why this is relevant - is being cheated out of second place less of a misdeed than being cheated out of first?
Of course not, but again, the narrative is that men are posing as women and competing in an unfair way based on genetic advantage. That's not a "win here and there" situation the way it's framed, that's a "women have no way to fairly compete." So why are so many transwomen still being beated by ciswomen competitors?
> It's not 0, and anyone engaging honestly knows it.
Then let's see a source! I asked for one two comments ago. Even the one on that shithoused website I can actually check the sources FOR is at best, speculative. What exactly in the male genome predisposes one in the context of GOLF for earth shattering victory?
> To make another vaccine analogy: claiming it's a small number and therefore it doesn't matter
I didn't claim it's a small number, I've claimed it's made up.
> is identical to the people who said Covid vaccines weren't important because the disease didn't wipe out more than x% of the population.
> And it's because of resistance to men in women's sports that the problem is not larger.
There are no men in women's sports, there are women in women's sports, and until you show me the source you're, respectfully, talking nonsense.
> the narrative is that men are posing as women and competing in an unfair way based on genetic advantage. That's not a "win here and there" situation the way it's framed, that's a "women have no way to fairly compete." So why are so many transwomen still being beated by ciswomen competitors?
Respectfully, you aren't ready to engage in legitimate discussion on this topic. Good faith would be steelmanning the other side, not continually referring to "the narrative" and then "defeating" it.
> There are no men in women's sports, there are women in women's sports, and until you show me the source you're, respectfully, talking nonsense.
Your consistent euphemization around this topic is another clue that you're really not engaging honestly. You should consider what you're looking to get out of this discussion.
A simple Google search will find you dozens of examples of XY individuals competing in spaces meant for XX individuals, at all levels of competition:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lia_Thomas
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurel_Hubbard
I'm not here to spoon feed you this 101 level info. Again, my advice would be to consider why you're engaging here - is it with an open and curious mind, keen on learning; or a zealous propagandist spirit?
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> More important than national security and government integrity, I'm told.
Certainly seems that way for a certain subset of voters. They'd rather lose the election than let women compete against females only.
Is it just a coincidence that all of the people pushing bills regarding women’s sports are also pushing bills to ban healthcare for and visibility of trans people?
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> They'd rather lose the election than let women compete against females only.
Fascinating political analysis. It's weird how a small group of people are deeply driven by identity politics above literally anything else, especially when those people typically aren't even slightly affected (and generally have never watched a single women's event in their life).
I sometimes wonder if people like you scream at politicians because of the introduction of the pitch clock in baseball, too? Do you waste this much energy on the rulebooks other sports come up with? Or just like, when you think it's icky sex stuff?
If you can find me some politicians, I would gladly yell at them that the DH and the pitch clock are unnatural and immoral.
But but but it's about fairness
In high school sports!
You know, that thing where the school next door is twice the size and has ten times the budget but it's totally fair! They win the championship every year because they totally have genetically superior athletes every single year! They are definitely better and there are zero possible systemic issues that could affect such a situation!
If high school sports aren't fair, then the world will end! How will we go on if little billy loses to someone he shouldn't! What if he loses to a girl!
In fact, we should make the ref blowing a call a capital offense! It's only fair!
Christ, it's so stupid. If these people cared about "fairness" for women's sports, they would be legislating more funding and support for them, not attacking random high school age people for the horrific crime of not conforming and wanting to play a low stakes game.
The point of high school sports is to get kids active and teach them cooperation and provide exposure to new things.
Ensuring that nobody with the "wrong" life can play against Beth is not even in the right universe of goals.
Alright alright alright I got it. We can get perfect fairness! Every single child born in america will be taken from their parents and put in a government run home that raises them all identically, given identical food and education and entertainment and enrichment and every single one will be given identical sports training. They will be required to complete identical exercise regimens and will have constant surveillance to ensure they aren't doing anything unapproved at any time. There, now finally our high school sports are safe! Phew, crisis averted.
Hint: They don't care about fairness in high school sports.