A real question about trans athletes and records

Submitted ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨ooo@sh.itjust.works⁩ to ⁨[deleted]⁩

It’s almost time to delete my account so I am sticking my neck out to potentially getting blasted.

I will preface by stating that gender identity is not an issue for me. Be who you want, use whatever bathroom you want. Just wash your hands/paws/tentacles.

My ignorant question is: for transgender athletes in competitive sports, should records be categorized differently or asterisked? Isn’t it kind of like using performance-enhancing drugs?

I don’t mind about actually competing, however if someone had 5-10 years of hormonal growth advantage during puberty, even if they no longer have that advantage, it seems like a big gray area. Yes, someone could naturally have that chemical makeup. Similarly, some exceptionally elite athletes have genetic variations that give them natural physical advantage.

When I was in school I was decent at swimming, in the top 5% of men. If I competed against women I would be like top 0.01% and making a career out of it. Though, if I started setting records I don’t know how I’d feel about it, given my advantage.

Honestly, writing these thoughts down is giving me some existential dread. What does it mean to be human, and why? Does anything even really matter?

I hope everyone has a nice day and is kind to each other.

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TheAlbatross@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
The “issue” seems moot to me, personally. Between the facts that no one is transitioning in order get an upper hand in the sports world and that there are plenty of documented incidents of cis women athletes being falsely flagged as trans women due to their high testosterone levels… I just don’t think it really matters. It isn’t like there are record breaking trans women dominating the sports world. This “issue” mostly feels like an overt attack on trans people in general than genuine concern over the alleged purity of sport.

The people spearheading these attacks on trans people aren’t interested in some nebulous notion of sports integrity, they simply want to further denigrate and attack an already maligned minority. They are concern trolling on a national scale and that I find deplorable and transparent.

I might be biased here, as I really couldn’t care less about some Olympic notion of athletic purity, the idea itself feels somewhat eugenic adjacent, but I also think the impact of accepting trans women in sports is ultimately very minimal on the sport world, but huge for the progress of trans rights, something that I think is very important, especially in this day and age.

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- shalafi@lemmy.world ⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  The question is fair, but so very few people are affected, who cares? Yes, I can care about more than one thing at a time, but using trans athletes as a political football (heh) is ludicrous. And yes, I know it counts for the people involved, I’m not a total ass.
  
  I’ll never find it again, but recently someone tallied how many times this came up on Fox News over the course of a single week. I think it was 100+ if not 150?
  
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  - damnedfurry@lemmy.world ⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    
    The question is fair, but so very few people are affected, who cares?
    
    The vast majority of people are never murdered, either. But I’m sure it matters to them and their loved ones.
    
    It’s an extreme example for the analogy, but the point stands: it doesn’t follow that a bad thing being rare makes it less bad. This is not a valid argument against.
    
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Nougat@fedia.io ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
It's not even a real issue. The number of trans athletes is extremely small, and none of them are out there setting crazy records.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgender_people_in_sports

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- damnedfurry@lemmy.world ⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  
  The fact that the University of Pennsylvania swimmer [Lia Thomas] soared from a mid-500s ranking (554th in the 200 freestyle; all divisions) in men’s competition to one of the top-ranked swimmers in women’s competition tells the story
  
  In the 100 freestyle, Thomas’ best time prior to her transition was 47.15. At the NCAA Championships, she posted a prelims time in the event of 47.37. That time reflects minimal mitigation of her male-puberty advantage.
  
  During the last season Thomas competed as a member of the Penn men’s team, which was 2018-19, she ranked 554th in the 200 freestyle, 65th in the 500 freestyle and 32nd in the 1650 freestyle. As her career at Penn wrapped, she moved to fifth, first and eighth in those respective events on the women’s deck.
  
  It may not be an issue to you, but it’s an issue to every woman whose ranking is lower as a result. I imagine it especially hurts if you’re pushed out of first place in that way.
  
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  - EponymousBosh@awful.systems ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Wow, the 200m freestyle, the 500m freestyle, and the 1650m freestyle, huh? Did she ever compete in anything else, or were those numbers perhaps cherry-picked to make the situation look more dramatic than it actually is? Because if you look at her results holistically, she’s a very good swimmer, but she’s clearly not dominating 100% of the time the way she’s been portrayed.
    
    At the NCAA competition where Thomas won one (1) race that conservatives cried and shit their pants over, a cis woman named Kate Douglass set 18 new records. Lia Thomas set zero new records. And crunching the rest of the numbers bears this out: she was a good swimmer before and after transition, but she’s not some unbeatable powerhouse that cis women have no chance at winning against.
    
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  - Walk_blesseD@piefed.blahaj.zone ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    
    It may not be an issue to you, but it's an issue to every woman whose ranking is lower as a result.
    
    Really? "Every"? You asked every single one of them, did you? Or are you just talking out your arse on the behalf of hundreds of people you don't even know?
    
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DomeGuy@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
No, we absolutely should not mark the records of known transgender athletes in any way. Because once you start down that road you wind up asterisking cisgender athletes whose development is outside the norm.

We could get into a long discussion of transgender persons who do or do not undergo HRT, or how there are already rules against transgender women competing professionally if they aren’t on HRT, or whether or not such rules or gendered sports at all are justifiable.

But all of that is just a distraction. The elite in any competitive sport are ALREADY several orders of magnitude beyond the norm, to the point where any advantage a trans woman might have for going through male puberty is essentially a wash with “are you just naturally well-formed for this sport”.

It’s worth noting, by the way, that there ISNT broadly an athletic benefit to having gone through wrong-gender puberty before medically transitioning. Plenty of athletes have done exactly that, and as far as I know exactly none of them wound up being relatively better among their true gender peers post-HRT than their standing among birth-gendeR peers pre-HRT.

And there have been more instances of cisgender women being wrongly accused of being trans than there are transgender women athletes at all.

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- foggy@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  I tend to agree but it’s an interesting angle.
  
  Like, were not about to tell NASCAR fans that Dale Earnheart Jr needs asterisks because, you know, his dad. He had quite the leg up!
  
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  - bizzle@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    I’m not trying to shit on Dale Jr by any means the man is a legend but he did not win two Indy 500s, he won two Daytona 500s. Indycar racing is a completely different sport, it’s like comparing hockey and fútbol.
    
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Yawweee877h444@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
I will maybe get destroyed for this comment, as I have in the past, but oh well…

The trans in sports topic shouldn’t be considered this binary issue that defines your political alignment or morals.

It undeniably seems more complicated than some make it out to be. Use silly over exaggerated examples: if a man becomes a steroid popping powerlifter professionally, then decides to transition to being a woman, should he then be allowed to compete in women’s powerlifting competitions? Over exaggeration, but there’s a point isn’t there? I don’t really know, but it seems like in this thought experiment, she would easily beat out all other competitors. Insert any other sport where men dominate over women due to biology. Is this a bad way to think? If so, why? You made the example in swimming.

I will forever support and vote politically to protect all minorities, including the LGBT community. I will always reject bigotry. But saying this is not a complicated issue, just doesn’t seem right. And questioning it in this way, doesn’t make me a bigot. Let trans athletes compete in any sport? Categorize them differently? I don’t know, Im not sure it’s that easy.

At the end of the day, this stuff really is a distraction that creates infighting to shift focus away from more important things. The oligarchy likes this distraction because we’re not talking about how they’re exploiting all of us. This is the kind of thing where I say “I honestly don’t know, but why aren’t we taxing the billionaires?”

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- shalafi@lemmy.world ⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Thank you so very much. Yes, it’s a tough question. No, the question in and of itself does not imply hate. Yes, it’s been used as a political football.
  
  And the dumbest part? There are so very few trans athletes, and let’s be real, we’re only talking about MTF trans athletes. Nobody gives a flying fuck if FTM trans folks get whipped at a competition.
  
  “Our state has proudly passed a law banning the 3 MTF kids in the entire fucking state!” 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
  
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Hegar@fedia.io ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
My understanding is that there is absolutely no evidence that trans women have an advantage. Once hormone therapy has been going for a while performance shows no statistical difference from women assigned female at birth.

Additionally the number of trans athletes is incredibly small.

I've heard that the greatest correlation with Olympic medal tally is the amount of state funding for sports and sport sciences. If we're going to asterisk any records, it should probably be for everyone from wealthy countries.

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- null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  That’s a really salient point - there are a lot of other impediments to “fairness” which are much more relevant.
  
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  - Hegar@fedia.io ⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Yep, the "fairness" argument is a transparent figleaf for intentional persecution.
    
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- damnedfurry@lemmy.world ⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  
  My understanding is that there is absolutely no evidence that trans women have an advantage.
  
  Going from 554th place pre-transition to 5th place post-transition doesn’t line up with that claim.
  
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  - Hegar@fedia.io ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Your link is just to this post, but after searching I believe you're talking about Lia Thomas. That's a single example so not necessarily representative.
    
    "FACT: Trans athletes do not have an unfair advantage in sports.”
    
    https://www.aclu.org/news/lgbtq-rights/four-myths-about-trans-athletes-debunked
    
    "After one year of hormone therapy, trans women performed better in sports than cis women. After two years, their performance was largely equalized.”
    
    https://www.dw.com/en/do-trans-women-have-an-unfair-athletic-advantage/a-58583988
    
    "...finding that trans women athletes are at a relative disadvantage in many key physical areas relating to athletic ability... than their cisgender counterparts."
    
    https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/olympic-trans-women-ioc-study-rcna148437
    
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- FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  
  My understanding is that there is absolutely no evidence that trans women have an advantage.
  
  Your understanding is very incorrect.
  
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  - Walk_blesseD@piefed.blahaj.zone ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Lol back up your refutation with some facts, bozo
    
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Mac@mander.xyz ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
I don’t speak for trans people or make any decisions but here’s my thoughts:

No, because the people who hold records are already freaks of nature. The common example is Phelps who is biologically built different.
Or cyclists with a VO2 max that is literally unattainable by normies.
Or quarterbacks with vision better than everyone else.
Or, or, or

We’re already allowing people with unfair advantages to win everything, why would allowing trans people to compete suddenly change things—especially when they aren’t even winning everything?

You know what I’m fine with? A playerbase that is regulated to only accept those who are biologically average.
Them’s some sports i might actually watch, tell yew whut

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- Witchfire@lemmy.world ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  I’ll add, as a trans person with the athleticism of a rock, about 75% of the sports debate is coming from transphobes. The proof of this is that they’re fighting to get trans people banned from darts and chess
  
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  - FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    
    about 75% of the sports debate is coming from transphobes.
    
    Not everyone you disagree with is a “transphobe”. In fact, I don’t think there’s a single person in the world who has an “intense and overwhelming fear” of trans people. Most just want them to stay out of the opposite sex’s spaces.
    
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Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
So, as an elder Millennial, the whole trans thing was foreign to me, and still is to many people my age. We just didn’t talk about it like we do now, and when we did, it was always a joke, so the idea made us uncomfortable. I’m saying it’s right, I’m saying that’s where a lot of people my age and older were raised on.

My default response to this was to agree that men should not play women’s sports.

It was a Reddit conversation that made me change my mind. One person had said If we are banning people who were born with a penis from women’s sports because they were born with an unfair advantage over other competitors, why aren’t we banning people over 6.5’ tall from the NBA? They were clearly born with an advantage that the rest of us don’t have. Some people are born smarter, faster, stronger than others, that’s just the way it is. There are a disproportionate number of black professional athletes, is that evidence that they were all born with an advantage? Would nearly as many people agree with banning black athletes from professional sports because of this apparent advantage? Of course not. They would call it out as a blatant hate crime, which is exactly what they are doing with trans people.

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- FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  
  One person had said If we are banning people who were born with a penis from women’s sports because they were born with an unfair advantage over other competitors, why aren’t we banning people over 6.5’ tall from the NBA?
  
  Because womens sport divisions and leagues were specifically created because women physically cannot compete at the same level as men. Biologically they’re built differently - they’re not as strong, as fast, as tall, etc.
  
  What you’re saying is “why even have womens divisions at all?”. If that’s what you want then fair enough, but just know that it basically eliminates female athletes altogether apart from a few select sports like gymnastics.
  
  No one is calling to BAN trans people from sport - just to have them compete with others of their SEX, not their self identified “gender identity”. That’s not a “hate crime”, that’s just fairness in sport.
  
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  - SkyezOpen@lemmy.world ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    After 2 years HRT, any advantages a trans woman may have had are statistically gone. Most sports require 2 years of HRT to compete in the women’s category.
    
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  - Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world ⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Women actually aren’t as inferior to men as you seem to think.
    
    You pick any female athlete. I’ll challenge her at her preferred sport, and I’ll bet against myself 99/100 times.
    
    Anyone who’s going through transition would have far less testosterone than I, and what I have isn’t going to help me beat a female athlete.
    
    What it’s really doing is dehumanizing people. How would you feel if you tried out for a team and they said YOU had to play on the other genders team? No matter what you said, you could not convince them that you were what you know you are. Would you still play? No, you’d do exactly what they want you to do, just go away. Stay out of our sight because you’re strange and you don’t belong here.
    
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  - Azzu@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    The question is, what really is different between a woman or a short man in basketball? Both can not compete because of their genetics.
    
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- Feathercrown@lemmy.world ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  I think that argument only really works well if you eliminate gender categories entirely
  
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- FireRetardant@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  Did you mean to say “I’m not saying it’s right,…” at the end of your first paragraph?
  
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  - Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    Oh shit. 🤦🏻‍♂️ Thanks. Better fix that.
    
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dhork@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Every organized sport has some sort of governing body, and that body is concerned with making sure competition is fair. (And taking bribes, right, FIFA?) The people who organize the sport should be able to determine what is fair for their sport. Often, there will be some scientific basis for allowing some people and not allowing others, based on hormones or something like that.

The decisions should be made by people who know the sport and decide what fair competition might look like, not by asshole politicians looking to push an agenda.

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- FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  
  The decisions should be made by people who know the sport and decide what fair competition might look like, not by asshole politicians looking to push an agenda.
  
  So they should be able to do whites only competitions?
  
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  - barooboodoo@lemmy.zip ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
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gnuplusmatt@reddthat.com ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Not an expert, but have read news long enough to notice a few things get overlooked

there are cases where it would be a disadvantage. If the athlete went through full male puberty their skeleton is going to be larger and heavier than someone who went through female puberty, after enough time at typical female hormone levels muscle mass generally decrease to be inline with cis women. On the otherside of the coin, more recent transwomen may not have gone through male puberty due to the use of blockers.

People also tend to focus on transwomen, but conceivably there are sports where transmen might be at an advantage, where a typically lighter smaller frame may be a win. There are also so few trans people competing at a competitive level that as someone who lives outside the american culture wars and tends not to give a shit about sport, it always seems like an such a waste of effort to make a drama out of it

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- FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  
  after enough time at typical female hormone levels muscle mass generally decrease to be inline with cis women.
  
  Muscle mass != strength though. Also someone that is physically larger isn’t going to have their muscle mass shrink to that of someone that is a foot shorter.
  
  but conceivably there are sports where transmen might be at an advantage, where a typically lighter smaller frame may be a win.
  
  The complete abscense of trans men in male sports competitions says this isn’t a thing.
  
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  - gnuplusmatt@reddthat.com ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Weight and height classes exist
    
    The near absence of trans people in sport, tends to indicate this really isn’t much a of a thing to begin with
    
    hyperbole much?
    
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Canconda@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
In all honestly I don’t think amateur sports records matter and the people who say it does are only pretending to care about it to push their worldview.

I’ll buy “Sanctity of Sport” arguments when pro ports stops being a blatant gambling, alcohol, and exploitation ring. Nevermind the fact that PED use is prolific at the top levels of sport.

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- dylanmorgan@slrpnk.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  I agree, and the ways in which it could materially matter (in the US, admission to and/or scholarships for better universities, for example) should be mitigated by making things like education available to all.
  
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FalseTautology@lemmy.zip ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Lol giving a fucking shit about fucking sports records as the world burns around you. Cool priorities. All this shit is stupid smoke and mirrors nonsense distracting you from the many actual problems we are facing. Wasting a single micro second on these concerns is a fucking crime against humanity. A) sports are fucking dumb and B) we are at the precipice of the end of the world stop worrying about something as asinine as world records and maybe worry about something that fucking matters. JFC.

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- SereneSadie@lemmy.myserv.one ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Its the thin end of the wedge in the regressive plan to exterminate the trans community.
  
  So go fuck yourself, this literally is life or death for a fair number of people.
  
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  - mojofrododojo@lemmy.world ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    I think you can despise organized athletics and still support transfolk.
    
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- FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Yet here you are, thinking about it and telling people off.
  
  Believe it or not, human beings can think about and care about lots of different things concurrently.
  
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iii@mander.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

Honestly, writing these thoughts down is giving me some existential dread. What does it mean to be human, and why?

Ha. You got to the core of the issue, my friend!

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HubertManne@piefed.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
The only way I see things working out is to get rid of seperations. Its just Bathrooms with floor to ceiling stalls or just multiple single person bathrooms, sports just have multiple leagues based on ability.

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- BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Locker rooms aren’t the only issue with trans athletes. Most of the real debate is about having people who lived half their lives as men, having a distinct athletic advantage over women.
  
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  - HubertManne@piefed.social ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    thats the multiple leagues. not mens and womens but just leagues and you move up and down like baseball but maybe with more.
    
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independantiste@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
categorizing sports between women and men separately always seemed weird to me. Why is it not a global ranking? A global ELO system that makes sure every athlete fights other athletes in the same ELO range, doesn’t matter man woman because it’s based on performance/skill instead.

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- FireRetardant@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  Men would still on average out perform women in most categories, making it very difficult for women to get to the top of the chart. High ELOs would almost exclussively be men and thats where the media focus and attention would be on, drowing out some of the top women atheletes in lower ELOs. In a system where the highest ELO wins a medal or something i think it would be less fair than having gendered ELOs. Something like amateur or beer league sports might benefit more from genderless ELO but i think it would be controversial for pro athletes.
  
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- FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  That’s precisely why we have sports separated by sex now though - because otherwise it’s all men up the top and all the women down the bottom.
  
  Would you be ok with, for example, mixed sex boxing or mma?
  
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DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
I personally don’t think sports should be gendered, or bathroom for that matter.

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FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au ⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
The best examples you will ever see of why people should only compete in sports against people of their sex are when there have been mixed competitions. Lets take the recent olympics for example.

In the swimming they had a mixed medley relay event. 2 males, 2 females on each team. In the first leg of the final, backstroke, 4 teams chose a male to swim and 4 chose a female. Can you guess which 4 are the females?

Image

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- Walk_blesseD@piefed.blahaj.zone ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Oi mate, you might wanna read the post again. You do understand that it's about trans women competing in women's sports, not about cis men competing in women's sports, right…? Because those aren't the same.
  There's far more overlap between the physiolgical characteristics of transsexual females and cissexual females than there is between transsexual females and cissexual males, so by categorically conflating trans females with males you're really just showing off that you know sweet fuck all about this issue.
  
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  - FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    
    You do understand that it’s about trans women competing in women’s sports, not about cis men competing in women’s sports, right…? Because those aren’t the same.
    
    I’m sorry but they are the same thing. Trans women are biologically male, and being biologically male means that they have physical attributes that give them advantages over women - everything from height to wingspan to lung capacity to the shape of their hips gives them an advantage that no amount of testosterone blockers or oestrogen shots can take away.
    
    There’s far more overlap between the physiolgical characteristics of transsexual females and cissexual females than there is between transsexual females and cissexual males
    
    This is just flat out unquestionably incorrect.
    
    so by categorically conflating trans females with males you’re really just showing off that you know sweet fuck all about this issue.
    
    Trans women are males - that’s where the TRANS part of “trans women” comes from. You’re getting your terminology mixed up by the way - Female and Male are the sexes, not genders. You can’t change sex - it is physically and biologically impossible in the human race. There are no “trans females” or “trans males”, only trans women and trans men.
    
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molten@lemmy.world ⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Good question. I just don’t give enough of a shit about sports to have an opinion here. Especially a negative one. Not only that but I’ve literally seen no trans athletes perform in a televised physical sport ever. So they should go for it and if it’s like a clear difference. Idk. Address it then.

I see a lot of people in my town talk mad shit about trans people and immigrants when the extent of their experience outside of media is seeing them one day living life and doing nothing disruptive. This issue always feels the same. Like if a ton of immigrants showed up and started doing… something bad? Fill in the blank here. I think that would be the time to deal with it and have strong opinions that could negatively impact them.

I think having a strong positive opinion that doesn’t negatively impact people is great but when it comes to excluding people or hurting people let’s see the damage they deal first.

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- FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  
  So they should go for it and if it’s like a clear difference. Idk. Address it then.
  
  This is what’s happening, and this is why trans women are being banned from competing in womens sports more and more the world over. Watching a alleged man beat up women with ease in the olympic boxing seems to have been the tipping point for most people that were still on the fence.
  
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  - molten@lemmy.world ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Yeah I mean, I see what you’re saying, but isolated incidents don’t really make a good basis for decisions. It seems like on some cursory research that there are just a handful of trans athletes across all of college athletics (like less than 10/500000) and they’re not exactly record breakers. I’m no data analyst but that’s a pretty awful sample size if we’re talking about. Your boxing example seems like a good argument to take these on a case-by-case basis in case someone against all odds is trying to game the system until there are enough examples to make it clear that there’s a problem.
    
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xePBMg9@lemmynsfw.com ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
We play sports for fun. Let whoever organizes the event decide.

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- FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  
  We play sports for fun. Let whoever organizes the event decide.
  
  This completely ignores competitive sport.
  
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  - blarghly@lemmy.world ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    The organizing body for the competitive sport can decide
    
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allo@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
also there are lots of sports where tall girls have an unfair advantage over short girls. so tall girls should be marked by a symbol. /s

also tho i personally play videogames as my sports so the whole segregation based on gender generally feels outdated to me so i don’t really care the specifics within it. like when im pwning some noob in wildrift they could be a boy or a girl or something else entirely. i cant even imagine caring strongly about which they are

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- shalafi@lemmy.world ⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  That has nothing to do with the reality of men being biologically stronger than women.
  
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  - allo@sh.itjust.works ⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    imagine short girl loves volleyball hears news.
    
    other players yell “hooray now physical male cant play vs girl”
    
    nothing changes for short girl
    
    she still lose
    
    did gender as the basis for grouping sports rlly make things fair in the first place?
    
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  - allo@sh.itjust.works ⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    it also doesnt have to do with tall girls having biological advantage over short girls.
    
    oh oops actually it did
    
    rlly tho it has nothing to do with spaghetti
    
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Artisian@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
We should remember the stories with the records; each is unique and interesting and tells us one way a person did something incredible. But I don’t see the value of starring specifically the stories involving trans folks. I wouldn’t expect us to put an asterisk next to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanisława_Walasiewicz , and indeed we do not: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/100_metres_at_the_Olympics#…

I imagine you would indeed feel weird if you were to have transitioned into women’s swimming, especially if you are not a woman. It would certainly be a story; in fact, it would probably be the only story about you, crowding out any physical achievements. That’s a big part of why this isn’t really seen. Personally, it makes me think about why we want gender divided sports to begin with.

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jeena@piefed.jeena.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Why didn't you compete with women? Why didn't you make a colareer out of it?

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- AmidFuror@fedia.io ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  One reason would be that he would have been barred from entering the contests.
  
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