Martina Navratilova praises WA & proposes the perfect solution to the trans debate. Two categories - Open and biological female

Someone needs to work on his reading comprehension.

So you think only women should compete in the regular Olympics? "Open" category (for everyone else inclusing women who want to compete in them) should be in Paralympics?

Are you suggesting being male is a form of disability?

Men and women categories are just fine, no need to change them just because of transgender paranoia.

The question is where do transgender athletes belong? World Athletics did a good job of explaining who qualifies for the women's sport, allowing some transgender athletes who meet strict criteria and do not seem to have an unfair advantage. I doubt any transgender athletes who meet the new criteria will ever get to the Olympics, so I believe they have come close to solving the problem.

Those few who meet the strict WA criteria (no male puberty, low testosterone) should not be forced to compete against men because they don't belong in that category.

So in a road race with 30,000 entrants every one has to get a hormone test first rather than just check the M/F box?

That’s a dealbreaker right there and whoever is negotiating for transgender athletes will walk away from the table.

I've supported this for a while. Apart from the trans issue, I think that cis women should have the opportunity to compete with men if they choose to. This would be especially beneficial at the high school level. If there's a girl who's way better than everyone in her area and she won't get any real competition until the state meet, she should be allowed to run with the boys and learn racing tactics. Some boys might get their feelings hurt, but who cares. Might not work for every sport, but this would be very doable for track.

Obviously this solution won't satisfy the trans activist crowd, but maybe calling the category Open instead of Men's would reduce the dysphoria associated with being forced to run in the 'wrong' category.

You display surprising self knowledge with this comment.

Yes you do

I've argued with RunRagged about bathrooms and locker rooms before and deeply despise the hateful stuff the right wing culture warriors say. I believe Chris Mosier should be able to use the men's locker room, but I wouldn't be comfortable with the same rule applying to everyone who claimed transgender identity. Maybe that's logically inconsistent but I do sympathize with stuff that RunRagged has said about female only spaces. I don't think the Walmart bathroom is a sacred female space worthy of protection for the safety of females, but what about the high school girl's locker room?

I've known two MtF trans people who transitioned either right after high school or during. One of them is great. A sweet person. Lovely person. The other was an extreme creep for their entire adolescence and made other people, boys and girls but definitely girls, deeply uncomfortable. I'm not exactly sure how to reconcile my logical inconsistencies on the issue, but I would be concerned if someone like this person were allowed access to the girl's locker room.

Good article in the online National Post from Linda Blade today:
Linda Blade: International body upholds fairness for women in sport. Will Canada follow suit?

tinyurl.com

Linda Blade: International body upholds fairness for women in sport. Will Canada follow suit?

World Athletics understands that there is no way to mitigate the enormous advantage male-born transgender athletes have in women's sports

Open link

I think any trans male (FtM) person who wants to use the men's locker room should be allowed to do so. That's something RR is objecting here. She used to claim she was only interested in protecting women and girls. But now suddenly she has discovered her sympathy for men's need for their own space.

MtF person using women's locker room is a different matter.

This is the problem right here. There's no way to make a rule that handles these two types of people well, so trans activists just pretend the 2nd kind doesn't exist.

The "open" thing is so cringe.

There are two sexes. It's literally that easy.

Nowhere. It's a sickness and pathology. It shouldn't be recognized in any legal, medical, or social sense.

I recently knew two black guys. One was an absolute gem. Lovely. The other was a thug that nearly managed to rob me. I’m not exactly sure how to reconcile my anecdotal inconsistency to arrive at a satisfying character assessment of blacks.

More or less. For quite a while, chess has had an "open" division and a "women's division" in major competitions. Judit Polgar, by far the best female player of all-time, played only in "open divisions"; she was rated as highly as tenth in the world, and she disdained competition restricted to women, so she never became the women's world champion. Judit's sister Susan generally did the same thing. Hou Yifan, the second highest rated female player in the world, did win the women's world championship when she was quite young, but was later convinced that the women's world championship was a pretty empty title, and thereafter avoided competition that excluded men. A small number of other excellent players, notably Nona Gaprindashvili, have had some excellent results in open competition, but (as far as I know) have never given up on competition restricted to women. The only "trans" case I'm aware of is that of Angela (nee Tony) Alston of Texas, but she was never quite strong enough to compete at the women's national championships, so her case never was much of an issue,

TE ratios are only part of the story if someone has already gone through puberty then uses drugs to change their ratio

So who cares if boys get their feelings hurt, in order to keep trans from having their feelings hurt....oh wait ... aren’t the boys experiencing dysphoria by having girls in their race? or do we save fancy ways of saying feelings hurt for the trans community?

For something like Walmart restrooms, it's hard to separate those two people. If it is the girls' locker room at a school, they should let girls affected by the decision to vote in a secret ballot. I bet they would accept the first person and reject the second person.

If those two people are enrolled in the school simultaneously, it would be difficult to treat them differently. Even in that case, letting others vote on each person could be useful. They should discuss this issue with each person individually and explain to the first person that she cannot use the girls' locker room because the second person was voted down. The chances are that she also finds the second person creepy. If other girls show enough compassion for her, she will understand why they had to reach that decision. The second person will complain unless she gets everything she wants, so just let her complain.

Right, so if we’re following along here, you’re saying that the second person in my story should be allowed to change in a high school girls locker room. Not allowing this would be akin to a modern day Jim Crow law. Opposition to this is transphobic similar to how opposition to racial desegregation was racist. If the girls in the locker room feel uncomfortable or are made to feel uncomfortable by this person, I’m guessing they are also transphobic? Or are they just kind of unlucky in a “life isn’t fair” sorta way?

For whatever reason, that just doesn’t feel quite right to me. Maybe I’m just not evolved enough. Someone super evolved like you or a person three generations from now may not be as uncomfortable with this as it becomes the social norm. Black people had to wait like hundreds of years and even now some people still hate them, so if you think trans people are on that trajectory, good luck! At least most of you will have the benefit of being white.