Testing to see if this posts . Someone started page 4 with a post meant to prevent further additions to this thread.
Testing to see if this posts . Someone started page 4 with a post meant to prevent further additions to this thread.
Other post was removed, thankfully.
why? do you think he/she would become violent (road rage?)
Honest question for the brojos of the world -- do advantages only matter to you if we're talking about someone who is trans? Michael Phelps is a genetic freak -- was it unfair to line up against him? Thomas is taking testosterone suppressants & graduates in 3 months. Are their times still behind Olympic caliber swimmers? I feel like this is a bigger deal than it needs to be because it gets used to score political points.
FightFor15 wrote:
Honest question for the brojos of the world -- do advantages only matter to you if we're talking about someone who is trans? Michael Phelps is a genetic freak -- was it unfair to line up against him? Thomas is taking testosterone suppressants & graduates in 3 months. Are their times still behind Olympic caliber swimmers? I feel like this is a bigger deal than it needs to be because it gets used to score political points.
This is stupid logic. Sports isn't a level playing ground and by nature simply can't be. It only ever could be if all humans were genetically identical and used the same equipment under the same conditions every time. How then we would ever decide a winner I have no idea. There will always be athletes (like Phelps, or Jordan, or Gretzky, or Williams) who are simply more gifted than their peers in terms of genetics and the application of them. And we can't categorize to the n'th degree and say "all athletes above 6 ft tall, with "x" percentage testosterone, with this muscle mass and this body fat, and this length of Achilles tendon" - you guys are this category and then go on doing this for all permutations because clearly is just stupid.
What sport did do was categorize and segment itself in the most simple form possible. Biologically assigned gender. Is that perfect? No - but nothing will ever be. There will always be, as mentioned above, outliers that simply become the best. There will also be outliers that don't and those without the pinnacle of physical gifts that make it by other means - that's what makes sports great. Back to the categorization - it's worked pretty well wouldn't you agree? Most sport at a competitive level is in general pretty even all things considered. Where it is not even is when you start pitching males vs females and the reasons for this are well known and I am not even going to bother discussing them (if you don't know go google it).
So in the case of Lia Thomas the advantages matter more. They matter more than Phelps and his massive lungs and flipper feet, they matter more than Usain Bolts faster twitch fibers and mass in a 6'4 body. Because despite the advantages amongst their peers which Phelps or Bolt have, nothing compares to the advantage a male has over a female.
The times of Lia Thomas compared to Olympians is irrelevant. This person is competing in the NCAA my friend and not against Olympians but young women who just want to test themselves on the most level playing ground they can have. And even if they come up short they at least have the opportunity to find out where they stand because they can participate - in this case Lia Thomas is actually hindering that participation which is the worst thing that can possibly happen.
As for politics? Why should political "point scoring" be allowed to impact the hopes and aspirations of, in this case, innocent young woman? Your points make zero sense.
Two important things in this article.
Brooke Forde says she has no problem with racing against Thomas.
FINA will announce a new policy early next month.
https://swimswam.com/stanfords-brooke-forde-says-shes-okay-with-racing-lia-thomas-at-ncaas/
Whate else is she going to say? It is pure coercion.
Another aspect of this story that has been ignored or hushed up by sports governing bodies, the admins at Penn, the Ivy League, sports journalists and the MSM but is discussed widely amongst girls, women and concerned parents is starting to come out. That aspect is the fact that a lot of female athletes - and girls and women generally - don't want to have to share locker rooms and showers with athletes like Lia Thomas because they want to be able to dress, undress and shower without being subject to "the male gaze" - and without seeing dicks and balls.
Sharing a locker room with transgender swimmer Lia Thomas has become a point of contention for some of her University of Pennsylvania teammates, who feel uncomfortable changing in the private space with someone undergoing gender transition, the DailyMail.com can reveal.
'It's definitely awkward because Lia still has male body parts and is still attracted to women,' one swimmer on the team told DailyMail.com in an exclusive interview.
Lia has told her teammates that she dates women.
While Lia covers herself with a towel sometimes, there’s a decent amount of nudity, the swimmer said. She and others have had a glimpse at her private parts.
She stated that team members have raised their concern with the coach, trying to get Thomas ousted from the female locker room, but got nowhere.
'Multiple swimmers have raised it, multiple different times,' the UPenn swimmer said. 'But we were basically told that we could not ostracize Lia by not having her in the locker room and that there's nothing we can do about it, that we basically have to roll over and accept it, or we cannot use our own locker room.'
'It's really upsetting because Lia doesn't seem to care how it makes anyone else feel,' the swimmer continued. 'The 35 of us are just supposed to accept being uncomfortable in our own space and locker room for, like, the feelings of one.'
She said UPenn's handling of the locker room issue is emblematic of the school's overall approach to the Lia Thomas controversy, with school bending over backwards to make Thomas feel welcome without seeming to care how it affects her teammates.
She stated that team members have raised their concern with the coach, trying to get Thomas ousted from the female locker room, but got nowhere.
'The school was so focused on making sure Lia was okay, and doing everything they possibly could do for her, that they didn't even think about the rest of us,' the teammate told DailyMail.com.
'It just seems like the women who built this program and the people who were here before Lia don't matter. And it's frustrating because Lia doesn't really seem to be bothered by all the attention, not at all. Actually she seems like she enjoys it. It's affected all of us way more than it's affected her.'
The school released a terse statement last month that it was offering mental health services to [female] student-athletes [distressed over the inclusion of Lia Thomas in women's swimming, and all the favoritism shown to Thomas by coaches and administrators at Penn, the Ivy League and the NCAA].
RunRagged wrote:
'Multiple swimmers have raised it, multiple different times,'
Interesting phrasing...
astro wrote:
Whate else is she going to say? It is pure coercion.
Obviously, you did not read the article. No one asked her opinion. She voluntarily issued a statement through his father. So who coerced her? Her father?
BTW, this is "what else" Forde could have said. Another Olympian speaking her mind.
https://swimswam.com/erika-brown-we-cannot-allow-transgender-females-to-compete-against-women/
But apparently, some old men on this board seem to have a problem with young women disagreeing with one another.
Looks like Thomas is really "done." USA Swimming has just released their new policy.
https://swimswam.com/usa-swimming-publishes-athlete-transgender-policy/
Today, a letter was sent on behalf of 16 female swimmers on the Penn's Women's Swimming Team to Penn administration and the Ivy League asking that they not file a lawsuit as they previously indicated they would in order to insure that Lia Thomas is able to race in the women's NCAA national championship in March.
Excerpts:
To: The University of Pennsylvania and the Ivy League
From: Nancy Hogshead-Makar, J.D., CEO of Champion Women, on behalf of 16 Members of the Penn Women’s Swimming Team and Their Families
Date: February 3, 2022
Re: We Request that Penn and the Ivy League Do Not Engage in Litigation to Alter the NCAA’s New Eligibility Guidelines for Transgender Athletes
We, 16 members of the Penn Women’s Swimming Team and our family members, thank USA Swimming, for listening to our request to prioritize fairness for biological women in our elite competitions. We ask that Penn and the Ivy League support us as biological women, and not engage in legal action with the NCAA to challenge these new Athlete Inclusion Policies.
Tuesday, USA Swimming released new “Athlete Inclusion Procedures” shortly after the NCAA acknowledged that each sport should determine how fairness and inclusion were to be accomplished. In particular, we appreciate USAS Guideline’s guiding purpose, to ensure that transgender women competing in the Female competition category “do not have an unfair advantage over their cisgender Female competitors in Elite Events.” (USAS, page 42, #6 (a))
...the biology of sex is a separate issue from someone’s gender identity. Biologically, Lia holds an unfair advantage over competition in the women’s category, as evidenced by [Lia's] rankings that have bounced from #462 as a male to #1 as a female. If [Lia] were to be eligible to compete against us, [Lia] could now break Penn, Ivy, and NCAA Women’s Swimming records; feats [Lia] could never have done as a male athlete.
The Penn Women’s Swimming Team has over 40 women, but only 18 of us are chosen to compete in the end-of-year culmination of our work: the Ivy Championships. Most important to us is that Lia’s inclusion with unfair biological advantages means that we have lost competitive opportunities. Some of us have lost records. But even those that swim different events than Lia or were not in contention to make the Ivy Championships, we stand by our teammates who have lost out. It has often felt like Penn, our school, our league, and the NCAA did not support us.
We have dedicated our lives to swimming. Most of us started the same time Lia did, as pre-teens. We have trained up to 20 hours a week, swimming miles, running and lifting weights. To be sidelined or beaten by someone competing with the strength, height, and lung capacity advantages that can only come with male puberty has been exceedingly difficult.
We have been told that if we spoke out against [Lia's]inclusion into women’s competitions, that we would be removed from the team or that we would never get a job offer. When media have tried to reach out to us, these journalists have been told that the coaches and athletes were prohibited from talking to them. We support Lia’s mental health, and we ask Penn and the Ivy League to support ours as well.
We hope that sport will adapt; that swimming will find a place for Lia to compete. Lia is always welcome to train with us; the men’s and women’s swimming teams have always trained together with the same head coach.
However, sport is competitive by definition, and Lia’s wins, records, and honors should not come at our expense, the women who have worked their entire lives to earn a spot on the Penn Women’s Swimming Team.
We just celebrated National Girls and Women in Sports Day. In honor of the Title IX pioneers who have worked so hard for women to have opportunities in sports and for educational opportunities for all women, we ask the University of Pennsylvania recognize the importance of providing fair competition and safe spaces for its biological female athletes.
Further, we ask that Penn and the Ivy League refrain from suing the NCAA, or try to interfere with or weaken these new Athlete Inclusion Policies, that they be allowed to stand, so that we are able to finish our swimming season with distinction and pride.
Reads like a forced confession from a Soviet show trial.
NVM. Thought it was the other statement I read recently. My bad.
This is a complete mess. It just pretends to solve the problem but, as RunRagged has pointed out, it just raises many problems for the future. Kicking the can down the road, yet again.
As RR says, this new “policy”:
opens up chances for a whole lot of corruption, politicking, special pleading and underhanded tactics like arm-twisting, bribing, blackmailing, smearing, rumor-mongering, intimidation and threats.
To paraphrase Josef Stalin, “it doesn’t matter who votes, what matters is who counts the votes.”
So, who gets to appoint the “panel of experts”? And what are the criteria for being an “expert”? Could it be that the “experts” are athletes who have transitioned themselves? And now, The New York Times tells us that the “experts” can be rejected by an “athletes’ advisory council,” whatever that is. A Star Chamber something like Safe Sport? Can “experts” be disqualified if they have spoken out for or against trans females in women’s sports?
In attempting to be “firm” but “equitable” USA Swimming has just stumbled yet again, resolved little, and is likely to face a mountain of protests and even lawsuits.
Glad to see RunRagged is back with her condescension as usual!
Vancomycin wrote:
Glad to see RunRagged is back with her condescension as usual!
All she did was post the letter. She didn't even pass comment about it.
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