there may or may not be a right to compete, we dont need to debate that because the overwhelming fact is that noone has a right to be 'competitive'; being competitive is a mixture of genetics, assistance and hard work.
I compete, but i am not competitive, since my received genetics are poor (my uncle was a competitve xc runner, so the genes are somewhere in the fam, just not expressed in me).
same with transgenders. when they choose to transition, they choose to go into a different pool. this does not alter their right to compete, it changes their relative competitiveness; for f-m it make them uncompetitive, from m-f it makes them unfairly competitive.
and thus we have to protect women's sports. trans are not excluded from competing.
you havent mentioned in your 'solution' what changing room they use.
That's because I'm addressing racing and placing. And by bringing changing room in, you're trying to skew it. At Laguna Hills, Woodbridge, Dana Hills and Mt.SAC there were no changing rooms. I have no idea what you mean here
I’m liberal in most of my social beliefs and more conservative in my economic beliefs. However, I’ve never been able to wrap my brain around a male that transitioned to a female competing against other females. It probably has to do with me having daughters and I know how it would make me feel if they were to be beaten by a transitioned female. Oddly enough, one of my daughters said she really doesn’t care about it.
Conversely, I don’t have an issue with a female that transitioned to a male competing against other males or even females if she wished to. I also have no issue with people transitioning to whatever they want to, in general. It’s their lives, they can do what they want to and there’s no need for me to judge them.
For me the ideal solution would be to have another category for transitioned athletes. That isn’t practical or feasible, though, given the numbers.
I don't know if that belief makes a whole lot of sense. You would rather have a female-born athlete on testosterone etc compete against your daughters, than a male born athlete that didn't go through puberty and is on blockers, maybe estrogen etc if they are old enough? The former clearly has a huge advantage and would get banned for PED use if it was concealed, while the latter has a lot of scientific evidence that they don't have an enormous advantage if any (of course if they did go through male puberty it gets much more complicated)
It's a tricky subject. I think "open" that includes both mtf and ftm athletes, and "born and still remain female" categories are the fairest solution but it's not perfect. I used to be a wrestler and there were no categories, girls wrestled with boys. It worked great at young ages but in high school the differences were pretty apparent, I even wrestled someone I suspected was intersex and there was still a pretty stark difference in strength. So trans people competing in the open category would be pretty tough. But there are so many more women that it's the fairest way overall, and the more stipulations you make about subcategories, test levels, transition age etc the messier and more exclusive it ends up feeling
I don't know if that belief makes a whole lot of sense. You would rather have a female-born athlete on testosterone etc compete against your daughters, than a male born athlete that didn't go through puberty and is on blockers, maybe estrogen etc if they are old enough? The former clearly has a huge advantage and would get banned for PED use if it was concealed, while the latter has a lot of scientific evidence that they don't have an enormous advantage if any (of course if they did go through male puberty it gets much more complicated)
It's a tricky subject. I think "open" that includes both mtf and ftm athletes, and "born and still remain female" categories are the fairest solution but it's not perfect. I used to be a wrestler and there were no categories, girls wrestled with boys. It worked great at young ages but in high school the differences were pretty apparent, I even wrestled someone I suspected was intersex and there was still a pretty stark difference in strength. So trans people competing in the open category would be pretty tough. But there are so many more women that it's the fairest way overall, and the more stipulations you make about subcategories, test levels, transition age etc the messier and more exclusive it ends up feeling
It is tricky but I see his point. It's really about biology and testosterone. The best boys are faster than the best girls and the slowest girls are slower than the slowest boys.
The thing is, for high school, it's simply a matter of a boy saying that he identifies as a girl and the only thing that changes is his/her name and the way they dress/make up, etc.
But if a 19:00 boy who can't make his varsity top 7 identifies as a girl, the next time he races he can league or section champ and compete at the state level.
The tricky question is when they really transition- hormones and surgery.
At that point I DO think they typically slow down. We need more cases to know for sure.
By adding a category the typical high school invitational would have to add a race that might have only one or a very small group of runners.
Girl to boy can run with boys because she/he aren't gaining an advantage.
The thing is, for high school, it's simply a matter of a boy saying that he identifies as a girl and the only thing that changes is his/her name and the way they dress/make up, etc.
Why do you keep repeating this misinformation over and over? Does it become true if you repeat it often enough?
There are high school trans athletes who are on puberty blockers and cross hormone therapy. You don't "see" most of them because they cannot be detected by eyeball test, and most of them don't win anything important in their sports. That does not mean they don't exist.
The thing is, for high school, it's simply a matter of a boy saying that he identifies as a girl and the only thing that changes is his/her name and the way they dress/make up, etc.
Why do you keep repeating this misinformation over and over? Does it become true if you repeat it often enough?
There are high school trans athletes who are on puberty blockers and cross hormone therapy. You don't "see" most of them because they cannot be detected by eyeball test, and most of them don't win anything important in their sports. That does not mean they don't exist.
I'm not repeating misinformation. I'm repeating fact.
If there are ones who are on puberty blockers and cross hormone therapy than maybe they're not part of the problem.
But, I've been teaching in a school for over 25 years and I know what I'm talking about.
The problems here are the boy 19:00 runner who becomes the girl 19:00 runner.
If the hormones slowed them down to the equivalent girl's time no one would care.
I recall that there used to be the "Gay Games" years back. I think I had heard of them in the 1980s. I have not heard of them in a while and I am not absolutely sure, but though a person did not have to be gay to compete the competitors in whatever sport, (tennis, basketball, swimming, running, etc.), were pitted against each other like most regular sports. When it came to events such as wrestling or kick boxing (etc), people were pitted according to height and weight and experience level as well as biological sex. Sports such as track and field, competitors would compete according to biological sex (as being gay is not the same as being transgender). Of course certain events such as javelin or hammer throw and high-jump may not require height and weight requirements as it is rather inherent that people of certain sizes and weights are best suited for such events. I don't think back then a person born biologically male would be made to compete against persons born biologically female. There were transgender persons competing but I think a male-to-female flyweight boxer would be put to compete against another male-to-female flyweight boxer. This is as far as I know. I could be completely wrong. I actually did not do a lot of research about this yet. However it seems that a better solution would be to have divisions and teams and categories in which (biological) male-to-female persons would compete against other male-to-female persons; and depending on the sport, (especially body-contact types of sports like boxing and Sumo wrestling and arm wrestling and kickboxing etc) within height and weight requirements for the experience level. Also (biological) female-to-male persons likewise should be to compete against other female-to-male persons. A person born with both male and female physical or physiological or even biological characteristics (not surgically induced) should also compete against others who also have both male and female characteristics biologically, physiologically, or physically. And yes, it would be very much like the Paralympics in which (regarding one event) swimmers compete against each other and not each one is equally "handicapped" as one swimmer may be missing a right leg and another swimmier may be missing a left arm and another may be born with dwarfism and another may be missing two arms and another may be missing two legs and another may be missing one right arm and a left leg while another is missing half a left arm and half a right leg (etc). There would or could be people who have a higher testosterone level. It seems that what has to be really avoided is unfair advantage in contact sports. Also there just may be too few intersex persons to make two different teams of basketball players, or bob-sled teams or water-polo teams etc. Realistically it seems there can be no perfect "Equality" solution to this. It makes us face the fact that sadly nature has imposed a great inequality between the sexes (or genders) and for the sake of sport competition there should be great consideration for safety and fairness. Unfortunately politics can make a mess of this. I do NOT disrespect transgender persons. Theirs is a personal journey in which fate just dealt them a difficult situation. But when it comes to competitive sports we have to face some realities and it is self defeating when certain people present it as an issue of hidden discrimination or "hatred" against a very marginalized community. I know this can branch off into different "inequality" issues such as people of certain cultures or races having advantages in certain sports. But it seems that categories have to be created in the sports world for transgender and intersex persons so that they are not excluded altogether nor can they be in a category that would mean they have an unfair advantage. Notice, that this issue inherently means that the group that will most likely be disadvantaged are (biological) women and girls There is no way to make everyone happy here.
Nah. It’s mental illness and shouldn’t be encouraged or even accepted as real.
We treat hundreds of mental illnesses without batting an eye.
If we know that hormone therapy reduces suicide rates in trans people then why do you draw the line with them and not all the other illnesses people treat by shoving pills down their throats for 30 years to treat?
If its a mental illness, why are you so against treating it? Youre acknowledging they have something wrong with them, but unlike every other illness, your solution here is to ignore them?
I feel like coaches would find ways to abuse this. Like have 2 boys pace each other in a girls race where they're way ahead of the pack so they can avoid dealing with traffic. Idk, this seems like it would create loopholes for some type of cheating.
No need for a solution. Let M to F runners run as females and let F to M runners run as males. Women are so mean. I don't care if an F to M runners races me, they shouldn't care either.
If someone has transitioned, they can run with the gender that they transitioned into, but their standings will count under their biological sex.
They can see how this plays out with the transgender females first. Someone like Soren can compete with the females but the resultant 19 or so will be factored into male placing.
It seems fair.
I like that youre thinking toward a solution.
One immediate critique I have is the grey area between a rabbited race and a transgender racing against the opposite of their birth sex. I am not sure I see the actual distinction between the two roles despite the roles serving different purposes.
Second critique is the wild web of detransitioning creates. We have yet to formally open this portion of pandora's box but it's there lurking in the wild. This is why we need gender-based divisions -- even if there are 256 subsets of them -- so that like-people race like-people.
Right now the rulesets are way too loose and we are bending rules to serve and impose delusional narcissistic tendencies on to those who do not have those same tendencies. It certainly makes a mockery of the women's sports.