Neither Thomas or Eastwood started their hormone treatments beginning with their Sophomore year in HS. A lot of kids are reluctant to transition in HS which makes competing in college just about impossible if 3 years are required. Even after hormone treatments, Thomas probably could have still competed on the mens team but Eastwood would have had 3 years of not competing. Three years seems reasonable to you but it would a non-starter from a transfer athlete’s point of view.
Who would Thomas have swam against in a transgender category? Your last sentence makes it sound like IM sports with a few NCAA athletes mixed in.
Then that means people like Thomas and Eastwood should not be allowed to compete in the women's division. Currently, we don't have any medical procedure that could reverse all the physical advantages that people like them gained from male puberty. "Inclusion" does not mean any trans individual should be able to compete in the division of their choice. It only means we don't categorically exclude all the trans individuals.
Who would Thomas compete in a transgender division? Other transgender swimmers, of course. There is not much of competition because she is so much faster than other trans swimmers? So what?
Markus Rehm won his three Paralympics titles by 79cm, 92cm and 1.02m. And that's in the global competition. I don't know how much better he is compared to the second best long jumper in Germany. He has no competition in the para sports. That does not mean he should be competing against Tentoglou.
I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make. Or you saying that 3 years of hormone treatments should be required or that transgender athletes should only compete in a separate category?
Like I said, most transgender people do not want to transition in HS. It’s not a supportive environment and competing in girls sports would only make it worse. That’s why transgender athletes have never been an issue in California even though no hormone treatments are required.
if an athlete does transition in college, under the current rules she could compete for a team 3 years out of 4 or 4 out of 5. If 3 years are required, it would be 1 out of 4 or 2 out of 5. A complete ban would be more honest.
Transgender females want to be accepted as actually being women including the right to compete in the womens division. There’s no possible compromise and if there are to be any changes to the current NCAA policies, it’s going to happen in court.
There are a dozen headlines about trans athletes on the front page. There have been endless rojo rants on his podcast and dozens of posts on the forum about it by the owners.
What is the reason to pretend that the Lia Thomas headline was the only one? It doesn't help your case to be so obviously disingenuous. If you want to win an argument on its merits, have some integrity.
You started this thread over one headline. I count 5 headlines, 4 of which directly relate to running. You seem to be supportive of the NCAA changing its transgender policy in the future. But it doesn't just "sort itself on its own," things happen because the public voices their disapproval which what people here are doing.
There were 11 on the first half of the front page day I started the this thread. I stopped counting then.
It's funny that you seem to support public voices of disapproval in one instance, but not the other.
It's very clear that the majority of LRC is sick of this transphobic nonsense. So we're voicing our disapproval. Ya dig?
I believe that all persons with DSDs deserve respect, fairness and kindness. But persons with disorders of male sex development are not female. I wish you could understand how insulting it is to girls and women and to persons with DSDs to suggest we are one and the same. So many of the same people who bang on about celebrating difference, accepting diversity and respecting people's "lived experience" sure seem intent on not applying those same principles to female people and all the male people with male DSDs you want to lump in with us and you keep trying to shoehorn into the female sex category.
I understand why you find it insulting. I don't know how many women share your view, but I will not go into there.
I don't understand why it is insulting to "people with DSD." Are you suggesting that "people with DSD" do not want to be categorized as women? How do you know that? Is there any mass survey that we can read? Have you done extensive in-person interviews? Is Dr. Katie Baratz (the first person on the Oprah show) misrepresenting other people like herself? I know some people with CAIS identify as nonbinary. (Alicia Roth Weigel is one of them.) But most of them identify as female like Dr. Baratz.
And since you think sex is binary, does that mean you think Dr. Baratz is a man? Do you think that is not insulting to her? If you do not want to recognize her as a woman, wouldn't it make more sense to accept that she belongs to a third category? Are you really treating her with "respect, fairness and kindness" by insisting that she should be recognized as a man?
I have participated in many threads about athletes with DSDs in women's competition and in sports policy generally when discussions of these topics have been warranted. As in the case of the Semenya ruling in 2019, and before and after the 2021 Tokyo Olympics. If you look at what I have posted about these topics previously, I think you will find that I am actually very knowledgable about them. So if you want to start another thread about DSDs in sport, I will happily engage with you there. But on this thread, DSDs are just a diversion.
One thing I will say is that there is no unanimity amongst people with DSDs, just as there is no unanimity or single "hive mind" amongst the various, very different groups of male and female people who today are unfortunately all lumped together as one by the acronym "LGBTQ+" and phrases such as "the LGBTQ community."
The term DSD is a catchall for more than 40 distinct medical conditions that are very different to one another, but all of which affect either male sex development or female sex development. Most of these medical conditions are sex-specific, occurring only in males or only in females. And the vast majority of people with DSDs see themselves as male or female consistent with the kinds of gonads they have.
If you look at the situation worldwide, you will find that vast majority of adults with disorders of male sex development regard themselves as males, and want to be seen as males. This is true even of most people with male DSDs who were mistakenly thought to be female at birth. The lone exception to this general rules are persons whose disorder of male sex development is CAIS - they want to be seen as women socially, legally, and for sports purposes. But at the same time, persons with CAIS, a condition that only occurs in males, know that for them to get appropriate and competent medical care it's essential that their actual sex - which is male - be acknowledged and taken into account.
Most full-grown adults with disorders of male sex development other than CAIS around the world see themselves as male and want to be recognized as males by others too. This is true even of those with male DSDs other than CAIS who were mis-sexed at birth, such as 1960s-era women's World Cup alpine ski champion Erik Schinegger (who grew up as Erika). The exception to this general rule today are a number of XY DSD teens and adults with conditions like XY 5-ARD, Caster Semenya's DSD, who grew up poor in certain countries in sub-Saharan Africa or in India and who are talented enough athletically that they have a chance of achieving success, making a good living and winning sports gold and glory by competing in women's events.
Persons like Semenya, Niyonsaba and Chand publicly claim that they believe themselves to be women and insist that others see them that way - at least, that is, "for sporting purposes" to cite the phrase used in the policy documents and court cases regarding these individuals. But off the field, many athletes known to have XY DSDs "live as men" according to the conventions of their particular cultures, and they don't seem to mind being regarded as men socially and in the contexts of their personal and intimate relationships.
As I said before, people with DSDs have asked repeatedly not to be dragged into convos about trans issues and used to prop up the spurious claims that genderists make. Contrary to what you say, human DSDs do not prove that sex is a spectrum rather an a binary, that the sex of human beings is often hard to tell at birth, and that there is so much physical overlap between the two sexes that males and females are basically the same except for our genitals, and that all male human beings have to do to become equivalent to female human beings in sports is to have testosterone below a certain level.
I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make. Or you saying that 3 years of hormone treatments should be required or that transgender athletes should only compete in a separate category?
Like I said, most transgender people do not want to transition in HS. It’s not a supportive environment and competing in girls sports would only make it worse. That’s why transgender athletes have never been an issue in California even though no hormone treatments are required.
If they do not want to go through transition in HS, then you are voluntarily giving up the opportunity to play college sports, unless your state prohibits hormone treatment on minors. (If that's the case, what you should change is the state law, not the college eligibility.) There are at least a dozens states where hormone replacement therapy is a requirement for HS trans athlete, and none of those policies have been successfully challenged in the court.
Having a separate category provides an opportunity for people who do not meet the eligibility requirement.
Contrary to what you say, human DSDs do not prove that sex is a spectrum rather an a binary, that the sex of human beings is often hard to tell at birth, and that there is so much physical overlap between the two sexes that males and females are basically the same except for our genitals, and that all male human beings have to do to become equivalent to female human beings in sports is to have testosterone below a certain level.
I did not make any of those points except the first two. (The second one depends on what "often" means.) DSD does prove that human sex is not binary. Is a person with ovotesticular syndrome a man or a woman? Is that easy to determine?
And you brushed aside people with CAIS as a small minority within persons with DSD. But since your claim is that human sex is binary, then the only conclusion is that they are men. You stated that "for them to get appropriate and competent medical care it's essential that their actual sex - which is male - be acknowledged and taken into account." Does that mean they are insulted when they are treated as women? Aside from their doctors, who else needs to know they are genetically different from other women? (Is it insulting to write "other women" instead of simply "women" because you don't believe they are women?)
Shrug. Your definition of bigotry doesn’t matter. What matters is the point I was making - that the transgender issue, like gay marriage, does indeed effect how I live. You can decide you don’t care, and that’s fine - but it is true that I was promised that would never happen, that this new social reality would have no impact on me at all. It was wrong then, and it was wrong now.
Please show me this 'promise'.
You have a personal issue with gay people getting married. That's on you. Gays getting married doesn't affect you other than triggering your own personal issues. Take some personal responsibility. Maybe seek therapy?
No, I won’t be doing that. I’ve explained several times why gay marriage and the transgender issue affects me personally, and will continue to affect me as long as I live. I do not have a personal issue with gays getting married or men competing as women. I have a theological and philosophical issue. You might disagree, and that’s your right. But those views can’t be casually dismissed by labeling them bigotry or whatever else, just to end the argument.
After many discussions with her coach, it was decided that Fahey would compete at the 2019 Missouri Valley Conference Swimming and Diving Championships on the women’s team. Even though it would have been legal for her to score points (she had completed 12 months of estrogen), Fahey was entered as an exhibition swimmer.
Too bad Thomas and her coaches did not have this kind of decency.
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