So, can trans men--birth females who have done various things to their bodies and now ID as "men"--participate in women's sports? They're females, after all.
This seems like the most obvious question of all. If you're banning "trans women"--birth males--from women's sports, surely you can't ALSO ban "trans men"--birth females--from women's sports.
So, can trans men--birth females who have done various things to their bodies and now ID as "men"--participate in women's sports? They're females, after all.
This seems like the most obvious question of all. If you're banning "trans women"--birth males--from women's sports, surely you can't ALSO ban "trans men"--birth females--from women's sports.
Here's the relevant language from the House bill:
It shall be a violation of subsection (a) for a recipient of Federal financial assistance who operates, sponsors, or facilitates athletic programs or activities to permit a person whose sex is male to participate in an athletic program or activity that is designated for women or girls. “(2) For the purposes of this subsection, sex shall be recognized based solely on a person’s reproductive biology and genetics at birth.
This strongly suggests that if your sex is female and you ID as a trans man (pre-op or post-op), you can participate in women's sports. This could make for some interesting protests.
Just for the record, here's the full text of the 2025 bill that was just passed.
To amend the Education Amendments of 1972 to provide that for purposes of determining compliance with title IX of such Act in athletics, sex shall be recognized based solely on a person’s reproductive biology and genetics at birth. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, SECTION 1. Short title. This Act may be cited as the “Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act of 2025”. SEC. 2. Amendment. Section 901 of the Education Amendments of 1972 (20 U.S.C. 1681) is amended by adding at the end the following: “(d) (1) It shall be a violation of subsection (a) for a recipient of Federal financial assistance who operates, sponsors, or facilitates an athletic program or activity to permit a person whose sex is male to participate in an athletic program or activity that is designated for women or girls. “(2) For the purposes of this subsection, sex shall be recognized based solely on a person’s reproductive biology and genetics at birth. “(3) For the purposes of this subsection, the term ‘athletic programs and activities’ includes, but is not limited to, all programs or activities that are provided conditional upon participation with any athletic team. “(4) Nothing in this subsection shall be construed to prohibit a recipient from permitting males to train or practice with an athletic program or activity that is designated for women or girls so long as no female is deprived of a roster spot on a team or sport, opportunity to participate in a practice or competition, scholarship, admission to an educational institution, or any other benefit that accompanies participating in the athletic program or activity. “(5) The Comptroller General shall carry out a study to determine the meaning of the phrase ‘any other benefit’ as used in paragraph (4) by looking at benefits to women or girls of participating in single sex sports that would be lost by allowing males to participate. The study shall document the adverse psychological, developmental, participatory, and sociological results to girls of allowing males to compete, be members of a sports team, or participants in athletic programs, that are designed for girls, including displacement or discouragement from sports participation, deprivation of a roster spot on a team or sport, loss of the opportunity to participate in a practice or competition, loss of a scholarship or scholarship opportunities, loss or displacement of admission to an educational institution, deprivation of the benefit of an environment free of hostility based on sexual assault or harassment, or loss of any other benefit that accompanies participating in the athletics program or activity. Further, the Comptroller General shall submit to the Committee on Education and Workforce of the House of Representatives and the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions of the Senate a report that contains the results of such study.”.
No, I didn't refuse to answer. I've never said that the only factor involved in accurately determining a person's sex is a genital exam. You and others who oppose this law and any other measures meant to exclude males from female sports are the ones who keep bringing up genital exams, not me and women on my side of this issue.
On this thread, you're the one who keeps trying to give the false impression that in cases of DSDs, a person's sex is determined based solely on the appearance of their outer genitals and nothing else.
My position is that when an individual's sex is in question, their entire health history over the course of their whole life - and numerous different physical aspects of sex such as their genetics, their internal organs, their gonadal sex hormones, and other hormones such as GnRH secreted by the hyopthalamus the pituitary hormones LH and FSH - are taken into account.
The fact that Alicia Weigel is a genetic male with a DSD that only males can have would be easy to determine by Weigel's health history and a full physical.
Most girls start menstruating in middle school; median and average age is 12. But Weigel has never had a single menstrual period. That's a big tell.
Given that Weigel is now 35, if Weigel were female Weigel would have started menstruating at least 20 years ago - and Weigel would have been dealing with periods and the issues related to periods and the female hormone cycle for at least two decades now. Instead, Weigel has dealt with none of that - not even once just for a second.
Because you don't seem to know much of anything about female health and female experiences of going to doctors/HCPs, you seem totally in the dark about how vanishingly rare it is for someone who is female to reach their late teens without ever having had a single menstrual period. Indeed, it's extremely rare for someone female even at 14 and 15.
A person who outwardly looks female the way XY persons with CAIS do will inevitably get "found out" as not female because they never start menstruating. When people who are thought to be female reach their mid-teens without going through menarche, it's a red flag that something is wrong. If they have access to modern medical care, they will be be sent for medical evaluations to determine why they've missed the most significant milestone event of female adolescence.
When someone with undiagnosed CAIS or PAIS, another undiagnosed XY DSD - or an undiagnosed female health condition like Turner syndrome or premature ovarian failure - gets further medical evaluations to figure out why they've reached their mid or late teens without going through menarche, they will undergo genetic sex testing, hormone testing, imaging of the internal organs and a thorough physical exam from head to toe performed in a "hands on" way by a gynecologist, including the close inspection of the outer genitals and the internal exam known colloquialy as a "full pelvic." All of which will enable the HCPs involved to determine with certainty whether a teenage patient in this sort of scenario actually is male or female.
In fact, if a the person being examined has a male DSD including CAIS, the gynecologist will find early on that doing a a "full pelvic" in the normal and customary way is not possible. Because for a full pelvic gynecological exam to be done in the normal way, it's necessary for the person being examined to have a full-length vagina that can accommodate a speculum and is connected to a cervix and uterus at the far end, and which the HCP can reach into with his her/his hand in order to palpate the Fallopian tubes and ovaries. That's not possible in the case of individuals with CAIS, because they only have the bottom two-thirds of a vagina. Their vagina has a blind ending as well, because they don't have a cervix or uterus. And they don't have any Fallopian tubes or ovaries either.
Another lengthy post that does not address the question I asked.
Did Alicia compete in the wrong category when she was a varsity rower in high school? Was she a "cheater"?
I have no idea what rules Alicia Weigel competed under as a rower in high school.
But in most settings that I am aware of, athletes with CAIS have been allowed to compete in girls' and women's sports for decades without any restriction and no one has made a fuss about it.
I personally have played women's tennis against someone with CAIS since I was in college - which was before the brouhaha over Maria Jose Martinez Patino broke out.
Most women that I know who've given the topic any thought have always been willing to make an exception for XY athletes with CAIS, even though some of us believe that some XY CAIS athletes have an unfair advantage - in part because we suspect that more than a few of them might not have fullblown CAIS as is claimed.
But that aside, even amongst the hardliners like me, the widely-held view has long been that a loophole should be made allowing XY people who truly do have CAIS to compete in the female category so long as XY people with all the other male DSDs that confer much more obvious male advantage like PAIS and XY 5-ARD can be kept out.
However, that's not good enough for the genderists and male supremacists who get their jollies calling out women like me and slagging us off as bigots, haters, meanies, crackpots, Nazis, fascists, fetishists, phobes and all the rest because we dare to say aloud and in no uncertain terms that we want to use sex-based criteria and sex testing to insure fairness and safety for people who are female.
From reading your own posts on LRC over the years, I get the strong sense that you personally keep on trotting out XY persons with CAIS like Alice Weigel because to you they're convienent props you can easily weaponize and use as battering rams in your campaign to insure that women and girls (the female kind) won't be allowed to draw any sex boundaries at all to keep males out of our sports and spaces.
Another lengthy post that does not address the question I asked.
Did Alicia compete in the wrong category when she was a varsity rower in high school? Was she a "cheater"?
I have no idea what rules Alicia Weigel competed under as a rower in high school.
But in most settings that I am aware of, athletes with CAIS have been allowed to compete in girls' and women's sports for decades without any restriction and no one has made a fuss about it.
I personally have played women's tennis against someone with CAIS since I was in college - which was before the brouhaha over Maria Jose Martinez Patino broke out.
Most women that I know who've given the topic any thought have always been willing to make an exception for XY athletes with CAIS, even though some of us believe that some XY CAIS athletes have an unfair advantage - in part because we suspect that more than a few of them might not have fullblown CAIS as is claimed.
But that aside, even amongst the hardliners like me, the widely-held view has long been that a loophole should be made allowing XY people who truly do have CAIS to compete in the female category so long as XY people with all the other male DSDs that confer much more obvious male advantage like PAIS and XY 5-ARD can be kept out.
However, that's not good enough for the genderists and male supremacists who get their jollies calling out women like me and slagging us off as bigots, haters, meanies, crackpots, Nazis, fascists, fetishists, phobes and all the rest because we dare to say aloud and in no uncertain terms that we want to use sex-based criteria and sex testing to insure fairness and safety for people who are female.
From reading your own posts on LRC over the years, I get the strong sense that you personally keep on trotting out XY persons with CAIS like Alice Weigel because to you they're convienent props you can easily weaponize and use as battering rams in your campaign to insure that women and girls (the female kind) won't be allowed to draw any sex boundaries at all to keep males out of our sports and spaces.
Sense when do you care about rules? I have not broken any rules, and yet you have claimed me a cheater (one time in particular is when you pointed out that your he cheated website does not include myself and used that as evidence as to the list not being complete.)
You say that you would make an exception for women with CAIS. But which intersex conditions will you 'make an exception for'? I asked this a while ago, and to my knowledge you have not yet answered. Please, list the intersex conditions that you believe should be should be eligible to compete in women's sports.
And I think that it is very ironic that you complain about being called "bigots, haters, meanies, crackpots, Nazis, fascists, fetishists, phobes" and yet in the very same sentence you call us "genderists and male supremacists." You have also called us (as in trans/intersex athletes) cheaters. Others call us (as in people who support trans inclusion) idiots, mentally ill, dems, white supremacists, libs, or a large number of other terms meant to be insulting. People of either belief has done terrible things to the other. But until both groups stop, you can't complain, especially if you yourself frequently partake in these cruelties.
wait seriously can someone explain this please? genuine question
i played every sport going for every year of high school, and tennis for a club.
no one ever examined my genitals, or anyone elses I know
You are subject to a physical examination, however to my knowledge in no state does this examination have anything to do with your genitals, sex traits, or genetics. I have not done much research about this though, so I may be wrong for some states, but at least in CA that is how it is.
If I were a female no way I compete against some confused weirdo twice my size and far stronger.
What I can't understand is where is this guys self respect? It doesn't bother him to compete against smaller, weaker girls?
Thank God all that insanity is over now,
And what about a not confused person smaller than you and slower than you? Not every trans girl is larger or stronger than most cis girls. In my case, there are easily 5-6 girls my size or bigger, and 4-5 who are faster.
Just because you don't recognize their self respect does not mean we don't have it. If we were to try living as a boy THAT would be having no self respect for yourself.
And this 'insanity' is not over. In fact, if you read this:
“(4) Nothing in this subsection shall be construed to prohibit a recipient from permitting males to train or practice with an athletic program or activity that is designated for women or girls so long as no female is deprived of a roster spot on a team or sport, opportunity to participate in a practice or competition, scholarship, admission to an educational institution, or any other benefit that accompanies participating in the athletic program or activity."
it makes it seem like they will openly allow ANY male to train and compete in the girls divisions so long as no cis girl loses a spot. I would expect that there are other laws that this contradicts.
And anyways, it has not been passed yet. It made it through the house by a fairly narrow margin, and only 2 democrats (they were both from Texas) voted for it to pass. In the Senate, it will need SEVEN democrats to vote for it to pass. 0.93% of the Democrats in the house voted for it to pass (2/215). Assuming the same trend is seen in the Senate, it is not likely you will have a single Democrat vote for it to pass, let alone 7. 0.93% of 45 democratic senators is 0.418 democrats in the Senate that would be expected to vote for it.
Yawn. No one is being banned from anything. Males compete with males. Females compete with females. There are no other sexes. Biological sex is all that matters, it is immutable no matter what you think you are.
The Marxist attack on America is not working. Womens sports would end. The democrats apparently hate women. Only Trans have rights. Woman sports would be dominated by men.
Most democrats support women's sports.
So democrats why do your representatives hate women so much?
Lots of random percentages have been tossed out based on guesses in this thread. Rather than just throwing out numbers, I thought it might be interesting to see what Americans think based on polling results.
In 2021, the majority of Republicans and Democrats favored allowing biological men to participate in women's sports, although I don't know exactly how that question was worded which could make a difference in the results.
By June 2023, a Gallup poll showed the results had moved considerably with 93% of Republicans being against transgender women competing against women and democrats split evenly with 48% being against transgender women competing against women and 47% being in favor of it.
The most recent poll, conducted in December 2024 found this... quoting from ChatGPT.
the Parents Defending Education poll conducted in December 2024 did break down results by political affiliation regarding the participation of transgender athletes in women's sports:
Republican Parents: 86% opposed allowing biological males who identify as transgender girls to participate in girls’ sports teams.
Independent Parents: 80% expressed opposition to this policy.
Democratic Parents: 60% were against the inclusion of transgender girls in girls' sports teams.
These findings indicate bipartisan opposition among parents to the participation of transgender athletes in girls' sports, with varying degrees of opposition across political affiliations.
------
These polls show a swing over the past 4 years by both parties towards NOT allowing trans women to compete against biological women, although the swing happened faster and was more pronounced among Republicans. Note that the most recent poll only polled parents so it's not a true apples to apples comparison of all adults.
This post was edited 5 minutes after it was posted.
That is not really "M@ga" because something like 70% of Democratic voters also support that. This is just common sense. Glad to hear it is happening.
Exactly. Democrats, please vote out the insane politicians who tried to block this bill
D's do root out their crazies as a general rule. The squad is three. Election deniers are all. I'm glad most D's voted for this BTW. Occasionally bad people do the right thing and you should join them when they do.
Almost every time an athlete "fails" a verification test it leads to harassment and vilification. It also leads to women constantly being scrutinized about how they look and how feminine they appear.
If almost every time an athlete "fails" a sex verification tests, it leads to the athlete getting harassed and vilified, then how do you account for what happened with the 8 athletes in women's events at the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games that the testing determined were XY with DSDs that only occur in males (AIS and XY 5-ARD)? I don't recall any of those athletes being harassed or vilified. To this day, their names have never been made public.Which is as it should be.
If you know of press accounts that show otherwise, please provide some links. Coz I don't believe that any of those athletes had their privacy violated, and ended up being harassed and vilified like you allege.
IOC was able to protect their privacy because none of them were disqualified. If they had been forced to withdraw in the last minute, there would have been speculation on the reason for withdrawal, and they would have been outed.
The political atmosphere in 1990s was different than it is today. So we don't know what would have happened if they had been outed back then. But it happens today, those outed athletes would be harassed and vilified. Just look at what happened to Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-Ting last year.
Most women that I know who've given the topic any thought have always been willing to make an exception for XY athletes with CAIS, even though some of us believe that some XY CAIS athletes have an unfair advantage - in part because we suspect that more than a few of them might not have fullblown CAIS as is claimed.
But that aside, even amongst the hardliners like me, the widely-held view has long been that a loophole should be made allowing XY people who truly do have CAIS to compete in the female category so long as XY people with all the other male DSDs that confer much more obvious male advantage like PAIS and XY 5-ARD can be kept out.
You are not a "hardliner" if you think XY people with CAIS should be allowed to compete in the women's category. The "hardliners" are like the people who listed Martinez Patino and Sarah Gronert as "cheaters" in their website. (I assume that's not your personal website.) The hardliners are the ones who shout "XX/= XY" at the top of their voices at every opportunity and create gears to promote their chromosome fundamentalist ideology. You will be called an "appeaser" by those people. Their belief is "if we concede one millimeter, they will take a mile. So we should allow absolutely no exception."
Come to think of it, you and I agree on almost everything. We both think people with CAIS should be allowed to compete with women. We both think people with 5-ARD should not. We agree that trans women who started their transition as adults should not be allowed to compete with women.
The only difference is that I think trans women who started their transition before puberty should be allowed to compete with women. I don't think they are any different from people with CAIS when it comes to advantage in athletic competitions. (The same opinion expressed by the 4th Circuit on BPJ v. West Virginia.) We haven't seen anyone dominates her competition. Hariette MacKenzie is very good. But she is no Laurent Betts or even Raegan Beers. She does not pose any threat to anyone, contrary to the propaganda spread by the anti-trans site.
If almost every time an athlete "fails" a sex verification tests, it leads to the athlete getting harassed and vilified, then how do you account for what happened with the 8 athletes in women's events at the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games that the testing determined were XY with DSDs that only occur in males (AIS and XY 5-ARD)? I don't recall any of those athletes being harassed or vilified. To this day, their names have never been made public.Which is as it should be.
If you know of press accounts that show otherwise, please provide some links. Coz I don't believe that any of those athletes had their privacy violated, and ended up being harassed and vilified like you allege.
IOC was able to protect their privacy because none of them were disqualified. If they had been forced to withdraw in the last minute, there would have been speculation on the reason for withdrawal, and they would have been outed.
The political atmosphere in 1990s was different than it is today. So we don't know what would have happened if they had been outed back then. But it happens today, those outed athletes would be harassed and vilified. Just look at what happened to Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-Ting last year.
But the boxers Imane Khelif, 25, and Lin Yu-Ting, 29, didn't get harassed and vilified because the word got out that they had failed the sex testing done on them.
Khelif and Yu-Ting came under public scrutiny - and they received harsh criticism and condemnation online and in the press - because they decided to continue competing and cleaning up in women's boxing after they failed the sex testing that was done on them - twice. And because the misogynistic men running the Paris Olympics and backing Khelif and Yu-Ting allowed the two boxers to do this even after they all knew that Khelif and Yu-Ting have XY chromosomes and apparently have DSDs similar to the one that Caster Semenya has.
(Medical records about Khelif from France that were leaked to the press after Khelif won a gold medal in women's boxing at the Paris Olympics say that Khelif has XY 5-ARD, the same male DSD that Semenya has.)
If Khelif and Yu-Ting had done the honorable thing and stopped competing in women's boxing after they failed the sex testing that was performed them on two different occasions by two different accredited medical labs in two different countries, then neither one of them would have come under criticism by the world at large. Because nobody except a relatively small number of insiders in the small world of women's boxing would know their names and heard about their situation.
The world public only learned about Khelif and Wu-Ting because the two boxers put themselves in the limelight on the global stage stage by deciding to get in the ring and compete in women's boxing at the Paris Olympics when they, their coaches, their national federations and everyone else around them knew full well that they had already failed the genetic and hormone sex testing they'd undergone.
Khelif and Wu-Ting got harrassed and vilified because they're both full-grown adult males - adult males with DSDs, but adult males all the same - who won Olympic gold medals in women's boxing by handily beating all their female opponents in highly-publicized bouts in which the whole world got a chance to see them brutally punching female boxers in the head.
If Khelif and Wu-Ting had not insisted on competing in women's boxing at the 2024 Olympics even when they knew they're XY with DSDs, none of the people who raked them over the coals online and in the press for competing in women's boxing at the Paris Games would have paid any attention to them either way. Because none of the people who were most vocal about vilifying Khelif and Wu-Ting would ever have heard of them in the first place.
This post was edited 7 minutes after it was posted.
Apologies for the places in my post above where Lin Yu-Ting's name came out as Wu-Ting.
Every time I typed in the boxer's name correctly, autocorrect stepped in, initially changing it to You-Ting. Then towards the end, autocorrect spiced things up by switching gears and changing Yu-Ting to Wu-tang.
Help us build the best running shoe review site for a chance to win a LetsRun t-shirt.Help us build the best running shoe review site for a chance to win one of 10 LetsRun t-shirts.