Lindsay Crouse calls effort to keep biological men out of women's sports an "excuse for transphobia"

rojo wrote:

2)The fact that people think that means we should let people born as biological men (and I agree with the OP, can we stop this nonsense of "assigned male at birth"?

A transgender woman can never breastfeed. A transgender woman can never give birth. Those two facts are why women are not nearly as good at sports as men at the elite level post puberty. IF at birth, a doctor takes a look at you and determines there is zero chance you'll ever give birth, then you almost most certainly will belong in the open category of sports.

I agree with your 1st and 3rd points but on this one.... Sorry dude, but you're a moron.

They are assigned male at birth. Rhetoric matters. Why do you still choose to call them 'biological men' when they are trans women?

I agree with you that trans and intersex women w/o hormone treatments have no place competing against cis women. And I think we can all agree that XX women are slower than men due to their ability to gestate life and breastfeed. But do not reduce women to these physiological traits: there are MANY XX women who will never be able to do either of those things.

They are not 'biological men' simply because our gender is not solely based on chromosomes. But you already know this, Rojo, you just choose to continue with this diatribe against trans women when the real issue is ALL women's sports being put on the back burner.

NERunner00053 wrote:

you can talk about transgender women in sport and still raise up women in sports. Most, if not all, however, stop caring about women's sports after "saving" them from transgender women. Is that really it? Does fighting tooth & nail against transgender inclusion really help women's sports? Power dynamics haven't changed. Let's not act like people know how to talk about this issue. LRC shouldn't be facilitating a conversation where focus is going to go away from the issue and towards bashing transgender women. Whipping insults at transgender women does not elevate women's sports.

Exactly this.

This message board doesn't focus on uplifting women's sports at all. If anything, it is a mockery of women's athletics, asking why they 'are so slow compared to men.'

We have seen dozens of threads against trans women inclusion in women's sports in the past month.

Stop pretending like you guys give a F about women's sports.

You do not.

What you actually care about is bashing trans women.

projection

We're all supposed to just sit down, shut up, and believe that all the performance benefits from having testosterone on board for 10 years go a way when you shut it down for a few weeks and take estrogen? And if you don't believe that, you're a bad person?

GettingFasterDude wrote:

We're all supposed to just sit down, shut up, and believe that all the performance benefits from having testosterone on board for 10 years go a way when you shut it down for a few weeks and take estrogen? And if you don't believe that, you're a bad person?

yes. this and we all hate womens athletics, even though we have 1000s of posts on the katelyn tuohys, hassans, Kokos, lindens, etcs. of the world.

I for one definitely care about women’s sports, but I especially care about women’s track. And in my honest opinion, this will ruin women’s track at all levels. There have been 3 instances that I know of, the 2 hs girls and the d2 college woman. All 3 transgender, the college woman being on the testosterone suppressor, and all 3 are state champions and ncaa champions respectively. That’s not a coincidence. Elite women griped about Semenya, niyonsaba and wambui for years. This will be much worse.

What about trans men? Chris Mosier was born XX but has qualified for the men's US team. He would be very dominant in the women's division because he takes medically prescribed testosterone. Elite women would exchange Semenya/Niyonsaba/Wambui for Mosier?

Hey Kitty Girl wrote:

They are assigned male at birth. Rhetoric matters. Why do you still choose to call them 'biological men' when they are trans women?

Because they are? Perhaps you want to use a different term. Maybe we just say male and female? or Biologically male and biologically female.

Caitlyn Jenner is a male. So maybe we just say that instead of "assigned male" at birth. Whatever the term is everyone knows what she is. There would be no need to use the word "transgender woman" if she was exactly the same as a woman.

We actually had a discussion this week and of my employees said he didn't agree with our decision to say people on the boards need to refer to people by their preferred pronouns. His argument like yours was that words matter but by insisting we only let people refer to people by certain pronouns, we are ignoring reality. I understand the argument but think it applies more to the abstract.

But if someone is talking about Caitlyn Jenner and in terms of sport wants to use the pronoun "he" to make a point I understand it. On a personal level if you were directly interacting with her I think it would be rude but generally don't you only use a pronoun in referencing someone when they're not there? I

Zhe and whatnot I haven't been in college recently. Have no idea what those pronouns are. "They" for an individual I don't really get either. And this is from a guy who wrote his senior thesis on Women's labor force participation rates in the 19th century and used the word "they" instead of "he" when referring to an abstract person. 25 years later I wonder if the essay won the award for best essay in economics because they thought I was woke. I was just examining an issue.

Caitlyn Jenner is not a woman. Maybe we just leave it at "transgender woman" but if someone wants to say "biologically male" to make sure people don't pretend she is a woman, I don't have a problem with it and it is accurate.

wejo wrote:

There would be no need to use the word "transgender woman" if she was exactly the same as a woman.

Semantics seems to be the biggest hurdle to settling this issue and that's unfortunate.

I don't see much need for the term "transgender woman." All of the transgender women I know I just refer to as a "woman."

Transgender women = women

women compete in women's sports

ergo

transgender women compete in women's sports.

Simple.

Anyone who makes this more complicated than that is doing some serious overthinking.

Armin Tamzarian wrote:

"

Transgender women = women

women compete in women's sports

ergo

transgender women compete in women's sports.

That sounds logical but you're ignoring one major fact or we can't agree on a basic set of facts if you think transgender women =women.

If transgender women = women then there would be no need for this debate. When biological males not on testosterone therapy won the CT state champs for women no one would have said anything. Sure these things aren't that common but they happen. I guess it's really a matter of who you want to protect.

wejo wrote:

[quote]Hey Kitty Girl wrote:

Caitlyn Jenner is not a woman. Maybe we just leave it at "transgender woman" but if someone wants to say "biologically male" to make sure people don't pretend she is a woman, I don't have a problem with it and it is accurate.

It ISN'T accurate, though.

She is not 'biologically male' simply because her chromosomes are XY. You can describe her as 'XY' as yes, that is a fact. She has XY chromosomes. But 'biologically male' isn't an accurate term, it over simplifies a very complex subject. Biologically, many trans men and women have had brain scans that are closer to their gender than their chromosomes. Biologically, many trans men and women have sexual dimorphisms that are closer to their gender than their chromosomes.

Saying 'biological male' is just both a) scientifically not accurate and b) malicious.

I'm not focusing on Caitlyn specifically, I'm focusing on the description of trans men and women on this site. I hope you're aware of exactly how much transphobia runs rampant on here.

At the end of the day, this is going to have to be an issue that female athletes champion. Like abortion, men may not have an opinion on this issue. Of course they can have an opinion, but it makes them horrible transphobic bigots if they are against transgender women competing with cisgender women. I don't believe there has been made any room for a middle ground.

The narrative has been written. It states that you are either on the train of progress or you're a bigot. Full stop. We have seen it in myriad articles in The Atlantic, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Huffington Post, Jezebel, NPR, and dozens more IN THE LAST MONTH. The narrative has been written.

Of course, this hyper-binary outlook ignores the most important factor: the health of the transgender athletes themselves. I think a middle ground will be needed to ensure their best interests. Let's be clear, these kids NEED to be able to play sports. How do we make that happen fairly? That needs to be discussed. But it doesn't appear anyone is interested in a true solution. Too much click bait and rage porn potential with this issue. It is a media gold mine and right now people are lining up on both sides for an all-you-can-eat buffet.

Alea iacta est

Pay inequity in women's sports is largely due to the fact that women are still socialized away from being consumers of sports. When the US women's Olympic team played a qualifier in my city, they barely sold 2/3rds of the seats in a 22k seat MLS stadium. Ariane Grande sold 75k tickets when she played the Houston Rodeo and Taylor Swift sold 72k.

Lots of women play soccer. My son's soccer club gets about the same number of boys and girls every year and those numbers actually start to lean towards girls as the kids get older. But the girls rarely watch pro soccer, men or women. The boys watch almost nonstop. If you can change that, you will have pay equity in women's sports.

Soo biology is meaningless? Cool. LOL.

Tatar wrote:

Boogieman wrote:

I for one definitely care about women’s sports, but I especially care about women’s track. And in my honest opinion, this will ruin women’s track at all levels. There have been 3 instances that I know of, the 2 hs girls and the d2 college woman. All 3 transgender, the college woman being on the testosterone suppressor, and all 3 are state champions and ncaa champions respectively. That’s not a coincidence. Elite women griped about Semenya, niyonsaba and wambui for years. This will be much worse.

What about trans men? Chris Mosier was born XX but has qualified for the men's US team. He would be very dominant in the women's division because he takes medically prescribed testosterone. Elite women would exchange Semenya/Niyonsaba/Wambui for Mosier?

What? Ok so he’s taking testosterone. So he would not be able to be in women’s sports where the rule is they need to take testosterone suppressors. Also I have 6 instances and you gave me one, and it was a flawed example at that lmao

GettingFasterDude wrote:

We're all supposed to just sit down, shut up, and believe that all the performance benefits from having testosterone on board for 10 years go a way when you shut it down for a few weeks and take estrogen? And if you don't believe that, you're a bad person?

You can stand up and shout if you want and many red states are doing just that.

It's 1-2 years and not a few weeks.

dude, that's a bizarre hot button issue for you

Boogieman wrote:

Tatar wrote:

What about trans men? Chris Mosier was born XX but has qualified for the men's US team. He would be very dominant in the women's division because he takes medically prescribed testosterone. Elite women would exchange Semenya/Niyonsaba/Wambui for Mosier?

What? Ok so he’s taking testosterone. So he would not be able to be in women’s sports where the rule is they need to take testosterone suppressors. Also I have 6 instances and you gave me one, and it was a flawed example at that lmao

It's a TUE. As he was born XX, he qualifies for the women's division if you want to make trans people compete in the division of their birth.

They is used as a singular pronoun all the time. And I bet you have done it many times. you are asking about someone, and you don' t know their name.. for instance, you are ordering food for co-workers, and you say, "hey, what do they want? " meaning a fellow co-worker. It's done all the time.