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

Well actually, Caitlyn Jenner in several interviewed talked about wanting to wear dresses and makeup and be more in touch with her emotions and that's how she "knew" she was really a woman. According to her own words it was about wanting to wear a dress.

Listening her talk about what it's like to be a woman is rather insulting to biological women. Being a woman has NOTHING to do with wearing dresses and makeup. I very rarely do either. My mom tells me when I was a kid I would get mad when she got me dresses. I wanted to play with the boys outside. Does that make me a man then?

jamins velcro wallet wrote:

The argument always comes down to believing the women’s category exists for gender reasons. It doesn’t. The women’s category exist solely because biological women are at a significant disadvantage to men. That is the only reason. If biological women performed at the same level there wouldn’t be a separate category. It just wouldn’t exist. In fact it would be pretty really awesome to see, unfortunately that is not reality.

Okay. Then let's remove the moniker of "women" from the protected category, since that word has been associated with gender.

Why not call the two divisions "restricted" and "unrestricted / open"? No one can argue that don't belong to the "open" category. The open category should welcome anyone, including cis women.

I’m fkn sick of this bs as well.

We have Men and Women categories for good reasons. This is not about transphobia it is about having FairPlay. If we allowed this to continue we will never ever see a woman win a medal.

Yes it is a hot and complex topic so why not creating a 3rd category and every one happy.

Stop the fkn nonsense.

abcrunning wrote:

I’m fkn sick of this bs as well.

We have Men and Women categories for good reasons. This is not about transphobia it is about having FairPlay. If we allowed this to continue we will never ever see a woman win a medal.

Yes it is a hot and complex topic so why not creating a 3rd category and every one happy.

Stop the fkn nonsense.

Another supporter of toxic equality of outcome. People with lower IQ also dont get their own school and work category. We also dont do sports caregories based on blood values. Let everyone compete fairly as humans. Women caregories are sexism

Are the Brojos going to find a different person to provide an alternative take or did they just find someone who might not represent the general public to continue to push their ideas.

It's fine to have this conversation if you're not bashing trans folks along the way. The conversation, however, has been pretty toxic by the start. LRC is a tough forum for these discussions for obvious reasons. They don't help their cause when their founders promote conspiracy theories and then link to articles they agree with. This isn't journalism. You're promoting an agenda. & it doesn't help women's sports in the way you think it does because tomorrow you'll be right back to hyping men up tenfold.

[/quote]

Are the Brojos going to find a different person to provide an alternative take or did they just find someone who might not represent the general public to continue to push their ideas.

It's fine to have this conversation if you're not bashing trans folks along the way. The conversation, however, has been pretty toxic by the start. LRC is a tough forum for these discussions for obvious reasons. They don't help their cause when their founders promote conspiracy theories and then link to articles they agree with. This isn't journalism. You're promoting an agenda. & it doesn't help women's sports in the way you think it does because tomorrow you'll be right back to hyping men up tenfold.[/quote]

What are the conspiracy theories? I'm legitimately confused.

Armin Tamzarian wrote:

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.

Then why do we have separate competitions for biological males and females? That must be "serious overthinking". It can't be because it would be unfair to expect women to be able to compete with men.

"Biologically, many trans men and women have had brain scans that are closer to their gender than their chromosomes".(quote)

So men and women do have different brains, after all? This despite that we have long been told that there is essentially no difference in function and that as far as gender is concerned it does not prevent men and women from performing the same mental tasks equally. So what exactly makes a "female" brain - or a "male" brain? Which part of the brain is "female" or "male"? Frontal lobe? Is it shown in an interest in cars or fashion, less empathy or more empathy? I guess it follows that if gender is determined in the brain then so are most of our attitudes to everything else and they are not the result of experience or education - and are therefore not susceptible to change. I'm not persuaded by your science on this. About the only thing not susceptible to change is our chromosomes. Oh, wait - they, too, are "assigned".

Raphael Warnock knock wrote:

Raphael Warnock knock wrote:

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.

In fact I unintentionally, just did it in the prior post. Their in that example means one person.

True. But the point in using it as a form of gender identity is to say "they" are more than one person. Are they? So the rest of us who are merely "he" or "she" are boringly singular. How unimaginative of "us".

Actually some of them think sports should be fair - including women's sports.

If you don't think the inclusion of biological males in women's competition will make a difference you haven't been following sport very closely. In any sporting activity requiring elements of strength, speed and stamina, where can women compete equally against males?

Armstronglivs wrote:

True. But the point in using it as a form of gender identity is to say "they" are more than one person.

That’s not the point. The point is that the male pronouns (he/him/his) and female pronouns (she/her/hers) do not accurately a non-binary or gender fluid person’s existence.

Many alternative has been floated around (zhe/zheir) for example, but “they/their/theirs” are already in the lexicon and have been used (errantly, but whatever) to refer to a single person. It requires very little effort on the part of most people to fit this in to their everyday speak.

I understand that many cultures have an idea of “two souls” or the like, but 100% of the people that I know that use they/them pronouns consider themselves to be one person and don’t like being called he or she.

Opposing the participation of biological males in women's sports is actually feminism; supporting the rights of women to be treated equally and fairly. To claim it is transphobia is to be completely blind to the advantages being male carries over female in competitive sports.

Not my usual HN wrote:

rojo wrote:

We just published a guest column on this debate by Amby Burfoot.

He says in this column:

"If trans advocates want to make the “science” argument, they should present evidence that trans women are no stronger or faster than cisgender women."

But you cannot prove a null hypothesis. The only thing one can do is to reject an alternative hypothesis.

How much evidence do you require that biological males are on average bigger, faster and stronger than females - from puberty onwards? It is only a "hypothesis"?

Armstronglivs wrote:

Opposing the participation of biological males in women's sports is actually feminism; supporting the rights of women to be treated equally and fairly. To claim it is transphobia is to be completely blind to the advantages being male carries over female in competitive sports.

When you say women you mean cis women. You want cis women to be treated equally and fairly but have no thought for whether trans women are.

Trans women are a small percent of women but how can excluding any percentage of women from sport be considered feminist?

Lenny Leonard wrote:

I wouldn’t consider myself “woke” or a “victim.” I’m ridiculously privileged. I am married to a woman. I have a daughter.

If my daughter runs track (she’s 5), which would

make me quite proud, and she were to lose to a transwoman at some point in her athletic career, it would not bother me. Why not? Because....she’d be losing to another girl!

By the time she’s in high school, hopefully a lot of these old dinosaurs who can’t follow basic logic will be gone and this will be a non-issue.

It might not bother you but it might bother her. So if allowing biological males to compete in female grades doesn't bother you, I dont suppose you would be bothered at seeing heavyweight boxers compete as middleweights, or senior athletes run against juniors, or open athletes compete in masters grades. After all, they are all just sports competitors in the end - whatever else they say they are. Following your argument, there is no point in having protected categories of any kind.

Armstronglivs wrote:

It might not bother you but it might bother her. So if allowing biological males to compete in female grades doesn't bother you, I dont suppose you would be bothered at seeing heavyweight boxers compete as middleweights, or senior athletes run against juniors, or open athletes compete in masters grades. After all, they are all just sports competitors in the end - whatever else they say they are. Following your argument, there is no point in having protected categories of any kind.

I'm no boxing expert, but if a heavyweight boxer lost the requisite weight to be considered a middle weight, I would have no problem with them fighting MW.

If I were 39 and then became 40, I could then compete against masters.

If a man becomes a woman, she should run with women.

That is my argument. It makes complete sense. You are arguing against something no one on this thread: That men should compete against women.

I don't think Noah Lyles should run in the women's 200m

If Noah Lyles transitioned to a woman, then Noah Lyles should then run against women.

Probably because mentally ill men aren't women.

But I just read earlier in the thread that "brain scans" have shown male or female brains. If that is so, how can one be "gender fluid"? We apparently have either a male or female brain - whatever that means. So a person can have both a male and female brain? (Or even neither?) Which parts, I wonder? And demonstrated how?

However you pursue the semantic as distinct from the biological issues involved, "they" is generally a plural term and to choose it to describe oneself (how unfortunately singular that is) is to claim to be more than one person. Apart from the apparent confusion involved as to what kind of person and how many - a team, a crowd? - it reeks of a certain grandiosity.