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

Unfortunately, your handle "Wise Old Man" is misleading and you're clearly not an athlete.

Please clarify this statement: "Trans participation is not compromising women's athletics in any demonstrable way". By definition, demonstrable means: "Clearly apparent or capable of being logically proved". Hmmm... Looking at the Connecticut state track meet results where a trans-girl won the state championship is EXACTLY demonstrable, is it not? Try explaining that to the other girls who trained hard every day in order to perform their very best to win only to be defeated by a boy who was biologically stronger and faster. Is that not demoralizing? Why train? Why run? Is there going to be a flood of biological male athletes transitioning to trans-girl/woman in order to win athletic competitions? That has yet to be determined, but by opening the door and allowing it to happen I'm willing to bet we will see more and more trans-girl/woman participation in women athletics. One is too many!

Also, no one cares about your left-wing political affiliation. You trying to be "Woke" and blame Fox news is not very "Wise"...Little Boy!

No one is claiming that men aren't better athletes than women. The issue is how much do hormone treatments level the playing field.

Crouse is a good writer. She also is very fast in the Marathon (3:03), and even ran at Harvard competitively.

Wow, an attack on my athletic abilities, so biting and hurtful.

I certainly hope that the young women from CT who finished 2nd and 3rd will go on to have satisfying athletic careers if they wish, and suspect that this loss will have little impact on their long term prospects or emotional well-being. Why train, why run? You are the one who is NOT the athlete, certainly not a coach. I hope those athlete don't only find satisfaction once they win the state championship. If so, they are in for a lot of misery. Anyway, those young women get to compete in any and all women's races and probably win most in their leagues, conferences. I am much more fearful that barring the winner from competing at all in the category to which she feels she belongs would have a far more destructive outcome. You are essentially telling her she can't compete at all because telling her she is only able to compete in the boys' race is tantamount to barring her. So yes, suck it up ladies and be proud of your 2nd and 3rd place finish.

I agree with this.

Upper-middle-class white, privileged women with connections are making it harder on the rest of the hard-working feminists who want equality.

I believe in feminism. I just see that only benefits a certain subset of women--these are women are, who most likely:

1) went to upper-middle-class HS and college;

2) were connected through cliques and later, sororities;

3) had networks waiting for them after college.

So a lot (not all) of them don't know struggle or how the real world works.

Feminism is powerful and good. But it needs to benefit the average/poor woman more, the single woman trying to put herself through college, raising 2-3 kids, and working jobs at the same time, staying out of trouble, etc. THAT is where feminism can do its most good.

Not privileged white women who already have it made. Crouse is a very talented runner but went to Harvard. She had a magic carpet to a good career from youth.

Armstronglivs wrote:

Not my usual HN wrote:

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"?

A hypothesis about two groups of people is usually supported when the difference in mean is statistically significant (usually at 0.05 level or lower). But that means there is still 5% chance that the difference is coincidental. (And this does not change when you lower the significance level to 0.01 or 0.001. It only reduces the chance that the difference is coincidental.)

As for the difference between men and women, there is ample evidence to show that the difference is not coincidental. The point Burfoot is making is that we don't have a large enough sample size of trans female athletes who have gone through extended hormone treatment. (Other things being equal, the smaller the sample size is, the harder it is to reach statistical significance.) I don't even know if his claim is true.

My point is that it is impossible to prove that the difference is coincidental, because by definition, it is impossible to prove the negative. This is Logic 101.

I am not at all sure that very manly men should be permitted to compete in the same competitions with some of you not so manly men. There is a gradation of manliness and not such a clear line of demarcation involved and some of you men are not so manly and you are disadvantaged in athletic competitions.

She's even sub-3 now, and faster than 99% of the population out there.

When the pandemic hit I was 35 and in the surprise athletic prime of my life. First I broke three hours in the marathon, then I was getting even faster. The effort even catalyzed my career. I couldn’t believe it.

SDSU Aztec wrote:

No one is claiming that men aren't better athletes than women. The issue is how much do hormone treatments level the playing field.

The person who wrote this article does. This is a direct quote - you can find it yourself in there if you take 1min.

"There is no proof that cisgender men are inherently more capable than cisgender women."

So what is that statement then - how do you interpret that? I interpret that as a statement made that is conveniently devoid of the context of the story because in so many fields of life it's accurate - except not in this field. It's a trick bad writers/journalists/opinionists/contrarians use to reinforce their agendas/points of view because the it's so easy to jump on the back of anyone that disputes such a statement using emotional/popularist leverages. The problem is not many people can identify this when this is happening and what it is so they would rather keep quite for fear of being unfairly labelled/cancelled rather than dispute it, even in the face of such obvious and remedial flawed logic.

Btw, this isn't an issue of "is a gender better than another". I can make a great case that Jackie Joyner-Kersee is the best athlete of all time and she is female. I don't like that terminology (men "better" than woman) because it leads us down this path that assumes or suggests that the physiological playing field is equal when it isn't - never has been and never will be.

As it pertains to your statement around hormone treatment, well the simple answer is, it's very difficult to pinpoint how and to what degree this playing field becomes "evened" - in fact it may even be impossible given the plethora and amount of nuances involved. In this case the status quo needs to remain and people should not see that as discrimination or discriminatory because it's not. That's an easy, emotional and poor cop-out. When that question is answered we can have a discussion - either its a green light or it's not. In the meantime I personally have no issues with changing sports categorization to accommodate any and everyone of all genders and identifications.

My apologies for not calling Andraya Yearwood by her name.

I know this will only serve to further inflame you, but I am sitting here with my cis gender daughter who is a former elite hs distance runner (#1 runner for all four years of hs on a multi-state championship winning xc team from a large state). She is emphatic that she and her teammates, and any of the many young women runners she knows well from her league, would have been vehemently opposed to banning Andraya or any trans woman competitor from their races, in fact, they likely would have walked out and not competed themselves if they knew this was happening.

I'm not sure how you could read that article and not think that people who oppose transwomen in women's sports are transphobic and racist. Maybe she was only talking about the people who don't care about women's sports but I don't see that anywhere in the article.

Trans women shouldn't be allowed in women's sports because they have a physiological advantage over women. It doesn't matter if they are performing well or performing poorly. If trans women are included it will be bad for BOTH women and trans women. That is important to understand that this will be bad for both women and trans women at essentially every level of competition (except a very young age, that might be ok).

She actually isn't bad of a writer at all, but makes the story about herself.

She views herself as the teammate of Des, Shalene, et al., etc. do they know her? To be honest I admire her for at least trying to OTQ. I am nowhere near as fast as 2:45...

And while distance running in the United States has always attracted white professional women, the sport is growing broader and getting better. Athletes have connected with one another more than ever before, in teams or online, sharing our training and sweeping each other along with each successful race. It’s a new model of competitive female leadership: We’re seeing each other win and challenging ourselves to keep up.

Last year, it even trickled down to me. As I watched so many women qualify, I decided I would try, too. I had written about Flanagan’s catalytic effect on her teammates after she took New York. And I had reported on the women who persevered behind Linden in Boston. I thought of these women as my team captains, even if they’d never heard of me, and it was thrilling to watch them finally triumph. And I thought: Why not me, too?

Wise Old Man wrote:

My apologies for not calling Andraya Yearwood by her name.

I know this will only serve to further inflame you, but I am sitting here with my cis gender daughter who is a former elite hs distance runner (#1 runner for all four years of hs on a multi-state championship winning xc team from a large state). She is emphatic that she and her teammates, and any of the many young women runners she knows well from her league, would have been vehemently opposed to banning Andraya or any trans woman competitor from their races, in fact, they likely would have walked out and not competed themselves if they knew this was happening.

Right but you do accept that this may be just a tiiiiiny bit easier for your daughter to sit there and proclaim given that she/they never encountered what the young girls in Connecticut faced in their athletic pursuits, right?

Had your daughter and her teammates been cost state championships would she feel the same? Had your daughter - the #1 runner for all for four years on her team, not even made the team because she was the 8th best runner behind 7 biological young men that were undergoing hormonal treatment but were still vastly superior in physiology would she feel the same? Yes this extreme case and not likely - but it remains true to the underlying principal here.

It's very easy to sit back and be "woke" when this issue may not affect you and your daughter anymore. So easy to take the "moral high ground" when you don't have walk that stretch of ground again. Honestly, unless you have a recount that follows something like "My daughter was the 4th runner on her team because of transgender athletes ahead of her and even though she lost 3/4 state titles due to transgender athletes on other schools winning the valuable points, yet she and her teammates would have been vehemently opposed to banning any trans woman competitor from their races, in fact, they likely would have walked out and not competed themselves if they knew this was happening" - then mate, your statement is irrelevant in this context. Sorry.

I read it twice and could not find that sentence. The OP's take on the article is off the mark. All she is saying is that transgender athletes competing is a minor issue compared to how women's sport are trecategorization.

If people believed male athletes didn't have an advantage, the NCAA, USATF, IAAF and IOC would not require testosterone suppression.

Meanwhile, the green light has already been given and transgender athletes will continue to be allowed to compete. There will be no changing of sports categorizations.

SDSU Aztec wrote:

I read it twice and could not find that sentence. The OP's take on the article is off the mark. All she is saying is that transgender athletes competing is a minor issue compared to how women's sport are trecategorization.

If people believed male athletes didn't have an advantage, the NCAA, USATF, IAAF and IOC would not require testosterone suppression.

Meanwhile, the green light has already been given and transgender athletes will continue to be allowed to compete. There will be no changing of sports categorizations.

Well I know you are either 1) lying about reading it or 2) you can't read because it's right there in the center of the article. Here is the full passage - can you find it now?

"There are a host of genetic factors that can give an athlete an advantage, such as fast and slow twitch fibers, height. Environmental and economic factors are at play, too, such as access to training facilities.

"A level playing field is a fallacy," says Dr. Myron Genel, Yale professor emeritus of pediatric endocrinology. He is a member of the International Olympic Committee's Medical Commission on issues regarding gender identity in athletics.

"There's so many other factors that may provide a competitive advantage," Genel says. "It's very hard to single out sex as the only one."

There is no proof that cisgender men are inherently more capable than cisgender women. According to an NCAA handbook called "Creating Positive & Inclusive Athletic Environments for Transgender Athletes," the fear that "transgender women will be able to dominate women’s sports without effort due to the inherent advantages men have over women" is "a new iteration of the old stereotypes that kept women & girls out of sports prior to Title IX."

As for your last statement, I would doubt you know this. Obviously I have come across you on these boards before and I'm well aware of your statements of finality and certainty which end up being proven full of sh$t - the latest one was the kids that dealt to that OSU football jock and his buddy where I believed you stated that the DA and police unequivocally agreed with your POV that they would be arrested and charged and guess what - none of that happened, they were fully acquitted.

So that, coupled with the fact you are also either a liar or can't read, makes what you write carry as much weight as a bag of cheetos.

You're messing with me. That statement is not in her article. Are you referring to the link?

This thread is about transgender athletes and not a bar fight. What do you believe it would take for the IOC to ban transgender athletes? 40 years ago,, the WTA did not want Renee Richard to be allowed to play but it lost in court. What has changed since then?

Lay off with the insults. You seem like a pompous ass, but I wouldn't say that if you hadn't insulted me first.

The term "biological man" is a misnomer and redundant. There are ONLY men, and women, which are backed up by their biology. There are transgender men, who are actually women who believe or wish to be men.

rojo wrote:

It blows my mind that people like yourself don't even know the facts. You don't even know what the law says. You have a narrative and want to push it.

It blows my mind that you think countless 18 year old conservatives who also run 4:20 miles are going to switch sides just to prove a point.

If you spent 1/10th of the time researching women’s running versus spewing his garbage, this site would be so much better.

But, you have a narrative and you want to push it.

Sorry if someone made this point already but there are plenty of women who are incapable of giving birth. My aunt can't give birth. There's zero chance. She and her husband adopted two children. She was born a woman with XX chromosomes and isn't trans. But she shouldn't compete in women's sports?

Comments on the Amby Burfoot article:

A solution has existed for decades. When I was a small child I already knew about Renee Richards. The IOC has had a policy since 2004 (17 years ago) allowing transgender women to compete given certain criteria (one to two years on hormone therapy, etc).

So Mississippi is banning transgender athletes from women's sports. I'm pretty sure the only reason politicians care about this issue is because they think it'll help them score points with their base. I'm not impressed.

I mean, yeah. If you want to treat transgender women as women then a very small proportion of them are going to get scholarships or spots on the Olympic team one day instead of cisgender women. Everyone wants their daughter or granddaughter to get scholarships, which is why we have rules that apply to everyone and not just our daughters. Wikipedia claims 0.6% of US adults identify as transgender. 11,237 athletes competed at Rio. If half of them were women, we should have expected 33 transgender women to be competing. There were zero. There are 26 track and field events and 78 podium positions. You should expect a trans woman on the podium every other Olympics. It's going to happen eventually. You're just going to have to get used to it.

I'm glad we agree that North Carolina politicians aren't clear-thinking. But seriously I do think this sweeps a lot of discrimination under the rug and it's hard to get behind this statement.

I don't understand the meaning of this paragraph. He later goes on to discuss a scientific study by the Air Force. There have been other scientific studies of trans athletes. What does he mean that there is no "science" in this area??

What point is Amby trying to make and why did he phrase it this way, if not to try to take a dump on Caster Semenya? First of all I don't think she's transgender. Second, yeah she made a lot of money, she won a lot of races and did it within the rules. Then they changed the rules and she won fewer races. But she still ran 1:59 at the World Championships in Beijing. She didn't make it to the finals. And by the way, two of the women who did make it to the finals, including the winner, were banned for performance enhancing drugs. Then they changed the rules again and she won more races. None of this is her fault.