Martina Navratilova nails transgender debate in her latest column

In my eyes a topic is not "nailed" just because their opinion matches mine.

Even if I agree with an opinion, I have reservations that it could be wrong and try even harder to empathize with all points-of-view.

Navratilova didn't exactly take a position on the situation at large, but I agree completely with her on what she said. I am a liberal, and I support transgender claims in general because they are essentially claims about one's brain, and I think there is sufficient evidence that those claims are truthful. But me recognizing one person as being female because she has a brain that is "female enough" does not imply that she has a female body (I recognize that the brain is part of the body, but you probably know what I mean). Sports divisions are mostly about the physical capabilities of the body, not personal identity. Yes, I get that sports capabilities are all one big shade of gray, but to jump totally into that would be the death of women's sports entirely.

There might be a medical solution to this. I genuinely don't know. But if not, and it isn't clear that there is, people should participate as the sex they were born with.

This is spot-on. "Sports divisions are mostly about the physical capabilities of the body, not personal identity."

You know often in these complex cases it is worth contemplating how a fair reasoned mind would approach the subject.

I, for example, am a huge fan of Dick Van Dyke who seems a great man, respectful and tolerant of everyone. What do you think he'd have to say on this matter?

This is an interesting perspective on the male-female debate in sports. Brenkus argues, compellingly, I feel, and first giving some examples of why he argues this, that men and women should be allowed to compete together right from the start. Females, he says, are subliminally encouraged to not reach their potential. As I was listening, I was thinking, "But it's different for track and field/running because the sport boils down to times/distances/heights". But at the end he throws out an idea that struck as an awesome way to solve the whole thing. Rather than dividing things by male/female, create levels - A, B, C, D. And all competitors, male or female, that fall into a given category compete together. Pretty much eliminates the very divisive (and unnecessary?) gender fight going on right now. And makes a ton of sense.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFDDeajNP9k

interesting perspective wrote:

This is an interesting perspective on the male-female debate in sports. Brenkus argues, compellingly, I feel, and first giving some examples of why he argues this, that men and women should be allowed to compete together right from the start. Females, he says, are subliminally encouraged to not reach their potential. As I was listening, I was thinking, "But it's different for track and field/running because the sport boils down to times/distances/heights". But at the end he throws out an idea that struck as an awesome way to solve the whole thing. Rather than dividing things by male/female, create levels - A, B, C, D. And all competitors, male or female, that fall into a given category compete together. Pretty much eliminates the very divisive (and unnecessary?) gender fight going on right now. And makes a ton of sense.

Makes a ton of sense?

How so? So Serena WIlliams only plays in the local amateur tennis league?

Jenny Simpson is begging for a lane in the 5th heat of the high school nationals?

Every single women who is attending college on an athletic scholarship loses that scholarship so some mediocre guy can take it?

Brilliant plan for women.

and Dick vanDyke played a doctor on TV too

I think this works at the amateur level, but on the professional level, it would be the end of women's sports. There would no longer be any professional womens sports if this system were implemented. Let's say there were A, B, C and D categories. Would people have an interest in the C category simply because it was the first category that featured women, even though it also featured a lot of men that were way worse than those in the A and B category?

I've heard this proposal thrown out by a lot of people, but I don't think it works in practice on the pro level.

Also, I'm trying to think about how this would work in a popular sport like basketball. Good high school boys teams could beat the best college women's teams. So would there no longer be college scholarships for women in basketball?

Men on average are better at sports because they are, on average, naturally bigger, stronger and have higher levels of testosterone. Perhaps girls aren't pushed to reach their potential, but their athletic potential is still lower than that of men due to biological differences. That doesn't really seem to be refutable.

killermike wrote:

I think this works at the amateur level, but on the professional level, it would be the end of women's sports. There would no longer be any professional womens sports if this system were implemented. Let's say there were A, B, C and D categories. Would people have an interest in the C category simply because it was the first category that featured women, even though it also featured a lot of men that were way worse than those in the A and B category?

I've heard this proposal thrown out by a lot of people, but I don't think it works in practice on the pro level.

I doubt very much if any women could make it at any level of baseball’s m8nor leagues. I doubt if any woman could compete at golf ‘s web.com tour. And Serena wouldn’t be in the top 1000 players

Men

Women

Trans(itioned/sexual) / Herms

Three catergorIes.

Easy.

Opinionated guy wrote:

In my eyes a topic is not "nailed" just because their opinion matches mine.

Even if I agree with an opinion, I have reservations that it could be wrong and try even harder to empathize with all points-of-view.

exactly. well said.

Dude why are you so obsessed with transgender people?

For me this is an important point:

[quote]I am told the Olympic rule of allowing 10nmol/L of testosterone for trans people (from November 2015) was decided with no input from scientists and took all of 30 minutes of consideration to create and put into statute. That level has been changed to 5nmol/L (as of April 2018) and, one must ask, on what basis?[\quote]

I tried to do some research into this issue and found fewer peer-reviewed journal articles regarding the effects of transitioning on athletics. Maybe I wasn't looking in the right place. I did find some, but not too much from the last 20 years or so.

However, I don't think these issues are insurmountable:

[quote] It is obvious that men have certain inherent physiological advantages over women. These include height, weight, bone-density and muscularity. These advantages play a different role depending on the sport, with power-lifting being the biggest and most obvious advantage. Can we make sure those advantages are nullified so that women who have transitioned from men have the same level of physical capability they would have had if they been born female? Clearly, we can’t, because you cannot lose those extra inches of height (five inches on average) no matter what you do; some advantages of weight and muscle built up over time are also likely to remain, so to what acceptable degree should they disappear? [\quote]

For one thing you could place limits on the distribution of height/weight/muscularity of trans athletes in sports. If female basketball players have some distribution of heights, maybe the same distribution could be imposed on trans people (so maybe 7'6" trans athletes would be banned but not all trans people). That could be left up to the individual sports.

Sorry I screwed up the quotes.

Still waiting for a single example of an athlete who is fully transitioned who is winning and causing "women's sports to cease to exist".

Not ONE single example, anywhere, none, nada. Name ONE.

If you are talking about athletes who claim transgender "in name only" then state you have a problem with that and want to ban that.

Otherwise you are inventing problems that don't exist to be dramatic or bigoted.

missing information wrote:

Still waiting for a single example of an athlete who is fully transitioned who is winning and causing "women's sports to cease to exist".

Well, that's the problem, at least at the high school level. You don't have to be "fully transitioned" in states like connecticut to compete. You merely have to make a declaration.

And "cease to exist" is a statement of a future likelihood, not what has already occurred. What incentive will there be, at the highest levels, for the best female athletes to compete if all of the prize money will go to transgender individuals?

In Connecticut, you have two transgender teens rewriting the record books and consistently finishing in the top spots in their races. Imagine if more and more come. Then you'll have the record books and top finishes overrun by biological males.

missing information wrote:

Still waiting for a single example of an athlete who is fully transitioned who is winning and causing "women's sports to cease to exist".

That New Zealand weightlifter

She seems to be focusing on the fundamental question: Why do we separate sports (particularly at the highest levels) by sex? The answer is obvious: The best women can't compete with the best men. Why? Physiology.