Get rid of gender/sex categories

The other advantage of this is that it will provide greater depth of field for higher performing women who are competing at smaller meets where they heavily outclass other women.

In fact, I don't think it ever makes sense to segregate women from men in races, even if you were going to present awards after based on gender/sex.... look at the JD level, these kids should be in heats with kids of comparable performance level, regardless of gender/sex and it would be better for their development, giving them more appropriate competition.

A running handicap would be a fun way to race.

But it would led to terrible sandbagging and would give beginners way too much of an advantage

Feminists demand equal treatment but they don't mean it. Nobody is ready for equality. Women want the same number of scholarships and roster spots. They don't wan't to compete on a level playing field for a set number of spots.

Men are better wrote:

Feminists demand equal treatment but they don't mean it. Nobody is ready for equality. Women want the same number of scholarships and roster spots. They don't wan't to compete on a level playing field for a set number of spots.

Ya, but this thread was started as a solution to the "transgenders-in-sports" controversy... which is already causing women to lose scholarships and roster spots...

I don't see why a woman should have a problem competing against men if she is at the same competitive level as them. Athletes usually enjoy a challenge. Women join the open chess tournaments all the time for the challenge.

When it comes to scholarships, again, you don't have to make them for "women", you instead could make them for hormonally/phsyically disadvantaged or something along those lines... ie. "for a person who was born with a condition that causes low testosterone below a certain level and still managed to reach a level of performance beyond all others with this same disadvantage"

Perhaps this can end the controversy.

intenserunner wrote:

In an open chess tournament, they just have "rating" categories, and give out prizes for the winners of each based on past performances. If they did the same thing for athletics, it would not only get rid of the dispute over deciding who can be classified "female", but it would also encourage more participation by introducing categories for people who are newer to the sport and are not competing at as high of a level. Just base the prize/award categories on PB in the last and current season. When you register for an event, you can choose your category to compete in based on your past or current season PB. If you've never raced that event before, then you can choose any category.

If you don't like women's sports, watch something else.

SDSU Aztec wrote:

intenserunner wrote:

In an open chess tournament, they just have "rating" categories, and give out prizes for the winners of each based on past performances. If they did the same thing for athletics, it would not only get rid of the dispute over deciding who can be classified "female", but it would also encourage more participation by introducing categories for people who are newer to the sport and are not competing at as high of a level. Just base the prize/award categories on PB in the last and current season. When you register for an event, you can choose your category to compete in based on your past or current season PB. If you've never raced that event before, then you can choose any category.

If you don't like women's sports, watch something else.

No one watches women’s sports. T&F is like watching a basketball game where NBA and WNBA teams alternate quarters.

Armin Tamzarian wrote:

SDSU Aztec wrote:

If you don't like women's sports, watch something else.

No one watches women’s sports. T&F is like watching a basketball game where NBA and WNBA teams alternate quarters.

You have no interest in Tuohy's career? A lot of people on LR are big fans of her.

"No one" and you are different things. What makes you hate female athletes?

Incel alert!

This just isn't right.

it's 3am in the morning, wife hears a bump in the night,

wife (nudging her husband)...did you hear that?

husband....yes I did, go check it out.

Women are not men. A female Olympic 100m medalist will run a 10.83, that won't make the finals of the HS boys 100m in Cali, Texas, Florida.

SDSU Aztec wrote:

You have no interest in Tuohy's career? A lot of people on LR are big fans of her.

"No one" and you are different things. What makes you hate female athletes?

Of course I’m not interested in Touhy’s career. I don’t hate female athletes, but I do dislike track’s need to force viewers to see female performances as somehow equal to male ones. Watching anyone, male or female, run a mid-4:30s mile just doesn’t do it for me unless it’s a friend, family member, or kid I coach.

IIt's going to freeze tonight here in central Caii

wife....might wanna toss a blanket over te windows off the vehicles, keep the frost off.

Something I have always done.

Why is it just understood that is my job ad not hers?

Men are better wrote:

Feminists demand equal treatment but they don't mean it. Nobody is ready for equality. Women want the same number of scholarships and roster spots. They don't wan't to compete on a level playing field for a set number of spots.

You seem not to understand the difference between "equal" and "same."

Armin Tamzarian wrote:

Of course I’m not interested in Touhy’s career. I don’t hate female athletes, but I do dislike track’s need to force viewers to see female performances as somehow equal to male ones. Watching anyone, male or female, run a mid-4:30s mile just doesn’t do it for me unless it’s a friend, family member, or kid I coach.

If absolute speed is the only aspect of athletics you're into, you should watch horses or cheetahs or something. Humans are LAME compared to much of the animal kingdom.

SDSU Aztec wrote:

intenserunner wrote:

In an open chess tournament, they just have "rating" categories, and give out prizes for the winners of each based on past performances. If they did the same thing for athletics, it would not only get rid of the dispute over deciding who can be classified "female", but it would also encourage more participation by introducing categories for people who are newer to the sport and are not competing at as high of a level. Just base the prize/award categories on PB in the last and current season. When you register for an event, you can choose your category to compete in based on your past or current season PB. If you've never raced that event before, then you can choose any category.

If you don't like women's sports, watch something else.

I don't watch sports.... but the point of this thread is to save "women in sports". You seem too ignorant to realize that the "women" categories in sports and athletics were created to make a category for those who are physically disadvantaged by biological traits of their sex. If women were not at a physical disadvantage, these categories would not have been created and women could just compete with men. But now it seems that those women who are at a physical disadvantage due to the sex they were born with are at risk of being replaced by women (transwomen), who do not have the same physical disadvantages that these categories were originally created to accommodate. If instead of basing the categories on (sex/gender), we base the categories on what they were originally intended (performance capability), then this problem of having physically advantaged people competing against physically disadvantaged people can be solved.

it's not that complicated wrote:

If absolute speed is the only aspect of athletics you're into, you should watch horses or cheetahs or something. Humans are LAME compared to much of the animal kingdom.

Exactly, and even human's are separated by biological traits that give physical advantages to some individuals over others, even across the same sex/gender. If competitions have an award system based on past performance level just like in chess, then we would not have to concern ourselves over the complications of who is more physically advantaged than whom and we can allow everyone of every performance level to compete.... just like chess. Even if someone happens to be genetically engineered to have the lungs of an pronged horned antelope or whatever... they can still compete and we don't have to argue over who they are allowed to compete against.

I think the all the issues that have arisen from transwomen in sports comes from a misunderstanding of what women's categories are for in the first place. Transwomen seem to think it is about identity, but these categories were not created to segregate women from men or to make women feel like they are part of a special identity group. These competitive categories were created explicitly for the purpose of allowing a physically disadvantaged group of people to participate; therefore it follows that a woman who does not share the same physical disadvantages of most women should not compete with them, whether she identifies as a woman or not. It is not about identity but about competitive ability. If women never had physical disadvantages to men, the female categories never would have been created and women would be happy to compete against men. If you are a women who has unique biological traits that allow you to be competitive against elite men, then you should be competing against elite men. Some transwomen are even arguing that they should be able to compete against women without undergoing testosterone replacement therapy. Why would they even want to compete against other women who have significantly lower testosterone? If they can compete against men, then why wouldn't they, regardless of who they identify as? These categories were never about identity and any woman with pride would be happy to prove herself against men if she could, just like women who compete against men in sports where women have a chance, like chess.

intenserunner wrote:

If women never had physical disadvantages to men, the female categories never would have been created and women would be happy to compete against men. .

This argument is complicated. Everyone competing in say distance running can say that they have physical disadvantages against someone else. Most people running have physical disadvantages compared with someone like Kipchoge or Bekele so why do they have to compete in the same category? On the other hand competitive sports is about competing, winning, and losing and just sucking it up. So It does seem logical and unprejudiced to have no gender categroies in sports, especially in a sport like distance running. I would probably draw the line when it comes to combat-type sports but I guess these sports do have weight categories to try and even out the competition.

new categories or no categories wrote:

intenserunner wrote:

If women never had physical disadvantages to men, the female categories never would have been created and women would be happy to compete against men. .

This argument is complicated.

And the more we debate it, the more complicated it becomes.