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I guess I'm out of the loop on this subject and honestly I don't know if the information I have is factual or not.
Do trans women generally have a physical advantage over women? Are there any rules for this kind of thing? Do they need to be transitioning or taking suppression drugs? This is a serious question.
trans people on hormone replacement therapy stop receiving the effects of whatever hormone their body produces naturally. so trans women lose muscle mass, bone density, whatever, and have no benefit from having previously lived as a man.
additionally, im of the opinion that less than 1 percent of child athletes go on to play professional sports, so who gives a shit who is playing who
One could argue that having gone through puberty as a male people might have a bigger frame which could be advantageous in some cases (basketball, track) but in my mind, this is more an argument for puberty blockers than against athletics
That's the "big car small engine" problem. If anything, this puts trans women at a disadvantage in many sports. You're stuck with the large skeleton formed in a male puberty, but now you have female-level musculature moving it. There are many sports where trans women are actually at a disadvantage compared to cis women. To see the absolute absurdity of trans sports bans, consider that they apply to all sports. In what possible universe does a trans woman have an advantage in women's gymnastics?
Look, the reasoning is far cruder than that. It actually goes like this:
False assumption 1: Men are superior to women.
False assumption 2: Trans women are men.
False conclusion, based on the false assumptions: Therefore, trans women are superior to cis women, which is cheating.
Also the Christian fundies, much like Muslim fundies, are believers in strict gender apartheid, and according to their fallacious assumptions (as I've listed above) allowing trans women on teams with cis women would violate that segregation.
If all of that is true then why separate men and women in sport at any level?
Plenty of people might have different genetic advantages in sports, but they're allowed to compete. Who cares?
Exactly.
https://www.scienceabc.com/sports/michael-phelps-height-arms-torso-arm-span-feet-swimming.html
If they want everything "equal" then an athlete like Phelps should be taking drugs to raise the lactic acid in his system.
I'm not sure what the argument is here. Obviously genetics make a difference but other men were competitive. If we were to allow Phelps to swim against the women that would not be the case but you seem to be insisting that none of it is fair because we aren't all clones so who cares about the rules at all and that doesn't work
At an amateur level, no-one.
There's states banning trans kids competing in sports.
The kids don't care.
It seems to me that they should try to pair up these sports teams based on the talent of the individual player rather than their genitalia
Mmr based high school sports is the only true unbiased solution
"Do trans women generally have a physical advantage over women?"
No. Trans women were able to complete in the Olympics beginning in 2004. No trans woman has won an Olympic medal in the woman's category.
There are many studies that compare cis men to cis women and based on that claim trans women have an advantage. Among the studies that actually compare trans women to cis women it is generally found that trans women have no overall advantage.
"Are there any rules for this kind of thing? Do they need to be transitioning or taking suppression drugs?"
The rules and requirements vary by league. At higher levels of competition its generally required to have hormone levels at cis female levels for a prolonged period. Often 6 months or longer. To clarify, getting to those levels roughly takes 2+ years of hormone replacement therapy(hrt). Hrt for trans women generally consist of an anti-androgen, estradiol, and progesterone.
They also selectively exclude all of the sports where women have distinct advantages, like cross-country. Cis men are statistically better at quick bursts of energy, like weightlifting or sprinting… But cis women are statistically better at endurance sports like cross country. Basically, cis men have an higher concentration of fast-twitch muscle fibers, which use a lot of energy but are more powerful. While women have more slow-twitch muscle, which allows them to last longer while exerting less energy or using less oxygen.
Sports were originally segregated by sex because men couldn’t stand the thought of losing endurance sports to women. It would be wholly undignified for a dainty woman to beat a bunch of big strong men, after all. They broke women off into a separate category, so they didn’t have to worry about it. And all of those endurance sports conveniently get left out of the conversation whenever discussing the advantages that conservatives claim trans women have.
I want to believe you, but the record for marathon time for men is faster than the record for women and the record for long swim events (1500m freestyle) for men is faster than the women's record.
Maybe you missed the word "statistically"? Single examples of records, which are by nature statistical outliers, don't really address the point.
I mean this is categorically false. The gold medal winner for the women's marathon at the last Olympics had a lower time than the average finisher on the men's side. 10th place in the men's marathon would have won gold in women's by over 15 minutes. Even on a pretty basic level, an 18 year old woman has the same qualifying time as a 60 year old man for the Boston Marathon.
The only time I've seen women compete are when the length of the races get massive. I'm talking like ultra marathons or the moab 240 or something. It is possible to see women legitimately compete with men and even win there but it's still pretty rare (look up Courtney Dauwalter if you want to see something really impressive). It is very interesting to watch the gap close as the length of the races increases tho.
Elite levels of competition like the Olympics are testing those statistical outliers/ extreme ends of the bell curve though.
The answer is more complicated than other comments would lead you to believe. Before I get into all that, please know it doesn’t matter. Especially, when it comes to 14 year old kids who are playing JV sports at school.
First, the problem with studies is that there are very few trans athletes to study. Some studies have only one or two subjects.
Studies show that there is both an advantage and a disadvantage depending on what sport we are talking about and how long the athlete has been on hormones. Weightlifting and other strength based sports do tend to give an edge to trans women. However, cardio sports such as swimming and running put trans women at a disadvantage because they now have smaller muscle mass for their larger frames.
To me, it doesn’t matter. The camaraderie and other things that kids get out of sports is more important than who wins and who loses.
Human beings are sexually dimorphic, but most of the advantages or disadvantages are negligible or can be overcome with training, so it makes little difference. It makes even less difference in middle and high school aged children, since everyone is at (somewhat) different points developmentally anyway.
Maybe but that doesn't mean we shouldn't attempt to make them as fair as possible.
Exactly, we're talking about two different things when comparing children's sports and Olympic sports and it's easy to conflate the two.
Olympic competition needs fair rules to ensure the best humanity can produce is rewarded. The rules are already there and they seem to be fair and supported by trans athletes. Politicians need to stay out.
In children's sports it's more important kids learn skills, fitness, cooperation, and find a sense of community. So unless there is a massive outlier, the rules should maximise inclusion over "fairness". Politicians also need to stay out.
I agree. I feel like this is only made more complicated because of college sports and the money involved.
I think you're being a little dramatic. I understand if you personally don't care about the rules but I have to imagine no one is saying it should just be an absolute free for all. Again I don't understand why we link school and sports but we do and for that reason it means a lot to some and nothing to others. I'm completely down for a free for all in professional sports.
I agree with what you're saying but I also don't think it has to come to that. I guess my point is that if we don't make some attempt to set a standard then we are allowing literally anything. I don't honestly care for sports being tied to school in the first place but are we saying that anyone can claim to be trans and join the other team at any time because we're all too afraid to talk about it or what? If that's the case then it seems like we should just do a way with gender in sports completely.
You have a standard. Men play in the men's category, women in the women's. In this context, a man is anyone with a testosterone-dominant biology, and a woman anyone with an estrogen-dominated biology. There is your objective standard.
If sports were as fair as possible, every sport would have handicaps built into it. Ensuring sports are as fair as possible is only ever brought up when new minority groups want to participate in sports they were previously excluded from.
So in college sports the performance gap is larger and should be considered or no? I also find this hard to believe even at a highschool level. While I was in highschool the advantages of testosterone were very obvious. If it were really the case that it makes little to no difference then shouldn't the argument be to remove gender from sports all together?
I agree on a highscool/grade school level, but not at any extreme competitive level. There's a reason most of the world records for athletics are held by men.
Testosterone doesn't make all men better than all women, but if you take two equally trained+talented people for most athletic events, the men outperform the women.
I don't know about performance, or advantage (and I don't think it matters since noone seems to care about the performance or fairness of non-proffesional sports unless it can be used as a bludgeon against trans people), but I happened to be arguing with my neighbor about this a few days and found that, according to the president of the NCAA there are "less than 10" transgender athletes in college sports out of about a half million. I feel like the whole discussion is a red herring. 1
Most likely.
There is a recent last week tonight with Jon Oliver that explores this topic in a way that entertaining and powerful. Definitely worth a watch.
https://youtu.be/flSS1tjoxf0
Hopefully you have a genuine interest and aren't "just asking questions"
I'm genuinely asking. On its face it seems unfair but I also don't understand public schools'obsession with sports that seems to be made worse by the cost of college and sports also being tied to that. At the same time I also know that anything the GOP is throwing a bitch fit about is guaranteed to be a bunch of bullshit. I usually watch John Oliver regularly but I've fallen behind this season. I appreciate the link and I'll give it a watch.
Considering most trans athletes can't best records set by cis women, it seems pretty clearly no