Post No.: 0712
Fluffystealthkitten says:
Why do we usually get together to talk jointly about tough issues, like we did with abortion?
Furrywisepuppy says:
Precisely because they’re tough issues and multiple viewpoints help.
Fluffystealthkitten says:
Umm, that does make sense.
Furrywisepuppy says:
This one kind of connects with Post No.: 0248 when we discussed gender dysphoria.
Fluffystealthkitten says:
It does. But I think we should all get on the same page first…
Furrywisepuppy says:
Okay. Some women are physically stronger and faster than some men hence there’s an overlap between the sexes when it comes to sporting ability. Yet it’s unquestionable that men are, typically, physically stronger and faster than women. This is scientifically provable and we shouldn’t try to be ‘politically correct’ here.
Fluffystealthkitten says:
Be aware that not all sports focus on strength or speed though.
But I guess you’re right that, for example, the best woman tennis player in the world would struggle to win a single singles tournament in her entire career if women and men weren’t separated into ‘women’s’ and ‘men’s’ categories. Elite male athletes tend to outperform elite female athletes by ~10% – approaching 20% sometimes.
Furrywisepuppy says:
I say that everyone should generally play sports with whomever they like. But the following relates specifically to professional competitive sporting contexts.
…So, in these contexts, if men and women weren’t generally separated into different competitions – it’d primarily be to the disadvantage of women. Segregating the sexes in most elite-level sports gives women more opportunities to compete and succeed in their sporting careers.
In sports where there’s technically no segregation – like motorcar racing – men usually dominate and few women ever make it to even have a chance to compete at the very highest echelons. Hence the formation of the all-female W Series championship. Albeit some say that this gives women a better chance of prominence in single-seater racing whilst others criticise that segregation sends the wrong message.
Fluffystealthkitten says:
Alright, so, apart from equestrianism and a few other sports, I accept that sex segregation gives more women a chance to make a successful career in sports. (The horses in equestrianism should get the medals though!) Discrimination and segregation are what ironically make it fair for women in most sports. Discrimination can be morally necessary and legitimate in many areas, like related to age when it comes to many things. Acceptable discrimination occurs with weight divisions too – it’s not likely going to be exciting watching a heavyweight boxer fighting a flyweight.
However, this becomes contentious when it concerns transgender people, and non-binary and gender-fluid identities. The question becomes ‘how much discrimination is most ‘fair’ or ‘necessary’?’ This is an issue that’s broadly divided between sporting rights and human rights.
Furrywisepuppy says:
Aye. The tricky conundrum is in protecting cisgender women and their opportunity to win in most sports, whilst somehow simultaneously not denying transgender women the same opportunity.
Fluffystealthkitten says:
If a male-to-female transition occurs before the start of puberty, this should mean that no testosterone-related or other physical advantages will be gained. But if a male-to-female transition occurs after the start of puberty then, although medications can reduce the level of testosterone in such a person, they’ll still carry with them the likely advantages of their gained extra limb reach, bone density, a larger heart, lungs, hands and feet, a different pelvic width and hip-to-knee/Q angle (which affects their running gait and therefore efficiency) – as a result of hormonal changes for males compared to females during puberty.
Not every such potential advantage can be reversed later without some incredibly traumatic surgery and/or extreme doses of medication. Some dispute that there’s a conclusive correlation between high (natural or otherwise) testosterone levels and greater athletic performance, but something like hip shape for running is mechanically clearer to see. Their chromosomes will also remain XY. Male-to-female transgender athletes won’t need to contend with a menstrual cycle or natural menopause. Meow.
Furrywisepuppy says:
Well it’s not all one-sided – males usually have less flexible tendons, which is advantageous in power sports and even running, but is disadvantageous in sports like gymnastics.
Although limb length will remain the same after transitioning – muscle mass and bone density will likely still decrease, thus having a large ‘chassis’ to haul around but more fragile ‘motors’ to haul it can hinder performance.
Fluffystealthkitten says:
But if there’s still a 0.1% residual advantage overall – that can be the difference between winning and coming second in some sports.
Transitioning brings effects/side-effects like easier fat weight gain, feeling relatively weaker and more – welcome to the life of a woman! But the issue isn’t that trans women aren’t likely going to be slower than cisgender men – it’s whether trans women will carry any residual advantage over cisgender women if they’re to compete in the same competitions as them.
In elite-level sports, where just 1% can make all the difference between gold and coming last – any large or small questionable advantage should be scrutinised.
Furrywisepuppy says:
More furry research is ultimately presently required in this area, and what’ll ideally happen is that the rules regarding transgender athletes will be eventually tailored for each individual sport based on such research.
Proponents of a rule to totally ban trans women (who transitioned after puberty) from female categories in sports say that it’s not intended to hurt those who genuinely experience gender dysphoria and wish to transition from a male to a female (although such rules will obviously impact them) – they say it’s to protect cisgender women from ‘biological men’.
They also fear that adult males could potentially deliberately game the system by transitioning into females in order to win scholarships, trophies, prize monies, sponsorships and/or fame in the female categories when they’re not good enough to win in the male categories, because they’ll likely have a residual advantage over those who were female throughout their adolescence. This would be regarded as another form of doping.
Fluffystealthkitten says:
Hmm. The rewards of often millions of dollars over a career could be enough incentive for some individual males to transition into females – at least if all they needed to do is take some testosterone-reducing medications for one year, and that’s it. Even if the testosterone levels are measured and must fall to <5nmol/L, this’ll still be a few times that of the average competing woman.
There mightn’t even be a need to obtain an official diagnosis from a doctor for gender dysphoria – never mind a requirement to undergo any surgery.
Furrywisepuppy says:
Some go further and argue that it doesn’t matter if an athlete is deliberately gaming the system – being a transgender woman competing against cisgender women alone makes it unfair.
Fluffystealthkitten says:
If transgender women and self-identified women with ‘46 XY DSD’ (46 chromosomes, biologically male, differences in sex development, which means atypical sexual anatomy development) have been competing in women’s categories for decades, then if such an athlete wins but her performances aren’t close to those of the best men – one interpretation could be that even merely okay transgender women can beat the best cisgender women in that sport and/or they simply don’t need to try as hard to win against cisgender women.
Furrywisepuppy says:
Some counter-argue why not therefore curb the advantages of cisgender women or men who have abnormal advantages amongst other cisgender women or men respectively – like a swimmer who has an abnormal arm span, or a cross-country skier who has abnormal levels of red blood cells? Why do we accept natural outliers within the sexes? Some people have economic advantages over others too, including better training facilities and funding. We allow advantages but not ‘overwhelming’ advantages – but where shall we draw the line when something becomes ‘overwhelming’ or ‘unnatural’? Science cannot objectively answer this because if we say a 1% advantage then why not 2%, or 0.954%, or 76.83%?!
Fluffystealthkitten says:
Perhaps it’s about maintaining ‘meaningful’ competition? However that’s defined!
Furrywisepuppy says:
Now most transgender people aren’t trying to cheat at all – they just want a chance to compete in a sport they enjoy. They face enough challenges in other parts of their lives already.
Fluffystealthkitten says:
I agree that this isn’t anyone’s fault. It’s not about excluding transgender women from elite-level sports, or saying they don’t train hard or they always win. Yet there’s still an issue of trying to achieve fairness for both cisgender and transgender women.
It’s like it shouldn’t be about punishing those who coincidentally create songs that sound similar to existing ones but about preventing those who intentionally copy without giving credit or compensation. We cannot get into the minds of other people to be truly 100% certain of their motivations for doing something hence it’s hard to know what the fair treatment is?
Yet others will argue that even if the plagiarism isn’t intentional, it still commercially harms those whose works sound similar.
Furrywisepuppy says:
Perhaps ideally there’d be enough transgender people in every sport so that it’d be worthwhile to create new categories for them i.e. cisgender men’s, cisgender women’s, transgender men’s and transgender women’s tournaments (although few would complain about female-to-male transgender men competing amongst cisgender men in most sports). Similar considerations concern acting and music awards too.
Fluffystealthkitten says:
Yeah – this shows us that this conundrum isn’t about people being transphobic because it’d actually help the situation if there were far more transgender people! But alas, there are currently only a relatively few transgender people who are competing or want to compete in each particular sport hence we must, in a commercial-viability sense, attempt to fit them into the existing categories of ‘women’ and ‘men’.
Furrywisepuppy says:
I’ll echo that this isn’t about transphobia – that’d be attacking a straw man/person. If protecting women is confused with transphobia then something’s lost in translation. Adults, especially, should be able to transition as they wish, and be identified with the pronouns they wish. This is about the dilemma of allowing trans women, particularly those who transitioned after the start of puberty, to compete against cisgender women and the residual athletic advantages those from the former group will generally have against the latter – at least depending on the rules regarding how much treatment a person must receive before they’re allowed to compete in this category, and with current medical technologies relating to gender transitioning and reducing the athletic advantages enough so that they’re satisfactorily in line with other cisgender women (but picking the ‘right’ threshold line will be tough).
It’s also about the spectators too – if a few male-to-female transgender athletes end up dominating the women’s categories then viewers will question their achievements.
Fluffystealthkitten says:
It’s an incredibly knotty issue and debates around it aren’t always cordial. There are different conceptions of ‘fairness’, and indeed ‘fairness’ and ‘inclusivity’ are clashing with each other here – it appears that we cannot maximise them both with current ideas.
All current ideas – including complete disallowance, complete allowance without restriction, testosterone reduction for women with hyperandrogenism, stipulating therapies (or even surgeries that are far more severe if testosterone reduction isn’t considered sufficient to nullify all advantages), and zero discrimination (as in having just one gender category of ‘everyone’) – have their pros and cons from a fur-ness perspective.
Furrywisepuppy says:
Sporting bodies cannot please everybody so should they try to please the most people they can?
Fluffystealthkitten says:
Whatever the case, decisions should be taken on a sport-by-sport basis and sporting bodies should continually adapt according to the data, which is currently lacking because of the relatively small number of transgender women competitors per sport.
Furrywisepuppy says:
So we’re acutely aware that people don’t always listen to the other side(s) when arguing for their own positions on this subject. It’s not black-or-white even though many naïvely perceive it that way. We don’t have the firm answers or know the appropriate solutions ourselves so please share your thoughts and ideas with us through the Twitter comment button below. Woof.
Fluffystealthkitten says:
Please keep it collaborative and respectful. Thank you. Meow.
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