Do as you like, but I made no such suggestion or agreement. And here again is what you wrote:
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I know what I wrote and am happy with it. If the allergic athletes can’t take meds due to worries over altered performance, other athletes shouldn’t be able to either, regardless of reason ( up or down on hormone levels). Presumably, some severely allergic athletes choose not to compete as a consequence. Medals have been stripped due to Sudafed. If we dont allow performance-altering treatments, then the ban should be consistently applied.
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I suggested compassion for everyone.
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Exactly. That is what I meant by “evolving” and “nuanced…” Science will lead.
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The challenge about identifying the standard is it will never be embraced by one side until the trans athletes don’t win. Unfortunately her or their successes will always be attributed to physical advantage from having been born biologically male.
On the other hand sports can’t exist without both a sense of fairness and opportunity. If some women athletes view themselves as being physically unable to compete and win vs their female trans peers, the longer term impact will likely be that many decide not to participate or even start. Long term this will hurt all involved.
I stated previously I don’t have the answer and am very challenged to find a solution that balances a sincere desire to be inclusive and satisfy all.
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The IOC does permit those who transitioned prior to puberty to compete as women. Apparently that is done in some places.
… but where would that stop? Would we have an over 6 1/2 foot basketball league and an under one? how about an over 150 pound runner league and an under one… as we all know the smaller you are in distance running the faster you’ll be.
I actually do have a competitive swimmer - a son who has been swimming year round since he was 8yo. This article broke as we were returning from our State Championship meet. It prompted discussions with my girl swim mom friends … these are girls who have been swimming longer than my son. We noted that even though he was only 8th in the boys 50 Free, if he were to have competed as a girl he would have placed first AND broken the girls state record.
He hasn’t been lifting or anything like that (he’s a sprinter) and no where near competitive enough to make most strong men’s DI teams HOWEVER he IS faster than the #1 USA girl in his 2023 class in at least half of her events. She’s committed to UFla already… at this point he could never make their men’s team… but he’d be a contender with his times for the women’s - how would that me fair to her or to any other female recruit?! It wouldn’t!
I firmly believe in accepting all people and recognizing them as they prefer. However when it comes to sports we need to have a third category. It’s the only way to remain fair and equitable.
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I agree. But then this isn’t really about “identifying the standard,” is it? Rather, isn’t it about the insistence by one side that trans athletes should be locked out?
Again, I generally agree. But, unlike the issue above, this seems to be an issue that could be addressed by developing a proper standard. For those truly concerned with fairness and opportunity, this seems the obvious direction to head.
I don’t have the answer either. Unfortunately I am less optimistic that the uproar about Lia Thomas is really about “a sincere desire to be inclusive and satisfy all.”
When people believe that the choice to transition from male to female should be viewed in the same light as taking Sudafed, the discussion is about something other than a sincere desire to be inclusive and satisfy all.
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As usual, you make several good and thought-provoking points. And you are right to call out this particular part of what I wrote. In all candor, after I posted it, I stared at the word “any” and thought it inappropriate for the reasons you stated. With that said, the general idea is that we have lived with what I referred to as the “rough cut of nature” from the dawn of time and it’s in our culture to accept that some women are bigger, faster and stronger than others and likewise among the men. This issue introduces, at best, a challenge as to how we’ll make a more surgical cut in classifying what is fair and what we’ll be able to do to live with it.
While admitting mine is far from a well developed philosophy on the matter, I still hold to the basic idea that someone who just flipped from the male sex and has built up mass and strength from years of having more testosterone in their bodies holds an unfair advantage over those who were born and stayed in the female sex. I think we all agree that is manifestly obviously. From there, I freely admit that I am uninformed about our technical abilities to bring someone like that over to the other side through hormone therapy, and where the line should be drawn at which we all can say, “ok, close enough.”
And I agree that there are people whose primary motivation for their views on this is their own bigotry. I wanted only to highlight that those are not my motivations at all. If nothing nice is ever said about me, even my most strident critics in life would acknowledge that I am an empathetic person.
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I don’t care whether or not you care. You can choose to go take a walk on a beach. This seems rather irrelevant to me.
Black men were locked out because of pernicious racist ideology. The people who built and maintained that social structure were segregationists who didn’t want black people doing activities with white people. If you doubt this, then ask yourself whether MLB would have locked out a group of white people from a particular part of the country who showed a statistically significant talent advantage in the skills required to be a good baseball player. What if immigrants from Eastern Europe for whatever reason showed a strong tendency to be really good baseball players? Do you think MLB keeps them out? I don’t. They kept black people out because they were black.
While @mtmind is correct that there are people in this debate with those same nefarious motivations, it’s not the entire cohort. There are many people who are focused on the fact that women have been on the short end of athletic opportunity for much of our history who are a little wary of people who were just men 1 or 2 years earlier competing with women in sport. That’s my issue with the comparison. For many of us, it is about concerns of fairness, and only those concerns.
So, no, for me it does not make perfect sense.
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To promote thoughtful discussion in fast moving or contentious discussions, users must wait before posting again in this thread.
I do like to breathe. You may mock that need, but I can assure you that Sudafed is as essential for my survival and performance as any gender hormones are. There are many, many people who rely on ADHD meds, or allergy/asthma meds to enable the most minimum quality of life, and really do not appreciate the hypocrisy here. Thomas needs hormones to survive and perform; some gymnasts need their meds to survive, let alone perform. I do not understand why you are willing to accept Thomas’ meds and not others. If we allow hormone alterations, then why is Thomas more entitled than anyone else to it while competing?
I think some of the posters are remarkably uninclusive of those with serious medically validated needs other than gender identity. Why is that?
There is no “one side” vs “another side”. There is a continuum of views on this, and it has to do with different ideas on how to balance fairness of one group vs another.
What would you feel about my suggestion that a fair playing field has been reached when transgender women win in proportion to their percentage of the population?
Note that on the flip side, this also means that transgender men would be allowed testosterone supplements to the point that they also win in proportion to their percentage of the population (if safe to do so–I am not a doctor).
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Thanks for being merciful, SE!
I see no one doing any mocking…
Anyway, all of these are very interesting points. However, as has been said by others, including me, there are existing rules/guidelines by some of the most well-regarded sporting organizations in the world, like the NCAA and the IOC (notwithstanding totally irrelevant criticisms that they allegedly take advantage of athletes or host cities…which clearly has NOTHING to do with this issue).
AFAIK, this topic has been done and dusted over the course of around 215 posts as of right now. Nothing will change until the NCAA changes its guidelines. If there is critique, perhaps the NCAA is the right forum to vigorously advocate for reform, however way you might define that term?
I am not sure what else there is left to say beyond that.
My point was that the need for testosterone suppression is obvious if one looks at times. There are many on this thread who do not seem to understand the significant advantage testosterone gives athletes in swimming - some even suggesting divisions based on height. I understand that many do not follow swimming and are not aware that even her school record breaking 200 of 1:41:93 that is also the top time in the nation for women this year would rank her 986th THIS year for men. You can go to USA swimming and look at times per event.
The question is really if the one year of testosterone suppression enough. There has been little real study in swimming in particular.
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I feel for Lia but also for her teammates. No easy answers. My sons played lots of sports growing up - lots of baseball, varsity basketball for one, volleyball for both. They are 6’5 and 6’6" that had regional and for one , all state honors. Volleyball nets are different for men and women. How do you address that? I just don’t know how this might play out over time. My 6’5" son was dominant with men and can’t even imagine what he could do against women , even after a year of testosterone suppression. It is tough but I lean toward looking more closely at this going forward. Height, muscle mass, training , etc.
I didn’t have girls but still am concerned about women getting a fair shake in sports. This will be interesting!
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@hebegebe The person being marginalized is the one with the tropes of “she’s stealing college scholarships from cis women” being thrown at her.
Let’s not act like there is only one scholarship out there and that coaches looking at top kids don’t know who they are and what they are capable of. There are 200 D1 women’s swimming teams and each get 14 full scholarships. If your kid is really scholarship material, one trans swimmer really isn’t going to make or break them.
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Lia is at Penn. No “scholarships” , just need based.
“One side” was @Catcherinthetoast’s phrase, and in context of my post it obviously referred to those who have no interest in balancing anything. They want trans women banned, and won’t be satisfied with anything else.
To put it generously, it strikes me as being extremely problematic for a host of reasons. For just one, you fail to control for the myriad factors other than biological sex that impact the probability of success for swimmers. A cisgender swimmer who has devoted themselves to swimming from an early age not only develops physical strength conducive to swimming, they also develop a skill set, form, work ethic, mental toughness, etc. and those attributes greatly increase their probability of success as compared to the general population. The same goes for trans swimmers. It is not as if Lia Thomas just rolled off the couch one day, never having been in a pool, and decided to take up NCAA women’s swimming.
I agree that this is a valid question. I don’t know the answer, and it may take some time and some missteps to sort out.
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