She is a woman not a man, why would she swim with the men? But the main fallacy of your argument is that her testosterone levels are currently at the same level or less than people assigned female at birth, so current testosterone effects are not an issue. NCAA rules are that testosterone must be suppressed for over a year to compete.
She identifies as a woman, and she considers herself a woman, and that is fine. However, She still has many of the physical advantages of being male for 22 years, including heightened testosterone and muscle mass. If swimming was the objective, as some claim it should be, why wouldn’t the athlete remain with the same team with colleagues from the last 3 years?
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Did I miss a discussion of her current testosterone level? I do think that is relevant. For example, the IOC allows athletes with 4x the rate of testosterone that biological women possess to still compete as women. How long athletes have been suppressing their hormone levels isn’t as important to me as the actual result-if after years of suppression, their testosterone is still sky high, I don’t think they should be competing in that manner.
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I feel for everyone in this situation, but what is missing on this thread is compassion for Ms. Thomas. Instead she is demonized. I think it is necessary to admit the complexity of this situation, and that policies may be evolving. People should by all means express how they feel, but with respect for both “sides.” In fact it would be better if there were no sides at all.
Excerpts:
In addition, some transgender people who engage in sport, both competitively and for leisure, report discrimination and victimisation.
In relation to sport-related physical activity, this review found the lack of inclusive and comfortable environments to be the primary barrier to participation for transgender people. This review also found transgender people had a mostly negative experience in competitive sports because of the restrictions the sport’s policy placed on them.
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Agreed. But I can choose not to care when someone spends half their life chasing something meaningless, forgoing what I believe to be the true value of sport, and gripes when they fall short of their goals.
Being transgender is not a choice. Recognize that, and my analogy of black men in college basketball makes perfect sense.
“Achieving” is the odd ball in your list, and something I didn’t include in my opinion. For time-based events, continually striving to new personal bests is achieving… to me.
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Darn, I thought this forum would be able to have a level-headed discussion about this, but clearly this place is like so many other places on the internet when it comes to this issue. I get that there are concerns with fairness. But I think everyone telling the trans athlete to compete with her former team instead is really misguided, and I think that’s a terrible solution. People do realize why trans people transition, right? Very few people here have tried to see this from her perspective at all, and it’s super uncomfortable for me to read.
I think people need to admit that it’s a very gray-area, complex situation that probably requires some form of compromise to adequately resolve. It’s a bad idea to just force trans people back into the closet for sports.
The “fear” over random men transitioning to win that I’ve seen mentioned here is also really saddening. No one is going to risk the extreme amount of stigma of being trans (see: this thread) to win in a competition, and on the tiny chance that someone does they’ll more than likely regret it. It’s the same exact rhetoric used in arguments for bathroom laws, which I think most people here can agree are a bad idea.
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I’m not sure I understand the point you’re making. The thread isn’t about gender equality, which is a fairness issue. It seems to me that this thread is about the unfairness in gender self-identification. No society, not just Western societies, in the history of humankind has faced this issue we’re facing now.
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Well, the interviews with the women’s team do not make Thomas seem like a very nice person, regardless of the trans issues, with the gloating over the victory. I think the response would be far different had Thomas chosen to swim recreationally, or as others have suggested, in an exhibition performance, rather than competing for the win. I would like to see some compassion for the women who strive daily for 15 years for this competition and had dreams of victory too. They sacrificed enormously too.
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To add to this, I think people here are also forgetting that forcing trans women to compete with the men’s teams would, out of fairness, also force trans men to compete with women’s teams. So if your problem is that people with a high testosterone level are able to compete with women…doing this would not solve it.
Not necessarily.
In many cases, “men’s teams” are open teams. For example, men’s professional soccer is open to any woman that wants to play there and can qualify.
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Of course you’re correct on both fronts, but here we are, ~170 posts into a thread about swimming?
The issue of fairness is always part of sport. We’ve been pretty sure about the impact of testosterone and steroids for decades. If I say East German women (I think mentioned above) or Lance Armstrong…almost everyone gets both the reference and underlying comment.
So how do we determine fair? The NCAA determines it by saying 1 year of reduced testosterone.
The results of that are that someone who competed in the men’s races at the Ivy League 2 years ago (obviously a talented and likely a hard-working athlete) and finished second, has followed NCAA protocols for transitioning to the women’s races and has the fastest time in the country this year. It’s not the US 200Y record. In fact, it’s 2 seconds behind it…but Missy Franklin is a household name for anyone who watched the Olympics.
I agree with you that the combination of ability and willingness to transition is rare, and that I can’t imagine almost anyone putting themselves through the effort merely to compete, especially in a sport with very limited financial upside and no professional prospects. But here we are.
Is it fair? If you’re a female swimmer or her parents, you likely don’t think so. I get that…but the reality is that she followed the rules and is performing above the others who qualify to compete in those races.
Is the rule fair? I have no idea. The only thing I know is that she is infinitely braver than I was or am.
@hebegebe - As to competing against men…I’m guessing she could if she / her team wanted her to…because it doesn’t break any rules. Men’s professional soccer is open…women’s is not.
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Cool to know, I suppose, but still, forcing a trans woman to compete with a team called “men” is still a terrible idea, especially if a trans man’s gender identity would be affirmed in the same situation.
So if the terminology was changed from “Men’s” to “Open”, would it be better?
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I think this discussion has been better than most - barring a few posts. I am an LBQT ally and absolutely stated in my post that they should not be barred from competing. I am also a Title 9 woman who acknowledges that we need to be careful to not destroy women’s’ sports. I say this not because I think for a second that any transgender athlete is transitioning to win, but an acknowledgement that in SOME sports a very average male athlete can transition and have an extreme advantage. I think the IOC and NCAA have made a good first step with a year of testosterone suppression - I think as time goes on we may need to evaluate if that’s sufficient per sport. I hope that we can take a scientific viewpoint that is sensitive to all participants.
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It would be better, but I think you’d also have to change the name of the category of “women’s sports” if you want to go this route, which would undoubtedly cause some level of outrage too. A better or easier solution is probably to decide if there actually is a problem with the current NCAA guidelines and then fix those guidelines if there is. I’m still not fully convinced there’s an issue right now with women’s sports; it’s just that we hear a lot of these cases because they generate a lot of attention.
And just since they’ve been brought up on a few occasions, I don’t personally think that cases with men beating women handily at sports are a good indicator of whether or not trans women have a big advantage with the current NCAA guidelines.
At the Zippy Invitational in Akron, Lia Thomas finished the 1,650 yard freestyle 38 seconds ahead of her teammate Anna Sofia Kalandaze.
Thomas’s winning time was 15:59:71, with UPenn teammate Anna Kalandaze coming second with a time of 16:37:44.
Thomas also broke two US women’s swimming records during earlier races at the same event.
The first US record was broken on Friday, December 3, when Thomas won the 500-yard freestyle with a time of 4:34:06, 14 seconds ahead of Kalandaze.
And then on Saturday, Thomas won the 200 yard freestyle in 1:41:93 - 7 seconds ahead of the second place finisher.
Winning by 38 seconds, 14 seconds and 7 seconds says volumes about the fairness aspect. Swimmers, both male and female work to shave a few seconds, more likely fractions of a second off their time to beat competitors.
As far as the NCAA, they have zero interest in seriously addressing this issue as evidenced by their current rule (same goes for the Olympics). The NCAA enacted the most generalized requirement they could: testosterone suppression for one year. If trans men athletes were in any position to challenge cis men athletes there would be infinitely more attention paid to the situation.
In reading through this thread, the lack of support for female athletes is quite remarkable and in my opinion unless and until they not only speak up for themselves but take action by boycotting the events they will continue to be disadvantaged and ignored.
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With all due respect to Ms. Kalandaze…so what? Beating Ms. Kalandaze says nothing about fairness, as she is a singular data point in a universe of swimmers.
The US record in the 1,650 is 15:03. Thomas’s time is almost a minute slower. In a sport measured in 100ths of a second, is it unfair to be 7% slower than the best? If winning by 38 seconds says a lot about fairness…what do 57 seconds say?
Since you are so clear that the NCAA rule isn’t fair…what is? What rule would you enact to ensure fairness?
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I get your point, but I have some issues with your wording.
No one’s a “threat” to anyone, and I think using that word in reference to sports is kind of an exaggeration of the situation.
There is plenty of support for the female athletes not only in this thread, but also and especially outside of this thread on the rest of the internet. You hold the majority opinion here, as far as I can tell. That’s why there are so many articles written about every time a trans athlete succeeds.
I just think that the solution you and others would likely want is a terrible one that wouldn’t adequately solve the problem. I’ll say it again: trans people should not be forced back into the closet for sports, or for anything.
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I understand your point about the wording and have edited my post.
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Trying to understand this . . . Of what relevance are her times as a man, before her transition?She’s not racing as a man, she’s racing as a woman, and as you admit, her times are way down since the transition.
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