My first question is - shouldn't it be up to the women if they want to compete with Trans athletes?
The phrasing that fits physical biological reality better is: "shouldn't it be up to the women if they want to compete with all women?"
I know that trans athletes have been fighting for their right to participate but I can tell you that women have been fighting for the right to participate much much longer and in every single venue in society (the right to vote, work, be educated etc etc).
Their fights have both been a part of societal existence on some level throughout, at least, western history, and I'd argue modern world history. This is more a sign of how much further ahead of trans women that women generally are in their own fight for their existence as equal partners in society. Trans women haven't had an opportunity to fight openly for this kind of right because they've been beaten down in every single venue to the point that merely existing as they wanted to exist, no matter their other demographic realities, was reason enough to put them to death. The mere acceptance of their presence in a society is often regarded even now as a sign that a society is decrepit. Neither fight has been going on longer. Women are further along in theirs.
I really don't think "science" has much to do with it." It is my understanding that many of the women in the FPO do not feel it is fair to compete against trans athletes. I know when I see a 6'4" 190lb trans athlete competing against a 5'2" 125lb female athlete - it doesn't seem fair to me.
Where the sport has a deep female pool of athletes the differences tend to be less striking. The 5'2 125 lb women on the disc golf tour are only there because the field is immature, not because 5'2 125 is ideal size for women's disc golf. In swimming, for example, the fifth-year senior that won a collegiate event at the national level, Lia Thomas, is 6'1 140. By comparison - Katie Ledecky, the best women's swimmer on the planet is 6' 160. Thomas is actually slender compared to the current top swimmer in NCAA Regan Smith, who carries 125 lbs of weight on a frame 6" shorter. The disparity isn't going to be so big - even in gymnastics or figure skating where theoretically size and therefore power could lead to more fantastic maneuvers there's a tradeoff in terms of mass/length and what the power has to be to overcome that mass.
It has been a profoundly difficult fight for female athletes to be able to earn a living at sport. Just look at the Canadian Women's Soccer team as an example. They out perform the men's team in every competition yet they still fight to be paid the same. It's embarrassing and wrong, but it goes to show you how difficult it is for women to make a living at sport while male athletes take it for granted that they are paid to play.
Absolutely agree. Tangentially, your soccer notes bring to mind this episode of Off the Looking Glass:
- interesting discussion of the FA (football association) ban on women in Britain, in the context of Euro championships 2022, starts at 41:15.
My next question is - aren't trans athletes men genetically who are taking durgs for cosmetic reasons that have a side effect of being perfermance de-enhancing drugs?
Women who are trans are women anatomically, physiologically, in terms of the way their genotypes express phenotypically resulting in their physical body. The imaging of the brains of people who do not conform to traditional gender expression makes it clear that they have actual physically different brains. And, frankly, the brain is the nexus of your identity. It is the most important actual physical gendered organ in the body, in terms of determining if you are a man or a woman, among other elements of your identity.
The big problem in the discussion is that the people arguing that women who are trans are men treat the brain as a mystical lockbox, such that they won't accept that there are actual physical organs in the body, much less the most important one associated with identity, that have been female since fetal development. AFAIC - we are referring to people who were born women. Period. Any other insinuation is, anatomically, incorrect.
If a male athlete did not take any drugs but wanted to wear their hair long, wear a sports bra and take on a female gender performance (I realize this is a very traditional female sterertype but I simply use it as an example), would they not still be welcome to compete in the men's field? I don't understand why men who take drugs to change their appearance think it is fair to women who did not have the advantage of building muscle and stature through puberty with male hormones, to force them to compete with them.
There is so much variability within women's sports. We're complaining about what can be called above-average women's athletes, women who have been marginalized where-ever they've chosen to try to exist as themselves by the way, competing against other women.
I certainly don't understand how taking women to court to force them to compete with them is supposed to be seen as inclusive behaviour. Remember, women are also continuously fighting for their rights. Do women get paid the same as men in disc golf? Or any other sport for that matter? The gains women have made for themselves have been hard fought. Do the women have a say in this? What do the women athletes say?
Some women are being discriminated against by other women. Why shouldn't the women being discriminated against be taking the women discriminating against them to court?
