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Why have women's sports at all? People are equal and should compete on their merits.
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Apr 6, 2022 20:42
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| # ¿ May 22, 2024 16:00 |
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I'm going to ask an adjacent question. Should there be a separate scale to score trans servicemembers when they take their annual physical fitness tests? Each branch of the US military has a physical fitness test its members are required to pass each year. The scores on these tests are weighted according to age and gender so that a middle aged man doesn't have to put up the same numbers as a 20 year old man for the same amount of points, and a woman of a particular age doesn't have to put up the same raw numbers as the man of the same age for the same amount of points. The points scored on the test are used, among other things, to decide who will be promoted and who will be promoted first. It's not the only part of the promotion process, but it is a part of it. The US Air Force's physical fitness test consists of 2 minutes of push-ups, 2 minutes of sit-ups, and a 1.5 mile run. A US Air Force study of transitioning servicemembers showed that post transition, the servicemembers performed more or less equally with their new cohort, with the exceptions that MTF Airmen did 12% better on the run than cis-gendered women, while FTM Airmen scored slightly better on sit-ups than their counterparts. So, given the difference in performance for MTF Airmen, should they have their own run standards to be scored against to make things equal to their cis-counterparts? Here is the USAF study: https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/55/11/577.full?ijkey=yjlCzZVZFRDZzHz&keytype=ref I apologize if I made any errors in terminology, and I also recognize the that various branches of the DoD's approach to physical fitness is suspect at best, but this is the system as it stand right now.
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Apr 10, 2022 02:08
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some plague rats posted:No? It's not a competition, it's "can you operate above this completely arbitrary baseline", so what does it matter? It is a competition. Your PT score adds to your promotion points. More promotions points means you get promoted ahead of other people competing for the same promotion. If you have 2 people who are otherwise equal in schools and performance and one has a higher score on the PT test, they are going to get promoted first.
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Apr 10, 2022 02:17
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A big flaming stink posted:well first off, lmao chair force. on a more serious note, that would depend what is the intended goal of this fitness test. My intuition would be that it establishes a base level of physical fitness that the military can assume to be present in every service member of its branch. Under that respect I don't see why it would be necessary to fine-tune the results to the capabilities of a subgroup, be it trans individuals or any other distinct demographic. Your intuition is not quite right. There should be tests to determine if a servicemember can meet the physical demands of their job and a test to determine their overall level of fitness. Unfortunately, those 2 somewhat contradictory goals get mashed into one mediocre test that is then used to determine your worth as a servicemember, or at least it's one of the things that goes into how quickly and if you get promoted. Take the Army's latest boondoggle, the Army Combat Fitness Test. Briefly, a study was done of the tasks required of a Soldier in a combat environment, those tasks were broken down into various movements, which were translated into exercises that could could be baselined and measured. Except that the test group used were fit young people at an infantry base, and when they tried the test on the broader force it was found that one of the exercises, the leg tuck which consists of hanging from a pull-up bar and then bringing your thighs up to your elbow for reps, was extremely hard for older women and women who had had children to do, so it was dropped in favor of planking for time. In addition, the test was originally going to have one standard for men and women, with no allowance for age. It sounds good to measure everyone against the same standard, but it put older Soldiers and women of all ages at a disadvantage since it wasn't a measure of the ability of them to do their job, it was a measure of overall fitness which manifests itself differently based on age and gender. A fit 20 year old can physically perform better than a fit 40 year old, all things being equal, but the test didn't reflect that. It has since been amended to a scale broken out by age and gender. Since the Air Force, in the case of the study, is already scoring people differently based on age and gender, should it be broken out further to take account of the advantage that MTF Airmen have in the run and FTM Airmen have in the sit up event?
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Apr 10, 2022 02:33
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CommieGIR posted:It does not add to your promotion points, at least not in the USAF. If you pass your Physical Fitness Test, you pass. That's it. Sometimes they give you little rewards for getting a particularly high score like a day off or something, but as long as you pass the DOD doesn't give a gently caress. Now, if you fail your PFT, they will prevent you from promoting if you are eligible for it. The Air Force might not, but the Army does, unless my information is outdated, which, I admit it could be with the new test.
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Apr 10, 2022 02:36
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Gumball Gumption posted:I think those differences are so minimal that it's not any sort of real bar. Outside of that the military is going to adjust fights requirements based on how wide they want to recruit. It would be some edge cases, and probably not worth the effort. Seemed like a more real world problem, if you want to call it that, than sporting events. As far as everything else goes, we've been briefed that the servicemember will be treated as whatever gender is listed in their records. Once they officially are changed in the system, that's what they're supposed to be treated as.
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Apr 10, 2022 05:52
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PT6A posted:The entire conceit is that there's a maximum level of gud you can git as a woman, and anything beyond that is unfair. The Semenya issue is the perfect example of that: here is a cis woman, who is simply too good at what she does, and there's all sorts of bitching about the fact that she is just too good for pretty much all other women to compete with her. This is not a trans issue because she is not trans, but it's relevant to the discussion because it proves the idea that being a woman in sport is, too often, defined as being somehow weaker or worse. Any deviation from that is simply not okay! Is Intersex a separate category? Legit question, I see that in the White House's announcement about Ukrainian refugees they use the acronym "LGBTQI+", the I and the + being new ones to me. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing...ounding-region/ The other thing is that your line of reasoning leads one to ask the question of why have women's categories at all?
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Apr 11, 2022 04:02
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| # ¿ May 22, 2024 16:00 |
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A big flaming stink posted:if semanya was white, she would not be seen as transgressing against the western notion of femininity (because whiteness is foundational to this notion) People had no problems calling Jarmila Kratochvilova "mannish." Or are Czechs not white in your world? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObikI1d8xPI 
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Apr 12, 2022 22:52
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