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Herstory Begins Now posted:Most significantly there are two wildly different questions here: one is a question about trans kids in amateur sports and the other is a question about serious/professional/elite athletes and how to balance competing interests of inclusion and fairness, insofar as that is even possible in sporting events. This is key imo. Conflating these two very different questions is the cause of a lot of misunderstandings. The professional bigots advancing legislation are 100% conflating the two on purpose to muddy discussion. In my personal opinion, the first question is the more important one (and has a clear answer) and the second one is better off being answered by stakeholders in those professions/sports (including trans athletes, obviously). It also seems like the thread is intended for discussing the second question, which is fine. But since the current attacks on trans people in sports mostly fall under the first question, that’s where a lot of the discussion energy lands. I’ll out myself as a person that gives close to zero shits about sports and elite athletes; but the value of sports/athleticism and the communities that develop around them for children is fairly well supported, and I care very much about trans children being excluded from that. I think this thread could probably benefit from a reboot that clarifies the scope of the discussion. I would participate in one about childrens’/amateur sports and trans participants. I have a lot to say about that and some related expertise (though I doubt there would be much debate about it; betcha we all mostly agree). On the other hand I don’t have anything useful to say about professional/elite sports/athletics, though I’d read it with interest. On a personal note it does in fact suck to realize that despite all the uproar I could probably go join a mens’ amateur team in whatever sport tomorrow and no one would bat an eye. Layers upon layers of sexism, transphobia, and transmisogyny there.
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Apr 16, 2022 21:28
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I’m curious to know if there is an elite trans athlete/competitor who has been excluded from competition. There’s no doubt it happens passively and indirectly. But it seems to me like the people who are actually being currently and directly affected by policies trying to address trans people are 1) elite cis women such as Caster Semenya and 2) non- elite trans kids who just want to play some sportsball. The only trans adult athlete I can think of in this category is the trans man who can’t get a boxing match. Is there anyone else?
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Apr 17, 2022 19:10
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Fluffdaddy posted:Not exactly excluded, but Patricio Manuel can't get a fight because cismen are too scared to fight him because machismo sexist bullshit. Yeah, that’s who I was thinking of too. It’s just strange to me that we spend all these words discussing the nuances of elite trans women in sport when it seems like that is largely a solved problem, and the real actual current real-life problems are about elite trans men, elite cis women, and trans children.
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Apr 17, 2022 19:24
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BRAKE FOR MOOSE posted:I don't see it as a solved problem. The guidelines are changing constantly, largely because most of them are unscientific and don't actually make sense upon scrutiny. All elite trans athletes have to endure an incredible amount of poo poo, and just because their sports' governing bodies are on their side at the moment doesn't mean that couldn't change. Do you have an example of guidelines constantly changing in elite sport? My vague understanding from reading this thread is that guidelines for trans participants in elite sports were largely hashed out in the 80s/90s and have mostly stayed the same. Not that these guidelines aren’t unscientific or in need of scrutiny (see: the rules harming Caster Semenya) Total agreement that elite trans athletes have to endure way too much poo poo. Just largely doesn’t currently seem to be related to official guidelines in their sports.
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Apr 17, 2022 20:38
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doingitwrong posted:This excellent summary that Woozy posted covers the continual evolution of regulations and testing methods at the Olympic level. https://www.barbellmedicine.com/blog/shades-of-gray-sex-gender-and-fairness-in-sport/ BRAKE FOR MOOSE posted:No, they've been under constant revision and only started approaching consensus in 2015. In the case of the Olympics, the IOC's 2003 guidelines were insane (required surgery). The 2015 guidelines are what many sports are now following, but they're also very problematic (testosterone maximum of 10 nmol/L for 12 months). The current guidelines are backing off of the 2015 guidelines, telling individual sports to figure it out, and consulting to try to figure out something that makes sense. And these individual sports all have widely varying guidelines even in one country (like the US) -- many US sports have no documented guidelines, some still require surgery, some ban trans athletes outright. Thank you, I appreciate it! BRAKE FOR MOOSE posted:The debate or discussion is, given that moral first principle, how do we actually make that happen given that the top 10-30% of performances in many sports are by men. Do we set standards for transgender athletes? Do we recategorize sport by a less problematic category than gender? Do we eliminate categories entirely? Yeah. In order to answer those questions, I think we need to figure out how much of overrepresentation of men in elite sports performance is specifically because men as a group are physiologically advantaged. In certain sports, it seems like the dominance of men is artificially supported - Olympic shooting for an obvious one, but I’m curious to know how soccer would change if it were coed, for example. I bet some of this is addressed in that barbell medicine article, which I’m still working through.
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Apr 17, 2022 21:25
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