A women’s competition is held and a trans woman wins. What’s the problem?
It’s not but once we start seeing a trend of the winners and record holders being trans more often than not it starts becoming a problem. It’s not fair for the biological women.
The best data is from military recruits, and there are a couple of recent studies, one published in 2020 and one in 2023. They looked at cis men, cis women, trans man and trans women. How many steps you can do in a minute, how many push ups you can do in a minute, and how fast you can run 1.5 miles. And what they found in that study was that trans women remained faster for up to two years after the initiation of gender affirming hormone therapy. At four years, trans women continued to do more sit ups and push ups.
If it’s not a problem why are we talking about it?
Exactly.
The competitions were open to women. All women. What is the problem if women win?
None that I can see.
What is the problem if trans women take all the records?
This would kinda imply that maybe it makes sense to start talking about new categories. Kinda like how we already have different weight classes in wrestling. But I doubt it would happen, if you look at the studies from the NPR article by the OC,
After 2 years of taking feminising hormones, the push-up and sit-up differences disappeared
transwomen still had a 9% faster mean run speed after the 1 year period of testosterone suppression
9% isn’t that much of an advantage, and it could go down further as time goes on (as the raw data sorta hints at), just maybe the study wasn’t running for long enough.
And this doesn’t apply to all trans folks. Do remember,
Dr. Bradley Anawalt, an endocrinologist and professor of medicine at the University of Washington, said there appears to be no competitive advantage between boys and girls before they undergo puberty around the ages of 11 or 12.
So a trans woman who transitioned before puberty has no competitive advantage worth talking about, and a trans woman who transitions after puberty just needs time to lose the extra muscle before the competitive advantage disappears.
Finally, keep in mind that even for those that are recent post-puberty transitions, they still don’t perform as well as cis men, so it definitely does not make sense to include them in there.
Meanwhile, transmen on average outperform cis men,
After 1 year of taking masculinising hormones, there was no longer a difference in push-ups or run times, and the number of sit-ups performed in 1 min by transmen exceeded the average performance of their male counterparts.
Everything suggests to me that there’s no problem and we’ve split up the categories in the right ways, at worst it’s perhaps just a matter of tweaking this statement, “1 year period of testosterone suppression that is recommended by World Athletics for inclusion in women’s events” to a slightly longer time period.
The point of my questions is that there is a philosophical assumption underpinning all the hullabaloo around trans women in sports.
Even if trans women were winning every competition they competed in, (they aren’t, but even if they were.) this only matters if you don’t actually consider trans women to be women
This is why there is so much acrimony on our side. It appears that even for our allies, it’s fine for us to compete, so long as we don’t win.
So my comment about new categories should be understood to be within the context of “trans women are women, full stop.” We have different weight classes for men in wrestling, but no one would question that the featherweight champion is a man, or that the heavyweight champion is a man, even though a heavyweight would clearly defeat a featherweight every time if they were to compete against each other.
This is why there is so much acrimony on our side. It appears that even for our allies, it’s fine for us to compete, so long as we don’t win.
That definitely seems unfair and I don’t ascribe to this. There’s generally nothing wrong with a trans women winning a sports competition when competing against other women (who may also be cis or trans).
The whole argument from the other side centers on the assumption that men obviously are better than women at sports just because, and thus it’s obviously unfair that …
What is the problem if trans women take all the records?
By definition that then means that if you are born a woman then you can forget all your dreams about becoming a competitive athlete because those roles are reserved for the ones that were born a male.
By definition that then means that if you are born a woman then you can forget all your dreams about becoming a competitive athlete because those roles are reserved for the ones that were born a male.
I think your article nails it on the head here.
One of the beauties of sport is let’s let everybody play. We just need to acknowledge the other part of the equation, which is that there’s always been inequities in sport. Somebody who’s born taller than somebody who is shorter and plays basketball, we really don’t have this conversation about the potential competitive advantage
In other words,
By definition that then means that if you are born short then you can forget all your dreams about becoming a competitive athlete (in basketball) because those roles are reserved for the ones that were born tall.
That said, we could theoretically have new height classes in basketball, the same way we already have weight classes for wrestling. Likewise, if we did need some new form of class for an Olympic sport, I’m sure we don’t have to call it out by gender, but can have some similarly gender-agnostic criteria.
The issue here is that people have no problem admitting that tall individuals have an advantage over shorter ones in basketball - but when someone points out that trans women may have an advantage over biological women in terms of strength and speed, those same people suddenly come out of the woodwork, calling it a lie or transphobia.
If instead they acknowledged the advantage but still argued for inclusion, then at least we’d be agreeing on the facts - and the discussion could focus on how to level the playing field. Blanket bans are rarely the optimal solution, but neither is a free-for-all.
The issue here is that people have no problem admitting that tall individuals have an advantage over shorter ones in basketball - but when someone points out that trans women may have an advantage over biological women in terms of strength and speed,
Key word that’s often missing: “may”
The NPR article that you used as a source is pretty clear on this, that there’s a group of trans women for which this (stronger and faster than cis women) is not true.
[some] people suddenly come out of the woodwork, calling it a lie or transphobia.
FTFY.
The issue here is that …
Blanket bans are rarely the optimal solution
Actually, I suspect the issue here is that other folks - right-wing and MAGA in particular - take the a statement similar to yours, and run away with it to justify a blanket ban.
In other words, your original statement,
This isn’t about not wanting trans people in the sports and you know it.
Well, I don’t know it. Perhaps the folks on the World Olympics have loftier ideals - I sure hope that’s the case.
Hence some hypervigilance to keep those folks from taking over the conversation.
If instead they acknowledged the advantage but still argued for inclusion, then at least we’d be agreeing on the facts - and the discussion could focus on how to level the playing field.
True - the discussion really should be focus on inclusion, and of course a level playing field should only further the cause.
It’s not but once we start seeing a trend of the winners and record holders being trans more often than not it starts becoming a problem. It’s not fair for the biological women.
Source
If it’s not a problem why are we talking about it?
What is the problem if trans women take all the records?
The competitions were open to women. All women. What is the problem if women win?
Exactly.
None that I can see.
This would kinda imply that maybe it makes sense to start talking about new categories. Kinda like how we already have different weight classes in wrestling. But I doubt it would happen, if you look at the studies from the NPR article by the OC,
9% isn’t that much of an advantage, and it could go down further as time goes on (as the raw data sorta hints at), just maybe the study wasn’t running for long enough.
And this doesn’t apply to all trans folks. Do remember,
So a trans woman who transitioned before puberty has no competitive advantage worth talking about, and a trans woman who transitions after puberty just needs time to lose the extra muscle before the competitive advantage disappears.
Finally, keep in mind that even for those that are recent post-puberty transitions, they still don’t perform as well as cis men, so it definitely does not make sense to include them in there.
Meanwhile, transmen on average outperform cis men,
Everything suggests to me that there’s no problem and we’ve split up the categories in the right ways, at worst it’s perhaps just a matter of tweaking this statement, “1 year period of testosterone suppression that is recommended by World Athletics for inclusion in women’s events” to a slightly longer time period.
The point of my questions is that there is a philosophical assumption underpinning all the hullabaloo around trans women in sports.
Even if trans women were winning every competition they competed in, (they aren’t, but even if they were.) this only matters if you don’t actually consider trans women to be women
This is why there is so much acrimony on our side. It appears that even for our allies, it’s fine for us to compete, so long as we don’t win.
So my comment about new categories should be understood to be within the context of “trans women are women, full stop.” We have different weight classes for men in wrestling, but no one would question that the featherweight champion is a man, or that the heavyweight champion is a man, even though a heavyweight would clearly defeat a featherweight every time if they were to compete against each other.
That definitely seems unfair and I don’t ascribe to this. There’s generally nothing wrong with a trans women winning a sports competition when competing against other women (who may also be cis or trans).
The whole argument from the other side centers on the assumption that men obviously are better than women at sports just because, and thus it’s obviously unfair that …
Except that cis women have beaten cis men in sports before, see https://www.elle.com/culture/g30119/female-athletes-who-won-against-men/
In some sports women generally do better than men, see https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20240731-the-sports-where-women-outperform-men
So the central premise that the other side tries to bring is faulty to begin with.
By definition that then means that if you are born a woman then you can forget all your dreams about becoming a competitive athlete because those roles are reserved for the ones that were born a male.
Implying of course that we were not born women.
I think your article nails it on the head here.
In other words,
That said, we could theoretically have new height classes in basketball, the same way we already have weight classes for wrestling. Likewise, if we did need some new form of class for an Olympic sport, I’m sure we don’t have to call it out by gender, but can have some similarly gender-agnostic criteria.
The issue here is that people have no problem admitting that tall individuals have an advantage over shorter ones in basketball - but when someone points out that trans women may have an advantage over biological women in terms of strength and speed, those same people suddenly come out of the woodwork, calling it a lie or transphobia.
If instead they acknowledged the advantage but still argued for inclusion, then at least we’d be agreeing on the facts - and the discussion could focus on how to level the playing field. Blanket bans are rarely the optimal solution, but neither is a free-for-all.
Key word that’s often missing: “may”
The NPR article that you used as a source is pretty clear on this, that there’s a group of trans women for which this (stronger and faster than cis women) is not true.
FTFY.
Actually, I suspect the issue here is that other folks - right-wing and MAGA in particular - take the a statement similar to yours, and run away with it to justify a blanket ban.
In other words, your original statement,
Well, I don’t know it. Perhaps the folks on the World Olympics have loftier ideals - I sure hope that’s the case.
But there are folks that don’t want trans people to be able to use washrooms. (See https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/no-link-between-trans-inclusive-policies-bathroom-safety-study-finds-n911106 which references the belief, while pointing out that science doesn’t provide support.)
Hence some hypervigilance to keep those folks from taking over the conversation.
True - the discussion really should be focus on inclusion, and of course a level playing field should only further the cause.