The Trans Women Athlete Dispute

[Desiremakesmeweak]

And just to 'disclose -' I made a ton of money once from Loughborough research; in fact, I am a named contributor to a published research study which tested athletes using the Margaria Kalamen power test over something hi tech I won't say anymore here about, nor from which U this research study was done at.

But hey, yeah Loughborough very good. Right at the top ranks.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Bramblethorn - I just want to raise this point and although it stems directly from your immediate prior post, it is something I wanted to canvas for people's thoughts for a while:

'B.,' you said 'a group who already get vilified.'

No doubt people do get vilified, I'm not objecting there.

But, even to those other posters here, including the person who believes 'a man who thinks he's a woman is suffering from a mental illness' (I know I only loosely quoted) - what is 'this group?'

Loosely speaking, the group I was talking about is: people whose gender doesn't match what other folk reckon it ought to be, based on (perception of) their "physical sex".

This is a complex question and I'm still waking up; I reserve the right to come back to that and tinker with the wording! And if I had the time and concentration and nothing else that I needed to do today, I'd want to unpack that a bit more, because the experience of trans women isn't the same as that of trans men, and non-binary people are different again, and it also gets tangled up with racial issues.

I have put "physical sex" in scare quotes because, as you've already alluded, physical sex is really really complicated. The high-school version of "boys have a penis and XY chromosomes, girls have a vagina and XX chromosomes" is a very simplified version; there are so many different physical characteristics that go into what we talk about as "sex", and in many cases they don't all point in the same direction. But a lot of folk believe "physical sex" is a simple binary, and are confident in pronouncing what other people's gender should be, based on some observable subset of their physical traits.

The obvious follow-up question is: what is "gender"? There, I'm talking about how a person fits into society. If anything, this is even more complex and messy than "physical sex" - e.g. there are plenty of women who wear trousers and cut their hair short and work in "male" professions but still define as female, yada yada - but most people believe something called "gender" exists and is important in human society, even if they can't define it precisely and not all those definitions match exactly.

(I come from a hard science background, and there's a regrettable tendency among hard scientists to assume that if a thing can't be perfectly and exhaustively defined, it's unimportant and doesn't bear thinking about. I disagree.)

Some are also of the view that gender is purely a social construct. For all I know they may well be correct; there's some argument about how much of "gender" is hard-wired psychology related to innate features of the brain vs. how much is shaped by society. But even if gender is purely a social construct, that doesn't mean it's unimportant - after all, money is also "just" a social construct, but it's one of the most powerful forces in human life.

Do any of you realize that someone with a restricted Sella Turcica may have suppressed testosterone as well as other endocrine processes and flows from birth, and that again, there are those with variation forms of genitals from birth INTERNALLY whilst seemingly 'typical' externally, and then there are those with variation formed OUTWARD genitalia and yet 'typical' INTERNAL organs, and then there are those with differentiated Cingulate Gyrus formation and no discernible outer or inner variances, and then there are those with variation inward AND outward formations from birth but some facial tangential characteristics away from what is under their clothes.

I'm not up to speed on the details of all of the specific conditions you've mentioned here, but I'm aware that intersex conditions exist.

...But at the same time, there is no one single 'group' either who want to be transgender or who are transgender once you drill down into it, because not only do you have to get their pants/panties off to drill down into things, but the drilling then has to be deeper than skin deep or orifice hole deep. Most legitimate subjects are quite a bit 'claiming' of their own personal case individual characteristics and resent being lumped in with those whose situations are meaningfully different to theirs even though the end objective appears to be the same thing.

This sort of lumping/splitting consideration comes up all over the place, and I don't think anybody has ever come up with a completely satisfactory resolution to it. Some days you'll see people emphasising the distinctions between transgender and cross-dressing, trans men and trans women, people who are "transgender" for reasons of biological destiny vs. reasons of free will vs. fuzzily-defined middle ground where innate characteristics influence personality without being the sole deciding factor. Other days, you'll see those very same people talking about "the transgender community" or even "the LGBTI community" as if all these groups were one big monolith. I know I've done both myself!

All I can say there is that it's contextual. There are situations where it's important to understand differences in individual circumstances/experiences, and others where the commonalities are relevant. There are almost eight billion people in the world and we just don't have time to look at every individual person's story; sometimes we have to lump and make generalisations.

In the case of "transgender" and indeed "LGBTI", one reason why it's sometimes appropriate to lump is that many of these folk have a lot of the same enemies. Laverne Cox's life story is very different to Buck Angel's, and both of them are different again to any of the transgender folk I know in person. But the people who believe Laverne Cox is a disgusting aberration in need of 'correction' probably believe that about Buck Angel and about my trans friends too, and sometimes it's important to be able to talk about things at that level.

But I also have a lot of problems in logic seeing the Bruce/Caitlyn instance as in any way reflective of 'a typical grouping example' for the transgender case. if THAT is one example of 'vilification' targeting well, we might be talking about other reasons than 'just' people 'hating transgender people.'

I wasn't specifically talking about Caitlyn Jenner when I mentioned "vilification" - I was thinking more of Navratilova's implications of cheating, and about the perennial "transgenders corrupting your children and sneaking into their toilets" bogeyman". But since you mention it, I think there's a whiff of it there too.

Caitlyn Jenner is definitely not a typical example of a transgender person. She's rich, she's politically connected in the Republican Party, she was a world-beating athlete... she has some huge advantages in life that most people don't have, certainly not most transgender people.

Which begs the question - why bring her into the Selina Soule case at all? Selina Soule isn't an Olympic medal contender. She's a child who placed eighth in the qualifier for a state-level contest, would've been sixth if the two trans girls had been excluded from competition. (Sixth would have made the cutoff for her to go on to finals, but looking at times on athletic.net and comparing her performances to the winning times for that event, she'd have to have been very lucky to win.) Never mind the transgender angle, putting her up against any grown-up Olympic medallist would obviously be a grossly uneven contest.

So why is Braceras invoking a highly atypical transgender woman who doesn't actually have any involvement in this case?

To me, that reads like a subtler version of what Kearns did much more blatantly with her "young men" vs. "girls" framing in the other article: an attempt to cast Soule as the underdog being oppressed by the Powerful Trans Lobby (TM), which is a lot easier to do if the readership is thinking about rich-and-famous Caitlyn Jenner rather than a couple of teenagers.

 

[Jing83]

It's quite unfair to natural born women because they essentially have male genes and strength.

It's a bit of political correctness overblown

 

[stickygirl]

It's quite unfair to natural born women because they essentially have male genes and strength.

It's a bit of political correctness overblown

That's the assumption most people make because they haven't had a chance to check the facts regarding genes and strength, amongst other factors. The original link is to a program that went some way to discussing the problem. Political correctness should neither ban transgender men and women from taking part in sport. Fairness is what everyone wants, whether they are transgender or not.

 

[Bramblethorn]

It's quite unfair to natural born women because they essentially have male genes and strength.

Imagine a world where people read the discussions to see what had already been said, before chiming in with the same old arguments that have already been addressed.

Just imagine it.

 

[Desiremakesmeweak]

Well... Funny because now that I think about it, I used to read when I was a lot younger all the old, REALLY old, ancient Greek literature and at that time I was myself in a state athletics squad heading off some place or other I forget - (studying Law in the end curtailed my 'career' in athletics).

And I seem to recall somewhere that quite a few of the Ancient Greeks reckoned that it would fine for a woman or anyone else (they actually mentioned some REALLY REALLY WRINKLY OLD DUDE) to compete against all company - provided they trained at the same places, and comported themselves in the same way at those training places and on the field of competition as the usual athletes...

...which was totally in the nude.

No problems from me there.

What about you??

 

[MelanieShaman]

I sincerely believe that transgenderism is a form of mental illness. Before you start I am not homophobic, being attracted to someone of the same sex is fine, and I also do not have a problem with people wishing to dress, live and act as the opposite sex, but if a man truly believes that he is a woman then he mentally ill.

Might want to take a look at the DSM-V and ask the world health organization. They would both disagree with you. It's been classified as a physical "ailment" and has to have medical treatment, not mental treatment.

 

[TastySuckToy]

Belief isn't a valid methodology of determining reality, therefore if someone makes a claim about an issue and belief is the evidence they appeal to, I automatically reject it.

 

[ericandshannon]

.....

 

[TastySuckToy]

Personally, I fail to see the difference between claiming to be trans or claiming to be a different age or race.

Can I start collecting a pension cheque if I claim I identify as 65+?

What about identifying as a different enthicity? Can I claim to be oppressed if I identify as a minority and benefit from things like affirmative action?

Surely no one would object to such self identifying, otherwise they're a bigot/intolerant, right?

 

[Bramblethorn]

So you never know if the news is true. There was a story about a make who thought he was female and
Sued a OBGYN for not taking them as a client because they had a penis.

I'm calling bullshit on this one. If anything like this had happened, the usual suspects would be all over it, but the only story I could find matching this description was a feeble piece on a parody site which labels itself as "the most reliable source of fake news on the planet".

(also, not sure what any of that has to do with the point Melanie was making)

Personally, I fail to see the difference between claiming to be trans or claiming to be a different age or race.

Can I start collecting a pension cheque if I claim I identify as 65+?

Do you seriously believe that transgender people get pension cheques for being trans? Or were you being deliberately obtuse when you claimed not to see the difference?

What about identifying as a different enthicity? Can I claim to be oppressed if I identify as a minority and benefit from things like affirmative action?

If you can somehow go back in time and rig things so that you experience a lifetime of racial discrimination, plus all the social/economic consequences of generations of discrimination against your ancestors... then sure. That's what AA is for, as a very incomplete attempt to level the playing field just a little bit.

But until you build that time machine, then no, that's not a relevant parallel.

 

[TastySuckToy]

Do you seriously believe that transgender people get pension cheques for being trans? Or were you being deliberately obtuse when you claimed not to see the difference?

I think you're being deliberately obtuse here. I did not claim trans receive pension cheques.

My point was that if I claim to identify as a 65+ year old person, should society treat me like one? That's a yes or no question, the pension cheque is just an example of the consequences of actually treating me like a 65+ year old individual.

If you can somehow go back in time and rig things so that you experience a lifetime of racial discrimination, plus all the social/economic consequences of generations of discrimination against your ancestors... then sure. That's what AA is for, as a very incomplete attempt to level the playing field just a little bit.

But until you build that time machine, then no, that's not a relevant parallel.

So then what you're saying is that claiming I identify as a minority is not a valid reason for society to treat me as one, right?

 

[Bramblethorn]

I think you're being deliberately obtuse here. I did not claim trans receive pension cheques.

You claimed you "don't see the difference".

But both the examples you presented are of people claiming membership of a group for the sake of financial benefits which are specific to those groups - benefits which trans people don't get. That, right there, is an obviously relevant difference.

My point was that if I claim to identify as a 65+ year old person, should society treat me like one? That's a yes or no question, the pension cheque is just an example of the consequences of actually treating me like a 65+ year old individual.

You seem to be talking there about somebody who reaps the benefits of age (in this case, a pension cheque) without suffering any of the disadvantages (body deteriorates making it harder to work, yada yada). Since those benefits exist solely to help people cope with those disadvantages, that's obviously exploiting the system.

But when a younger person does experience that kind of disadvantage for reasons of chronic illness... we (at least, civilised countries...) do give them a pension. It might be called by a different name, the requirements might be a bit different, but we do accept that being 65 years old isn't the only way somebody might be too tired and run-down to work, and that people under 65 who can't work still need some kind of support.

Both the examples you've presented are about people who try to access some sort of benefit that exists to compensate for a particular disadvantage, without actually being subject to that disadvantage. That's most definitely not the situation for trans people, so it's not a very relevant example.

Trans women do experience misogyny, with a shitload of transphobia on top of that. The financial and social costs of being trans vastly outweigh the tiny compensations a trans woman might occasionally get due to being treated as female.

In the other direction... trans men like Ben Barres have talked about how transitioning actually did grant them social advantages, at least among folk who didn't recognise them as transgender. But for some reason people who want to complain about trans folk faking gender for the benefits never seem to pick on that example, perhaps because it would require accepting the fact that anti-female discrimination still exists.

So then what you're saying is that claiming I identify as a minority is not a valid reason for society to treat me as one, right?

Nope. Also: I have no patience for people who dishonestly put the words into my mouth, and if you do it again you're going on ignore. If you want to argue with a strawman, go do that somewhere else on your own time, not on mine.

I said that affirmative action is not a relevant parallel, because it exists to counteract a specific form of disadvantage that has its own characteristics (e.g. intergenerational effects) which makes it very different to issues of gender.

Age, gender, race - all of those are complex and important issues. But they're all complex in different ways. There's no particular reason to think that treating issues of gender exactly the same as issues of age or race is going to lead to a sensible conclusion.

Even there, when you talk about being "treated as a minority" in terms of age or race... again, you're not actually talking about really being treated like that minority. You're talking about a scenario where you somehow manage to access one of the few advantages that minority enjoys, without having to take the whole shitty package deal. If you're "Black" for purposes of affirmative action but White when it comes to traffic stops, health care, employment, and all the other areas where White people get it easy... then no, you're not Black, you're a White grifter.

Transgender people, OTOH, are taking the package deal.

(also, women aren't a "minority" but whatever)

 

[TastySuckToy]

Let me put it another way: ignoring belief claims, what is the scientific methodology for determining a person is trans?

 

[TastySuckToy]

TastySuckToy, Bramblethorn is debating the straw man, i.e., everything but the facts at hand. Don't let them change the argument.

You're right of course. Hence my much more simplified last question, since they completely misunderstood (quite possibly deliberately) the points I was making and actual questions I was posing.

If you are born a male, with the male parts, and the organs, and everything that has been used as the criteria, scientifically or not, to determine you as a man, then you are a man. (For the sake of brevity, I'm saying man, but this applies women as well.)

You cannot magically think your way into womanhood. Just as you cannot magically think your way from being 20 years old to 50 years old, to 65 years old, or even younger.

You cannot magically think your way from being white, to black, to Asian, to anything other than the race you were born as.

You cannot magically think your way from 5 feet tall to 7 feet tall because you identify as taller.

TastySuckToy's analogy holds true. They were not talking about the benefits gained or lost by "identifying" as something other than what you physically (scientifically) are born as. They are asking if the world should join the fantasy that accepts that a Male can decide they are female simply because that is what they choose to be, or if a Female can choose to be male because that is what they choose to be.


If you want to talk about financial gain, then the moment trans woman athletes start knocking real woman out of the money positions, then a financial benefit has been gained and another lost, which should have never been lost.

What's sadly ironic is that many pro trans activists demand everyone else cater to their beliefs and perspectives, but will viciously attack anyone else who doesn't agree with or submit to them.

 

[stickygirl]

https://66.media.tumblr.com/aa0f707d378e5d9ab2c03673918ffc23/tumblr_pwykiozn1G1rx9ovro1_540.jpg
Nuthin to see here but smokescreens

 

[Bramblethorn]

Let me put it another way: ignoring belief claims, what is the scientific methodology for determining a person is trans?

Before I answer that, perhaps you'll answer me one: what is the scientific methodology for determining if a person is female?

 

[Bramblethorn]

TastySuckToy, Bramblethorn is debating the straw man, i.e., everything but the facts at hand. Don't let them change the argument.

Actually, I was responding directly to TST's arguments, by pointing out that the things he's proposing as parallels aren't actually parallels. He's the one who's now dropped that line of argument and started on a new one.

If you are born a male, with the male parts, and the organs, and everything that has been used as the criteria, scientifically or not, to determine you as a man, then you are a man. (For the sake of brevity, I'm saying man, but this applies women as well.)

"everything that has been used as the criteria, scientifically or not"? Would you care to list what those things are?

You cannot magically think your way from being white, to black, to Asian, to anything other than the race you were born as.

That's possibly not the best example you could have chosen, because definitions of "race" are famously inconsistent from place to place and from time to time, and heavily dependent on factors other than biology.

Here's a photo of the great actor Sir Peter Ustinov:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/bd/Sir_Peter_Ustinov_portrait_Allan_Warren.jpg/609px-Sir_Peter_Ustinov_portrait_Allan_Warren.jpg

During a large part of the 20th century, he would have been legally classified as "Negro"/"coloured" in many parts of the USA, because he had a great-great-grandparent from Ethiopia and under the one-drop rule that's all it took to be black. It didn't matter how white you looked, or whether your family had been considered "white" for generations; discovering one black ancestor, no matter how far back, made you black.

In most other parts of the world, Ustinov would of course have been considered "white", although some folk would've counted him as "Jewish" or "Slavic". (One of the rifts in modern white supremacism is about whether eastern European ethnicities count as "white".)

What about "Asian"? Who does that cover? Depends who you ask. The genetic differences between different "Asian" populations are far greater than those between Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs, and yet we tend to classify the latter as separate "races" - which just shows that "race" isn't simply a matter of genetics, but is also very heavily influenced by culture.

What about "Hispanic"? In the USA it's an important racial category. In most other countries, it's not recognised. In the 1930s, "Mexican" was its own category.

Here in Australia, "black" encompasses Australian Aboriginals, who have a very different genetic and cultural background to the people who'd be "black" in the USA. And I could go on.

Yes, people in different parts of the world look different and have different cultures. But the idea that that can be simplified into a handful of clear-cut "races" is considered to be pseudoscience by modern geneticists.

And in the last few decades, thanks to advances in genetics and other technologies, we've discovered that "sex", is also far more complex than people thought.

You cannot magically think your way from 5 feet tall to 7 feet tall because you identify as taller.

Nope, and equally, nobody's claiming that a trans guy can grow a dick just by thinking about it, so I'm not sure why this is supposed to be a convincing argument about anything.

"Height" is a tangible thing that can easily be measured. "Sex" and "gender" are not.

For sex, we have a bunch of things that mostly correlate with how people are classified - somebody with a dick is usually taken to be male, somebody without is usually taken as female - but that correlation is far from perfect.

[/quote]TastySuckToy's analogy holds true. They were not talking about the benefits gained or lost by "identifying" as something other than what you physically (scientifically) are born as. [/quote]

Weird how all their examples just happened to be benefit-related, then.

If you want to talk about financial gain, then the moment trans woman athletes start knocking real woman out of the money positions, then a financial benefit has been gained and another lost, which should have never been lost.

I already discussed this issue earlier in the thread, but I'll repeat what I said there: pro sport has never been remotely "fair". If you're five feet tall, you're not going to get a NBA contract. If you don't have the exact right body shape for swimming, you're not going to be the next Michael Phelps. If your parents couldn't afford horse-riding classes, you're not going to be an Olympic showjumper. And so on.

If that bugs you, you're in good company. But if it only bugs you in the mostly-hypothetical context of "trans woman beats cis woman for a prize" and not in any of the other contexts where it happens all the time in real life... might want to unpack that a bit.

 

[Bramblethorn]

That's a shame, you're one of those people who answers a question with a question of their own. It would be much easier just to say, "I can't win this debate."

Let me get this straight: dropping the previous line of discussion and raising a new question is bad when I do it, but good when TST does it? Just wanna be clear on how this works.

 

[Bramblethorn]

So, in other words, you use many words to disprove nothing. Smoke and mirrors works only for magicians, and you are no magician.

Come on, let's not pretend you actually read it and even attempted to think about anything in it. These posts are timestamped, you know.

 

[KimGordon67]

That's a shame, you're one of those people who answers a question with a question of their own. It would be much easier just to say, "I can't win this debate."

Actually, Bramble's question in response to your question was perfectly legitimate. To way 'what scientifically defines someone as 'trans'' presupposes that there is a clear, consistent scientific definition for 'natural' (or I guess cisgendered) 'male' and 'female'. (I'm being a bit basic here, but you get my point.) If you can't present the scientific definition for 'natural' males and females, then you can't really request a scientific definition for trans folk.

 

[KimGordon67]

SG, thanks for the OP. I don't have time right now to read this entire thread, but your synopsis of the documentary was super useful. I've been struggling with how to articulate any thoughts on this issue for a little while, so it's great to have a well-documented argument - even if the argument is 'we don't know yet'.

 

[KimGordon67]

I sincerely believe that transgenderism is a form of mental illness. Before you start I am not homophobic, being attracted to someone of the same sex is fine, and I also do not have a problem with people wishing to dress, live and act as the opposite sex, but if a man truly believes that he is a woman then he mentally ill.

'I sincerely believe ...' isn't really an evidence-based argument.

 

[KimGordon67]

Bramblethorn is more than capable of finding that definition and posting it. She doesn't want to, because she is hoping that we define our own criteria, with possible mistakes to the 'ever changing due to popular opinion' notion of what gender/sex is.

Bramblethorn is encouraged to provide her own definition.


Edit
Here is an excellent video of Ben Shapiro addressing this argument.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkONHNXGfaM

Nope, what I said - if you can't come up with the 'scientific definition' for the basis of your argument, then you don't really have the right to ask someone else for one.

 

[KimGordon67]

Imagine a world where people read the discussions to see what had already been said, before chiming in with the same old arguments that have already been addressed.

Just imagine it.

You're just being silly now.