If someone of any gender behaves in appropriately then yes that should be enforced. This is like the previous arguments regarding accepting gay people in the military that somehow they would act more inappropriately and with less discipline than heterosexual people. Standards for behavior should be enforced no matter who they are.
That's good that you find that but identity by definition is very important to who someone is and how they perceive and react to the rest of the world. If you felt that how people treated you wasn't what your identity was and continued to insist that it wasn't your identity wouldn't you find that very troubling and hurtful? To flip an early example on it's head what if people insisted you're a cat even though you clearly don't feel like a cat?
As has been discussed she had a few years of in addition to transitioning of also training. The idea that Thomas shattering records is the idea that trans athletes will be the end of female sports. IT's clearly not. Thomas made a big improvement. Is that all due to innnate biological advantage or maybe it is due to better training or that the competition just wasn't as tough that day. As noted the silver medalist she beat supports Thomas competiting and doesn't blame her loss to some unfair advantage
And as noted there are a lot of femal athletes that support Thomas' right to compete. Again as men we are claiming with absolute certainty that we know what women want in this issue when it's not agreement about all women about this issue. I've stated my position is to leave it to the leagues to decide rather than dicate to them a position.
I haven’t seen anyone say it will be the end all of female sports, but it does give unfair advantage. Do you really think her improvement (her times didn’t improve) was because of better training and not the fact she was facing biological females now? (She did lose to another transsexual though) It’s pretty obvious she had an unfair advantage, and until we admit that, it isn’t going to go anywhere. As for the Silver medalist she beat, supporting her, there are plenty of women athletes that support her and plenty of female athletes that do not.
There is never likely going to be an agreement as to what all women want. There are women that support transsexuals competing in sports, but there are also women that do not. The problem I have is when women speak up and say it isn’t a fair competition, they are labeled as bigots… which is a real stretch.
If it was such an unfair advantage how do you explain that several biological women beat her and her times were seconds off of WR times? That doesn't seem like much of an advantage at all. Also as stated repeatedly there are biological women who naturally have more testosterone than even transitioned females. Is it just because they were accepted at birth as females that then that advantage shouldn't matter? The answer there is that they need to take testosterone suppressing drugs which is exactly what trans people do so it does appear that hormone suppressing is already accepted for wiping out what might be considered unfair advantage. Yes. That is my point yet we get absolutist statements here about how we need to protect women's sports from the threat of trans. Not all women agree that women's sports needs to be protected. That is why I'm saying leave it to the leagues. We shouldnt be pushing for laws to address this but I suspect this is far more about pushing a social issue for political gain.
I've called people who deliberately refuses to acknowledge a group of people's identity. Who feels their preferences trump the person's own. When applied to a whole group yes that is bigotry. In regard to competition yes you can complain it is unfair. I refereed a Judo tournament yesterday and heard a lot of complaints about unfairness. That would though go into the argument that is fair for someone who weighs 150 lbs to have a judo match with someone who weighed 230 lbs. That would be unfair and that wouldn't be bigotry. There is a difference between sayign that I don't believe trans people exist versus saying I don't want to compete with someone who I feel is bigger and stronger than me. In my sport we have weight classes. I don't think track and swimming have weight classes but clearly they have standards to adjust for compeition. Again why I would leave it to them to adjust what they think is fair.
How do I explain that several biological women beat her? Well first, they didn’t beat her at her best event as she finished 1st, but second it’s because she wasn’t an elite male swimmer. She went from a solid college male swimmer to an elite female swimmer. This isn’t hard, I’m not sure where the idea that she would have to shatter every record to be an unfair advantage came from. I don’t see how anyone in good faith can argue she didn’t have an unfair advantage. She did slow down after her hormone levels changed, but that doesn’t change the fact she is well over 6’0” and has the frame of a male and has innate advantages. I don’t know what the solution is, but I know not being honest about it isn’t fair and won’t solve the issue. We are telling elite biological women athletes that they will have to compete with women born men and there is an innate advantage with that, but it’s for societies greater good, so suck it up…. I think if we honestly framed it that way, more women would respect it - but instead we stick our head in the ground and won’t admit the obvious. As I have heard from numerous women - just be above board about it. Some women will conclude that is fine - because the greater good is trans rights and not women’s competitiveness. Some likely still won’t. As for the issue overall, I think women should be able to discuss their concerns without being labeled a bigot and I think men should have zero voice on the issue, and men exert enough control over women - that includes anyone born with a penis.
I’m not talking about people saying trans people don’t exist. It’s obvious trans people exist and anyone that denies that is being dishonest or indoctrinated. Trans people should also be free of harassment and have the rights of everyone else. My concern is when the issue is couched that acknowledging there is an advantage is viewed as bigotry - because it isn’t at all. Also the advantage varies from sport to sport. In UFC it is a large advantage if the fighter was skilled as a male. In Swimming it’s a large advantage…. In archery it is likely a DISADVANTAGE. Regardless it doesn’t sound like we really disagree much on this point. As far as the federations making the rules, I certainly don’t think government should make the rules so we are on the same page there.
Thomas got worse after transitioning (her times were slower), so the training argument makes no sense. She only improved RELATIVE to her competition. Your statement that the competition wasn't as tough is correct. The reason they weren't as tough is she was swimming against women instead of men.
Sure. I would suggest fragile masculinity falls on the other end of the spectrum of gender dysphoria. One end of the spectrum says 'I was born a biological male but I feel feminine' while the other end says 'I was born a biological male but I feel like I am not masculine enough'. While impotence is in its own subset of issues on this topic, the inferiority, insecurity and low self of worth fits right in. Masculinity is not defined by height, testosterone levels or whatever else drives males to live at the gym, watch sports (as opposed to participating) or driving oversized pickup trucks/fast cars. Those are not healthy avenues of reassured masculinity and the attempts of over compensating is a form of gender dysphoria, IMO.
You’ve pretty much answered the question. She isnt that great of a swimmer so skill and technique might have some thing to do with it than just natural physical advantage. In other words the physics advantage might not be as great as what people are thinking. I don’t following swimming but my understanding is that some of the best female swimmers are also 6’ or taller. They her times lower showed that the transitioning process does reduce any previous advantage. Except the results already shown the advantage isnt as great. You yourself are struggling to answer why Thomas could only win one race at well under WR time and besides that could at best only tie for 5th. Except we have a lot of men here including yourself expressing your voice on it.
Sue wasn’t competing against Katie Ledeckt or other WR record holders. Again she also got beat by several biological women. Relative to her competition she did well but not great.
I'm with you on most all of this, but... Discrimination is wrong and rightfully illegal in some cases, but we can't let it affect our self confidence nor our self worth. Is it hard? Yes. Can we make it easier for others by not being assholes? Absolutely. If we're all embers in a single fire, we have a vested interest in helping each other love themselves so we can all burn hotter together - cells in a network, nodes in a net. To not let people who hate themselves convince us to do the same is something we owe ourselves, them, and everyone else.
No. It happens to me all the time. I would not buy their unreliable narrative, and I would forgive them for trying to sell it, Edit: I learned this from trying to sell myself the unreliable narrative of being so worthless as to kill my own self.
