As a male, she wasn't competing against Michael Phelps. That is meaningless. I can't beat the top male swimmers. If I swam against the women, I couldn't beat them either, because I am not a fast swimmer. I would still have an unfair advantage and would close the gap by switching, because the top men are faster than the top women. Using a counterexample of people that were mediocre at best as men and saying look, they didn't automatically become first place as women, doesn't disprove the inherent advantage trans athletes have, it just proves that it isn't an insta-win button. Think of it like steroids in baseball. When someone like Caminiti does steroids, they improve and might be on top once in a while (one time MVP), but are not an all-time great. Then you have someone like Barry Bonds, and they go from being already MVP level to absolutely destroying records.
I’m sorry- but you don’t seem to get it. She wasn’t a solid but not very good swimmer as a male collegian and she then won the NCAA Nationals. She also placed very high at other events. The standard isn’t whether a solid but run of the mill male transitions and wins multiple gold medals. She clearly had an advantage and grabbing at straws that it is technique or training just isn’t believable. As far as speaking for women, what do you think you are doing as well? You are speaking for women as much as anyone else by offering an opinion. I understand you feel that some of the men suddenly concerned are not sincere, and many of them likely are not. I’m not even addressing them, I’m addressing this unspoken idea that biological women just have to adapt and compromise their culture without even an acknowledgement.
Except that would show that the advantage isn’t that great. Lia Thomas wasn’t someone who just started swimming but had been a competitive swimmer before so if she had such a great natural advantage then shouldn’t that have translated into far more wins? As it is she went from a mediocre male swimmer to a good but not great female swimmer. As you and others noted her times did decrease when she transitioned is that does show that the transitioning does actually reduce biological advantages.
As stated she went from mediocre to good but not great. She also wasn’t competing against the worlds best at the meet. She won one race in seconds under WR time which my understanding isn’t close and at best could finish tied for 5th. Maybe I just have different standards but other than that one win Id not consider that to be placing very high. The arguments put forward are frequently that transitioned women will dominate and threaten women’s sports. I’ll take it as a win that at least in Clutchfans D&D people aren’t arguing that anymore. Many here have cited statements from women who didn’t want to compete with Lia Thomas. I’ve cited where women have including the women she beat in the 500. Many here have also made absolutists statements like if just one single trans women displaces a biological Women that is an outrage. I’ve stated that women aren’t monolithic in their opinions and yes there certainly are many women who don’t agree with me. What I have been arguing is that if we look at the facts of actual competition it doesn’t seem like trans athletes are the threat to women’s sports that some make it out to be. I’ve also consistently taken the line too that it should be up to the leagues which are made up of women athlete to make the decision about who should compete than myself. Again I’m willing to leave it to the women to decide in their leagues. Given that there those who want laws shows that they want to speak for all women. The fact is not all women think they are at an unfair advantage and are willing to compete against trans athletes so saying that we should acknowledge they there is such an unfair advantage that’s not even an opinion all women share.
I missed this before. I agree with you in principle but it's damn hard overcoming ostracization and harassment from others. I guess trans folks can hide pass as cis, but that kind of denial of self isn't following your ideal either. Instead they have to endure stares at minimum while society figures out what peg they slot into. The thing with institutional discrimination is that if you're prevented from moving upward into a higher wage or "held hostage" with a menial job, that has lasting mental consequences. Some folks are dumber because they're poor and not the other way around. Might be the bleeding heart in me to want the government to set the table for everyone, and I recognize there are costs for being proactive such as free services or grants. For example, people could treat this as a crutch or assume an identity of victimhood. I just don't think we are at a level of social acceptance to adequately boil things down into these details.
Imagine being so brainwashed you don't think a war is happening because you get told so by a person name "catturd" lolololol. I guarantee @Commodore would be claiming the holocaust camps were fake news and were NATO CIA camps.
