The claims that transwomen don't have an advantage in women's sports is disingenuous as best. If they've been through male puberty, they will be stronger and faster. Unless we're saying that men have no advantage over women in sport. We're not saying that, are we? Because that would be a claim too far.

Biological cis men are different to trans women who have gone through the hormonal changes. There is a huge change their many aspects of their strength, muscle mass, grip stretch etc.... which some research suggests brings them in line with cis women. Nobody is suggesting a trans women yet to have gender affirming hormones has no physical advantage over cis women.

I wonder whether the females who have lost out to men, after training for years and dedicating their life to their sport but lost records, prize money and scholarships, will be compensated?

The argument (although it's never framed negatively in this way) is essentially that the side-effects of the hormonal therapy counteract the advantages of male puberty, which in many cases is probably true (I have no idea how that can be framed as a good thing for an individual, but that's another issue, and their choice I guess)...

...but the issue of course is that even if that's true a lot of the time, it's not going to be true all of the time, which means that some trans people will have a clear advantage. That's all that matters really and there's an over focus on the "most of the time" when "most" has no relevance to top-level competition... like the whole point is that it's highlighting peak performance examples, not "the average".

BBXX's argument I think seems to be that we could test and exclude those who do have a competitive advantage on an individual basis but then it all starts to unravel and become really meaningless :think:. "Trans people can compete with women - but only if we think they're not going to win".

Again in skill-based events it's not an issue but in individual events or team sports that have any physical component, it's just entirely impossible to disprove a biological advantage.

I have no problem with transwomen taking part in sport where strength and speed is not an issue, and where men and women can compete on an equal basis.

Often/most of the time is the part your keep willfully ignoring. Is your argument that this is always the case? Because... it simply isn't. A proportion retain a strength, reach, muscle mass and bone density advantage.

Again I'm genuinely asking if you have any realistic/reasonable way to "filter out" those retained advantages in a ranked setting where those with advantages will naturally rise upwards.

In other events, how would you feel about a trans man, who has been taking testosterone as part of their transition, competing in the women's event? They were born a woman after all, which is what you want from a woman's category... right?

This is a point often made but already moot; testosterone is a performance enhancing substance in sport. A cis male on supplemental T would be banned, so of course, (biological) females supplementing testosterone are going to be considered to be on performance enhancers - whether they're trans men, or just women chugging testosterone.

I'm not ignoring it, but do I see a 0.01% of a 0.02% of people as a massive issue? Not particularly. I appreciate my idea of a case-by-case basis is perfect, but I don't think your idea of banning trans women whose body composition falls in line with cis women is perfect either. This is a complex scenario and I don't have all the answers.

Absolutely not, taking testosterone is doping and any non transman taking testosterone wouldn't be allowed to compete either, the only solution there is for the transman to not take testosterone until after their sports career is over or to take it and not compete. There's plenty of reasons why people can't compete in professional sports :shrug:

Yes, indeed. So hormonal treatments are widely accepted to change the body significantly enough for it to impact someone's athletic abilities, then.

It's not an issue in a high-school football game, of course it's an issue at professional or olympic level? 0.000001% can compete at that level at all, it literally only takes ONE competitor to have a clear advantage at competition level to enter the competition for them to have a dramatically increased likelihood of winning. One person out of 7 billion for an Olympic gold.

Of course hormonal treatments affect performance, a trans woman will not be able to compete in male events because of that, that's not the debate. The debate is not "are they as good as they would have been without transition" - it's not "do they retain all of their advantage" it's "do they retain any biological advantage".

I honestly feel like there's an element of this that you understand but don't want to.

Sporting fairness and trans inclusion unfortunately simply do not gel and won't, it's not just complex it's impossible to reconcile, and (in my opinion) should just be an accepted aspect of transition. I know it won't be accepted. Just my opinion that there is no way to iron out any level of meaningful objective fairness other than to say "born biologically female only".

I will concede that there's a more complicated issue around actual bonafide biological/medical gender ambiguity, but those examples are TRULY extremely rare and that's when individual consideration would (and could) come into it.

Would need to assert the rarity of this though because there's a lot of disingenuous claims about the biological science of sex/gender, people repeating online hocus-pocus about ambiguous chromosomes and saying "but some frogs and lizards can change sex so why not primates" etc.(utter drivel, is all there is to say about those claims - its nonsense pseudoscience coming with an ulterior sociological motive and zero real scientific curiosity).

I like how being a woman is being dumbed down to what hormones we have, etc. It completely misses the plot for me.

Absolutely Maru, its pretty grim out there. I think sport can easily accomodate another category, if an athelete becomes disabled they don't move heaven and earth to continue to participate in the able bodied category, transwomen and men though not so sure there are that many in sport? also need to get their head around that they need their own category where they can compete with people who are on the same playing field, it really is as simple as that, life has dealt them a hand and they need to deal with it but not at the expense of others

What utter nonsense is the first line of the last paragraph....?

Which line and what are you struggling with Parmy, I'll do my best to break it down into an easier format.

Skilll based events.....what isn't an issue?

I don't think anyone is doing that. Talking about hormone levels ensuring a more level playing field isn't defining women by said hormones.

On the contrary, I've spent a lot of time on here advocating that women shouldn't be defined by their physical attributes. Many women on here disagree and are happy to be defined by their body parts and reproductive organs, which is sad to see as it feels quite reductive but each to their own.

Judge em by the pusssy..




Soz...me bad.

I'd strongly argue that it's less reductive than basing the classification on a nebulous/subjective individual feeling that's (in every example I've ever seen) firmly rooted in the gendered societal expectations and norms that have been historically repressive of women.

Loosely put, in my opinion, there are only two types of meaningful gender difference;

1) literal physical differences between the sexes and the social effect of those differences and

2) the social effect of being raised in a patriarchal society.


Neither apply to trans women, and thus the gender identity of transness I can only put down to a type of gender stereotyping that shouldn't exist and should never be further legitimised.

I have agreed previously that sometimes it can problematically be tied to stereotyping (cis people are guilty of doing this too...) however based on what you've just said, I question how many trans people you know and have had real conversations with about it.

I don't often agree with you, but I do agree with this post.

I think that opinion comes from misunderstanding the difference between gender identity and gender expression. I totally get how gender expressions can sometimes manifest in insulting ways and as a result it seems like it's rooted stereotypes, but I think there should be some consideration for the confusing and complex nature of living as a trans woman or man within. society that is largely always questioning your legitimacy.

Society is a judgement beast and people on this site time and time again has proven as an example just how quick they are to devalue someone's own identity because, of course, they know better. If a trans woman was to dress is stereotypically more masculine clothes, many people would absolutely question the legitimacy of them 'wanting to be a woman'. Wanting to prevent this, and with the feeling that dressing overtly 'as a woman would' will make them feel more womanly, this can lead to this overcompensating in a way that not only seems to embolden stereotypes but also does it badly. I do think for the large majority of trans women this applies to, it's unintentional and it's a way of settling into their life.

Gender identity, however, is internal and farm more intrinsic to someone's body and sex, which is where someone's 'feeling in the wrong body' comes from. There is some evidence to suggest a trans persons brain aligns more in line with the preferred gender than the one they are assigned based on their biological make up - that is to say they exhibit the subtle differences that exist between male and female brains.

So while transness isn't tied into gender stereotypes, sometimes the expression exhibits as such.

Women don't need anyone to redefine them. We know what we are lol. Nobody I've seen has asked others to advocate for them. We can advocate for ourselves.

Consider we're being instructed we should think of ourselves differently, but yet, we have to support the self-identification of other people with zero questions whatsoever. None of that makes any logical sense.