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USA Powerlifting bans all trans women from competing as women (Read OP)
- Thread starter Deleted member 32679
- Start date
Why would that happen if they're the same weight? Doesn't that imply the same level of muscle mass?
People trying to correct for testosterone - which, true, is an anabolic steroid, but a naturally occurring one for cis men - are creating more complexity than maybe there needs to be.
I'll confess ignorance on the particulars of the biology but just making it about body mass and skipping the fretting over trans/cis/testosterone seems way more fair and simple. Not all trans people are on hormone treatments for their transition so that whole issue seems like a red herring, and they already do "class" divisions within the genders anyway.
OP
OP
pretty muchSome of the responses in this thread are fascinating to me.
There is a clear Staff post and yet...
No, the woman will have more body fat and less muscle mass than the man. Men also have more oxygen rich blood.
It's like ya'll never been in a mixed P.E class while growing up or something. As a cis girl I knew quite well the strength differences between genders, I was very active in sports and always wanted to compete and play rough with the boys in elementary school. By the time middle and high school started it was a different story. At 18 my smaller 12/13 year old male cousin was already beating me in arm wrestling... There is a biological difference that is beyond just size and height. Can we stop advocating for destroying women's competition by merging them all together?
Read up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_human_physiology
it was the same for USA and UK until recently
https://www.scientificamerican.com/...-a-30-year-ban-on-blood-donations-by-gay-men/ (2015)
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...-how-lgbt-donate-aids-hiv-tests-a8079651.html
Meritocracy includes genetic differences - olympic sports are a celebration of hard work and super human inherited attributes. At the highest levels athletes must have both.
Also, person I quoted did not say "people born with higher hematocrit and oxygen carrying capacity"...they specifically said "black" as is that was some sort of generic advantage. Not every group of recent African descent OWNS distance running as genetic differences between people of different regions in Africa are as different as they are from some of those regions to people with different skin pigmentation around the world. I'm not sure why we should accept such generalizations.
I'm not saying that gendered divisions should not exist. I'm saying that a woman who could, in theory, be competitive in a men's league could not participate.
That is the whole point of that argument. Even on trans people, the studies focus on people who already went through puberty.
If someone went through the right puberty, there will be ZERO differences. Not taller, not wider, not anything.
I honestly think the distinction, if we even need one, should not be between trans and cis women but those who had untypical hormone levels during puberty for a woman. No matter if cis or trans.
I can understand your idea .... but in practice it means that you can only compete if you did blood tests on puberty.
Which means that
1) you need to know that you want to be pro at puberty
2) you need to have that kind of money to pay for the blood tests
and that is a huge gatekeeping
It was an allusion to arguments made in this thread about a presumed edge trans women athletes have in "bone density", whereas it was pointed out that black cis women have been shown to possess even greater bone density than cis men. In other words, the reasoning for excluding trans women on these grounds is as faulty as excluding black cis women.
I would rather have competition in which priorities are kept in their proper perspective. Yes, how the participants finish is important. Their humanity and right to stand on the field of play alongside their peers (cis, trans, non-binary, intersex, black, brown, white, Christian, Muslim, atheist, etc.), though, should be paramount.
I'm happy with trans folk competing wherever they feel best suits them.
The guidelines are already in place to protect against unfair disadvantages.
Why is this thread so big?
The guidelines are already in place to protect against unfair disadvantages.
Why is this thread so big?
And I'm saying making it a mixed league would have 0 difference on the makeup of the men's league. It would be a purely semantic distinction. I'd be willing to bet real money that the top 500 ATP tennis players would still be men. It wouldn't be worth it for women to try when they would most likely not even break out of qualifiers in the ATP, but could place higher in the women's league and make more money. Based on history this theoretical woman doesn't exist. It's a solution to a problem that doesn't exist.
OP
OP
Ok it wasn't clear you were alluding only to the bone density arguments made earlier. Yeah the bone density thing isn't particularly relevant as we don't really know bone density impact on sports performance or what role it has to play in conjunction with (or separately from) other maybe more important factors.
But the worst-case scenario is that nothing changes. We still have men's and women's divisions.
And the only reason I could see that terminology as a bad thing is for non-binary people, which has nothing to do with women players
I'm not against the idea of giving a mixed league a go if someone wants to, I'm against the idea that it helps women players at all or is somehow rectifying purely a sexist construct
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Ok yeah. You always have to have an opportunity to compete. I agree.
Some of the responses in this thread are fascinating to me.
There is a clear Staff post and yet...
It's almost like some people think ordering posters to accept a couple isolated studies that are either being misinterpreted or have obvious, previously-explained limitations as the Only Valid Viewpoints is a dangerous, anti-scientific practice that deserves objection despite threatened consequences.
Theories and studies gain credibility through discussion and defense - you try to poke holes in a premise and see how it stands up; you provide evidence for your viewpoint and see how it withstands peer review and scrutiny. They don't gain credibility through fiat or through shouting at those with questions to shut their mouths and stop thinking. Demanding that all posters accept the very dicey conclusion in the OP and banning anyone who asks questions is an incredibly anti-intellectual, authoritarian practice.
There is no evidence that justifies this ban. The lack of evidence is due to the lack of support for transgender individuals. Academia generally follows the next big thing when doing research. If you want data you must help make the transgender movement bigger and stronger so that academia takes notice and starts publishing papers surrounding this topic.
I will say however that the mod post of studies misrepresents the conclusions of those publications. As an academic I am fairly pedantic on how people attempt to present their research. If a researcher presented those papers the way the mod post does it wouldn't make it past review, you'd miss your conference deadline and get in trouble with the department. Those papers don't conclude anything. It's irresponsible to present them as evidence of any kind.
There is no evidence that justifies the ban. Suggesting otherwise is transphobic. That's all that needed to be said by the admins. Sorry I'm just really nitpicky about papers n stuff since its kinda my life lol.
I will say however that the mod post of studies misrepresents the conclusions of those publications. As an academic I am fairly pedantic on how people attempt to present their research. If a researcher presented those papers the way the mod post does it wouldn't make it past review, you'd miss your conference deadline and get in trouble with the department. Those papers don't conclude anything. It's irresponsible to present them as evidence of any kind.
There is no evidence that justifies the ban. Suggesting otherwise is transphobic. That's all that needed to be said by the admins. Sorry I'm just really nitpicky about papers n stuff since its kinda my life lol.
With 9 pages of comments, I bet less than 3 people actually read through the papers.
These post after the Staff post aren't trying to discuss a damn thing.
If you disagree with what was posted by staff then you are more than welcome to post theories and studies that disprove it. All you've done so far is complain about it, so post away.
Absolutely not. That's just not understanding basic physiology and biology. At the elite level a 5'5" 150lb man will be stronger than a 5'9" 170lb woman.
2016 summer olympics:
75KGs (165lbs) women
Gold:
Snatch
121Kgs
C&J
153Kgs
Total
274Kgs
56KGs (123lbs) men
5 Men beat the Women's gold medal winner
2 Men beat the women's WR
Looks competitive right? Well we are talking about a 42lb difference and they still beat the best woman at the competition out of the podium. Let's see if we go up to within ~15lbs.
69KGs (152lbs) men
Total of 17 men finished. 16 men beat the women's WR at 75KGs and 1 man tied it. The World Record, let alone the gold medalist.
Do you have scientific evidence you'd like to present to the contrary?
Oh nothing, just collating a bunch of posts and reminding them that they are not listening to the staff post and all.
The staff post had all kinds of information in it. If it wasn't by staff people would still be saying that you should read it before posting ignorant takes
Ah see, you are the genius that I thought you were. Those two posters were banned before I made my post. Those posts were examples of people who were banned for ignoring the mod post and posting that nonsense anyway.
If you had actually read what I was responding to, you would know it was in response to a claim that people making valid points were being banned, which those posts clearly were not. Good job genius.
Backseat modding is against the TOS, so you are more than welcome to report my posts.
Quite the intelligent response, but that's par for course with you, now isn't it.
You should go back to defending racism in the Liam Neeson thread when it opens back up.
Man, where did all of the "You're a backseat mod." energy go?
Nice attempt at derailing the thread though. It' just as clumsy and embarrassing as your attempt to "call me out."
This post is good
(in a thread where the people who don't agree with the studies have nothing but "common sense" and "makes sense" as retorts to the ban)
Like, 3 or 4 dummies have done that so why get hung up on it. There are quite a few more people being a little bit more critical in their thinking.
And they didn't get banned. Maybe the ban is for people not reading the mod post.
And thinking some more about it it might also lead people to think that only trans women who took blockers during puberty are real women. So my idea there is both impractical and possibly harmful.
this is... definitely irrational
kind of goes back to the whole trans bathroom issue.
99.9% of trans women would NOT use the female restroom to be a peeping tom of sorts, they want to be comfortable
same goes here, although I suppose i dont fully disagree with the act of this decision
however i fully support trans and LGBTQ+ rights of any kind that allow said party to be as comfortable as they can be in their own skin
EDIT: i now most certainly and fully disagree with this decision
Seems like the logical solution is to ban gender categories in sports and segregate just by weight and/or height, if not you're either transphobic or a hypocrite.
Almost all competitive sports are separated by birth gender. On average (and when comparing elite with elite) men score higher in physical competition. World (or any) records are kept separate for a reason.
If you are supporting trans athletes (that have not been through hormone treatments) going around this historical standard then it seems you would also be in support of no gender lines in sports at all. What would a sports landscape of that nature look like?
Should we merge all historical records and blend the sexes into a unified table? Would there be a single physical-based world record held by a woman?
The sexes can be different, but equal.
**I apologize if I used any improper terminology. Not my intent to offend. Just trying to understand the opposing viewpoint.
If you are supporting trans athletes (that have not been through hormone treatments) going around this historical standard then it seems you would also be in support of no gender lines in sports at all. What would a sports landscape of that nature look like?
Should we merge all historical records and blend the sexes into a unified table? Would there be a single physical-based world record held by a woman?
The sexes can be different, but equal.
**I apologize if I used any improper terminology. Not my intent to offend. Just trying to understand the opposing viewpoint.
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No. The goal is for sports to be separated by current gender, not birth gender. That's a specification you're throwing on top as thought that's the way it's always been and always must be, but I don't see why? After all, clearly in this organization it wasn't always about birth gender, hence the change.
That said, like you I'm going to go out on a limb and put words in someone else's mouth: presumably you believe that there would be a problem with allowing transpeople to compete as their gender (rather than the gender they were assigned at birth). Presumably you believe this because you expect that the biological advantages that men have over women persist through the transition process. And if you look in the very opening post of this thread, you'll find several studies indicating that that's not the case.
I understand that this thread is long and you don't want to read the whole thing if it doesn't seem to be addressing your concern, but the opening post is literally the least you could do. Especially when there's a big warning from the mods about how people seem to be ignoring it and getting banned for spreading misinformation.
Some of the responses in this thread are fascinating to me.
There is a clear Staff post and yet...
If there wasn't a staff post, this thread would be 30 pages long instead of 9 by now. Got everyone scared to have a discussion.
Not sure how you could derive what I have and have not read from my post. There are a lot of comments throughout the thread that lead to the point I was making.
Many were arguing outside of the trans argument and equating men and women physically
After hormone treatment and verification of testesterone levels the line becomes a bit blurrier for me. Hard to know if that is all that matters for a level playing field. Hard to tell if it is fair in practice due to the wide range in skill even amongst those of the same birth gender.
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How much has transitioning changed since Renee Richards in the 70's as far as hormone levels? She transitioned around 40 and reached 20th in the world in tennis at 45.
She believes that biological advantages persisted after transitioning:
As more people transition, it will become clearer what the long term effects will be on performance and hopefully first hand perspective will help settle the issue. Testosterone and bone density are only part of what goes into athletic ability.
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" If you are supporting trans athletes going around this historical standard then it seems you would also be in support of no gender lines in sports at all. What would a sports landscape of that nature look like? "
This, to me, reads like you're saying men who have transitioned to a woman should compete in the category of men. But maybe I'm just reading that completely wrong? If I'm reading it wrong, I do apologize. Didn't have a lot of sleep last night.