cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/66087691
The International Olympic Committee will prohibit transgender athletes from participating in women’s sports, starting at the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
The new policy, approved by the IOC’s executive committee Thursday, requires all athletes to undergo a genetic test to compete in women’s sporting events at the Olympics.
Muscle mass is just one of the potential advantages that were considered in enacting this ban, and I think you know that.
Since you seem to be arguing this point in genuine good faith, and that’s increasingly rare, I wonder what your opinion would be of a woman with a genetic mutation which causes her to produce elevated testosterone, wanting to participate in women’s sports.
Keep in mind, this genetic mutation, which does happen to cisgender women, has a measurable effect on these women’s athletic performance.
This is not a gotcha question, and I’m not trying to trick you. Just genuinely curious
I’d ask a question as well, if most strength dominated women’s sports end up being won by trans men would you be surprised?
Assuming Nike is throwing money at them for sponsorships and the like do you not assume men will be attracted to that, and top level women’s sports leaders will end up being entirely trans men?
Trans men who take testosterone, I believe, are disqualified from women’s olympics because it’s considered performance enhancing. Though I’m sure they’d prefer to compete with other men, you’re right that if they were able to compete against women they would likely beat most of them in strength based competitions because they have more testosterone than the average woman. Not more than ANY woman, mind you.
Would that be problematic? For sure. I’d liken it to how every high school quarterback wants to be a professional football player. Good for the spectacle, very bad for the humans sacrificing their life upon on altar of sport in the hope they are chosen. I’m generally against professional sports as an industry, though I’ve nothing inherently against sporting competitions and think they’re wonderful.
You may have realized already that your question applies to a much smaller subset of the population. We’re often considered a statistical outlier we’re so rare! In that way, it’s very similar to other genetic differences.
Strength competitions should be divided by weight class already, I’m sure we both know that. Assuming they won’t be, they should apply to everyone regardless of gender, since we know that won’t happen, I think it’s reasonable to ask that trans people be allowed to compete. With the caveat that they perform the same tests as everyone else, and be kicked out for doping like anyone else. Which would probably require us to define acceptable levels of hormones for cis AND trans people in each category, which we really should be doing already (and I believe we are, if I remember correctly. There was a cis woman who was booted for having high testosterone).
The whole point of the Olympics is people who are the absolute pinnacle of human ability competing against each other. If they were genuinely born like that, then that’s just how things go, just like how some people are taller or stronger than others.
Well, unfortunately, I was genuinely born a woman. Though everyone, including myself, got it wrong for about 20 years.
I believe that to compete in woman’s sports early on in my transition might have given me an advantage (emphasis on might. I would’ve had to be an already athletic trans person, which is an overlap of a rare category and an ultra rare, but it does happen and obviously needs to be accounted for.) But at this point? After taking estrogen for a decade, any ‘bonus’ muscle mass I got from having extra testosterone (which can happen to cis women too, as a reminder) is definitively gone. I actually lost it on purpose because it gave me dysphoria, but even if I hadn’t it would be gone by now. I’m tall for a woman, but that’s it at this point. I’ve met taller (presumably) cis women than me too. I also think they should be allowed to compete against other women.
So, with that being said a trans man, who is superior to cis men, should be allowed to participate or no? If they are at the pinnacle, why not?
So you don’t actually give a shit about being fair or logical, just targeting trans women
Yeah the main and real reason is political bull shit, there’s no physical or mental advantage. If you really want to be “fair” in physical sense then make a weight class not a gender separation. Only mentioned muscle mass as that’s the main “argument” people can come up with to cope with the rule even though it’s fucking pointless.
I’ve said it before and say it again, it’s a Nazi imposed rule and those who agree/abide are Nazi sympathizing transphobes or transphobic dumb asses who don’t know basic biology or history.
Let’s not go the route of calling everyone who disagrees with you a nazi, it devalues the term.
And having weight classes for something like track and field events is absurd, especially at the Olympics, which is supposed to be the best in the world doing what they do.
Our personal feelings in this matter isn’t in discussion, rather whether agreeing with a time that was originally imposed by the Nazi refine in Germany during the 1936 Olympics considers you a Nazi sympathizer or not. Realistically a Nazi sympathizer is someone who agrees and allows foothold of power towards yourself and/or your community. Since the organizers not only agreed with the Nazis about trans people but also allowing the imposed rule go on this long has given those with Nazi ideals recognition of power to even sway the long term peaceful competition. You can read more about this in the wonderful book: The Other Olympians - Fascism, Queerness, and the Making of Modern Sports by Michael Waters https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374609818/theotherolympians/ Or read this article by the Vox talking about the topic and the book itself: https://www.vox.com/culture/364032/trans-athletes-olympics-2024
You and others may not know (or realistically care) that the Nazi Regime didn’t just hate the Jews, they hated anyone that wasn’t pure blooded and true to their “perfect race” (putative Aryan race as noted in Hitler’s 1925 Nazi propaganda book Mein Kampf) so you can imagine they also persecuted Black people, LGB and only recently researched: Trans people. That last one is pretty important because: guess so wise discriminated against trans people for the longest time ever: fucking everyone. So the persecution of trans people, the destruction of trans research and books were destroyed and lost to time again and again and were used as a foothold of power along with everyone else. Hers a really interesting read on how it took a German court to find possibility and start research on the topic: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/new-research-reveals-how-the-nazis-targeted-transgender-people-180982931/ And here’s a wiki of Persecution of transgender people in Nazi Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_transgender_people_in_Nazi_Germany
You may wonder (is that even related): YES! Very much so as previously mentioned they used trans people (a commonly discriminated minority) to gain foothold of power in the international community. Now being transphobic doesn’t mean your a Nazi sympathizer (you would just be a horrify over used dirty douche bag, ig that is our opinion*, but again doesn’t mean your a Nazi/Nazi simp)
But, if you’re recognizing and allowing such a rule (or any other rule in that matter) imposed the Nazi regime specifically made to craft a foot hold for the ideals does indeed lead you to letting them take power from yourself and your community and hence forth making you at least a Nazi sympathizer. So no it’s not demeaning and we will not allow you to dismiss its meaning for protecting your own prejudice
As for the topic of classifying Olympians, they should be classified based on skill or merit that’s related to the sport, not social constructs like gender. Many sports in the Olympics don’t even have such classifications and those that do aren’t evenly classed. We said weight only because it’s a general idea, ideally it would be different for each sport to collaborate better sportsmanship not discriminate.
TLDR: nah we put work in that: one read it+sauce lol
PS: had to write this three times as Lenny on phone Kris deleting our fucking progress some getting links. Fml