4 ms·

I want to preface this with saying I am fully supportive of LGBTQ+ rights and I believe that people can be born one way but their brain is wired for another. T

I want to preface this with saying I am fully supportive of LGBTQ+ rights and I believe that people can be born one way but their brain is wired for another. That being said, if a large majority of your biological self was a man while you were growing up even though a lot of your brain was the opposite, then you will likely have a significant advantage (athletically) over those that grew up biologically as a woman. This is in the early days of normalcy in society for trans people, so I think eventually this will work out. Perhaps racing events need something like a "weight" class like you find in some martial arts.

yostrovs 7y ago
It is already working out. When the goal is not to have sporty sporting events, but to fight a political fight, then we have the necessary process already in place. Decades ago, the fight was about women and their right to have competitive sports. Their politics moved on and their rights are not on the agenda and so not very relevant. The feminists can bitch and scream, but their time has passed. They're like the segregationists hoping to return to the past. The society's direction setters have moved on. There's no going back.
- dang 7y ago
  > When the goal is not to have sporty sporting events, but to fight a political fight, Please don't fight a political fight here. Our goal is to have curiosity. We can't have both. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
notus 7y ago
Yeah I believe it will also work itself out. I also believe that inclusion and social acceptance are more important than fairness in sports (which let's be honest, it's already unfair due to some people using performance enhancing drugs and others not using them). History is not going to look back on us and say we were bad because we had a few decades of a very tiny minority of trans people having an advantage in competitive sports. We hear about things like this once or twice a year, I'm not really sure it warrants all the outrage it receives.
- nashashmi 7y ago
  When the winner marginalizes those who reject the win as not being real champions, claims bigotry against those opposed to an obviously physical biological advantage, it deserves all the correction, protest, and outrage this gets. Otherwise it becomes a silent ignored unfairness that never gets resolved.
ASalazarMX 7y ago
> I think eventually this will work out. This is a really hard argument to sell to top women athletes who will lose their category to men who identify as women. Categorizing by weight won't help, as women are have less muscle/bone per weight than men. Sex is a biological trait, and it makes sense to categorize physical competitions by sex. Gender is a sexual choice, and your sexual choice isn't relevant to sports.
- belorn 7y ago
  Would it not be better to categorize directly on the physical beneficial traits such as muscle/bone per weight? That way we can take out genetics from sport altogether.

yostrovs 7y ago

It is already working out. When the goal is not to have sporty sporting events, but to fight a political fight, then we have the necessary process already in place. Decades ago, the fight was about women and their right to have competitive sports. Their politics moved on and their rights are not on the agenda and so not very relevant. The feminists can bitch and scream, but their time has passed. They're like the segregationists hoping to return to the past. The society's direction setters have moved on. There's no going back.

dang 7y ago
> When the goal is not to have sporty sporting events, but to fight a political fight, Please don't fight a political fight here. Our goal is to have curiosity. We can't have both. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

notus 7y ago

Yeah I believe it will also work itself out. I also believe that inclusion and social acceptance are more important than fairness in sports (which let's be honest, it's already unfair due to some people using performance enhancing drugs and others not using them). History is not going to look back on us and say we were bad because we had a few decades of a very tiny minority of trans people having an advantage in competitive sports. We hear about things like this once or twice a year, I'm not really sure it warrants all the outrage it receives.

nashashmi 7y ago
When the winner marginalizes those who reject the win as not being real champions, claims bigotry against those opposed to an obviously physical biological advantage, it deserves all the correction, protest, and outrage this gets. Otherwise it becomes a silent ignored unfairness that never gets resolved.

ASalazarMX 7y ago

> I think eventually this will work out. This is a really hard argument to sell to top women athletes who will lose their category to men who identify as women. Categorizing by weight won't help, as women are have less muscle/bone per weight than men. Sex is a biological trait, and it makes sense to categorize physical competitions by sex. Gender is a sexual choice, and your sexual choice isn't relevant to sports.

belorn 7y ago
Would it not be better to categorize directly on the physical beneficial traits such as muscle/bone per weight? That way we can take out genetics from sport altogether.