2 ms·

Don't forget Hanlon's Razor - "never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity", though I prefer to say "ignorance" instead of "stupid

Don't forget Hanlon's Razor - "never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity", though I prefer to say "ignorance" instead of "stupidity." Everybody, including us really smart people, have a domain of ignorance - things we really don't much about. The danger arises when we do think we know a lot about the subject when we don't. This is a trait afflicting many smart people. Expertise in one domain != expertise in another. Back to your statement. Let's not assume the argument is being driven by hate but instead is being driven by ignorance; and our ignorance is born out of a scarcity of data and our experience with boys and girls sports. Most people, myself included, assume that a boy undergoing therapy to be a girl will perform better in sports than girls - after all that's why we separated boys and girls in sports in the first place. The hypothesis is trans girls will perform better in sports. Time and data will tell if that hypothesis is correct. Anecdotally we can point to this girl won, but we can also anecdotally point to other cases where the trans girl won. Is that statistically significant? Do we have enough data to tell? I don't know, but I don't see how we're going to find out if we don't let trans girls compete as girls.

slfnflctd 5y ago
> I don't know, but I don't see how we're going to find out if we don't let trans girls compete as girls. My first thought is that they could be allowed to participate in programs right up to (but not yet including) actual major competitions where things like eligibility for college scholarships are determined. You shouldn't be allowed to "win State" - and receive all the potentially career altering benefits of that - when more than half the observers suspect the possibility of an unfair advantage and there's no clear scientific way to counter their suspicion. We can collect plenty of data without messing with the entire life trajectories of kids before the results are in. I feel bad for any trans people who miss opportunities over this, but when you're pushing new frontiers you sometimes have to wait for an area to mapped before you can fully explore it.
- taylodl 5y ago
  To your point then the real discussion here is money and how we fund higher education here in the United States. Now we see the domino effect of bad social policy.
  - slfnflctd 5y ago
    Very, very true. The more intense feelings of 'betrayal by the system' in the original article ultimately do come down to money, and could have been avoided if our system was more fair in the first place. I can't help but agree this is probably the bigger issue.

slfnflctd 5y ago

> I don't know, but I don't see how we're going to find out if we don't let trans girls compete as girls. My first thought is that they could be allowed to participate in programs right up to (but not yet including) actual major competitions where things like eligibility for college scholarships are determined. You shouldn't be allowed to "win State" - and receive all the potentially career altering benefits of that - when more than half the observers suspect the possibility of an unfair advantage and there's no clear scientific way to counter their suspicion. We can collect plenty of data without messing with the entire life trajectories of kids before the results are in. I feel bad for any trans people who miss opportunities over this, but when you're pushing new frontiers you sometimes have to wait for an area to mapped before you can fully explore it.

taylodl 5y ago
To your point then the real discussion here is money and how we fund higher education here in the United States. Now we see the domino effect of bad social policy.
- slfnflctd 5y ago
  Very, very true. The more intense feelings of 'betrayal by the system' in the original article ultimately do come down to money, and could have been avoided if our system was more fair in the first place. I can't help but agree this is probably the bigger issue.