6 ms·

Yup - finally this has reached the point where gender politics crashes into reality. I’m not against any gender doing what they wish. But really, the point is

Yup - finally this has reached the point where gender politics crashes into reality. I’m not against any gender doing what they wish. But really, the point is when you (by nature) have testosterone coursing through your bloodstream… even if you transitioned, by the very nature of things you have an advantage of strength, agility, speed and desire over your female peers. As much as we would love to believe it, men are wildly physically different from women. And that’s how nature intended it for whatever reasons nature intended. You can see it in the sports stats very clearly for every sport where women and men compete. Men and woman are not the same and can never be. Each has strengths and weaknesses which make them fit very well together. I understand the need to transition. But sports is one of those examples that we can’t put our head in the sand and believe we live in a world of make-believe.

slg 5y ago
>by the very nature of things you have an advantage of strength, agility, speed and desire over your female peers. By the very nature of things LeBron James has an advantage of strength, agility, and speed over me. (no clue why you included desire in your comment) Basically every elite athlete is born with a genetic predisposition to be better at their sport than the average person. It takes a lot of determination and training to reach that full potential, but let's not pretend that people are born on equal footing.
- eric4smith 5y ago
  Ummmmm - we are talking about the differences between men and women. Not Lebron and you. Also it’s been very well proven that testosterone leads to more desire/ambition call it what you will. Women who take testosterone generally report feeling more ambitious and have more sexual desire as a by product.
- SilverRed 5y ago
  This is true but if we work with this line of logic, we should just remove the gender split in sports and make it purely a game for the best of the best. What this means is that most females will be removed from sport since they can't compete with the average male athlete. Society has spoken already and decided they want to see female athletes which is why many male only sports have started their own female only sides. This is a truly unfortunate edge case where trans people have an unfair advantage on one gender side and an unfair disadvantage on the other side. Perhaps the only fair way to do things would be to have trans only teams but the numbers probably don't work out. Or to have trans people pick sports where physical strength is not at play like motor racing, shooting, chess, etc.
  - skjfdoslifjeifj 5y ago
    > which is why many male only sports have started their own female only sides Most of the popular sport leagues don't have any rules disallowing female competitors. I'm sure the NHL, NBA, NFL, MLS, MLB, Premier League etc. would love to have a female player that was good enough because it would be a marketing dream.
    - xboxnolifes 5y ago
      Male only may be a wrong choice of words. It's usually male dominated league with an alternative female-only league.
    - Thorrez 5y ago
      A woman has played in the NHL https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manon_Rh%C3%A9aume https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manon_Rh%C3%A9aume
  - unrealhoang 5y ago
    > Or to have trans people pick sports where physical strength is not at play like motor racing, shooting, chess, etc. Even at those non-physical sports, men still have a big advantage, it shows in all of the sports you listed and e-sport. Gender split in sports is there to protect women. The men sport is actually a game for "the best of the best", I don't think there would be any complain if there's a woman (cis or trans) want to challenge that space.
hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
This graph made the rounds on Reddit: https://i.redd.it/vv4ws1848t671.jpg https://i.redd.it/vv4ws1848t671.jpg One has to completely ignore reality to try to pretend that is a fair competition. One other thing to note from that graph is the worst performance from a man was significantly better than the best performance from cis-woman. Testosterone makes you stronger, who knew?
- slipframe 5y ago
  Co-ed sports for kids that train together demonstrate this well. I was a competitive swimmer from the age of 5 to 18. Girls and boys received the same instruction from the same coaches, did the same number of laps in practice, etc. Before puberty, there was no difference in times between girls and boys. At about 10-11 years old, the girls started getting faster than the boys. But at 13-14 years old the boys became faster than the girls. Both of these correlate to when both groups reach puberty.
- foobiekr 5y ago
  There's no way to look at that graph and not conclude that all of the arguments about how estrogen makes the transgender body equivalent. A mediocre man stays a mediocre man. I would really like to know the source posting.

slg 5y ago

>by the very nature of things you have an advantage of strength, agility, speed and desire over your female peers. By the very nature of things LeBron James has an advantage of strength, agility, and speed over me. (no clue why you included desire in your comment) Basically every elite athlete is born with a genetic predisposition to be better at their sport than the average person. It takes a lot of determination and training to reach that full potential, but let's not pretend that people are born on equal footing.

eric4smith 5y ago
Ummmmm - we are talking about the differences between men and women. Not Lebron and you. Also it’s been very well proven that testosterone leads to more desire/ambition call it what you will. Women who take testosterone generally report feeling more ambitious and have more sexual desire as a by product.
SilverRed 5y ago
This is true but if we work with this line of logic, we should just remove the gender split in sports and make it purely a game for the best of the best. What this means is that most females will be removed from sport since they can't compete with the average male athlete. Society has spoken already and decided they want to see female athletes which is why many male only sports have started their own female only sides. This is a truly unfortunate edge case where trans people have an unfair advantage on one gender side and an unfair disadvantage on the other side. Perhaps the only fair way to do things would be to have trans only teams but the numbers probably don't work out. Or to have trans people pick sports where physical strength is not at play like motor racing, shooting, chess, etc.
- skjfdoslifjeifj 5y ago
  > which is why many male only sports have started their own female only sides Most of the popular sport leagues don't have any rules disallowing female competitors. I'm sure the NHL, NBA, NFL, MLS, MLB, Premier League etc. would love to have a female player that was good enough because it would be a marketing dream.
  - xboxnolifes 5y ago
    Male only may be a wrong choice of words. It's usually male dominated league with an alternative female-only league.
  - Thorrez 5y ago
    A woman has played in the NHL https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manon_Rh%C3%A9aume https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manon_Rh%C3%A9aume
- unrealhoang 5y ago
  > Or to have trans people pick sports where physical strength is not at play like motor racing, shooting, chess, etc. Even at those non-physical sports, men still have a big advantage, it shows in all of the sports you listed and e-sport. Gender split in sports is there to protect women. The men sport is actually a game for "the best of the best", I don't think there would be any complain if there's a woman (cis or trans) want to challenge that space.

hn_throwaway_99 5y ago

This graph made the rounds on Reddit: https://i.redd.it/vv4ws1848t671.jpg https://i.redd.it/vv4ws1848t671.jpg One has to completely ignore reality to try to pretend that is a fair competition. One other thing to note from that graph is the worst performance from a man was significantly better than the best performance from cis-woman. Testosterone makes you stronger, who knew?

slipframe 5y ago
Co-ed sports for kids that train together demonstrate this well. I was a competitive swimmer from the age of 5 to 18. Girls and boys received the same instruction from the same coaches, did the same number of laps in practice, etc. Before puberty, there was no difference in times between girls and boys. At about 10-11 years old, the girls started getting faster than the boys. But at 13-14 years old the boys became faster than the girls. Both of these correlate to when both groups reach puberty.
foobiekr 5y ago
There's no way to look at that graph and not conclude that all of the arguments about how estrogen makes the transgender body equivalent. A mediocre man stays a mediocre man. I would really like to know the source posting.