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>I think the core question is, does Hubbard have an advantage so she will win 95% of the time? If so, it’s not really a competition, especially if that result d

>I think the core question is, does Hubbard have an advantage so she will win 95% of the time? If so, it’s not really a competition, especially if that result derives from her innate ... physiology giving her an unfair advantage. But this is true of lots of sports. Most recently, Simone Biles was punished by scoring judges for a gymnastic move that only she is able to perform, due to her height and musculature. "Genetic freaks" who train hard but still have an unalterable physical advantage tend to dominate any individual sport, to the detriment of their competitors - what makes Hubbard different?

shard972 5y ago
Hubbard's was a choice not a fact of nature.
prox 5y ago
Yeah, so is it unfair? Simone Biles has a genetic advantage, something she probably didn’t have any control over or influence in. Hubbard does, to some extend? In Formula 1, Mercedes has dominated for the last 7 years or so. Is money their unfair advantage? Or is Hamilton just that good? It did make for a less attractive sport, if you already kind of know who will win.
rocqua 5y ago
Are there any examples of this worry about "genetic freaks" in non-women categories? It seems much less relevant to me in a category where everyone can enter than one that is restricted to a subset to give that subset 'fair' competition.
- chupasaurus 5y ago
  Aleksandr Karelin instantly comes to mind.
- chopin 5y ago
  Not directly related to your question but we have weight classes in certain sports. This levels out at least some of genetic advantages. I always found it odd that there are not, let's say height classes for high jump. It always seemed unfair to me that I had to lift my center of mass higher than others for the same performance.
- ivanbakel 5y ago
  >Are there any examples of this worry about "genetic freaks" in non-women categories? There are lots of examples at the Olympic level, some of which can be found elsewhere in this thread. Usain Bolt and Michael Phelps are probably the most well-known recent cases - both dedicated athletes who also had some physical quirk which helped to ensure that they totally dominated their respective sport for the period that they were in their physical primes. To be clear, the point is that nobody is "worried" about genetic outliers in mens' sports. If you were unlucky enough to be competing in a national Olympic swim team at the same time as peak-fitness Phelps, you were expected to suck it up and accept that you very likely had no chance of getting a gold medal. A great deal is made out of training and mentality, but at the end of the day, physicality is still a big silent factor in these competitions that the athletes simply have no control over.
buran77 5y ago
While it's hard to draw a precise line, there's a clear difference between having some genetic features that give you an advantage, and having most genetic features that give you an advantage. Growing up under the influence of male genetics and hormones gives an individual a massive advantage in such a sport, that simply cannot be compensated for or against with just training or medical solutions. There's nothing that will take that edge away from such an individual because human intervention later in life can't entirely undo the course nature took when building that body. The evidence is in the performance which falls squarely in line with male performance [0]. And to everyone thinking of a parallel with motorsports and whatnot, there is none. Those sports rely on technology developed by humans so anything is entirely reproducible and reversible. Nature on the other hand still does things that we don't understand, can't reproduce, or can't fully compensate for. We have no way to change the gender with all the associated factors so we focus on the critical and obvious ones like physical look and hormonal balance, which get a person 95% there. But when it comes to peak performance the 5% makes a difference and it's clearly an unfair one to every other participant. [0] https://i.redd.it/vv4ws1848t671.jpg https://i.redd.it/vv4ws1848t671.jpg
- ivanbakel 5y ago
  > While it's hard to draw a precise line, there's a clear difference between having some genetic features that give you an advantage, and having most genetic features that give you an advantage. I don't see the clear difference. In what qualitative sense does Hubbard's genetic advantage differ from the genetic advantage of any athlete at the top of their sport? There are many competitions which are dominated by one individual, regardless of the training or medical help which every other competitor can afford. Should those people be excluded from competing for reasons of fairness?
- dagw 5y ago
  The evidence is in the performance which falls squarely in line with male performance The article seems to make clear that while she is in the top 10, she's not in the top 3 and is in no way a favorite to win. So I'm not sure what that graph is supposed to be showing. Two women in this weight class have scored a 300+ in competition while Hubbard's best is a 285 from 2019.
t_sawyer 5y ago
Except... gymnastics won't end up being dominated by a bunch of people like Simone Biles. Female sports will continue to be dominated by biological males if we continue to let this happen.
- ivanbakel 5y ago
  So? What would be the downside of trans women dominating womens' sports, if that were even the eventuality?
  - llimos 5y ago
    The downside is that the whole point of having women's sports was to give women a chance to win, which they would usually be unable to. What you are suggesting will again put biological women in the position where they cannot win. So you have defeated the whole purpose.
    - ivanbakel 5y ago
      >What you are suggesting will again put biological women in the position where they cannot win. We should remember that most cis women cannot compete at an Olympic level anyways. That's the point I'm trying to make in this thread - physical outliers are already responsible for lots of non-competitions at the top level of many sports. Every athlete with a physical advantage precludes some other athlete from the top of the competition. If the "point" of womens' leagues is to provide a level playing field for cis women, then maybe we should be more open to introducing level playing fields more generally - because there are large parts of the population that cannot win in the system we already have, either. Otherwise, the "point" of womens' leagues is just to provide a space for women to compete, and trans women should be allowed in those spaces.
      - unrealhoang 5y ago
        Because what you are suggesting will not only affect the top level, every single other level below will face the exact same situation. Genetically normal with determination female are still winning and trying at championship, scholarship, etc.. Let crush that because they are genetically inferior from a mediocre biological male right? The point of male/female separation is to protect biological female from the genetic advantages of biological male, not from genetic outliers.
llimos 5y ago
The big difference is that these are genetic differences that already have a separate category, to compete against others with those same genetic differences.

shard972 5y ago

Hubbard's was a choice not a fact of nature.

prox 5y ago

Yeah, so is it unfair? Simone Biles has a genetic advantage, something she probably didn’t have any control over or influence in. Hubbard does, to some extend? In Formula 1, Mercedes has dominated for the last 7 years or so. Is money their unfair advantage? Or is Hamilton just that good? It did make for a less attractive sport, if you already kind of know who will win.

rocqua 5y ago

Are there any examples of this worry about "genetic freaks" in non-women categories? It seems much less relevant to me in a category where everyone can enter than one that is restricted to a subset to give that subset 'fair' competition.

chupasaurus 5y ago
Aleksandr Karelin instantly comes to mind.
chopin 5y ago
Not directly related to your question but we have weight classes in certain sports. This levels out at least some of genetic advantages. I always found it odd that there are not, let's say height classes for high jump. It always seemed unfair to me that I had to lift my center of mass higher than others for the same performance.
ivanbakel 5y ago
>Are there any examples of this worry about "genetic freaks" in non-women categories? There are lots of examples at the Olympic level, some of which can be found elsewhere in this thread. Usain Bolt and Michael Phelps are probably the most well-known recent cases - both dedicated athletes who also had some physical quirk which helped to ensure that they totally dominated their respective sport for the period that they were in their physical primes. To be clear, the point is that nobody is "worried" about genetic outliers in mens' sports. If you were unlucky enough to be competing in a national Olympic swim team at the same time as peak-fitness Phelps, you were expected to suck it up and accept that you very likely had no chance of getting a gold medal. A great deal is made out of training and mentality, but at the end of the day, physicality is still a big silent factor in these competitions that the athletes simply have no control over.

buran77 5y ago

While it's hard to draw a precise line, there's a clear difference between having some genetic features that give you an advantage, and having most genetic features that give you an advantage. Growing up under the influence of male genetics and hormones gives an individual a massive advantage in such a sport, that simply cannot be compensated for or against with just training or medical solutions. There's nothing that will take that edge away from such an individual because human intervention later in life can't entirely undo the course nature took when building that body. The evidence is in the performance which falls squarely in line with male performance [0]. And to everyone thinking of a parallel with motorsports and whatnot, there is none. Those sports rely on technology developed by humans so anything is entirely reproducible and reversible. Nature on the other hand still does things that we don't understand, can't reproduce, or can't fully compensate for. We have no way to change the gender with all the associated factors so we focus on the critical and obvious ones like physical look and hormonal balance, which get a person 95% there. But when it comes to peak performance the 5% makes a difference and it's clearly an unfair one to every other participant. [0] https://i.redd.it/vv4ws1848t671.jpg https://i.redd.it/vv4ws1848t671.jpg

ivanbakel 5y ago
> While it's hard to draw a precise line, there's a clear difference between having some genetic features that give you an advantage, and having most genetic features that give you an advantage. I don't see the clear difference. In what qualitative sense does Hubbard's genetic advantage differ from the genetic advantage of any athlete at the top of their sport? There are many competitions which are dominated by one individual, regardless of the training or medical help which every other competitor can afford. Should those people be excluded from competing for reasons of fairness?
dagw 5y ago
The evidence is in the performance which falls squarely in line with male performance The article seems to make clear that while she is in the top 10, she's not in the top 3 and is in no way a favorite to win. So I'm not sure what that graph is supposed to be showing. Two women in this weight class have scored a 300+ in competition while Hubbard's best is a 285 from 2019.

t_sawyer 5y ago

Except... gymnastics won't end up being dominated by a bunch of people like Simone Biles. Female sports will continue to be dominated by biological males if we continue to let this happen.

ivanbakel 5y ago
So? What would be the downside of trans women dominating womens' sports, if that were even the eventuality?
- llimos 5y ago
  The downside is that the whole point of having women's sports was to give women a chance to win, which they would usually be unable to. What you are suggesting will again put biological women in the position where they cannot win. So you have defeated the whole purpose.
  - ivanbakel 5y ago
    >What you are suggesting will again put biological women in the position where they cannot win. We should remember that most cis women cannot compete at an Olympic level anyways. That's the point I'm trying to make in this thread - physical outliers are already responsible for lots of non-competitions at the top level of many sports. Every athlete with a physical advantage precludes some other athlete from the top of the competition. If the "point" of womens' leagues is to provide a level playing field for cis women, then maybe we should be more open to introducing level playing fields more generally - because there are large parts of the population that cannot win in the system we already have, either. Otherwise, the "point" of womens' leagues is just to provide a space for women to compete, and trans women should be allowed in those spaces.
    - unrealhoang 5y ago
      Because what you are suggesting will not only affect the top level, every single other level below will face the exact same situation. Genetically normal with determination female are still winning and trying at championship, scholarship, etc.. Let crush that because they are genetically inferior from a mediocre biological male right? The point of male/female separation is to protect biological female from the genetic advantages of biological male, not from genetic outliers.

llimos 5y ago

The big difference is that these are genetic differences that already have a separate category, to compete against others with those same genetic differences.