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What about basketball as another example. Height is probably the single most important physical attribute of the game and the height advantage men have is over

What about basketball as another example. Height is probably the single most important physical attribute of the game and the height advantage men have is overwhelming. HRT after puberty has no impact on height.

Spivak 5y ago
And in that situation you may have very real case for saying that women over a certain height shouldn't be allowed to play women's basketball. That's fine, it's really no different than weight classes in wrestling. But then a trans woman who is of average height for a female basketball player shouldn't be barred from playing. However, the WNBA sports so many women who are 6'+ (tall people play basketball, go figure) with the tallest player ever being 7'2" so the range of heights of women is pretty broad. You seem to not be taking into account that fact that on average trans women will be taller than cis women, not that every trans woman is taller than every cis woman. And when talking about a sport that naturally selects for people who are outliers in height a trans woman being 5'7 (taller than the average woman) will be one of the shorter players.
- kenjackson 5y ago
  Even if you capped height, to say 6'8", you will still see likely eventually see trans women dominating the sport. <i>You seem to not be taking into account that fact that on average trans women will be taller than cis women, not that every trans woman is taller than every cis woman.</i> No, I am taking that into account. Because of how dominant height is in basketball, you rarely see men in the NBA at 5'9" (the average height for a man in the US). Probably less than .5% of the NBA is that height or less. So in women's basketball what this means, even if you cap the height, you will see the average height in the league grow because of the addition of trans women. 6'3" point guards will become the norm -- as of today I don't think a single 6'3" PG exists in the WNBA. And almost all of the eventual 6'3" PGs will be trans women. Whereever you cap the height -- that height will be dominated by transwomen. The only way to really blunt the impact is to cap the height so low that there is a substantial pool of top talent from transwomen and cis. Something like 6'. But that ends up now drastically hurting a bunch of cis women who are tall and prior to this, this being the preferred sport for them. And the WNBA already has issues with popularity and comparisons to the mens game (although I perosonally really enjoy womens basketball) -- if they capped the height to 6', that just makes the problem worse.

Spivak 5y ago

And in that situation you may have very real case for saying that women over a certain height shouldn't be allowed to play women's basketball. That's fine, it's really no different than weight classes in wrestling. But then a trans woman who is of average height for a female basketball player shouldn't be barred from playing. However, the WNBA sports so many women who are 6'+ (tall people play basketball, go figure) with the tallest player ever being 7'2" so the range of heights of women is pretty broad. You seem to not be taking into account that fact that on average trans women will be taller than cis women, not that every trans woman is taller than every cis woman. And when talking about a sport that naturally selects for people who are outliers in height a trans woman being 5'7 (taller than the average woman) will be one of the shorter players.

kenjackson 5y ago
Even if you capped height, to say 6'8", you will still see likely eventually see trans women dominating the sport. <i>You seem to not be taking into account that fact that on average trans women will be taller than cis women, not that every trans woman is taller than every cis woman.</i> No, I am taking that into account. Because of how dominant height is in basketball, you rarely see men in the NBA at 5'9" (the average height for a man in the US). Probably less than .5% of the NBA is that height or less. So in women's basketball what this means, even if you cap the height, you will see the average height in the league grow because of the addition of trans women. 6'3" point guards will become the norm -- as of today I don't think a single 6'3" PG exists in the WNBA. And almost all of the eventual 6'3" PGs will be trans women. Whereever you cap the height -- that height will be dominated by transwomen. The only way to really blunt the impact is to cap the height so low that there is a substantial pool of top talent from transwomen and cis. Something like 6'. But that ends up now drastically hurting a bunch of cis women who are tall and prior to this, this being the preferred sport for them. And the WNBA already has issues with popularity and comparisons to the mens game (although I perosonally really enjoy womens basketball) -- if they capped the height to 6', that just makes the problem worse.