7 ms·

Gender is just one way to segment the population in groups. I agree it makes things more fair. Just like weight groups do. But with the challenges around classi

by rafale 5y ago

Gender is just one way to segment the population in groups. I agree it makes things more fair. Just like weight groups do. But with the challenges around classifying transsexuals and females born with naturally high testosterone, it's not always perfect. At some point, if we want to continue classifying by gender, we should have 2 groups: "women" and "others". With a very opinionated and scoped definition of female. Because grouping by gender is, ultimately, designed to protect women.

aksss 5y ago
Yeah, I don’t think we should design policy around edge cases. Is it worse to make the exceedingly rare instance of a transgender gymnast select a division or to call the vast, vast majority of gymnasts an “other”? Female divisions exist to allow competition within the limits of their biological capabilities, and that’s a good thing. I think the classic example of how Serena Williams is outranked by most college male tennis players is an example of why those limits need to be supported. The whole thing about transgender women competing is thorny, but it can’t be as simple as someone’s identity determining whether they get to disrupt that protected competitive class. Physical traits must be adequately considered. Even that seems very hard to do fairly. Is it fair to only let transgender women compete against biological females if they rate poorer than some female top tier? If they rate higher than the top tier, is it appropriate to let them compete? IDK, but I’m in favor of sober approaches to these question rather than brow-beating from the self righteous.
- lazyeye 5y ago
  Why is the issue thorny? I think for most people commonsense would prevail.
himinlomax 5y ago
Gender is one of the most predictive classification in social sciences, even taking into account extreme outliers like the 0.1% (at most) of transgender individuals.

by rafale 5y ago

aksss 5y ago

Yeah, I don’t think we should design policy around edge cases. Is it worse to make the exceedingly rare instance of a transgender gymnast select a division or to call the vast, vast majority of gymnasts an “other”? Female divisions exist to allow competition within the limits of their biological capabilities, and that’s a good thing. I think the classic example of how Serena Williams is outranked by most college male tennis players is an example of why those limits need to be supported. The whole thing about transgender women competing is thorny, but it can’t be as simple as someone’s identity determining whether they get to disrupt that protected competitive class. Physical traits must be adequately considered. Even that seems very hard to do fairly. Is it fair to only let transgender women compete against biological females if they rate poorer than some female top tier? If they rate higher than the top tier, is it appropriate to let them compete? IDK, but I’m in favor of sober approaches to these question rather than brow-beating from the self righteous.

lazyeye 5y ago
Why is the issue thorny? I think for most people commonsense would prevail.

himinlomax 5y ago

Gender is one of the most predictive classification in social sciences, even taking into account extreme outliers like the 0.1% (at most) of transgender individuals.