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Very interesting. Relates to conversations I've had recently regarding trans people in sports. Turns out that conversation isn't simple, because gender is way m

• qingcharles 1y ago
  We, as a society, need to understand there is no good solution to the issue of gender in sports (excluding gender-neutral ones like shooting etc). Should all just play esports instead.
• mhog_hn 1y ago
  I hope the best for them and the people they compete against. Thanks for sharing.
• deadbabe 1y ago
  Ask a person bound by cerebral palsy with a dream to play pro basketball what fairness is.
  • a4isms 1y ago
    It's not a dichotomy between "unfair" and "absolutely fair." Things can be more or less fair, and it makes sense to discuss making things "more fair" or "less unfair" even if in doing so, we cannot reach "perfectly fair for everyone, all the time."
  • hydrogen7800 1y ago
    Some disabilities cannot be overcome by public acceptance and accommodation, and some can to varying degrees, eg. the Americans With Disabilities Act.
• runeblaze 1y ago
  Yep also people with differences in sexual development ("intersex", sometimes) are also overrepresented in trans people for obvious reasons. It is like extremely murky
• tomrod 1y ago
  Depending on the specifics regarding "intersex", "trans", and other potential overlapping categorizations, estimates range from 1 in 5,500 births (sex chromosomes inconsistent) to as common as redheads (1 in just over 50). Roughly 0.5% is a good split-the-baby estimate, meaning a substantial fraction of the population may have issues with genitalia identification at birth, with another 1% having presentation later through late‑onset congenital adrenal hyperplasia (LOCAH), Klinefelter syndrome, and other chromosomal differences.
• sunshowers 1y ago
  The important thing to recognize is that fairness is a pretty fuzzy concept and a lot of the boundary between fair and unfair is defined by particular societal norms (socially constructed, if you will). All elite athletes have biological advantages not afforded to ordinary humans like us. People like Michael Phelps and Alex Honnold are specific examples of course, but even after years of training most people cannot perform anywhere near the level that elite athletes do. Now, which biological advantages are fair and which are not is determined by society. We have somehow decided that chromosomal advantages are unfair, even though people have exactly as much control over them as they do over the amount of lactic acid they produce or how their amygdala behaves.
  • donglong 1y ago
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  • ryandv 1y ago
    Exactly. I also support human augmentation, body modification, blood doping, and exogenous testosterone usage at the Olympics. These are the affirmations a mere male athlete can use to transition into an alpha male elite athlete. You can maybe include minoxidil, for those who actually need it.
  • Empact 1y ago
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    • mmanfrin 1y ago
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    • sunshowers 1y ago
      I don't really engage with people who flatly deny that trans people are honest conveyors of their experiences.
      • Empact 1y ago
        If I said I am a horse, would I be a trans-horse?
• readthenotes1 1y ago
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  • 1attice 1y ago
    cool, cool, now you have to use heuristics to determine historic testosterone levels, or require invasive monitoring for all potential future athletes, no problems here maybe you can put it on the blockchain /s
  • thomassmith65 1y ago
    Testosterone is also an arbitrary criterion. The relevant criteria depend on the sport. One person may have the same testosterone level as a person three times their height/weight, but that doesn't mean it's safe or fair to have them duke it out in a boxing match.
    • AStonesThrow 1y ago
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  • AnEro 1y ago
    As someone that has transitioned, I went into it with this opinion but now on year 7 of hormones, It's more complicated. I honestly now align more with the Olympic rulings of time in the hormone ranges of what you're competing under. Where at 5 years I lost all my strength, my bone density has dropped to cis womans (dexa scans). For instance, now I work out 3 times a week, 50 pounds still feels like 'get my body totally involved' heavy, before transitioning not working out it was a non-issue kinda heavy. (transitioned at 23) So its more having the time and atrophy of those muscles gained during that time period, then all that is left is probably an advantage of having a higher rate of fast twitch muscle fibre which probably is with in variance ranges of normal genetic advantages. Which also isn't a nice message to deliver to collage athletes of you have to muscle detox for 3-5 years.
• pitched 1y ago
  Coming from a place of curiosity not knowledge with this. Is it not true that strength roughly matches testosterone levels and that is bimodal in the population? Could what we call women’s sports today not be defined on that axis instead?
  • _Algernon_ 1y ago
    Since the distributions overlap you are going to make a lot of people unhappy no matter where you put the cut-off.
  • kjkjadksj 1y ago
    At that point what would actually be fair is relegating high test and low test males as well. I think we all remember that one or a couple kids in school who were a full head taller than their peers and dominated every sport in gym class as a result.
  • cogman10 1y ago
    It's not perfectly bimodal. Some people are also more and less sensitive to testosterone. The average woman produces testosterone (I know, crazy) with some conditions like polycystic ovarian syndrome causing their testosterone production to go into overdrive. Some sports actually do test for testosterone in order to determine eligibility (I believe volleyball?) Also, interestingly enough, people that do estrogen injections end up with lower testosterone production. Estrogen also tends to (but not always!) block the effects of testosterone. Hormones are weird and how individuals react to them is all over the board. And example of that craziness is what the article refers to. People with Y chromosomes and uteruses. It's caused (AFAIK) because the fetus didn't respond to the hormones which cause the gonads to turn into male reproductive organs.
    • ruszki 1y ago
      That hormone is testosterone. And that means that no matter how much testosterone those people with Y chromosome(s) get, their body cannot use them. Hence, they have a disadvantage even in women sports. In theory. The problem is that for example in women boxing these people are overrepresented. This indicates that testosterone is possibly not the only answer, and we don’t know the full picture AFAIK. But of course it’s also possible that simply Y chromosome causes changes in behavior and not physical performance, and it’s more likely that they like boxing more. We don’t know. The current best proven differentiator AFAIK is testosterone level and whether their body can process that.
• EnergyAmy 1y ago
  It is simple. Organisms that produce the larger of two gamete sizes are female, and organisms that produce the smaller of two gamete sizes are male. "Intersex" is a misleading term that's been phased out in favor of DSD (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disorders_of_sex_development https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disorders_of_sex_development). Every person is still male or female. Women have a right to sex-specific sports, and anyone that doesn't qualify is free to compete in the men's leagues. Since I'm rate limited, to respond to comment below: That has been the definition for far longer than any current culture war. Right wingers might be latching onto it now, but broken clocks and all that. To be slightly more specific, because you think you've found a gotcha, it's the gamete size one would or should produce. Biologists are well aware that there can be disorders of development.
  • lukev 1y ago
    It's been really funny watching this definition become the main right wing talking point, as every other definition they've attempted has been shot down conclusively. By this logic, individuals like those mentioned in the article above don't have any sex at all because their bodies are unable to produce gametes of any kind.
    • lostmsu 1y ago
      > It's been really funny watching this definition become the main right wing talking point, as every other definition they've attempted has been shot down conclusively. Sounds like a normal process of searching for a definition for a controversial subject.
  • lukev 1y ago
    Should produce... given what definition? I thought gamete size was definitive? Look, I get what you're saying. Such cases aren't "normal". The claim that "humans have two biological sexes" is true in same way as the claim "humans have five fingers." And yet, people with six fingers exist, as do uncommon sex variations. It's fine. It happens. The only reason to insist so stridently that there's an absolute and inevitable binary is if you're trying to enforce a social or religious norm, and are insisting that it's an immutable fact about the world instead of something culturally mediated.
• tzs 1y ago
  I think the fair approach may be to have some kind of rating system based on player performance, and then have separate competitions for players in different rating ranges. Players should not be allowed to play in competitions below their rating. Include some measures to make it hard for people to purposefully lose in minor competitions to lower their rating so that they can then enter a major competition in a rating group well below their true strength. Playing in competitions above their rating should generally be allowed, although this might need to vary from sport to sport. For example in a top level knock out tournament that had a few low level players enter their opponents in the first round would have a much easier chance of making it to the second round than the other high level participants. There still might need to be some gender restricted competitions for social reasons. In a sport where there is a large gender imbalance among players, especially at the scholastic levels, people of the minority gender might be discouraged from playing because they don't want to stick out. Competitions restricted to the minority gender give those players a chance to develop to the point that they can be comfortable playing the events that are open to all genders.
• drewcoo 1y ago
  > binary M/F does not exist for sex or gender. https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/gender-has-a-history-and-its-more-recent-than-you-may-realize/ https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/gender-has-a-history-and-...
  • EnergyAmy 1y ago
    The article is rank nonsense, citing someone that when called on her bullshit backtracked by calling it an "ironic essay": https://x.com/Fausto_Sterling/status/1229878759261712385 https://x.com/Fausto_Sterling/status/1229878759261712385 She is deeply unserious, and should be ignored if you value truth.
• zzo38computer 1y ago
  I think what will be fairer might depend on what sports they are; I think that they will have to be considered for each kind of sports, why they have sex/gender segregation, whether or not you should have a segregation at all (and if so, if it should be by something else instead), etc.
  • autoexec 1y ago
    Sports that don't need segregation and where people don't want segregation don't usually have it. There is no rule that says women can't play in the NFL for example. A combination of biological realities, a lack of interested women, and cultural expectations have just naturally resulted in a segregated system. Any woman who is qualified for and interested in playing in the NFL can and should. It's fine for people to decide who they want to play with/against too even if that means by definition that some people will have to play somewhere else. If someone wants to start a league of dart players all named Bill so what? May the best Bill win! The thing about sports divisions that segregate themselves (by name, region, age, gender, etc) is that they also limit their success. The best dart player named Bill can't claim to be the best dart player in the state without playing against people with other names. If people are happy with their accomplishments within whatever division they're comfortable playing in, we can be happy for them too.
• aaaja 1y ago
  This is why sports governing bodies who take a fair view on this have policies that exclude only athletes with male physiological advantage from the female category, rather than the broader group of those with male genetic markers. Which still permits inclusion of athletes with male DSDs like CAIS, who don't have such advantage.
• implements 1y ago
  > Very interesting. Relates to conversations I've had recently regarding trans people in sports. Turns out that conversation isn't simple, because gender is way more complex than the binary M/F options society has tried to act like it is. Using the word “gender” to refer to the concepts of both “reproductive sex” (chromosomes, gametes, genitals) and also “gender” (socially constructed roles, behaviours, activities, and expectations associated with femininity and masculinity) certainly makes it very complex to reason about and discuss, particularly if it feels socially distasteful to separate the two. Without getting the soapbox out, it seems to me that there’s an infinite number of possible “genders” as each unique individual can construct whatever permutation of supposedly feminine and masculine coded things that suits them. But broadly speaking, there are two sexes - the one that went down the developmental pathway to produce and ejaculate semen, and the one that went down the pathway to be able to ovulate, incubate fertilised eggs, give birth and nurse with milk. So in considering sport, given the physiological consequences of reproductive role causes female performance to be on average significantly lower than for males, does it make sense for sporting categories to be gendered (how people look or act) or sexed (how people are constructed)? There’s a inclusivity argument for “yes” from the point of view of the interests of one group (transgender people), but it seems to come at the cost of preventing female athletes from doing anything other than merely participating in many competitions, rather than being able to win them.
• maxglute 1y ago
  It's simple XX division Unlimited division for everyone else
• snapplebobapple 1y ago
  I know this is a hot button issue but this kind of thinking drives me nuts in general. The number they quote is 1 in 15000. That is an irrelevantly small number and says nothing about the conclusions for the majority of the population. if this was a different issue that wasnt politically charged you would look at the data and conclude the concersation is very simple and there are a bunch of very rare corner cases one needs to be aware of and that would be the end of it.