Transgender Athletes

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1step2far Aug 2019 4:34pm, 27 Aug 2019 4,104 posts	0 1step2far My apologies Paul, my post at 4102 wasnt meant to sound as patronising as it does. Ive just read it back. 😳
paul the builder Aug 2019 4:41pm, 27 Aug 2019 6,601 posts	0 paul the builder 1step - no problem, none taken :-). I wanted to reply with, if it's OK to explore - your 'knowing' age 5 was surely something (considerable) to carry and deal with, over the following years. But you didn't have to commit to anything that you couldn't undo, if it had turned out you were wrong. Please forgive the clumsy way I'm asking this.
larkim Aug 2019 4:44pm, 27 Aug 2019 8,419 posts	0 larkim @G-R - I think there is some validity in the argument that perhaps, in some cases, there needs to be cut offs which cause elite sport to be handled differently to non-elite sport. The problem my better half and I ran up against was that we couldn't agree that there was any logical distinction between, say, putting medical / testing barriers in place at the Olympics vs at our local track & field league. I do agree though that some of the other issues which you highlight (changing rooms, toilets etc) do seem to be conflated into the sports performance questions, and it would seem to me that we can come up with potentially different answers to those issues (not that I'm suggesting we should, but society should be allowed to determine it's norms). So we will undoubtedly have medical certification requirements for elite sports, we may have some form of personal declaration for non-elite sport, we will have no rules or regulations about toilets etc etc.. Different scenarious, different answers required.
1step2far Aug 2019 4:51pm, 27 Aug 2019 4,105 posts	0 1step2far Clumsy is fine... i'm not exactly the most eloquent! It was hellish. I'd pretend to be 'normal' then get called names because it was obvious to all those at school that I really wasn't. You have to bear in mind that this was the height of section 28. Very few teachers were willing to intervene. (Which goes back to my comments way back about changing rooms- they were very dangerous places) I find it almost unbelievable (in a good way) that young people can come out at school now and be accepted. Its fantastic. To answer your second part, I personally wasn't commiting to something undoable you are right. But times have moved on and there are the medicines and support available to make sure that those that want to transition are on the right path before the point of no return... either surgery wise (which can happen at any point when they're ready) or at puberty which makes transition so much harder. (On top of a very mentally difficult 1st puberty).
paul the builder Aug 2019 4:54pm, 27 Aug 2019 6,602 posts	0 paul the builder To counter G-R's argument at it's most obvious level: presumably we can all agree that the sport of basketball is significantly over-represented by tall people. I assume we also all agree that the bell curve of the height of men is significantly shifted to the right compared to the distribution of the height of women. So it's trivial to reach the conclusion that the population of transwomen (that have undergone a male puberty) is also taller, and is likely to have an advantage in a sport like basketball. I don't know what to do about that, but there's no need for us to pretend that anything needs to be scientifically proven here.
1step2far Aug 2019 4:55pm, 27 Aug 2019 4,106 posts	0 1step2far Just to clarify my last few lines, puberty isnt the point they have to decide anything One way or another. Just if its slowed for a while it buys time.
Gee-Rizzle Aug 2019 5:02pm, 27 Aug 2019 18 posts	0 Gee-Rizzle PTB regardless of my personal opinion there will need to be scientific evidence or any ban just wouldn’t stand up to legal scrutiny. This has been well illustrated in the semenya and the pistorious cases where both were banned from competing in elite sport and those bans were overturned by the CAS until there was sufficient evidence of advantage (from testosterone in semenya’s case and from the carbon fibre blades in pistorious’s case).
The_Saint Aug 2019 6:11pm, 27 Aug 2019 6,433 posts	0 The_Saint Would the "scientific evidence" here be a tape measure?
fetcheveryone Aug 2019 8:03pm, 27 Aug 2019 22,621 posts	0 fetcheveryone A week or so ago, I talked about the idea of some sort of consensus tool to help illustrate the views of the thread - and perhaps to help give some focus to the debate. The idea that we may get to the point where we can say "we, the Transgender Athletes thread, agree on the following" sounds pretty awesome. I've put together a very rough and ready prototype that allows you to put forward an assertion. It's anonymous, to help remove any bias e.g. "Trump said X, and Trump is a lunatic, therefore X must be lunacy". You can then vote on all the assertions put forward, to see where that common ground is. And there's nothing to stop you trying a few variants of the same assertion, to get closer to consensus e.g. "tigers eat lots of Mars Bars" might not be so widely agreed upon as "tigers eat the occasional Mars Bar". I know some of you might be tempted to do a funny one, but I hope you'll take it seriously, and give it your best shot. Here's a link so you can try it out (and I'll put it in the sidebar too): fetcheveryone.com/forum-thread-assertions.php
Vixx Aug 2019 9:48pm, 27 Aug 2019 738 posts	0 Vixx I don't know if there will be consensus - we may have to get to a point where we agree to disagree (politely of course). There were a lot of points of Jovi's that I did agree with, and I made my points out of the facts as I know them. I'm not going to repeat them, and I stopped posting as I felt the thread was starting to go around in circles and I think some of my more factual posts were ignored. I'm not emotionally connected at some of these points as I am not a transwoman. I do know of a few people who are currently researching trans issues in sport. None of these people actually are trans, but they are looking at some of the very issues we discussed here, so hopefully in the future there will be a clearer idea of how trans people will fit into sport. Where I am emotionally connected: I shall never be completely male as I will not have lower surgery, so I will not be able to compete in any team sport as I can't use changing rooms easily - so I would be outed quickly. I can't use the showers in the gym as they are open plan changing rooms with see through shower doors - I have to go home, or have a baby wipe wash in the toilet. I don't even need to do an hour of running or cardio to be completely and utterly soaked - and it's disgusting to have to drive home like that. To even have just one cubicle or shower that I could use would be amazing. Also, people forget that if transwomen over here were to start having to use the bathroom of their birth as some do in the US thanks to the Bathroom Bills in various states, then transmen would have to start using the Ladies again - and they were unsafe for me before transition. Many of you know that I have written a series of blogs on what it is like to be transgender. I have two more to write - on the GRC and Trans Children, and then I will go back to just logging my training on here for a bit.