Transgender Athletes

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RooA Dec 2021 11:10am, 3 Dec 2021 1,688 posts	0 RooA It still boils down to fairness and safety in women's sports or "inclusion" for transwomen, genuine or not though. Either. Or.
RooA Dec 2021 11:14am, 3 Dec 2021 1,689 posts	0 RooA If the inclusion of transwomen is the priority, fine. But admit that that is to the detriment of women. Say that the priority is trans inclusion regardless of fairness and safety for women. Because that is what it boils down to. It is utterly dishonest to say we should include transwomen no questions asked, no requirements other than a perception of "genuineness", and still pretend that women's sports can be fair and safe. It just isn't the case.
fraggle Dec 2021 11:16am, 3 Dec 2021 3,137 posts	0 fraggle Personally I think there should be a (for want of a better expression) ‘non binary male’ and ‘non binary female’ categories, but then we are going back to the 1970’s and the gender testing of athletes aren’t we ?
jda Dec 2021 11:38am, 3 Dec 2021 11,257 posts	0 jda Trying to claim the issue can be decided by science is a category error known as the "is/ought" fallacy, which dates to David Hume in the 18th century. Science can tell you how things are, but it can't tell you what you should do with that information. If there is going to be a restricted category, it needs to have a definition and one or more observable thresholds, but the precise placement of that boundary is a sociopolitical choice not a scientific one. There are a number of fundamentally irreconcilable arguments for different boundaries (though even saying this might offend people who think the "correct" answer is obvious). I think in various circumstances, a number of the conflicting arguments are very strong and have no idea how it can be resolved other than an ongoing process of debate, adjustment, testing out of ideas. A political process, which is unlikely to satisfy everyone.
RooA Dec 2021 12:01pm, 3 Dec 2021 1,690 posts	0 RooA How would you split up sporting categories, jda? What is? And what ought? For you?
larkim Dec 2021 12:06pm, 3 Dec 2021 16,197 posts	0 larkim Lark - so your hypothesis is that the IOC know what the outcome should be for the majority of sports (grey areas being Crown Green Bowling and the like)? But they don't want to be prescriptive, and would rather each individual sport governing body, probably meaning individually within each country also, need to do the research themselves (slightly differently for each sport)? Yes, to a point. The IOC only governs the Olympics, it doesn't govern worldwide sport, so it has to define a framework of acceptability for the 4 yearly Olympic cycle, and it is setting out to national and international sports federations some of the principles that it wants to ensure are addressed by those NGBs etc. In that context, it has to deal with the sporting fairness issues across everything from weightlifting and boxing (where I think the "science" about safety is unarguable, at the very least) through to sports like curling and air pistol shooting (where there might at least be a question as to whether the balance of unfairness is truly tipped if a transwoman joins a female competition). So the "ask" of all federations is for them to grasp the issue as it affects their sport; make a determination that stands up to scrutiny; and then the IOC will stand behind it. If the inclusion of transwomen is the priority, fine. But admit that that is to the detriment of women. Say that the priority is trans inclusion regardless of fairness and safety for women. Because that is what it boils down to. It is utterly dishonest to say we should include transwomen no questions asked, no requirements other than a perception of "genuineness", and still pretend that women's sports can be fair and safe. It just isn't the case. RooA - it might feel like I don't agree with this from some of my posts, but I do!
larkim Dec 2021 12:20pm, 3 Dec 2021 16,198 posts	0 larkim There is no requirement for physical transition now from the IOC. So a male person announces a trans identity and suddenly that person's competitive advantage is "unverified, alleged or perceived" rather than accepted as fact, as it was five minutes before the announcement of the trans identity? Semantics aside we can see this makes no sense, right? The requirement is that the person's self declared identity is "genuine". How are we supposed to tell? I know this is something that Tucker and Hilton argued, but I can't read that in the IOC doc. Perhaps I just need to get my head around it better, but the IOC says in relation to Body Autonomy:- Athletes should never be pressured by a ... [Federation etc] ... (either by way of the eligibility criteria or otherwise) to undergo medically unnecessary procedures or treatment to meet eligibility criteria Is that the key paragraph - effectively saying that because you can't insist on any gender reassignment procedures at all (whether that's "just" medication or surgery), you therefore open the door wide open to someone who simply declares a different gender. That doesn't make sense in the "real world". A transwoman will be concerned with a lot more than her ability to compete in elite sport, so she will have either chosen some interventions, or at the very least had some legal recognition for her status by her national government. So by matching those criteria, the NGB could clearly show they are not adding any pressure; they are simply adhering to national "rules"? But then, to counter that, you could argue that simple domestic regulations around how gender identity is recognised could be a "pressure" imposed which then gets baked into the eligibility rules. That paragraph does not make much sense...
jda Dec 2021 12:57pm, 3 Dec 2021 11,258 posts	0 jda RooA, I think it varies with context. Taking one extreme, I think that parkrun is primarily a social good where I don't see any real safety issues and inclusion outweighs fairness broadly speaking (it's not even a race!). I think that some flavour of self-identification is pretty much inevitable there. Parkrun HQ can ask for specific limitations if they want but can't police them anyway. Taking another extreme, I would find it difficult to defend self-id in most contact and combat sport, even with weight categories in the latter I very much doubt that this is adequate to cover the safety aspects alone. As for athletics, I don't see an alternative to drawing a line somewhere and policing it (though enforcement of any detailed rules is likely to be spotty at best at lower levels). I don't have strong views about exactly where the lines should be drawn. I do think that intersex/dsd athletes are worth considering under the same general framework - if we want to have a restricted class known as "women" it simply has to define where these people sit, and some of the same sort of issues apply, though not always in precisely the same way (eg testosterone levels and responses). I do think there is some merit in allowing individual sports to find their own way, and I think some evolution and debate is healthy rather than attempting to set out some immutable laws that represent some sort of universal truth. I also think it's important to recognise that there simply isn't a perfect solution that satisfies everyone. There will be losers who need to be treated with as much respect, dignity and sympathy as possible. Not something I'm noted for so I will shut up and listen a bit more
larkim Dec 2021 1:14pm, 3 Dec 2021 16,200 posts	0 larkim There will be losers who need to be treated with as much respect, dignity and sympathy as possible. This ^^^^^^ What has amazed me over the last 3-4 years is how vehement the debate became. At first, I certainly reacted as a snowflake liberal to this when confronted with the abusive tone in which the early parts of the debate were handled, particularly in the US, and came down firmly on the "side" of the transwomen as an "oppressed minority" given the relatively low numbers. That did blind me to views of reasonable, rational people who saw both the real world impact on female competitors, as well as the emerging data about the persistence of male puberty advantages. I've now tipped over the fence, but I still can't ignore the challenge that I would face if anyone close to me was impacted by either the non-inclusion or the unfairness aspects (cf my hypothetical example about a sister who'd transitioned or a sister who was a likely regional female champ)
paul the builder Dec 2021 1:29pm, 3 Dec 2021 7,353 posts	0 paul the builder I can theoretically see merit in delegating the policy down to the individual sport level. Practically I just see more opportunity for obfuscation, delay, and unsatisfactory halfway-houses. Or worse.