political correctness gone mad

[fixed_truth]

You're talking about the label people are assigned at birth (sex). There's more than that to being considered a man or a woman.

Transwomen are women whether or not it's fair for them to be competing in womans sports.

[Ab]

They're not women in the sense that they're men. They of course may also be women in some other context. We've discussed this before. The swimmer Lia Thomas is a man in the context of athletic competition.

[fixed_truth]

Did she become a man in that context when she started winning or before? Are all the other transwomen in sports that aren't dominating also men?

[Ab]

In a sporting context, it depends on the sport. In a biological context, all trans women are men.

[fixed_truth]

With gender transitioning i.e., hormone replacement therapy and sex reassignment surgery the biological context gets complicated. Biological sex isn't a single thing.

Edit: so it depends on the sport AND the person

[Lightspeed]

Originally Posted by Ab

In a sporting context, it depends on the sport. In a biological context, all trans women are men.

In a lay context, maybe. I think a more robust contemporary biological context would be more careful with language used.

[Ab]

Originally Posted by fixed_truth

With gender transitioning i.e., hormone replacement therapy and sex reassignment surgery the biological context gets complicated. Biological sex isn't a single thing.

Edit: so it depends on the sport AND the person

There are some sports where sex doesn't confer an advantage. Swimming isn't one of them. By being born male, and growing up male, and experiencing puberty as a male – let alone training as an elite male athlete for most of his adult life – Thomas obtained advantages that none of Thomas's competitors did. By being male, Thomas has broader shoulders, a narrower pelvis, longer arms, bigger hands, longer legs, bigger feet, stronger muscles, more rigid bones, stronger ligaments, a bigger heart, and more haemoglobin able to carry more oxygen per litre of blood than any of the females in the race. By competing with such totally unfair advantages, and standing on the podium and getting the name Lia Thomas in the record books with a time that is unachievable by any female in that pool, taking advantage of unfairness for personal gain, he is a shit person.

[Ab]

Originally Posted by fixed_truth

With gender transitioning i.e., hormone replacement therapy and sex reassignment surgery the biological context gets complicated. Biological sex isn't a single thing.

No it doesn't and yes it is. Biological sex in homo sapiens is binary and immutable. Socially, culturally, different contexts. But all trans women are male; all trans men are female.

[fixed_truth]

Hasn't defining biological sex always depended on context?

Contemporary scientific understanding of sex and its relation to gender was greatly influenced by the work of psychologist John Money, at Johns Hopkins University, USA, beginning in the 1950s. With colleagues, Money further complicated approaches to sex by identifying a range of biological and social factors. Chromosomes, gonads, hormones, and internal and external genital morphology were considered alongside social factors such as assigned sex and rearing, and gender role and sexual orientation. His ideas gained traction, and scientists and medical professionals came to accept sex as inherently knotty: that its “variables” are multiple, come in far more than two versions, and that no single biological factor is determinative.

Secondly, biological advantages from being a male at birth have shown to greatly reduce in relation to the type/length of transition. The argument is how much and if that's enough to maintain fairness.

[Ab]

Originally Posted by fixed_truth

Hasn't defining biological sex always depended on context?

Um yeah, that's my point? For example, socially Thomas may present as a woman, but in an athletic context Thomas is male.

Authors:
Katrina Karkazis at Amherst College

If that's the Karkazis who wrote Testosterone (a great book btw), she'd be the first to admit that she's a cultural anthropologist specialising in social issues of race and gender, not a biologist.

Secondly, biological advantages from being a male at birth have shown to greatly reduce in relation to the type/length of transition. The argument is how much and if that's enough to maintain fairness.

Lia Thomas is a 22-year old male who was training with a competitive men's swim squad only the year before last. This is as fair as me turning up to a primary-school chess competition and announcing "oh I don't have an advantage any more, I haven't played much the past couple of years" and then smashing a bunch of little kids like it's something to be proud of. What a prick.

[fixed_truth]

You don't need to be a biologist to examine methodology.

So to recap, sex in homo sapiens is binary and immutable except when it's dependent on context?

[fixed_truth]

Originally Posted by Ab

Lia Thomas is a 22-year old male who was training with a competitive men's swim squad only the year before last. This is as fair as me turning up to a primary-school chess competition and announcing "oh I don't have an advantage any more, I haven't played much the past couple of years" and then smashing a bunch of little kids like it's something to be proud of. What a prick.

Label her transwoman instead of male and I totally agree.

[Ab]

The act of defining is contextual. The context can't change the fact that all trans women are male and all trans men are female.

[_indigo1]

They are not a female. They are no longer a male. They are a trans-woman.

They no more belong in a male sporting category than a female one.
Let them compete against other trans-women.

Maybe the real answer to both fairness AND inclusiveness is putting trans-women (and trans-men) in their own categories rather than shoehorning them into male or female categories (in terms of sport)

Boo hoo there aren't enough competitors?
Well too bad, that doesn't mean you get to be injected into a category you do not fit the demographics of, at least without some kind of handicap.

[Cyberbob]

To clear the air, it's going to have to be defined.
Swap your gender all you want, you could identify as a meat popsicle, but you can't change your biological sex assigned at birth. If you were born with the reproductive cells required to produce small, mobile gametes called sperm, you're in Camp A, and if not, you're in Camp B.

The only ones that don't clearly get defined then are hermaphrodites. Let them enter both camps.

Next time i see a kids contest/race, I'll enter it and then clearly win, claiming they're ageist if they deny me the win.

[fixed_truth]

Originally Posted by Ab

The act of defining is contextual. The context can't change the fact that all trans women are male and all trans men are female.

Getting into Ayn Rand logical semantics here but the act of defining what biological sex is sets the boundaries to what can or cannot meet those conditions. Sex isn't a universal fact it's what scientists of the day agree upon. Depending on the context this could include considering factors including chromosomes, gonads, hormones, and genitals.

[Ab]

Hint: one of the things you listed produces things called “sex cells”. In humans there’s only two types.

Semantic debates won’t change the fact a male with all the advantages of maleness is being praised for setting a new record in an athletic contest against females. Which is fucked.

[Lightspeed]

Originally Posted by Ab

The act of defining is contextual. The context can't change the fact that all trans women are male and all trans men are female.

Facts don't possess this kind of authority. You're welcome to your own constructions, but you only get to impose these facts if you're willing to use your power to force yourself upon people.

That's kinda rapey, but I get it, we live in a rapey world.

[DrTiTus]

Wow.

First words were violence, now they are rape.

[Ab]

Not finding someone attractive is hatred

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-...alia/100872332

[Ab]

Originally Posted by Ab

For reference:

Hey remember when this letter got published and New Zealander of the Year Siouxsie Wiles used her column in Stuff to call for the authors to be cancelled because, among other reasons, "those professors and fellows have influence and power over people’s careers. Astonishingly, some are now intimidating junior colleagues with lawyer’s letters"?

The astonishing bit is it never happened. The NZ Media Council has just ruled that Wiles made it up.

https://www.mediacouncil.org.nz/ruli...against-stuff/

So, um, in this the year of our lord 2022 probably not the best look for a science communicator, let alone one as high-profile with regard to the COVID campaign as Siouxsie Wiles, to get caught out telling deliberate falsehoods in order to serve a political end.

[Ab]

Marchers at Manchester March Against Male Violence have been attacked by a man who demanded that the marchers acknowledge that men who identify as women are women

https://4w.pub/manchester-male-violence/

Not sure if you’re helping the cause there bro

[Ab]

Hot on the heels of a blistering ruling by the Media Council that Dr Siouxsie Wiles made a damaging and untrue statement in a Stuff column about the seven “Listener” professors, the Royal Society Te Apārangi has now formally decided not to proceed with a complaint against two of them.

https://theplatform.kiwi/opinions/th...up-another-win

[StN]

https://townsquare.media/site/39/fil...jpg?w=980&q=75

Edit - beer

1000 words anyway…

[Ab]

Goddamn woke moth cancel culture

[Ab]

1st place … 2nd, 3rd, 4th place

[Ab]

The future of the US legal fraternity seems healthy

https://freebeacon.com/campus/hundre...-speech-event/

[Ab]

Let’s watch NZ twitter spend Sunday pretending that morbidly obese fat activist and Covid science denier Cat Pause dying suddenly has nothing to do with her morbid obesity and that anyone who comments as if it does is literally worse than hitler

[Ab]

NBC edits photography of trans swimmer Lia Thomas to make him look more feminine

https://nypost.com/2022/03/26/nbc-ta...of-lia-thomas/

[Ab]

Male rider set to destroy female competitors in women’s cycle race

https://www.rte.ie/sport/cycling/202...mpic-champion/

Cycling is one of the events in which men have the greatest biological advantage over women. But #inclusion!

[blynk]

Originally Posted by Ab

Male rider set to destroy female competitors in women’s cycle race

https://www.rte.ie/sport/cycling/202...mpic-champion/

Cycling is one of the events in which men have the greatest biological advantage over women. But #inclusion!

And what is likely to happen, is there a few years where these things get ironed out.
If they find transgender athletes start dominating the female sport, then they will probably make some adjustments.
Maybe there needs a long stand down between transition, or a smaller testosterone level, or limitations on prior achievements.

[Ab]

This guy is the current junior men’s champ, with a time fully two minutes faster than the current women’s national record. Those women are going to get fucking murdered. He’s able to do times in mundane training rides that no woman can ever dream of achieving in her life.

[fixed_truth]

Originally Posted by blynk

If they find transgender athletes start dominating the female sport, then they will probably make some adjustments.

Yep, which at present there's still a lot of ambiguity with what's going on.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...44949.html?amp

[Ab]

Originally Posted by fixed_truth

Yep, which at present there's still a lot of ambiguity with what's going on.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...44949.html?amp

Originally Posted by Ab

1st place … 2nd, 3rd, 4th place

@scienceofsport: data analytics show that male Lia Thomas is deliberately swimming slower in finals so as to not draw too much attention - only smashing rather than fucking murdering his female competitors as the numbers show he could do if he wanted

https://twitter.com/Scienceofsport/s...88013111881758

[Lightspeed]

It's tragicomic to me how it's sport that bearing our Victorian values up through the ages.

Like, there's no real compelling reason for the public to get wound up about gender roles. The medical profession isn't going to struggle finding ways to ensure they have the biological information they need for its patients.

It's sport that's the stalwart of defence against the filthy future.

[Ab]

The moral issue here is that of fairness. We like to think that we are moving towards a society in which things are more fair. The fact that it is sport is not the key issue. If this were a spelling test and an adult were competing against a child -- and the adult's entry into the contest would change the course of children's lives -- we would be offended.

[pxpx]

If I identify as a 6 year old non binary wulfkin then I'll compete in this children's spelling bee if I fucking want to.

[fixed_truth]

Well there's hysterical hyperbolic language and then there's just plan old ignorant transphobia.

[Ab]

Originally Posted by blynk

If they find transgender athletes start dominating the female sport, then they will probably make some adjustments.

lol, "if"

thread:

https://twitter.com/ripx4nutmeg/stat...q_q0A9rze3A5Xg

[Lightspeed]

Originally Posted by Ab

The moral issue here is that of fairness. We like to think that we are moving towards a society in which things are more fair. The fact that it is sport is not the key issue. If this were a spelling test and an adult were competing against a child -- and the adult's entry into the contest would change the course of children's lives -- we would be offended.

Yeah, so sport is unfair. I mean, it's never been and never will be fair. Some competitors will always have benefits over other competitors. Some will be due to physical condition, many will be due to socio-economic circumstances.

Western sport has formed itself around gender, and now finds itself in crisis.

Who will bear the burden of this crisis? Shall it be sporting institutions and their members? Or will it be the rest of society that conforms itself to the needs of sports?