There have been multiple accounts created with the sole purpose of posting advertisement posts or replies containing unsolicited advertising.

Accounts which solely post advertisements, or persistently post them may be terminated.

Transgender players banned from international women’s cricket by ICC

The International Cricket Council has become the latest sports body to ban transgender players from the elite women’s game if they have gone through male puberty.

The ICC said it had taken the decision, following an extensive scientific review and nine-month consultation, to “protect the integrity of the international women’s game and the safety of players”.

It joins rugby union, swimming, cycling, athletics and rugby league, who have all gone down a similar path in recent years after citing concerns over fairness or safety.

snek ,
@snek@lemmy.world avatar

God I thought it said the international criminal court

RizzRustbolt ,

I’d be mad except… it’s fucking cricket.

SCB ,

Cricket is the second-most popular sport in the world.

I’ve literally never seen a game of it, and know nothing about it, but this affects a lot of people.

afraid_of_zombies ,

Like baseball but slower.

Benj1B ,

For those who don’t follow cricket closely, there are a few significant rule variations for women’s cricket - namely a smaller/lighter cricket ball and reduced field\boundary dimensions.

There are also implicit limits in the upper end of cricket performance- Elyse Perry holds the record for the fastest womens cricket ball bowled ag 130.5 kph, while Shoaib Akhtar holds the overall record at 161.3 kph. There’s an interesting article here that goes into more detail on the precise physical characteristics that influence bowling, where they define male fasf bowling at >122.9kph and female fast bowling at >97.8, a 30% ish difference: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35259727/

This is all to say that there are very clear and established differences between men and women’s cricket in the interest of safety and fairness already baked into the laws of the game. If you accept that male puberty leads to a disproportionate advantage in bone density/muscle mass vs cis women, then this decision is sensible. The exact numbers are hard to quantify, skill and natural technique plays a huge part in cricket, but on the bell curve of something like pace bowling the risk of a trans woman significantly outperforming cis women is undeniable.

Pasta4u ,

deleted_by_moderator

    •
    steeznson ,

    deleted_by_moderator

    •
    Silentiea ,

    As someone who is not an athlete and not really interested in sports as a spectator either, I’ve used arguments like that before in good faith. Why is it a problem? Most people never get the chance to compete at a high level in any kind of athletics, full stop. Participants at the highest level are all, necessarily, exceptional individuals.

    Can you help me understand what makes that particular exception to be so important? Why would women who have undergone one puberty or the other cast aspersions? Like you said, there are methods like testing hormone levels to ensure a level playing field. Given that, it seems like the only aspersions to be cast would be that their history somehow makes them less of a woman, which I can’t agree with.

    steeznson ,

    I can’t speak for everyone but ime when people use the argument they are often more interested equality or inclusion at all costs. Their good intentions blind them to the fact that womens’ sport has spent centuries trying go gain validity / parity with mens’ sport.

    Silentiea ,

    But isn’t the whole reason for women’s sports trying to gain validity about inclusion? Doesn’t parity mean, in another word, equality?

    I’m not really sure I understand the difference, is all I’m saying. And again, speaking as someone who mainly thinks about sports by wishing they made my life less of a hassle when there’s a road closure for some game I don’t care about.

    steeznson ,

    Just responding to myself here. My original comment which sparked off this discussion/chain appears to have been deleted. I thought I had been respectful but in the future I’d recommend mods just remove news stories that make them uncomfortable instead of censoring comments.

    Gabu ,

    Participants at the highest level are all, necessarily, exceptional individuals.

    Bullshit. High level athletes, artists, chefs, etc. aren’t exceptional by god-given talent, but by relentless pursuit of that skill. Some of the best football (soccer) players of all time had unwanted physical builds or even small “defects”. Some of the best volleyball players were way shorter than their peers. The problem with having trans women competing on the same field as cis women in most sports is that the biological advantage they might get far surpasses the most rigorous training they could do, i.e. it becomes about genetic makeup.

    Silentiea , (edited )

    The problem with having trans women competing on the same field as cis women in most sports is that the biological advantage they might get far surpasses the most rigorous training they could do, i.e. it becomes about genetic makeup.

    The implication of this is that a trans woman who hasn’t devoted her life to the sport will be able to compete at the highest levels. I think that is patently wrong. Most trans women, like most other women, would never have a chance at that without having devoted their lives.

    On top of that, many women (and likely trans women though I can’t say for sure) do devote their lives to a sport but still never make it to the highest levels of competition. It’s obviously not just about “god-given talent” as you said, but exceptional circumstances are a necessary condition. Not necessarily in the same way and the same set of conditions for every athlete, but every top-level performer is, necessarily, exceptional.

    Gabu ,

    The implication of this is that a trans woman who hasn’t devoted her life to the sport will be able to compete at the highest levels

    There’s no such implication. They’d still have to train, but there’d be an inherent advantage. A common example used to justify the division of sports between male and female categories is grip strength – the female world record is ~65kg, whereas the male average is ~50kg. A trans woman who underwent male puberty would have an unfair advantage, on average.

    Silentiea ,

    A common example used to justify the division of sports between male and female categories is grip strength – the female world record is ~65kg, whereas the male average is ~50kg.

    I’ve seen this statistic before in this context. What I hadn’t seen (despite trying to find it) is any data on trans women’s grip strength, or how well grip strength correlates to athletic ability. I don’t disagree that trans women have had different life circumstances than cis women, and that those circumstances likely give them an advantage in many different sports. What I don’t think follows from that is this advantage being an unfair advantage, especially since every top level athlete has advantages (inherent and otherwise) that have led them to their position.

    As I understand it, “male puberty” does confer some definite athletic advantages, but hormone therapy and other processes undergone by trans women largely mitigate those advantages. What I can’t say (and haven’t seen discussed scientifically or otherwise) is whether or to what degree those advantages remain “unfair” or even significant.

    smackmyballsoff ,

    It’s not that their history makes them less of a woman, just that going through puberty with testosterone leads to advantages that those that went through non-testosterone puberty didn’t have.

    Unfortunately, it’s not as simple as taking testosterone blockers or whatever, they still don’t reverse some of the advantages that going through testosterone puberty provides.

    Someone smarter than me may come along but if not just googling or ducking some knowledge about testosterone puberty will shine some light on why they’ve made this change in the sport…

    PuddingFeeling907 ,
    @PuddingFeeling907@lemmy.ca avatar

    Get that terf garbage out of here.

    beetsnuami ,

    Hej, I‘ve seen quite a few comments using weird expressions to refer to trans women here, so to clarify, a trans woman is not:

    • a scientific male (trans women are scientifically women)
    • a biologically born male (Biologically born? Yes. Male? No.)
    • a biological male (as, usually, biological markers such as anatomy, hormone levels, chromosomes and behavior in trans women are ambiguous)

    A trans woman is:

    • a woman (female) who was assigned male at birth
    • often, but not always, a person who has gone through testosterone puberty, but identifies as female

    Just use the words trans woman and cis woman, it‘s concise, correct and respectful. I‘m not saying that there are no differences between trans women and cis women, but simply that trans women are women. If you disagree with that, go watch ContraPoints or PhilosophyTube.

    Consequently, the international cricket council should call it the elite cis women‘s game from now on, that would just be consistent.

    wheels ,

    I am still confused. My understanding was that trans people change their gender. This is something I am able to wrap my head around because gender (man/woman) is a human construct anyway and people should have the freedom to choose where they are on that spectrum.

    But isn’t sex a genetic thing that can’t be changed? If it’s the case that a person can choose whether they are male or female then science is going to need new terminology to replace male/female for XY and XX because the words science used to use have been commandeered to mean something more like gender?

    beetsnuami ,

    In particular when referring to humans, the definition of sex is ambiguous, as is the term “biological male”. And I think this problem is intrinsic: Gender and sex are complicated (with many different markers which may be congruent for many people, but are not for trans and intersex people), and the usefulness of categories depends on context. For example, in a dating context, gender might be a useful category. In a medical context, sex is not a useful category for trans and intersex people: It’s not sufficient information, and sometimes ambiguous.

    I agree that it would be nice to have other words than for XY/XX chromosomes (or small vs large gametes), this would make the language more exact and inclusive. However, I (and others) dislike the term “biological male”, because I think it exists only to create a category that equates cis men with trans women. Even if we agree on defining “biological male” as a person having XY chromosomes, in a sports context this is an unhelpful category because there are large differences between XY cis men and XY trans women. When there is apparently so much concern for fairness and safety, why not ask the big questions: How can we make sports inclusive, safe and fun for everyone (including trans people!), regardless of genetics? Are sex or gender useful categories to separate competition — or are there other, more useful markers? (And maybe even: Are international competitions as we have them now a desirable system?)

    Rednax ,

    deleted_by_moderator

    •
    Gabu ,

    However, I (and others) dislike the term “biological male”

    I dislike the lack of an enclosing comma. Would you, pretty please, fix that?

    smackmyballsoff ,

    Seriously?

    Aux ,

    Don’t use cis. Woman is a woman.

    Gabu ,

    Uh oh, someone is conflating gender and sex again, despite claiming to be a trans ally.

    smackmyballsoff ,

    I agree with much of what you said but have to nit-pick a part that I found confusing.

    trans women are women

    And cis women are cis women?

    Comes off as if an afab person, who has always referred to herself as simply “woman” now has to refer to herself as “cis woman” to be exact, whereas trans women have now adopted “woman”

    I’m a guy, and I’d be pretty irritated if people suddenly started insisting that I not refer to myself as “guy” anymore, because trans guys are now “guys” so they get my old title but now I have to specifically state that I’m a “cis guy” everywhere…

    Like why would I have to give up my title? It’s one thing for them to adopt it as well, not like I mind, more the merrier! But why am I having to change my title when I’ve been the same all along?

    It’s like if people began changing cats into dogs, and claiming the name “cat” for the former dogs. Cool, do what you will, but then they tell me that my “cats” aren’t “cats” anymore, they’re cis-cats and I must refer to them as such. Why? They’ve always been cats to everyone? How you gonna tell me that you get the name “cats” but my lifelong “cats” are now something else?

    bdx2023 ,

    Trans women are women, and cis women are women. Simple. No one is “taking” someone else’s name.

    smackmyballsoff ,

    Last comment stated international women’s cricket should be renamed international cis women’s cricket 🤔 because women who experienced testosterone puberty are excluded

    Whereas a group of TW playing football can 100% use “Women’s football league” Even if the league is 100 trans women and cis women are excluded

    That’s all I’m saying, how’s that not taking a title? Not saying this with any malice, hope that’s clear I’ve no dog in this race other than supporting everyone but that’s weird to me

    bdx2023 ,

    … But where is that women’s football league that excludes cis women while still calling itself “[just] women’s football”?

    Whereas we already have many women’s leagues in sports that exclude trans women.

    So if it’s actually happening, then sure I’ll agree to calling it “taking a title” and honestly be against it; imo it sets the fight for trans rights back if we use “woman” exclusively for trans women and cis women only ever get called “cis women”. But again, where is that happening? Who is calling for that?

    I only ever see people claiming that cis women should have exclusive use of the word “women”, not the other way around. Which is just another way of arguing that trans women “aren’t really women”…

    SVcross ,
    @SVcross@lemmy.world avatar

    Cricket is as a fun as baseball.

    steeznson ,

    I thought I told you to get rid of those sideburns! …“But Mr Burns I don’t think know you what sideburns…”

    I’ve had it with your attitude! You’re outa here!!

    Silentiea ,

    Downvote this foo!

    Or don’t, I’m not your mama.

    greenmarty ,

    Just make it third category.

    • female sports won’t get affected
    • fairness will increase
    • fans can watch their own "cup of coffee "
    • possible pretenders will no longer be motivated by easy winning
    PotatoKat ,

    It’s own category with like 5 people in each sport. Great idea.

    greenmarty ,

    What is the alternative though that won’t ruin female’s sports that was built as part or followup of female’s emancipation ?

    FluffyPotato ,

    The one where trans women play in the women’s league and trans men in the men’s. If it causes any sort on unfairness we would have seen it by now.

    kerrypacker ,

    We have. That’s why it’s a dumb idea.

    FluffyPotato ,

    Where? All the hyped up news stories have been titles like “trans woman destroys women in insert sport here” but if you look into it they took 600th or something and beat maybe 10 women.

    greenmarty ,

    That is what tons of folks fights against. But i agree it makes sense. However, is taking testosteron considered doping for females or is it OK? if it’s OK, why other “chems” are not allowed?

    FluffyPotato ,

    The testosterone for trans men is just to get to the levels that average cis men have, I’m pretty sure they test for excess testosterone. Some medication is allowed for sick athletes that is considered doping for anyone who isn’t sick, like the therapy for increasing blood oxygen levels which is a common form of doping but is a valid treatment for some illnesses.

    greenmarty ,

    Medication for sick people seems kinda different thing to me than being healthy and chumming chems to gain muscles.

    So testosterone for female( born) athletes should be allowed until they reach avg male(born) level? Is that really a thing we want to introduce into sports ? Will steroids also count as getting to avg male upper muscle mass ? Where is the line? Won’t that make female athletes either obsolete or force them to chems chumming which then can cause them health issues given that most of them propably don’t plan to transition and might want start families etc?

    FluffyPotato ,

    For trans men they get like an injection of testosterone, they aren’t getting it to play sports, it’s medication for dysphoria. I haven’t said anyone else other than trans men should be taking it and definitely nothing about steroids.

    greenmarty ,

    The point i wanted to send across is that it gives athlete an advantage. So people will be incentivized to get it. And also those who do not get it will be at disadvantage. So if one form of chems advantage is allowed why others are not? Isn’t that exactly the source of the issue here, fairness?

    FluffyPotato ,

    How does it give athletes an advantage?

    greenmarty ,

    What do you mean? I explained it in the posts above. So shortly It’s basic biolgy. E.g. testosterone makes changes in the body.

    FluffyPotato ,

    If you have the same testosterone levels as everyone you are competing against it doesn’t give you an advantage.

    greenmarty ,

    Intersting so female taking testosterone and female not taking it have same level of testosterone. I guess trans people are taking hormones needlessly if that is the true.

    FluffyPotato ,

    What? I said trans men take testosterone so their hormone levels would be on the same level as any other men competing.

    greenmarty ,

    I read it but you ignore what i said that is, some people may be incentivized to get the treatment, they don’t need with aim to gain advantage. e.g. Female + testosterone in women sports or male identifying as women in women sports. In that sense it’s similar to doping.

    FluffyPotato ,

    Women already get their testosterone tested to compete in the women’s division in most sports and trans women don’t seem to have any real advantage over other women after hormones so it doesn’t seem to be an issue.

    greenmarty ,

    if there was no issue we would not be talking about the topic in the first place. It seems that multiple sports organizations after mixing trans people with females in women categories lead to issues, I somehow don’t believe that all of them figured it out of transphobia or something. Meaning there was issue in fairness.

    shrugal , (edited )

    Imo we should get rid of the distinction by gender and just use weight classes, or whatever attributes are appropriate for a given sport.

    greenmarty ,

    Avg Joe can weight about or even less than avg Jane but he still outperforms her in physical activities. It’s gonna be quite hard. But i can see it working as one of the many params in complex evaluation formula which never will be finished in sense every year someone will come up with exceptions and new paralela.

    shrugal , (edited )

    That’s true for grouping by gender as well, probably even more so. Genetic lottery means some will always be better at a given sport than others of the same gender putting in the same effort. But it’s so engrained in our thinking that we don’t even perceive it as a problem, instead we tell those with physical disadvantage that they were just not made for a certain sport.

    So we are far from competing with perfect here, and being able to pick other attributes to group by should enable us create much more evenly matched groups. I mean, right now we just use one deciding factor for everything and call it a day. And that’s before we get into the whole gender discussion.

    Regarding the actual formulas, I think we just need to find good tradeoffs between fairness and practicality. Of course even a perfectly fair system will fail if it doesn’t work in practice, but I think we can do much better than just using gender in pretty much all cases.

    Gabu ,

    You’ve just killed all of women’s sports by relegating them to the bottom tiers, congratulations.

    sunbytes ,

    Some sports do it based on what kind of puberty you went through.

    As a significant number of the physical advantages come through going through male puberty.

    That could be a good start.

    greenmarty ,

    Which sports do that?

    sunbytes ,

    A quick Google gave me this:

    Several international governing bodies including World Athletics, World Aquatics and World Rugby have restricted trans women who had undergone male puberty from participating in the female category

    …m.wikipedia.org/…/Transgender_people_in_sports

    greenmarty ,

    Oh i misunderstood i though you said that if someone is born one sex but get to transiaion by chems in puberty they are allowed.

    sunbytes ,

    No, it depends which puberty they go through.

    You can trigger whatever puberty you want by taking hormones/medication.

    fosforus ,

    I think it’s simpler. Have two categories: one for the weaker gender, one that is open for anybody. First category is needed only for sports and hobbies where there are differences between the groups, and the decision whether it matters can be derived statistically. If there’s only one category and a significant majority of the top players are from a single gender group, they need a second category.

    Then again, I’m not sure what this means if we applied this logic to other things. For instance, 73% of NBA players were black, 0.4% asian in 2021, but that doesn’t seem like something that needs fixing.

    greenmarty ,

    I’m not sure i follow. So you basically suggest to keep male and female categories but rename them? Or do you suggest to devide female category to stronger and weaker ?

    fosforus ,

    Default to one category, separate if statistics show that one gender group is significantly stronger. Some sports have already established that knowledge, so they can have 2 categories as is. Male and female are fine names.

    So status quo more or less, but underlining that gender groups have differences in some things. That seems to be unclear to some people.

    greenmarty ,

    Well that;s how we got male and female categories. But now we got in between who are apparently weaker than males but can often easily top females. Obvious decision would be to go for certain win.
    There are obviously people who misuse it unjustly to get to the top. Where is the line to become weaker? Would you lower rewards for weaker category to motivate folks to move to stronger one, wouldn’t that make females left at the tail all the time ?

    fosforus ,

    But now we got in between who are apparently weaker than males but can often easily top females.

    They have the burden of proof to irrefutably show that they are on the same level as the women. I don’t know and don’t have to know how they can do that. If they cannot do that, they go to the default category or come up with something else to do with their life.

    greenmarty ,

    In priciple i agree but … i can imagine that it’s pretty simple to just give weak performance on the test day then win every competition ever after but just sightly ahead of females.

    trashgirlfriend ,

    This is just a complete non solution to the problem and effectively just ends up with trans people being banned from sports altogether.

    “Trans” sports teams/leagues (whatever that means) can’t really exist at the amateur local level anywhere but the biggest citiess due to there being not a lot of trans people, and even less trans people who want to play sports.

    The struggle to even get enough trans guys or trans girls to form a team for football or whatever would be a challenge in and of itself, and then this team would pretty much have to fly across the country (or possibly to a different country altogether) to even play a match.

    This is not a reasonable solution for anyone but the people who want to ban trans people from sports.

    The second issue is that this is just fear mongering and not an actual issue to be solved but that’s being argued all over this thread already.

    greenmarty ,

    What is your suggestion than?

    interceder270 ,

    Does he have to have a better suggestion in order to point out how yours isn’t viable?

    greenmarty ,

    It’s preferable, as that’s what constructive productive discussion is about as opposite to just negating and pointing out all is wrong all the time while never accepting any ideas.

    interceder270 ,

    It can be very constructive to point out why something is a bad idea without having an alternative in mind.

    Doing something just to do something is how a lot of mistakes and accidents happen.

    all the time while never accepting any ideas.

    That hyperbole. What about good ideas?

    greenmarty ,

    I disagree because it doesn’t lead anywhere , thus it doesn’t consruct anything.

    interceder270 ,

    It can stop you from making things worse, but I’m tired of arguing this with you.

    Believe what you want.

    trashgirlfriend ,

    Trans people should be allowed in the sports of their gender provided they’ve been on HRT consistently for some time

    The length can be argued but 2-3 years seem to be enough.

    greenmarty ,

    However those sport associations claim they had researches done and conclusions were that it is not fair due to difference in physical abilities and it brings health risk for female athletes.

    Pasta4u ,

    2-3 years doesn’t change lung size or bone density. There is a lot of stuff that doesn’t change once it’s developed.

    Just make a separate league

    pHr34kY ,

    Two categories:

    • Women
    • Open

    Perfectly fair and simple.

    seliaste ,
    @seliaste@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

    It’s already the case, most sports allow for women to play in men’s leagues… But they don’t. And trans women would suffer the same way cis women would in men dominated categories (or would they? Depends on the sport I guess, nobody would complain about trans women in F1 Academy I bet)

    gmtom ,

    nobody would complain about trans women in F1 Academy I bet)

    Fox news was complaining about a trans woman getting a participation medal in the London Marathon, which is a mixed event anyway. Never underestimate how much these people hate trans people.

    seliaste ,
    @seliaste@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

    Right, I’m sure they’ll find a dumb excuse to hate on us.

    teichflamme ,

    Exactly.

    flashpanda ,

    You say that, but trans women are banned from playing in women’s chess. espn.com/…/fide-bans-transgender-women-women-ches…

    seliaste ,
    @seliaste@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

    Yeah I forgot about that… They’re just so hateful haha there’s no reason remaining

    braydan ,

    chess has a history of being very black and white.

    greenmarty ,

    women as females or identifier ? Open is males + trans females + trans males ?

    pHr34kY ,

    Identity is irrelevant. The separation exists so that women get fair competition.

    Women as in someone who was born as, and always has been, biologically female.

    Open means everyone, unrestricted.

    greenmarty ,

    I see so in other words keep it stricly male and female category and let female to enter male category by choice.
    Then we are where se are with people lobbing for change.

    interceder270 ,

    So, do transgender leagues get the same amount of resources as male and female? There’s no way they’re going to bring in as much money as male or even female leagues.

    greenmarty ,

    Female leaves done bring as much as male leagues either. So male leagues sponsors female leagues. So i guess nope, as male and female leagues do not either.

    sealhaslupus ,

    I’m going to go out on a limb and say that not many users on Lemmy follow Cricket or understand it fully. My comment isn’t going to cover if the decision by the ICC is correct (or otherwise) but to provide a little insight into the men and women’s games

    Speed / pace is a noticeable difference between the sexes. I don’t believe there are any current female players that consistently bowl pace over 120km/h. In contrast, male pace bowlers generally try to meet a consistent speed of 135km/h for the same role. The upper bounds for men is roughly 160km/h and maybe only one or two pro players globally can do this.

    There are enough men’s bowlers who can bowl at 150km/h. At this speed an average batter would find it difficult to see the ball. Arguably batters in baseball receive faster pitches but at 150km/h+ including the ball bouncing makes it incredibly difficult to face.

    The batting is also different but it might be harder to explain to a non-cricketing audience why this is.

    pete_the_cat ,

    Cricket is like Blurnsball, right?

    sealhaslupus ,

    it’s slowly becoming that, yeah.

    BillyTheSkidMark ,

    To add extra weight to this comment. It is a common tactic to attempt to “bounce” a batter out, which basically means bowling with enough speed at such a short length that it comes towards the body, and especially, the head. If a batter is unprepared, it usually requires getting out of the way because trying to play a shot is likely to end up with you getting out or struck by the ball.

    The ball is much harder and denser than a baseball and even a famous up and coming professional, international, batter died when he failed to get out of the way and was struck in the head.

    Basically, there is a very real safety concern for players when it comes to something like this.

    ShaunaTheDead , (edited )
    @ShaunaTheDead@kbin.social avatar

    This isn't about male bowlers though. The physiology of transgender people changes very quickly after starting Hormone Replacement Therapy. Do you have data on transgender women and bowling in cricket? Because data relating to male bowlers is not applicable.

    sealhaslupus , (edited )

    deleted_by_moderator

    •
    kaffiene ,

    Appropriate then, that the issue is dicks

    seliaste ,
    @seliaste@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

    Not all trans women have

    Franzia ,

    In theory trans women are superwomen and then in reality they’re weaker and derpier than the top female athletes and all of this is just a scare tactic because these theories havent played out in the real world at all.

    On the sports angle, esports looked like it would finally be the place for me to be a fan because the athletes are relatable to me. But no, they got bought up by the Saudis, so all I get for relatable media is drag queens and furries or whatever.

    Sorgan71 ,

    deleted_by_moderator

    •
    scarabic ,

    TBH I could live with it if the world accepted and honored trans people, and trans people recognized that the biological legacy of their birth sex makes it unfair for them to compete in gender segmented sports. Maybe someday we’ll find a better way to segment sports. Maybe not.

    Nikki ,
    @Nikki@lemmy.world avatar

    We already found a way in weight classes, but nobody will use it for some reason

    scarabic ,

    Seems like weight class would mostly break down into men’s and women’s anyway, but I guess it would allow for exceptions. Weight class doesn’t seem ideal for all sports though. And even if used, you’d have to have class divisions for each position. Because basketball centers are just bigger and heavier than forwards generally. Perhaps height classes would be just as relevant for basketball. It could all work, but it would be really complicated. And I think smaller men would be afraid to compete in a mostly-women league because, by old world values, winning over women would have no glory, but losing to them would have tons of shame. I wonder if any women would actually want to be the only woman in their league, too. Perhaps it’s about more than just physical ability? Anyway interesting topic.

    Nikki ,
    @Nikki@lemmy.world avatar

    whatever we should change to would be better than the blind seperation of sexes we have now, whatever we come up with has to pass the prerequisite of overcoming transphobia first. thats unfortunately gonna be a larger hurdle than the sports

    i try not to think about it, it makes me mad lol

    ryathal ,

    It’s generally not a blind separation of sexes, it’s an everyone league and a women’s league. Two leagues explicitly exist to protect women/give them a chance.

    pete_the_cat ,

    deleted_by_moderator

    •
    darq ,
    @darq@kbin.social avatar

    But biologically, there is a lot of difference between a cisgender man and a transgender women on HRT.

    You can argue that residual advantages remain, that's reasonable. But to just talk about trans women as if they are basically just cis men is both inaccurate, and offensive.

    Bazoogle ,

    I think you raise valid points. My counter argument to you would be this: how does the average strength/dexterity/whatever measurement of sports of cisgender woman compare to the average transsexual woman? While one transsexual woman can still be beat by many women, it could arguably be unfair that their transition put them in the top ranking of the women’s league, even if they aren’t number 1.

    darq ,
    @darq@kbin.social avatar

    To be clear, that wasn't the argument that I was making. In my comment I was only pushing back on the common tendency in these discussions to talk about transgender women as if they were simply cisgender men. People say, uncritically, things like "oh it's common sense to ban [transgender women] because we know that men on average are faster and stronger". But transgender women on HRT are significantly different, biologically, to cisgender men.

    It's perfectly fine to talk about advantages remaining after HRT is started, and for how long they remain. But that isn't what is happening when people talk about transgender women as if they were cisgender men. That is completely ignoring the effects of HRT, making a proper discussion of the relevant facts impossible.

    It's also worth pointing out that, transgender women make up 0.5-1% of all women. So it shouldn't surprise us if transgender women make up 0.5-1% of top female athletes. That's proportional.

    In reality transgender women are under-represented at the highest levels. While even singular examples of transgender athletes performing well are treated as obvious proof of advantage. That's very lop-sided rhetoric.

    The discussion around this topic is terrible, with a lot of people being quite confidently incorrect about basic empirical facts, while arguing theory.

    interceder270 ,

    The discussion around this topic is terrible, with a lot of people being quite confidently incorrect about basic empirical facts, while arguing theory.

    Oh boy, here we go. He’s just upset we’re not treating his agenda as tried-and-true fact. Mad we’re having a discussion at all that doesn’t revolve around telling him he’s right and we know nothing.

    darq ,
    @darq@kbin.social avatar

    It's like you ignored everything else I wrote, to hyperfocus on one sentence, in order to take offense at something I didn't say.

    Mad we’re having a discussion at all that doesn’t revolve around telling him he’s right and we know nothing.

    From my comment: "It's perfectly fine to talk about advantages remaining after HRT is started, and for how long they remain. But that isn't what is happening when people talk about transgender women as if they were cisgender men. That is completely ignoring the effects of HRT, making a proper discussion of the relevant facts impossible."

    Please at least try reading.

    seukari ,

    I’m not the intended recipient but thanks for a considered response. Even if I can’t fully agree, it was a much better approach

    seukari ,

    Boo! Stop being a douche and attack their arguments. Attacking them personally just makes you look petty.

    Nikki ,
    @Nikki@lemmy.world avatar

    I’m not here to argue on these points, I’ve done that enough in my life. Just stopping by to let you know that the term “transsexual” is outdated and shouldnt be used. Transgender is the proper term

    Thxs from Nikki

    Bazoogle ,

    I appreciate the correction. Though I do ask that if you say it’s outdated, you provide at least a brief explanation as to why. My understanding was that transgender was for those who identified as a different gender than their own, and transsexual were those who had medical procedures to change their physical sex.

    Nikki ,
    @Nikki@lemmy.world avatar

    The term transsexual came first, long time ago (I dont care to look it up rn, early 1900s i believe), as we learn more about it we came to realize that gender and sex are completely seperate mentally, hence why its frowned upon to use the term. Lots of hateful people use it knowing this.

    Medical transition or not, a transgender person is who they describe, the lengths at which you go to in order to affirm this vaires (Personally I am on the fence on bottom surgery, but basically need HRT). Medical transition is only a part of being transgender, so theres no need to seperate by using the old term, as it stopped being used by us and has been largely picked up by people who think we belong in the looney bin, or just people who (understandably) dont spend all day thinking about their gender.

    PuddingFeeling907 ,
    @PuddingFeeling907@lemmy.ca avatar

    Transgender women are women not men. Get out of here with that hate.

    pete_the_cat ,

    It’s not hate, biologically they’re still men. Sex changes and HRT doesn’t change your chromosomes.

    darq ,
    @darq@kbin.social avatar

    Except they just don't. The idea that trans women are going to dominate women's sports simply has not played out in reality, despite the fact that trans women have been allowed to compete in women's divisions for many years before these bans.

    I don't know how else to put that. The feared outcome just has not happened, despite regulations being more lax than they are now.

    Further proof of this is found, ironically, in the examples brought up by people pushing this fear. It's the same small handful of trans competitors, most of which did not make any significant impact. If trans women were dominating women's sports, they would have more, and better, examples.

    TERFs have been raging for months over a trans women finishing 6171st in a marathon. People still bring up a specific trans MMA fighter as if she was destroying the competition, when in reality she had a mediocre record, lost to a cis women with a mediocre record, and retired back in 2014. Trans women have been allowed to compete with women in the Olympics since 2004, with looser hormone regulations than those currently in place, yet we saw the first one compete only in 2020 where she didn't even medal.

    The strongest example is one swimmer who was also very strong when she previously competed against men. And people ignore that she still lost to cis women in multiple events. They ignore that her times dropped dramatically after starting HRT.

    The fears have not played out in reality.

    Sorgan71 ,

    The feared outcome has occured in every sport trans people are allowed in.

    darq ,
    @darq@kbin.social avatar

    You live in a fantasy land then, because here in reality, it simply has not.

    seliaste ,
    @seliaste@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

    Source

    gmtom ,

    If its so prevalent, please show some examples.

    PRUSSIA_x86 ,

    https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/0d9a28db-3518-4c9e-a702-2c1c9493491e.jpeg

    trashgirlfriend ,

    Except this just doesn’t happen

    SuddenDownpour ,

    Are these trans women dominating women sports leagues in the same room with us?

    https://sh.itjust.works/pictrs/image/82463b62-6638-40db-8a54-5d1fbe2632d2.png

    Serious response: look for statistics for trans women consistently kicking cis women out of cis sports to the point your position predicts they would. They don’t exist. Sports leagues that allow trans women require them to undergo hormone therapy for specific amounts of time, which levels the playing field. Ironically, this requirement is preventing cis women from competing.

    Personally, I don’t give a shit about sports, but anyone with a minimum of intellectual honesty understands that if the claim

    Trans women out-compete cis women in nearly all sports they are allowed in. Its nonsense to say otherwise.

    were to be true, it would be easy to find outrageous situations where all athletes with any possibility of winning in certain leagues would be trans women, but these cases don’t exist. The closest thing this kind of arguments are accompanied by are specific cases of trans athletes who are successful, which must necessarily exist due to statistics, unless what you want are ludicrous rules that forbid them from participating no matter the reality of their physiology.

    vrighter ,

    jcs?

    TimewornTraveler ,

    Source? I thought current evidence said HRT does a good job at leveling the playing field

    Nutteman ,
    @Nutteman@lemmy.world avatar

    Lotta bigoted users are really going mask off on this thread huh

    darq ,
    @darq@kbin.social avatar

    That is the whole point of "trans women in sports" discussions. That's why conservatives selected this issue to push.

    seliaste ,
    @seliaste@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

    They can act like concerned people when in reality they dgaf and never were interested in them in the first place

    Lizzy_Wizzy ,

    For real. These people are brain dead.

    Cyberjin , (edited )

    deleted_by_moderator

    •
    Franzia ,

    Trans women aren’t biologically men.

    Cyberjin ,

    Sorry if my English is a bit weird. If they have the chromosomes (XY), then yes.

    wafflez ,

    Being a man is not xy chromosomes. It’s a social construct normally situated around expressing masculinity in general, with no clear foundation. If you’re referring to male/female, this is also a social construct that fails to account for chromosomes outside of the xx/xy chromosome binary.

    Hormones are the biggest genuine factor when it comes to sports and transwomen have generally the same athleticism as ciswomen due to HRT; and vice versa with men.

    Cyberjin ,

    No, chromosomes are not a social construct. They are physical structures in cells that carry genetic information and play a fundamental role in biological processes, including determining an individual’s sex. The concept of chromosomes is grounded in biology and genetics, not social constructs.

    You can spin it all you want, but women are getting destroyed in sports by transwomen because they have physique of a man like bone structure and muscle mass.

    PotatoKat ,

    XY are male right?

    So males can give birth according to you

    www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2190741/

    pete_the_cat ,

    That’s a “rare” (or should I say “exclusive” since multiple family members have it?) mutation, being like “only XX females can give birth right? Shows link Checkmate transphobes!” isn’t really proving anything. It’s a genetic mutation.

    It’s as close to saying “people that can’t feel pain are superhumans” when they’re usually the opposite and have to live life in fear of constantly hurting themselves, sometimes severely, and being unaware of it.

    PotatoKat ,

    The point is that chromosomes are clearly not what deterimes sex if a female was born with XY chromosomes. Genetic mutations are a part of life and we literally can’t know the percentage of females born with XY without testing literally everyone. Your mom could be XY and you’d never know unless she got tested. So if chromosomes don’t determine sex what do? Saying it’s a genetic mutation is a thought terminating cliche and allows you to continue living life without thinking deeply on the subject. Which, imo, is pretty anti-science.

    Genetic anomalies don’t at all make something invalid. Did you know red hair is/was a genetic mutation? Does that make red hair not a hair color?

    “There’s only black brown and blonde everything else is a genetic mutation”

    pete_the_cat ,

    Of course genetic mutations are a pretty common thing, but some are minor (like your red hair example), some are “WTF? How did that happen?” mutations, and some are straight up deadly like the various forms of cancer.

    Women being XX is a classification (?) we’ve all agreed on because like 99.8% of people with XX chromosomes are women. Mutations are literally something out of the ordinary that shouldn’t happen.* A woman shouldn’t have XY chromosomes because almost every woman in history that we know of has XX chromosomes*.

    TimewornTraveler ,

    chromosomes are not a social construct

    True, they exist in the physical world! But what chromosomes mean to us is indeed a social construct. Who cares what some little dingle in your nucleus says? People who follow socially constructed divisions in society based on this arbitrary physical thing, that’s who. 💝

    but women are getting destroyed in sports by transwomen

    Can you PLEASE share a source for this? No one will source this claim but it keeps getting upvoted

    Cyberjin , (edited )

    Last time my comment got deleted… I don’t know if it were the link or something else.

    Just search for it on YouTube “Five Times Trans Athletes Beat Thousands Of Women In Their Sports”

    TimewornTraveler , (edited )

    … your source is a YouTube video listicle??

    EDIT lol it’s 3 minutes of text on still images and some of the most transphobic shit

    Cyberjin , (edited )

    Easy to consume, but why don’t you just use search for the names mentioned in the video? 😂

    wafflez ,

    Our conceptualization of chromosomes and how we relate them to being “man” or “woman” is a social construct. This is what I was referring to.

    Transwomen are heavily taken out of context by the media in sports and I have yet to see any actual evidence that transwomen shouldnt be allowed in sports for women. Hormones play the most significant factor

    Cyberjin ,

    Any actual evidence

    Getting first place or breaking records in women’s sport suddenly should be clear as day.

    washingtontimes.com/…/transgender-weightlifter-br…

    washingtontimes.com/…/transgender-swimmer-lia-tho…

    washingtontimes.com/…/terry-miller-andraya-yearwo…

    nypost.com/…/male-powerlifter-enters-womens-event…

    nypost.com/…/trans-swimmer-meghan-cortez-fields-s…

    wafflez ,

    Laurel Hubbert is 45 years old, far from her “prime.” Regardless, even if someone wins a tournament just because they’re trans doesn’t conclude they had an advantage.

    I cannot find any direct sources from Avi Silverberg. Many of the sources that exist present Avi as a male who just pretended to be a woman to protest against trans inclusion in sports.

    Megan Cortez-Fields is literally in highscool sports getting death threats. The two races she won she didn’t even win by big margins: ramapoathletics.com/…/2023_Cougar_Splash_Results_…

    In your terry miller / andrya yearwood link a doctor, Joanna Harper, directly agrees with me about hormones being the biggest factor. Chromosomes are not really important. I don’t believe trans individuals should compete with others of their gender without also having the same hormones.

    Almost every athletic success any trans woman has is like this: not particularly outstanding compared to other women in the same sport, and not even close to the stats of men. The media just intentionally skews it to reinforce the confirmation bias of bigots. There are hundreds of sporting events everyday.

    Cyberjin ,

    Okay we done here, I’m feeling like talking to flat earthers that can’t see pass their bypass.

    It’s literally broken records

    wafflez ,

    If that’s your opinion after I took the time to read your sources and responded adequately in a thorough to why they don’t conclude trans women shouldn’t compete in womens sports, then I don’t think anything can change your mind. Those are highschool records, if they’re broken records then provide reasons as to why you think that.

    greenmarty ,

    Social construct is the separation of gender from sex. In many languages it doesn’t even make sense because fe/male is used for animals or wo/men for humans while gender and sex are represented by single word.

    pete_the_cat ,

    This whole argument of “gender vs sex” is ridiculous and always has been. Biology is what matters, not what words you use to refer to yourself or others.

    PotatoKat ,

    You_irl https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/c4f908e8-44a4-48c6-a889-4567b3f75b4a.png

    pete_the_cat ,

    I’m definitely not a conservative Republican, far from it. I love how people immediately jump to conclusions on here based on one statement.

    I don’t give a damn what bathroom you use.

    IMO this is like arguing whether a tomato is a fruit or a vegetable.

    PotatoKat ,

    Trans women and trans men are significantly closer to being intersex.

    Kepabar ,

    How are they not?

    PotatoKat ,

    Because hrt changes our biological characteristics. I have breasts and a hip curve of a cis woman. The trans man I know is growing hair like a cis man and is getting voice cracks like a pubescent boy.

    We’re much closer to being intersex than our biological sex

    TopRamenBinLaden , (edited )

    I don’t think all trans women take HRT, though, right? I imagine most trans women normally go that route, but not all. Maybe the rules can be changed to specify that trans women can compete in women’s sports if they have been on an HRT regiment for long enough, or something.

    This makes me wonder, is there anything in place in these sports keeping a cis male from just claiming to be a trans woman to have an unfair advantage? I do hope they find a way to integrate trans women into women’s sports, but I think there is some stuff that needs to be ironed out.

    PotatoKat ,

    There already are requirements for trans women to be taking HRT before competing against women. I believe the current one is 1 year. No cis man would want to take HRT that would cause them to grow boobs so that argument is moot.

    Edit: imo 1 year is too soon. From a study I read 2 should be good for endurance sports, and 3-5 should be good for others. It’s not right to delay the lives of trans people any further then they’re already being delayed and it’s not like exceptional cis women don’t exist

    Plus this all gets solved if we let trans teens transition since these differences happen during puberty

    TopRamenBinLaden ,

    Thanks for clearing that up. I always wondered about the requirements/qualification for that as I don’t really follow sports too much, myself.

    Sorgan71 ,

    yes they are.

    praise_idleness ,

    Some trans women are different to most biological men.

    There are a lot of trans people who don’t go through transition.

    darq ,
    @darq@kbin.social avatar

    Those are not the trans people being spoken about I'm sports discussions though. Pretty much every sport that allows, or has previously allowed, trans people to compete in the division fitting their gender has had regulations around HRT and maintaining target hormone levels for a period of time before being allowed to compete.

    PotatoKat , (edited )

    Studies have shown that after around 2 years of HRT the strength of trans women level out to the average of cis women. The only things that really stay the same are things like bone length /bone density, and it’s not like there are no cis women with dense bones that are tall.

    Edit: taken from another comment of mine:

    found a more recent study that states endurance things like running and swimming level out by around 2 years, with most things level out after about 4 with the exception of upper body strength. Which is still declining in trans women past that point

    academic.oup.com/jcem/advance-article/…/7223439

    So the 1 year that is recommended is too soon for trans women athletes to start competing, but for endurance sports like racing and swimming it should be fine by 2 years. Other sports may need more time, but also we shouldn’t be delaying the lives of trans people for so long. We need to find a good middle ground because it’s not like exceptional cis women don’t exist in those same sports.

    This is all also completely ignoring that if a trans women starts hrt before puberty then there is no real difference. So the real solution is to let trans teenagers transition.

    TopRamenBinLaden ,

    Aren’t their trans women who don’t take HRT?

    PotatoKat ,

    That compete in sports? No.

    The vast-vast majority of trans women take HRT and many of the ones that don’t, don’t because of a lack of access.

    TopRamenBinLaden ,

    Makes sense thanks for the explanation. Yea, I figure it’s way less common for a trans woman to not want to go the HRT route if they have the ability to, but I know a few must exist.

    PotatoKat ,

    They do exist and they are just as valid, but they’re definitely not the ones competing in sports (plus there are already requirements for trans women to be on HRT before competing in women’s leagues)

    pete_the_cat ,

    The word you’re looking for is biologically.

    Cyberjin ,

    Thanks

    darq ,
    @darq@kbin.social avatar

    Simply because there is a huge difference, biologically, between a cisgender man and a transgender women who is on HRT.

    You can argue that there is still residual advantages remaining after transition, that's fine. But to call them men is both plainly incorrect, and also offensive.

    gmtom ,

    Why did my comment get removed?

    Hmm I wonder

    interceder270 ,

    Why did my comment get removed?

    Probably a biased mod who gets mad whenever a discussion doesn’t go their way.

    TimewornTraveler ,

    Brand new user totally understands how things work here. Alternatively, recently banmed user totally understands why they got banned. BIASED MODS!!!

    Cyberjin ,

    deleted_by_moderator

    •
    Thann ,
    @Thann@lemmy.ml avatar

    My fist thought was “why does the International Criminal Court care”

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • [email protected]
  • random
  • lifeLocal
  • goranko
  • All magazines
    •