I'm all for transgender rights.

Being able to live your life as the gender you are inside rather than having to conform to what your body looks like. Using the bathroom of your gender and so on.

But what i wonder about is sports. A transgender woman who is biologically male has a tremendously unfair advantage over her biologically female competitors.

Should transgender women be allowed to compete against biological women?
Is that fair?
Should there be a separate category or should they just compete with the men?

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JaggedLittlePill · 46-50, F

Why does a person being Male mean they have an advantage over a woman. If they have never competed together how would you know?

abe182 · 46-50, M

@JaggedLittlePill I never understood that either. Like golf. Why the need for PGA and LPGA? And swimming and tennis and so on.

abe182 · 46-50, M

@JaggedLittlePill NASCAR has it figured out

JaggedLittlePill · 46-50, F

@abe182 Lol I don't follow NASCAR...were they co-ed?

abe182 · 46-50, M

@JaggedLittlePill they are yes.

JaggedLittlePill · 46-50, F

@abe182 See. Girls can drive fast cars just fine ;)

SumKindaMunster · 51-55, M

@abe182 Golf is one thing. Honestly I think it's just tradition that separates the genders on this and why we continue to have the PGA and the LGPA, however, tennis, soccer, basketball, baseball and swimming are segregated because if they were integrated, men would have a distinct physical advantage and there would be only a few women who would qualify.

JaggedLittlePill · 46-50, F

@SumKindaMunster they may have a physical advantage..that does not mean they would win by default. Women would have other advantages.

SumKindaMunster · 51-55, M

@JaggedLittlePill Such as?

JaggedLittlePill · 46-50, F

This article expresses some of my thoughts on the topic

https://howwegettonext.com/is-gender-segregation-in-sports-necessary-dc188150f242

SumKindaMunster · 51-55, M

@JaggedLittlePill Interesting. Here is my rebuttal:

I don't doubt that women will start to "catch up" to men in terms of sports more and more as the article states, we have seen that happen in the last few decades. As stated by the article, this is mostly due to women being more accepted in sports and having access to the same resources as men do to perform their best.

Unfortunately there is a biological component that will never be reached by women. It's just the way it is. I spent 20 minutes looking for an article on this but of course I can't find it. Essentially, the take away was this:

In a general sense, women and men overlap in physical capability. However, men are more disparate, meaning there are more men at the ends of the "bell curve". This means that more men in general will be at the upper end of the bell curve in physical ability(as well as the bottom end) and since sports is a meritocracy, men with greater physical ability will dominate sports. (If I can find the link I will post it here. My apologies, I would understand if you are dubious. But after spending 20 minutes on this, I didn't just not want to reply....)

This doesn't mean that some sports can't be integrated or that women in a general sense, can't compete with men, but ultimately if we were to make these sports a pure meritocracy, men would be the top performers.

SW-User

@JaggedLittlePill let me just say, if we put Deontay Wilder and Alexandra Jimenez in the ring together, there would be a little bit more than a slight advantage >_>

Both are heavyweight boxer champions of different genders, but just take moment to imagine why we don't want this to happen

JaggedLittlePill · 46-50, F

@SW-User yea. Sorry, I don't buy that bull shitake. But thanks, and have a fabulous day.