First of all, I'd like to take a moment to point out that there's evidence that trans dudes also have an advantage against cis men, so it's a bit strange to narrow the discussion down to women's sports in particular. That's not to malign your intentions or anything, I just feel like that's important to point out.
Frankly, I think the question of 'fairness' is basically meaningless to whether trans women should be allowed in women's sports. I mean, a guy who's 4'8" doesn't have a fair chance of becoming a professional swimmer. A chick who was born with smaller lungs doesn't have a fair chance of excelling at soccer. People have natural advantages all the time; the real reason why we even divide men's and women's sports centers around entertainment value. Observing genetic outliers train and compete against each other is fun in itself and if we only had one unified sports league, we'd in effect be eliminating half the genetic freaks.
This essentially means that I don't have a stake in this game because I'm not a sports fan, but I do think allowing trans ppl in sports where they dominate would hurt entertainment value. This is because the natural advantage that trans people may have would reduce the extent to which they'd need to be genetic oddities in other areas, which subverts part of the entertainment value mentioned earlier.
What's basically important to me (insofar as this issue is important at all) is that trans people in sports are handled on somewhat of a discretionary basis with an eye for science. Trans people definitely have an advantage in some sports, but not necessarily all. In fact, I've seen it speculated that transgender women have a disadvantage in maneuverability, since they have the big, lumbering frame of a man, but less muscle to actually support it. You mentioned male puberty, and I think it's important to keep puberty blockers in mind, which would almost certainly play a role in determining if a trans person has an advantage.
[quote]there's evidence that trans dudes also have an advantage against cis men[/quote]
Oh interesting! I haven't heard about that before. In any specific kind of competition? Is it a result of having testosterone (or whatever) treatments?
[quote]People have natural advantages all the time;[/quote]
Well that's true but i think it becomes a little more complicated than that if indeed trans women have an unfair advantage because eventually biological women would just be pushed right out of competition. Essentially it would just become another male league.
[quote]Trans people definitely have an advantage in some sports[/quote]
I do seem to remember reading something about the advantage being in sports that require explosive power rather than endurance.
@Pikachu [quote]Oh interesting! I haven't heard about that before. In any specific kind of competition? Is it a result of having testosterone (or whatever) treatments?[/quote]
I'm just gonna link you to the source I use instead of playing telephone, there's a lotta good nuance here.
[quote]Well that's true but i think it becomes a little more complicated than that if indeed trans women have an unfair advantage because eventually biological women would just be pushed right out of competition. Essentially it would just become another male league.[/quote]
What the hell is an "unfair advantage" in this context and how does it differ from a fair advantage?
Well i guess we could consider the advantage unfair in terms of degree. High level athletes tend to be victorious by very narrow margins. If a whole category of athletes has a very significant margin of superiority that might be considered unfair. That would be the reason why sports like boxing have weight classes.
@Pikachu Is that even true though? Last year, the shortest man out of 529 NBA players last year was 5'9". That's an insane fucking statistic dude. I'm not even disagreeing that trans ppl in some sports might be a bad idea, just the fairness angle doesn't really check out imo.
@Pikachu Basketball isn't all about height, but tall people have a clear statistical advantage in basketball. Running isn't all about gender, but trans ladies have a clear statistical advantage in running. The parallel there is really strong.
@Pikachu By decree? No. As a consequence of biological advantages? Sure, I don't give a fuck. The philosophy checks out and I don't like major league sports. It would probably impact the entertainment value though, which is probably why I shouldn't be the ones making these decisions.
I don't care about sports either. But i have to imagine that biological women would start to feel pretty put out if they couldn't hope to compete anymore.
