Women arguing against the decision by FINA to disallow transgender women from competing at the olympic games as 'women' because it's 'unscientific'

@Adogslife that's an argument based on ignorance. Many transgender women never get close to the top, but then it's not a problem for them to compete in the women's competition. It's only an issue if they win, and then the assumption is the reason they won is because they were born as a man. It's quite interesting how nobody gets riled up or calls that an advantage when a trans woman with the same history ends last.

@NerdyPotato why do you think women's sport exists?

@NerdyPotato It’s a sport. You don’t get credit for sucking. To not see the advantage is simply naive.

@Adogslife I would say malicious. He knows women are physically slower, weaker and less agile but gets some kind of misogynistic psychological thrill out of demeaning us and denying reality.

@SW-User And to think I just thought we were being trolled. 😂

@SW-User it depends on the sport, but for many, a separate women's league exists because men couldn't handle women being better. A few examples:

A) Figure skating used to be a mixed event on paper but only males enrolled until 1902. Then Florence Madeline "Madge" Syers became the first woman ever to participate and immediately took the silver medal. A year later, women were banned from the sport and were given their own event in 1905.

B) Skeet shooting had been a mixed event on the Olympics since 1968. When Zhang Shan became the first woman to win gold in 1992, women were banned in 1996. They were rewelcomed in 2000, but only in a segregated competition.

C) The "first golden age" of women's football occurred in the United Kingdom in the 1920s, with one match attracting over 50,000 spectators. The Football Association initiated a ban in 1921 in England that disallowed women's football games. It took 50 years to allow them to compete again, but as you guessed, only in their own league.

@NerdyPotato you are treading a very dangerous and disengenous road intellectually. That does nt equate to it being ok for Mike Tyson to go in a boxing match with a woman boxer of equal weight

Of course there are some activities where women have an edge. It is nethertheless true that biologically men are stronger, faster and quicker reflexes than women. We have different bodies, different centres of gravity, different fat dispersal, different abilities to oxygenate the blood and different abilities to develop muscle

Take your example of women's football? Were they beating male teams? If not, what is the relevance?

Regarding the Skeet shooting, you don't actually know why the open category was closed, but you've got a woman winning gold in a 'sport' that doesn't involve physical strength or even engage much of the body - therefore you would expect the sex differences to be minimised.

You have found a woman one once out of 20 contests? You have excluded all other categories of shooting. Tell me, did a woman ever get the top score again, if we look across the seperate male versus female categories? Because if women didn't it means your argument isn't a very good one.

Figure skating it really depends on what is getting judged. You also get women who can do amazing things in gymnastics. There are also things in both they can't do, but males can do because of their superior strength.

Can you tell me why you find it so hard to accept males and females are biologically different?

@SW-User I don't find it difficult to accept that men and women are different. They obviously are. My point is that people differ in other ways that give some an advantage over others in sports too. I just don't see why athletes should be split up based on sex alone, still causing them to encounter competitors that are much better than them in their own group. I am not advocating to put anyone against someone twice their strength. I'm only suggesting to create leagues based on strength as a whole. And yes, sex is one factor in strength, but not the only one. So it makes no sense to me to use that as the only criterium for a division.

@NerdyPotato it is the basis for competitive sport that the best is going to win. Female sports acknowledge the reality that as a biological woman it would sux to always lose. I don't think any woman has a problem with female. Sports being a category. I can admire a woman for beating me in a sport. I can choose a sport I love and my body type fits and compete with a woman who has natural advantages over me. I can compete at my level with people who biologically are the same sex.

No woman has ever had a problem. with female sports.

It is only an issue when men want to invade women's sports, and some women believe that feelings triumph over fair competition

Do you believe there is nothing noteworthy or special about the woman who won the world record in 200 metre butterfly? To me, she's a champion

To you she's completely and utterly unremarkable

@SW-User what makes you say that? Everyone who sets a world record is amazing.

As for "men invading women's sports": I understand there are some issues there, but in my opinion not necessarily with sex. I don't think having male chromosomes and a penis gives someone an unfair advantage over someone with female chromosomes and a vagina, but rather that a masculine person has an unfair advantage over a feminine one.

So rather than a a male and female league, we should really be talking about a masculine and feminine one. To keep the competition fair, athletes should then be divided based on what matters: their masculinity or lack thereof.

Sex chromosomes play a role in how masculine someone is or can become, but a person's masculinity is also affected by other genes, training, hormones, etc. Sex chromosomes alone therefore don't measure a person's advantage over others and are thus not suitable to ultimately determine which side of the split an individual should compete at to give everyone a fair chance at winning.

The fact that masculinity and feminity are on a sliding scale rather than binary values, and measuring them is a bit more subjective than checking someone's DNA, is of course an issue. But in my opinion that's no reason to use a criterium that may be simpler and more objective, but doesn't actually do much to improve fairness.

@NerdyPotato The whole point is it is not amazing to win a gold medal in the wrong physical category

Not at all

We are talking male athletes of average male ability

That would make nearly all male athletes gold medal winners if they were crass enough to cheat and steal it from a woman.

I'm getting a bit annoyed by the importance you place on what you think when what you think seems to have no need to be based in scientific or practical reality

What you're actually doing is violence. You're advocating males use their greater physical prowess to beat women

Like I have clearly said before they can tell from bones that are thousands of years old whether or not someone was a male or a female

They can't tell if a male used his greater strength to dominate women

They can't tell cowardice from bones

It is the opposite of a males value in society, to provide and protect, and maybe that's what we've missed in raising effeminate males

That men like you are now such emotional wimps that they are prepared to argue that they aren't physically advantaged compared to women

But emotional weakness and lack of connection to what ones role is in society - doesn't make you a physical weakling - just a coward

Some one who would literally hide among the skirts of women during a war

How high one rates in stereotypically feminine or masculine qualities does not impact ones physical biological sex

You can like making cakes and possess a penis.

You don't need to cut it off or tuck it between your legs.

I just hope you rediscover your balls by the time you have a family, because your wife and children will be relying on you to be a man

What are you going to do? Watch your pregnant wife haul luggage because, "why should I do it just because I'm a male 😭?"

Although with your current attitude I doubt you are fit enough to attract a mate.

@SW-User agreed, that's why I keep saying that people should be placed in a league that matches their abilities. Those are however not strictly defined by their sex at birth and there is plenty of scientific proof for that.

I'm not advocating for men to use their physical prowess to beat women at all. On the contrary: I keep saying strong people should be in a different league than somewhat weaker ones. The only difference is that you want to separate them solely based on their sex at birth and I want to do so based on abilities regardless of sex, current or previous. That raises the question: what is more dangerous to ignore? Strength or genitals?

I never argued that men aren't stronger than women on average. But this discussion is about transgender women, not cis men. Science shows that transgender women are often less strong than cis women because they use testosterone blockers, so they are in fact less of a threat to women than biological females. (That is of course after transitioning completely, not a few months in like some recent examples.)

Correct, and I never claimed it would, nor is this relevant in any way. The winner of a competition is decided by those qualities, not one's sex, biological or changed. Sex affects these qualities, but doesn't determine them.

@NerdyPotato that is not what science shows. That is what trans propoganda shows. Science shows that if a male has gone through male puberty he retains physical advantages over women - even after taking female hormones

But like I've said before you can't deliberately lower your biological potential as an athlete and expect to remain in elite athletics, let alone win

In terms of fair sport for everyone I would like to be matched with a fat overweight asthmatic woman 45-55

Just not in running

😁

But seriously, if you match based on strength you could end up pitting a couch potatoe with a person who trains several hours a day

How would you overcome that?

@SW-User for that we'll have to rely on couch potatoes not signing up for the Olympics. 😁 Pretty much like we do now. There must be plenty of people who have it in them to compete at the top level of one sport or another, but just don't put in the effort to train for it.

It's not like the "weaker" league at the highest level is easy to reach without training almost full time, even for the luckiest person in the game of gene roulette. And anyone who decides to train for at least 30 hours a week is probably competitive enough to aim for the highest medal they can get.

In fact you can see that with weight lifting. That already has different classes, but unless I missed a bunch of major outrage, it's not common for people to stay in a lower class than they could handle.

@NerdyPotato weight classes I think, like in wrestling 😊

@SW-User correct, but weight is partially determined by muscle mass and thus strength, and for weight lifters mostly so, as none of the professional ones have much fat. Therefore weight is almost directly related to strength for them. Yet you don't see them settling for a medal in a low weight/strength class if they can do better, because they want the medals in heavier classes if those are within their capabilities.

@NerdyPotato you mean like how heavyweight champion of the world has more status?

@SW-User yep, or actually more that being able to lift more gives you more status, but that's related to being in the heavy weight class.

@NerdyPotato I get what you're saying but keep in mind that a 250 pound man might be a world champion. A 250 pound woman unless she's taking steroids is just fat. 😂

Furthermore she has differences to her skeletal structure that impact on her ability to lift and bear weight

As well as a different weight to muscle ratio she has different muscle composition. She has smaller lungs and her body has less ability to oxegenate

That's why if you put a female lifter of the same weight against a male weight lifter it still isn't going to be an evenly matched contest 😊

@NerdyPotato another thing that doesn't quite ring true is athletes often fast to remain in their competitive weight group

It is better to win as a middleweight than come 400th as a heavyweight

The other thing is that weight is to a large degree within ones control

A woman is not able to alter her pelvic girdle