Transgender Athletes

Sparky Rhiwabon said:
If a male athlete suddenly identifies as non binary can they then enter either male or female competitions? Wouldn’t it be discriminatory to refuse them?
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Wouldn't it first take a diagnosis of gender dysphoria and then at least 12 months of hormone treatment to enter any professional competitions?
 
Gehrman said:
Wouldn't it first take a diagnosis of gender dysphoria and then at least 12 months of hormone treatment to enter any professional competitions?
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I don’t know, I didn’t think you had to have hormone treatment to identify as non binary?
 
New Zealand has selected 43-year-old heavyweight weightlifter Laurel Hubbard to compete at the Olympics. She previously competed as a male weightlifter.

It's the first time a trans athlete has been picked for the Olympics, evidently and some people are not happy about it. She didn't transition until she was 35 years old, and since she started competing as a female she has won several elite competitions, whereas she was not that good when competing pre-transition.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2...laurel-hubbard-trans-weightlifter-new-zealand
 
Gehrman said:
Wouldn't it first take a diagnosis of gender dysphoria and then at least 12 months of hormone treatment to enter any professional competitions?
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This is just a helpless arbitrary line they took to avoid controversy.

It's like guns vs no guns. They always compromise in the middle (more stringent check, no full auto, etc) it's just a populist move to try to satisfy all parties.

How can 12 months of hormone treatment erase tens of years of Male growth? You don't need a study to know that Bodies don't shrink, bones don't shrink, lung capacity doesn't shrink back. How can natural women who trains equally for Olympic suddenly getting voided because Norman Hubbard suddenly decided to become a she? How's that fair?

Even if she don't win gold, she's already way ahead of the curve.
 
Penna said:
New Zealand has selected 43-year-old heavyweight weightlifter Laurel Hubbard to compete at the Olympics. She previously competed as a male weightlifter.

It's the first time a trans athlete has been picked for the Olympics, evidently and some people are not happy about it. She didn't transition until she was 35 years old, and since she started competing as a female she has won several elite competitions, whereas she was not that good when competing pre-transition.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2...laurel-hubbard-trans-weightlifter-new-zealand
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Going to get a lot of media attention if she wins gold at Olympics.
 
Penna said:
New Zealand has selected 43-year-old heavyweight weightlifter Laurel Hubbard to compete at the Olympics. She previously competed as a male weightlifter.

It's the first time a trans athlete has been picked for the Olympics, evidently and some people are not happy about it. She didn't transition until she was 35 years old, and since she started competing as a female she has won several elite competitions, whereas she was not that good when competing pre-transition.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2...laurel-hubbard-trans-weightlifter-new-zealand
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Ridiculous.

They need to have their own olympics. In the modern world why do we still only have Men and Women sports... we need to start catering for gender fluidity in its own right.
 
Penna said:
New Zealand has selected 43-year-old heavyweight weightlifter Laurel Hubbard to compete at the Olympics. She previously competed as a male weightlifter.

It's the first time a trans athlete has been picked for the Olympics, evidently and some people are not happy about it. She didn't transition until she was 35 years old, and since she started competing as a female she has won several elite competitions, whereas she was not that good when competing pre-transition.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2...laurel-hubbard-trans-weightlifter-new-zealand
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Feel sorry for the other weightlifters that will be up against her and dedicated their whole lives to try to win an olympic gold .
 
Sky1981 said:
This is just a helpless arbitrary line they took to avoid controversy.

It's like guns vs no guns. They always compromise in the middle (more stringent check, no full auto, etc) it's just a populist move to try to satisfy all parties.

How can 12 months of hormone treatment erase tens of years of Male growth? You don't need a study to know that Bodies don't shrink, bones don't shrink, lung capacity doesn't shrink back. How can natural women who trains equally for Olympic suddenly getting voided because Norman Hubbard suddenly decided to become a she? How's that fair?

Even if she don't win gold, she's already way ahead of the curve.
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I dont disagree with you.
 
It's ridiculous. A 35 year old bloke decided to take hormones and became a woman a year later. She still has all the physical advantages she had as a 35 year old bloke, especially one who was a professional weightlifter!

Transgender people should be able to compete against each other, it's not fair on female athletes.
 
Would be interesting to see what was her (when she was male) best lift as compared to what it is now. Will give a pretty straight forward idea of how much of a difference this reduction in testosterone really does.
 
kiristao said:
Would be interesting to see what was her (when she was male) best lift as compared to what it is now. Will give a pretty straight forward idea of how much of a difference this reduction in testosterone really does.
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Not sure on weight lifting but my post about tennis ability decrease after 12 months of hormones (only anecdotal evidence I know) was ignored.
 
kiristao said:
Would be interesting to see what was her (when she was male) best lift as compared to what it is now. Will give a pretty straight forward idea of how much of a difference this reduction in testosterone really does.
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She didn't take up professional weightlifting until after the transition.
 
Salt Bailly said:
She didn't take up professional weightlifting until after the transition.
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She was a weightlifter pre-transition and didnt compete professionally until after the transition
because she wasn't good enough to compete professionally in male categories.
 
kiristao said:
Would be interesting to see what was her (when she was male) best lift as compared to what it is now. Will give a pretty straight forward idea of how much of a difference this reduction in testosterone really does.
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Wiki says at 20 years old she set the junior record for a combined 300kg lift. Her best lift competing in major women’s competitions is a combined 285kg lift.
 
If it’s anything where you use physical strength they should be banned. Isn’t fair to the other women competing. Stuff like darts & snooker is fine.

For physical sports the only way around it is to make a separate trans category.
 
limerickcitykid said:
Wiki says at 20 years old she set the junior record for a combined 300kg lift. Her best lift competing in major women’s competitions is a combined 285kg lift.
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Isn't the Women's record around 246kg?
 
Schmeichel's Cartwheel said:
If it’s anything where you use physical strength they should be banned. Isn’t fair to the other women competing. Stuff like darts & snooker is fine.

For physical sports the only way around it is to make a separate trans category.
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I would be very interested to see if male snooker players had phyiscal advantages over female snooker players. Maybe in their cue action. Maybe i emphasize because i dont know.

They already have to make the greens in golf smaller for females. One thing that caught my eye was Sergio Garcia saying that even if let women have an advantage against men with regards the length of the greens, they still would struggle with something to do with generating spin.
 
Zlatattack said:
It's ridiculous. A 35 year old bloke decided to take hormones and became a woman a year later. She still has all the physical advantages she had as a 35 year old bloke, especially one who was a professional weightlifter!

Transgender people should be able to compete against each other, it's not fair on female athletes.
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Yeah this is the best bet. Have a transgender category. The field will be small right now but will continue to grow over the next 20-25 years

Hugh Jass said:
I would be very interested to see if male snooker players had phyiscal advantages over female snooker players. Maybe in their cue action. Maybe i emphasize because i dont know.

They already have to make the greens in golf smaller for females. One thing that caught my eye was Sergio Garcia saying that even if let women have an advantage against men with regards the length of the greens, they still would struggle with something to do with generating spin.
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Only on the break I think. Snooker is all skill & has next to no emphasis on strength. Women can play against men without the clear disadvantage they would have in contact & physical sports.
 
Schmeichel's Cartwheel said:
Yeah this is the best bet. Have a transgender category. The field will be small right now but will continue to grow over the next 20-25 years


Only on the break I think. Snooker is all skill & has next to no emphasis on strength. Women can play against men without the clear disadvantage they would have in contact & physical sports.
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Steve Davis said that they wont ever win the World Championship because they lack the will to just train ten hours a day potting the black. A bit sexist, though the top female snooker player agreed with him.

I would love to see a top female snooker player, just to see if they have any disadvantages cue action wise.
 
Funny anecdote about the advantages men biologically have over women when it comes to sports.

Serena williams or venus said they could beat any man ranked outside the top 200. One guy then ranked 203 or something like that, challenged them to a match. Apparently this guys training routine involved sitting down drinking lager and smoking cigars most of the day. Anyway he beat her comfortably.

John Mcenroe said that when Serena was ranked number 1 in the womans game, she would be ranked 700 in the mens. He got in a bit of trouble for saying it.
 
Sparky Rhiwabon said:
If a male athlete suddenly identifies as non binary can they then enter either male or female competitions? Wouldn’t it be discriminatory to refuse them?
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I don't see why it's discriminatory.

Unlike sexual preferences and religious freedom professional sports aren't essential to become a human being. You can do with not competing, or at least compete in your original gender without having to use hormone blocker. You can compete without a problem, you're just not guaranteed an easier win.

Gender classification in sports was never intended as segregation, but common sense, since the first and foremost biggest difference in classifications depends on whether you're born a male or female. Then they classified them into welter weights, heavyweight, age, weight class etc. There's nothing discriminatory about it. It's mean to provide a fair sporting event.

You can be rejected to participate based on your weight (Boxing for example), age (Football), amateur / pro (racing), qualification (racing), I fail to see why it's not fair.
 
Hugh Jass said:
Funny anecdote about the advantages men biologically have over women when it comes to sports.

Serena williams or venus said they could beat any man ranked outside the top 200. One guy then ranked 203 or something like that, challenged them to a match. Apparently this guys training routine involved sitting down drinking lager and smoking cigars most of the day. Anyway he beat her comfortably.

John Mcenroe said that when Serena was ranked number 1 in the womans game, she would be ranked 700 in the mens. He got in a bit of trouble for saying it.
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When they were teenagers, no?
 
Schmeichel's Cartwheel said:
Yeah this is the best bet. Have a transgender category. The field will be small right now but will continue to grow over the next 20-25 years
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Local weightlifting comps struggle to get more than 2 or 3 lifters (sometimes 1 or none) in certain categories, there will never be enough transgender athletes for such a thing. Not that I can think of any other solution that is fair, I just can't see it being practical.
 
Interesting to see Tennis brought up here because we had Renee Richards male-to-female transwoman competing and highest rank was 20th and no WTA titles to name. Never made it past 3rd round in US open (eliminated twice in the first round).

There's Cece Telfer, track and field athlete that right wing media I remember having an aneurysm over who hardly did very well either
https://www.outsports.com/2019/3/10/18257930/ncaa-cece-telfer-trans-woman-athlete-track-field

And a lot of trans athletes who compete lose too, and many just give unremarkable performances. They're hardly the unstoppable juggernauts as they're sometimes claimed or believed to be. There's a reasonable article here from a MMA woman's fighter who was previously against Fallon Fox competing here I found interesting
https://www.outsports.com/2021/6/16/22536714/rosi-sexton-mma-trans-athletes-fallon-fox

Its tricky because I think the goalpost isn't as often claimed "we don't want trans athletes to dominate women's sport". Because they've been allowed to compete for a while, 2003 in the Olympics according to IOC guidelines but instead its closer to "we don't any of them winning anything" at all as we're seeing now with Laurel Hubbard potentially getting gold (apparently tricky though since getting a debilitating elbow injury at the 2018 Commonwealth Games) and recently with Veronica Ivy's achievements in cycling.
 
I'm no expert so forgive me if this is the wrong way of looking at it, but it seems to me that the sports should be segregated by sex, not gender identification, since the whole idea of doing so in the first place was to allow people without a Y chromosome the chance to make teams at school that were full of people with Y chromosomes that were bigger and faster. At least as far as the US laws that require equal access, was there a similar idea with the Olympics?

But I'm happy to let the people with Y chromosomes decide what they want, since this is their competition. Maybe trans women are best to compete with non-trans women until there are enough athletes to allow them to have their own competition.
 
limerickcitykid said:
348kg, weight categories are constantly changing though so the records are weird. The record for the current weight class she’ll compete in is 335kg.
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Super heavyweight records are so daft, moves from 105+ to 109+ and they reset the records despite them being held by people weighing (in the men's case) about 65kg more than that anyway.
 
mitChley said:
Local weightlifting comps struggle to get more than 2 or 3 lifters (sometimes 1 or none) in certain categories, there will never be enough transgender athletes for such a thing. Not that I can think of any other solution that is fair, I just can't see it being practical.
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I get what you’re saying but what is the alternative? Imagine being a woman & working your ass off your entire life to get to the Olympics & missing out on a gold medal to someone who was a guy 3 years ago. It just doesn’t seem fair. I understand being inclusive but I think that female athletes should be the ones who make the decision here.
 
Schmeichel's Cartwheel said:
I get what you’re saying but what is the alternative? Imagine being a woman & working your ass off your entire life to get to the Olympics & missing out on a gold medal to someone who was a guy 3 years ago. It just doesn’t seem fair. I understand being inclusive but I think that female athletes should be the ones who make the decision here.
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Why are you imagining that? Seems a bit weird.
 
Schmeichel's Cartwheel said:
I get what you’re saying but what is the alternative? Imagine being a woman & working your ass off your entire life to get to the Olympics & missing out on a gold medal to someone who was a guy 3 years ago. It just doesn’t seem fair. I understand being inclusive but I think that female athletes should be the ones who make the decision here.
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I don't think there is an alternative which is fair, but life isn't fair I guess. Laurel probably doesn't consider it fair having to live in a male body for 30 odd years despite identifying as a woman.

Only thing I can think of is reducing testosterone levels required further? If that solves the problem I don't know. Gun to my head I'd probably ban MTF athletes competing alongside athletes born female, it's shit and unfair but maybe the less unfair choice.

I'd also add that those women who are competing against Laurel for Olympic gold have more than likely been through a state sponsored doping program most of their lives, so also not fair. I know our (GB) athlete Emily in the category is clean, but she won't be (although I'd love it if she did) going for gold.
 
Schmeichel's Cartwheel said:
What do you mean? Im not literally talking about myself I’m saying but yourself in a female athletes shoes & empathise how they may feel.
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Well, first of all under the current rules you'd have to have been transitioned for four years, so the three year thing sounds a bit strange. Then you have to fulfill a bunch of criteria, like test levels (which are likely to be lowered). Then you have the fact that no trans athlete has ever won, so a woman who wants to win gold should probably concentrate on beating the best. Beating the best trans women would be nice, I guess, but not as nice as getting the gold medal.
 
Sky1981 said:
Gender classification in sports was never intended as segregation, but common sense, since the first and foremost biggest difference in classifications depends on whether you're born a male or female. Then they classified them into welter weights, heavyweight, age, weight class etc. There's nothing discriminatory about it. It's mean to provide a fair sporting event.
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Sorry to be pedantic but this isn't true and highlights why this is so complicated. A 4 year old male is not beating a 25 year old female at any sport, a 4 ft Male basketball player is not beating a 6ft 4 female player. There is a huge spectrum of overlap between male/female physical attributes and capabilities that are as varied as you and me (ie small, frail, hairless biologically male - tall, large frame, hairy biologically female and anything in between) therefore the most fundamental "base" separation in classification cant be Male/female.

To extend an olive branch, the "common sense of it" splitting male and female does largely group correctly over the general population, however it;

A: doesn't fit every case, therefore failing in its utility as a category especially in a professional athlete level were the edges of the curve are almost essential(human beings define categories for their utility, i'e they have a usefulness, they don't exist outside of social constructs in the vast majority of cases. we say that pieces of wood assembled in a shape we can sit on are "chairs" but chairs as a category of thing don't exist in the universe outside of our interpretation.

B: Doesn't guarantee a fair sporting event. If your aim was to guarantee a fair sporting event you would group virtually every sport into extremely precise categories. 18-24 basketball, weight range limit, height range limit, wing span limit etc.

Why do we enjoy sport, is it to gawp at freaks of nature destroying their competition? is it to try to determine who is the best based on work ethic? talent? intelligence at their sport? these are incredibly hard to nail down.

I don't know what the answer is, it clearly isn't allowing a biological male who experienced a full puberty, now compete as a female at the Olympics. But hiding behind Male/females categories also fails the litmus test.
 
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