It doesn’t seem that hard: just create explicit performance classes instead of using gender as a proxy for a performance class. There’s already precedent for this in at least combat sports where competitors are separated into weight classes.

Trans women are women from a gender perspective, and not from a biological perspective. Unfortunately, the biological perspective is what the separations of men's and women's sports a thing, because of inherent biological sexual differences (primarily testosterone). I mean, if they want to get around the issue, then let's go all in - disband men's/women's sports and just have sports. Then anyone can play with anyone. That's never going to happen though, for political, cultural, and safety reasons, so we're stuck with a situation where gender is bumping up against biological sex hard.

This would lead to a large number of injuries and overdoses because of the drug use. IIRC this was happening in soccer with heart attacks happening because of drugs.

The distinction between men and women teams is arbitrary but fairly sensible. If you didn't separate them then you'd have men at the top and women at the bottom, which does not fun make.

That said, I have no clue how to solve the transperson distinction in sports.

Trans woman; trans men would be competing in the male competitions, and seem to be invisible in the whole trans debate anyway. The problem with this is that it's almost entirely based on prejudice and people saying things that turn out not to be true, along with vague biological determinism. Hence the Caster Semenya debacle (not trans, intersex AFAB, but high natural testosterone).

You are exaggerating with that first claim. It is in no way common for high school male athletes to be competitive against world class female athletes. Secondly, the advantage that men have is certainly decreased when transitioning. I don't believe it is "fully erased", I simply don't think we need to have the goal of fully erasing any advantage. I won't agree with you on that until there is an NBA for men under 6 feet for me fairly compete in against my peers who were similarly disadvantaged at birth.

>This is not really about the specific issue to anyone on either side. To you, it's about acceptance of transgender people. To your opponents, it's about not accepting the denial of what seems like blindingly obvious reality.

I am perfectly willing to admit that my primary motivation here is the acceptance of transgender people. I don't know what to tell you if you don't prioritize that over the sanctity of the outcome of some high school girls soccer game.

Many people are arguing it, successfully; that's why TFA is notable. My comment was rhetorically directed at readers who may agree with them.

> Next, I would say it's undisputed that even if someone has gone through body development as male, after prolonged period of lacking testosterone, their advantages diminish and they are not really competitive with males

Their advantages diminish to the extent that they cannot maintain as much muscle mass as a man. The structural advantages remain, such that they are always at an advantage against women. I would say they become like weak men.

I have no problem with a transgender section of sports. I just don't foresee that happening. The pool is so small, and nobody would watch it.

From a biological perspective, trans-people lie in-between male and female. Transwomen are at an increased risk of breast cancer than cis-men while a lower risk prostate cancer. Transwomen (after years of estradiol) have significantly less muscle mass than cis-men, while, transmen have much more muscle mass than cis-women. All of the differences biologically are the result of sex hormones and the time at which they're introduced (pre-natal or puberty) and the time of exposure.

That said, I don't think it's wise for trans-women to play in serious sports. If they win, they won't get the credit, they'll be told it's because they're trans. If they lose, well, then no one cares and it doesn't make the headlines. It's unfair and unjust, but honestly, sports have never been fair or just. Especially the Olympics, they're a selection ritual for celebrating people who are genetically optimized for some specific task. I don't understand why it exists except for out of tradition.

It’s not just surgically. Athletes are required to reduce their testosterone levels, which is the issue here.

Who says this? Most people I think naturally assume that’s not going to ever happen.

I don't care if they changed gender for the sake of winning sports titles or not. I'm against them competing in sports anyway.

> If you want to dig into hormones, what about intersex people? What about people classified as women with significantly higher testosterone levels?

That's definitely could an issue (see last paragraph). But IMO it's different that this is accidental from the individual's perspective. They themselves may be not aware of this. Sort of like getting lucky with good genes or rare mutation. Meanwhile for a transgender is purely a rational choice to transition. You may argue it's not fully rational since treatment is needed. But ultimately people do choose treatments and accept consequences for all sorts of illnesses.

> But you give no argument for the unworthiness of it and instead start from the assumption. Not only that, but you paint with a very broad brush and are not digging into any of the nuance.

Unfortunately interwebs comments are not well suited for a nuanced discussion. The person I originally replied to didn't go into nuance, neither did I. It'd be great if internet commentary moved towards more nuanced and longer discussions. But unfortunately old good forums with mile-long pagination are getting more and more scarce :( Especially with diverse audience.

> What defines transphobia is ignorance, not gusts of cultural wind. What would make your actions change will have to be you, not the classification of them.

I did research the topic and made my mind. IMO people who just jump on the ever-more-progressive bandwagon are much more ignorant. Ignorance shall be judge on refusing to look into the issue, not on coming to reasonable-yet-subjectively-wrong conclusions.

> That definition will only go the other way as more people become educated on trans people.

Personally I went the other way after reading more into it.

> What's much more important than ever saying or doing something sexist/racist/transphobic/etc is being open to changing and understanding to not do it in the future.

Yes. But that ability to change must be open both ways. IMO today's definitions went way too far and are too close to doing full horseshoe. Understanding is not just pushing the boundaries of what is progressive to no end.

> Do you then want to have all sports competitions separated based on hormone levels instead of sex/gender?

I'd support protection for the lesser (?) gender (women in endurance and power sports, men maybe in gymnastics?). Just have open group and the protected one for the lesser gender. In the long run, we'll probably need one more group for genetically-modified individuals.

Why do you think it's any of your business what other people do with their body?

> To put it in perspective, Serena Williams, one of the greatest if not the greatest tennis athlete of all time. She and Venus Williams were destroyed in her prime by the 200th ranked tennis player.

Looks like she is only the 201th greatest tennis player.

I understand biology that born-male will be stronger in many sports than born-female even after a lot of hormone therapy (or maybe vice-versa in some sports). Born-female taking male hormones will have advantage over regular female as well in many cases.

You got gender disphoria and need a treatment for it? Sure. But there're side effects. Just like for many treatments.

> This shows a particular bias against "progressive/diversity" ideas and colors the comments before them with an even worse light that highlights the lack of understanding.

I'm considering ideas on their own merit, not how they're labeled. And it's disgusting that progressive/diversity label was ruined buy affairs like that. And yes, I definitely have bias against ideas that seem to have a label they're not worth of.

> Just like anything, there are gradients and being transphobic now doesn't mean you have to be in the future.

I hope definition of "transphobic" will change and I won't be called one in the future.

I am not describing myself. I just understand the position of people that feel that way and don't like to just dismiss them as bigots as most seem to.

These people are definitely making a slippery slope argument but they also feel like they're already halfway down the slope. They aren't out there seeing an A and concerned about B, they see it as A, B, C, D, E then F and wonder when G will come.

The trans sports thing is F. They're more worried about G, H and I.

>Also, I'd like to point out that the major parts in high end athlete performance are already down to "unfair accidents of birth", even if you don't introduce gender to the issue. A tall person will always have an edge playing basketball.

That's my point. If all I ever wanted to do was play basketball but I can't because of [accident of birth], which accidents require accomodations?

I happen to be friends with a woman who is in an adult roller derby league. There is a transgender woman (previously a man) who pretty much dominates the league, and is clearly a faster skater than the other women. I'm always wondering how the other women feel about that, because as you say, there is the force of political correctness that stops anyone from outright saying anything about it. But it's clearly an unfair advantage for the transgendered person.

So should a human born as a woman who happens to naturally have higher testosterone than is typical in other women, be excluded from women's sport? Of course not.

> "Transgender women should not be in women's sports because they are men."

Really? That's offensive? The reason they have higher testosterone is because they are men. That doesn't mean we should stand in their way of living however they want, or demean them in any way. But we should not have to lie about their biological constitution as being the reason we deem it unfair. It's not their level of testosterone that makes it unfair, it's because they come by that level of testosterone by way of being a man... if a woman naturally has the same level of testosterone, it would be fair and she shouldn't be excluded.

Maybe the answer is just doing away with all gender based distinctions, have no sports leagues separated on the basis of gender at all. Of course, that has its own problems.

Ok, that is a plausible argument. However, it's missing one major component: How could anyone argue that this is one of the aspects or life where it is actually possible to treat someone as their preferred gender? If I had to cherry pick an example of an aspect of life where it is not possible to treat a transgender person as their preferred gender, it would be Olympic sports.

That's probably precisely why they are doing this. They're obviously trying to make a political statement. They want it to be the inspiring event that puts this Olympics in the history books. But I mean... Come on people, there are obvious reasons why this athlete is not going to be remembered heroically for their political message in the same way as someone like Jesse Owens.

That non-trans women have no fucking chance of being champions in pretty much any sports at all anymore, obviously. You're bending over backwards to be "fair" to a tiny minority, and not giving a shit that in order to do that you're being as utterly unfair as one could possibly be to half of humanity. The much eaasier solution, if you want people born as males to hold all the records, is to just simply abolish womens' sports altogether.

Honestly, this question is so horrendously disingenious that I'm shocked you even had the gall to ask it.

Genuine question, one about which I haven't seen much in the way of conversation—although my experience is relatively limited.

Why is the subjective experience of gender privileged over the objective biology of sex?

I can anticipate a couple possible responses for which I'm not sure I have very clear thoughts, either—maybe someone can contribute more light than heat here?

1. Biology isn't actually all that objective: one's subjective experience is at least partially determined by biology, too.

2. We can turn the question on its head: why should objective biology be privileged over subjective experience?

Are you aware that high school boys soccer and hockey teams are competitive with elite, world class women's teams? Do you think the advantages that men appear to have are anywhere near fully erased by transitioning genders?

> I don't think this is as big of a problem as people pretend it is.

This is not really about the specific issue to anyone on either side. To you, it's about acceptance of transgender people. To your opponents, it's about not accepting the denial of what seems like blindingly obvious reality.