Transgender man wins women's 100 yd and 400 yd freestyle races.

Labaik

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119333251#Comment_119333251

Shouldn't be allowed. What sick parent would want do that. Unfortunately its probably already happening in the U.S.

Overheal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119333241#Comment_119333241

I'm disappointed you lacked a more cogent answer. I get the humor in it but I'm making a point about human dignity.

Can't say I'm a fan of giving prepubescent children puberty blockers.

Thread is Transgender Man not Transgender Boy I didn't think we'd be dragging off into a sidebar about moralizing puberty blockers for prepubescents, that's a fairly specific tangent.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119333275#Comment_119333275

No, it's not my opinion. It's a concrete fact.

The truth is that the vast majority of people with intersex conditions identify as male or female rather than transgender or transsexual. Thus, where all people who identify as transgender or transsexual experience problems with their gender identity, only a small portion of intersex people experience these problems.

Bannasidhe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119333285#Comment_119333285

One that listens to medical professionals and then decides what is in the best interests of their child who is going through early on-set puberty and is neither physically or emotionally ready to be a mother at the age of ten. Oh wait... 10 year olds forced to give birth is actually already happening in the U.S.

You were talking about all the reasons puberty blockers are prescribed weren't you?

Or do you only find it 'sick' in certain cases?

BattleCorp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119333287#Comment_119333287

I was trying to be funny. Many sports require female athletes to have sex determination tests. These typically involve evaluation by gynecologists, endocrinologists, psychologists, and internal medicine specialists. On a simple level, the athlete may be evaluated from their external appearances by experts. They may also undergo blood tests to examine their sex hormones, genes and chromosomes.

Is it degrading to have to go through these tests, well possibly. If you want to be an elete athlete, you have to leave your dignity at the door unfortunately. Many athletes have to be watched while they pee into a sample cup for drug testing.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119333261#Comment_119333261

He has one of at least 40 congenital variations, known collectively as disorders of sexual development (DSD), or intersex traits.

Your article says the child in that case is intersex. I've said that intersex conditions can be decided on a case-by-case basis.

Why can't we let people involved decide for themselves which gender they wish to identify as?

If someone wants to identify as female or vice versa, rock on. But if you are a transwoman, don't expect to be welcomed into the female sporting world because being born male and going through male puberty gives the athlete an unfair advantage over a biological woman. You know this already.

Overheal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119333326#Comment_119333326

So vast majority = universally all now?

Bannasidhe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119333326#Comment_119333326

You are all over the place.

Now you are saying people can identify as their chosen gender even when their assigned at birth biological sex may not be the same.

And again - I don't know what conversation you are having but I am still talking about biological sex and why male/female as assigned at birth is not the be all and end all of it, case closed that people here are claiming.

I never referenced either transgender people or transsexuals.

And vast majority is not the same as everyone. That 'small proportion' you so casually dismiss are human beings and entitled to decide for themselves, not be dictated to

Labaik

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119333332#Comment_119333332

I am talking about parents who would give their children puberty blockers because they think they identify as a different sex.

From the Washington Post,,,

"Some people don’t realize they are transgender until they reach puberty, or later in adulthood. But some children show signs that they are transgender early on in childhood. “Not everybody puts their puzzle together in the same way or at the same time,” said Johanna Olson-Kennedy, medical director of the Center for Transyouth Health and Development at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, one of the largest transgender clinics in the country."

This is what I am talking about.

Quantum Erasure

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119333287#Comment_119333287

puberty blockers for prepubescents, that's a fairly specific tangent.

arguably it's less of a tangent than the intersex debate

xxxxxxl

So I see were back to the outliers. Ireland would have what 500 women born without a uterus. Vast majority is a pretty standard term. If I said the vast majority of people support Abortion in some form. You would not then say ah well we cant create laws because it's not universal. 🤔

Fandymo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119329877#Comment_119329877

A woman born without a uterus, would still have a completely different shaped pelvis to any man. It’s quite disgusting that someone would try to use something that quite literally can devastate a woman, to score points. I hope it never befalls anyone in your family.

Overheal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119333446#Comment_119333446

If you mean to exclude intersex transgender persons as athletes

Overheal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119333457#Comment_119333457

That’s 500 Irish the rest of you are Better than, and have fewer rights, because of the condition of their birth? NBD?

xxxxxxl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119333595#Comment_119333595

Better than who, They are women what rights does a woman born without a uterus not have.

Overheal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119333509#Comment_119333509

Thanks for the Pearl clutching but it has little to do with the context of the question you’re getting the vapors from.

“pelvis shape” wasn’t a criteria for womanhood provided by the user I was replying to. Bearing children was.

xxxxxxl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119333618#Comment_119333618

If you go around the world and ask. defining qualities of a woman and include bearing children. Let me know when someone say bearing children would not be a defining characteristic. As it's the norm not an exception. Even people that know about various fertility issues would still say it's a defining characteristic.

Bannasidhe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119333394#Comment_119333394

Puberty blockers cannot be bought in the local pharmacy.

They are a prescribed medicine.

They are prescribed, and monitored, by a pediatric endocrinologist.

Parent's don't get to just 'give', they're role is to agree or disagree with the recommendations made by a specialist consultant with vast experience. Puberty blockers have been in use for around 40 years so it's not exactly as if they appeared yesterday and parents are buying them in Aldi and popping them in junior's warm milk of a night. Regardless of how the woefully ignorant as to their use like to claim.

Bannasidhe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119333457#Comment_119333457

How many transgender women does Ireland have?

0.01 - 0.06 % of the global population, lets say half that is MTF.

In an Irish context that is 1500 people.

How many of those are elite athletes do you reckon?

10? 20? 0? - yet here we have a whole lengthy thread out what really are outliers.

At this rate there must be a nearly a thread for everyone in the country.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119333724#Comment_119333724

I'm still not exactly sure what your overall position is, though?

Are you suggesting that all transgender people should have the right to choose which competition to partake in? Do you think surgery / hormones should be required in all cases?

I know what you don't believe in, but your actual belief on this subject I'm unclear on.

Bannasidhe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119333733#Comment_119333733

Why would I say that someone who identifies as male, and has medically transitioned, should be able to participate against women? A trans man is a man, and, if they are taking testosterone, should compete against men.

Do you disagree?

xxxxxxl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119333862#Comment_119333862

I thought performance enhancing drugs were banned in sport ?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119333862#Comment_119333862

That's why I don't understand your position.

Not all trans- people undertake surgery. Only a minority fraction do, in fact. So if someone felt they were born into the wrong body but identifies as a member of the opposite sex, why would you demand of them to take surgery/hormones? After all, they claim they were born into the wrong body and so they believe they are a woman even with no surgery (vice versa with men / transmen). Why shouldn't they be allowed to compete in competitions without surgery if they so choose?

And second, where do agendered athletes compete? Where do neutrois non-binary athletes compete? They identify neither as males or females, but as athletes, where should they compete? About 40% of transgender people identify as non-binary, so this isn't a peripheral issue. It's approaching half the trans population.

BruteStock

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119333673#Comment_119333673

Puberty blockers have been around for 40 years but to treat a completely different condition than transgenderism. So there are no consultants out there with vast experience of specifically prescribing children with blockers for the purpose of sex change.

It can and in many cases has gone wrong for transitioners. So not only is doctors experience relatively new , but its also proven to not be full-proof. Which it absolutely should be as medically and surgically altering children has the potential to ruin their lives.

Any consultant actively aiding a young child to transition should be stopped until they reach a certain age , 17 at the youngest. Assisting a child as young as 12 to transition will eventually become illegal.

Bannasidhe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119333880#Comment_119333880

Despite the claims that people like me do not understand biology, or accept that there are physical differences between a human body with 'male' amounts of testosterone and 'female' amounts of testosterone - that is not the case.

I acknowledge the effects of hormones on the human body. I also acknowledge the effects of oestrogen.

I appreciate the advantage biological males have in strength.

I appreciate the advantage biological females have with a lower centre of gravity.

In certain contexts.

When it comes to elite sports, where the smallest margin makes a difference, I believe it is perfectly reasonable for an elite athlete who wishes to compete AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL in a gender category that is not aligned to their biological sex some form of levelling the playing field be required.

I would not expect a trans man who is not taking testosterone to compete against cis men in Olympic wrestling (for example). That would be unfair as the cis men would have an advantage. However, if the trans man has medically transitioned he absolutely should be competing against men.

In non-elite levels of sport I do not think medical transitioning should be required. I think a person should be allowed to compete as the gender they identify with - or both if they feel like it.

I played rugby to elite level. Although I am sure I never played against a transwoman at the highest level due to World Rugby's rules, I neither know nor care if I played with or against transwomen at provincial or club level (and I could have...). All I cared about was using my abilities and advantages to play better than my opponent. Their genitalia/chromosomes were immaterial.

That is my position.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119334058#Comment_119334058

Fair enough. You admit that physical advantages exist and these should be adjusted for.

But how does that account answer to the non-binary identities that I mentioned in the same post? I'm unaware how that could possibly be accounted for, actually. If an elite-level athlete is non-binary, what do they do? Where do they compete?

Bannasidhe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119334056#Comment_119334056

And yet many sporting bodies have no bar on Trans women who transitioned before puberty competing as women at the highest level. Their science mustn't agree with your science.

Those puberty blockers that have been proscribed for pre-pubescent people who believe they may be transgender since the 1990s. Which is around 30 years ago. Don't know about you but that seems a reasonable amount of time for specialists to gain experience to me.

Labaik

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119333673#Comment_119333673

I would have to question any medical expert that prescribes puberty blockers for children in this instance.

Have you ever heard of Doctor John Money, he was a psychologist specialising in sex changes. He was a sick man who caused untold hurt and tragedy with his work, so dont always trust medical experts when we don't really know what the long term effects, especially psychologically, from these methods.

Overheal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119333074#Comment_119333074

@eskimohunt ?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119334128#Comment_119334128

I'm not an expert on intersex issues, so I'm not going to pretend to be. Logic would suggest that each athlete is treated on a case-by-case basis, as most intersex comfortably identify with the sex they were expected to identify with given their own specific circumstances (even what's defined as "intersex" is subject to debate among medical professionals). It would also depend on whether that person had gone through puberty etc.

Transgender athletes are a different question altogether because we already know what their biological sex is (which matters even if they are non-binary).

SnazzyPig

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119330938#Comment_119330938

The hyperbole is very much one sided.

'Trans Genocide' indeed.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119335772#Comment_119335772

I think it's notable that as soon as I raised the question of how to integrate non-binary transgender people into sport, a deafening silence ensued.

Remember, these are people who neither identify as male or female, so an answer to this question is very important. 40pc of transgender people are non-binary, yet we never hear about their rights to enter sporting competitions.

Bannasidhe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119334121#Comment_119334121

Meanwhile Anon poster with a few hundred posts on an Irish site is the go to expert.

Sure thing

Bannasidhe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119334081#Comment_119334081

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119334180#Comment_119334180

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119335811#Comment_119335811

See, here we go.

I have been more than polite with you.

I have answered honestly and respectfully every question you put to me and then this passive aggressive B.S get's trotted out.

You posed a question to me at 9:31 pm last night, my last post here last night was 9:34 pm.

At 10:41 am you claim there is "a deafening silence". Well excuse me for not being at your beck and call to answer questions on topics you yourself admit you are no expert on - but expect me to be. How very dare I prioritise my 87 year old Mother's care over your incessant interrogations. Bit rich given another poster had to specifically tag you to get a response.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119334058#Comment_119334058

I did partially answer your question but apparently you didn't bother to read that before launching your latest attempt at a 'gotcha'.

In non-elite levels of sport I do not think medical transitioning should be required. I think a person should be allowed to compete as the gender they identify with - or both if they feel like it.

Currently levels of particular hormones are already being used to bar intersex people who were assigned female as birth and identify as women so obviously that is a problematic issue. As is the fact that intersex people who present as male are never tested - or indeed any athlete who was assigned as male at birth. I do not know the answers - but I do know if people who present as women are tested then the same should happen to those who present as men. Or to no one at all.

Men born with genetic advantages are given a free pass to be 'the greatest'. Women are punished. That is manifestly unfair when so many people claim to be very concerned about fairness in sport.

The question of intersex people is a different issue to that of transgender people - Sporting bodies set hormone level requirements knowing such hormones have to be artificially acquired. With intersex women they insist hormone levels be artificially reduced to conform to a particular set of criteria as to what constitutes a woman. Perhaps they should just ask the experts in this thread.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119335994#Comment_119335994

Intersex has nothing to do with transgender people in sport. Chalk and cheese.

But what you said still doesn't address the question of how to integrate non-binary transgender people, who neither identify as male or female, into elite sports?

Bannasidhe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119336084#Comment_119336084

Do you read what I write at all?

I said:

I do not know the answers 

Personally, I have no issue if they participate where they want. It would be worth it just to hear the roars from people who are suddenly passionate about 'fairness' women's sports. Let's be honest, no one will complain about any-one non-binary participating in Men's sports. Be they transgender or not.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119336259#Comment_119336259

I would absolutely oppose it, on the basis that - depending on the competition - the non-binary or transgender person is taking a place of a person who has trained to get into that position for years.

Podge_irl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119335994#Comment_119335994

As is the fact that intersex people who present as male are never tested - or indeed any athlete who was assigned as male at birth. I do not know the answers - but I do know if people who present as women are tested then the same should happen to those who present as men. Or to no one at all.

There is a rather obvious reason for this though. If you want to equalise it across the board then fine, it seems like it would be something of a token gesture but I guess there is no reason to be opposed to it. Unless there is some study that suggests being "male" intersex is somehow advantageous then there is a reason they are treated differently. Ultimately though, I think intersex women are an incredibly difficult case to treat fairly across the board.

Requiring medical transitioning seems at least more reasonable, though all evidence we have suggests it is not enough to remove the inherent advantage that you acknowledge exists. Its also unlikely to be a sustainable position I think as it will inevitably bring up the same claims of "forced medicalisation" that is levelled (fairly) at intersex hormone requirements.

Bannasidhe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119336424#Comment_119336424

Every single elite athlete athlete has an advantage over other athletes.

The best of the best advantages plus the training, skills, mental fortitude, discipline, coaching staff etc etc to exploit those advantages.

At what point do we decide one advantage is more advantageous than another? Basketball player who is just too tall for it to be fair? Suleiman Ali Nashnush was 2.45 m tall. Was he banned due to his 'advantage'? Was Jonah Lomu fair? Micheal Phelps - who naturally produces half the normal amount of lactic acid for an athlete meaning he simply doesn't get tired as quickly. He won 28 Olympic medals thanks, in part, to that 'advantage'. Was that fair? Why is the concern about 'fairness' and biological advantages only applied to women's sports?

Bannasidhe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119336268#Comment_119336268

Because, of course, the non-binary person just rocks up, and runs fast/jump high/swims quickly with zero training at all at all. Ever.

Don't be absurd.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119336904#Comment_119336904

You said that you have no answer re: non-binary transgender people in sport. My answer is simple: that they should participate in the event that aligns with their biological sex and not what subjective identity they happen to believe in.

I actually don't get involved in the whole "advantage of trans women"-argument. I think it's a total distraction actually, even if such advantages exist. My problem is much more fundamental than that. For example: if you have a 100-meters race and only 10 people are allowed to compete, if a trans person (biological male) takes one of those positions, it means that a biological woman has lost that place. And that's not fair. In fact, it's worse than unfair; it's an injustice.

Trans rights are human rights. But women's rights are not trans rights.

Podge_irl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119336888#Comment_119336888

Ultimately the male-female advantage massively overrides every single other one. That is why there is male and female groupings in the Olympics and not short and tall groupings.

Bannasidhe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119337098#Comment_119337098

Or in a society traditionally segregated along gender lines we have decided male/female is the important one.

Was a time we also believed race was a pretty big line. Thankfully we have mostly gotten over that.

Podge_irl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119337159#Comment_119337159

There is a 12-20% difference in performance in most sports - higher in others. Its gigantic.

I don't doubt there are societal and historical reasons behind it, but the evidence now is overwhelming that it utterly swamps any other distinction. It is not much different in that sense from weight limits in combat sports.

Medically transitioned people being allowed compete seems like a reasonable compromise but a) they definitely still retain an advantage (you could argue it doesn't matter at that point if you so wanted) and b) I have great difficulty believing it will remain as a rule.

@xxxxxxl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119329857#Comment_119329857

FAO @xxxxxxl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119337159#Comment_119337159

Or in a society traditionally segregated along gender lines we have decided male/female is the important one.

You do accept the irony that transgenderism is premised upon that very distinction?

Overheal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119337159#Comment_119337159

This is why I think given time that segregation will vanish too.

Bannasidhe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119338587#Comment_119338587

Have you forgotten we are talking about elite sports in this thread?

You were quick enough to remind me last night (ironic given I am the OP so know exactly what this thread was started to discuss).

Chosen to ignore the quote you have taken out of context (not quoting my whole post is a bit of a give away there) was specifically in relation to sport did you?

Bannasidhe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119338591#Comment_119338591

Possibly.

As more investment is being put into women's sports we could see the performance gap begin to narrow vis a vis men's.

We are already seeing women rugby players at the top level who are considerably bigger than some male internationals.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119338663#Comment_119338663

Well, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on my position that trans- women should not partake in women's competitions on the basis that a biological male has supplanted a place in the competition that otherwise would have went to a biological woman.

The above is absolutely in relation to elite sports.

Bannasidhe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119338678#Comment_119338678

My thoughts are that is your position.

I disagree with your position.