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

Of course they’re comparable, I compared them on the basis of the discrimination each group is faced with. It’s only the reasons, or justifications for the discrimination are different. In some circumstances that discrimination is justifiable, in other circumstances it is not.

At this stage in your life I would have assumed you would be aware of this already, because we had agreed earlier upon the fact that context matters. It’s why discrimination on the basis of any of the nine grounds is only permissible in law in certain circumstances where it is justifiable and there are legitimate reasons for why it exists as a means of achieving a legitimate aim.

I could have been as equally disingenuous as you’re being by dropping the ‘transgender’ and ‘biological’ terms before the word ‘women’ in your post, and then you would have no argument because women are treated equally as other women on the basis that they are women, and to discriminate against anyone on the belief that they are not women, could possibly land an organisation in trouble. At least it did when sex discrimination was no longer acceptable in the 80’s -

Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins, 490 U.S. 228 (1989), was a landmark decision of the US Supreme Court on the issues of prescriptive sex discrimination and employer liability for sex discrimination. The employee, Ann Hopkins, sued her former employer, the accounting firm Price Waterhouse. She argued that the firm denied her partnership because she did not fit the partners' idea of what a female employee should look and act like. The employer failed to prove that it would have denied her partnership anyway, and the Court held that constituted sex discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The significance of the Supreme Court's ruling was twofold. First, it established that gender stereotyping is actionable as sex discrimination. Second, it established the mixed-motive framework that enables employees to prove discrimination when other, lawful reasons for the adverse employment action exist alongside discriminatory motivations or reasons.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_Waterhouse_v._Hopkins

Bold emphasis my own.

I don’t need to do that though, because both of us know that I have never disagreed with the fact that biology, psychology and sociology, are not the same things in the first place - they are different foundations, or world views. That’s the very reason why context matters, and it’s in that context where it has to be argued whether discrimination which is applied is either appropriate or justifiable. Using your rationale is also comparing two different things -

Biological women are biological women.

Biological women are also transgender men.

Biological men are biological men.

Biological men are also transgender women.

Transgender children are neither men nor women.

It’s basically categorisation, and there’s nothing wrong with the categorisation itself, all of the above are true, all of the above are facts. But it’s in the ways they are treated differently, determines whether or not the discrimination is justifiable.

So far the people who have argued against treating all human beings as equally deserving of equal rights and protection from discrimination and disadvantage, have been unable to provide legitimate and sufficient justification for wanting to maintain discrimination which is regarded as disproportionately unfair to one group of people.

The latest tactic was to say that the data proves conclusively that biological males have an advantage on the basis of having gone through puberty, and when the data which is only available because Lia Thomas has not been excluded from competition is available, the next thing is to accuse people of hiding behind data! 😳

I don’t care for the data, it’s interesting, it’s what I do for a living, (when I’m not performing qualitative research on pornhub 😂), but it’s never been the context in which I’ve made any argument in opposition to the exclusion of people who are transgender from participating in sports in accordance with their gender. My arguments have consistently been within the context of human rights, and regarding all people as equals, because that’s what being fair to everyone actually means.

Yeah, I do suspect that wouldn't have made the point you did if you thought through some of the obvios implications. It would be quite mad if a human rights lawyer would aregue that as long as the moneyed elite recieved fair treatment then it didn't matter if others do not recieve the same level of fair treatment.

Again, putting it in Human rights terms, I'm sure you can see that any injustice, no matter how small the size of the group affected, or their status in society, deserves fair and equal treatment. if a tiny number of trans athletes unfairly affect the results of a small number of competitors lower down the levels of comptition then that is still unfair. The level of comptition should be irrelevant to the discussion and the solution/outcome, IMHO.

I agree entirely with the point your making (as I read it) that the vast majority of trans people are unlikley to participate in sport, but are being negatively affected by this ongoing debate (in a global context, not this debate on boards!). Whilst that is not good, I can't see any way around it, since univerasal agreement is unlikely, to say the least.

That line of thinkging could eqully lead to the "just ban transgender athletes from competing, since the numbers are so small, simple!" conclusion. But my own opinion is that nobody should be excluded from sport (Well, bar deliberate cheaters).

It is particularly unfortunate that "both sides" have strident advocates on the extremes who can't even accept that the other side is entitled to hold an opinion in good faith for valid reasons, but just happens to not exactly align with theirs. And this indeed causes much harm.

No matter what decsion is reached there are going to be people who will be unhappy with the decision, and there are going to be people who will lose out as a result of that decision. The zero-sum nature of sporting competition makes that impossible to avoid. All we can do is strive to reach decsions that as fair as possible to everyone.

Personally, I'd be accpeting of your proposed solution, and acually think it is the most likely outcome. It is without doubt striving to be both fair and inclusive. I'm sure the extremeists on both sides will not be happy with the compromises involved though.

Hang on, you told earlier in the thread on several occaions that the entire reason the female category was created was as a big plot to keep women down and ensure that men would not have to compete with women. Now you're saying that it is not precieved that women competing against men is a threat to men's sport. Which is it? You're arguing directly against yourself.

Lia has the armspan of a top level male swimmer, that's a huge advantage in water, both for stroke length and speed.

I think you’re well aware that I’m not saying it’s discrimination to recognise there are differences between people.

I also think you’re well aware that what is being referred to is the treatment of people based upon these differences, and whether or not that treatment is either justifiable or not.

It’s not doing any disservice to anyone to recognise that different people are treated differently, and some people are treated unfairly based upon the differences between them and other people. The purpose of equality legislation is to protect people from discrimination and disadvantage in circumstances where they face discrimination. In certain circumstances discrimination is lawful.

Trans swimming champion Lia Thomas has no biological advantage, data shows • GCN

To further illustrate why Lia Thomas is at no biological advantage over her cis peers, The Independent published their findings of her stats both pre- and post-HRT treatment. It turns out that, since transitioning and the dip in her testosterone levels, muscle mass and strength, Thomas’ performance has only improved, which can be attributed to the three years of additional training she’s undergone since then.

Trans swimming champion Lia Thomas has no biological advantage, data shows • GCN

Ok I’ll give this a fair shot, so yes, I do realise this whole debate is about categories in sports.

I don’t think it’s possible to debate who should be allowed to compete in a particular category without categorisation.

I do think it’s possible to have a discussion about whether or not there are legitimate reasons for excluding a whole category of people from participating in particular categories on the basis of their gender or sex.

I think that it’s possible to devise a policy which does not discriminate against people on the basis of their gender or sex. It’s done all the time in relation to other means of categorisation based upon all sorts of different criteria - single-sex schools in education is just one example, which permit discrimination on the basis of sex, and where there is a case where the discrimination affects an individual, they have recourse to appeal against the rule, which is either upheld, or it’s not, and this can form the basis of a challenge to the rule on the basis that it disproportionately disadvantages a whole group in society.

Caster Semenya’s case against the WA is a good example of a case in point - the decision went against her in CAS, so the next stage is the ECHR. I don’t know how the case is going to turn out as while I can draw on a wealth of data from previous cases before the ECHR, Semenya’s case could still go either way.

https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/app/conversion/pdf/?library=ECHR&id=003-7021287-9471834&filename=Notification%20of%20the%20application%20Semenya%20v.%20Switzerland.pdf

Being 1.85m is a big advantage and a height that would put LT into the top ten of all female Olympic winners. It's still all about whether level playing fields can be achieved.

For swimming height is a very big plus as is arm length. You get more bang for your buck in the water with that type of reach. Muscle mass can increase with swimming activities anyway.

Yet scientific studies as referenced above show that is not the case. As per the report in the Independent referenced above

I'm just double checking, but everyone on the thread is on the "how disadvantaged from their natural male state does a trans-woman athlete need to be to compete fairly against a biological female" page? (and if they should be allowed to compete at all regardless of disadvantage).

i.e. that self affirmation isn't enough

Which means the discussion is around whether the current rules go far enough, too far or not far enough?

Newstalk had someone called Sara Phillips on The Hard Shoulder this evening and it’s well worth a listen to understand the mindset of those who see no issue with biological men competing in women’s sport. She stated that sport is by its nature unfair and taking women’s high jump as an example, she stated that taller women have an unfair advantage over shorter women. This ‘unfairness’ was no different to the advantage that biological men have in competing against biological women apparently. With that sort of mindset and lack of acknowledgment of the realities of this issue there really is no point in trying to debate using facts. It’s more a societal issue rather than a science issue according to Sara Philips and society has to change to accompany the 0.3% of the population who are trans (her figures).

Given they are already at a considerable social disadvantage by virtue of being transgender, nobody who is transgender should be further discriminated against on the basis of gender or sex in sports. The idea of fears that this could ‘open the floodgates’ have been found to be unfounded in history, in any society.

It stands to reason that of course the effect this would have on any sport in any competition is that it would mean selection of the people with the greatest advantages in the sport, much like the way the characteristic of being unusually tall is an advantage in the sport of basketball, but being unusually tall has considerable social and long-term health disadvantages. This is just a sample of athletes where their pituitary gland went off the reservation, and they were able to use it to their advantage, or at least women’s basketball teams in the US were, anyway, while they also played basketball on international teams -

https://sportsvirsa.com/tallest-female-basketball-players/

Being tall in basketball isn’t just accepted, it’s expected, and it’s selected for from across the globe. Students will travel to the US to avail of opportunities which they would not have in their home countries, and this too, is permitted and perfectly acceptable. It’s simply a fact that sports offers these unique individuals opportunities where what makes them unique comes with considerable disadvantages in other contexts.

It’s no different than seeking unique individuals with characteristics which are an advantage in whatever sports or sports categories and competitions which aren’t prohibited by the rules, and it’s a global search, as opposed to being limited to the pool of either national or even local athletes. It’s been this way in every sport for years, so this idea of a level playing field is a nonsense, when it’s quite obvious that reality does not match their stated aspirations. It still wouldn’t match their aspirations when Universities are hoping to attract students from across the globe who have unique characteristics such as bone density disorders caused by genetic mutations which gives them unusually strong bones, far higher than the average person. All the better if they don’t have to go looking too far when these individuals can be found in their own back yard -

https://medicine.yale.edu/news/yale-medicine-magazine/article/unbreakable-bones-prompt-a-hunt-for-genes/

https://theconversation.com/the-strongest-bones-on-the-planet-hold-important-clues-60084

I cannot see people being discriminated against on the basis that their bone density is much greater than the normal range for their sex. It carries with it advantages, and considerable disadvantages. Same is true of many biological traits that go beyond the limitations assumptions based upon sex denoted by the binary classification system we’re used to.

Wanting to maintain a standard which is not based upon science and never has been, flies in the face of scientific progress. That doesn’t explain the Republicans in the US’ hard-on for introducing legislation which would limit the participation of children who are transgender in sports (good to get them used to discrimination early 😏), that phenomenon is simply explained by the fact that they know that their popularity and election prospects are determined by how opposed they are to any kind of social progress that could lead to everyone having equal opportunities to participate in society. It was after all Caitlyn Jenner who suggested that it wasn’t coming out as transgender was the hardest thing they had ever done in their lives, it was coming out as Republican! At least they have a good sense of humour going for them, if nothing else.

https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2016/07/20/caitlyn-jenner-says-it-was-harder-to-come-out-as-republican-than-transgender.html

It is for everyone else, I don’t see why people who are transgender should be treated any differently.