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

Richard Dawkins isn’t talking in this thread. And for 3 or 4 days now nobody can link to anything he’s authoritatively said about the topic. “Aghast” isn’t an academic position or a thesis or a proof, it’s an opinion. This is as “tedious” as you make it by dancing on the pin of a needle about the fact that Dawkins being invoked here in this capacity is appeal to authority fallacy. I’ve suggested for several days now that we move on but clearly, folks would rather persist with this fallacious, “tedious” sideshow.

Yes, there is clear authority fallacy here, as I plainly outlined in an earlier post:

You can just admit you don't know what the appeal to authority fallacy is, but that would be hard to do since I so plainly laid it out in that post.

Being an authority on biology does not make him immune from being wrong, especially of all on his matters of opinion, which is being touted here (that he is "aghast" at the sports topic). To reiterate:

"It's important to note that this fallacy should not be used to dismiss the claims of experts, or scientific consensus. Appeals to authority are not valid arguments, but nor is it reasonable to disregard the claims of experts who have a demonstrated depth of knowledge unless one has a similar level of understanding and/or access to empirical evidence. However, it is entirely possible that the opinion of a person or institution of authority is wrong; therefore the authority that such a person or institution holds does not have any intrinsic bearing upon whether their claims are true or not."

https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/appeal-to-authority

And, you want the sporting organizations to prove the negative?

I don’t know that it does or not, I haven’t seen proof of the negative.

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If it was actually possible to turn a man into a woman, or vice versa, wouldn't someone have done it, and more importantly published a peer reviewed article explaining how it was done? I realise the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, but surely this would be too big to keep under wraps? Even the potential for commercialisation would be too big to resist, would it not?

How many medals did Valentina Petrillo win as a male, shouldn't be allowed to compete in female categories, really unfair on the female competitors

Its a bit ridiculous tho, was watching the swimming earlier, mixed medley relay, two male and two female on a team, there's some tactics in choosing the stronger swimmers for the faster strokes, and whether you have a male swimming the last leg.

Then the wheelchair rugby, 4 on a team, graded disabilities from .5 (most disabled) to 3.5 (least disabled), total 'points' allowed on the court per team at any one time is 8.0, unless theres women playing, then you're allowed an extra .5 per female player

Haven't looked up the rules in either sport on trans athletes entering, but it'd be interesting to see.

Yeah the women’s boxing at the olymics for example illustrates this clearly. I don’t think there’s any point in arguing with others as simply you’ll be thrown the rule book - I can see the unfairness, you can see the unfairness- most people who think logically no less compassionately see the unfairness.

My own view is If a transgender person wishes to compete in a particular sport, that sport needs to be explored and an assessment made as to what constitutes a level plain field for all. I think the bar is set too low currently -we’re in the early days of this - the science needs to take a stronger role in coming to an acceptable agreement on what is “fair”. I don’t have an answer as to what else needs to be assessed but it’s clear the current approach is not one that is getting any type of universal acceptance - so more needs to be done

Haven't looked up the rules in either sport on trans athletes entering, but it'd be interesting to see.

The rules of each organisation involved in any sport vary from complete bans to restrictions on eligibility for participation to having no specific policy regarding athletes who are transgender. The IPC as an organisation follows the IOC guidelines and leave it up to the international federations in each sport, and some federations leave it up to the national organising bodies for that particular sport. For example:

https://www.context.news/socioeconomic-inclusion/which-paralympic-sports-allow-trans-athletes-to-take-part

In Wheelchair Rugby, the extra .5 for women players on a team is to encourage teams to select more women to participate, given the sport is dominated by men:

Andrea Bundon, who studies female participation in Paralympic sports, says wheelchair rugby is using the rule to encourage teams to look for and develop female players, who can then give them an extra edge on court.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/article/2024/aug/30/theres-a-place-for-us-on-that-court-women-blazing-a-trail-in-wheelchair-rugby

I don’t think there’s any extra allowance made for players who are transgender, but the rules regarding their participation vary from one country to another. The UK vs Canada for example:

https://gbwr.org.uk/edip-002-transgender-athlete-participation-in-wheelchair-rugby/

https://wheelchairrugby.ca/uploads/2020/11/13-Trans-Inclusion-Policy-October-2020.pdf

Verity Smith has to play in accordance with the rules in the UK:

https://competenetwork.com/wheelchair-rugby-player-and-trans-man-verity-smith-is-leading-the-way-toward-building-gender-diverse-and-inclusive-sports-for-all/

https://sportsgazette.co.uk/world-rugby-forum-highlights-lack-consultation-double-standards-regarding-transgender-athletes/

World Para Athletics has not followed the rules set by World Athletics in relation to transgender athletes:

In a statement, a World Para Athletics spokesman said transgender athletes were allowed to compete in the female category so long as they declared their gender identity as female and provided evidence that their testosterone levels had been below 10 nanomoles per litre of blood for at 12 months before their first competition.

…

The World Para Athletics spokesman said any changes to its position would only come after appropriate consultation and consideration of the rights of all involved.

https://www.smh.com.au/sport/athletics/i-can-t-help-it-if-i-am-this-way-the-trans-sprinter-dragged-into-paralympics-gender-war-20240903-p5k7bs.html

Disability and degrees of disability add another dimension to an already complex interplay of the various factors involved in anyone’s participation in sports, but being honest there aren’t that many independent studies done in the field, so finding any that could justify exclusion, when most are aimed towards inclusion, is likely to be extremely challenging:

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Damian-Haslett/publication/318057578_The_psychological_influences_on_participation_in_Wheelchair_Rugby_a_social_relational_model_of_disability/links/59579b9da6fdcc2beca6bcd6/The-psychological-influences-on-participation-in-Wheelchair-Rugby-a-social-relational-model-of-disability.pdf

Personally, while I see some value in the SRM model, in reality there are all sorts of models, or frameworks, or paradigms, each with their own measures of evaluation and proponents and critics. The model I’d always been more in favour of is the biopsychosocial model, though that too is not without its drawbacks, flaws and criticisms, or advantages and disadvantages:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biopsychosocial_model

In the above Wiki article, what they refer to as Gender, I’d refer to as Sex. I’ve referred to the biopsychosocial model before now, in that it’s not just used within the context of disability:

You’re shifting the goalposts nicely there the question was what are the relevance of the medals.

Having transitioned since 5 years ago she’s met the qualifications the competition sets for testosterone. The medals she may or may not have earned prior to that have no bearing on that fact.

You can stop the personal attacks. Ad hominem fallacy. You are another anonymous internet pseudonym, and haven’t exactly shown your grades in biology here (nor would they be verifiable) nor would they hold any relevance to the argument that her prior medals pretransition make her any less qualified to compete under the rules governing her testosterone levels. Such claims as “heart size” aren’t engraved on her past medals surely. Is “heart size” one of the competition criterion? Doubtful.

it’s abundantly clear the 2nd paragraph is your notion of the 1st paragraph, an ideological belief.

were but it so “simple” this debate would not be raging across years and across the world.

No no, there is no shuffling goalposts, gif or no gif.

You are honestly trying to say the medals they got when they identified as a man have no bearing on them competing as a female? Your ideology is really blinding you here.

You can stop the personal attacks. Ad hominem fallacy. You are another anonymous internet pseudonym, and haven’t exactly shown your grades in biology here (nor would they be verifiable) nor would they hold any relevance to the argument that her prior medals pretransition make her any less qualified to compete under the rules governing her testosterone levels. Such claims as “heart size” aren’t engraved on her past medals surely. Is “heart size” one of the competition criterion? Doubtful.

There are no attacks, save us all the faux outrage, which you are using now to try and avoid any genuine discourse about it. The irony now that you engage with insults just shows that you can't back up anything with facts, it is all feelings. You really think heart size when it comes to physical competition has no embedded advantage? You seem to be struggling with basic sports science and biology. But as we have seen, and ideology doesn't require facts, just feelings.

Everyone in here can see your tactic on this, you avoid avoid avoid.

Do you acknowledge that the male body has physical, embedded advantages over females after puberty, can you at least admit that?

Someone with no previous medals is likely to beat women, someone with medals has a demonstrated history that confirms his ability to beat women, and in the case of Petrillo, Vote4Squirrels has linked a document showing the gap between his best and the best females.

I might be still on ignore....

Women's football teams - as with other sports teams - were created because physically and physiologically female on average are not as fast, as strong, as tall as males nor do we have as dense muscles or as strong bones. 

I've said it before but it bears saying again - bodies play sports; identities and feelings don't.

But that’s not the reason women’s football teams or any other sports teams were created? They were created with the opposite intent - to dismantle those beliefs about women which prevented their participation in sports, as sports were thought to be solely an activity in which only men could participate, much the same as many activities at the time were regarded as solely an activity in which only men could participate - from academic pursuits to occupational professions. Women were simply regarded as being inferior in every way to men - physically, intellectually, emotionally, and so on. Their sole functional objective in society was based around the idea of their reproductive capacity being of any value.

That began to change around 100 years ago when women began to form associations to organise and promote women in sports, and the benefits of playing sports for women, which never solely rested on the belief that ‘bodies play sports; identities and feelings don’t’. Were that ever the case, then sports would be limited to people whose cognitive function or intellectual capacity is limited or impaired in some way, or they have one of many of what are now regarded as learning disabilities. That has never been the case - people whose cognitive function, intellectual capacity or those who have what are now regarded as learning disabilities, were also historically subjected to discrimination in sports and attempts were made to inhibit their participation in organised sports.

Not only has your belief never been shown to have any rational basis in fact, it’s been debunked by overwhelming evidence to the contrary:

https://goalfive.com/blogs/news/history-of-gender-inequality-in-sports?srsltid=AfmBOorsmDUvi6LQlaivtUA3Jn2qBd8sTa7wIOrWu1gwSVSTvfgOJeAA

Because I provided the example of Verity Smith recently in the discussion, I’ll stick with that one and share their experiences of competing in women’s rugby, later in wheelchair rugby after they had their back broken by another player:

DS: Wow, that’s intense and a lot of extra s**t that most athletes will never deal with. 

VS: I’ve been doxed, I’ve been put on the dark web with my personal information. But you know what, if everything that I am going through now saves one person or one child, then it’s absolutely worth it. The best thing you can do in sport is to play as your authentic self. Not having to hide who you are and having your name and pronouns respected without having been dragged off the pitch because another team told the referee that I shouldn’t be playing and I’m dangerous. That happened once at three o’clock on a Sunday afternoon and you can’t get ahold of anyone from the RFU at that time, so I got removed off the pitch in front of my friends. What happened afterwards was another one of my teammates who is a lot bigger than me a lot and a lot taller than me. She was allowed to play, and she just railroaded everybody on the opposing team. I just sat there smiling. Yes, it’s just crazy. So, I decided to use my platform to make sure that other young people didn’t have go through the life that I did.

DS: When you came out, did you worry about getting kicked off the team?

VS: I got told that if I came out as trans I wouldn’t be able to play. It is hard because being a rugby player is the one thing that I had. I lost my parents when I was very young, and rugby was my go-to. So, it was going to be hard to lose that too. I had to decide between my gender identity and my athletic identity. I’m 42 now and I’ve only just started being able to be myself. I’m a trans gay man. I’ve got my partner; I also have a disability. The sport only supports my disability, but it doesn’t support my gender identity, and it doesn’t support my agenda. Thus, I am making sure that we have these conversations around what’s actually happening. It’s been a massive roller coaster ride; I’ve had teams stand in front of toilets and not let me into my own changing facilities. All because they have this preconceived perception about the way I look, I had a beard before, but I used to shave it all the time just to make things easier for myself when I played women’s rugby. Now we talk about hormones, they thought I was gonna be 6’4” with a six pack. Good luck in that I’m 5’6” and just over 12 stone,  I’ve got a dad bod and have gone bald. So, it’s definitely nothing to do with anything like that.

https://competenetwork.com/wheelchair-rugby-player-and-trans-man-verity-smith-is-leading-the-way-toward-building-gender-diverse-and-inclusive-sports-for-all/

And Natasha King definitely wasn’t just playing sports with her body when she decided to deliberately cause injury to Dani Czernuszka-Watts in retaliation for having successfully tackled King earlier in the game, breaking Dani Czernuszka-Watts back in the process. It hasn’t stopped her playing sports though, and now she plays a different sport, competing for Team GBs para-ice hockey team. For her, sports aren’t just about playing with one’s body either, they’re just as much about identity and feelings:

"It's rugby on ice," she jokes. 

She says the sport has allowed her to meet "some of the most awesome humans".

"When we come away from our team we're all so isolated, and then you come within a team and you're all together and it doesn't feel like you're anything other than just part of a team."

The athlete says she worries about injuring herself "every time I play", and she sometimes suffers from flashbacks.

"I'm only human... but equally I'm a human that's wired to be physical and play sport, and you just can't change that," she says.

"Once I was on the ice, it was just freedom."

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpde859d4nro.amp

Ms. Czernuska-Watts bears no ill will towards the sport of rugby, but rather she feels that ultimately she was let down by the improper and poor behaviour of the opposing player, coaching staff and the referee, whose responsibility it is to ensure that all players are treated fairly, and with respect, while at the same time being mindful that safety is also an integral aspect of any sport, regardless of the sex of the players involved:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11794817/amp/Mother-paralysed-rugby-pitch-says-allows-daughter-13-play-game.html

That’s something which has been historically and all too often overlooked by over-zealous fans, journalists, team owners, managers, coaches, referees, and indeed players, which has lead to these sorts of cases coming before the Courts in recent years. In one of the more notable cases, Senior Master Cook encouraged both sides to be inventive and creative in the legal mechanism they deploy:

Previewing a potential trial, Senior Master Cook noted that causation “is going to be fiendishly difficult” to prove and urged both sides to be inventive and creative in the legal mechanism they deploy with Rylands Garth also taking a separate action against rugby league’s authorities.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/rugby-union/2024/05/20/rugby-concussion-lawsuit-trial-delayed-2025/

I imagine he’s not likely to be disappointed, though how he is likely to rule will be another matter entirely, an outcome that even if I were a gambling man, I wouldn’t care to take, or place a bet on.