Trans activists: Trans women should not be required to suppress testosterone to play on women's teams

[Emily Lake]

Especially since "everybody should feel welcome" is something we associate with women socialising.

Bit of a derail... this isn't something that women "naturally" want. It's something that society expects of women. Women are "supposed to be" inviting and friendly and nice. The reality is that most women don't really want "everyone" to feel welcome. Most women are no less selective in who they want their companions to be than are most men. But we're expected to subordinate our personal wants and desires and behave as society deems appropriate.

 

[Emily Lake]

Yes, gay clubs should absolutely be forced to allow women in the door if they are "open to the public" or a "public business". You do know that women can be gay, too, right?

Homosexual women rather strongly prefer the term "lesbian", as "gay" is generally understood to refer to men who fancy other men. But hey - if you want to campaign to get rid of the "L" in the "LGBTQ+" paradigm, go right ahead. There are a fair number of "Ls" out there that feel as if the organization isn't supporting them as it is.

 

[Emily Lake]

A person, who they are, is determined by their brain, not their body.

... And we're right back around to "ladybrain". Yay for women's progress...

 

[Jarhyn]

Yes, gay clubs should absolutely be forced to allow women in the door if they are "open to the public" or a "public business". You do know that women can be gay, too, right?

Homosexual women rather strongly prefer the term "lesbian", as "gay" is generally understood to refer to men who fancy other men. But hey - if you want to campaign to get rid of the "L" in the "LGBTQ+" paradigm, go right ahead. There are a fair number of "Ls" out there that feel as if the organization isn't supporting them as it is.

Nice attempt at distracting the conversation. Every gay club I know of allows in any and all people through their door, straight, gay, man, woman, penis, vagina, as long as they don't do anything to get bounced, and pay their cover because that is what the law requires of all publicly licensed businesses.

 

[Emily Lake]

I wonder if Navritilova was a naturally high testosterone producer or was unusually effective at using what little she produced.

Did her face have a fast manliness transformation or was she like that naturally?

Neither. Navratilova was tall from the get-go, and perhaps had a somewhat higher-than-average level of testosterone, but likely not by a huge amount. She put a huge amount of her training regimen into building muscle mass and reducing fat percentage. Her training at the time she was competing was significantly more aggressive and intense than what other female tennis players did. As a lesbian in a committed relationship, Navratilova was a lot less concerned about "looking feminine" and a lot more concerned about winning.

Her style of training has been adopted by a lot of female athletes in a variety of sports. Runners, for instance, tend to be very lean with very low body fat percentages... and as a result tend to look more "manly" than a non-athletic woman.

 

[Emily Lake]

Continuing with your bad faith, I see.

As I have pointed out, there are plenty of "trans" women today who gave never felt the influence of testosterone.

There are zero transwomen who have never "felt" the influence of androgens, because they were flooded when androgens in the womb.

This certainly causes some changes, but you are still under that pesky little burden of proof for validating that the DHT bath that made a penis happen has any meaningful impact on competitive advantage. Because the research seems to indicate it's the lifetime of steroids that confers the meaningful competitive advantages

I would contend that whatever other minutiae of development that is secondary in particular to the DHT bath confers no material advantage beyond the development of the steroid factory that won't even turn on until adolescence

Males and females have different growth patterns and timing prior to puberty too. It's more dramatically different during puberty, but they develop at different rates as young children also.

 

[Jarhyn]

This certainly causes some changes, but you are still under that pesky little burden of proof for validating that the DHT bath that made a penis happen has any meaningful impact on competitive advantage. Because the research seems to indicate it's the lifetime of steroids that confers the meaningful competitive advantages

I would contend that whatever other minutiae of development that is secondary in particular to the DHT bath confers no material advantage beyond the development of the steroid factory that won't even turn on until adolescence

Males and females have different growth patterns and timing prior to puberty too. It's more dramatically different during puberty, but they develop at different rates as young children also.

When you satisfy a burden of proof to establish those differences, demonstrate that they are indeed also differences that trans people experience, AND to establish that they are meaningful to competitive advantage in post pubescent persons, I might care.

Still waiting on you to satisfy that burden of proof though.

 

[Emily Lake]

Nice attempt at distracting the conversation. Every gay club I know of allows in any and all people through their door, straight, gay, man, woman, penis, vagina, as long as they don't do anything to get bounced, and pay their cover because that is what the law requires of all publicly licensed businesses.

*Sigh* This whole strange tirade began with mention of a MALE ONLY GAY SEX CLUB that didn't want to allow vaginas to participate. Somehow, you've expanded this to some deep personal offense. I don't care. I don't think it's unreasonable for a MALE ONLY GAY SEX CLUB to refuse to allow people with vaginas to take part in their club. Why you care so much is beyond me.

 

[Emily Lake]

This certainly causes some changes, but you are still under that pesky little burden of proof for validating that the DHT bath that made a penis happen has any meaningful impact on competitive advantage. Because the research seems to indicate it's the lifetime of steroids that confers the meaningful competitive advantages

I would contend that whatever other minutiae of development that is secondary in particular to the DHT bath confers no material advantage beyond the development of the steroid factory that won't even turn on until adolescence

Males and females have different growth patterns and timing prior to puberty too. It's more dramatically different during puberty, but they develop at different rates as young children also.

When you satisfy a burden of proof to establish those differences, demonstrate that they are indeed also differences that trans people experience, AND to establish that they are meaningful to competitive advantage in post pubescent persons, I might care.

Still waiting on you to satisfy that burden of proof though.

I'm going to pass on this. You've presented many assertions without any supporting information at all, and you've done so in a particularly aggressive and downright zealous style. At the end of the day, it''s quite clear that you don't care - you don't care about anyone's perspective that isn't yours, you don't care about anyone else's experience. You've made your mind up... and further you seem to have decided that what you've decided is now gospel truth, and anyone who disagrees with you on even small elements of your personal narrative is a hate-filled bigot.

 

[Jarhyn]

When you satisfy a burden of proof to establish those differences, demonstrate that they are indeed also differences that trans people experience, AND to establish that they are meaningful to competitive advantage in post pubescent persons, I might care.

Still waiting on you to satisfy that burden of proof though.

I'm going to pass on this. You've presented many assertions without any supporting information at all, and you've done so in a particularly aggressive and downright zealous style. At the end of the day, it''s quite clear that you don't care - you don't care about anyone's perspective that isn't yours, you don't care about anyone else's experience. You've made your mind up... and further you seem to have decided that what you've decided is now gospel truth, and anyone who disagrees with you on even small elements of your personal narrative is a hate-filled bigot.

I certainly don't care about someone's perspective when it is clearly flawed on the very face of it.

You want to claim that people born with penises have undeniable, intrinsic, and irreversible competitive advantages without up any sort of actual mechanism behind your claims; the mechanism behind the identifiable competitive advantages certain people have, however, is very well documented, and its name is "testosterone". All my claims to this point ACCEPT that we'll documented fact. I don't need references to concede those facts. You, on the other hand, have a burden of proof to establish things NOT accepted between the two of us. What is not accepted, and a positive claim, is that minutae such as that are meaningful to adult competitive advantage.

If you aren't willing to go with facts and science, that's not my problem. It's yours.

 

[Toni]

This certainly causes some changes, but you are still under that pesky little burden of proof for validating that the DHT bath that made a penis happen has any meaningful impact on competitive advantage. Because the research seems to indicate it's the lifetime of steroids that confers the meaningful competitive advantages

I would contend that whatever other minutiae of development that is secondary in particular to the DHT bath confers no material advantage beyond the development of the steroid factory that won't even turn on until adolescence

Males and females have different growth patterns and timing prior to puberty too. It's more dramatically different during puberty, but they develop at different rates as young children also.

The biggest differences in development between male and female children prior to puberty --or pre-publerty, is in brain development, which translates into differences in social maturation, etc.

.

 

[Jarhyn]

This certainly causes some changes, but you are still under that pesky little burden of proof for validating that the DHT bath that made a penis happen has any meaningful impact on competitive advantage. Because the research seems to indicate it's the lifetime of steroids that confers the meaningful competitive advantages

I would contend that whatever other minutiae of development that is secondary in particular to the DHT bath confers no material advantage beyond the development of the steroid factory that won't even turn on until adolescence

Males and females have different growth patterns and timing prior to puberty too. It's more dramatically different during puberty, but they develop at different rates as young children also.

The biggest differences in development between male and female children prior to puberty --or pre-publerty, is in brain development, which translates into differences in social maturation, etc.

.

Which are, according to many studies on the issue, differences more aligned with their desired developmental path than the track their genitals have prescribed...

Of course, these facts of the reality of trans-as-hidden-intersex are exactly my point: that we should be affording children the puberty that matches their brain, not one which is further dissonant with prior brain development.

At any rate, Emily seems to continually drop the ball on accepting testosterone as the real elephant in the room, as does metaphor; I've been saying it from the start that this is the real dimension by which we need to separate if we are going to divide people on the basis of competitive advantage; it is orders of magnitude more important than any other thing.

Talking about barring trans persons because they had some minutiae of development impacted pre-puberty is to me as ridiculous as talking about "cutting waste" by eliminating PBS or the post office, or school lunches. It is pennies to the pound of testosterone.

Of course I expect Emily, Metaphor, et al to already understand this fact. I also expect that they don't care, and would rather defend a broken status quo rather than an egalitarian solution and accept change (and having to potentially call someone with a penis "her"... Oh the horror...)

 

[repoman]

This thread was about not requiring testosterone suppression...

 

[Jarhyn]

This thread was about not requiring testosterone suppression...

Yes, which is utterly ridiculous and idiotic, and everyone realized that on like... Page 1? Post 2? Nobody sane actually supports that garbage. Instead, we should actually be talking about sane, egalitarian solutions.

The problem is that Metaphor set out to paint trans rights activists at large as insane idiots by posting yet another cherry picked idiot view. Then when the people on these forums who actually care about issues facing trans people propose a compromise (drop "women" from sports and turn that idiot OP argument entirely to reverse, making it about hormonal competitive advantage AGNOSTIC to sex and gender), metaphor and Emily criticise it either on unfounded claims that the minutiae of pre-puberty developmental differences matter without any justification for this claim or worse, assuming that the "is" of how sports are nominally divided constitutes an "ought" (that we shouldn't modify as a society).

 

[DrZoidberg]

Which doesn't explain why we're somehow fine with Ethopian/Kenyan runners winning marathons because of their weird bone structure. But I can't think of any other?

In basketball, there is a clear height advantage. And there are no height classes.

In combat sports, usually there are weight classes.

Good point. That is interesting. Perhaps basketball mostly is a freakshow where we look at those funny anti-dwarfs entertaining us with their freakish bodies? I looked up South Korean (one of the world's shortest people) basketball league and they did have basketball, but all their top players were non-Korean. Which just makes it all confusing. What's the point of a Korean team if it's mostly non-Koreans in it?

I know the point of weight classes in combat sports is to drag is out more. If we'd just let the best guys go at it (it'll be the heaviest guys that win almost every time) we'd have much less matches, which means less entertainment all over and less ad revenue. The heaviest matches are always put last, because the moment they've fought people will stop watching.

The huge interest in Rhonda Rousey (and her bank account) proves that people enjoy watching women's sports. So there's no need to regulate it. We don't need feminist regulation. There's no patriarchal oppression stopping women from getting big bucks.

My point is that our main concern when it comes to designing sports events is whether or not it is entertaining, not if it's fair. Or whether it pulls in ad-revenue. Which makes the whole trans-people should be able to compete as their chosen gender a bit bizarre. Why do we feel the need to have an opinion on it? There's no need to get involved. The industry will regulate this themselves based on what viewers want. If transwomen in female sports makes it unfun to watch, they'll just get removed from it. I can't see a problem with it. Yes, it's unfair. But nothing is fair about sports. It's just a circus, a freak show, anyway. Why we obsess about this one dimension of fairness; I think it's myopic.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Especially since "everybody should feel welcome" is something we associate with women socialising.

Bit of a derail... this isn't something that women "naturally" want. It's something that society expects of women. Women are "supposed to be" inviting and friendly and nice. The reality is that most women don't really want "everyone" to feel welcome. Most women are no less selective in who they want their companions to be than are most men. But we're expected to subordinate our personal wants and desires and behave as society deems appropriate.

I think you're looking at it backwards. You're describing the result of gender differences of behaviour. Men don't care as much about being included into groups as women. Male groups are built around problem solving. They have a shared goal and work towards it. The moment that goal is reached the group disolves. Women are expected to make everybody feel welcome because that's important for them. They want to feel welcome and included so they make an effort to welcome others. They socialise themselves into this. Men have no part in this. If men want to be included into a group they usually learn a skill valuable to the group, or they get an asset that will help the group.

Here's an example. One of my best friend I worked very closely with for years. 20 years we stopped working together. We don't talk even once a year up until my divorce 5 years ago. Then I moved in with him. I lived with him for a month until I had my own place. During that month we hung out as if we'd never been apart. We joked and partied and talked feelings. After I moved out it was back to not speaking. That's how men socialise. It's perfectly fine. Men don't even need groups. They're typically just fine on their own working on stuff by themselves. If it's meaningful for them. As long as men have a mission in life we're fine. Men just feel lonely when they're bored or something is dysfunctional in their lives.

No, this isn't 100% because gender isn't binary. We can be more or less masculine or feminine. So these behaviours are more or less expressed. But on average this is my experience of how men and women are different.

I think it's super basic human instinct. Women formed the core of the hunter gather tribe, made sure the social dynamic worked, that everybody felt included and looked after the children. Men kept them safe and built stuff. For women it's important to be included in the group, preferably is high in the hierarchy, and that they don't risk social isolation. Men focused more on not getting their head bashed in by someone (a man) in another tribe. It's different prioritise in life.

Another good example is hierarchy. Women are absolutely obsessed about hierarchy. Men aren't. Men only want high status so they can get girls. For women having high status is an end in itself. It's important for a woman to get a guy with high status. A man couldn't care less whether or not his girlfriend has any status at all. It's a non-issue.

 

[Emily Lake]

When you satisfy a burden of proof to establish those differences, demonstrate that they are indeed also differences that trans people experience, AND to establish that they are meaningful to competitive advantage in post pubescent persons, I might care.

Still waiting on you to satisfy that burden of proof though.

I'm going to pass on this. You've presented many assertions without any supporting information at all, and you've done so in a particularly aggressive and downright zealous style. At the end of the day, it''s quite clear that you don't care - you don't care about anyone's perspective that isn't yours, you don't care about anyone else's experience. You've made your mind up... and further you seem to have decided that what you've decided is now gospel truth, and anyone who disagrees with you on even small elements of your personal narrative is a hate-filled bigot.

I certainly don't care about someone's perspective when it is clearly flawed on the very face of it.

You want to claim that people born with penises have undeniable, intrinsic, and irreversible competitive advantages without up any sort of actual mechanism behind your claims; the mechanism behind the identifiable competitive advantages certain people have, however, is very well documented, and its name is "testosterone". All my claims to this point ACCEPT that we'll documented fact. I don't need references to concede those facts. You, on the other hand, have a burden of proof to establish things NOT accepted between the two of us. What is not accepted, and a positive claim, is that minutae such as that are meaningful to adult competitive advantage.

If you aren't willing to go with facts and science, that's not my problem. It's yours.

Are you aware that you're conflating me with other posters? Or are you just lashing out at anyone who disagrees with you in any way as if they're all the same?

 

[Emily Lake]

This certainly causes some changes, but you are still under that pesky little burden of proof for validating that the DHT bath that made a penis happen has any meaningful impact on competitive advantage. Because the research seems to indicate it's the lifetime of steroids that confers the meaningful competitive advantages

I would contend that whatever other minutiae of development that is secondary in particular to the DHT bath confers no material advantage beyond the development of the steroid factory that won't even turn on until adolescence

Males and females have different growth patterns and timing prior to puberty too. It's more dramatically different during puberty, but they develop at different rates as young children also.

The biggest differences in development between male and female children prior to puberty --or pre-publerty, is in brain development, which translates into differences in social maturation, etc.

.

There are also different height/weight curves for female versus male children. And while perhaps not material for most things, there are skeletal differences and differences in muscle attachment points that exist from a fetal stage. Most of those may not have a particularly strong influence, but pelvic tilt affects stride and gait from a fairly young age, which has ramifications in any running-based sport. It also, by the way, has effects on flexibility, which is part of why you often find girls being better in gymnastics than boys.

One thing I'm not particularly clear on with respect to puberty is how much of it is actually directly due to sex-hormones (testosterone, progesterone, estrogen), and how much is due to sex-differentiated triggers of the adrenal gland. I know that growth spurts in height are triggered by the adrenal, not the pituitary (which governs puberty), as is the development of leg and armpit hair, and fine pubic hair. I know the pituitary triggers facial hair growth in males, and prompts the thickening of pubic hair, as well as development of secondary sex characteristics. I don't know if adrenal effects differ by sex, or whether they're the same. I do know, however, that the adrenal triggers still occur even if the pituitary effects are blocked or retarded.

 

[Emily Lake]

At any rate, Emily seems to continually drop the ball on accepting testosterone as the real elephant in the room...

Of course I expect Emily, Metaphor, et al to already understand this fact. I also expect that they don't care, and would rather defend a broken status quo rather than an egalitarian solution and accept change (and having to potentially call someone with a penis "her"... Oh the horror...)

Jesus christ Jarhyn, pay attention. Somewhere along the way you've ascribed me to a position I don't hold, and seem to have completely ignored what I've actually said.

 

[Emily Lake]

Yes, which is utterly ridiculous and idiotic, and everyone realized that on like... Page 1? Post 2? Nobody sane actually supports that garbage. Instead, we should actually be talking about sane, egalitarian solutions.

There are a lot of fairly vocal transwomen and transactivists who oppose testosterone suppression for the purpose of sports. I think it's a perfectly reasonable compromise, so you might want to redirect your misplaced ire at the insane idiots who actually oppose that common sense approach.