Penn teammate speaks out against transgender swimmer Lia Thomas

[Jarhyn]

A solution might be to keep two categories, the first being Open (subject to doping regulations), and the second being non-androgenised, which 99.95% of the time is unequivocally female.

And then... hear me out because this is really kinda on 'out there' idea... how about we use a term for "non-androgenized" that is accessible and understood by almost everyone over the age of 3? Perhaps we could make use of an already-existing word that already encompasses the 99.998% of the people who are non-androgenized? What was that word again? I think it rhymes with "come in" or something, I just really can't seem to bring that word to mind, so much effort has gone into removing it from the lexicon...

Maybe because it's dumb and shitty and downright bullying to insist on something that sticks a knife into one of the deepest traumas a human being can experience.

And fuck you if you don't think being forced into the wrong puberty and body against your will is such.

 

[Emily Lake]

So in other words, you admit that it is insufficient for accuracy to use those words, and there is a better way to refer to these things, that your correlation is imperfect in the face of a causality, and you just don't want to relent on behalf of the people stepped on by a willful misapplication of these ideas.

The nice thing about my position is that it does not even require the rare distinctions to have anything to do with being trans for to fix them.

STOP USING PEOPLE WITH REAL DELETERIOUS MEDICAL CONDITIONS AS A FOIL FOR YOUR RELIGION.

Disorders of sexual development have nothing at all to do with being trans. Lia Thomas does NOT have a DSD condition. Lia Thomas is 100% normal male human, who identifies in their mind as a woman. There is nothing even remotely ambiguous about the sex of Lia Thomas, nor of Laurel Hubbard, nor of Rachel McKinnon, nor of the several other transgender identified males who are depriving females of opportunities and fair competition.

 

[Emily Lake]

As if people do not already observe the ridiculousness, and I reiterate your dishonest use of language that has been debunked and roundly rejected in the discussion as irrelevant!

I made in my first post to this thread an answer to your asinine bullshit. Before you ever even posted it.

The obvious issue here is people wanting to leverage "man" and "woman" in a place of "steroidally impacted" and "not" as the primary concern.

It's just the kind of off-right implied by "most people are mostly right most of the time."

You got there on your first post on this page, and then you ruined it here, by trying to just jump to the rejected shorthand again.

I think it bears pointing out that your personal "rejection" of a commonly used and commonly understood term does not constitute "debunking", nor does it make use of that term in any fashion dishonest.

You are not the dictator of language, despite how clearly authoritarian you are.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Kudos to Amy for the achievement, but honestly, the accolades about being the "female record holder" do feel a bit wrong to me. I'd be particularly interested in hearing from the females on this forum about this woman's achievement. Is it a fair and square victory for female accomplishment or not? Are biological women (aka women who menstruate) largely cheering her on from the sidelines, or do they think this this whole thing is just dreadful and embarassing?

Is this even about gender, or is it about reporters always trying to make the facts seem more important? In a situation like this "female record holder" basically says the reporter is trying to make it a bigger deal than it really is. People are competing on an equal footing, it doesn't matter what gender they are and thus all that really matters is "record holder"--when you qualify it you're actually saying it isn't a record.

 

[Metaphor]

A solution might be to keep two categories, the first being Open (subject to doping regulations), and the second being non-androgenised, which 99.95% of the time is unequivocally female.

And then... hear me out because this is really kinda on 'out there' idea... how about we use a term for "non-androgenized" that is accessible and understood by almost everyone over the age of 3? Perhaps we could make use of an already-existing word that already encompasses the 99.998% of the people who are non-androgenized? What was that word again? I think it rhymes with "come in" or something, I just really can't seem to bring that word to mind, so much effort has gone into removing it from the lexicon...

Maybe because it's dumb and shitty and downright bullying to insist on something that sticks a knife into one of the deepest traumas a human being can experience.

And fuck you if you don't think being forced into the wrong puberty and body against your will is such.

That you believe people can be born in the wrong body is a foundational error in your thinking. Every incoherent misstep and blunder afterwards either compounds that error or is a result of it.

 

[Emily Lake]

Your coherence isn’t improving.

Anyhoo, most sports are segregated by sex due to the unfair advantages conferred by male physiology, largely but not exclusively due to the effects of testosterone during puberty.

There are some very rare DSD/VSD conditions where there can be some ambiguity as to a persons sex, although everyone is either biologically male or female.

Those very rare conditions are utterly irrelevant to any consideration of including trans athletes in sports.

I almost completely agree. My only alteration would be quite small. In your first sentence, I would rather say "... due to the disparate advantages conferred by male physiology..."

 

[Emily Lake]

Well, “the hormones one has been affected by” maps to “male/female”, “ man/woman”, “penis/vagina”, 99.95% of the time. And the very rare occasions where the distinction isn’t clear has nothing at all to do with being trans.

So in other words, you admit that it is insufficient for accuracy to use those words, and there is a better way to refer to these things, that your correlation is imperfect in the face of a causality, and you just don't want to relent on behalf of the people stepped on by a willful misapplication of these ideas.

The nice thing about my position is that it does not even require the rare distinctions to have anything to do with being trans for to fix them.

The difficulty lies in certain very rare DSD conditions, and even then people affected are either male or female. That is an entirely separate issue to trans identity. As I suggested before, a fair solution would be to reclassify sport into an Open category, and a non-androgenised category that all but essentially means biologically female.

And then you step in it again.

All you had to do was just stop without bringing up the bolded portion. Then demand that this is what happens.

Why are you so frightened of females that the very term is verboten to you?

As will and does happen more and more every day, children born with testes are growing up without testosterone, generally with progesterone and estrogen instead.

Some so born may never be affected by either.

Some born with ovaries will grow up indistinguishable from a fair number of folks born with testicles, with broad shoulders and square chins and low cheekbones.

And in a generation we're going to look back and try to figure out why we let this travesty occur to so many helpless children, what kind of social madness grabbed hold of us all and made us as a society think that mutilating and sterilizing children was a good thing to do.

I'll also point out again that SKELETAL FORMATION IS NOT A RESULT OF HORMONE EXPOSURE. It exists from birth. It exists from birth because males and females are different. We're different from the point at which that sperm breaches the egg.

Generally, it will be the case that most will probably be competing mostly with "girls", at least until they get old enough for a hormone prescription. Doesn't mean they are on a team specifically for girls; some will be people born with testicles, yet who are not girls!

As I have stated, the relevant factor is hormones.

You keep misconstruing from some perhaps unintentional ignorance you can consider yourself relieved of today, insofar as trans kids are growing up into trans adults who have never been subjected to the effects of testosterone.

Most wish to be called women! But my compromising on 'women' you secure the win for all who shouldn't be deprived of fair competition!

You know, all you're doing is making it clear that women (adult human females) and girls (immature human females) absolutely 100% should NOT surrender the language with which we identify and describe ourselves and our experiences. If you're going to force a pairing in which engaging in the polite fiction that a transgender identified male is a "woman" necessarily requires that I also surrender the very real differences of their sex from my entire vocabulary, then I'm sorry, but my politeness ends at the point where my existence, my experience, my rights, my dignity - and that of all other female human beings - is erased from our communications and is rendered meaningless.

No Thank You

 

[Emily Lake]

So my problem is bringing up a material objective fact?

My bad.

How very dare I.

However, there is the live issue of biological males, with the advantages of androgenised development, performing in female sports.

Which is manifestly and obviously unfair.

Let's not even get started on prisons or rape shelters.

 

[Emily Lake]

I could bring up many facts in a debate about many things. It would be incorrect to do so, just as it is incorrect to do here. Just because between you and metaphor this is common does not mean that it is acceptable in either case.

I've made the changes that you could make so you stop making such wild conflationary leaps that throw trans people under the bus.

Why on earth do you feel entitled to demand that women - female humans - must surrender reality and facts to your religious beliefs? Why do you think we would throw OURSELVES under the fucking bus so that even more males can treat us like second-class citizens and deprive us of our ability to equally participate in society?

Look at you, insisting that women not be allowed to use the terms "women" and "female" in reference to ourselves... because it hurts the feelings of some men who identify as women.

 

[Emily Lake]

Pre or peripubertal treatment does, however. Which is the second half of that discussion.

There are years of results now, many lives impacted, and mostly for the better.

If you wish to claim a potential for harm, you are now the one with the burden to show it, and show it sufficiently outstrips the other concerns.

If course it ignores the current concerns because the shape of this behavior puts a pin in the whole issue: it rips the rug out of all comers with bad faith, and even compromises on all post-pubertal transitions.

We have centuries of observations of eunuchs, as well. All evidence shows forgoing testosterone can increase expected lifespans...

I find it truly bizarre that you are literally advocating for the eugenic sterilization of gender non-conforming children.

And you think this is progress.

 

[Emily Lake]

There is very little evidence of the long term effects of puberty suppression in adolescence, as those that pioneered the treatment acknowledge. As to the medium term benefits the evidence is also weak.

But again, that’s a separate consideration to the participation of males who identify as females participating in female sports.

The vast majority of self identified trans women have not undergone any puberty suppression, and the majority are not undertaking hormone treatment at all.

As evidenced by the UK investigation into Tavistock and GIDs, which showed a severe disruption in the accretion of bone density in children on puberty blockers, and provided zero evidence of improved mental health for those children, and considerable harm done to some - particularly the litigants in that case, particularly Keira Bell.

Also as evidenced by Sweden's Karolinska institute discontinuing the "affirmation only" approach, and significantly reducing the situations in which it is acceptable to provide puberty blockers to minors.

 

[Emily Lake]

And lest I remind you, we have been suppressing puberty in other ways for centuries. We have plenty of evidence surrounding that.

I cannot believe that you are calling on the LITERAL mutilation of children as support for your position. Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with you?

 

[Jarhyn]

Well, “the hormones one has been affected by” maps to “male/female”, “ man/woman”, “penis/vagina”, 99.95% of the time. And the very rare occasions where the distinction isn’t clear has nothing at all to do with being trans.

So in other words, you admit that it is insufficient for accuracy to use those words, and there is a better way to refer to these things, that your correlation is imperfect in the face of a causality, and you just don't want to relent on behalf of the people stepped on by a willful misapplication of these ideas.

The nice thing about my position is that it does not even require the rare distinctions to have anything to do with being trans for to fix them.

The difficulty lies in certain very rare DSD conditions, and even then people affected are either male or female. That is an entirely separate issue to trans identity. As I suggested before, a fair solution would be to reclassify sport into an Open category, and a non-androgenised category that all but essentially means biologically female.

And then you step in it again.

All you had to do was just stop without bringing up the bolded portion. Then demand that this is what happens.

Why are you so frightened of females that the very term is verboten to you?

As will and does happen more and more every day, children born with testes are growing up without testosterone, generally with progesterone and estrogen instead.

Some so born may never be affected by either.

Some born with ovaries will grow up indistinguishable from a fair number of folks born with testicles, with broad shoulders and square chins and low cheekbones.

And in a generation we're going to look back and try to figure out why we let this travesty occur to so many helpless children, what kind of social madness grabbed hold of us all and made us as a society think that mutilating and sterilizing children was a good thing to do.

I'll also point out again that SKELETAL FORMATION IS NOT A RESULT OF HORMONE EXPOSURE. It exists from birth. It exists from birth because males and females are different. We're different from the point at which that sperm breaches the egg.

Generally, it will be the case that most will probably be competing mostly with "girls", at least until they get old enough for a hormone prescription. Doesn't mean they are on a team specifically for girls; some will be people born with testicles, yet who are not girls!

As I have stated, the relevant factor is hormones.

You keep misconstruing from some perhaps unintentional ignorance you can consider yourself relieved of today, insofar as trans kids are growing up into trans adults who have never been subjected to the effects of testosterone.

Most wish to be called women! But my compromising on 'women' you secure the win for all who shouldn't be deprived of fair competition!

You know, all you're doing is making it clear that women (adult human females) and girls (immature human females) absolutely 100% should NOT surrender the language with which we identify and describe ourselves and our experiences. If you're going to force a pairing in which engaging in the polite fiction that a transgender identified male is a "woman" necessarily requires that I also surrender the very real differences of their sex from my entire vocabulary, then I'm sorry, but my politeness ends at the point where my existence, my experience, my rights, my dignity - and that of all other female human beings - is erased from our communications and is rendered meaningless.

No Thank You

Except the experiences in question are not just yours, and this is the entirety of the issue!

You wish to use language that implies that it is, in fact, just yours. And this use of language that you would use so as a massive penis-like cudgel against trans people and people outside that experience, is entirely shaped like the actions of a bully.

I think that slavers should surrender whips, I think that racists should surrender slurs, and I think that TERFS, no matter how they might pretend reasonability despite their regular production of villains, need to surrender the use of language in situations where it is not accurately descriptive.

"Women's sports" is not accurately descriptive. Not even male/female is, really, by any definition except "male = testosterone puberty and nothing else, really".

The issue is that when people DO use the description used the way you want it used, it becomes about "women" and your cudgel.

 

[Emily Lake]

It's exactly an argument from tradition because the purpose has been laid bare "some half of people have innate biological advantages", and exactly the subject is "how do we protect those without those advantages from competing with those who have them, for the sake of fairness?"

Your argument is literally, '"sex" is what we did, sex is what we should do' insofar as you stand with Metaphor.

Sex is THE material cause for that difference in performance!

The reason there is a performance difference is because of evolution in a sexually dimorphic species! A disparity exists because two different sexes exist! That is the exact reason why there is a difference, and that is the exact reason why we separate sports on the basis of the cause of those differences!

 

[Emily Lake]

No, that is not an argument from tradition. It is also not the argument posed. It is also still not an effective argument:

You are making a causal admission here and then stepping away from the causality, in a bait/switch format of fallacious thinking.

The next portion that I can draw from your own premise, corrected in accuracy, is that we should focus on the "testosterone" not the "male".

"Male" or "female" is confounding data.

Only PEOPLE who actually have gotten those advantages matter in the calculus and the fact you can't bring yourself to argue that means it is about hurting trans people rather than fixing sports so that it's not an issue.

You keep pretending that objective reality is responsive to your wishes and whims, that your imagined sci-fi future is already here.

All of your pretense is wrong.

 

[Jarhyn]

Pre or peripubertal treatment does, however. Which is the second half of that discussion.

There are years of results now, many lives impacted, and mostly for the better.

If you wish to claim a potential for harm, you are now the one with the burden to show it, and show it sufficiently outstrips the other concerns.

If course it ignores the current concerns because the shape of this behavior puts a pin in the whole issue: it rips the rug out of all comers with bad faith, and even compromises on all post-pubertal transitions.

We have centuries of observations of eunuchs, as well. All evidence shows forgoing testosterone can increase expected lifespans...

I find it truly bizarre that you are literally advocating for the eugenic sterilization of gender non-conforming children.

And you think this is progress.

I am for the self-elected pubertal pathway for all gender nonconforming persons, including "none", if they feel this is what best supports their view of sex and gender for themselves.

If this makes them non-reproductive, I see no issues with this.

It will most certainly affect a very small percentage of the population and here's a hint for you: I didn't need to fuck anyone for what I am, genetically and neurologically, to get passed sufficiently onto someone else!

I will most certainly also not need to do so to pass on what I am intellectually to someone else.

More people understanding this and accepting it would absolutely be progress, as our geometric growth as a species needs to stop anyway.

 

[Jarhyn]

It's exactly an argument from tradition because the purpose has been laid bare "some half of people have innate biological advantages", and exactly the subject is "how do we protect those without those advantages from competing with those who have them, for the sake of fairness?"

Your argument is literally, '"sex" is what we did, sex is what we should do' insofar as you stand with Metaphor.

Sex is THE material cause for that difference in performance!

The reason there is a performance difference is because of evolution in a sexually dimorphic species! A disparity exists because two different sexes exist! That is the exact reason why there is a difference, and that is the exact reason why we separate sports on the basis of the cause of those differences!

No, testosterone is the immediate . You are mixing up immediate causes and material causes. If you want to play that game, maybe @fromderinside can jump in and explain it is caused by the big bang happening.

Testosterone is the last element of the chain that you can change, the final ingredient that actually makes it happen.

 

[Jarhyn]

And lest I remind you, we have been suppressing puberty in other ways for centuries. We have plenty of evidence surrounding that.

I cannot believe that you are calling on the LITERAL mutilation of children as support for your position. Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with you?

Yes, I can point to the tragic effects of centuries of mutilations of children as clear evidence that what I am saying is true and correct.

You might as well argue the centuries of grave robbing and corpse desecration don't support our understanding of anatomy.

Facts are facts, even if you would rather the event that unearthed them had never happened.

 

[Emily Lake]

And the fact is, everything I propose protects everyone,

"Separate, but equal" and "Affirmative Action" rolled into one.
You are a genius.

Why don't those cis-females recognize that? Dumb bitches. Why do us guys listen to them?
Baby, you can't swim! Fetch me a beer.
Tom

I like to point out that when it comes to males and females, it is absolutely NOT "separate but equal", it is, and has been since we fought for the right to gain entry into society as full members, "separate because unequal".

 

[Metaphor]

It's exactly an argument from tradition because the purpose has been laid bare "some half of people have innate biological advantages", and exactly the subject is "how do we protect those without those advantages from competing with those who have them, for the sake of fairness?"

Your argument is literally, '"sex" is what we did, sex is what we should do' insofar as you stand with Metaphor.

Sex is THE material cause for that difference in performance!

The reason there is a performance difference is because of evolution in a sexually dimorphic species! A disparity exists because two different sexes exist! That is the exact reason why there is a difference, and that is the exact reason why we separate sports on the basis of the cause of those differences!

Gender cultists have got religion, but it's not a closed practice. No: the Good News of Gender Jesus needs to be spread to the unBelievers.

It is not enough to say to Jarhyn "sports should be separated by sex". That does not slake the thirst of the gender cultists, who need sports separated by 'gender identity', so that some men can be affirmed as women.

And you'll affirm them whether you like it or not.