Penn teammate speaks out against transgender swimmer Lia Thomas

[J842P]

So what?

Do you think it's fair for Lia Thomas to be competing against women?

It doesn't matter one way or the other. It really doesn't.

Cool. So then, you would be fine with removing Title IX considerations, at least for athletics?

 

[J842P]

Does anyone think being trans should be illegal?
What, if any, rights should a trans person be required to forego? (assuming they shouldn’t be locked up just for being trans.)

Just entertaining Meta’s fixation…

If by "illegal" you mean "forbidden by law", then I think you will find no one here has suggested that.

I didn't ask if anyone suggested it. I asked Metaphor if he thought it should be. I take it you don't?
If that's the case, a simple "no" would have sufficed. The fact that you chose to write a treatise instead, speaks to your uncertainty regarding your own stance on the question.

For your second question, I could reframe it in the context of the OPs case:

Or, put another way, "I'll ignore your question and ask my own because my honest answer to your question might paint me in a bad light."

Metaphor already answered your questions directly. And pretty clearly.

 

[Patooka]

So what?

Do you think it's fair for Lia Thomas to be competing against women?

It doesn't matter one way or the other. It really doesn't.

Cool. So then, you would be fine with removing Title IX considerations, at least for athletics?

Nope. Title IX is a yank thing and from what I can gather it states "No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance". I think trans people participating in sports requires a little more nuance than a blanket statement like that and I reflexively reject asinine statements like "if you're born a man you stay a man" or similar horseshit that is just copy pasted from PragerU.
Furthermore, I don't suffer from crippling autism and understand that legislation is flawed and doesn't fit every instance. This is one of those instances. Let it go to the keeper - the world is not going to end. If you think this incident is going to precipitate a slew of male athletes switching genders to win competitions I really don't know what to say.

 

[J842P]

So what?

Do you think it's fair for Lia Thomas to be competing against women?

It doesn't matter one way or the other. It really doesn't.

Cool. So then, you would be fine with removing Title IX considerations, at least for athletics?

Nope. Title IX is a yank thing and from what I can gather it states "No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance". I think trans people participating in sports requires a little more nuance than a blanket statement like that and I reflexively reject asinine statements like "if you're born a man you stay a man" or similar horseshit that is just copy pasted from PragerU.
Furthermore, I don't suffer from crippling autism and understand that legislation is flawed and doesn't fit every instance. This is one of those instances. Let it go to the keeper - the world is not going to end. If you think this incident is going to precipitate a slew of male athletes switching genders to win competitions I really don't know what to say.

Wait, I thought you said it doesn't matter? So what is it?

 

[Patooka]

Wait, I thought you said it doesn't matter? So what is it?

Because in this specific instance it doesn't.

 

[TSwizzle]

Apparently the Penn coach is quite happy with the arrangement of having ex men on the women's swim team because he really likes to win. A shallow victory in my opinion and unfair to the actual women in the team and the other competitors.

 

[TomC]

Apparently the Penn coach is quite happy with the arrangement of having ex men on the women's swim team because he really likes to win. A shallow victory in my opinion and unfair to the actual women in the team and the other competitors.

Sounds like a graduate of the Trump University School of Coaching.
Tom

 

[thebeave]

This is kind of different twist on the subject of transwomen competing, not against other women in sports, but in a mixed sex gaming competition.

'JEOPARDY!' AMY SCHNEIDER 4TH CONTESTANT TO WIN MORE THAN $1M ... Breaks All Sorts Of Records!!!

Amy Schneider is on a roll ... she just became the 4th player in "Jeopardy!" history to rake in more than $1 mil in non-tournament play, and she's still in the game!!!

Amy, the first transgender contestant to qualify for the show's Tournament of Champions, won her 28th game on the show that aired Friday night, taking her winnings north of $1M ... to be specific, $1,019,001.

She was stoked, saying, "It feels amazing, it feels strange. It's not a sum of money I ever anticipated would be associated with my name."

Amy has now won more loot than any other female contender, and she's now the record-holder for most consecutive wins by a female contestant.

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?

 

[TomC]

This is kind of different twist on the subject of transwomen competing, not against other women in sports, but in a mixed sex gaming competition.

'JEOPARDY!' AMY SCHNEIDER 4TH CONTESTANT TO WIN MORE THAN $1M ... Breaks All Sorts Of Records!!!

Amy Schneider is on a roll ... she just became the 4th player in "Jeopardy!" history to rake in more than $1 mil in non-tournament play, and she's still in the game!!!

Amy, the first transgender contestant to qualify for the show's Tournament of Champions, won her 28th game on the show that aired Friday night, taking her winnings north of $1M ... to be specific, $1,019,001.

She was stoked, saying, "It feels amazing, it feels strange. It's not a sum of money I ever anticipated would be associated with my name."

Amy has now won more loot than any other female contender, and she's now the record-holder for most consecutive wins by a female contestant.

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?

In a post Alex Trebek world the show continues on like a zombie.
But not many people care.
Notice the number of responses in this thread.

We're also in a post "first female to..." world. Not many people care about that any more either.


Kamala Harris could wind up the first woman POTUS and it would feel a bit anticlimactic at this point. Hillary Clinton already won a presidential election.
Tom

 

[Emily Lake]

But as has been seen time and again, especially in the development of trans teens (and oh how their existence makes my heart sing, especially when the bad faith crowd weeps bitter tears over the joy of others!)

More like I weep over the detransitioners who have been medicalized and mutilated as a result of over-zealous ideology driving medicine rather than the Hippocratic Oath. For those who truly benefit from appropriate treatment, I'm happy for them. But I cringe that you have no compassion and no care at all for those who are permanently damaged and harmed. Your willingness to sacrifice kids on the altar of your belief is appalling.

It is seen that it's the testosterone, the chemical which drives primary puberty, which creates of fairly uniform physical origination a very dimorphic result.

This is wrong-ish. Testosterone is a byproduct of puberty, not the cause of it. Puberty is driven by the tandem actions of the pituitary and the adrenal glands, which work in concert to produce bone growth, the accretion of bone density, the closure of growth plates; growth of leg hair armpit hair, and fine pubic hair; mental maturation and the development of romantic bonding pathways; the development of secondary sex characteristics and the maturation of primary sex characteristics which make the person capable of reproduction (in most cases).

Testosterone plays virtually no role in the development of females, but plays a large role in the development of males. You talk about it as if it's the only hormone that matters, which has the effect of completely ignoring female development altogether. I'm rather of the opinion that you don't give a shit about females, but that's a different discussion.

Even prior to the onset of puberty, males and females have somewhat different development paths. They attain cognitive benchmarks at different ages, they experience growth spurts at different ages. And regardless of whether or not you artificially interrupt a natural puberty and supple exogenous wrong-sex hormones, they have different skeletons and different attachment points for several ligaments and tendons. Males and females have different pelvic bones and different leg angles, and those differences exist from birth. Furthermore, even if you suppress testosterone in a male during puberty, and you artificially pump them full of estrogen, they will still end up being taller on average than females, with larger hands and feet than females.

You keep flailing about with your emotionally laden language and your ideological hammers... but you actually know fuck all about the process of puberty, or about the side effects of interrupting it, or the effects of providing cross-sex hormones during puberty. FFS, you keep referring to the mystical "wrong puberty" that a transgender person goes through if they aren't forcibly medicalized! It's not a "wrong puberty" no more than it's a "wrong body". It's the body they have and the puberty that their body is evolved to experience.

Your dogmatic insistence that this is "wrong" is a religious belief. It is woo. It is not science and it is not grounded in fact.

 

[Emily Lake]

Does anyone think being trans should be illegal?
What, if any, rights should a trans person be required to forego? (assuming they shouldn’t be locked up just for being trans.)

Just entertaining Meta’s fixation…

No, nobody at all in this forum, thinks that being trans should be illegal. That's a strawman, and it's ridiculous. Outside of a very small cohort of devout religious whackos, the vast majority of people in the developed world have exactly zero objection to anyone being transgender.

Transgender persons should not be required to forego any rights. So far as I know, nobody has asked them to forego any rights.

Now... let's see if you'll play your own game. What rights do you think that transgender people currently lack? What rights are transgender people asking for?

 

[Emily Lake]

I fully admit that some trans athletes are quite unthrilled about having to compete with people who will get continuing effects from their exposure to testosterone while they do not, and will not for some long period of time. It may even be a big enough blow to their career that they never get back into competition, or that they age out before their testosterone exposure does.

It's a tragedy that I have massive empathy for.

These are sacrifices that actual reasonable people put in their positions: empathy, understanding, acceptance, roads forward so that the younger generations are not so Injured.

But you have exactly ZERO empathy, understanding, or acceptance for the people who are being forced to compete against those transgender people who have had the benefit of testosterone, and who experience blows to their career as a result. All of your compassion is reserved for the transgender identified males who are displacing females... none of your compassion is for the females.

Why is that, Jarhyn?

And the fact is, most trans people I bring this to are OK with separating on the dimension of steroidal advantages, even if it means they are excluded on the basis of irrevocable exposure levels.

These problems are wholely the invention of people who have tried nothing and are all out of ideas.

Actually, these problems are the RESULT of people who have put policies into place that ALLOW the Lia Thomases, the Laurel Hubbards, and the Rachel McKinnons of the world to compete against women in athletics, despite the obvious and clear advantage they have over those women.

If most trans people are okay with limiting participation based on steroidal advantages, why aren't they speaking out against this blatantly unfair practice that has been put in place in their name?

 

[Emily Lake]

I answered your questions in post 36.

Ah just like a creationist. (Are you a creationist?).
In post 36 you said

”I have answered your question”

It was a false assertion then, and just as false when you said it again above. Just like a creationist.
Try again:

Should being a trans person be illegal?
What rights should they be required to forego?

Well now, this is rather duplicitous. You literally snipped out the part of Post #36 that answers your question, so that you can falsely claim that Metaphor didn't answer your question.

Do you think the other people on this board are unable to read?

 

[Emily Lake]

There needs to be a biological standard established which takes into effect biological development as a child. In some cases it probably is fine to compete and others not as much.

Like... maybe... I dunno... the effect of sex? Call me crazy, but that seems like a pretty definitive biological standard that takes into effect biological development as a child.

 

[Emily Lake]

The most I will say in the matter is that I don't think they should be competing against people who have not undergone significant testosterone exposure.

Some such people are men. (A)

Some women are not as such. (B)

So the question is ill-formed: it fails.to.priduce a binary answer when the word is "men" or "women", regardless.

Is it really worth the effort on your part to hold out this exception for the 0.002% of humans with disorders of sexual development that produce genetic males who were not subjected to testosterone via CAIS or genetic females who had a transcribed SRY gene on one of their X chromosomes?

It seems like keeping the guideline based on 99.998% of the population, and granting a case-by-case exception on the outliers ought to be sufficient for any rational person. Your reliance on semantic chicanery seems like a lot of work for no real gain... except to muddy language to such an extent as to rob it of meaning entirely.

 

[Jarhyn]

But you have exactly ZERO empathy, understanding, or acceptance for the people who are being forced to compete against those transgender people who have had the benefit of testosterone, and who experience blows to their career as a result

I've pointed out NUMEROUS times now that this better way is to just remove "sex" and "gender" completely from the discussion. While these things are in the same idea system, different abstract relations to the thing that sports fairness divides on, the real and complete alignment of the pivot happens on hormonal advantages.

When someone has some mutation or condition or decision that exposes their body to testosterone for a long term period of time, and particularly while the skeleton is finalizing development THIS and ONLY THIS determines who someone ought be competing with.

At the beginning, I think it's entirely reasonable to make the requirement "no more than 2 years past the onset of puberty, in the absence of blockers."

My first post to this thread, one of the first posts in the chain, directly contradicts this ridiculous bullshit. My first statement was specifically that people should not have to compete with those impacted by testosterone beyond early onset puberty.

Why is that, Jarhyn?

Because you are either incapable of reading or remembering or telling the truth. Take your pick.

Actually, these problems are the RESULT of people who have put policies into place that ALLOW the Lia Thomases, the Laurel Hubbards, and the Rachel McKinnons of the world to compete against women in athletics, despite the obvious and clear advantage they have over those women.

And it's quite convenient that the first step I make is to demand that not happen through approaches to sports that, while looking at factors comorbid to a high degree with sex, are not actually "sex."

If most trans people are okay with limiting participation based on steroidal advantages, why aren't they speaking out against this blatantly unfair practice that has been put in place in their name

Every trans person I know on these forums, and various not-cis persons (including at least one wizard) did.

It's just that, instead of what you did (talking about the trans person's), they all just talked about the solution instead, completely ignoring your proffered villain.

 

[Emily Lake]

No, asking a question that literally is incoherent for the sake of defending an incoherent position is not "disagreeing".

It's only incoherent if you make up your own definitions for commonly understood words, and then proceed to go all humpty-dumpty on your own made-up definitions.

 

[Jarhyn]

The most I will say in the matter is that I don't think they should be competing against people who have not undergone significant testosterone exposure.

Some such people are men. (A)

Some women are not as such. (B)

So the question is ill-formed: it fails.to.priduce a binary answer when the word is "men" or "women", regardless.

Is it really worth the effort on your part to hold out this exception for the 0.002% of humans with disorders of sexual development that produce genetic males who were not subjected to testosterone via CAIS or genetic females who had a transcribed SRY gene on one of their X chromosomes?

It seems like keeping the guideline based on 99.998% of the population, and granting a case-by-case exception on the outliers ought to be sufficient for any rational person. Your reliance on semantic chicanery seems like a lot of work for no real gain... except to muddy language to such an extent as to rob it of meaning entirely.

And for such humans as you would yourself attempt (and fail) to deny the right to a brain-concordant single puberty.

You can pretend that the numbers are smaller than they are by using a selection bias, but you are just revealing yourself at the extreme end of bias against trans people's existence.

 

[Emily Lake]

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...

 

[Emily Lake]

So, you hold an incoherent position.

You cannot say why or what actual shape of nature is "biologically born", or when it is born, or why you make these distinctions.

I can point at something real: the hormones one has been affected by. I can and do point at that without saying "man" or "woman".

I absolutely think your position makes you a transphobe, that you cannot relent against your position on "man" "woman" "penis" "vagina" and instead actually look at the hormonal realities directly.

This is postmodernist bullshit. It is in no way whatsoever incoherent. That you personally have created incoherent definitions in your own mind-brain doesn't affect the rest of us who speak English with even moderate skill.

You pretending that well-established biological processes are magically and irreducibly complex is religious thinking of the wooest type.