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

[krypton iodine sulfur]

I'm not your luv, honeynipples. I mean 'listen' as in actually put a modicum of effort into understanding arguments being made rather than cherry picking what you find the most absurd sounding or what triggers a knee-jerk response. That's why you get made fun of on these boards. Your threads are ridiculous.

I haven't noted anyone making fun of kis, except you. With respect to cherry picking... are you certain you're not doing the same thing from the other direction?

I'm not sure if you've accidentally attributed comments I made to metaphor, or if you really are responding to me.

 

[Emily Lake]

I'm not your luv, honeynipples. I mean 'listen' as in actually put a modicum of effort into understanding arguments being made rather than cherry picking what you find the most absurd sounding or what triggers a knee-jerk response. That's why you get made fun of on these boards. Your threads are ridiculous.

I haven't noted anyone making fun of kis, except you. With respect to cherry picking... are you certain you're not doing the same thing from the other direction?

I'm not sure if you've accidentally attributed comments I made to metaphor, or if you really are responding to me.

I got confused somewhere along the way. For whatever reason (including lack of reading I suppose) I thought that was Metaphor saying that YOU get made fun of. So yeah. I failed!

 

[Metaphor]

you have the burden here. You claim a positive attribute: that your definitions are useful in and of themselves. My counter to this is that they are not. They are proxies. If you want to find out if someone is competent to accomplish some feat, you test them on the accomplishment of the feat. You don't test someone "like them", and then say "they failed the test for you". No, you test them, not someone else.

You can't even define what 'man' means. Your 'definition' is worse than useless--it doesn't even exist.

you still have yet to justify why I should care what your dictionary says or how it pigeonholes people. Reality doesn't care either. There isn't some magical file our on the internet that you can read that says "sex:male". There's a pile of meat, and chemicals, and cartilage and blood. That's how reality actually works. Your categorizations are powerless to change the physical realities of my body or anyone else's by uttering 'he', other than the natural way by which we hear sound or see light and then the person so hearing or seeing laughs and says "what idiocy!"

The point of words is to have them be useful, and you already know where I stand on what is the best use of gendered language.

Oy gevalt. If the word 'man' imprisons people then every word that applies to humans imprisons them. Hell, even words that don't apply to humans imprison them.

Because you will, absolutely some time in your life, encounter a man who was born with a vagina. And you will probably never even know it. Yes, metaphor would in fact need to physically examine some people's genital regions to know what "sex" they were.

Um, okay. I'll just park that unfalsifiable prognostication here.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

"MERIT" = higher performance, no matter what causes the higher performance.

Stop whining about your disadvantage. Just get out there and perform better!

Let the performance and merit determine who should compete against whom, not the artificial categorizing of everyone into types they're supposed to belong to.

If you don't equalize for vastly different innate advantages, you aren't really making it a competition about performance and merit.

Yes you are making it about performance and merit. "Performance" and "merit" means outscoring your opponent, shooting more baskets, scoring more touchdowns or completing more passes, hitting more home runs, running faster, throwing longer or more accurately, etc. This can be measured between opponents who are very unequal in size or other factors.

You've given NO reason why unequal opponents should not compete as long as they still have near equal ratings of their past performances, i.e., similar scoring in earlier competitions, so it's difficult to predict who will win if they are matched up.

Is a race between an F1 car and a golf cart much of a test of performance and merit?

How do they compare in their past performance? If the F1 car has always scored better in past races, then their past performance is not near equal. So it's not a good match-up. But what if someone rigged up his golf cart to make it go faster and achieve the same speed as the F1 car? What would be wrong with having a match-up between them?

The only reason to not match them up would be their past performance, not any other categorizing of them into this or that class.

For the golf cart driver, maybe.

If that golf cart driver figured out a way to increase the speed so that it wins in races with fast vehicles, why shouldn't he be allowed to compete with those faster vehicles?

Even though most races are between vehicles of the same type, just as a practical matter, that shouldn't rule out any other competitions, as long there is equal performance between the opponents.

How about races between animals of different types? like a dog vs. a cat or horse or camel or buffalo or whatever? Not a snail vs a horse, for practical reasons, but mainly because they are so unequal in past performance. But male human vs female is fine as long as those individual contenders have performed about equally in past competitions, so it's difficult to predict which one would win.

Gaps in human biological advantage tend not to be that stark, but the basic line of reasoning applies.

The only line of reasoning which makes any sense is that of matching them based on past performance, in previous competitions, and having match-ups between those of near-equal past performance.

There are plenty of females who can outperform males. Let those males whose past timing was about the same as the female be allowed to race against her. But any contenders whose timing was much higher would race against only others whose timing was much higher.

So let only the previous performance be the guideline for who is matched up against whom. And no other kind of categorizing.

What would be wrong with any match-up, no matter what the differences, as long as the contenders are of about equal ranking based on past performance? Give a specific horror story that would happen as a result.

Horror story depends on how you see the value of sports.

The only value which everyone recognizes is that of performance, regardless who or what the contenders are. Any other "value" is subjective, and anyone can set up special sports events privately to promote their particular value. If they want to have races between only blue-eyed contenders, or only between one-legged contenders, or only between contenders who can prove their IQ is 37, or any other category, that's fine. As a private program, not for the NCAA.

Aside from sports where mismatches could result in serious injury or death, there aren't many horror stories.

Anything extremely dangerous might be banned, but that isn't about the contenders being of differing categories.

Give one practical example where any two contenders should not be allowed to compete against each other, who have performed equally in the past in scoring points (touchdowns, shooting hoops or targets, racing speed, throwing accuracy, etc.), but who are completely different types because of some extreme differing traits.

You should be able to come up with at least one example, if you have a case for excluding match-ups for any reason other than unequal past performance of the contenders.

That doesn't mean it wouldn't be a significant point of concern that, let's say, women as a class would largely be eliminated from elite sports, not because their performances . . .

99.9% of male humans would be "eliminated" from the "elite" class of the top winners, in the top .01% of performers.

But ALL could compete in those sports, competing against those of their performance level, whoever they are, regardless of their class.

No one is really "eliminated" just because they can't score as well as others. They simply won't win as much and won't gain the extra recognition going to the tiny elite top .001% of performers who show the highest top performance level.

It may turn out that the very top performers in certain sports would all be of the same race. Why would that matter? The others are not being "eliminated" from competing. It's just that they keep showing a lower level of performance, for whatever reason, and so they don't gain the recognition of being in that top .0001% elite class based on their performance. But still they compete with others in the .01% top level, or at whatever level they achieve based on their performance.

What's wrong with performance-based merit? and more recognition to the highest performance level? no matter who happens to reach the highest "elite" performance level?

. . . eliminated from elite sports, not because their performances were less meritorious, but because of innate disadvantage.

No different than the 99% of males also "eliminated" because of their innate disadvantage. Those who have less muscle or coordination or dexterity etc. have an "innate disadvantage" compared to those who have more.

A high-performing female in the 90th percentile ranking, based on her performance, has an "innate" advantage over the millions of males in the 60th and 70th percentiles, based on their lower performance.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

Recognize winners for their PERFORMANCE only, whoever they are, WHATever they are,

regardless where they came from, who their ancestors were, their victim status, their handicaps, how much sympathy they're entitled to.

What would be wrong with any match-up, no matter what the differences, as long as the contenders are of about equal ranking based on past performance? Give a specific horror story that would happen as a result.

That approach has a fairly predictable outcome, which I think should produce at least a bit of hesitation. Let's start with a more dramatic scenario, where there are no age limits. So you would have a fully grown adult competing in a track race against a 6-year old. Who is going to win? I think it's pretty clearly 99.99999% of the time, the adult is going to win.

7-year-old? 8-year-old?

You're ignoring individual exceptional cases. There's no reason a particular 6-year-old who is exceptional could not be extra fast and thus able to compete against an adult.

And do you also exclude someone who is too old? What if an 80-year-old stays in shape and can outrace a 20-year-old?

The match-up is proper as long as the contenders have demonstrated about equal performance in their previous competitions -- in which case it would be difficult to predict who will win. The proper merit-based standard should be that the match-ups are between contenders who are about equal, based on their previous competitions.

So, in aggregate, the adults win, and move forward, and the children lose and are removed from competition.

No, everyone continues to compete against those of their same level -- NOT AGE LEVEL -- based on past performance, having equal past performers compete against each other. All of them keep competing, and as they get better, they move up in the rankings and eventually compete at the higher levels. No one is "removed" from anything other than from competing way up at higher levels than that of their demonstrated past performance level.

Looking at their continued stats over time, you'll see consistent wins for the adults, and consistent losses for children.

No, not ALL the children. A few will do better than the others, and they will move up to higher levels. A few will do so well that they will be able to compete against some of the adults. What's wrong with that? Only those showing much higher performance level will move up to the higher levels. Why shouldn't a few, maybe only 1%, or .1%, of children be allowed to compete against adults if they are that much better?

The result ends up being that the children end up not being allowed to compete... which also, by the way, ends up meaning that . . .

Cut it out! they will continue competing at their level, against others who rank about equally with them, and as some of them get better in their performance, they will be moved up to higher levels to compete against the higher performers, whoever they are.

. . . ends up meaning that those children aren't provided an opportunity to improve their skills even if they are an exceptional runner for a child.

No, they will keep competing at their level, trying to improve their performance, and ranking, so that they can slowly move up to higher levels of performance, to be matched up with other contenders who perform at their level, to however high they can perform against others at the higher performance levels.

The net result is that children end up crowded out of competition altogether.

No, the competitions continue at all the levels, high and low. The only downside is that the very poor performers will stay at the lower levels and won't get much recognition, in the form of awards or prizes, etc. So what? Those who have talent and work harder will improve and move higher in the rankings and have a chance to win some recognition based on their performance.

I swam competitively as a child. I was pretty good at it - for a child.

Then you would have a higher ranking than average for your age level. Meaning you could compete against some of those older than you. What's wrong with that? As you continue to compete and get better, your ranking would increase and you would continue competing against others older than you.

If I were competing against adults, or even against much older teenagers, rather than kids in my own age bracket, I would consistently lose.

No, you'd be matched up against others of about equal performance level as yourself, so you'd sometimes win.

I would fall out of the competitions, heck I wouldn't . . .

Stop insisting on something to whine about. You'd stay in the competitions with those of your own performance level.

. . . I wouldn't even qualify for them in the first place.

Why not? You would always qualify to compete against others of your performance level. The rule has to be that EVERYONE competes who wants to, no matter who or what they are, and they are matched up against others of about their same performance level, based on past competitions. Everyone automatically qualifies for competitions against those of about the same performance level in their past competitions.

And I guarantee I would have quit swimming quite quickly, because there's no real opportunity for me to compete there.

You would have had MORE opportunity, because you'd be allowed to compete against those a little older, if you're about as good as they are, based on your past performance. Because these rules would allow ALL competition between those of equal (or near-equal) ability, regardless of anything else.

What if you took the same approach to car races? All cars, with no restrictions or classes, all compete against each other and the best car wins.

No, there would be match-ups having the better performers compete against better performers. ALL would compete at different performing levels, and those who improve (by increasing their wins) would move to higher levels to compete against the better performers. The restriction would be that you move higher only as you continue to win more, i.e., showing better performance.

(Our topic is about the NCAA, which might not include car races. In private contest events there would be all kinds of categories, or classes, such as vintage cars, special rules about what's allowed and what's not. That's not collegiate sports.)

It might be interesting for a season, but it would get boring after a while.

No, it would become more interesting as all the best performers are allowed to compete against each other, rather than restricting them to certain categories that exclude some match-ups between the better performers who happen to be in the wrong category. The only boring part would be the match-ups between the worst performers, whose events might draw very small crowds of spectators. But if they want a larger crowd, they have to improve their performance, so they move up in the rankings and compete against the better performers, and these ones would draw more spectators than the poor performers.

"boring"?

Here's a real example of what's boring, which I witnessed. In a Little League game there was one kid so much bigger and stronger than the others (but within the age classification) that in one single game he pitched a no-hitter and also hit 2 home-runs.* He single-handedly mowed down that other team.

What they should have done was put him in a higher-level of competition so he could play against other kids of his own performance level, even though he'd be a year or 2 younger than the others. There is no reason to artificially put all those of the same age level into the same competitions, if some are much more advanced than the others.

If we're talking about drag races, the funny cars are going to win, and nothing else will ever be able to take part in it. If we're talking about road races, it will be F1. There would be no more NASCAR. No more Indy Car. No more Stock Car.

I don't think we're talking about those. This is about NCAA sports mainly.

Sounds like it would be boring... as well as very effectively stifling competition.

No, more competition is the point. Allow competitions between everyone, of ALL groups no matter what, with no barriers or class divisions putting contenders into different categories that restrict the competitions to only members of this or that group. The only restriction should be that the match-ups are between contenders who are of about equal ability, rather than having very high performers matched up against those of very low performance level.

Spectators, fans, enthusiasts of all kinds would still have all kinds of private contest events to attend, to promote whatever odd competitions they find entertaining.

*I'm lying. It might have been only one home run he hit in that game. But I heard of other games he played where he hit multiple home runs.

 

[krypton iodine sulfur]

Yes you are making it about performance and merit. "Performance" and "merit" means outscoring your opponent, shooting more baskets, scoring more touchdowns or completing more passes, hitting more home runs, running faster, throwing longer or more accurately, etc. This can be measured between opponents who are very unequal in size or other factors.

I am defining characteristics which are neither performative nor meritorious. You're turning around and saying 'Yeah, performance and merit.'

How do they compare in their past performance? If the F1 car has always scored better in past races, then their past performance is not near equal. So it's not a good match-up. But what if someone rigged up his golf cart to make it go faster and achieve the same speed as the F1 car? What would be wrong with having a match-up between them?

Ah, hah. The physics of this. Just no.

 

[repoman]

 

[ruby sparks]

Right. And I get that there are two sides to this, and that there are those with more radical or vocal opinions than others. And I could equally show a white nationalist behaving badly or aggressively. So I'm not sure what your point is.

Personally and fwiw, I don't think either placard-holder in the above scene is being particularly reasonable or tolerant in principle (and I'm not impressed with the expression of glee on the face of the one on the right who I'm guessing has placed herself right behind the trans woman deliberately) but the one on the left is being more aggressive, yes.

 

[Metaphor]

That was about as painful to watch as I anticipated.

I noticed the transwoman claiming he felt 'unsafe' by women holding signs, even as his physicality clearly dominates theirs.

"I feel unsafe" is one of the shibboleths of the Woke, but like the transubstantiation prayer uttered by priests, it is a meaningless nothing.

 

[ruby sparks]

On the other hand, the women behind the trans woman are relatively safe in the knowledge that they, being presumably cis women, are in the social majority at the event, and it is the case that trans persons get discriminated against in their lives, so the trans woman might not necessarily be just mouthing an empty mantra. A gay person holding up a placard at a different event somewhere in the world might feel something similar, even if no one was actually threatening them physically.

 

[Metaphor]

On the other hand, the women behind the trans woman are relatively safe in the knowledge that they, being presumably cis women, are in the social majority at the event,

....so? Most cis women support 'trans women are women'. The ones that don't are called TERFs and are in the minority of the feminist community.

and it is the case that trans persons get discriminated against in their lives, so the trans woman might not necessarily be just mouthing an empty mantra.

That somebody feels unsafe seems quite irrelevant to me. So what if you feel unsafe? I've probably made some women feel unsafe when I catch the bus home just by existing while male.

 

[ruby sparks]

Most cis women support 'trans women are women'.

Interesting. I did not realise that. Can you provide something to confirm?

The ones that don't are called TERFs and are in the minority of the feminist community.

So in that case the women behind the trans women might have been TERFS.

That somebody feels unsafe seems quite irrelevant to me. So what if you feel unsafe? I've probably made some women feel unsafe when I catch the bus home just by existing while male.

Boy do you have some unsympathetic views in general.

If I'm walking home at night and I find that I'm walking behind a woman on the footpath, and there's no one else around, if I get any sense at all that she might feel unsafe, I'd maybe just cross over the road, unless it's a busy highway, or something like that. It's not much bother and I do recognise why in certain situations certain people might not feel safe, even when there is nothing to worry about.

 

[Metaphor]

Interesting. I did not realise that. Can you provide something to confirm?

https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2020/07/...gnition-act-yougov-polling-women-dawn-butler/

Note that the poll is of women, not 'feminist' women, but is also a more radical question than are transwomen women, but support for whether self-ID alone should be enough for a transwomen to change his legally recognised gender.

So in that case the women behind the trans women might have been TERFS.

They almost certainly were. I'm sympathetic to their views on transwomen, but not their feminist views, so I'm just a transphobe and misogynist, not a TERF, I guess.

Boy do you have some unsympathetic views in general.

Sympathy? Tell me, do you feel sympathy for white people who get nervous when a black person gets on the bus or enters a store? I suspect you don't (though I could be wrong).

 

[ruby sparks]

Sympathy? Tell me, do you feel sympathy for white people who get nervous when a black person gets on the bus or enters a store? I suspect you don't (though I could be wrong).

Yes. If it's a white woman alone on a bus and night, I'd be at least cognisant of the possibility that she might not feel 100% safe, whether the man is black, white or purple, or like me, white. Thinking to myself 'so what' or that it's irrelevant seems a bit insensitive.

 

[Metaphor]

Sympathy? Tell me, do you feel sympathy for white people who get nervous when a black person gets on the bus or enters a store? I suspect you don't (though I could be wrong).

Yes. If it's a white woman alone on a bus and night, I'd be cognisant whether the man is black, white or purple, or like me, white.

No. You changed the question to a question I didn't ask.

Let's say I'm a woman who gets nervous when someone enters her bus, but only if that person is black.

Do you feel sympathy for her?

 

[ruby sparks]

Sympathy? Tell me, do you feel sympathy for white people who get nervous when a black person gets on the bus or enters a store? I suspect you don't (though I could be wrong).

Yes. If it's a white woman alone on a bus and night, I'd be cognisant whether the man is black, white or purple, or like me, white.

No. You changed the question to a question I didn't ask.

Let's say I'm a woman who gets nervous when someone enters her bus, but only if that person is black.

Do you feel sympathy for her?

Well, it depends on the context to a large extent. If it's the middle of the day and there are lots of other passengers, I don't think I would feel any sympathy, no, unless the man was behaving in a threatening way or looked aggressive or something.

 

[ruby sparks]

https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2020/07/...gnition-act-yougov-polling-women-dawn-butler/

Note that the poll is of women, not 'feminist' women, but is also a more radical question than are transwomen women, but support for whether self-ID alone should be enough for a transwomen to change his legally recognised gender.

I'm overall glad to see that you appear to be right. I say that without analysing the survey or the data. The link to it doesn't work. Polls can be potentially misleading at times, depending on, for example, the framing of the questions. I myself agree that trans persons should be allowed to 'self-identify as their chosen gender', which is the wording used in the article.

I'm not sure if the same percentage (57% of women, 50% of all persons surveyed) would support trans women all the way to nothing more than self-ID getting them into women's changing rooms, women's foot races or women's refuges, but I wouldn't expect it to. Possibly also, not all of them might agree with rules that say other people must refer to them by their preferred gender.

In my opinion, not very much about these things is all that difficult, if you are prepared to be reasonable and humanist about it. It can go too far in either direction, yes, but that's true of almost anything.

 

[Metaphor]

No. You changed the question to a question I didn't ask.

Let's say I'm a woman who gets nervous when someone enters her bus, but only if that person is black.

Do you feel sympathy for her?

Well, it depends on the context to a large extent. If it's the middle of the day and there are lots of other passengers, I don't think I would feel any sympathy, no, unless the man was behaving in a threatening way or looked aggressive or something.

Let's say I'm a man walking home alone at night, and I hear a man walking behind me and I'm anxious. When I see that the man is black, I feel significantly more anxiety. Do you sympathise with my fear?

What if it's the exact same scenario but it's a woman walking home alone at night?

What if it's the exact same scenario but the women feels relief to find it's a white man behind her, but is extremely anxious if she thinks it's a black man?

 

[Metaphor]

https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2020/07/...gnition-act-yougov-polling-women-dawn-butler/

Note that the poll is of women, not 'feminist' women, but is also a more radical question than are transwomen women, but support for whether self-ID alone should be enough for a transwomen to change his legally recognised gender.

I'm overall glad to see that you appear to be right. I say that without analysing the survey or the data. The link to it doesn't work. Polls can be potentially misleading at times, depending on, for example, the framing of the questions. I myself agree that trans persons should be allowed to 'self-identify as their chosen gender', which is the wording used in the article.

I'm not sure if the same percentage (57% of women, 50% of all persons surveyed) would support trans women all the way to nothing more than self-ID getting them into women's changing rooms, women's foot races or women's refuges, but I wouldn't expect it to. Possibly also, not all of them might agree with rules that say other people must refer to them by their preferred gender.

In my opinion, not very much about these things is all that difficult, if you are prepared to be reasonable and humanist about it. It can go too far in either direction, yes, but that's true of almost anything.

The context of the survey is the 'self-ID' proposed reforms to the UK's Gender Recognition Act, which would indeed give transwomen all the rights that women have except in exceptional circumstances that can be demonstrated to be exceptional. The current Gender Recognition Act gives transwomen these rights, but only after medical approval, not on 'self-ID alone'.

I don't know why the link doesn't work for you. You can google yougov self identity trans to get a variety of results

 

[Toni]

On the other hand, the women behind the trans woman are relatively safe in the knowledge that they, being presumably cis women, are in the social majority at the event, and it is the case that trans persons get discriminated against in their lives, so the trans woman might not necessarily be just mouthing an empty mantra. A gay person holding up a placard at a different event somewhere in the world might feel something similar, even if no one was actually threatening them physically.

Do you think that the cis women are protesting because they DON"T get discriminated against every day of their lives?