This is fucking sad, my heart goes out to these amazing women and girls who deserved so much better
My heart breaks for these women who had their opportunities snatched by these men.
But you know what pisses me off more than anything? Is that we all know a trans man (female) would not get embraced like this in male sports. I’m willing to bet the women bite their tongues and feel compelled to accept trans women into their sports. Where as men would be the first to bully and complain about a trans men slowing the team down.
The answer is not women calling ourselves men taking t to compete in men’s sports.
^ sadly we’d still lose because women on testosterone still can’t measure up against men’s natural advantage – https://www.cbsnews.com/news/60-minutes-harvard-transgender-swimmer-schuyler-bailar/ – http://americansportsnet.com/ecac-hockey/harvard-crimson/harvards-schuyler-bailar-making-smooth-transition-to-normal-freshman-guy
Transwomen on HRT for a given period, usually 6 to 9 months, cease to maintain the majority, if not all, of their athletic prowess one could attribute to testosterone. That’s in fact entirely the point of androgen-suppressant medication; to diminish and negate its effects.
Provided that was done, all I can see here is people being bitter because an athlete was in the wrong demographic while winning. I recall australia getting upset over that too once.
Fuck this transphobic bullshit.
They’re women. Competing in women’s sports.
Deal.
Personally I think there should be some middle ground. It’s proven that men are biologically predisposed to be stronger/faster than women (that’s not sexist, it’s science). Like banny said, after a while on HRT, transwomen lose almost if not all of the advantages being biologically male gave them. Therefore, I think it’s reasonable to require that trans athletes (or at least trans-female athletes) be on HRT for long enough that they lose most or all of the advantages biology gave them. Then it’d be fair, and nobody would be able to (reasonably) complain.
To be clear, I was referring to the garbage in the OP as transphobic, not what Banny said.
I still think Banny’s wrong, though.
The average cis man is slightly stronger than the average cis woman, that is not the same thing as any given cis man (or trans woman) being stronger than any given cis woman. There really isn’t any reason (other than transmisogyny) to expect that a trans woman–even without HRT–is automatically going to be the strongest person on her team.
I mean, I’m a trans woman, and I guarantee that any of these women’s cis teammates or opponents could kick my ass at literally any sport they chose.
And this is where I have to do the thing but in the opposite direction I guess…
Testosterone enhances the ability for muscles to grow, build, and provide strength for them. Large numbers means greater capacity for muscle mass, density, and strength. In absolute terms, the strongest man will always win out over the strongest woman if all else is equal. Higher ceiling.
This is relevant when we talk about transwomen whom are not on HRT for long enough for their androgen to be reasonably suppressed. They end up gaining more muscle more quickly than their cis counterparts and get more out of strength and cardio training.
While, yes, they could “kick [your] ass”, in the world of athletics the abilities of the average don’t matter. This specific demographic, athletes, has its own variables to account for and thus doesn’t generalize beyond itself terribly well. So it says nothing for the population at large, but in a competitive setting it does make a difference.
This isn’t a matter of transmisogyny, it’s facts of biology. Once their androgen is sufficiently suppressed there’s no reason not to allow them, but beforehand it’s basically permitting steroids produced internally.
Counterargument: Cis women also vary in strength, and in how much testosterone their bodies produce. We don’t bar unusually strong cis women from competing–quite the opposite, we encourage them! And likewise we don’t measure how much testosterone cis women have before we let them compete.
A trans woman, pre HRT, is a woman whose body produces an unusually large amount of testosterone–and the established precedent is that that’s irrelevant. As long as any advantages she has are natural, there’s no reason not to let her compete.