boonhet comments on dork dash trans sport mcpizza

[+] boonhet@sopuli.xyz -7 points 6 months ago (11 children)

Who's gonna regulate the minimum estrogen intake, etc, for a trans woman to be woman enough not to have an unfair advantage in women's sports?

Easier to just not allow it for competitive sports. There's like 3 trans athletes anyway. For non-competitive sports it literally doesn't matter and you could play mixed genders for all anyone cares.

permalink

fedilink

source

parent

hideshow 11 child comments

[–] pyre@lemmy.world 12 points 6 months ago (4 children)

literally no one cares. leagues can have their tests if they desire, but this kind of regulation would likely disqualify cis women. point is everyone who makes this an issue invariably has never given a shit about women's sports

permalink

fedilink

source

parent

hideshow 4 child comments

[–] boonhet@sopuli.xyz 2 points 6 months ago (3 children)

That's the problem, how do you make sure there's no cheating?

Athletes are being tested for signs or taking extra test all the time. But how do you decide what the minimum estrogen level is? Or otherwise, how else do you prove the trans woman is consistently weakened enough for it to be a fair challenge?

I do agree it should ideally be up to the leagues and not a national level political decision, but there are so many different sports, that's a lot of people that have to worry about the same problem.

So again, be easier to just let them have their own leagues. They wouldn't fare very well in the unrestricted gender leagues (known as men's leagues for a good reason) either.

permalink

fedilink

source

parent

hideshow 3 child comments

[–] pyre@lemmy.world 9 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

no one worries about it. this "physical fairness" ideal is utterly imaginary. sports are inherently unfair. no one starts from an equal standing in sports. clearly height is an advantage in basletball. do you think basketball needs height classes? Messi is celebrated around the world as the best player in football, maybe one of the best athletes ever. should he be banned from football for having taken growth hormones from age 11? do you think phelps has regular lungs?

sports are not fair, and they never have been, and it seems like i can't stress this enough, NO ONE CARES.

this is just a convenient bullshit ideal people only apply when trans people are involved. because it's easier to sell that to normies than just saying they should be removed from public life altogether. but this is an entry point. they tried this with marriage when it was about gay people.

permalink

fedilink

source

parent

hideshow 2 child comments

[–] boonhet@sopuli.xyz -1 points 6 months ago (1 child)

Why don't we just allow men (I mean actual men, not trans women) in women's sports then?

I honestly doubt anyone's going to change gender just to become a pro athlete, but for an actual trans athlete, what's stopping her from reducing her estrogen intake for the competition season? That's essentially the same as doping IMO.

permalink

fedilink

source

parent

hideshow 1 child comment

[–] pyre@lemmy.world 4 points 6 months ago

well it's largely because women weren't allowed to participate in anything until less than one lifetime ago. and when they were allowed, they were segregated.

for your second question, again, no one really gives a shit when this stuff happens to cis men, but just to humor the disingenuous interest, you'd stop her by requiring approved doctors to monitor such things.

permalink

fedilink

source

parent

[–] ilinamorato@lemmy.world 2 points 6 months ago (2 children)

The few people I've known who were on hormone therapy for whatever reason aren't going to be setting any sports records. This is like asking who's going to regulate the minimum amount of ankle weights a woman has to wear to not have an unfair advantage. Anyone who transitions in order to win a trophy is a particular idiot, and we should just leave people alone.

permalink

fedilink

source

parent

hideshow 2 child comments

[–] boonhet@sopuli.xyz 1 point 6 months ago (1 child)

Oh I doubt 99.999% of people on HRT would even consider doing it for that reason. I'm just saying that a failed male athlete could claim to be trans, take a minimum amount of estrogen to look slightly more feminine, just to compete in women's sports and if that were to happen, it'd ruin the reputation of any MtF athletes that have genuinely transitioned. And I'm also saying that IF a trans woman manages to become a competitive athlete at any serious level, she might be tempted to reduce her estrogen intake similarly to how cis athletes may be tempted to take steroids or do blood doping, but while we have regulations for the latter, I don't think there's currently any regulations for estrogen levels of mtf athletes?

This is like asking who’s going to regulate the minimum amount of ankle weights a woman has to wear to not have an unfair advantage

Why would women ever have to wear ankle weights to not have an unfair advantage? Women already have an unfair disadvantage.

Anyone who transitions in order to win a trophy is a particular idiot

Agreed

we should just leave people alone.

Well the reason we even have separate competitive leagues for women is that in most sports, women physically can't compete with men. If we have one class of women who can regulate their strength, ability to recover from exercise, etc by taking or not taking their estrogen properly, that's not really fair towards the women who can't.

I'm just saying that it's going to be difficult to regulate, but there needs to be some sort of regulation and personally I'd prefer it to not be "trans women banned from all women's sports competitions".

permalink

fedilink

source

parent

hideshow 1 child comment

[–] ilinamorato@lemmy.world 1 point 6 months ago*

in most sports, women physically can't compete with men.

I don't know...The gulf between the best male athlete and the best female athlete is so tiny compared to the gulf between the best male athlete and the worst male athlete, though.

Like...the women's world record holder in the marathon set her record with a 2:09:56 in the Chicago Marathon in 2024. She would've come in 18th overall in last year's Chicago Marathon. That's not even 10 minutes behind the men's world record holder, who set a 2:00:35 in the same race the previous year. Over the course of a two-hour race, that's something like an 8% advantage that men hang on to--and that advantage has been cut in half over the last half-century.

Conversely, while of course it's really hard to define the "world's worst" male runner, a speedwalk marathon takes about 4 hours; so if you're running at all, you're basically guaranteed to be half as fast as the best women.

All of which means, a "failed" male athlete stands no chance against a woman. If you're good enough that running against women might improve your chances of a win, you're already an elite athlete; and since you're willing to lie anyway if you're considering transitioning just to win, then taking steroids or something and hoping you don't get caught is way more likely to push you over the edge.

EDIT: