"Trans people are being banned from sports” is an intentionally manipulative way representing the issue?

No it's not. "You're banned unless you deny your identity and put yourself at risk" takes more words and means essentially the same thing.

When there's no reasonable alternative from being banned, you're effectively banned.

Male/female sports isn’t about “playing with your peers”

The hell it isn't! The social aspects are a HUGE part of any team sport. The sense of belonging is a huge part of why children want to do it in the first place.

Membership of the team and the associated belonging being contingent on pretending to be something they're not is a surefire way to life long identity and self acceptance issues BEYOND what gender dysphoria already brings.

It's abuse, if not literally a form of torture.

there's a further nuance that NOBODY discusses, and that's the difference between competitive levels

Because none of the bans differentiate between those. It's not "no trans girls in elite sports but junior varsity is ok".

Pretending otherwise isn't adding "nuance", it's needlessly pretending that a very clear line is smudged.

Trans people should have the opportunity to play with their peers, but that doesn't mean it has to include every level of competition.

So what, they're to be allowed to participate, but if they're too good, they're going to be held back with kids of lesser prowess and/or zeal?

Or do you mean the other way around? ONLY the trans athletes who are better than most cis athletes should be allowed to play?

Either way, that's bigoted, no matter how much you pretend that it isn't.

Essentially forcing them to deny their identity to participate

"Essentially” is doing some very heavy lifting in this sentence because nothing else about that sentence is true.

So you're saying that trans girls participating on the boys' team would NOT be denying their identity? In what fucking world?

trans women statistically are more at risk for sexual assault than any other demographic

Is this bad? Yeah! Should something be done about this? Of course!

But you bring it up to make it sound like this is a result of trans women not being allowed to play women sports. This is incredibly manipulative.

No, I make it sound like forcing trans girls into locker rooms with male athletes puts them at higher risk of being sexually or otherwise assaulted than they otherwise would be.

And the reason why I "make it sound like that" is because it IS like that.

If anything, what's manipulative is you trying so hard to mask your bigotry behind what you think sounds like reasonable concerns when it's everything but

I could go on with other comments I have seen on here.

I bet you could. Lemmy tends not to be a safe space for concern trolling and transphobia.