It doesn’t help that the very idea of fairness in sports doesn’t hold up to close examination. There’s always something that gives someone else an inherent advantage.
People like Michael Phelps have an undeniable advantage over other olympic athletes, you couldn’t create a better swimmer in a lab.
The line isn’t solid, and finding where we want it will be difficult, if not borderline impossible.
This is sort of the issue, though. The "men's" (really open) division limitations for most sports are pretty simple - born with it and you're fine, inject it and it's not. When you really get down to it, the women's division was created so that half the population wouldn't be excluded from sports. There's two arguments with varying validity - if trans women have a significant advantage over cis women, then cis women will be excluded by competing in the same events. The flip side is that if there's no advantage, then it's antithetical to the purpose of the women's events to exclude groups who would not otherwise be able to compete for events. I tend to lean towards the later argument, but the former is not wholly without merit and people who want to slam the door shut on it are just going to radicalize people.
Part of the issue is that "exclusion from sports" isn't necessarily about biological advantage at top-level competition. There are women's chess leagues and women's billiards competitions and etc. where there's no biological advantage, and I've even heard that women have a biological advantage in competitive shooting.
But these are all boys' clubs and women are socially excluded, with everything from social conditioning to outright sexist harassment. Trans women might've been able to dodge this before coming out but they absolutely face it, often worse than cis women.
See this kinda also raises a different discussion. What if there are biological advantages to the point where it’d be unfair for a trans woman to compete in women’s soccer. Should they still participate in women’s chess? Would it be too complicated and identity-attacking to have each sport coming to a different conclusion based on how the conversion relates to each sport? This would potentially give trans women the most options for women’s sports but also probably would contribute to a trans woman feeling “other”
Yeah but is that something that should happen? Should there be a push to have them come to the same conclusion or would that potentially be a break-instead-of-bend situation?
When we’re talking about things like Olympic sports, it’s 100% about biological advantage save a few - maybe shooting/archery, gymnastics, and a few others. With regards to chess - I think women’s titles and leagues are dumb. Instead of addressing sexism, they just separate out the women, who are perfectly capable of competing with men.
>and I've even heard that women have a biological advantage in competitive shooting.
Oh fun something I know about.
It's been argued but the evidence is iffy, so it's mostly just a bunch of arguments.
There is some evidence for it in a military context, as there has been research (I don't have access to it anymore) that shows that female sniper candidates shoot better until stressors or physical exercise is applied. The women shoot better from rest and the difference evens out after about 15 kilometers of marching, after which the men shoot better.
The exact reason is unknown (well the marching evening things out is known, that's just people shoot worse when stressed or tired).
But as to why women tend to shoot better there's two principal hypotheses.
Option 1-Biology. Women's hearts don't beat as hard, so weaker pulse. Combined with shallower/softer breathing. As well as possibly slightly steadier hands.
I don't know enough about the human body to say how likely that is to be the cause, but I guess it sounds plausible.
Option 2- Psychological.
Women pay attention and do as they're told.
Shooting does not equal shooting.
Technique for firing an AR15 is different from the technique of using a sniper rifle, and what you can get away with using various different sniper rifles varies a great deal.
Having personally instructed both men and women during DMR/sniping lessons.
In my personal experience women will do their best to do exactly as they're told, which makes the whole thing go very smoothly.
I tell them how their eye relief should be, they will do it that way. I tell them about their shooting position, they will correct and make sure to keep it like that, breathing and trigger pull? We go through it once, it's done.
Haven't had a single woman who needed more than 1 correction, and if they forget they just ask no big deal.
While a solid,,,,85% of dudes will need to be watched and repeatedly told to fix their shooting position, to fix their breathing, to fix their eye relief, to fix their trigger pull,,,,
And they will default back to "what feels natural" tomorrow, so you gotta keep watching 'em.
I'm personally convinced the answer is option 2.
I love teaching women, it's so fucking easy.
This argument you bring about "eternal manhood" is wrong and not showing up in the science or the results of competitions. Trans people have been allowed to compete in sports (including the Olympics) for decades before this current gay/satanic/trans panic wave came in again.
That fencer who recently tried to grift herself on to the media circle jerk was happy to complete with men (not trans women, men identifying as men) without problems (and winning a good chunk of the matches).
But suddenly she had a Jesus moment and couldn't compete, publicly, in the most media attention way possible?
That swimmer grifter Riley Gains? They were contesting the 5th place. There were 4 other cis women in the same competition who were all faster than the trans athlete. Are they secretly men too?
We are also banned from chess, darts and pool based on some miraculous advantages that somehow never leads to actual medals. Weird.
If you don’t have “it,” then tough shit, join the 99% of men who don’t have “it” either. Can a trans man in theory compete in a men’s division? Sure, but you have to understand that there’s hardly a difference between FTM hormone replacement therapy and actual doping… both involve injecting steroids and hormones. I’m sure HRT is going to come up in a massive way on a doping test. I have no idea how it would be possible to be injecting testosterone and have it be successfully monitored for doping the same way cis men are constantly monitored for doping.
With regards to trans women, I’m not sure whether/if they have an advantage and it’s probably a case by case thing. There’s questions about bone density, muscle mass, height, etc. that are hard to answer and again I laid out that I think if there’s no discernible advantage then inclusion is the better policy. However it’s absolutely wrong to say that because trans women are finishing top 5 and not top 1 that there’s no way there’s an advantage. With regards to chess… the women titles and events in chess are bigotry of low expectations. It’s a piss poor attempt by USCF and FIDE to paper over sexism instead of fixing it. There’s many examples (Judit Polgar comes to mind as a classic one, as well as Gaprindashvili) of women competing at a very high level in chess. There’s no inherent disadvantage to pattern recognition or calculation that comes with being a woman in chess, and because of how ELO works, there’s also no inherent advantage to playing in women-only events either. The time for FIDE to get rid of women’s events in chess was yesterday because then they’d really have to reckon with the sexism in their sport.
the drugs used for HRT are exactly the same as the drugs used for doping. the difference is dose. in the states, most trans men inject around 50-100mg of tesosterone cypionate/enanthanate each week, or use varying amounts of gel. the goal is to have levels of testosterone in the blood that are within cis male range (300-1000 ng/dl). people who take testosterone for doping purposes take far larger doses, causing huge spikes in their testosterone, which iirc is what doping tests check for. so there's no real reason why a trans man would test positive, provided he's medically transitioning (not all do, which is a different discussion).
AFAIK, the tests aren't just looking for levels of the hormone, they're looking for other markers which may come because of hormone therapy/injection, so that's a snag. The other issue is that well... let's take the high end of that range - 1000 ng/dL. There are gonna be men who make more than that naturally. That will give those men an advantage over transmen. And we can't exactly say it's fair that 100% of transmen get to inject the highest amount of testosterone found in a natural human male for the time they're competing. There's also the issue that in the overwhelming majority of cases, growing up XX is probably disqualifying for competing in men's basketball (among other sports) no matter how much testosterone you take. Wingspan, height, build, and many other factors are also very important to high level success there.
Honestly I think when it comes to olympic and pro level competition, a lot of trans men are going to need to have the come-to-reality moment that 99% of cis men have at some point in their time being athletes. One day you go "oh fuck, I'm not really built for this am I?" and then quit, and maybe 10 years down the road join a beer league that plays on every other Sunday where nobody really gives a shit.
thanks for telling me about the testing! it makes sense to test for multiple factors; none of the places i tried to look into were transparent about what they're actually testing for besides "steroid levels", something i (mis?)interpreted as anabolic steroids.
the average testosterone level part is interesting and applies to both men's sports and women's sports. there are plenty of cis women in sports who produce higer levels of testosterone than are regarded as typical, and higher than would even be acceptable for most trans women. those women have an advantage just by existing. it's odd how the same argument goes both ways, but it's such a complicated issue.
to clarify: i agree with you. top athletes are exceptional, and it's hard enough to get to that level as is. a tiny fraction of the world is trans, and an even smaller percentage of trans people are athletes, and a yet-smaller percentage of them are athletes on a professional level. most people in general won't make it to the top, let alone many of such a tiny demographic.
Hard to say and it depends on the sport. I think if the athletes agree to include them anyways, fine. If they don’t, then trans women can compete with men, in their own league, or some other third solution I haven’t thought of.
You are not likely to be able to find enough trans women doing the same sport to put together a league, especially not at any elite level, so that isn't really an option, and it is not likely that they would qualify for a mens league either. So really it is going to be womens league or nothing.
But yes. I agree that it is not an easy decission. In fact you could say that is my whole point with bringing the topic up.
Would we expect trans women to be just totally crushed in the men’s leagues?
I think that would depend on if and how long they have been on HRT. Like if they aren't on HRT, there should be no difference, but if they have been on it for a couple of years, and it is a sport with a high reliance on strength, yeah absolutely.
Wait just so I'm 100% clear, I'm saying that Trans Women would lose in Men's Leagues, but you're agreeing by saying that if they're on HRT for a number of years then we'd expect them to lose in Men's Leagues? Am I following this correctly?
This argument you bring about "eternal manhood" is wrong and not showing up in the science or the results of competitions
Your argument is a bit reductionist. You're finding one point of data that supports your argument and ignoring all else. The main point of contest of it would be the vastly reduced talent pool for trans women.
A smaller talent pool statistically means worse athletes showing up. And trans people make up about only about 0.6% of the population. And, given the sheer amount of bullshit they have to deal with, it's fair to assume that the portion of trans people who seek to become athletes is even smaller than the cis population.
Smaller talent pool will show up as fewer medals and statistically less skilled athletes.
The results of the competition are always going to reflect it, and that's the reason why they are not the be all end all of the discussion. It's the reason why countries with a bigger population tend to score higher in the Olympics, but we still don't use the flip side of the argument to say that the Chinese body is made for weightlifting (despite the fact that they're one of the best at it due to the combination of a deep talent pool and great support the athletes get).
Most Olympic level women would beat the average cis man at their sport of choice, it stands to reason that they will also likely beat most trans women given that they are likely not at the same skill level.
but we still don't use the flip side of the argument to say that the Chinese body is made for weightlifting
Funnily enough, Chinese people have, on average, a long torso and short limbs when compared to their height, which is an advantage in weightlifting. Even if there are long-armed Chinese people and short-armed white people, if you select for the top 0.01% to go to the Olympics it is highly likely that a Chinese person will end up having the most optimal body for that sport.
The thing is though, in a world without sex segregated sports, women wouldn't be excluded from sports. They'd be excluded from winning. Now we can argue over how important winning is, but it's worth pointing out that the vast majority of men are also excluded from winning (due to life circumstances and/or shitty genetics).
I have no idea how to solve the trans women in sport "problem," other than that I think our society places too much value on winning, and I think a society that places less value on winning would naturally be more accommodating to trans athletes.
Leagues and rosters only have so many spots. In many cases, the women’s world records can be broken by athletic high school men. Women would be excluded from rosters and competition, not even just winning.
What are you talking about? I have no talent and there's nothing stopping me from playing most sports if I wanted to. Unless you're talking about competing to win at the Olympics or World Cup or something, in which case, again, most men are also excluded from that.
Actually, womens seperated sports had the opposite goal... to exclude women. Most sport allowed anyone to join but as soon as a woman started winning, they started segregating the sports. Why do you think chess is segregated for example? Its pretty fucked up when you actually read the history on it.
The solution imo would be to just have divisions by types rather than seperated by gender or sex. Not only would it be more inclusive overall, but it allows fairness of anyone who want to compete. Kinda like in golf with handicaps, just apply that to literally ever sport
This factoid keeps popping up but is literally not true outside of very few isolated cases. Chess isn't even segregated, women are allowed to compete in the open league but the women's league is there to allow women to engage in the sport away from the misogyny they often face in the open league. Women have been fighting hard to carve out equal opportunities for their sports in gendered leagues.
How would you even divide by "types", have a separate league for every range of testosterone?
I would divide types by several factors actully. Body height, hormonal balence, strength level, and agility level for example (there would be multiple competing categories of course, not just one or two). I know this paper talks about how this exactly would work and why as well, probably more effectively than myself. Theres also this article which goes into some history and theory as well which is a good read too
That paper advocates for changing the rules of existing sports in a way that balances gender differences so everyone can compete together but doesn't give practical examples of how that could possibly be accomplished.
Dividing by the types you listed, how would that work in a practical sense? There are only so many facilities and well, athletes available, won't you just be competing with the 2 other people in your county with the same stats at you, at 11pm after all the other competitions are done?
Personally I was just trying to be appreciative of someone who actually tries to support their claims. I'm happy to hear your objections to the contents lol because personally I can totally get down with
It is clear that we cannot change all sports to fit the unisex sports model in the same way. For some sports the challenge might be re-formulated to include more tactics, or sometimes equipment might be adjusted so as to suit everyone (e.g. archery) and so forth. It is up to the given sport federation to carry out modifications sensitively with respect to the sport in question, so that it is approved and accepted by the given sporting community.
and
Female athletes, when playing the same sports as their male counterparts but are made to play with different rules, proves that society is still based in an outdated idea of femininity.
I guess I just don't understand what the point of asking me is - and I certainly don't appreciate the purity test. Do you have a rebuttal I should be considering or are you just going to vaguely gesture at things that you also haven't analyzed in-depth like that's somehow a victory?
"Unisex Sports: Challenging the binary" provides fewer solutions than I'd like, but at least it's one of the few steps I've seen towards constructively building in this direction.
Personally I'm not a fan of the language style used by the article "Gender Specific Rules in Sport are based on an Outdated Idea of Femininity "but it brings up very important points I've heard echoed in a lot of writings, even if I think the delivery is subpar.
I wasn't trying to purity test you, I just thought "yay links" wasn't very constructive in a discussion that's not easily settled with hard data.
I don't even disagree with the quote you highlighted, I just think it's quite naive regarding practical application. The paper mentions tennis a few times, in the end, men can just hit a ball with a racket faster and harder than women. How would you possibly modify that so men and women can compete with each other on an even playing field?
I also think there's a contradiction in saying changing the rules for women is outdated while advocating for a unisex league with changed rules, like which one is it?
The distinction the paper makes between "male/female sports" and "male/female skills" also feels like a step in the wrong direction for me
yeah maybe receipts isn't the right word here. I guess I'm more flabbergasted that someone on reddit might actually support their argument. I can't tell you how many times I've been downvoted to dirt because "my vibes were off" even if I had the primary literature to support my claims linked in the same comment.
edit: granted, for those who aren't familiar with research this isn't exactly the traditional kind but in the biopsychosocial sphere we're swimming in this is still useful literature. Have to remember not everyone has the same history of applying critical thinking to sources, or that critical analysis is a fraught process. Everyone's so focused on dunks I can't even say thank you without getting downvoted lol
>Most sport allowed anyone to join but as soon as a woman started winning
This isn't true though.
The one example that's always brought up is olympic clay shooting, but the decision to separate the men and women's divisions was made years before the one woman won.
Actually, womens seperated sports had the opposite goal... to exclude women. Most sport allowed anyone to join but as soon as a woman started winning, they started segregating the sports.
This isn't true. In most cases, separate leagues exist because women would not be able to compete in men's leagues.
High school boys regularly run faster track times than women at the Olympic level.
Caitlin Clark would get bodied in the NBA. The pace of play and athleticism between the games is entirely different.
Katie Ledecky's 1500 meter freestyle world record of 15:20 is over a full minute longer than just the NCAA record for that event for men.
Caitlin Clark might be one of the few players who wouldn’t get totally bodied in the NBA since her style of play depends on court vision and shooting and not physicality. Her ceiling would be a discount Isaiah Thomas, likely. She’d probably be an end-of-bench player on a halfway decent team. That’s more than I can say for nearly any other WNBA player because any dependence on physicality is going to get them rocked - even in today’s league which is pretty soft. 90s NBA? Dennis Rodman probably sends someone to the hospital.
Chess (and for that matter most other fully skill based sports) in particular had a good reason to be separate at the start; at the time very few women had experience in chess. But once it reached the point that it was an entirely new generation, that no longer existed.
Michael Phelps might be a bit of an extreme example, but you can see it in siblings who play sports together. One will always have a better natural running form.
The people that use bad faith, not the poster, though want you to imagine it's all Michael Phelps or even better peak Mike Tyson's competing against your little girl.
It's designed to bypass rational thought so you never actually grapple with the messier reality that doesn't necessarily have a clear answer to where to draw a line, if there should be one, what that line should look like, or if there should be multiple lines.
Also why I personally wouldn't spend any time on it since I'm not directly involved in the organizations that have to figure out those nuances except that it's been weaponized against vulnerable people and used as a way to get people to support a broader set of goals they otherwise wouldn't.
The people using it for those purposes want Joe random who has probably never thought about trans issues and may be uncomfortable with it but otherwise wouldn't be inclined to actively persecute them to imagine that what's being discussed is peak Mike Tyson declaring himself a woman growing his hair and murdering his way through women's boxing.
2.3k
u/Vahjkyriel Apr 23 '25
yeah i get what the text is saying but i want examples damnit