I wrote, over on Facebook, in a discussion thread started by my son John, who linked to an NBC story, "Girls sue to block participation of transgender athletes/The families of three female high school runners filed a federal suit seeking to block trans athletes in Connecticut from participating in girls sports."
One of the participants in the discussion pointed to his own essay, "The Discriminatory Costs of Preserving Women’s-Only Sports." Excerpt:
The past half century will be looked back on as the golden era of women's sport, where segregated categories gave women a chance to compete on a playing field that excludes men, transgender people and intersex people.... Eliminating gender restrictions would make sport... would have a crushing effect on women athletes, especially those who currently compete to earn a salary or a scholarship. In a gender-free meritocracy, almost every scholarship would go to men.... “Traditional” womens-only sport is at a confounding impasse: eliminate the restrictions to compete in an act of “inclusion as highest value” OR accept the necessity of discrimination in an attempt to protect the status quo.I remember the pre-Title IX days. I never considered participating in any sport or regarded any female athlete as an inspiration. My friends didn't do competitive sports. We hated gym class, and we were only interested in doing some simple calisthenics for the purpose of looking good. The gym teachers seemed to regard us as a worthless bunch, and I think they were vaguely amused, not terribly upset with our lack of competitive spirit.
Today, the pressure to be empathetic toward transgenders is so great that I believe women, known for our empathy and our desire to appear compassionate, will let go of competitive sports and return to the inclinations that dominated back in the days when I went to high school. It's a trade-off, a trade-off between the potential for athletic victory and the feeling of being kind and inclusive. The latter is something quite valuable and within the reach of all women. The former is a dream, and it's only a dream for an elite few among women.
UPDATE: More discussion here.
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327 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 327 of 327Maybe those pesky weight divisions should be removed from wrestling and boxing. That could get interesting.
What is a woman? What does it mean "to be" a woman?
Is there some objective criteria?
And is "identifying" as something ipso facto equal to "being" it?
Someone with a penis says, "I am female." How? Why? What brought that person to that conclusion? Not anatomy. Not biology. Not genetics. Then what? Feelings?
"Man, I feel like a woman!" Is that it? Well, "feel" how? Based on what?
Based on some stereotypical concept of what a "woman" is? Someone with long hair and make up and a soft voice and being "known for our empathy and our desire to appear compassionate"??
Is that what makes a "woman"??
And everybody must be classified into some "demographic" or other, and all "sports" must be organized into leagues with rules and legal exceptions from anti-trust and anti-slavery laws, etc.
It's the American way!
chromosomes, baby.
After considering althuaes idiotic position, long with the left's in general, how many wone to men trannies have competed in men's sports?
If that is what makes a woman, then the Women's Liberation Front is spot on when it points out --
Legally redefining “female” as anyone who claims to be female results in the erasure of female people as a class. If, as a matter of law, anyone can be a woman, then no one is a woman, and sex-based protections in the law have no meaning whatsoever. . . .
[If] women and girls are no longer recognized under federal law as a discrete category worthy of civil rights protection, but men and boys who claim to have a female “gender identity” are, [it] ultimately works to erase women and girls under the law. . . .
In stark contrast to sex, “gender” and “gender identity” refer to stereotypical roles, personalities, behavioral traits, and clothing fashions that are socially imposed on men and women, in a system that operates to oppress women in particular. “Gender identity” is simply a belief system, invented and embraced by a small subset of society, which claims that a person’s affinity for sex stereotypes is innate.
Odd, isn't it, that a woman who touts women's special capacity for caring and compassion has no effing clue about other people's perspective, completely and rigidly and self-satisfiedly ensconced as she is in her own conceptions, always a winner in her own mind.
Odd that she should embrace sexual stereotypes to justify limiting women?
Her history of ideological blindness leading to absurdity speaks for itself.
Separate Men’s and Women’s sports are just a system of handicapping so that the two groups have an equal probability of winning within group. Adding people with high probability of winning to one group destroys the equal probability of win goal. The basis of the whole system is undermined and continuing to operate the system is an exercise in phoneyness.
"If we take women out of sports they will get fat."
Wrong. We had daily PE in Calif in the 60s. We all played sports, even intramural stuff. It was a nice break from the classroom. But it didn't get all serious before Title 9. No one missed it.
And there was only one fat girl per school too.
Go figure.
Despite his narcisco-like post, Curious makes an interesting point.
How many women to men trans have competed in men's sports?
Inclusiveness is a suicide pact. You have to surrender your own identity to include those who don't intersect with yours.
You could do what they do for gay baseball leagues (subject of a lawsuit that made it news) - a team is limited in the (small) number of non-gay players it can field.
The idea being that a gay league is a league made up from a smaller population and would have only a few stars; but if you recruit from everybody, you can get as many stars as you want. But then it would compete upwards and no gays could play at all.
mccullough said...
Certainly the girls who identify as boys aren’t going to compete in sports much.
******************
Exactly.
It's obvious that the trans-women know they can't **compete** with other males, but sure as hell can **dominate** the women.
One more sign of how FUBAR they are.
The goal of women's sports is not to make transgender men feel affirmed as women is it? If that is the goal, then tell them that to learn to be a woman they need to let other sisters win.
The important question is: can I now hit from the ladies’ tees?
I’ve noted this several times before: when the topic turns to LGBTs, Ann loses 30 IQ points.
I see that our hostess is on one of her "morality consists of sharing Althouse's preferences" jags this evening. Her moral dudgeon predictably arising from other people caring about stuff she doesn't like (and that she's probably still nursing some residual butt-hurt from high school about).
It needs to be so important that it outbalances the interest in being kind and inclusive towards transgenders.
Who decided that "being inclusive toward transgenders" is an important interest? Before you get on your high horse about it, make the argument for the sublimely idiotic position that there is some moral necessity to be "inclusive towards transgenders" in women's sports. (It's so sublimely idiotic that I still think you're putting us on.)
Why should the excellent academic student pay so much to go to college while money is shoveled at someone with athletic gifts and the willingness to put immense amounts of time into physical competition?
I don't understand sports scholarships either (or college sports, period), but the real problem here is any student "pay[ing] so much to go to college". Higher education is a racket; the cost of higher education is an obscenity. Whatever deformations of academic life are a consequence of over-emphasis on athletics, and whatever unfairness there is in athletic scholarships, these are trivial issues relative to that.
Althouse is saying that women are conformist, so if society tells them to step aside for the trannies, they'll do so. She's probably right about women being conformist, but it's not clear to me that society will tell them to step aside.
I’ve noted this several times before: when the topic turns to LGBTs, Ann loses 30 IQ points.
Yeah, but the thing is this -- the T doesn't only erase women, the T erases the L and G too.
How many gay men are eager to have a relationship with a "trans-man" who says "he" is also "gay"?
How many lesbians want to jump on that "trans-woman"?
Here's where Althouse's "kind and inclusive" attitude leads--straight to hell for both straights and gays:
"Elites’ reckless applause for transgenderism is a massive medical threat to vulnerable kids who may otherwise grow up as gay or lesbian, says an op-ed by two university biologists.
“Biologists and medical professionals need to stand up for the empirical reality of biological sex,” wrote Colin Wright from Penn State and Emma Hilton from the University of Manchester. Under the Wall Street Journal’s headline, “The Dangerous Denial of Sex,” the two biologists continued:
The denial of biological sex also erases homosexuality, as same-sex attraction is meaningless without the distinction between the sexes. Many activists now define homosexuality as attraction to the “same gender identity” rather than the same sex. This view is at odds with the scientific understanding of human sexuality. Lesbians have been denounced as “bigots” for expressing a reluctance to date men who identify as women. The successful normalization of homosexuality could be undermined by miring it in an untenable ideology."
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/02/15/wsj-elites-enthusiasm-for-transgenderism-endangers-gay-lesbian-youth/
"Man, I feel like a woman!" Is that it? Well, "feel" how? Based on what?
Obviously, based on your willingness to let someone else walk all over your dreams and aspirations, and you will give up without a fight.
While I concede that Althouse has a point, and I also think that there is a lot of motivated reasoning going on in the comments here, I would like to answer “Why is it important to finish first in a race?” however it was phrased.
To score chicks.
Irony abounds in this proposition of letting go of women's sports. The original push for women to be more like men by getting into sports ends with the women caving when men start getting into women's sports with the emotional blackmail of their feelings being hurt if women don't buy their biologically incorrect self-identity.
As additional irony, in letting go of women's sports, transgender participation in sports would probably also mostly disappear, meaning it would be a sacrifice for nothing in return other than perhaps women feeling good about themselves.
Note - in general, this idea demonstrates why in the end societies tend to prefer men in leadership positions, men are more likely to make the hard choice without letting their emotions get in the way.
Beyond team sports, there's running, but you can run for your own personal best, for your health and enjoyment.
Welcome to the world of competitive sports. If you check your times you are competing, even if it is just with yourself. Other opponents just provide a different measuring system. Introducing men into women's sports provides an unfairly imposed measuring system. I say you should impose an olympic athlete times on yourself, not your personal best. But that would be unfair I suppose.
"The important question is: can I now hit from the ladies’ tees?”
I was informed by my daughter that they are the “forward tees boomer!”
"Man, I feel like a woman!" Is that it? Well, "feel" how? Based on what?
Obviously, based on your willingness to let someone else walk all over your dreams and aspirations, and you will give up without a fight.
Well, if that is what "woman" is, then of course the trans-woman must be expected to be that too. And that would just end up in an infinite loop of each saying to the other, "After you, Alphonse," and no one ever going first.
The girls locker room had nice plush cotton towels. The boy's shower was barely usable. We had PAPER towels, big 3'x 4' sheets of paper. We were given 2 sheets each.
I remember quite clearly that we had to bring our own towels with us for use after the week's one or two gym classes.
Yes, "today the pressure to be empathetic toward transgenders is so great" that--wait, is it really empathy when it is the result of pressure? It is conformity or timidity or giving up in the face of overwhelming wokeness. I would hate to have that conflated with "empathy."
After all, who is losing in this conflict--the transgenders who arguably want to find an easier place to win in sports, or the women who face being pushed out of the competitions that had been set up expressly for them? It seems to me that the empathy should be directed to the women who are threatened with being evicted from their own fields.
"Balls" said the Queen. "If I had 'em I'd be King."
“ Today, the pressure to be empathetic toward transgenders is so great that I believe women, known for our empathy and our desire to appear compassionate, will let go of competitive sports and return to the inclinations that dominated back in the days when I went to high school.“
I would hate to see that happen. What would be more fair would be to give them their own categories: 1) He/She’s and 2) She/He’s.
I wouldn’t expect the 2nd one to be much in demand, which says a lot about the entire enterprise.
The problem is more general. When we design policies to favor one group over another (separate track events for men and women) and then expand the list of favored groups (not just women but individuals with penises who identify as women) then problems arise as the original preference group (women) lose some of the benefits intended with the original policy. The same erosion will be seen more and more in affirmative action as policies intended to help "American blacks" (descendants of people who were slaves in the US) are used more and more to benefit people with black skin (such as Barack Obama) who are not "American blacks" (as defined earlier in this sentence).
Small families starting in the 70s meant that many men never had a son to re-llive his (perhaps imaginary) sports days. Girls can be taught tennis, basketball baseball skills as early as boys. I wondered how much of the pressure for Title IX came from fathers (and mothers) who looked at athletic scholarships as an alternate route to afford college for their girls who weren't academically gifted. But it may have started as a father just wanting a son to throw the pill around with.
I'm a year younger than you and was engaged in competitive sports all through high school and college--as were pretty much all the girls I knew (who weren't complete spazzes).Girls played team and individual sports, even though in those days they weren't useful for getting accepted into a top college as they are today (thanks Title IX); it was just fun and a great way to be competitive while not being considered inappropriately aggressive which, in those days, was frowned upon. I'm kind of surprised that you and your crowd were so passive....
If any of us girl athletes had been compelled to compete with boys identifying as girls--especially in power sports like rowing or track events--we and our parents would have protested, just as the girls/women subjected to this do today. Back in the 60s/70s yeah, sure, bias against transgenders would have played a role. Today it might for some, but honestly, the love of competition and the chance to win would be paramount, not animus toward the non-girl girl. It's unfortunate that the personal feelings of the few are allowed to run roughshod over fairness for the many.
Did you not garner a bit of a rush when you finished first at law school?
You're obviously a highly competitive person. That trait is one of the reasons for your or anyone's success.
I don't get it. If this shit went on when I went to high school in the 70s, the boys would take one of those pretend girls aside and tell them to drop out of GIRLS competition or they would make it so they could not physically compete again. You know, break a leg or an arm to get the message across.
THEOLDMAN
But that's toxic masculinity so let's let girls lose to pretend girls.
And just because you copped an attitude in high school that made you feel cool amongst your fellow attitudinals doesn't give a solid justification for downplaying the value of atheletic competition for others.
Wild chicken, see my post at 4:56.
Times have changed since we were in school.
"I can't even imagine it, but I've love to see it."
Having seen it, I can't imagine wanting to see women's rugby again. It was truly disgusting. Like seeing two fat girls having a fist fight.
Re: Complaining about athletic scholarships --
From Wisconsin State Journal:
The UW athletic department has more than 800 athletes across 23 sports, with nearly 400 full-time staff members. It is a self-sustaining operation
Transgenders would have little impact on ice Skating because most top level ice skaters start before the age of 12. Any guy who decided to become a woman at 18 and then become a ice skater would be out of luck. Further, most women skaters are under 5-7. That's because Tall skaters have the following disadvantages:
-A greater force is required for a tall skater to jump.
-Shorter legs have a quicker 'burst' of energy.
-Tall skaters have a higher center of gravity, making it easier to fall and more difficult to spin.
-Starting and stopping long limbs is more difficult.
Trans have more muscle mass and are taller and heavier. But that's not the most important thing in ice skating.
Meanwhile University of Wisconsin football takes in about $90 million per year. Guess where a lot of that money goes?
I like the Rugby sevens. I watched the Rugby union world championship and was disappointed by how sluggish and dull the game was.
Yes, I mean figure skating.
Does anyone care about speed skating except Norwegians?
I grew up in Iowa where girls had sports before title IX. I played sports in HS But just intra murals in college. I am a mother of a boy and a girl. My daughter is like our host — physically fit but not competitive. She was recruited at college orientation by the rowing team looking for girls who looked Strong with long arms. She laughed it off. My son who is/was a great baseball player would have had to go to. D2 instead of a D1 school if he wanted to play in college. This is what is wrong with Title IX — women and men are not the same and the numbers should not be forced to be equal. But I still would not want women to have to give up spots to men competing as women.
Transgenders would have little impact on ice Skating because most top level ice skaters start before the age of 12.
Men's ice skaters start before the age of 12 too.
Quite easy for one of them to declare that he is a she.
If Bruce Jenner can do it, so can some current Olympian.
Renee Richards transitioned to woman's professional tennis in the mid 70's. As far as I can remember, in those days people work as hung up about trannies as they are now. It's probably just a perception thing because the extremists on both sides have access to MSM distribution via social media.
I'm still married to Betty who stroked our college woman's heavyweight eight in the late 1970s. We met in the weight room.
Make a third category for transpersons. They can all compete against each other.
Everyone goes home happy.
Not really sure why this is so controversial an idea, except maybe that if they did so it would reveal in stark relief how microscopically small the affected group is in this entire trans moment in society.
Black voters will be especially pleased, methinks, since they'll recognize that if society can move to racing to accommodate trans concerns, that'd mean that Black inequities in society have been addressed and remedied.
lol. There's why it'll never happen, in a nutshell.
The whole transgender thing being accepted by society as normal so readily shows how insane the liberals are and how powerful they have become. And this problem shows how totally evil and insane is the result. Anyone who can't see this is morally blind.
Carville asked the question of the day, " Have we lost our XXXXXXX minds?"
Yes we have James, thanks to the kind of fools you are associated with.
Ann—I was very interested in your comment about women wanting to “appear “ compassionate. I know how precise you are about language. Did you really mean appear instead of be?
"It is a self-sustaining operation."
Since the money the men make gets distributed to the women. Cuz equality.
No longer will the meek inherit the earth. Now the insane trannies are catered to and pushed to the front of the line.
No longer will the meek inherit the earth. Now the insane trannies are catered to and pushed to the front of the line.
"Does anyone care about speed skating except Norwegians?"
Hmm. Googling is too hard?
Anyway, check out the world records getting set in -- Salt Lake City. Where, to the amazement of our hostess, a bunch of people have been trying to win races.
I am Father of a daughter who ran high school track at a very High level of competition some years back - Reebok Games - Penn Relays etc
The level of commitment to daily training was remarkably intense. I cannot imagine having all of her hard work and perseverance
Rendered worth less by men competing as faux women in her sport.
For decades high level athletics has tested women and men for the use of steroids and hormones. The notion that steroids and hormones
We’re rightly deemed as unethical as they allowed the user to gain unfair edge but some how outright biological men in drag are some how politically correct is simply Delusional. If this absurdly bizarre and grossly unfair movement is not stopped in its tracks women’s athletics will be destroyed.
The parents of these women athletes have to take a stand and boycott any event that allows so called transgenders to compete.
I can see this topic is triggering, but you really do need to try to keep your wits about you. Way too much fighting a straw man here. I wrote simply to PREDICT where the trend would lead. I'm not saying what I think should happen. Those who are fighting ME seem to be simply protesting fate. I am not fate. I am a person observing the landscape and seeing where the path leads. If I'm wrong, it's not for reasons you folks are stating. It would have to be because my prediction is wrong. Is ANYONE here even attempting to say why my PREDICTION is wrong? Maybe I missed a comment in there, so please point it out if anyone did. Otherwise, you're shadow boxing in the dark. No Olympic medals for that.
Tall skaters have a higher center of gravity, making it easier to fall and more difficult to spin.
A higher center of gravity makes falling take longer and gives you more time to recover.
You can balance a tall rod on your finger much more easily than a short one.
Well, I think your prediction is wrong.
Over time, as hoi polloi, empathetic females included, figure out that going through puberty as a male gives the women who grew up that way lasting advantages in almost all competitor sports, pretty much everyone who watches sports will eventually not want to watch the unfairness of female-idenitifed people who grew up male outscoring and beating up on female people who grew up female.
I do not think that most people, right now, have thought about it much, so right now it is all about "TRIUMPH" for that subset of people who claim to be women after having grown up as men, and who want to WIN WIN WIN in women's sports, regardless of the unfairness of their desire to WIN WIN WIN ... but in a few years it will be obvious to everybody that the advantages are unfair.
Nobody likes to watch games that are inherently unfair.
Ok, I think your prediction is wrong. I think enough women (and men, liberals as well as conservatives) have a serious stake in this and the outcome as it is now headed is so obviously unfair and destructive that it will not prevail. There will be legislation as some states have already started, that defines what a woman is and what a man is. It’s astounding that it could be necessary, but I think it will happen.
Falling depends on gravity g (32 ft/sec^2) and length L (ft). If they're both in there, a time has to come out, sqrt(L/g), which has dimensions of seconds. So time to fall varies as the square root of how tall you are. Taller takes longer.
This lesson brought to you by dimensional analysis, the most magical trick in physics. Translates an intuition into a formula.
Scott Adams points out that the point of sports is humiliation of the losers. This is all just moving around who the losers are, but the sport is the same.
"I wrote simply to PREDICT"
No. For example:
"I really don't see why team sports like rowing and soccer and basketball are given such primacy."
"Why is it important to beat someone else in a race?"
Anyway: most of us disgreed with the prediction, disagreed with the postulated mechanism, and disagreed with what we take be the cluelessness exhibited. Being competitive, argumentative men and women, we enjoy the disagreement, of course -- but "trigger"? That's a girly move, if you know what I mean.
Winner chosen before the race by lot would take care of it, as to disparate impact.
Ann, next time you're in Colorado go to Adams State in Pueblo. It is a woman's Div II track and field and xc powerhouse. Look at all the All American plaques awarded to woman athletes and check with a few and see if they are willing to just step aside for transgender men.
BTW, Sex is binary.
https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2020/02/14/a-defense-of-the-binary-in-human-sex/
Aunty Trump said...
While I concede that Althouse has a point, and I also think that there is a lot of motivated reasoning going on in the comments here, I would like to answer “Why is it important to finish first in a race?” however it was phrased.
To score chicks.
****************
Yeah, I'm sure that's why the ancient Athenians and Spartans held their Olympics.
To score chicks.
I'm sure that's why Jesse Owens sought the Gold in Berlin.
To score chicks.
I'm sure that's why the US Women's Soccer team won the Gold.
To score chicks.
(Actually, there's an element of truth in that...)
rhhardin said...
Scott Adams points out that the point of sports is humiliation of the losers. This is all just moving around who the losers are, but the sport is the same.
**********
Yeah, that's it....that's it.
That's why none of the fans of the teams that didn't make the Superbowl watch that game by the millions---to finally watch the teams that humiliated *their* teams get humiliated.
Makes perfect sense...if you're crazy as a shithouse rat.
“Why should the excellent academic student pay so much to go to college while money is shoveled at someone with athletic gifts and the willingness to put immense amounts of time into physical competition?”
Oh, dear. I’m not saying I agree with the current model of college sports, because I don’t, but I understand the logic of it. Do you not?
The lady doth protest too much, me thinks.
But that too is standard practice -- blaming others for not getting it when confronted with how untenable her position is.
I’d never really thought about it much, but the professor makes a great point/observation here. Just one of the many reasons why I keep reading.
Very late to the conversation here.
Ann, I'm a decade or so younger than you are (turning 60 this year, gah), was not athletic in the least, and have raised 5 kids - 4 boys and 1 girl, most of whom are interested in sports as spectators and fans, none of whom competed much in athletics beyond middle school. And I sure as hell didn't.
But this is an issue that makes me want to punch someone. I don't give a flip about sports from a personal perspective, but I would fight *hard* for the rights of women and girls to have their own spaces, including athletic fields, and I would hope any self-described feminist would feel - yes, *feel* - the same way.
First off, it's not an issue of "trans folks" competing against girls and women. It's about boys competing against girls and men against women. Period.
We can take this conversation in all sorts of interesting directions, but it really should begin there, with the correct language and the right words and definitions. It's not, "Should a transwoman/girl compete against natal or cis women/girls?" It's, plain and simple - should men and boys be competing in women and girl's sports events and categories?
Hopefully, this coming Olympics will clarify matters a great deal.
Actually, winners do and did score. Athletics, to include skillful dancing, are conspicuous displays of sexual fitness; higher civilizations sublimate the competition into other forms of art while retaining the originals. Guys (and girls and guy-girls) like to show off, and whether it's a football or a guitar any jock or musician who says attracting the preferred sex wasn't a big part of it is lying IMHO.
And of course physical activity is important for health at any age. My wife has turned into an exercise freak, and is and looks more fit than she has in decades (if ever); I ought to follow her example but what does she know?
As far as competition, teamwork, etc etc learned by participation in organized/competitive sport, all I know is that I'm plenty competitive (when I care about the game or the prize) and it's possible to learn teamwork by working. I spent as much time working while in junior high and high school as the athletes spent practicing and playing, over a calendar year, and never spent a moment thinking I was missing out on something important.
Our son's best friend growing up was the fiercely competitive daughter of fiercely competitive (liberal) lawyers who had been athletes, who lived across the street.
She amassed academic and athletic honors and garnered a soccer scholarship to Grinnell, and is doing very well in journalism.
But my son, without having to work, was no more inclined to sport than his parents, with the exception of rugby, where I told him to put up or shut up. He played, badly, on a team that lost every game that year; I still know nothing about the game.
That said, nobody in my immediate family (except, ironically, the two brothers who had athletic capabilities and interests, and died youngish) spends any time doing or watching others do sports. It's a matter of temperament, and early influence, among other things.
The gender and identity issues are things to be resolved by people with skin or kidskin in the game.
Narr
They are many, and vocal! Good job, Prof
Aside from “victories” and “championships" I’ll start the list of things that are valuable and laudable in all team sports: Just a few are: collaboration, leadership, willingness to sacrifice (playing time, taking onfa new role or position, etc) for the good of a larger goal, resolving personal differences, overcoming adversity, respect for rules, dedication to personal and group improvement, discipline, appreciation of excellence, harmonious relationships across racial/ethnic/demographic lines, sportsmanship, self confidence … many more as well. All of us who have played sports know the significance of these aspects. So let’s not put these “team” and “competitive” things on the shelf; as a society we need more of all these things, especially among our youth. Bands/orchestras, debate teams, dance companies, theater companies, etc., also can build such things, but in sports they are at the core.
But sports, more than the others mentioned, has the challenge of recognizing males' and females’ inherent size, strengh, speed, and other physical attributes and abilities.
So how to deal with the whole transgender-type aspects of competitive sports? My take: we need girls’ and women’s sports. We need boys’ and men’s sports. And then we need a third category as well, such as “open”. It would be coed-plus. Anyone who is not naturally male or female can compete in this “open” category, as could a male or a female just because they prefer to. Done deal.
Those who are fighting ME seem to be simply protesting fate.
Oy, vey!
Ann, next time you're in Colorado go to Adams State in Pueblo.
Adams State is in Alamosa
Those who are fighting ME seem to be simply protesting fate.
Notice AA isn't fighting back against her "prediction." She's not urging her younger sisters to fight, to not give in to this "fate," to demand that women's athletics be preserved.
She doesn't do any of that but, instead, seems to welcome her "prediction," to welcome this asserted "fate."
And then she protests that we misread her. That everyone here is wrong.
Make a third category for transpersons. They can all compete against each other.
Everyone goes home happy.
No, they would not be happy. If they were placed in a separate category it would indicate that they are not "true women". That's the crux of the problem. They believe that they are complete 100% women in the fullest sense of the word and anything that would indicate this is not the case is oppressive to them. And anyone who suggest such a division is a bigot.
If they were placed in a separate category it would indicate that they are not "true women".
Political congruence ("="), and the beginning of the transgender schism that threatens to rend the Rainbow.
I come back to the question I've posed multiple times over the last several months. A question which no one has yet to even attempt to answer.
It's a question particularly posed to those who advocate this transgender idea --
What is the definition of a "woman"?
Interesting that with 275 comments, none is defending the proposition. And only Althouse is predicting this will continue in the future. This leads me to think Ann’s prediction is wrong.
Why should the Prof, or anyone else, "demand that women's athletics be preserved"?
Everybody with a clue knows that most American public-school sports programs suck resources out of the classroom to enhance the self-esteem of mediocre coaches and jock-sniffing administrators and fill dusty cases with overpriced trophies. EWAC also knows full well that this is because most American children no longer are capable of much serious learning, most of their parents don't care, and most of the teachers couldn't teach effectively if they did--which means the $$$ would be wasted in the classroom anyway.
There are exceptions, but clearly the culture exalts certain sports and sportspersons beyond adult reason; because those people are good at certain narrow skills and not much else, what they are good at must be admired and what they are poor at is downgraded.
Narr
That's my lived experience and I'm going to bed
What is the definition of a "woman"?
A woman is female sex, feminine gender (i.e. sex correlated physical and mental attributes) normally distributed, and a social construct (e.g. clothing style) that normalizes a favorable juxtaposition of the sexes.)
AA's prediction is certainly plausible, it would follow the pattern seen in Rotherham and Germany where when a protected minority class comes into town, the women either self-censor their complaints or they are forced into silence by the powers that be.
It is not the only way that this could all play out, it is simply the most likely until people with the sanity and courage to reject all the nonsense of the sexual revolution are in charge again. Not just that men cannot become women and vice versa, but also that men and women are physically, mentally, and emotionally different in meaningful ways.
cyrus83 said...
"AA's prediction is certainly plausible, it would follow the pattern seen in Rotherham and Germany where when a protected minority class comes into town, the women either self-censor their complaints or they are forced into silence by the powers that be."
Yep
only Althouse is predicting this will continue in the future
Whether it is liberals or humpty dumptys, libertarian emergence, or the principled tolerance of conservatives, given the establishment of the Pro-Choice religion, the persistence of selective-child and cannibalized-child, the piecewise normalization of the transgender spectrum under political congruence ("="), and despite protests by trans/homosexuals, feminists, women, and other stakeholders, the inclusion of transgender/neosexuals will likely be a progressive condition, but objectively less wicked than other choices.
"AA's prediction is certainly plausible, it would follow the pattern seen in Rotherham and Germany where when a protected minority class comes into town,"
It's not rape-rape. It's not pedophilia-pedophilia. And so on and so forth. The Pro-Choice religion avoids or suppresses reconciliation on principle. Time will tell if a schism follows the progress of irreconcilable differences.
That's a completely non-responsive non-answer n.n.
Packer Bronco
What I object to is the demand that everyone say exactly that. It’s a power play by a small group of people.
Trans-ism is a bridge too far, in direct conflict with feminism and LG-ism, but how does the left crawl back away from it?
I don't think there are enough true teenage trans to have a huge impact nationally, but some boys may decide to sacrifice their dignity and health to get scholarships.
Aptly this was the music video that came up on my playlist as I read this post:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rF1sfqnp8kk
Wow, I am shocked by AA comments. It is something my great grandmother, and grandmother would have thought. It is an opinion that would be embraced by ancient Rome and saudi Arabia today. By the way AA, only a few elite males enjoy profit by and enjoy competitive sports.
Following your logic, Althouse, just have one class of athletes; males, females, trans all compete in the one class.
If we cannot have a separate class for 51% of the population, why have one for 0.5%? Makes no sense.
If someone wants to sponsor "Trans Games" or even "Non-trans Female Games," the way some now sponsor "Gay Games," fine, have at it.
Needs to fix Title IX, though--it is one thing to cut men's sports in favor of women's sports, but there has always been a problem of not enough women being interested in top-level athletic competition, to begin with. Discourage the women and Title IX as it has been conceived will mean you have to cut even more men's sports, and in the end you won't have enough slots for even money-makers like football and basketball. College and HS athletics will be club games, no longer officially sponsored or supported.
So we can just fold up the NCAA, I guess, and pro football and basketball can do like baseball and develop their own farm systems. They can afford it and it'll be more honest than the current system.
And our grandchildren will never know about people like Martina Navratilova or the recent US Women soccer teams. Pity.
Watching rerun of Downton Abbey and in a scene discussing a future event, the Dowager Countess was heard to say, “Oh I know! I never make a mistake.” Couldn’t help but think of our moderator.
Althouse said...It's a trade-off, a trade-off between the potential for athletic victory and the feeling of being kind and inclusive. The latter is something quite valuable and within the reach of all women. The former is a dream, and it's only a dream for an elite few among women.
Do you really think that most American women want to be second class men again? A genderless athletic standard means discharging 90% of the females in the military who can't compete at the male fitness levels. Real money impacts. Alot more than a few scholarships
How about elimination of the SBA set asides for women owned small businesses. If gender isn't binary, but rather a continuum, then any regulation that is binary is uncompassionate, and of course illegal discrimination as well.
Mark said...
That's a completely non-responsive non-answer n.n.
Why do you think so?
rhhardin said...
Scott Adams points out that the point of sports is humiliation of the losers. This is all just moving around who the losers are, but the sport is the same.
Scott Adams is perceptive and smart, and sometimes drops the biggest clangers. He thinks the solution to trannies in girl's sports is to just have a hundred leagues and anyone can watch whatever league one wants. Then he chuckles and pronounces that he's solved the issue.
Adams was not an athlete in school, nor does he have daughters.
Is Stepping Aside different from Walk Away
The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat are worth the time and effort put in by the participants. But the latest revolution in gender swapping is and always will be a insanity foisted on children for fun and profit.
If human growth hormone and steroids are ILLEGAL in sports,then how can bionic women made from men by massive hormone injections be legal????? It is insanity.
BleachBit said:
We've grown to terribly afraid of the word NO.
The word NO is hate speech. You are not permitted to say NO to anything.
For every transgender male that makes the men's team, one transgender female can join the woman's team.
"I'm not saying what I think should happen. Those who are fighting ME seem to be simply protesting fate. I am not fate. I am a person observing the landscape and seeing where the path leads."
Are you lying here, or truly that self-unaware? Your original statement
"The latter is something quite valuable and within the reach of all women. The former is a dream, and it's only a dream for an elite few among women."
is clearly advocacy and non-neutral; you are coloring your arguments with a blatant indications of bias.
AA: I can see this topic is triggering, but you really do need to try to keep your wits about you. Way too much fighting a straw man here. I wrote simply to PREDICT where the trend would lead. I'm not saying what I think should happen. Those who are fighting ME seem to be simply protesting fate.
But, as is usual with such topics, you included highly questionable assumptions that you take as axioms, and also threw in a few digressions which are not disinterested predictions but your opinion about collateral matters.
If you're triggered by comments questioning your assumptions and disagreeing with your side-opinions, de-clutter your argument.
Althouse's sophistry skills are superior to the competition here at Althouse, but we can see enough flaws in her technique here such that I'm sure a dedicated tranny sophist would leave her in the dust.
Blogger Gordon Scott said
Adams was not an athlete in school, nor does he have daughters
_____&&&&&
Applies to Mine Hostess as well.
Q: should law mandate against and punish private discrimination?
How many issue become irrelevant if citizens opt for Government involvement is prohibited.
Althouse’s prediction may be right or it may not, but it’s not a very interesting question unless we’re going to set odds and a betting market on it. Put yer money where yer mouth is, etc.
The far more interesting AND important question: what is the impact on our culture and social order of using insanity backed by force of law to force girls and women out of sport, especially using their “go along to get along” natures against them?
Do we want to live in such a place, or don’t we? Insanity backed by force of law? Pushing people around because we can? Where does that lead? What are the constraints on the Rule of Law when people make up stupid shit and force everyone else to live with it, AND to accept it and shut up or face social isolation?
That’s where we are. It’s Stalinism, essentially, and it’s going to get worse before it gets better.
Where should we set up the gulags? Just thinking ahead here.
n.n. -- to say that a "woman" is a "female" is circular. It does not answer the question of: What is a woman? What defines a "woman"?
It's like saying that a woman is "a girl who has grown up."
It gets us nowhere and begs the question of: What is a female?
"In this Feb. 7, 2019, file photo, Bloomfield High School transgender athlete Terry Miller, second from left, wins the final of the 55-meter dash over transgender athlete Andraya Yearwood, far left, and other runners in the Connecticut girls Class S indoor track meet at Hillhouse High School in New Haven, Conn."
"Otherwise, you're shadow boxing in the dark. No Olympic medals for that."
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.
Coming in really late to this I am "shocked, shocked" with Althouse's comment. After all the hard work that has been done to get women an even athletic break Althouse is prepared for them to go back into the shadows. Just another illustration of Althouse's fine judgement becoming completely unhinged whenever questions of sexuality arise. I have a married homosexual son, but that is no reason for me to blindly allege that men are women and vice- versa. A biological male has a tremendous athletic advantage over a biological female. Anyone who argues otherwise has their head wedged so far that they will never see daylight.
Transgender males competing with women is just plain, unequivocally wrong!!! This is not an opinion, this is a fact. Wrong, wrong, wrong!!!!!
"women, known for our empathy and our desire to appear compassionate,"
Apparently you know different women than i do. The women I have known are more notable for their desire to use the power of the patriarchy to steal from you everything that is not nailed down....
Mark:
n.n. -- to say that a "woman" is a "female" is circular. It does not answer the question of: What is a woman? What defines a "woman"?
Female is sex, a genetic reference. Feminine is gender, an attribute (i.e. physical and mental) reference. After birth, there are also social constructs that include clothing styles, vocation preferences, etiquette, etc., self-selected and through normalization of a favorable juxtaposition of the sexes. All together, this is a constellation of nature and nurture that is a woman or individual human life.
Women should not participate in athletic competition among peers. Women should be taxable, available, and leveraged.
appear compassionate
Appearances can be deceiving. However, many, perhaps most, women seem to be sincerely compassionate. Men, too. The mother, for one. The father, for two.
"An argument is being made to woman: Won't you please kindly step aside? And women are saying: Oh, of course, let me get out of your way."
Only women with misplaced compassion and empathy, concerned with appearances such as yourself.
"An argument is being made to woman: Won't you please kindly step aside? And women are saying: Oh, of course, let me get out of your way."
Only women with misplace compassion and empathy, concerned with appearances such as yourself.
Fellow commenters:Have you never read Ms.Althouse?? It seems pretty clear to me that she has simply POSITED the idea that women could potentially step back from women's sports competitions for reasons related to the intrusion of transwomen; said reasons including the inclination to be empathetic and in particular to be SEEN as empathetic. This is vintage Althouse. She is playing with concepts, bringing unusual perspectives, highlighting incongruities. It's not exactly trolling, but close. Yet the comments are taking her post in its most possible literal sense. Pish-tosh!
Just have those with a penis compete against each other, and those without do the same.
This would solve the trans bathroom issue also. Have penis, use room A.
No penis, use room B.
I hope Althouse’s prediction doesn’t come true, as there is much wrong with the scenario of accommodating and pussyfooting around mental illness. And that is what all of this is, in the end.
Sigh.
Rather than attack you, n.n., "You're not understanding my question!!! Can't you get it through your thick head???", I'll simply say that "it's not you, it's me." Maybe I need to ask the question in a different way.
Let's try it this way -- when a human person with XY chromosomes, a penis, and testicles that produce sperm capable of fertilizing an ovum, what is that person, and what is that person not? And if he declares himself, "I am a woman," what does that person mean? What is that person basing such a declaration on?
And -- is such a person really, then, a woman? If not, why not??
Or, more simply -- WHAT IS THE OBJECTIVE MEANING OF "WOMAN"??
And, really, it is the trans advocates that this question is really directed toward.
Mark:
So, I have explained how I distinguish between a man and woman. And while you're asking, and abstaining, to state your criteria, let's start with approach. How would you discern a man and woman?
"Blogger Bob Boyd said...
Should we do away with weight classes in boxing, wrestling and MMA?
What about the Special Olympics? Get rid of it?"
No we shouldn't.
But just as boxing doesn't allow a heavyweight to "identify" as a welterweight, we sports governing organizations shouldn't allow men to "identify" as women.
"I really don't see why team sports like rowing and soccer and basketball are given such primacy."
Clearly not; but most guys do.
Yeah, no Ann. Just because you were disinterested doesn't mean we don't care. The transgender thugs need to leave women alone. We have the right to define ourselves based on reality.
You say you're not talking about right and wrong. But what is a discussion about allowing males or not allowing males to compete with females if it is not a discussion of right and wrong? Selectivity isn't objectivity, and it can't be papered over by semantics.
Let's put the argument in another context: how many feminist academicians would have been copacetic with numbers of men announcing the were women in order to poach affirmative action preferential treatment tenure track jobs from women in the 1970's and 80's? How many black aspiring professors would be happy to have white people declare themselves black and demanding race-based preferential treatment in hiring?
I worked in the feminist movement for several years, in service provision and lobbying. I've dealt with far too many unstable men who get off on demanding inappropriate access to women's services to see the politics of the current trans movement as anything but a weaponizing of that sort of angry, bent pathology.
Just because identity politics is the snake du jour eating its tail doesn't mean we have to fall silent before it.
Amy Welborn,
"...the rights of women and girls to have their own spaces..."
Ok. Now do men.
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