"Most people will never have what it takes to compete at the elite levels of high school, college or professional sports. That’s not an argument for kicking the genetically blessed out of the league so that those of us who are slower and weaker can experience the thrill of victory. One might add that it is particularly not an argument for kicking out people who face as many other disadvantages in their lives as trans athletes do. But if you like that answer, you should probably ask whether women’s sports should exist at all. After all, we didn’t create separate leagues to reinforce the special feminine identity of female athletes; if anything, women’s athletics was supposed to break down such divisions. The separation is a nod to biology: After puberty, biological women can’t compete with similarly gifted biological men.... [Do we] think it’s important for cisgender women to have a place where at least a few of us can experience the thrill of victory. Maybe that isn’t an important social goal. Or maybe it is, but just not as important a goal as trans inclusion. Either way, that question will have to be asked and answered — out loud, where everyone can hear it."
Writes Megan McArdle in "We need to be able to talk about trans athletes and women’s sports" (WaPo).
The easiest solution is not to talk about it. Not only does it seem undesirable to say anything that could feel hurtful toward transgender people, but it's also quite unpleasant to need to say anything about the physical inferiority of women. The only way even to consider excluding transwomen from women's sports is to forefront the athletic inferiority of the female body. To have this conversation is to be transformed into a bunch of Bobby Riggses. But to fail to have the conversation is to say we don't need a special category for the female body and the whole women's sports movement was about nothing.
I thought maybe it would facilitate the conversation to speak of "the female body" instead of "women" or "ciswomen" or "natural women." As McArdle points out, women's sports isn't about how much "like a woman" the athletes feel inside. Indeed, it seems probable that many of them don't identify with what the culture traditionally considers feminine. And the women's sports movement was about transforming traditional gender roles: You could feel very very boyish and you're as womanly as the girl who revels in girliness. Isn't that the ideology of the women's sports movement?
The separate category exists because of the bodily differences and not at all because of inward feelings.... or does it? Maybe sports is really only about how people feel inside. You have to do something outwardly for it to be sports, but you do it for the feelings. If the women's sports movement was about boosting the feelings of women — women, who are inherently inferior at sports! — then how can you turn around and be unkind to the transgenders?
Posts
130 comments:
This is all about destroying.
Title 9 killed 10 male sports positions for every women's sport position it opened. I had dreams of wrestling in college but Title 9 pretty much wiped out wrestling programs across the country.
Not they are just destroying that space they made for women.
These are the same people pushing men into women's sports that pushed using title 9 to destroy men's sports.
The solution is the same as for bathrooms. Have penis sports and vagina sports.
There seems to be no standard at all now, except the athlete gets to choose the category they think they will excel the most in. The trans woman swimmer swims as a woman because she knows she can easily beat biological woman. The trans man swimmer also gets to swim as a woman because he knows he can beat biological women more easily than he can beat biological men. You really shouldn’t be able to have it both ways. It is absurd.
FWIW, Bobby Riggs almost certainly threw the match to payoff gambling debts.
but it's also quite unpleasant to need to say anything about the physical inferiority of women.
Women are physically different from men. That does not mean inferiority. Men have evolved to hunt and fight to protect. Women have evolved to gather and raise children. This produces different physical attributes.
Men cannot bear children, yet no one suggests that this makes men inferior.
Sure, if it works right.
It usually does for athletes.
For the rest of us, not so much.
"After all, we didn’t create separate leagues to reinforce the special feminine identity of female athletes; if anything, women’s athletics was supposed to break down such divisions."
WHo is this "We"? These leagues for Female team sports were not created because of some massive unmet demand by women. Do women in general care about women's soccer?, women's boxing? women's softball? the WNBA?
If they do, its not shown by the TV ratings. Women do watch the Olympics, but its usually because they want to see Gymnastics, skiing, figure skating, track and field, etc.
Women relate to sports in a different manner than men, and they always have. All these sports were invented by men and played by men, and then women decided they should do it too. If you get 8 boys together, they will choose up teams and play a sport. Get 8 girls together and do they get out a baseball bat and ball? Not in my experience.
Personally, if Trans-women take over woman's shot put, baseketball, boxing, rugby, or weightlifting, more power to them.
Well, there could be three categories to compete in, couldn’t there? XY, XX, and Trans. What’s the point of having XX “compete” against XY?
If not corrected, this nonsense is going to kill women’s sports. If you want it, you should be willing to fight for it.
"but it's also quite unpleasant to need to say anything about the physical inferiority of women."
I don't think it is. Everybody's born into a set of circumstances over which they had no control To be judgmental about it is counterproductive, harmful and, frankly, just plain dumb.
in general, women don't have the physical prowess of men. Get over it.
Male puberty also confers structure over feeling.
Riggs threw the match. The guy made a living as a hustler. He had his own incentives to get to a certain outcome, I am sure.
For this crowd, "Science!" applies only to climate-change.
The correct answer is to acknowledge that the leftist world view has failed and to abandon it. This controversy is just one early example of many, many to come.
Riggs and Billy Jean were best friends as well.
If the women's sports movement was about boosting the feelings of women — women, who are inherently inferior at sports! — then how can you turn around and be unkind to the transgenders?
I don't follow. What's the unkindness to transgenders? That the biological males can't get an unfair advantage by competing against biological females, enabling them to win contests they would never have won against men? How is that unkind? How is not letting biological males who identify as female competing in women's sports any more unkind than not allowing biological males who identify as males do it? By that standard, nobody can be excluded from anything. How about I try out for the special olympics?> It would be unkind to not let me.
I am 5'9", 140 lbs. Is it "quite unpleasant to need to say anything about the physical inferiority" of me compared to a 6'3" 250 lb NFL running back? No, it isn't. Reality doesn't care; neither should you.
A 25 year old woman has the aerobic capacity of a 50 year old man. This suggests putting age restrictions on male participants in women's sports.
The best spirit lifter for trans people is develop a winning personality.
Talk, talk, talk. Write, write, write.
All about something that is fundamentally simple.
It’s not that complicated. Biological females shouldn’t have to compete with biological males in sports because of the inherent physical advantages of the male body. Trans women are still biologically male and therefore while they are free to appear and live as women in ordinary situations they cannot fairly compete in physical contests.
You can't have everything. There are some limitations in each person's life.
If you are a female born in a male's body, then you may not be able to do everything that a normal female can do.
For example, you might not be allowed to compete in some athletic contests.
Count your blessings.
I am a swimmer - I'm now in my 60s and swim masters. At large Masters meets, the field is often seeded by best times, which is more efficient. It also means that you might have a range of ages and sexes. The times are then sorted by male and female and the appropriate age-group to determine the winner. (This is more prevalent in the long-distance events, which I swim.)
My recommendation for high school and college, where this is becoming an issue is to have four different groupings, if sex/gender truly is a continuum. Women (born that way who remain women), Women (born male transitioning/transitioned to female), Male (born female, etc), and Men (etc). Go ahead and swim the events in aa mixed group, seeded by times and sort it out later.
Side story - when I was 16, I was in the top 20 in the state in certain events. There was a young girl on our team who was in the top 5 in the world, no one wanted to swim with her because she was so good. However, she and I were pretty evenly matched and we often shared a lane racing against each other. We became good friends and are still friends to this day. Oh, and she introduced me to the girl who became my wife 41 years ago.
“ Writes Megan McArdle in "We need to be able to talk about trans athletes and women’s sports" (WaPo). The easiest solution is not to talk about it. Not only does it seem undesirable to say anything that could feel hurtful toward transgender people, but it's also quite unpleasant to need to say anything about the physical inferiority of women.”
Why not talk about it? A lot of hurtful things are said every day. Why should the transgendered be immune? The sad reality is that a lot of them could use a good shrink, more than a sex change operation. You are pretending that it is innate (as I believe at least male homosexuality is), when more often than not, it is probably a psychological issue. By ignoring and excusing their psychological problems, you are just reinforcing their problems with reality. Of course, that doesn’t really address the opportunistic transgendered, such as that one who just ended up on the sexual predator list for life in VA for having engaged in penis lesbian rape on two high school girls in the girl’s bathrooms. Or the pregnancies from penis lesbian rape in women's prisons.
I also had trouble understanding the last sentence. As near as I can tell it's based on the idea that transgender women are literally women and thus their feelings should be boosted along with all the other women.
I'm likely wrong.
Also, women's team sports were commonplace in schools well before the "women's sports movement" got started.
BE TRANS ... But compete with the men.
"Men cannot bear children, yet no one suggests that this makes men inferior."
Not to quibble, but it is feminist dogma that men are inferior to women for many reasons and this is one of the biggest.
With "men" now able to have babies, feminists are a little bit stuck. It's not just women's sports that are causing trouble for feminists now.
you should probably ask whether women’s sports should exist at all.
...maybe it is, but just not as important a goal as trans inclusion.
Look; can't We All Agree, on These Two Points?
1) Women (Some Women, that is) Are JUST AS GOOD AS MEN, IN EVERY WAY!
2) Chix with Dicks are BETTER than cis womb people... IN EVERY WAY!
Womb people solely exist, to breed... That is THEIR ENTIRE PURPOSE
REAL WOMEN, that is, Chix with Dicks; are the Special Class that DESERVE Special Treatment
Do you Realize, that Some lesbians are SO Transphobic; that they won't seek out chicks with dicks to fornicate with? TRANSPHOBIA!!
People in positions of authority must be able to say NO.
* NO, we will not move that "racist" rock off campus.
* NO, transgender women may not compete in college-level coed athletic contests.
* NO, high-school girls may not compete in high-school wrestling matches.
And so forth.
A person who never can say NO should not be in a position of authority.
"bodily differences"
I miss standard use of nouns as adjectives. "Bodily fluids" in Dr. Strangelove seemed at the time so - strange. Soon it will be "carily door" and "bookily cover."
Maybe it is just regional dialect.
"These are the same people pushing men into women's sports that pushed using title 9 to destroy men's sports."
The problem is these "people" are powerful, energetic, idealogues. And the only way to beat them is be energetic and organized. Which their opponents never do.
If enough Pols and Rich men have their daughters hurt by Trans-women competing in their daughters sport, there may be some pushback and change.
But I doubt it.
It's just a handicapping system. It's no fun if you can't win, so we have ladies tees and such. Male/Female grouping allows the development of elite players of both sexes, which is good. Trans people are OK but it will drive out normal women and steal their scholarships. Women who depend on sports scholarships will be forced to keep playing and loosing to trans women to keep their funding, this will be a minor level of hell for them because they can't win and can't escape.
Mike S
sing it. We've lost the spine to say no.
Most women understand that women have biological differences to men. We get that women are "not as strong". I'm a woman and I accept this. This is not something that feels demeaning. Facts are not demeaning. Facts are facts.
ps ( whenever i use the phrase 'Chix with Dicks', i'm being Really sarcastic )
Non Sarcastically, when i was in High School (77-78) i was The SLOWEST runner on our Cross Country team (only the top five times counted, so Anyone could run).
I was SO SLOW, that Most (some) of the girls CC team could beat my times too.
However, there were two guys on our team, that could run a 5k in just over 15 minutes
I looked up the Women's Record 5k times , and the fastest women in the world (today), would be them by half a minute or more
BUT!
before 1982, EVERY race they raced was Faster than the World's BEST women's time (15:29).
They weren't the best boys in Illinois, they weren't the best boys in our district
But, the 2nd fastest boy In Our School; was faster than ANY WOMAN ON EARTH
In what events are women catching up? I think the longer the distance the better for women. Super-long swims like across Lake Ontario; I believe bouyancy is a factor, somewhat overtaking pure muscle power. Marathon running. The fastest men have been under two hours ten minutes since about 1970; that's about the time women went under three hours. Today men have reached 2:01, women just under 2:15. From fifty minutes difference to 14 minutes.
I think trans athletes should be treated the way athletes who had been paid money to play were in amateur sports until recently. And doping athletes. It's not that you are inferior or anything, it's just a rule that disqualifies you. To play women's sports you must have been identified as a woman at birth. Perhaps if the day quickly arrives when technology allows and ideology promotes the transitioning of lots and lots of people in both directions I will feel differently. But right now I recoil at the amount of attention being given to so few people. I guess I am fortunate to be close enough to retirement that I will never have to put he/him in my email signature block and professional bio.
On an irrelevant coda, I Listened to an old Paul Harvey story recently about DD Eisenhower. Apparently good evidence the footballer had lied on his West Point application about pro sports since he had played pro baseball under an assumed name. No idea if true or not.
Perhaps the best way to make trans women feel like typical women would be to have them compete in the men's division and constantly lose.
If the feeling you're looking for is "I'm not a man," nothing says, "You're not one of us," more than consistently coming in last, and often by a large margin.
Megan used to be pretty reasonable. That was before WaPoo.
You are pretending that it is innate (as I believe at least male homosexuality is), when more often than not, it is probably a psychological issue.
The reason the founder of the Johns Hopkins sex change clinic closed it was the number of former patients who returned wanting them to change them back to their original gender. Gender dysphoria is a psychiatric disorder. There are a few adults who are satisfied with the change, like Dierdre McCloskey, but not many.
"Not only does it seem undesirable to say anything that could feel hurtful toward transgender people, but it's also quite unpleasant to need to say anything about the physical inferiority of women."
Yes, but that's not the real point of the progressive trans offensive. It is to get people to express the lie that trans women are women. They aim to make us Havelian greengrocers. Leftist rule requires that we live the lie.
So, when do we see transwomen invade women's soccer and women's basketball?
Women's sports were created, in the Western culture, by the Ancient Greeks so that women could play sports and have a chance to win. If that's not important anymore, IDK, not my call.
But I guess beating the other girls is what makes being a girl enjoyable and that's what matters.
Just to reinforce the point others have made: in middle age, I played a sport against a recent D1 female player. She was very skilled and could hold her own but she was at best even with us older amateur men.
The solution to sports issue is simple: one competition for women born female, another open to all athletes. Of course, that detracts from the issue's propaganda value.
If it's OK for women to lose every time to trans women, and not ok for trans women to lose every time to the men, I guess that answers the question.
Maybe we need to change the paradigm of sports to take the emotion out of this debate. Instead of Men/Woman classifications, why not one open competition (available to all) and a competition restricted to biological females (XX).
What happens with female puberty also need to be discussed for parallel symmetry
The Special Olympics might be a proper venue for transitioning/transitioning males and females to compete. Or, and I hestitated before putting this bad a pun onto the internet, perhaps the X Games.
"Today men have reached 2:01, women just under 2:15. From fifty minutes difference to 14 minutes."
Elite Male track runners are about 10% faster at all distances. You see the same 10% difference in swimming. the Gap will never close unless you get enough Trans-women. The differences in the Field events can't be computed - at least for shot put, hammer, etc. - since the women use lighter objects. If men's shot put was used it would make them look bad.
First rule of holes:
Dig one >>> call it NCAA.
Add more holes >>> carry on.
Solution : cancel NCAA.
Trans men who are now some form of female - they still have the genetic make-up of the male. No matter how many surgeries, hormones and breast implants.
The proof is what we all see. Trans women (formerly men) are winning and shutting out all the women who were born that way.
While it is true some people are born with genetic mutations that give them characteristics of both genders - it is still unfair to allow people who are mostly male, equipped with all the male strengths, to compete with women. This is my opinion. I have nothing against trans-people. It's a question of fairness.
I would hope that if enough of this out-of-balance goes on, women will walk away form their sports and the Trans-women (men) will have it all to themselves.
The other problem with elite men vs. elite women and comparing times is that steriods help women much more than men. Some of the best female 100 yard dash times, swim times, etc. were done by women "under the influence". East Germany doped. There are suspicions that the Chicoms are. Joyner made massive improvement in a short period of time to smash records in 1988. There is little doubt she was taking PED's.
Something so stupid only an intellectual could believe it.
There is no reason to find a "Solution" to a problem that doesn't exist. Women - real women - should play women's sports. Case closed.
Women (who transition to men) do not compete with men!
If they do - who? name one, because I can't.
This is all about Trans- who transition from men to women.
I’m hoping this is the hill that all of the ridiculous gender fluid 0.1% of the population seems to feel they should be able to do whatever the hell they want because they say so dies on. It’s really asinine and so silly as to be a parody.
Men can have babies? Do these men have periods? I do not think so. Sorry, you are not a female. These men who identify as women are just that…men identifying as women. Will the elite colleges give sports scholarships to these transgender men identifying as women to compete in women’s sports. If so, we will have hundreds, if not thousands of junior year h.s. boy athletes cross over to “say” they identify as women and get four years free college. Natural women need not apply all the spots will be taken by trans men. Young women are being discriminated against. What a travesty!!!
Participating in sports on a level playing field is a critically important cornerstone of a healthy competitive society. People should be allowed to complete based on their original biological sex. Boys to women compete with the men and vice versa.
That said, Fuck you pussy-ass obese cucks who put down women athletes. You should move to Saudi Arabia.
Just wait until black male athletes catch on to the con. Then they will start identifying as female and take over most of the spots in women’s college sports and knock out both the white and black female athletes. Oh, that won’t last for long!!!
Truth Hurts Sometimes- age old wisdom. I'm not the one pretending to be other than XY. Trans gender is as sick as trans species. As Alice Cooper is known to have said, "Be an Arab, be a Jew, be a boxing kangaroo". See also "Three Christs of Ypsilanti".
The contortions women are performing to try and rationalize all this are worthy of an Olympic medal...
Every cell in their body calls out LIAR.
I think there's an unfortunate conflation of 'participation in sports' and 'competition'. We talk about the value of participation all the time like club sports in college, The Olympics. Perhaps for women that should be enough?
It better be enough 'cause that's all you're gonna get women.
Something to consider: Is it appropriate to give a full ride to a 'participant' athlete?
Go away Howard, you're boring.
Like women's soccer.
QED
I'll get interested in the gender bias and trans movement when the discussion gets around to discussing the fatality gap where men die from job fatalities about 10 times more than women. Bonus, embedded in that discussion is physical and pay differences, but they are only mentioned when combined with career fields with far less chance of injury.
Male puberty makes you taller, confers greater muscle and bone mass, larger heart and lung capacity relative to your size, and more hemoglobin.
Does Amazon have any in stock?
The people who should be screaming holy hell about this are the women who are losing their sports to these trans freaks.
But if they're not willing to defend their own interests, I'm certainly not going to do it for them.
Obviously, the solution is to ban all sports except those where there is no significant difference in performance by gender. For example, competitive riflery.
Mike of Snoqualmie said...
"So, when do we see transwomen invade women's soccer and women's basketball?"
I admit to cracking a smile at the potential impact of transwomen on Megan Rapinoe's career.
Blogger Ceciliahere said...
"Just wait until black male athletes catch on to the con. Then they will start identifying as female and take over most of the spots in women’s college sports and knock out both the white and black female athletes. Oh, that won’t last for long!!!"
I wouldn't be so sure of that. There are a few black transwomen who have been dominating their events at the high school level here in Connecticut and elsewhere, and the only quotes from other competitors or from parents that dare to be critical are anonymous quotes. If you're not supportive, you'll pay a price.
A lot of the news reporting confusion could be reduced by calling male to female trans people "he" and calling female to male trans people "she." They seem to be doing the reverse, so you never know what's going on.
Good Lord this topic gets all tied up in word-knots. I have found that if you can't state your position fairly simply, there is something wrong with your logic.
Letting men who claim to be women compete in women's sports would be like letting a dog compete in men's track because "he thinks he's people".
Facts are not demeaning. Facts are facts.
"Facts are simple and facts are straight
Facts are lazy and facts are late
Facts all come with points of view
Facts don't do what I want them to"
They seem to be doing the reverse, so you never know what's going on.
Just replace "trans" by the word "not".
Facts are simple and facts are straight
Facts are lazy and facts are late
Facts all come with points of view
Facts don't do what I want them to ...
“ I miss standard use of nouns as adjectives. "Bodily fluids" in Dr. Strangelove seemed at the time so - strange. Soon it will be "carily door" and "bookily cover."”
Where do you get your standard? The OED shows this adjective going back to the 1300s.
The World Chess Championship is open to both men and women. The Women's World Chess Championship is open only to women.
A woman, as far as I can tell, has never won the open championship.
How does a feminist explain this?
If you counter that chess is not a sport, then how do you explain the WNBA?
I’m aware of the CT track situation on the high school level. That’s a small minority in a small (liberal) state. But, think of UConn’s nationally rated women basketball team consisting of black/white transgender guys who could not make the men’s team.
And when it comes time to shell out scholarships and women athletes do not get scholarship money because a black/white trans guy was awarded it, then you will see the shit start to fly. Cause now we are talking about real money…four years of college tuition. And if this starts to happen nation wide, then I think there will be legal action.
Vicki Hearne in Bandit devotes a chapter to wondering about women and math and chess. She thinks that women aren't able to sustain the world-class delusion that here, at last, everything will be decided once and for all, and women drop out of math at the highest levels when other things seem more attractive to spend all their time on.
Women go for complexity with lots of things not now or ever decided, men go for nailing everything down. That affects the problems they choose to work on, not what problems they could work on.
I haven't been listening to radio too much for awhile, but I happened to catch NPR for literally 5 minutes on this topic.
They took the stance that with hormone therapies there are no active differences and a caller which they 100% promoted and endorsed expressed that the latent differences are what "makes up the biodiversity we celebrate in sports. If we were all the same, there wouldn't be any sports."
This was unbelievably the final word on this subject. The obvious follow-up question was never asked, "Then why have men and women's sports." Or even, "So then we should combine weight classes in wrestling to allow more biodiversity."
The foundation of sports is, to a degree, ELIMINATING INHERENT DIFFERENCES to see who trains the hardest and develops the best skill and has the most mental toughness to award those who overcome their own limitations the best.
Let's face it. This isn't a trans issue. This is completely one sided. It's men who decide to compete in women's sports. The issue doesn't go the other way. And so far as I've heard it's a decision in search of justification ex post facto.
What we need to do is tell mental ill people who think that they can change their sex that they can do whatever they want to with their life, but they can’t make other people go along with their fantasies. If a man wants to pretend he is a woman, he can wear woman’s clothes and get his body mutilated so that his body sort of looks like a woman’s body, but he can’t force women to compete with him in athletic competition. His feelings do not trump reality. We should not have to pretend he is a woman because he says so.
As a former avid ping-pong ("table tennis" to those who take it more seriously) club player, one solution would be to divide players, as is done at local table tennis clubs for regular matches, by ranking rather than sex or age. It works very well: I've been beaten by 8 year-old girls and 80 year-old men.
To whom is it unpleasant to talk about the physical inferiority of most women? Biological facts can be unpleasant, and life is messy and unfair. But anyone with a daughter and a son knows that sons have a physical presence that daughters cannot hope to match.
I exercise in places that have record boards. In no place does the women's record come close to the man's record. There's a reason for that.
https://syndication.bleacherreport.com/amp/1573044-ufc-joe-rogan-to-transgender-mma-fighter-fallon-fox-youre-a-man.amp.html
Not just beat women-
Literally beat women.
It should be a battle of like vs like… (un)naturally. I suppose with all the doping going- compete is totally out of whack, anyway. Trans should compete against trans. Let them duke it out in their own competitions. There must be some heavy pockets to be emptied on this brave, new venture. Bio/women have carved their niche- leave it to them. Trans created themselves- trans can create a new niche.
Be brave.
Boxing has weight categories, precisely to address the inherent advantages/disadvantages of size and musculature.
There's no talk about the "inferiority" of a welterweight or bantamweight---they're just in a different class.
What you don't see is a heavyweight demanding that he fight a championship welterweight bout.
Because it makes no freakin' sense.
As for trans-women atheletes: show me just ONE who was a top-class competititor as a man in a male sport before "transitioning". It's the FUBAR mediocre types seeking undeserved glory who are denying top-class women their victories after spending a life training.
deckhand_dreams said...
As a former avid ping-pong ("table tennis" to those who take it more seriously) club player, one solution would be to divide players, as is done at local table tennis clubs for regular matches, by ranking rather than sex or age. It works very well: I've been beaten by 8 year-old girls and 80 year-old men.
**********
What's your solution when the top rank consists of one bearded tranny who can run the four-forty fifteen seconds faster than the fastest female?
effinayright:
The trans-woman in your example would be competing, most likely, with men and other trans-women.
deckhand_dreams said...
effinayright:
The trans-woman in your example would be competing, most likely, with men and other trans-women.
*********
I said "bearded tranny", implying that it would be a biological guy aka a trans-woman competing against biological women.
If multiple bearded trannies were in the same group, ranking them would still put them in a class by themselves.
Boxing weight divisions? https://www.britannica.com/sports/boxing/Weight-divisions Not based on gender or anything beyond the basic advantage in boxing of being bigger.
As for women's sports, I guess it was always a little bit silly, and everyone knew not to take it all that seriously. Almost everyone, of course. But there is a question of fairness, and changing the rules in the middle of the game. These young women have been training all their lives and you cannot just suddenly drop them into the middle of the men's team, or allow members of the men's team to suddenly drop into their league. It isn't right and we can all see that.
How about a sunset clause? Women's sports have five or ten more years separate, and then we turn to being fair to trans athletes...
There are two biological sexes.
If you have XX chromosomes, you're a woman.
If you have XY chromosomes, you're a man.
Everything else is sophistry or genetic abnormality.
I had a much longer comment that got lost but Lawrence Person says it more succinctly!
Writes Megan McArdle in "We need to be able to talk about trans athletes and women’s sports" (WaPo).
The easiest solution is not to talk about it. Not only does it seem undesirable to say anything that could feel hurtful toward transgender people, but it's also quite unpleasant to need to say anything about the physical inferiority of women. The only way even to consider excluding transwomen from women's sports is to forefront the athletic inferiority of the female body.
If you can't have important political conversations because they make you feel bad, then the topic is no longer merely the physical inferiority of women.
I thought maybe it would facilitate the conversation to speak of "the female body" instead of "women" or "ciswomen" or "natural women." As McArdle points out, women's sports isn't about how much "like a woman" the athletes feel inside. Indeed, it seems probable that many of them don't identify with what the culture traditionally considers feminine. And the women's sports movement was about transforming traditional gender roles: You could feel very very boyish and you're as womanly as the girl who revels in girliness. Isn't that the ideology of the women's sports movement?
Tada! You figured it out!
In the 602 and 70s, the fight was that "effeminate gay men" should still be considered to be "real men". "Masculine" women who weren't interested in girly things like dolls, and were instead interested in sports, horseback riding, etc, were still "real women".
Now? Now they're trans women / men. Because there's only one way to be each sex, and if you differentiations from that one true it, it's because you're "trans", or "non-binary", or some other made-up bullshit, rather than simply being an individual
Oh, my, I guess I got caught out. Let me accept correction.
Go away Howard, you're boring.
Like soccer.
It strikes me that these "trans" athletes competing in woman's sports are narcissistic jerks. If I, as a grown adult, decided to play little league, and then proceeded to dominate the competition, eclipse the achievements of all other players, and generally ruin the experience for child and parent alike, I would be considered a narcissistic jerk, right? How is this any different? The very fact that a person who was a mediocre male athlete would take pleasure in winning swimming races by 45 seconds or setting new collegiate records by playing against women makes that person a complete jerk. That they see themselves as somehow heroic for doing this is just revolting.
Is unfair to say that women's soccer is boring.
All soccer is boring, except for maybe 30 sec per match, if you're lucky.
Is the woman’s sports movement really that new? There was a woman golfer in The Great Gatsby. Women have been playing golf for centuries, although the first woman golfer was beheaded for treason. Just last year, a man wrote an article about how it is more fun to play from what we used to call the ladies tees.
MikeR said...
Boxing weight divisions? https://www.britannica.com/sports/boxing/Weight-divisions Not based on gender or anything beyond the basic advantage in boxing of being bigger.
>>>>>precisely my point. You added nothing novel.
As for women's sports, I guess it was always a little bit silly, and everyone knew not to take it all that seriously.
>>>>> Wow. talk about dripping with condescension!!! Clue: your definitions of "everyone" and "almost everyone" should be narrowed down to what.... YOU think of women's spports.
After hearing Joe Biden for over half an hour, I'm reading the headline below in Joe Biden's tone.
"Male puberty makes you taller, confers greater muscle and bone mass, larger heart and lung capacity relative to your size, and more hemoglobin...."
😆
Since RH brought up women in math, I will talk about women engineers. My experience with Women Engineers, in large corporations, is they almost always lose interest in actual Engineering. They either go to part time work to raise a family, or they move on to be Liason with the marketing department, or they start working on this or that committee thats working on improving work life in the office or whatever.
IMo, that's because women just aren't as autistic as men. They lose interest in caring about the abstract or dealing with things. So they move on. Here's an thought experiment. You have 100 men and 100 women who score 700 on the math and the verbal SAT. How many of the women would go to be scientists and mathmaticians and how many would prefer to be doctors, lawyers, or marketeers? And what would be the percent of men?
@effinayright -- Exactly right on your point about women taking women's sports seriously, as well as men who enjoy watching women athletes.
Ann's point, "If the women's sports movement was about boosting the feelings of women — women, who are inherently inferior at sports! — then how can you turn around and be unkind to the transgenders?" misses the point because she is not considering the point of view of female athletes who take their sports seriously. The women's sports movement did not arise out an act of pity to boost the feelings of women because women can't compete successfully against men. The women's sports movement was an affirmation of the authentic competitive spirit of female athletes who wanted the opportunity to engage on a level playing field and earn recognition for their accomplishments. Allowing transwomen, especially those who transitioned after puberty with all the benefits of male hormones on physical development, takes that away.
Of course there are always individual considerations from one athlete to the next, but in every elite sport there are clearly genetic types which have advantages and the body types of the top performers are obviously similar whether they are swimmers, runners, bicyclists, weight lifters, etc. You can tell the sport just by looking at the person. Allowing a competition to ignore biology or imposing non-proven standards such as testoterone blocking for a year or allowing self identification alone, is more about political correctness than sports. It's an insult to our intelligence and basic sense of fairness.
Use the common sense rule. Fifth grade students don't compete with 4th grade students. That would be unfair. XY men do not compete with XX women because that would be unfair to XX women. XY, trans women should not compete with XX women. If someone's feelings get hurt, then get used to it because there can be only one winner in every match, and lots of losers.
How did this country devolve itself to this nuttery? In 1950 there were transvestites but no transexuals. While undoubtedly some people had body dysphoria they kept it to themselves. So far there is no evidence of any biological brain differences between trans and non-trans. So unless proven otherwise it is a psychiatric condition. And should be treated as such. Allow for people with the condition to live unmolested but not at the expense of other people's lives. Abolish title 9 and everything that came out of it via tortured reasoning and leave woman's sports to real woman.
“Women and children first”
It’s a good thing sailing ships are now unsinkable.
So, nobody’s going to have to worry about saying “women are children first”
"The only way even to consider excluding transwomen from women's sports is to forefront the athletic inferiority of the female body."
Really? Let's try a rewrite:
The only way even to consider including transwomen in women's sports is to forefront the emotional fragility of the pseudo-woman, who has lived his life bathed in testosterone and lugging around trillions of Y chromosomes.
"If the women's sports movement was about boosting the feelings of women — women, who are inherently inferior at sports! — then how can you turn around and be unkind to the transgenders?"
I don't how much women's sports began as charity, or how much they are charity today, but I do know there are a number of female martial arts practitioners who do quite well for themselves and their league. But if women are to be thrown up against pseudo-women as an act of charity for the pseudo-woman, I say, charity is voluntary, and I am not interested in volunteering.
This is a problem that the women in sports need to solve for themselves. I can't be bothered to do anything or to support anything being done about it until the women show it matters to them. What would be evidence of such pushback- boycotting events where trans-women are allowed to compete. Sure, this will hurt some people's feelings, but not hurting feelings is a pretty fucking insignificant thing in the long run.
Much of the angst over this stems from the inability to recognize the fact that the basis of your arguments has been carried out to its illogical extreme, rendering them senseless and stupid.
Women are not equal to men, physically, mentally, or by any other measure. They are different. We are a sexually dimorphic species at this moment, and to pretend any differently is insane. To say that women are not equal to men is not to say that they are inferior, either--It's an acknowledgment of actual biological facts on the ground. There are intrinsic differences between the class "woman" and the class "man", differences you'd better be taking into account when you go to determine what you're going to do with members of those classes.
Individuals may fit some of the class characteristics of the other sex, but the reality is that those individuals that do so are outliers; most men are bigger and stronger than most women; they're more durable and can typically survive more physical abuse for longer. This is a fact; just like the one that most women can bear children, while no man can.
Root of the problem here is that the delusional thinking that sets out to say that "equality" is a thing that can be applied to two very different classes of organisms is at all rational or likely to succeed in the real world. Equality is a theory; physical biology is a reality. If your theories aren't held up by encountering reality and remaining valid, guess what? Your theories are shiite.
What we have working out here with regards to trannies taking over women's sports is that exact thing: A theory proving itself invalid.
Do with that what you will. You stamping your foot and insisting that "girls are just as good as boys" ain't going to change anything, so long as you persist in the delusion that "good" implies being able to serve as a line infantryman or football linebacker. Some things are simply not possible, within the realm of reality experienced at this time.
Howard: "That said, F*** you pussy-a** obese cucks who put down women athletes. You should move to Saudi Arabia."
Howard is having a difficult time internalizing the fact its his side that is full of lunatic maoist crazies so Howard routinely tries to project onto conservatives the psychoses of Team Howard/Dems/Wokesters.
WWII documentary, on the war in the Solomon Islands,
"But success depends upon the approach. The approach depends upon nature. Nature is a woman and all women are unpredictable."
youtube link
Howard is into his fat shaming again ignoring the fact that nit is a leftist theme. Oh Oh, I can see fat black women chasing poor Howard down the street. They can be vicious to fat shamers, Howard.
Michael K: "Howard is into his fat shaming again ignoring the fact that nit is a leftist theme.."
The entirety of the left/left-leadership, you know, the people Howard worships, are very much into fat praise!
Thats partly why Howard spends so much time projecting. He cant handke the truth and so he lashes out like a spurned middle schooler.
There are innumerable examples of this
Lefty fat lauding at Shape and Health magazines, amongst other woke/Howard-approved publications.
Tree Joe makes the important point here- if all this is ok, then why have male and female divisions in the first place? Let everyone compete against each other. I forget now who said it above in regards to local swimming events, but you can run the races mixed, and then divide out the winners at the end- men winners, women winners, trans winners, and then hand out the trophies. You are only competing against the clock in races, ultimately, and your best efforts at other events.
'As for trans-women athletes: show me just ONE who was a top-class competititor as a man in a male sport before "transitioning".'
3DBruce Jenner.
I get stuck on Caster Semenya. I guess hard cases make bad law.
The worm turns, I guess. Title 9 diminished men's sports to promote women's. Was it a legitimate revenge to make women's sports into men's sports? Or to subvert the whole idea of sports? Fifty years of tough, gritty women, warrior grrls, sensitive men, and soy boys: is it only fair that a few of the gutsy warrior women turn out to be guys?
When the next Disney Princess turns out to be the dumb, muscle-bound guy that Disney movies usually mock, we'll know that the scores have been settled and the pendulum will start swinging back the other way.
You have 100 men and 100 women who score 700 on the math and the verbal SAT. How many of the women would go to be scientists and mathmaticians and how many would prefer to be doctors, lawyers, or marketeers? And what would be the percent of men?
I got a 710 math. I never even considered a STEM degree. (I scored marginally higher in verbal, but only a bit.)
Later, after a useless communivations degree (useless because of my own life choices), I did get a degree in geology, which as we all know from Big Bang Theory isn't a real science, and my husband, also a geologist who didn't break 650 on the SAT in math, was much better at it than I was. I was good at the memorization parts like paleontology, and the narrative parts like writing a history from a stratigraphic column and geologic map. He was better at the actual field work, and especially at structural geology.
For Jamie.
I'm all for having one team in schools, whether it's grade school, high school, or college.
And one league for golf, tennis, basketball, hockey, etc.
Same for Olympics...one event...only the best qualifiers.
It will end all women's sports except at the elementary school level.
This is what radical feminists and the left want.
I say we indulge them...be careful what you wish for.
'Go away Howard, you're boring.
Like women's soccer.'
Women's soccer is horrible.
But women's hockey is so bad it's almost amusing.
Btw, men's college football and basketball pay for all of the other sports (men and women) to even exist.
Without the college football playoffs and the Final Four, none of the other teams would have any funding.
'the athletic inferiority of the female body."'
And yet, soooooo much better looking : )
What might resolve this kerfluffle is for Vegas to get involved. Set up a betting pool for men, women and trans. Then there would be real incentive to re-group into more sensible categories. No one would bet on women's swimming if Lia Thomas was in the pool. But create a separate bet for trans athletes - which would encourage monetizing them - and you've achieved athletic (if not economic) fairness.
Nancy said...
'As for trans-women athletes: show me just ONE who was a top-class competititor as a man in a male sport before "transitioning".'
3DBruce Jenner.
>>>>>OK, you got me there. But AFAIK Jenner has never competed against females. Which is the issue here.
I get stuck on Caster Semenya. I guess hard cases make bad law.
>>>>> the chick with XY chromosomes, right?
It's not whether you win or lose, but how you play the game.
They probably don't teach that anymore.
The same sects that deprecate human life for social, redistributive, and fair weather causes, simultaneously elevate mental divergence.
Dear Professor:
Not to be uncivil, but... what the ever-loving FUCK is wrong with you?
I mean, I've obverved many times that you lose about 30 IQ points whenever the topic turns to the gays or the trannies.
But this is ridiculous.
Isn't it true that women's sports were first men's sports designed to feature the skills and strengths of the male body? Surely there must be a better answer more complex than changing the rules of women's basketball as was tried years ago? Even skipping high speed and violent sports such as baseball an football still begets women's softball and soccer which was designed for men.
But the obvious difference that women cannot compete against men directly (with some exceptions such as chess which is not sex-divided) is the prime argument that should be used when determining if the converted male swimmer at Penn should be allowed to compete as a woman.
Perhaps woman should develop sports that features minute hand-to-eye coordination using smaller and more numerous game objects and rules - and no, I don't mean dice or sewing circles. Sports are now televised so these new-fangled women's games might be something to replace Cornhole on TV.
I remember being surprised to learn that women use a smaller basketball than men do. I was a pretty good shot in my day, and when at the gym I randomly selected a ball from the stand. I found it almost impossible to miss, and finally realized the ball was smaller! Here I thought hoops was a sport where women were held to the same standard as men, and was disappointed to find that they needed special equipment for their widdle hands.
@Yinzer,
Wouldn't be a problem if the hoops were downsized, as well. But... We know they're not.
Because it is not about feelings. It is about politics. It seems naive to demand that we intellectually reduce our response to the latest political activist effort to destroy the natural order to our mere feelings about it.
But is it naive or manipulative? Either way, it is a demand to close our eyes. No thanks.
“If the women's sports movement was about boosting the feelings of women — women, who are inherently inferior at sports! — then how can you turn around and be unkind to the transgenders?”
Because the alternative is to be unkind to the cisgenders.
The McCardle article linked to an editorial in Swimming World entitled
Allowing Lia Thomas to Compete At NCAA Championships Would Establish Unfair Setting. Comparing records and times, it shows that Thomas, a mediocre competitor in the men’s division, is possibly the best in the world as a woman.
Reality does not give us a choice in this. Letting mediocre male athletes declare themselves women, and admitting them into the women’s competitions, is inherently unkind to the ciswomen. So which group will you be unkind to, Ann?
I’m glad to be a woman w/widdle hands.
And not a man… w/widdle hands :?)
Althouse, is it really your position that not being unkind to a tranny invading women and girls sports is more important than being unkind to the thousands of women and girls having their hard work and aspiriations crushed?
Just where to you GET your sense of equity?
Rigg's own daughter said she believes he threw the match because he was deep in debt to gamblers. If you want to see Riggs dominate a top ranked female player, watch his match against Margaret Court. Riggs was always described as a tennis club pro/hustler. Not mentioned was that he is the only player to ever win the Wimbledon mens, mens doubles and mixed doubles in the same event.
If you want to see even worse dominance, check out the 1998 match between the Williams sisters and the #22 mens player.
MadisonMan said...
"I exercise in places that have record boards. In no place does the women's record come close to the man's record. There's a reason for that."
I believe the woke litigators would call that "disparate impact" demonstrating prima facie evidence of sexism. Obviously, the places where you exercise either need remediation or redefinition to ensure a "fair" distribution of records, or they must be closed down entirely.
Post a Comment