College swimmers, volleyball players sue NCAA over transgender policieslocked
Former Kentucky swimmer Riley Gaines was among more than a dozen college athletes who filed a lawsuit against the NCAA on Thursday, accusing it of violating their Title IX rights by allowing transgender woman Lia Thomas to compete at the national championships in 2022.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Atlanta, details the shock Gaines and other swimmers felt when they learned they would have to share a locker room with Thomas at the championships in Atlanta. It documents a number of races they swam in with Thomas, including the 200-yard final in which Thomas and Gaines tied for fifth but Thomas, not Gaines, was handed the fifth-place trophy.
Thomas swam for Pennsylvania. She competed for the men’s team at Penn before her gender transition.
Thomas was the first openly transgender athlete to win a Division I title in any sport, finishing in front of three Olympic medalists for the championship. By not making the final, the lawsuit mentions that Florida swimmer Tylor Mathieu, who was not a plaintiff, was denied first-team All-American honors in that event.
Other plaintiffs included athletes from volleyball and track.
This debate is asinine.
Fuck it, let's just abolish competitive sport until people can calm the fuck down about their stupid games. Maybe we could make the world better in general if we funnel some of that sporting money into something that isn't totally pointless.
lol you point out that the amount of money put into sports could be used for other things. You suggest making the world better as a possible use case.
There’s nothing incorrect about any of this yet people got angry with you. It’s weird.
For some reason it's a really contentious topic.
I support trans rights. I also acknowledge that this specific issue materially affects almost no one, and yet it's one of the flashpoints of some of the most rabid transphobia. And I also acknowledge that given the current regressive laws that are taking effect, it would be infinitely more constructive to focus on... I don't know, access to healthcare or anti-bullying policy.
Basically no one gets to be a professional athlete. Leagues have not grown in proportion to the population, and even before that, the dream of being a professional athlete was very unrealistic. Professional sports are inherently classist in that you must have consistent access to equipment, facilities, and a bonkers amount of time to devote to a (for almost everyone who tries) fruitless pursuit.
Nothing is better because of professional sport and basically no one gets to do it anyways. It seems like a deliberately divisive issue that is basically meaningless.
On the other hand, this specific reaction seems maybe like people are mad that college is stupidly unaffordable and athletics are a way to access college. Seems like post secondary education reform might be the better solution but wtf do I know.
On this subject I've had mix feelings.
I get their point and I do not see this as a fair thing. Now that more people are coming out or transitioning should they try to make a different league or something?
Correct me, but we are yet to see a trans person winning anything or achieve a significant record anywhere. IIRC hormones do a big effect on anything but bones frame. And we are still talking potentional damage for M2F transitioners only, not F2M athletes or NB athletes.
Honestly, I think the whole perception of international competitive gendered sports like Olympics shall die. Sportsmanship on that level is toxic, many use drugs, costumes and hacks to somehow gain the edge. I see sports as a motivation for regular people to think of their health, not a gambling platform or a thing to boost national pride by injecting 'winning horses' with steroids, inhalers, whiskey.
Trans problem in sports is not a problem of trans people who do sports but another reason to redo sports and our perception of them.
The article itself has this to say:
"Thomas was the first openly transgender athlete to win a Division I title in any sport, finishing in front of three Olympic medalists for the championship."
I'd say that winning a Div1 title ahead of three Olympic Medalist is somewhat significant.
reading is hard
Gendered sports dying means sports for biological women dying and sports for biological men being basically unaffected.
Something tells me competitive sports aren’t just going to die out because some of us struggle to accept testosterone is a steroid and gives an unfair advantage versus women.
Or they could seperate based on something other than gender?
Like in basketball a 6ft5 woman is probably going to out perform a 5ft5 man even though the man has the testosterone advantage.
Since car analogies always work, consider NHRA or NASCAR.
"I may look like an F1 Ferrari, but I identify as a rule-constrained Chevy."
The one joke.
Wtf are you talking about?
Yep, I know. It can be countered by encouragement of girla\women, but IIRC they want their own league in many sports due to difference in physique and toxic male challengers. Thus I think it's not mostly about division but maybe the competitive factor?
…right, it’s totally because only men are toxic, no man has ever been mocked for “losing to a girl” due to that same societal toxicity before nor are women’s sports surprisingly rife with hair pulling/scratching/etc
Pretty sure it’s almost entirely the difference in physique that otherwise trivializes women as competitors on any serious level?
I can only talk about toxicity in men, aince I'm one and was in their changing rooms. That's a pleasure of a public forum we can discuss that for we can see other perspectives.
Seeing sports as a casual way to get exercise is fine on a personal level if you aren't an elite athlete, but you can't force that perspective on millions of people who enjoy competing or watching elite athletes compete. It's a weird take to want to rewire sports to accommodate a very small minority of people, most of whom wouldn't even agree with that perspective.
I play sports casually, but I play really competitively. I love competition.
There were abolitions of slavery when most holding voting rights could lose something in the process. Sports are not even close. Reformating them can come hurtless if the focus is pushed somewhere else, like local friendly competitions where there's no stakes. Americans like their local teams at baseball and football, why it's impossible to limit them to make regular youth the primal category participating in that, so communities in reverse get more involved, not suoerstars?
Just because you don’t understand the value of a thing doesn’t mean it has no value. Casually tossing aside one of the oldest human institutions is foolish.
We tossed a lot of them out. It shows itself as incompatible with current european culture and cause weird gimmicks to happen. Maybe it's the time to put it down too?
So what are you proposing exactly? You want to reform sports but what does this actually mean?
Yeah we tossed a lot of them out, and then had a century of world war and genocide.
Stop trying to see yourself as an expert in culture, and start trying to see yourself as a student of it.
Trans athletes have definitely won some competitions. The news were sometimes difficult to miss.
But that's really the thing. Sometimes it feels like there's no problem before a trans athlete wins. Like how many competitions have transgender athletes taken part in throughout modern history? Thousands? And how many have they won? A handful?
I mean, almost nobody talked about this before the inevitable happened: A trans person happened to win a competition and it gained media attention. And when we consider that the Olympics has allowed transgender athletes to compete within their gender since 2003...
Many sports throughout history were only segregated by gender once and because a woman fought to participate and beat the men.
This is all about the bruised egos of bigots. If they'd come 5th against a cis woman they'd be annoyed at themselves and try to do better next time, but coming 5th against a trans woman hurts because they see trans people as inferior (yet also superior, sound familiar? that's because it's one of the points from the fascism checklist), so them coming 5th is clearly her fault, and she must be persecuted to give her, and other trans people, the message that they aren't welcome.
There's actually already been trans women that were setting new records, far surpassing what was previously set. And because to be trans is too just identify... Well this happened https://nypost.com/2023/03/30/male-powerlifter-enters-womens-event-breaks-record/
NYP is not a very good source. But either way - maybe there should be a term limit for their transition or something? I don't know. Abandoning sport competitions as they are now altogether seems easier than adjusting the time they eat hormones.
I mean by all means feel free to Google the name and post any link you want. I just grabbed the first thing that popped up.
You stand corrected.
There are plenty of instances of M->F transpeople completely obliterating the competition.
This article shows one that I overlooked. Have there been plenty already?
Yeah this one is a mixed bag. Biological males can absolutely have an advantage in certain things. Simple as that. I mean look what happened with the Williams sisters.
This one is an absolute mess of a thing to have to figure out and, at the end of the day, I'm glad I'm some dude on the sidelines and not having to make the call on this one lol.
I feel the same way. I strongly support one side of this story, but the other side also has a valid point. So even when things turn out how I think it should be, it still has a nasty after taste.
I think we should preemptively start a Go Fund Me for the poor guy who has to make the choice.
It'd be cool if there were leagues based solely on physical capability, but most women would be in the lower leagues then complain about not being seen as equal to men.
This will ENSURE that next time Riley Gaines will get First instead of Fifth! The ONLY thing holding her back was Lia Thomas being TRANS!
Testosterone is one hell of a drug: "After 24 months of testosterone suppression, bone mass is generally preserved. The review states that no study has reported muscle loss greater than 12% with testosterone suppression even after three years of hormone therapy.[75] It found that trans women are in the top 10% of females regarding lean body mass and possess a grip 25% stronger than most females.[75]"
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgender_people_in_sports
The physical differences because of testosterone are why we have separate competitions for men and women. Imo it's not very fair to lifelong women, to let new women compete against them, if those new women have significant physical advantages because of higher testosterone levels in their past. If the differences had been negated over time by hormone therapy, then I'd consider it fair, but the advantages are clearly not negated and they are quite significant.
Just do a ranking system instead of segregating.
In 100m freestyle, the mens world record is 5 full seconds faster than the women's.
Mens 8th place at the last Olympics was 3.6 seconds faster than the women's world record.
This isn't even close enough to consider ranking. There isn't a control mechanism like in golf where the tee position has moved.
I like this
Given that there will be more people like Lia Thomas who want to compete at the highest levels in sports and that people who were born male can have natural advantages at sports, doesn't this mean that over time people who are born male will displace all people who were born female in sports, leaving no biological women in the top slots? If this trend continues, I don't see why this wouldn't happen over years and years. No matter how one feels about this issue this would feel like a profoundly unfair outcome.
Americans, you know this isnt really freedom right? The ability to only compete against biological women is not a right, nor are you entitled to a blue ribbon.
You know your country is this close to a dictatorship, right?
You right.
Regardless of where anyone sits on this topic, I need you to realize something that none of you are even aware of. By accepting the premise of the argument as "men are generally stronger than women," you are immediately accepting that trans women are men. It doesn't matter how you land the rest of your opinion. The fascists got you to accept their presupposition that trans women are just men.
I think we should defund all sports because it's just bullshit and we should fund education and have that be competitive.
I mean, I agree with not spending as much on athletes cause they're grossly overpaid. But to completely take away people's way of lives if a bit too much. Let's maybe try to make everyone happy
I guess that the premise that people approach this with is actually "women that went through puberty pre-transition are generally stronger than those who didn't because of how their bodies developed through it", but people are generally lazy and will say the sentence you typed, implying the one I did.
Their point is still valid, though badly executed throughout faulty wording.
sports are only gender segregated because men can't handle losing to women.
imagine being so frightened by someone's gender that you file a lawsuit over it
Imagine being so frightened by someone’s point you go out of your way to mischaracterize it.
Competing in sports is random and winning or losing against a trans person shouldnt bother anyone.
maybe i misunderstood it
If you didn't play any sports in your teens and 20's then you shouldn't take part in this conversation.
If you're a fucking moron you shouldn't talk at all ^^^
So the only people allowed to have an opinion are the ones that peaked in high school, nice.
Their point was dumb enough, no reason to try and out-dumb them by blatantly misrepresenting what they said.
If you didn't invent HTTP you shouldn't be posting on the Internet.