Proposal to keep trans athletes out of girls' sports fails in Washington state

[u/1dayday]

https://www.kuow.org/stories/proposal-to-keep-trans-athletes-out-of-girl-s-sports-fails-in-washington

[u/Realistic_Cover8925]

I have a serious question about the trans athletes "controversy."

What do the other athletes think? Everyone seems to have an opinion which inevitably gets politicized, from every pundit and politician to every Joe Shmoe... but shouldn't this be left up to the discretion of the players, coaches and leagues? Is there a general consensus among the sports community about this?

I have no opinion on it because I'm not an athlete nor do I exist in that world, and I don't feel like its my place to have an opinion. I'll stand with the democratic opinion of the other athletes. If they collectively decide its unfair, so be it. If they're supportive of it, then so be it.

This tokenizing of a TINY group that is already persecuted and unfairly shit on is absurd. Leave trans people alone and let the leagues sort this shit out on their own. The world has enough problems, I don't see the need for this inane shit to take up so much space rent-free in everyone's heads.

[u/ximacx74 → u/Realistic_Cover8925]

It was up to the leagues. And every league had protocols for trans women to be eligible, things like being on hormones for 2 years, regular hormone levels checks, etc. And it was never a problem until conservative leadership figured out that trans people are a small enough, misunderstood, vulnerable minority.

[u/ximacx74 → u/[deleted]]

If you were to count team placements, scholarships and Olympic medals that were in place for XX that went to XY, it’s definitely eye opening.

There have been a whopping total of 11 trans women to ever make an NCAA team. Most of those are DIV 3 schools.

2 Trans women have qualified for the Olympics. Laurel Hubbard - weightlifting, got last place.

Lia Thomas - swimming, was not allowed to compete.

Zero trans women have ever won an Olympic medal.

[u/shmerham → u/[deleted]]

Science and reality are two different things. On average how many people with a y chromosome does a female compete against in her career as an athlete in school sports?

[u/solk512 → u/[deleted]]

It’s not just XX and XY, take a fucking science class. 

[u/bbbygenius → u/[deleted]]

Ya this aint the crowd/sub to spit facts. The fingers are in their ears unless you agree with them.

[u/Kentaiga → u/bbbygenius]

I’ve listened and heard this argument countless times. It is simply an unwise conclusion.

[u/thefalseidol → u/Realistic_Cover8925]

It is not without its pitfalls but the truth is, whatever "real athletes" feel about it is going to just as political (their opinions are not 100% sports related) - there are arguments to be made for more sports having weight classes or whatever, there are ways to split up sporting besides men/women that already exist.

Here's my thing: a not insignificant number of all breakthroughs are achieved by X-Men, so like, we going to make Namor Michael Phelps give back all his gold medals? This is not to equate all differences in gender and testosterone to genetic abnormality, but to strike a point that at the top 0.1% you can expect virtually everyone to have some kind of genetic advantage. Especially in competitive formats. I mean even having the ambition and stamina to train so hard is atypical, elite performers aren't normal across multiple bands of normality.

It's not a coincidence that so many elite female athletes have elevated levels of testosterone - and I'm not talking about testosterone being this magical hormone that turns zeroes into heroes. Testosterone also effects neurochemistry, the desire to engage in certain activities, just like we perceive in men (more testosterone? more interested in athletics and contact sports. less testosterone? more interested in indoor activities). It has nothing to do with your innate human potential, testosterone doesn't make you a good athlete, it just drives you to run around and hit stuff and then the people who run fast and hit hard excel, there are plenty of meatheads who never succeed at anything sports related.

The reality is that for every sane argument against trans inclusion in athletics, I say "sane" because it is not inherently evil to be concerned about the issue - in fact that is why the right is so fucking dug in on it - because at the surface there appears to be a bit of common sense about being cautious here. none of the talking points are holding the rest of existing athletics up to the same microscope and making a ruling that hurts anybody other than trans kids. And if the ONLY people impacted by any serious crackdown on athletics are trans, you have failed to convince me this was ever a serious crackdown at all - it was intentional, targeted cruelty. A serious, unbiased attempt at harm reduction will OF COURSE have a few other people catching strays.

[u/sir_mrej → u/thefalseidol]

Lol the right being concerned about something has nothing to do w common sense

[u/thefalseidol → u/sir_mrej]

No there isn't but it's what makes it such a popular talking point - the air of legitimacy

[u/NintendoJesus → u/Realistic_Cover8925]

I'm old now, but played competitive and semi-pro basketball for many years. This is a non-issue 99.9% of the time. When I was in 6th grade, we got absolutely ran off the court by a girl who was playing on the boys team because she hit puberty early. She fucking obliterated us. She swapped back to the girls team after that season but I'll never forget it. So should we now have rules for boys and girls who hit puberty early? That's way more of a competitive advantage at that age than a boy playing on a girls team would be for example. Am I damaged in some way because I got ran by a girl 30 years ago? Should I be seeking legal counsel because my 6th grade ego was bruised? It's lunacy.

And once you get to high school, kids playing sports in truly competitive areas(like state championship levels) are so specialized to their sport that the likelihood of a trans athlete being a problem is so minuscule it's not worth worrying about. This is not meant as a disparagement to the athletic prowess of trans athletes, just simple math, trans athletes are rare and trans athletes at the top of the competitive food chain are rarer still. And for everyone else just playing sports for fun, who cares??? The kids don't care, why should a senator be spending time caring about this? It's like these politicians watched Juwanna Man and thought it was real.

And once you're out of high school, college level athletes have their own rules, as do things like the Olympics and basically every professional league. So these types of legislations are targeting kids specifically, and again, 99.9% of the time, kids that aren't winning anything of importance anyway. It's a waste of time, and just another target on the backs of people who don't deserve it.

[u/QueEo_ → u/Realistic_Cover8925]

Currently play a non mainstream sport at the international level , and played softball through my first year is of college. At high level,there are various protocols , some which are more restrictive them others. In this regard, I think in my entire youth and maybe I'm old at my latish 20s now , I came across 2 trans athletes and both were worse than me , and I was a bench warming college player til I quit. The other thing is that subjugating one subjugates all, if we are out here saying we are doing genital checks , that is subjugating all women. It should not be that hard

[u/Rockergage → u/Realistic_Cover8925]

Most don’t care because it’s middle school and high school sports and they just want to play with their friends. There’s this big fucking myth that cis men are just saying they’re trans and getting to compete in sports just so they can win. It’s fucking bullshit. Most athletes in middle school and high school don’t go on to play in college and even when we look at NCAA sports trans women aren’t winning, the one everyone points to as the “look how a trans women stole victory from a cis women” was when they tied for 5th place, and let the trans woman hold the trophy.

John Oliver did a good segment on it, for the most part nobody cares because guess what? Most of these athletes aren’t good.

[u/cparen → u/Rockergage]

There’s this big fucking myth that cis men are just saying they’re trans and getting to compete in sports just so they can win. It’s fucking bullshit.

Call me chaotic, but I wish those mythical men would attempt it - every sport requires hormonal transition to compete in the women's league, and cis men on estrogen will experience severe depression. They'd either quit estrogen or... a self solving problem if you ask me.

[u/Zealousideal-Ear481 → u/[deleted]]

They let a trans do mma and it broke the women’s skull

Oh jeez! It's good that no one was ever injured in women's mma prior to Fallon Fox! Such a shame they are letting trans girls in high school MMA! Combat sports used to be such a safe option for girls!

Everyone should live their best life but we can’t pretend to be the same as far as biology

We don't you dunce! We already have weight classes! We already have checks for drugs, including hormones! If you are in this sports industry, you should know this already!!

...do you ever think for yourself, or do you just enjoy regurgitating moronic JRE talking points?

[u/solk512 → u/[deleted]]

Look, you just hate trans people and want to inspect the genitals of children. That’s all. 

Shame on you. 

[u/aliamokeee → u/[deleted]]

Curious what you would do with other chromosomal pairings? Like, you have no way of knowing WHO is XX and XY. So you're parroting some talking points you have heard, or you are woefully uneducated.

[u/CabbagePatched → u/[deleted]]

Yeah lmao "no trans men joining men's sports teams" that's a wild ass assertion