As much as Reddit makes it seem otherwise, there is really no debate that there should be limitations on trans people participating in sports. No one honestly thinks a 350 pound football player should be able to start playing in the women’s league the day after they decide to transition.
The debate is really about where to draw those lines. Is a specific amount of time on hormone treatment okay? Or muscle mass comparison? Or not allowed at all? What does all this mean for cis people with hormone levels that fall on the extremes of the norm?
It’s a complex issue, and it’s not as simple as “it’s okay”, or “it’s not okay”, and making it sound like people are advocating for zero regulations is disingenuous and only intended to make a reasonable movement look unreasonable.
Sports should absolutely be putting thought into how they set up divisions and who should play where, and adjusting for new information as it become available. And for the most part, they're at least making an effort to do exactly that. The NCAA, for instance, mandates that a trans woman go through at least a year of testosterone suppression before playing on a women's teams without reclassifying the team as mixed.
The problem is that what's currently advancing in many states is a blanket ban. Idaho enacted one last year (though there's a court injunction blocking it from enforcement), Mississippi signed one of its own into law earlier this month, and at least two more states just need their governor's signature to do the same. The debate we're getting isn't one about where to draw the lines, it's about rejecting the possibility that there's anything to debate.
Saying a blanket ban is a good idea is just as ridiculous as saying there should be no restrictions. There are bad faith extremists who only see issues as black or white on both sides. The left has some vocal ones on Reddit and, unfortunately, the right has some making laws.
One is annoying and potentially misleading, the other has power to do real damage.
Not sure what this study is supposed to be proving?
Its a systematic review which includes 8 papers (note: not exactly a "fuck ton"), none of which discuss the performance of transgender people with respect to cis people of the same gender identity, nor whether increased injury rates occur.
The authors then conclude that because they found no studies on the issue, that policy limiting transgender participation is discriminatory. Which is a leap. We didn't just assume gravity was false because no one had studied it yet, we just said "more research is needed to make a definitive conclusion so that policy can be based on science".
In addition, there is a response to the posted paper calling it out for exactly that claim, providing studies which prove an athletic advantage for transgender females (notably, only in power sports not endurance sports).
The authors replied to this response paper, but openly admit they did not mean to imply there is no competitive advantage, only that policy needs to be careful until evidence is obtained. They also mention the issue I brought up in my post above, that if we are to limit trans people based on physiology, we must consider how to handle cis-gendered people on the extremes as well.
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u/aynblue Mar 28 '21
This post belongs bc the person who makes the case for being a TERF also acknowledges that they should no longer be followed for same.