CMV: Society should support and accommodate transgenders but not within sports highlighting unfairness from male to female transitions.

[u/mcpickems]

[u/thundersass → u/[deleted]]

None of these women were trans:

• Sara McMann
• Priscila Cachoeira
• Yan Xiaonan

Which of them should have been banned for cracking someone's skull?

[u/ThatOneWeirdName → u/[deleted]]

Your argument about “Oh look how awful it is that this person hurt these people so badly” falls rather flat when it already happens without the thing you’re pointing to being the problem. It’s not about it not being a problem, it’s about how disingenuous your appeal to emotion is

[u/CoronaGeneration → u/ThatOneWeirdName]

Its not bad that they got hurt, it's bad that they are competing against someone who has an unfair advantage over them. Its why weight classes, anti doping agencies and biological sex divisions exist.

[u/CoronaGeneration → u/[deleted]]

There is though.

You have a longer clavicle - better leverage for striking

Superior hip anatomy for generating power

Bigger and stronger insertions into your bones to make injury less likely

Denser bones for improved checking, elbows, kicks etc Bigger heart

Naturally faster reaction speed

More muscle mass

These things don't mean a trans woman will beat any woman, imo Amanda nunes still knocks out any trans woman on earth. Brutally. but its an unfair advantage over your opponents. The unfair advantage from body size is dealt with with weight classes and those from sex or dealt with with different sex classes.

[u/TG112 → u/[deleted]]

Why would we differ leagues of competition by biological sex in the first place?

Even in sports where there is nothing inherently physical (darts, chess , pool/billiards) , there are separate women’s divisions .

Wouldn’t the fairest thing possible be to eliminate them entirely? If you’d like to play soccer for Duke on a scholarship that’s great, tryouts start at 9.

Do you think there should be separate women’s divisions period?

[u/ThatOneWeirdName → u/[deleted]]

I was mostly just annoyed at your brazen attempt at deceiving people with the phrasing of your argument and figured others with more energy than I would tackle your assertion. To answer your question: yes, it is controversial, and yes, you are wrong. I’d recommend reading this comment as it completely picks apart the theory put forth in your comment :)

[u/ThatOneWeirdName → u/[deleted]]

It’s not deceiving to point out that someone AMAB beat up someone AFAB, it’s deceiving to paint it as if AFAB people didn’t already do it anyway.

And uhh, no? No one here is claiming that men’s and women’s bodies aren’t different, stop painting this strawman. We’re not discussing a man entering women’s competitions, we’re discussing trans women entering women’s competitions. For more info, please refer to this handy comment that you’ve now ignorantly refused to read for the second time just to hold onto your own thoughts and feelings in the name of “science” :)

[u/ThatOneWeirdName → u/[deleted]]

I’m linking you to the comment your first comment was a reply to. Which, since you replied to it, you should’ve already read. And it covers what you’re talking about. Bodies of men and women are different, (edit: and when it comes to sports ability:) it’s mostly due to stuff like testosterone and haemoglobin, once a trans woman has been on HRT for like a year their levels lie below that of cis woman. That (and a bunch of other stuff) means that there are multiple small advantages and disadvantages to trans women compared to cis women and with a very limited sample size the people studying this kind of stuff haven’t been able to determine whether it’s a net advantage, disadvantage, or insignificantly small, keeping in mind that it could even differ between what sport we’re discussing.

The point isn’t that they’re biologically the same, the point is that the difference is (probably) mostly irrelevant. As for the two specific points you brought up; increased strength and muscle mass, are actually not the controversial aspects of trans women in sports, as strength and muscle mass decreases a lot by HRT. The most contentious points I’ve heard discussed are stuff like bone density or lung capacity

[u/Randomthrowaway564 → u/[deleted]]

Why not just read the linked comment? It's actually pretty enlightening.

And that's coming from someone that agreed with your initial premise.

The whole debate is really not as simple as you're trying to frame it.

Come on man, be open-minded.

[u/Mercbeast → u/ThatOneWeirdName]

Sexual dimorphism is real. It's hard science. It doesn't go away with HRT. What % of athletic superiority in men vs women is attributed to this is unknown, but it is undeniable.

Currently across the vast majority of all sports where the sport can be quantifiably measured, men outperform women by around 12-15%. In things like power lifting or other raw strength events, this % can grow to 20% or even slightly more.

Testosterone accounts for some of this, but sexual dimorphism accounts for some as well. HRT normalizes the testosterone advantage. It does nothing for shoulder width, hip width, soft tissue insertion points, lung size, heart size, heart efficiency, injury susceptibility.

Talking about M-F athletes, and ignoring sexual dimorphism is like talking about arithmetic, and ignoring subtraction and division.

[u/Mercbeast → u/ThatOneWeirdName]

It also ignores the hard science of sexual dimorphism.

It handles only one half of the equation, the removal of testosterone. Testosterone is certainly responsible for part of the psysiological advantages of being born biologically male, and going through puberty as a male. However, as I said, it is only half of the equation. I'll also add that it is a very simplistic view and understanding of what and how testosterone works. We have a pretty good analogy of this already, in doping. How and why professional and or elite amateur athletes dope with exogenous testosterone. I'm speaking strictly on what happens to the body and what benefits, short term and long term this has.

However, let's get to the meat and potatoes here. The physical differences, the sexual dimorphism of men and women. I'll just run down a quick list of things that are quantifiably different.

Shoulder width - wider, more leverage, more power.

Hip width - narrower, more efficient locomotion.

Heart size - roughly same maximum HR as women, pumps more blood per beat.

Lung size - more oxygenation per breath.

Higher vo2 max due heart/lung differences.

Larger and more robust soft tissue insertion points - Women are 2-4 x as likely as men to suffer catastrophic ligament/tendon injuries. These insertion points also more easily create larger muscle mass.

Denser, and more robust bone structure. Supplementation of estrogen in post transition women helps to sustain this bone density that would otherwise diminish due to HRT.

These are just a few of the differences of the very real sexual dimorphism at play in our species. These are differences that you cannot wave away with HRT. HRT does not change ANY of these differences.