> Mediocre men-who-purport-to-be-women beating outstanding actual women, is analogous to a mediocre athlete juicing to beat his more talented competitors.
Does this actually happen? I remember seeing the first transgender woman competing in weightlifting, on the olympic stage. So like the most elite of the most elite competition, in a sport where you'd think muscle mass, skeletal size, and testosterone would matter the most. And she finished dead last. I'm not like a huge follower of sports or anything, I just follow the olympics sometimes. I never see transgender people dominating anything there and certainly not to the extent of Michael Phelps.
If we want to remove people due to lack of competitive fun we can remove Phelps, it was always really boring watching anything he competed in.
>I remember seeing the first transgender woman competing in weightlifting, on the olympic stage. So like the most elite of the most elite competition, in a sport where you'd think muscle mass, skeletal size, and testosterone would matter the most. And she finished dead last.
What happens when other transgender women (sincere or not) realize that they can compete in women's completions, and that their past testosterone levels gives them an advantage over the typical cis women? The first transgender women contestant might only be 90th percentile, but surely her success will attract people from the 99th percentile and beyond?
I'm not aware of anyone advocating to let Eddie Hall join a women's powerlifting meet. Generally athletic bodies have been establishing some criteria, ex being on testosterone suppression for a certain number of years.
Is it enough to remove the advantage? I can't begin to say. But acting like its as simple as "99th percentile men competing against 99th percentile women" are pretty clearly arguing in bad faith.
If you're talking about trans women competing against women, then no. That's men competing against women. I suspect you're quite aware of that and intentionally confusing the two for rhetorical effect, but that's a great example of why protecting the plain-sense definition of words matters. "Woman" means adult female human, which categorically excludes men regardless of their gender identity.
That weightlifter came last due to a disqualification for improper technique, not because of being unable to lift the weight.
If you look at previous performances by that same weightlifter in earlier competitions, although these were mediocre compared to other males, they would be outstanding if this weightlifter was actually female. Middle-aged, relatively unfit, with a chronic injury, and still able to lift significantly more than any other competitor, taking gold medals in the Pacific Games and Commonwealth Weightlifting Championships. Twice in the latter.
This is just one example amongst hundreds. There are loads of these male athletes with male physiological advantage taking medals in women's sports.
> This is just one example amongst hundreds. There are loads of these male athletes with male physiological advantage taking medals in women's sports.
Then where are they in the olympics? Why didn't trans women take over all medals in all categories? Why was there only one trans woman in fucking weightlifting and her technique apparently sucked so bad that she was disqualified? I'm not like deeply into sports, again, I just tune into the most elite international sports event and I literally do not see what you're talking about.
It's because there's not many of them eligible to compete at this level. Fortunately, there is a pipeline of restrictions in place so hardly any of these males filter through.
Firstly, there is the eligibility criteria to compete as women. Up until 2016, when the IOC relaxed the policy to only require these males to undergo testosterone suppression, the rule was that they had to have had the surgery to remove the testicles and reshape the penis into a hole. Only a minority of these males choose to go through with this surgery as it is, so to intersect with the group of males who want to seriously compete in sport was highly unlikely. Testosterone suppression, which not all of these males choose to do anyway, has strict limits of minimum duration and maximum concentration. So this in itself filters out most.
Secondly, no athlete can directly apply to compete in the Olympics, as all entrants have to go through their country's organizing committee. So this limits countries to those who recognize trans identities and who have a committee brazen enough to enter a male who wants to be female in the female category, ahead of actual female athletes.
Thirdly, even if those conditions are met, the athlete must choose to do this knowing that the eyes of the world will be watching and that such an entry into the Olympics will be highly and globally controversial. This filters out all but the most shameless. Note this contrasts with the female athletes who claim transgender identities and enter, uncontroversially, into the category of their sex, of which there have been several over the years.
All this is why almost all of the trans-identifying males who compete, and win, in the female category do so in competitions other than the Olympics. Mostly smaller, regional ones.
It's also why most of the male athletes who've competed at the Olympics in the female category are those with disorders of sex development. The rules are different for these athletes. Though not without controversy either. DSD policy has changed over time too, to be more restrictive. The most recent turning point was after male athletes took gold, silver and bronze in the women's 800m at Rio. They didn't claim trans identities, having been erroneously assigned female on their birth certificates, but competing as if they are female was, and is, similarly problematic.
