OT: Transgender athletes and fairness

Submitted by StephenRKass on January 11th, 2022 at 11:35 AM

I just read a fascinating column on fairness in female sports. Specifically, Lia Thomas is a swimmer for U Penn who is transitioning from male to female. She was an all-Ivy swimmer on the men's team before transitioning. Since the transition, she has

"basically obliterated the competition, smashing pool and meet records. Her times compare favorably not only with the best current female collegiate swimmers in the country but with the best American female swimmers ever."

The column is an interesting piece looking at the conflict between trans rights and women's rights. I will say upfront, I don't know the answers, but it appears to be troubling.

LINK:  Transgender rights and fair play

I am the picture of privilege: a successful white male. As such, anything I have an opinion on is automatically suspect. However, I'd love to hear from female athletes at Michigan as to their thoughts on this.

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TK

January 11th, 2022 at 12:36 PM ^

Lakeyale, do you have daughters? You want to tell them that they are no longer going to be able to compete in any sports because they will all be dominated by biological males? Yeah that seems like a terrific idea for moving forward. Girls can go back to being in the kitchen, or maybe just making tik tok dance videos while males and females who were born as males compete in sports. Get real. 

Joined: 09/23/2014

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Lakeyale13

January 11th, 2022 at 12:45 PM ^

My proposal was for the most equitable system with removing as much subjectivity as possible. If you base your judgement on athletic ability alone, you can remove gender entirely from the conversation. You don’t have to concern with debate over who is male, female, transgender.  Simply, who is the best athletes…period. End of story. 

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TK

January 11th, 2022 at 12:51 PM ^

And that’s going to be a disaster for womens sports. And affect the lives of countless young girls who are told they aren’t good enough simply because of the way they were born. I can’t believe the hypocrisy on this issue of those who want everything in society to be “fair”. 

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ClaudeTee

January 11th, 2022 at 12:52 PM ^

I have a daughter, who also happened to have been an athlete in college.  She is far more concerned with treating other people with dignity than winning a game.

I also coach high school track, and have coached young people who are transitioning and against young people who are transitioning. Yes, those transitioning from male to female have a significant advantage. No, it's not the end of the world. It's an extracurricular activity, for heaven's sake.

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trueblueintexas

January 11th, 2022 at 3:34 PM ^

While I wholeheartedly agree some athletes simply want a level playing field to compete, the reality of sports is quite the opposite. Name a single sport that hasn't had a known instance of a team or individual breaking the rules to get an unfair advantage.  Now add in the times the governing body basically did nothing to address it.

College football and basketball is the poster child for this. There has never been a level playing field. Whenever humans are involved, someone is trying to uneven the playing field for the sake of winning. 

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LloydCarnac

January 11th, 2022 at 12:08 PM ^

One view is to have transgender athletes compete against other transgender athletes. For example, in the case of a swim meet, if one transgender athlete competes against another, it appears to have an element of fairness. If the transgender athlete has no similar competitor, they still swim, even if alone, simply winning their category by default, writing the record book along the way.

There are other sports that segregate results according to age and sex categories, such as marathon running. All of the athletes run and compete together, and the results are posted according to categories. Adding transgender categories to events is a possible way to solve the problem of equity and fairness.

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Lakeyale13

January 11th, 2022 at 12:53 PM ^

I think the word “equality” is the problem.  Everyone has their own definition. If women, men, transgender, whatever I’m missing, are truly equal in every way then don’t have “mens” and “womens” sports.  That discriminates. Don’t have the WNBA and the NBA…just have the NBA and let the best players play. 

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TK

January 11th, 2022 at 1:11 PM ^

That’s the problem. Not everyone is equal in every way. Striving towards an unattainable goal of everyone and everything being completely equal is a disaster in the making. My son should be the starting QB at Michigan because he’s equal to Cade McNamara (in my eyes). I should be the CEO of my company and not the guy who has put in 35 years working his way up along the way due to his hard work and excellence. The person handing me my bag in the drive through should be making the same amount of money as the neurosurgeon operating on a brain tumor. Extreme, but you get the idea. Yet somehow this view probably isn’t what most believe these days.

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RONick

January 11th, 2022 at 1:51 PM ^

I agree with your entire premise.  My only issue is your last sentence; I think the majority of people agree with this and see the world for what it is: not fair or equitable.  There are some (very vocal) people that disagree or have a hard time seeing this, but the vast majority of people are on the same page when it comes to what equality means.

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rc15

January 11th, 2022 at 12:32 PM ^

While I think this could be a good solution on large scale levels, I don't think singling out transgender HS students and having them swim alone would be good for students already having to deal with bullying, etc.

Then it comes to a "value" associated with those records. Do you have a trans-Olympics or do you create new medals in the current Olympics for transgenders? Does a medal where you're competing against 0.5% of the world population equate to a medal that you're competing against 50%? Do we really want to force China's hand and have them force people to transition in order to win?

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MI Expat NY

January 11th, 2022 at 12:39 PM ^

I am far from an expert, but as I understand the science, your proposal may be the only "fair" answer.  That likely also means that trans women could not compete in school sports as there likely are not enough such athletes to make school teams possible.

I have read that with transitioning and hormone treatment, trans women can have the same general hormonal profile as cis women.  However, there's believed to be some importance to the amount of testosterone in boys during puberty leading to certain physical development that cannot be undone by hormonal treatment later in life.  Assuming that's true, it is hard to imagine trans women participation being fair to cis women.

I am sympathetic to all sides here.  Trans women deserve to be able to live under their gender identity.  But we also must provide competitive athletic opportunities that accounts for the physiological differences of cis women.

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ndscott50

January 11th, 2022 at 1:00 PM ^

I strongly agree with this, "I am sympathetic to all sides here.  Trans women deserve to be able to live under their gender identity.  But we also must provide competitive athletic opportunities that accounts for the physiological differences of cis women."

We have made a lot of progress over the last 100 plus years in developing women's sports and creating opportunities for women to compete athletically. Its something worth while to continue to grow for the 50% of the population that is female. Transgender athletes appear to create a challenge for women’s sports resulting in a need to balance competing rights.  At a high level I would fall back on the needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few.  Around 0.75% of the population identifies as transgender.  The primary issues for women’s sports is men who have transitioned to women who wish to participate in women’s sports. This is a pretty small group.  While we as a society can do everything possible to allow individuals to live under their gender identity we also can draw some lines to protect other, much large groups, from the inequitable conditions this can create.   

 

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teldar

January 11th, 2022 at 1:52 PM ^

I believe this. Completely. It is unfair to people who were women through puberty to have to compete with people who were men through puberty as if they had the same innate physical potential.

To everyone who wants to talk about a biological spectrum of gender including 'non-binary', most of those people are still ,biologically, a particular gender. According to the intersex society, the two most major and important true non-binary (not talking about biological chromosomal male or females who just don't identify that way) the current statistics are 1:1666 for non xx or xy and 1:1000 for xxy. So we have 0.07% of the population in these categories. I don't think bioligical women should be discriminated against for 0.035% of the population or for men who transgender to become women. 

The most fair way for competition should be based on biological gender at the beginning of puberty.  That would solve trans competitions  and hopefully all  non-binary genetic people competitions (assuming biologically non-binary people pick a gender to exhibit by puberty). 

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canzior

January 11th, 2022 at 12:46 PM ^

This I agree with. 

Add a 3rd team/competition, where applicable, for transgender athletes. 

 

In sports like swimming or basketball or track it sucks for the cis-women (did I do that right?) for many many reasons, but in sports like boxing and MMA, the results can be catastrophic. And there have been a number of women who have been brutalized in MMA because they were fighting someone who still has the muscle structure/strength of a man.  Fallon Fox who broke an opponents skull during a fight & Alana Mclaughlin come to mind, the latter is a former sergeant with the US Army Special Forces pictured below. 

 

Provost, however, the cis-woman in the fight, said she had no problem getting in the ring with McLaughlin since she trains against men all the time. 

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trueblueintexas

January 11th, 2022 at 3:46 PM ^

I think this works in some sports, but not others. As you pointed out, a marathon is a great example of a sport everyone can do at the same time and then measure success in defined categories. This could apply to other sports: cycling, figure skating, diving, etc.

I think it is harder to implement this in team & individual sports where there is an elimination component to crowning a champion. 

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Controversialidea

January 11th, 2022 at 11:40 AM ^

This should be locked because it's not going to end well.

 

That said, it's worth noting that Lia was literally just beat by another trans swimmer, but this time a trans man who has yet to go on T... so biologically he has no arguable advantages that people argue trans women do. This sorta undermines the whole argument against Lia competing in women's swimming, if she lost to a trans man who isn't on T yet.

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Minus The Houma

January 11th, 2022 at 11:58 AM ^

Once he starts T therapy does he have to go to mens or can he stay in womens. Or is he banned because it is steroidal?

To me this is pretty tough stuff. I don’t know if there is a good fair answer. I thought maybe some kind of hormone testing but what if you are naturally born with higher levels of hormones that give you an advantage? Some people are born to grow taller. That is certainly an advantage. 
 

I don’t know anything though ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

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carolina blue

January 11th, 2022 at 12:16 PM ^

I don’t see that it undermines it. A one-off defeat doesn’t mean much to me. The fact that the trans female was setting record after record after record (by a lot) is evidence enough. A biological female winning doesn’t undermine the argument against allowing biological males to compete in womens sports just because there is the occasional time when the biological male fails to win. It’s a single data point for a single biological male. You have to look at overall performance and fairness. The evidence (and frankly common sense) is overwhelming. 

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4th phase

January 11th, 2022 at 5:36 PM ^

the two off defeat doesn't mean anything to you...but a few wins "is evidence enough"? 

She had like 3 wins and 2 records (not record after record after record), and she had 2 losses, plus a loss in the team relay, in which she was slower than all 4 on the other team. When you take a 3-3 record and then decide only the wins shape your opinion, and ignore the losses, its clear you have an agenda and then pick a narrative to fit that agenda. 

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Wolverine91

January 11th, 2022 at 11:41 AM ^

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with being a successful white man. That’s not “privilege”. Enough with that bullshit 

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Bo Schemheckler

January 11th, 2022 at 11:44 AM ^

I don't believe he was saying there was anything wrong with being a "successful white male" just that his opinion on these matters will most likely be poorly informed as he will have no relevant experiences to relate to the question at hand.

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StephenRKass

January 11th, 2022 at 12:10 PM ^

Yes. I am not disparaging myself or my success. However, I'm saying 2 things:

  1. I'm self aware that I have had privileges.
  2. For at least a significant subset of the mgo-community, my thoughts and opinions are not considered as relevant or valid:  I am not part of a disadvantaged community:  women, people of color, homosexual, or transsexual. Sometimes, in some debates, those from a disadvantaged community disparage or devalue or reject the views of white males.

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canzior

January 11th, 2022 at 12:56 PM ^

I think there's a line.  Social issues require everyone's input, because you can't eliminate nearly 30% of the population from being able to opine on those issues yet expect things can change.

Cultural issues are different however.  One of the things that bothers me most about ESPN, and so many other sports talk shows, is that the people (mostly white men) reporting on football and basketball (mostly young, black athletes) don't come from nor understand nor have been attached to the culture in which they grew up.  It's also evident in how those 2 sports are covered vs baseball, hockey, and soccer.

 

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MgoBlaze

January 11th, 2022 at 2:53 PM ^

There are definitely people who think "disadvantage competition" is an excuse to invalidate other people's opinions. It's as off-base and absolutist as the people that say "privilege doesn't exist."

Who here has said that being a white cis dude means all of your opinions aren't valid? I think as discussed before, opinions have an inherent varying level of validity. My opinions on 15th century Greco-Roman sculpting techniques are not as valid as Stanislaw Szukalski's, nor are my opinions on how to throw a punch as valid as Israel Adesanya's. I would venture to guess that you and I likely have different opinions on hashish methodology, consumption, and preferred country of origin. My opinion on which translation of the bible is most correct likely is not as valid as yours.

Historically it's important to remember that (some, not all) white men have been telling disadvantaged communities what to do for years, both directly and indirectly. Meanwhile those people tend to not live in disadvantaged communities or be as familiar with what they deal with. A lot of the proposed solutions can be paternalistic and dismissive of the experience of people that live in disadvantaged neighborhoods.

"More police" sounds like a great idea until you've seen cars lined up for a half mile to buy heroin with a police car watching the deals go down the whole time, then those same police not investigating a shooting that happens there (slash happened about 100 yards from me while walking my dog). Seeing a man being tackled and having his infant child ripped out of his arms while his other two children scream in terror (or just being straight up attacked by 5 cops because someone told them "he hates cops," as happened to me) is a different experience than seeing the latest edited outrage porn video. There's no easy way to convey the experience of living in the hood.

I think the dual party system tends to make people think in dichotomies and absolutes, and respectful, genuine dialogue like on this thread can go a long way in easing people from those extremes. Completely dismissing someone's viewpoint based on their superficial characteristics as a person is just as stupid as a person expecting everyone to care about and validate every opinion that they have. 

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StephenRKass

January 11th, 2022 at 6:02 PM ^

MgoBlaze, thank you. There are some privileges I grew up with that are as visible to me as water is to a fish. I just don't even see them. Having a mom and dad both with masters degrees affected what it was like in my home. I grew up always hearing proper English. I never struggled in the least with grammar or sentence structure, because I intuitively knew what was right. I never, ever wondered about having enough to eat, or about having clothes, or about receiving Christmas gifts. I grew up reading classic literature, and hearing music from almost every genre. I had a piano teacher who took me to concerts with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, joining her in box seats. More than that, I never ever had to worry about DWB. Never had to experience being patronized as a secretary or the help because I was a woman.

I want to be very clear:  I greatly appreciate the privileges I had, I don't regret it, I'm not embarrassed by it, I don't feel guilty about it. All I'm saying is there were significant privileges and ways in which I had a massive "head start" over most of the population. I was fortunate, and I'm thankful for that.

More than 35 years ago, I was driving home to Mt. Prospect outside of Chicago, and had a Michigan chemistry professor's kid with me in the car. He was really hungry, and strongly asked me to stop at a Macdonald's on the Dan Ryan, next to the projects, the Robert Taylor homes. I was reluctant, but we stopped anyway. He was literally in shock when we went to the counter, and the two of us were the only whites in the place. The feeling was even more extreme for me when I was in rural Korea, far from Seoul. I stuck out like a sore thumb.

This is a long winded way of saying there is NO. POSSIBLE. WAY. I can fully understand what it is like to be black, or to be a minority, or to be a woman, or to be gay, or to be transsexual in our culture. My own experience and opinions are valid, but not as valid on these issues as those who have walked in a difficult position. Thank you for sharing your experience.

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