They’ve always been able to participate in sports.
I identify as a twelve year old tomorrow. Might see if I can get a trial at Forest. Should be the biggest, strongest and fastest there. Aiming for a 200 goal season next year.
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That isn’t the same thing at all. You don’t need to take the point to a deliberate extreme to make a reasonable argument about this.
Transgender people are not biologically the same as the gender they identify with. In sport this means they have unfair advantages in the women’s game especially. Therefore they should not be allowed to compete.
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That’s one of the big issues though, there’s recreational sport and then there’s competitive sport.
Barring contact sports, (like boxing/rugby where there could be a very real risk of injury without safeguards in place), I don’t think most people have an issue with trans people playing sports where competition is not involved.
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I know it isn’t the same thing. Point remains the sane though - an unfair advantage is an unfair advantage. Legitimising it is the problem in the modern world.
I’m only actually bothered in combat sport as people can be seriously damaged through this unfair advantage.
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So if I’m trans can I run in a neighborhood charity race? Can I play rec league basketball at the J? Can I play for my school tennis team? Could I play tennis doubles or only by myself?
I just don’t understand why we’re tying ourselves in knots over something that is really not a big deal.
How can it not be a big deal? It means that biological girls and women don’t really have a chance of winning in physical sport. This affects lots of people.
Does it affect me? Not massively, but it is clearly unfair.
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My issue isn’t even the competitiveness or fairness. It’s the story. I think its important women get the achievements and milestones from competing setup for them to show the community/world what they can do. They were born as a woman, grew up as a woman, faced hardships and adversity as a woman overcame any challenges as a woman. Their story will be reflected by exactly those obstacles.
Relatability is important for inspiration and a trans story while very sad. Is just not the same. Just my opinion anyway.
There should be a trans category so they can craft their own chapter in history.
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So you don’t think it’s damaging for trans people to be singled out even further?
And I’m just not buying this idea that taking hormones automatically makes you a better athlete. Transpeople come in all shapes and sizes and varying degrees of athletic ability. Is being bigger and stronger more helpful? Sure, but idk, Chris Samba was big and strong and he was awful at football. Contrast that with Bartolo Colon who looked like a guy you’d run into at the deli.
I also think this preoccupation with protecting young women and girls in sports is often a very cynical ploy from the right to create a wedge issue. To drum up fear among parents of girls and young women that a team of grown men in wigs are going to show up at Poppy and Ella’s middle school basketball game and pull off a 1989 Detroit Pistons tribute act.
This discussion is not being lead as best as I know with anyone with right wing leanings of that prejudice.
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Putting my complete disagreement with almost everything you said to one side, I like that you made that post so relatable for OA’s predominantly British/European readership
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Putting my complete disagreement with almost everything you said to one side, I like that you made that post so relatable for OA’s predominantly British/European readership
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If it gets people to go look up the 89/90 Pistons and watch the incredible documentary ESPN did, it worth it.
@Stroller I’m not saying it’s being done here deliberately but those talking points often come from right wing groups and politicians.
Who’s stopping them participate?
It’s cheating under the guise of being transgender that people have a problem with.
If you’re outside the top thousand when competing against other males but are winning medals in women’s sports while pretending to be female, then that is gaining an unfair advantage over women who will lose out because of it.
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It’s more fair than the trans man competing with cis men.
Because the poor trans man will get hammered. So that’s why it’s not really an issue but it is the other way because women work hard for years or decades to then be beaten by somebody that arguable shouldn’t be eligible to compete with you because of an unfair advantage.
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Left wingers need to stop excluding everyone they disagree with as right wingers.
Especially if they agree with you on 90% of topics but this one they don’t.
All it does is alienate them further.
This is a topic where there is big variations in opinions and that should be okay.
Shutting down debate is not fair.
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Get back to me when we have a run of transwomen sweeping gold medals at the Olympics. Until then it’s a lot of handwringing over something that doesn’t affect most people and is being used as a wedge issue.
@Electrifying since you’re handing out unsolicited advice here’s some for you, learn to read, read my post and try again. I didn’t say anyone here was right wing, I said that these talking points are often a cynical attempt to drum up fear.
I don’t think creating another category is singling them out in any way.
Bad Boys Piston’s are Legends
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Well if you as a man have said it’s not an issue until we you make then that’s fine I guess.
There’s a lot of men speaking on behalf of women on this, and I include myself in that tbh.
Until I see a proper rebuttal for the concerns made by actual women competitors who this concerns more than most, I think it’s fair game to treat this more than a wedge issue.
Lesbian icon Martina:
British athletic legends Sharon Davies, Kelly Holmes and Paula Radcliffe:
None of them necessarily right wing.
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Okay let’s play that out then. You have a transgender child, let’s say she’s a transgirl. She presents as a girl or young woman, uses she/her pronouns, school admins are supportive, she’s got friends, everything’s cool, everyone acknowledges her as a young woman, maybe she’s got “female” on her driver’s license, changed her name legally, the whole thing.
But when it comes to sports she’s singled out. She can’t play team sports because there aren’t any other young transwomen in the area to form a team, let alone teams to compete against. She can only play solo sports and then only against other transwomen? It perpetuates this narrative that transwomen aren’t women. It’s the whole TERF philosophy that JK Rowlings got hung up on.
And sports are, in theory, about bringing people together. Teaching about teamwork, learning how to lose, how to overcome disappointment, how to master a skill. Idk how any of those things would be dampened by having trans athletes participate.
I know. There’s never been this much interest in women’s sports from men.
They’re not.
The very fact you have to preface the word woman with trans should tell you everything you need to know.
A biological man will never be a woman under any circumstance. You can have all the surgery you want and take all the hormone blockers you like a trans woman will NEVER be a woman.
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