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Postby ghijkmnop » Mon Feb 25, 2019 7:43 pm

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Last edited by ghijkmnop on Thu Mar 14, 2019 1:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: LGBT icon Martina Navratilova under fire

Postby gisambards » Mon Feb 25, 2019 8:11 pm

Navratilova is completely correct. There are clear differences between biological sex and gender identity and Fallon Fox in particular demonstrates that in sport, this does matter a lot. I am deeply concerned by the way that that has been allowed to become anathema in trans discourse (particularly when I can't be the only trans person that actually agrees with Navratilova), but I think the fact that it has - and that an LGBT icon like Navratilova should be criticised and patronised by a group claiming to speak for all LGBT people for expressing it - and also allowing Fox to keep beating up biologically female fighters actually do considerable harm to popular perception of trans people.
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Re: LGBT icon Martina Navratilova under fire

Postby Anglerphobe » Mon Feb 25, 2019 9:42 pm

It's a can 'o worms to be sure, which was discussed in my thread about Mack Beggs a few months ago holy shit an entire year ago, if anyone wants to read some partially baked opinions of mine without my having to shamelessly rehash them for this discussion.

For me, the most important factor is when the transition occurred in the individual's life. In the thread linked above, I cited the case of Laurel Hubbard, transgender weightlifter. Hubbard was a competitive weightlifter for years before transitioning at 33 and continuing to compete as a woman. Hubbard, therefore, had all of the muscular and skeletal development of years in training and competition while having the natural masculine advantages and it is doubtful that all was lost post-transition.
Someone who transitioned at a much younger age, before the divergence between male and female athletic performance becomes so pronounced, would be less advantaged. Girls and boys are not strongly distinguished in athletic ability until the early teens, and subsequently become more and more disparate at an increasing rate. A blanket ban would seem unfair to trans competitors who never fully developed the physical advantages of a male body (ie, transitioned before the gulf between male and female athleticism really opens up in the mid teens) unlike those who did. The latter will consistently result in a clear physical advantage, while the former won't.
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"Tusser, they tell me, when thou wert alive,
Thou, teaching thrift, thyselfe couldst never thrive.
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To sharpen others, when themselves are blunt."

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Re: LGBT icon Martina Navratilova under fire

Postby Absentia » Mon Feb 25, 2019 9:54 pm

I've heard conflicting things about "the science" here, but I think it's at least a reasonable concern to raise. It's unfortunate that some people are conditioned to view any pushback on anything that a trans individual claims to be entitled to as a transphobic and hateful attack on the community.
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Re: LGBT icon Martina Navratilova under fire

Postby cmsellers » Mon Feb 25, 2019 11:19 pm

When I was growing up, everyone "knew" that, as Jeff said, taking t-blockers and estrogen after puberty didn't reverse the effects of testosterone at puberty. Not only were trans women not allowed to compete in women's competitions, intersex women with unusually high testosterone weren't either. At some point, organizations started allowing intersex women to compete if they took t-blockers, and trans women started demanding the same treatment, which, on the surface, seems fair.

Now, there seems to be a new consensus that t-blockers + estrogen will reverse the effects of puberty on athletic performance. And yet, as far as I can tell, this isn't because of convincing science. It's because it seems unfair to ban trans women, who've already suffered from going through puberty as the wrong sex, from competing as their gender identity. We want it to be possible for trans women to compete fairly against cis women, and so people seem to be seizing on scant evidence to suggest that it is possible.

From there, once we've decided it is totally possible that hormones and blockers can eventually reverse the effects of male puberty on bone density and muscle mass, then you become a transphobic science denialist to suggest otherwise. I first realized this attitude had taken root in discussions of Rachel McKinnon. McKinnon went from a mediocre male athlete to seeing new records as a woman, but anyone who suggested she had an unfair advantage was branded as transphobic.

At a minimum, the sudden success of women like McKinnon and Fox suggests that it takes time for t-blockers and estrogen to reverse the effects of puberty. Is it possible that after a certain amount of time, they'll have no more advantage than cis women, or at least no more than intersex women who have to take t-blockers to compete? I know I hope so. It wouldn't just allow trans women to compete fairly, it would also suggest that some effects of puberty for the wrong sex are reversible, even if changes to hair and facial structure sadly aren't.

I'm not sure what the fair thing to do is, in light of the evidence we have. Maybe there's a period of taking estrogen and t-blockers at which point any advantage trans woman athletes have is no greater than that cis/intersex women with naturally high testosterone have on blockers, and I'd say that it would be fair for them to compete. Maybe there will never be such a time, but the advantage trans women have after two or three or five years is so minor that it would be a greater injustice not to let them compete. What I can say is that when someone goes from a mediocre athlete in male competitions to dominating female events so thoroughly that no cis woman can touch them, that absolutely doesn't seem fair.
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Re: LGBT icon Martina Navratilova under fire

Postby NathanLoiselle » Tue Feb 26, 2019 12:38 am

LGBT icon who?
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Re: LGBT icon Martina Navratilova under fire

Postby iMURDAu » Thu Feb 28, 2019 11:01 pm

The top two female runners in Connecticut high schools are transgender.

The article includes a statement from a competitor who missed regionals by two spots.
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“This is going to become a bad meme,” Todd observed.
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Re: LGBT icon Martina Navratilova under fire

Postby cmsellers » Fri Mar 01, 2019 2:41 am

So the problem with Connecticut's policy, and that of sixteen other states, is that there's no qualification beyond self-ID. A biologically male teenager who just came out as trans could start competing in female events immediately. Given that it's hard for trans teenagers to get blockers and harder still for them to get cross-sex hormones, I feel like the odds are likely that these two runners have been taking t-blockers and estrogen for a substantial length of time, if at all, is very low. And of course that's another problematic point, because it's not like trans youth generally choose to go through puberty as their birth sex. It's forced on them because of concerns about how blockers affect bone growth, and about what happens if they change their minds.

Andraya Yearwood wrote:“One high jumper could be taller and have longer legs than another, but the other could have perfect form, and then do better,” she said. “One sprinter could have parents who spend so much money on personal training for their child, which in turn, would cause that child to run faster.”

This is true and also irrelevant. It's basically the same argument McKinnon uses, and it really annoys me. For one thing, based on the picture, both of these girls are taller than their closest cis competition, another advantage trans women tend to have. (I imagine we hear about it less because there's much more overlap in height than in physical strength, gets brought up a lot less, though I imagine it will become a topic of conversation if 6'5" transwomen start to dominate the WNBA.) But for another thing, in a lot of sports, sex is basically the single greatest innate predictor of success.

For this reason, we've decided that we're going to have separate competitions based on sex, which really comes down to hormones and their effect on the body. Meaning it makes sense for this to be about sex and not gender identity, though it would be great if we could still accommodate gender identity as much as possible without giving a transfemale competitor a grossly unfair advantage. Unfortunately, in this case, in McKinnon's case, and in case of the wrestlers discussed above, yes, it does feel to me, and to most people on this thread, it seems, like they're getting an unfair advantage.

That said, I want to be clear on something that came up in this article. I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir here, but it really upset me, so I need to vent about it: It is not OK to harass transwomen for competing in female competition.

I mean, I'd say it's pretty much never OK to harass anyone, but this seems to be a case where people feel like they have license to harass them because they're "cheating." That's not what Navratilova did, she just expressed her opinion, but a lot of people do direct a lot of vitriol towards trans athletes, including, from the sound of it, these two Connecticut teenagers. And while I believe the situation is unfair, they're still playing within the rules. If you have a problem with that, I absolutely believe it should be OK to express it to the authorities that allow it.

But do not direct your complaints directly to the athletes. Even the most civil, well-thought-out, and empathetic arguments, when coming from strangers, are likely to come across as invalidating. And from what I've seen, the kinds of people likely to confront trans athletes directly are likely to be pretty far from civil, well-considered, and empathetic. Not only are they needlessly inflicting harm, but even if they don't care one iota about the feelings of trans people, they should care that it's likely counterproductive, leading to doubling down and stupid arguments as defense mechanisms.
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