Someone get this brave gal a vagina hat!
Related. Youâve probably heard about the Texas Male to Female TG kid who has been on male hormones and who wanted to compete as a boy, but was forced to compete against the girls since Texas went with a birth certificate law? You were born a girl, so you must compete as a girl. Yeah, he dominated the girls, winning his weight class. Some of them refused to wrestle him.
Weâve had this discussion before in the Kroc thread, but hereâs more about the New Zealand M to F powerlifter.
Laurel Hubbard, 39, a transgender female athlete who transitioned to a woman in her 30s and previously competed in the menâs weightlifting category as Gavin Hubbard, won the womenâs over 90kg division at the Australian International in Melbourne on Sunday and stands in line to represent New Zealand at the 2017 Commonwealth Games, according to AU. NewsâŠ
Bronze medallist Kaitlyn Fassina, however, claimed she didnât see a problem with Hubbardâs participation. âShe is who she is. Thatâs the way the politicsâŠand what the New Zealanders have decided. I canât say much more than that. She is seen as female and thatâs the way it is.â
A prominent sportswriter, Phil Gifford, meanwhile, defended Hubbard, saying the athlete had every right to compete in the womenâs category after passing hormone regulations.
âItâs testosterone levels which is a much more scientific way of measuring male gender, female gender than anything else that is currently known. And Lauren has passed all of those tests over the last 12 months,â he told a New Zealand news program.
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She looks a lot like Eugene from The Walking Dead. Hairline and all.
Iâm still on the fence about the transgender competition thing.
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Itâs absurd.
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I was wondering how many Olympic events Kroc could compete in and win right now, just on brute strength alone. Weightlifting. Shot put. Maybe discus. Boxing probably. Wrestling perhaps.
Iâm not insinuating that he would do such a thing, but if the rules allow it, Iâm pretty sure he could.
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Quick correction: the Texas athlete in question is FTM (hence âborn a female, forced to compete against females despite being willing to compete against malesâ).
Former HS wrestler here, and still a huge fan, so naturally this was a big thing on my Facebook feed. Prevailing opinion from within the wrestling community was sympathetic to the athlete. I know that some parents were very upset and, unfortunately directed their frustration at the kid, but prevailing feeling from most wrestlers âHey, the kid just wanted to wrestle and even stated that he wanted to wrestle against boys; itâs kind of the state athletic associationâs fault that their one-size-fits-all rule forced him into wrestling girls.â
Me too. It creates all kinds of issues (even without a true âtransâ does anyone remember the scandal about Caster Semenya, the distance runner who looked so male that it was argued whether she should be allowed to compete, and spawned a huge debate about whether sex could be defined as binary or a continuumâŠ) but trans people are already incredibly ostracized and have difficulty fitting in, so just ruling out all competitive sport for them doesnât seem like a great idea.
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Yes. Thanks for catching that for me. I was also sympathetic to that situation. Texas should have just let him compete with the young men. Instead, they set up a situation where you have an athlete on male hormones competing against the women. It seems to me that they need to have a way to look at individual cases.
Weâve already discussed this issue in great length in the old Kroc tread, so I wonât get into it again but yeah. To imagine someone like Kroc entering PLing competitions as a woman, even if she has had female hormone levels for several year? Nope.
Does everyone have a basic human right to compete in competitive sports, even if theyâve changed their gender? Weâve talked about this before, but my brother at 115 pounds had a 200 pound bench press, after only training for a short time. If he goes on female hormones for a year or two, does he have a right to come to a PLing meet and get on the podium as a woman and trounce me? Does anyone here believe that after a year with female hormone levels, that weâre now equal?
To put this in some perspective, Marisa Inda, the world record holder for PLing total at 114 pounds, has a 204 pound bench press. My brother, at that same weight, was pressing that after only a few weeks of training.
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The only reasonable answer is that you must compete with your birth sex. Sorry snowflakes, you have choices to make just like the rest of us. Get your hormone therapy or pursue your athletic dreams. Pick one. You can always get your surgery after you medal, just like Bruce Jenner.
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This is an empirical question, and a reasonable one. The NCAA has answered it (to their satisfaction), hence their guidelines regarding trans-athletes competing in NCAA-run events (readily Google-able for those interested).
As amply demonstrated by the Texas wrestler case, this will put cis-female athletes at a hyooge disadvantage when they are forced to compete against trans-male athletes.
No it is definitely not a ârightâ. That said if we wanted to create a new class for Trans that seems reasonable. The obvious problem with the mtf in weightlifting is that this dude trained for years as a man and carried that advantage as a trans woman. The problem with the ftm wrestler is that competing with girls he is on PEDs and if he competes with boys he is on PEDs.
If the mtf weightlifter wants to compete, the only way it can be fair is if she does with the men or a new class is created. The ftm on PEDs is on PEDs and has no place in âcleanâ competitions.
There is so much more to the physiological differences between men and women than t levels and weightlifters, weightlifting coaches and anyone in the sport knows this from decades of experience with PEDs and optimizing athletic performance. The academic discussion around sex and gender however are out to fucking lunch and confusing the will to be a woman (to which I have no issue with) with physically being disadvantaged as a woman in sport.
I hear arguments like âbut she didnât choose to be Trans and didnât do it just to beat women!â But the woman who lost her rightful spot on a podium didnât choose for her to be trans either.
I really think cases like this really hinder Trans acceptance because these become the examples opponents use to argue against them and in this case they wouldnât be wrong.
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Youâre right. I forgot all about that when I wrote this.
So listen up people. New rules. Compete with your birth sex UNLESS youâre a she going to he. Then youâre with the dudes.
You may have been saying this tongue-in-cheek, as you have one of the best dry Internet wits Iâve ever seen, but just to be clearâŠ
M - born male, still male - menâs division.
MTF - born male - compete with the dudes.
FTM - she going to he - compete with the dudes.
F - born female, still female - ladiesâ division.
(Iâm not saying this to be argumentative, just pointing out that the stated rule is equivalent to âany transgender athlete must compete with menâ)
Yes that is the gist of it. I find the terminology confusing, so Iâll stick to plain English.
I have no animosity towards anyone who does anything that doesnât affect me negatively. Iâm still on the hunt for Mrs. Slave, and pending success in that endeavor, I do not want any daughters of mine competing against men or women who are taking male sex hormones.
I have a real hard time understanding why anyone would argue otherwise.
I wonder whether you will feel the same if you and the future Mrs. Slave have a child who is transgendered.
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I most definitely will. Compete fairly, or not at all.
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Is testosterone the only metric that should be used to determine if a transgender should be allowed to compete for the other âteamâ?
What constitutes âfairnessâ with respect to competitive sports? Thatâs quite the can of worms.
An example: When Leonard Fournette was a child, the parents on other football teams petitioned the league not to let him play, because it âwasnât fairââhe was too big, too fast.
http://www.si.com/college-football/2014/06/22/leonard-fournette-lsu-tigers-new-orleans
Fairness is simply following the rules that have made competitive sports a successful and rewarding experience for men and women alike. A central component of that fairness is men competing against men and women competing against women. I donât see how an outcome like Hubbard winning a womenâs weightlifting competition is in anyoneâs interest.
I read a good chunk of that article. Forgive me if I missed something important. Fournette sounds like a superb athlete. The other teams should be relishing the chance to compete against the best. Was he unsportsmanlike somehow? Iâm not seeing the unfairness.
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I have no idea. I imagine the spectrum of trans-isms and treatment options is quite broad. I havenât thought all of that through.