The Socialists, led by Pedro Sánchez, the prime minister, included plans to limit participation in female sports to “people with a female biological sex” in a policy document decided on at the party’s congress over the weekend.
The decision to also remove Q+ from a plan to protect sexual and gender minorities from the impact of social inequality sparked fury from LGBTQ+ activists and politicians from Left-wing partners of Mr Sánchez’s minority government.
The passing of a transgender rights reform in 2023, allowing anyone to change their official sex simply by stating their wish to switch, caused a bitter rift within Spain’s ruling Left-wing forces.
Carmen Calvo, the former Socialist deputy prime minister, said at the time the reform would “destroy the powerful battery of equality legislation in our country”.
Pathetic display from so-called socialists
Ignorant passerby here, and genuinely want to change my mind, but how exactly is it fair for a trans person to compete against a biologically female person?
If we go back to the original reason for this sexist devide, it stems from a fundamental biological difference between two genders. How we identify ourselves has little impact on these biological differences no?
Furthermore I was listening to a podcast recently and they were talking about how the greatest female tennisplayer to have ever lived is would be ranked 2 or 3 thousand in a unisex world ranking. Seeing a worldrecord being set by someone working within the confines of the female body is impressive, seeing that same record broken by someone without the same constraints just devalues the other persons achievement.
Equating transgender women with cisgender men is biologically inaccurate.
Biological and genetic differences are always contributing to why some athletes are better than others. Also: the science on trans athlete performance is mixed and unclear.
It’s a complicated issue, but I’d sooner reevaluate our attitudes and culture around competitive sports before restoring to creating a lower class of person. Maybe we take these things too seriously.
So a few things;
A) on the professional level sports ain’t about fair. It’s about who has the biggest natural advantage and enough money and time to develop the skills to make use of that advantage. Take the Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps who has genetic mutations, plural, that mean we’re likely to never see anyone ever break his records.
Now that’s just the professional level, and a less than professional level sports are about fun, not fairness; and in a team game it’s about teaching social skills over fun.
B) post bottom-surgery on hrt trans people, either main direction, have no biological advantages. In mixed leagues there are trans women that are far below cis women, and there are trans men far below cis men. This scare mongering that trans women specifically would have this massive advantage simply isn’t represented in the real world where trans people have competed with cis people directly.
C) You want the secret to athleticism? It’s not sex, it’s t level. Testosterone is literally the magic key for sports. Trans women that no longer produce as large amounts of t (see. Above) consistently under perform cis women with high natural t levels. To preempt this as
I’ve never before heard of this need for bottom surgery to even out any biological advantages. Can you explain more, or provide a link to some more info?
Two points:
Top-level sports isn’t fair. Most famous athletes are outliers in terms of height, weight, muscle mass, etc. Some, like Phelps, have genetic or developmental differences that give them a pretty significant advantage.
I must admit that the legal definition of ‘transwoman’ varies from country to country. In India, where I live, a person can legally change their gender without any medical intervention, and such people might have a physical advantage over cis-women. But in the vast majority of countries, they have to take hormones and / or do surgical procedures that reshape their body to be more ‘feminine’. Once they do that, they have no significant advantage over cis-women.
The broader issue is discrimination, and if one class of people should be allowed to be singled out and discriminated against.
For sure, I am very aware of the overlying issue here. And let it be known that I have always been supportive of the movement.
Isn’t that the whole point of women’s sports though? To exclude a class of people (men) so that others (women) have a chance to compete on their own?
But maybe that idea itself is flawed. Most high performing long distance runners come from Ethiopia and Kenya, do we create a whites only league?
There are physiological differences contributing to these things too. Why does gender have to be special?
Conversely: why do we segregate men and women for things like chess? There’s no difference in ability there.
Maybe those ideas are what’s outdated and wrong, and we don’t need to erase a certain kind of person. Ignoring that trans people exist isn’t as helpful as finding ways to include them
Just, this. Haven’t anyone risen the point that in boxing there is segregation by weight? And in some sports by age? Also, clearly, black people in general have genetic superiority in (i think) explosive force and inferiority in swimming because of muscle fiber density.
However, wouldn’t segregate athletes by “race” be called racist? Why doing so by “sex” isn’t “sexist”?
Why aren’t athletes segregate by testosterone levels, however way this should be measured? Or height? Or weight? Or foot length? Or age? Like, poor post-35 athletes, they can’t have a fair race against 20-somethings, they have a natural disadvantage. Or, I don’t know, just “marks”, and let compete people with similar marks together, and let’s see what people in different marks or categories have to offer. Anyone know whether if in boxing lighter fights are like faster or more agile than heavier?
All this biologicist criteria of “poor women” is bullshit. Yes, where there is a clear T gap and this gives cis women a fair competition and representation, and it has value, but it is taken to the absurd like with chess, as it’s been already said.
Outside of sports, the definition of a “biological women” is also racist and eurocentrist. Like, european cis-women tend to have more hair than east-asian men. And african/black women tend to muscle up way easier than white men. Also, height difference betwen “sexes” isn’t a thing in the Andes, it’s just not real. And taking andinian people, they may be shorter in height and may not run as fast as a whitie, but take that race to 4000 m above sea level and let’s see who can endure half a marathon and is “naturally superior”.
I am really fed up by racist and patriarchal arguments trying to hide behind a science with overfunded biases.
As an egalitarian, I also inherently dislike divisions in competition based on demographic. Here’s my understanding of why they exist (though my stating the justification here doesn’t mean I tacitly agree):
Chess: currently, only about 40 of the 1600 grandmasters are women. To attain a balance, we ought to be encouraging women to play chess. Women-only competitions are a great way to do this. (There are almost no transgender chess grand/masters, so the same logic ought to apply here – I don’t understand any reason other than bigotry to exclude transgender women from such tournaments)
Sports: I think it comes down to a Schelling division. Now sure, there are other genetic advantages, perhaps race or leg length or height or other aspects influence one’s athletic ability too – top basketball players are generally many standard deviations above average height. However, those are spectra – ranges – so there’s no obvious place to split into two categories. There are basically only two obvious, bright-line, ostensibly binary dichotomies that people tend to believe categorize humans: (a) sex, and (b) disabled status (see: paralympics).
Now, imagine there was a genetic allele that causes humans to be 9 feet tall. About half of humans get this allele. Then obviously we’d add a new category for these super-tall humans, just so that less-tall humans would have the option to compete in sports.
Some sports make divisions on a spectrum, like heavy-weight, medium-weight, light-weight boxing and so on. But these are pretty arbitrary, certainly not Schelling points, so it’s less common for sports to use these divisions.
Now, I often find myself thinking, shouldn’t those certain cis men who happen by nature to be less able than a typical woman be permitted in the women’s category? My gut answer is yes – but the problem here is that there’s just no way to measure someone’s natural capacity for ability. There’s no bright-line, Schelling-point way to sort out these less-capable cis men. It sucks.
Valid points and I fully acknowledge my oversimplification. I just wanted to express that some of these alternate paths might be more fruitful and easier to solve than just having an apartheid society.
I like the idea of gender essentialism ≈ apartheid
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Hormones can nudge these things in one direction, but cannot fully reverse the process of puberty. Here’s a study about how far HRT can go. Also, who is going to decide which trans person has done enough HRT so the differences doesn’t matter anymore? Are we really going to gatekeep being trans to make sure competition is fair? That’s a few steps backwards.
I looked up a study on google so now I will explain to all of you what your lives are like. I came here to be the professor not the student.
“Ignorant passerby genuinely want to change my mind” didn’t survive a single reply
Lmao I used an example as it should be used, have you been in the echochamber that long you’ve forgotten what people having a grown up discussion looks like?
You used an example to do what? To argue your point, right? So fuck you. Be honest. Reddit brained troll.
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High T is not the same as growing up as male, just like HRT won’t reverse completely, discussed in said study.
I can, I just did, bone density, body build and muscle strength cannot be fully reversed. I’m not saying every trans athlete will better or ‘unbeatable’ as you put it. I’m saying they’ll have an unfair advantage.
To be clear, I believe everyone in the Olympics has some kind of biological advantage (be it Phelps having the wingspan of a 737 or Bolt having the legs of an antelope), but there shouldn’t be a judge on who decides who has or hasn’t had enough HRT and can compete, that’s just gatekeeping being trans.
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Bone density is actually one of the things that absolutely goes down with HRT, they even mention that in the study you cited.
This is all from the study you just linked, if you really are interested in learning maybe you could try reading the sources you’re bringing to the table.
Just to close out, again citing the study you provided:
It’s almost like this is a non-issue that is being brought up by assholes to discriminate against an out-group.
A reminder that this comm is not for debating trans rights, (rule 4) I’ve let it slide thus far, but I’m really starting to question my judgement.
Note I said not fully reversed.
I did, it’s clear that there could an adventage, not that there definitely will be.
Don’t put me in the opposition just because I’m trying to understand and educate myself, I’m tired of people on both sides of this argument making clearly blanket statements, one side says “there is no physiological difference” and the other goes “hey it’s completely unfair”. Reality lies somewhere in the middle, but seems like you’re not willing to talk about the gray zone.
For the record, I support trans rights, and not taking away any power from you to educate me.
Are you interested in defending your statements or learning?
Bone density in trans women actually can end up being lower than in cis women, citation
It’s a tiny fraction of the population, even less of whom are going to be athletes. Cis women are perfectly capable of having higher testosterone levels and muscle mass than trans women.
Frankly a far bigger advantage when it comes to competing in sports is being wealthy enough to even have time/money to train for and attend these types of events on a regular basis rather than working to survive.
Don’t get defensive then.
The reality is that the ‘sanctity’ of sports competition is and has been a farce, excluding trans people entirely is a shit way to address whatever supposed problem there is, and the people who are interested in excluding trans people don’t give a shit about evidence anyways.
No need to be condescending, and my words have no need to be misread.
I have never claimed otherwise to anything you just said, I’m pointing out that there are blurry lines, grey areas where it is unclear how much bone density or muscle mass loss is considered as fair. We have very little ways of verifying what dosage of hormones people recieve, and people have no right to demand that information, making this whole thing into a mess. And the last thing we want is excluding people for ‘not being trans enough’.
I hate how discrimination is even a factor, it shouldn’t be, and I am aware this is fighting a greater issue, maybe its better to be defacto all inclusive until proven to be a problem.
Wow for a so-called ignorant passerby you sure have a lot of talking points ready. That’s amazing.
I’ve been trying to understand this issue for years, I’m leaning to one side because I allow science to look for answers, and I come here in this community, fully knowing people will shit on me. You could choose to leave constructive comments, or choose to leave whatever sarcastic mess this is supposed to be.
Wait, so, your solution to “gatekeeping being trans” is to gatekeep trans people?
What? I am deconstructing the issue here, not proposing a solution.
I have to ask, are you trans yourself?
Nono I am not, that’s why I think it’s so important for me to engage in conversation about it. And obviously I was expecting to be downvoted, but I did expect a more nuanced discussion, I apologise if I’ve overstayed my welcome.
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Maybe mine is a weird way to explain it, but here it is. It’s up to the rules to decide what is an unfair advantage and what is not. You can make sports categories based on gender, or body weight. You could theoretically make them according to muscle mass, or maybe even blood androgen concentration. But here the rules only say “men and women”; if you think some people might still have an unfair advantage under that scheme, that’s okay, but going down the lazy path of leaving basically everything unchanged exept you restrict some women from participating in “women’s” sports is the worst possible way to handle it. It alienates people by refusing to grow beyond an outdated model.