What do you say to potentially well meaning friends/coworkers who say they support (read: tolerate) trans people until the sports issue comes up?
PKMKII [none/use name] - 2.3yr
Ask them how often they think about women’s athletics when it’s not about trans women
32
DirtyPair [they/them] - 2.3yr
idk i'd probably just start kicking them
24
ashinadash [she/her] - 2.3yr
I actually do just tell these people to fuck off and die, Idk. Unproductive but I do not have to tolerate these fuckers
20
GenderIsOpSec [she/her, kit/kit's] - 2.3yr
had a buddy who started debating me on this, telling me to read tHe SciEncE after I gave him the facts from actual studies, but HE had read an article from a tabloid so he was obviously the expert and I was too "emotionally invested". Called him a fucking liberal and told him to pound sand.
Good riddance to fake friends
16
ashinadash [she/her] - 2.3yr
BASED TBH
11
GenderIsOpSec [she/her, kit/kit's] - 2.3yr
the last message i got before i blocked him was him crying about how "liberals are progressive aktually" fucking amerikkka brain is a real thing
11
GalaxyBrain [they/them] - 2.3yr
Same, a condition of my friendship is not being like that.
10
aaro [they/them, she/her] - 2.3yr
Trans women are women, right? And women compete in women's sports, right? So even if they did have an innate advantage, much like the innate advantage tall women, rich women, and able-bodied women have, why would that be grounds to stop them from competing if we don't stop any of the other advantaged subgroups of women?
24
BountifulEggnog [it/its, she/her] - 2.3yr
rich women
This, so much! There was a story floating around about some pool players throwing a fit about trans women, because they had been "male socialized", as if being rich enough to own a pool table and having time to play isn't a million times more important.
24
imikoy [she/her, comrade/them] - 2.3yr
::: spoiler A joke about genitalia and transphobia inspired by manscaped ad (is it in a bad taste? tell me pls)
Trans women playing billiard clearly know more about balls
:::
10
JohnBrownNote [comrade/them, des/pair] - 2.3yr
"oh so you know more about this than the olympics?"
16
kristina [she/her] - 2.3yr
im going to kill you and eat your face? idk
16
SpiderFarmer [he/him] - 2.3yr
I thought there's actual studies that HRT and the like causes significant enough changes that any arguable grey area kinda just goes away after a year or two.
Too lazy to look these studies up atm cause I'm about to take a nap. Also transphobes aren't the kind to actually look at science, despite their claims. So like, peer reviewed articles wouldn't mean shit anyway to those assholes.
15
LaForgeRayBans [he/him, they/them] - 2.3yr
HRT should not be required for competing in womens sports, the whole natural advantage argument does not justify excluding transwomen from sports even if it were true which it is not. In an ideal world all sports and competitions would be coed or unisex, but because of the systemic inequalities facing women they need leagues of their own for the foreseeable future, mens leagues should be open leagues for everybody unlike womens leauge, womens leagues should exclude cis men because it sucks to be a woman in a male dominated field, it leads to less women participating, they are more discriminated against as the only one.
Womens sports are necessary and excluding transwomen (and non-binary and other queer folks who want to be in the womens leauge who I dont have time to cover unfortunately) hurts transwomen far more than it hurts to exclude women from mens leagues. Firstly transwomen are women so the psychological damage of being denied that could be outright fatal, secondly it shouldn’t matter how dominant transwomen are or might be if allowed in because they are women, thirdly ciswomen do not have the right to invalidate the existence of transwomen by refusing to play with them, either they join the league or there should be no league.
Now if transwomen wanted to make their own league and exclude cis people from it thats fine, but the existence of such a thing is not wanted in the same way women dont want to play in mens, some do but the vast majority dont and just want to stick to womens leagues, most transwomen dont want to play in mens leagues for the exact same reason. BECAUSE THEIR WOMEN. I think the most important thing we can say though as allies is that yes, there is contradictions, there’s contradictions in everything, ignore them if you feel them, dont let your lying eyes deceive you, your belief is stronger.
6
BountifulEggnog [it/its, she/her] - 2.3yr
HRT should not be required for competing in womens sports, the whole natural advantage argument does not justify excluding transwomen from sports even if it were true which it is not.
What do you mean? Without hrt, amab people definitely have an advantage over afab people in a lot of sports. Testosterone is a hell of a drug.
15
imikoy [she/her, comrade/them] - 2.3yr
I heard that testosterone makes keeping muscle gains much easier? Important part here is that without testosterone the additional gains are very easy to lose. So prolonged HRT should clear the effects. Would definitely like to see more scientific studies on this.
4
BountifulEggnog [it/its, she/her] - 2.3yr
So prolonged HRT should clear the effects.
I absolutely agree with you here. From what I remember, it's about a year or two. I'm not even disagreeing that transwomen at all stages of transition should be allowed into women's leagues, especially considering school sports.
without testosterone the additional gains are very easy to lose.
Maybe I'm misreading his comment, but it sounds to me like he's saying transwomen with normal amab levels of T don't have an advantage over cis women (as further evidenced by him wanting all sports to be coed in the future, implying that maybe even cis men don't have natural advantages to women in some sports[?]). Which is just... really odd to me? Because amab levels of T definitely give someone an advantage over a cis woman.
6
Frogmanfromlake [none/use name] - 2.3yr
It’s a tough pill to swallow for some who think the patriarchy is the only reason women don’t match the men in sprints. You’ve got people like Ira Murchison who was the fastest man in the world at 5’1. He would easily smoke even the best trained cis women at the same height and weight because of testosterone.
4
D61 [any] - 2.3yr
Counter point, all cisgender sports participants are tested for doping in the same way that transgender sports participants are tested.
Who you compete with is based on the results.
1
D61 [any] - 2.3yr
Depends on the claims being made.
For the most part, if a person wants to play a sport with other people... why does it matter? Is it a shower thing? Well, get some dividers up. I guarantee you that I don't feel comfortable being around other naked people (except for my spouse). Is it a changing room thing? Well fuck, throw up some more dividers if somebody wants/needs privacy. Using the toilet? Once again, single occupancy stalls, privacy dividers next to urinals, and designing the bathroom so that its more difficult to watch other people pee/poop.
Is it the stupid "bone density thing" that Rogan spouts? Fuck that nonsense, ask them about which sports divide up cis participants by their bone density. Whats that? Its fucking zero? Of course it fucking is. Sports tend to be divided up by things like "Team Wins/Losses", "Height/Weight", "Who has the most fucking money".
In all the sports where transgender/intersex athletes are ALREADY playing, what do we find? Are they dominating the sport? Nope. Of those that do "win", are they winning by so much that no cis gender competitor could hope to catch up? Nope.
Fuck... how many transgender people are even trying to get into sports right now? Not that fucking many I tell you what. And if a team is worried about an opposing team having a transgender athlete, and that somehow them being transgender is a huge advantage, you know what the answer to that fucking problem is? That team goes out and recruits their own transgender player to balance the teams.
12
mystic-macaroni - 2.3yr
How much do sports actually matter? Would you care who competed or not if there were no cameras? No stadium? It's escapism. You still have to work the same shitty dead end desk job during the week. And you don't like confronting the fact your sexuality is more complex than you thought. Also. Gladdy voting democrat does not make you a progressive.
11
supplier [none/use name] - 2.3yr
This. The world warmed by more than it ever has last year, and "protecting" sports is somehow peoples #1 issue? Why can't sports be about personal best and having fun?
7
ButtBidet [he/him] - 2.3yr
Reactionaries always pretend they know far more about an issue than they do. They also blow their issues out of proportion, without exception.
If some chud thinks he's the fucking expert on trans sports because he saw one Joe Rogan episode, and the guest was some famous transphobe, and also there was zero balance, that guy can go eat turd because he doesn't know shit about the issue.
11
some_guy @lemmy.sdf.org - 2.3yr
"You don't support trans people."
9
Adkml [he/him] - 2.3yr
Or depending on the person "I've known you for decades and you've never given a shit about women's sports and in fact you've repeatedly shit on them but now that it's an excuse to be transphobic you sure do care all of a sudden"
9
roux [they/them, xe/xem] - 2.3yr
What even the fuck is that? It seemed like all my life, woman's sports have always taken a backseat to men's sports. None of these chucklefucks actually care about the sport itself. It's just an excuse for them to be bigots, as if they ever needed an excuse to begin with.
4
Tankiedesantski [he/him] - 2.3yr
"Watching sports is stupid and you are a loser for caring about sports."
8
marxisthayaca [he/him,they/them] - 2.3yr
Bit of a switcheroo but go point out all the ways that these trans exclusionary rules also hurt cis women. Top female athletes in a variety of sports, like Caster Semeya have been banned from their sport due to natural differences in their hormone production.
Under these regulations, promulgated by the sports governing body regulating track and field, women like Semenya, who have naturally occurring higher testosterone levels associated with Differences of Sex Development (DSD), are barred from competing – unless they subject themselves to medically unnecessary interventions to reduce their testosterone levels and conform to an arbitrary and subjective standard of femininity.
These regulations came into effect in 2019. Sports governing bodies argued that the regulations broke from the past 50 years of sex testing women athletes, a practice that was humiliating, degrading and discriminatory. However, the revised regulations still subject women athletes to sex eligibility criteria that retain these negative, rights-abusing consequences.
These practices are degrading and discriminatory and undignified.
These acts of discrimination hurt trans men and women, or attempts to exclude them, but it also ends up hurting cis gendered athletes (basically arguing for solidarity here). Every time these bills or exclusionary policies are passed, trans and cisgendered women that do not fit the concept of "normal" looking female are actively harmed. The Bathroom bans in SC, led to lesbian masc women being harrassed by cops (MEN!) inside of bathrooms and having their autonomy violated for going to the restroom. The very thing they were allegedly trying to "prevent".
We also have a human right to free association and human dignity. Why should women (cis and trans) be forced into genital checks or sex testing?
I might also add that sports are treated as an avenue to "rise" in their class position. With kids often cultivating specific athletic careers not just for fun, but because their parents want them to get full/partial rides to college, and possibly make it to the Olympics. If Athletic activities were not high-stakes, with so much riding on the individual performance of specific athletes, the pressure to exclude athletes with alleged "advantages" would cut off. It ultimately comes down to capitalism. Make college cheap, or free. Abolish university sports other than inter-mural leagues. And invest in more accurate research on the effects of estrogen / testosterone on transgender people and sports performance. I know there's papers on the effects of estrogen on muscle density and bone mass. Even if a man was actively trying to switch genders to have an advantage against women, aren't they handicapping themselves? To go through the gender dysphoria, possible mental issues of hormone imbalance, a man could just...train and git gud, or quit.
If it is about "men" in female locker rooms, or predatory creeps interacting with cisgendered women. It should be noted that there's already enough cisgendered creeps actively violating women in women's sports! Without any need to pretend or switch genders. They are called COACHES and DOCTORS. Point them to the The largest sex abuse scandal starting in 1990s, zero trans predators. The FBI even declined to pursue early reports:
Coaches and officials perpetrated, facilitated, or worked to conceal abuse in Michigan, Pennsylvania, California, Rhode Island, Indiana, and elsewhere.[8] FBI agents declined to investigate early allegations of abuse, then lied about it, according to a U.S. Justice Department report. Leaders of USAG, MSU, and the United States Olympic Committee (USOC, later USOPC) ultimately resigned; several coaches and officials faced criminal charges.
A central figure was Larry Nassar, a national-team doctor for USAG and osteopathic physician in MSU's athletic department. More than 265 women said Nassar had sexually abused them under the pretense of providing medical treatment,[9] including former USAG national team members Jessica Howard, Jamie Dantzscher, Morgan White, Jeanette Antolin, McKayla Maroney, Aly Raisman, Maggie Nichols, Gabby Douglas, Simone Biles, Jordyn Wieber, Sabrina Vega, Ashton Locklear, Kyla Ross, Madison Kocian, Amanda Jetter, Tasha Schwikert, Mattie Larson, Bailie Key, Kennedy Baker, Alyssa Baumann, and Terin Humphrey. In 2017 and 2018, Nassar pleaded guilty to federal charges of child pornography and state charges of first-degree sexual assault; he received sentences of 60 years in prison plus another 80 to 300 years.
6
Hestia [she/her, fae/faer] - 2.3yr
All my friends know better. Coworkers? I have never engaged in that topic with them. It is not a fruitful endeavor.
6
Jenniferrr [she/her, comrade/them] - 2.3yr
I think its pretty much ignorance. I don't really like to have the conversation but like the Olympics has rules around trans athletes and all in all this isn't really a real problem.
thy_dunkonman in traaaaaaannnnnnnnnns
What do you say to potentially well meaning friends/coworkers who say they support (read: tolerate) trans people until the sports issue comes up?
Ask them how often they think about women’s athletics when it’s not about trans women
idk i'd probably just start kicking them
I actually do just tell these people to fuck off and die, Idk. Unproductive but I do not have to tolerate these fuckers
had a buddy who started debating me on this, telling me to read tHe SciEncE after I gave him the facts from actual studies, but HE had read an article from a tabloid so he was obviously the expert and I was too "emotionally invested". Called him a fucking liberal and told him to pound sand.
Good riddance to fake friends
BASED TBH
the last message i got before i blocked him was him crying about how "liberals are progressive aktually" fucking amerikkka brain is a real thing
Same, a condition of my friendship is not being like that.
Trans women are women, right? And women compete in women's sports, right? So even if they did have an innate advantage, much like the innate advantage tall women, rich women, and able-bodied women have, why would that be grounds to stop them from competing if we don't stop any of the other advantaged subgroups of women?
This, so much! There was a story floating around about some pool players throwing a fit about trans women, because they had been "male socialized", as if being rich enough to own a pool table and having time to play isn't a million times more important.
::: spoiler A joke about genitalia and transphobia inspired by manscaped ad (is it in a bad taste? tell me pls) Trans women playing billiard clearly know more about balls :::
"oh so you know more about this than the olympics?"
im going to kill you and eat your face? idk
I thought there's actual studies that HRT and the like causes significant enough changes that any arguable grey area kinda just goes away after a year or two.
Too lazy to look these studies up atm cause I'm about to take a nap. Also transphobes aren't the kind to actually look at science, despite their claims. So like, peer reviewed articles wouldn't mean shit anyway to those assholes.
HRT should not be required for competing in womens sports, the whole natural advantage argument does not justify excluding transwomen from sports even if it were true which it is not. In an ideal world all sports and competitions would be coed or unisex, but because of the systemic inequalities facing women they need leagues of their own for the foreseeable future, mens leagues should be open leagues for everybody unlike womens leauge, womens leagues should exclude cis men because it sucks to be a woman in a male dominated field, it leads to less women participating, they are more discriminated against as the only one.
Womens sports are necessary and excluding transwomen (and non-binary and other queer folks who want to be in the womens leauge who I dont have time to cover unfortunately) hurts transwomen far more than it hurts to exclude women from mens leagues. Firstly transwomen are women so the psychological damage of being denied that could be outright fatal, secondly it shouldn’t matter how dominant transwomen are or might be if allowed in because they are women, thirdly ciswomen do not have the right to invalidate the existence of transwomen by refusing to play with them, either they join the league or there should be no league.
Now if transwomen wanted to make their own league and exclude cis people from it thats fine, but the existence of such a thing is not wanted in the same way women dont want to play in mens, some do but the vast majority dont and just want to stick to womens leagues, most transwomen dont want to play in mens leagues for the exact same reason. BECAUSE THEIR WOMEN. I think the most important thing we can say though as allies is that yes, there is contradictions, there’s contradictions in everything, ignore them if you feel them, dont let your lying eyes deceive you, your belief is stronger.
What do you mean? Without hrt, amab people definitely have an advantage over afab people in a lot of sports. Testosterone is a hell of a drug.
I heard that testosterone makes keeping muscle gains much easier? Important part here is that without testosterone the additional gains are very easy to lose. So prolonged HRT should clear the effects. Would definitely like to see more scientific studies on this.
I absolutely agree with you here. From what I remember, it's about a year or two. I'm not even disagreeing that transwomen at all stages of transition should be allowed into women's leagues, especially considering school sports.
Maybe I'm misreading his comment, but it sounds to me like he's saying transwomen with normal amab levels of T don't have an advantage over cis women (as further evidenced by him wanting all sports to be coed in the future, implying that maybe even cis men don't have natural advantages to women in some sports[?]). Which is just... really odd to me? Because amab levels of T definitely give someone an advantage over a cis woman.
It’s a tough pill to swallow for some who think the patriarchy is the only reason women don’t match the men in sprints. You’ve got people like Ira Murchison who was the fastest man in the world at 5’1. He would easily smoke even the best trained cis women at the same height and weight because of testosterone.
Counter point, all cisgender sports participants are tested for doping in the same way that transgender sports participants are tested.
Who you compete with is based on the results.
Depends on the claims being made.
For the most part, if a person wants to play a sport with other people... why does it matter? Is it a shower thing? Well, get some dividers up. I guarantee you that I don't feel comfortable being around other naked people (except for my spouse). Is it a changing room thing? Well fuck, throw up some more dividers if somebody wants/needs privacy. Using the toilet? Once again, single occupancy stalls, privacy dividers next to urinals, and designing the bathroom so that its more difficult to watch other people pee/poop.
Is it the stupid "bone density thing" that Rogan spouts? Fuck that nonsense, ask them about which sports divide up cis participants by their bone density. Whats that? Its fucking zero? Of course it fucking is. Sports tend to be divided up by things like "Team Wins/Losses", "Height/Weight", "Who has the most fucking money".
In all the sports where transgender/intersex athletes are ALREADY playing, what do we find? Are they dominating the sport? Nope. Of those that do "win", are they winning by so much that no cis gender competitor could hope to catch up? Nope.
Fuck... how many transgender people are even trying to get into sports right now? Not that fucking many I tell you what. And if a team is worried about an opposing team having a transgender athlete, and that somehow them being transgender is a huge advantage, you know what the answer to that fucking problem is? That team goes out and recruits their own transgender player to balance the teams.
How much do sports actually matter? Would you care who competed or not if there were no cameras? No stadium? It's escapism. You still have to work the same shitty dead end desk job during the week. And you don't like confronting the fact your sexuality is more complex than you thought. Also. Gladdy voting democrat does not make you a progressive.
This. The world warmed by more than it ever has last year, and "protecting" sports is somehow peoples #1 issue? Why can't sports be about personal best and having fun?
Reactionaries always pretend they know far more about an issue than they do. They also blow their issues out of proportion, without exception.
If some chud thinks he's the fucking expert on trans sports because he saw one Joe Rogan episode, and the guest was some famous transphobe, and also there was zero balance, that guy can go eat turd because he doesn't know shit about the issue.
"You don't support trans people."
Or depending on the person "I've known you for decades and you've never given a shit about women's sports and in fact you've repeatedly shit on them but now that it's an excuse to be transphobic you sure do care all of a sudden"
What even the fuck is that? It seemed like all my life, woman's sports have always taken a backseat to men's sports. None of these chucklefucks actually care about the sport itself. It's just an excuse for them to be bigots, as if they ever needed an excuse to begin with.
"Watching sports is stupid and you are a loser for caring about sports."
Bit of a switcheroo but go point out all the ways that these trans exclusionary rules also hurt cis women. Top female athletes in a variety of sports, like Caster Semeya have been banned from their sport due to natural differences in their hormone production.
These practices are degrading and discriminatory and undignified.
TERFs will also actively attack and question cis gendered female athletes who have short hair, thinking they are trans.
These acts of discrimination hurt trans men and women, or attempts to exclude them, but it also ends up hurting cis gendered athletes (basically arguing for solidarity here). Every time these bills or exclusionary policies are passed, trans and cisgendered women that do not fit the concept of "normal" looking female are actively harmed. The Bathroom bans in SC, led to lesbian masc women being harrassed by cops (MEN!) inside of bathrooms and having their autonomy violated for going to the restroom. The very thing they were allegedly trying to "prevent".
We also have a human right to free association and human dignity. Why should women (cis and trans) be forced into genital checks or sex testing?
I might also add that sports are treated as an avenue to "rise" in their class position. With kids often cultivating specific athletic careers not just for fun, but because their parents want them to get full/partial rides to college, and possibly make it to the Olympics. If Athletic activities were not high-stakes, with so much riding on the individual performance of specific athletes, the pressure to exclude athletes with alleged "advantages" would cut off. It ultimately comes down to capitalism. Make college cheap, or free. Abolish university sports other than inter-mural leagues. And invest in more accurate research on the effects of estrogen / testosterone on transgender people and sports performance. I know there's papers on the effects of estrogen on muscle density and bone mass. Even if a man was actively trying to switch genders to have an advantage against women, aren't they handicapping themselves? To go through the gender dysphoria, possible mental issues of hormone imbalance, a man could just...train and git gud, or quit.
If it is about "men" in female locker rooms, or predatory creeps interacting with cisgendered women. It should be noted that there's already enough cisgendered creeps actively violating women in women's sports! Without any need to pretend or switch genders. They are called COACHES and DOCTORS. Point them to the The largest sex abuse scandal starting in 1990s, zero trans predators. The FBI even declined to pursue early reports:
All my friends know better. Coworkers? I have never engaged in that topic with them. It is not a fruitful endeavor.
I think its pretty much ignorance. I don't really like to have the conversation but like the Olympics has rules around trans athletes and all in all this isn't really a real problem.
Idk, just kill them.
Thanks y'all <3