I'm sorry Helen, you're a wonderful person normally, but you seem hell bent on discrimination against trans women. It's not the first time either, you come across as a TERF. You also seem insistent on grouping trans men in with "biological women", which is a wrong thing to do.
but they won't be will they? Because biologically and growing up they are female. But they are men by gender and therefore will.complete against those stronger, faster biological males.
As I've already stated, biologically I am not strong enough or fast enough to compete with Olympic athletes. I never will be. Tell me why you have no problem with that but do have a problem with someone born with a vagina not being as strong or as fast. Honestly you act like you are all for equality etc but you come across as what you really mean is that you just want more for the people YOU decide deserve it. That's not equality Helen and comes across in my opinion as quite transphobic and misandristic. Male to female athletes shouldn't be allowed as it's keeping what you consider to be acceptable females down. Female to male athletes aren't given a fair chance. You refuse to accept the well known gender bias in family courts. You've previously spoken of male privilege but refused to acknowledge any female privilege. There's a worrying pattern there for me. Many will disagree with me but it's how I see it.
Nope, im.all for equality.. It just doesn't seem equal that we're not discussing it the other way around.
There's nothing to discuss that's why. Female to male people are already permitted to compete in the Olympics. It's not on an Olympic scale but I am friends with a Canadian trans person who is female to male and does diving at a competitive level. They compete as male and judging by the amount of medals on their wall are doing pretty well
that's interesting. Tell me more about tthat. Btw my daughter's just looked over my shoulder and said that my reply sounded a bit condescending but it's really not meant to be, it's just hard to have the discussion in writing sometimes.
Again you're ignoring the effects of HRT. It really is like going through puberty again. There's likely to be both advantages and disadvantages for trans men compared to cis men and also for trans women compared to cis women. All the current evidence is pointing towards it being a pretty level and well within the normal levels for cis people for both men and women. Again though, I think they probably jumped the gun and should have waited for more research, but that's certainly where all the signs are pointing.
I understand that, it's definitely a difficult issue in an area that even the experts are still learning and the rest of us essentially don't know very much about. I just really think that because you believe women have been dealt a rough hand (quite understandably) in many things that you're going too far the other way in wanting to gatekeep things and instead of pushing for equality you want it to be pro female to reverse the problems which means excluding trans women because they didn't suffer your inequalities as a child. Even reading that as I'm typing it I know it comes across quite attacking in its wording and it isn't meant to be so I do get what you mean about how having a written conversation is hard with tone etc. On the thing about my friend, they started transitioning as a teenager and had gone through puberty at that stage so was pretty developed as a female have had 'top' surgery to remove their breasts for the sake of appearances. They've been on testosterone for years and I genuinely would not have realised they were born female if I wasn't told. Obviously once you know you can look and say 'oh yeah you have a feminine jawline' or 'that explains the nice hair' etc but without actually trying to find anything I'd have no clue. The biggest difference between him and a born male is that he's quite short, about 5'4 I think but even then there are !any short men out there. I imagine that diving is one of those sports where that actually helps him because over simplifying it a bit the smaller you are the less of a splash you make. I know they aren't competing at national level or anything but at regional level they've got quite a lot of medals and always compete in the male category
It's worth mentioning that Laurel Hubbard could lift 135 kg Snatch and 170 kg Clean and Jerk in Junior competition when competing as a male. She hasn't been able to get close to that since transitioning.
I’m perfectly happy with anyone who has fully undergone transitioning to compete as their new gender. I think most of the people who are against it have ideas of men being able to self identify as a woman and just waking up one day and saying ‘I feel like a woman today and I’m going to compete as such’. I’m reality, that is impossible for a man to do and by the time they have transitioned, they have no advantage left over women as they are now a woman. I know people are concerned that as they grew up a man they will have had advantages during puberty but after the treatment those things have been reversed. They may still be taller than an average woman but there are tall women and if it was a sport where height mattered then all the women there would be taller than the average woman anyway. In sports such as running, as we have seen, testosterone levels are measured so if a trans women is within those levels then clearly the male advantage has gone so the fact she used to have higher levels and now doesn’t is irrelevant.
I'm not saying women who have transitioned from men shouldn't be allowed to compete, but male puberty affords advantages in bone density, lean muscle mass and strength that testosterone suppression doesn't fully nullify. It might be uncomfortable to try and have to figure what an acceptable resolution to that hot potato looks like in terms of competitive sport (and I don't think there is an answer that is fully satisfactory) but the advantages granted by male puberty can't be denied.
Seriously, none of my business. Some intelligent opinions, though. Thoughts occur to my limited brain, but hanging fire, for now..
The evidence does not support that opinion though. And it's not just testosterone suppression, it's HRT. It's putting the body through a second round of puberty, in this case female puberty. There's loads of evidence that this more than nullifies any advantages that an initial male puberty gives.
I haven't got time to read that whole thing right now, however I will do when I get chance. I've read other papers though that show the real world advantage is minimal. Not necessarily talking about specific measurements of muscle mass, but in terms of real world advantage.
