Dumpster Fire Discussions

The basic state of "a trans person might have a physical advantage over a cis person" (as has repeatedly been pointed out throughout the thread by other posters) is something that plays out between cis people. If someone is trans, and happens to end up slightly stronger in some specific way than an average cis person of the transitioned gender . . . so are most Olympic athletes? If not all Olympic athletes?
But Olympic athletes as as a category are not stronger than other Olympic athletes. Men, as a category, are stronger than women, and there's a plausible case that trans women are, as a category, stronger than cis women. The point is not to eliminate the possibility of any given individual having a biological advantage over any other individual, but to foster a competitive environment, which in practice means relying on category-based generalisations. This is, in itself, uncontroversial; the point of contention is which generalisations about which categories.
 
But Olympic athletes as as a category are not stronger than other Olympic athletes. Men, as a category, are stronger than women, and there's a plausible case that trans women are, as a category, stronger than cis women. The point is not to eliminate the possibility of any given individual having a biological advantage over any other individual, but to foster a competitive environment, which in practice means relying on category-based generalisations. This is, in itself, uncontroversial; the point of contention is which generalisations about which categories.
Olympic athletes as a category encompass a wide range of physiological variances even within the same fields of sport. The same goes for other competitive disciplines, like professional football, and the like.

The allegedly-plausible case r.e. trans women you're attempting to propose has very little conclusive supporting data. It may be this can be proven in specific edge cases (in which case we circle back to your own admittance that we can't eliminate the possibilities granted to any particular individual), but given the example performance to date, trans competitors are hardly demonstrating any form of alleged advantage. To then legislate restrictions based on this fear is radical to say the least. Jockeys don't self-select on biological evidence of bone structure. Jockeys self-select on people that have a natural predisposition to being jockeys. Advantageous factors like height and weight are a given. The same goes for a pianist, or anything where unpredictable physiological attributes can have a factor on performance vs. training.

Ergo, the only plausible scenario which makes this unfair is where people seek out transitioning to gain an advantage, which I've already mentioned is extremely uncharitable (and doesn't stack up to existing evidence of the difficulties of any form of transitioning).
 
Statistically, it won't be 'uncharitable'. At least on first pass. Trans athletes will be very rare, which means that 'cheating jerks' will be a larger cohort in relative comparison, because every sport has a low-boil of cheating jerks. That will shake out over time, though, with regards to the ratios.

The 'competitive advantage' bit won't have enough data yet, and (amusingly) will have sliding data. The longer we're collecting data, the greater proportion of trans athletes will be early transitioners. Even if there's a current disadvantage, it could disappear. That said, we have to hold as plausible that trans athletes will end up dominating their sports. In the same way that left-handed people dominate some sports, I guess. And not many sports mandated right-handed use, we will note.
 
When we talk about transgender athletes competing at high levels, are we talking about trans athletes who have adjusted their hormonal level, or (for lack of a better phrase, though I'm open to suggestions), athletes that despite transitioning socially have declined to do any sort of medical intervention?
 
Any specific sport will require gatekeeping on that front. The problem is that were trying to have a discussion about fairness in a much larger context, which means that there will be tension.

That will mean that there are a lot of analogies available, many of them completely terrible from the other's perspective
 
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