Comment by jl6
5 days ago
Well, the evidence is that when males and females compete against each other in sport, the males tend to win, so if you think womens' sport should exist, then you need to define who is included and who is excluded from that category.
And when big males compete against small males the big ones tend to win, so uh, what are we arguing about?
Female only categories are always going to be a compromise, their literal existence is defined by excluding people from being able to participate. So you have to draw the line somewhere and say "this person is allowed and this person isn't". I'm sorry it's not as easy as just asking if someone has a uterus or something but just because things are tricky is no excuse to give up.
And frankly, this whole argument is incredibly disingenuous. You didn't give a damn about the sanctity of women's sports 5 years ago and when the right finds a new minority to demonize, you'll happily forget all about them.
There's a word for this, mote and bailey fallacy? The advanced premise is that we should discriminate and hate transgender people and then when challenged you fall back to something something women's sports.
Are women's sports good? Sure, we should support them. Is that worth demonizing a minority and blaming them for society's ills? I hope not. There's like 5 transgender people PER STATE competing in female only sports and 99% of the time they aren't even winning. It really doesn't affect you or anyone else.
But because of this "issue" that people like you keep repeating, people are trying to pass laws that require genital inspectors for our child athletes. Think about that for a second. What exactly are we trying to accomplish here?
The UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women and Girls, Reem Alsalem, published a report on this recently. She examined the evidence and concluded that a protected female category is needed, at all levels of sport, to ensure fairness and - in contact sports - safety.
According to the research conducted for her report, the failure of governing bodies to exclude males from women's competitions has so far led to more than 600 female athletes losing out of 890 medals in 29 different sports - and this is likely to be a considerable underestimate.
Another adverse effect of male inclusion is that some female athletes, seeing the unfairness of this, will choose not to compete at all. Others will be displaced from qualifying for competition. By including males, governing bodies are excluding female athletes from what should be their own category.
The oft-repeated claim that it's just conservatives bringing up this issue is a false narrative, as is the incorrect assumption that this is being driven by "hate". Many people who have been speaking out on this - whether they're athletes themselves, UN officials, feminist activists, or simply just care about the wellbeing of women and girls - are doing so because they see the inherent unfairness and safety risks this imposes upon female athletes.
Just for you, and anyone else reading this, I actually went and looked up this report. For the record, you can find it right here: https://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/thematic-reports/a79325-r...
Here's a snippet from the first few pages:
> Women and girls in sport, including female sports officials, are vulnerable to physical violence.5 When eligibility norms are deliberately violated and when the risk of injury to athletes is knowingly increased, the physical harms sustained can be characterized as “violence”.6
"The risk of injury is increased [...] can be characterized as violence". Really. People getting hurt in a sport is now violence against women. Ok.
But hey, they cited a source to back up this claim! It's got a footnote and everything! Let's check it out:
> 6 Submission by Independent Council on Women’s Sports
Well, that's pretty vague. I'm not an expert in reading academic papers so someone correct me, but what exactly is this citing? An email from an advocacy agency?
Just for amusment I went and looked up "Independent Council on Women’s Sports." just to see what kind of non-partial and independent academic body was making this submission
> The Independent Council on Women's Sports (ICONS) is an American anti-transgender advocacy organization that opposes transgender athletes participating in women’s sports. ICONS hosts an annual International Women's Sports Summit, where anti-transgender activists are invited to give talks over the course of three days. They also contribute amicus briefs and organizational assistance to anti-transgender legal cases, and their co-founder, Kim Jones, has infrequently hosted a podcast to discuss ICONS’ activities since August of 2022.
I don't want to make an argument from authority here, but this citation is not really compelling me to do further research.
I mean, the person making the claim is required to provide proof, right? Or is that not a thing any more?
Edit:
I looked further in the paper. The next good bit is here: "Female athletes are also more vulnerable to sustaining serious physical injuries when female-only sports spaces are opened to males,9 as documented in disciplines such as in volleyball,10 basketball11 and soccer.12"
What a scary sentence. Good thing it's got citations to prove it's worrying claims, let's check those out:
> Alec Schemmel, “Injured volleyball player speaks out after alleged transgender opponent spiked ball at her”, ABC 13 News, 20 April 2023
Wow, that sounds bad, injured by a spike, hey what's that funny word doing there, "alleged". Hmm, what could that be doing there?
> (of an incident or a person) said, without proof, to have taken place or to have a specified illegal or undesirable quality.
I'm glad we cited this definitive source where they claim they were hurt by someone who was transgender with zero proof whatsoever.
A bonus section! Here's another worrying section about the horrors of being a female athlete:
> Female athletes who may look “masculine” may be derogatorily described as lesbians.46
Ok, yes, that seems like a problem, but I wonder what else "female athletes who make look masculine" are called? Like, maybe they're accused of something else these days? Some other term is used to attempt to diminish their achievements and slander them? Weird they didn't mention that term.
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