Ask them how often they think about women’s athletics when it’s not about trans women
That’s way too generous. I call bs on trans women on HRT having any significant advantage in women’s sports. If this were the case, trans women would have dominated sports for deacdes by now. There’s just no empirical evidence to back up the transphobe fantasies about inherent advantages of trans skeletons. Instead, we see that performance is basically the same after just a year on HRT. Lia Thomas is the best example these people have, and it’s not as if she won everything, she went from something like 60th place in the men’s league to low 40s in the women’s league - after postponing HRT for 3 years because she was (rightfully) afraid transphobia would ruin her career. You can’t compete at your best when you torture yourself by delayed transitioning. It just doesn’t work. That pain alone would be enough to explain her performance difference, and that difference isn’t groundbreaking to begin with. But in our political climate, we have athletes who tied with her for second-to-last place complain how unfair it was to swim against her.
Don’t take people seriously when they are silly enough to take claims about trans women being a threat to fairness in women’s sports seriously. They do not deserve to be humored like this, they deserve nothing but ridicule.
I assure you I have no such advantage after having been on HRT for coming on 2 years. I’ve gone from being able to pick up almost 150 pounds to struggling to pick up a 40 pound bag of litter. I’m no longer being asked to move heavy shit because I simply can’t anymore. So I’m curious where such an advantage lies.
I think it helps to bring it back to the real world, and not simply rhetorical hypotheticals. A lot of the otherwise well meaning people fall for the false premise that there is somehow vast amounts of trans women in women’s sports, but there just isn’t. They accept the idea that it’s a popular occurrence for a male athlete to transition solely to dominate the women’s sports field, but that just doesn’t happen in real life.
In 2021, just nine of the 174,000 students participating in high school sports were transgender.
It’s really just a plain lie, and not at all worthy of serious consideration. If people who are presented with these facts still choose to be transphobic, then they’re simply showing their true colors and using this as an excuse.
Nine??! Well I hope trans people have the opportunities available to them to compete if they so desire, which is the only consideration which gives me genuine pause.
This makes me think, obviously the satanic panic was similarly NOT a legitimate threat to whatever it was that was considered worth protecting. How many ‘satanic cultists’ were there even? Like 11 in one state? Jeez, saying these fears are blown out of proportion in and of itself, and relative to the number of people involved is an understatement.
Honestly, it’s really sad there are so few. I find it horrifyingly depressing to imagine being the single transfem high school athlete in an entire state, and being aware that her state politicians are spending their time debating and passing a law in which the only material outcome is preventing her, personally, from competing in sports.
GUH that is awful, what a horrible experience!
I would think your friend wouldn’t even be sure about any ‘gains’ or ‘wins’ because how would you know any kind of protection, benefit, or treatment like an equal human being could stay? Like anything could be overturned and any reliance on some positive might be setting one’s self up for disappointment and further harm down the line! I feel so bad for her :'-(
Joanna Harper, a researcher based at Loughborough University in Britain who studies the effects of hormone therapy on transgender athletes, told The New York Times last year that out of 200,000 women in college sports at a given time, about 50 are transgender.
Would be interesting to read those papers, tho.
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?
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.
Yes a great point. Unfortunately transphobes and bigots really couldn’t care less. I think one can convince those who have not convinced themselves completely, or who have only passing familiarity with the ‘controversy’ by explaining that if there is a meaningful advantage, the focus on the advantage by the specific characteristic of whether a competitor is trans or cis, is one factor and with available evidence not a major factor.
I say it is a factor because I imagine a person who has successfully transitioned to the extent they wish barring any barriers (like availability of medication, whether gender-affirming surgery is available, etc.) and thus they have been ‘treated’ or rather have at their disposal the resources they need.
This would be in contrast to a trans person who was not given the resources they need, was unable to transition say due to lack of safety in their environment or medical resources, and thus have additional barriers to face. If a suburban amerikan woman of an ethnicity which is the plurality of her environment was transgender, I would expect them to have a considerable advantage over a disenfranchised minority ethnicity in a rural region which does not have adequate medical resources or a suitable community to provide needed support.
The disadvantage is not intrinsic to whether a person is trans or cis, it is due to the material resources available to each party, which is known to be palpable and insufficient for many if not most trans individuals.
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
