Transman on steroids wins girls wrestling competition

[roseshippy]

Mack Beggs is biologically female, and is taking steroids, which dramatically increase muscle/power/strength, in order to 'transition' to a male.

According to Texas school sports laws, she must compete according to the gender on her birth certificate - female.

Steroids are banned except if for a 'valid medical purpose'. In this case the medical purpose is to become a man.

So the rules are apparently quite rational, but whereas one is unambiguous - you compete as the gender on your birth certificate, the other - the 'medical exemption' is not.

sportsday.dallasnews.com/high-school/high-schools/2017/02/18/transgender-teen-wins-regional-wrestling-title-despite-attempt-ban-competing

kat

None of it works without offending people. This is the problem. There are too many conflicts.

And sport is an absolute minefield. There are dozens of nations who would pressurise their teams to transition in order to gain an advantage.

Girls who transition to boys are never going to be able to compete effectively against natal born boys.

The great advantage will be in boys transitioning to girls. They will have a natural advantage that won't be fully accounted for by reducing testosterone levels.

None of it works.

Sorry, that should have read the calves and feet of other male athletes.

Katnis can you really not see it? It's girls and wine who lose, either way.

Transitioning transboy (biological female) competes against other biological females, but with the advantage of being on testosterone: girls are disadvantaged.
If the transman competes against boys, are the boys disadvantaged? Probably not, because the transboys's testosterone levels are only trying to approximate the levels the boys have anyway, and the transboy still has a female body which is unlikely to beat a male body in a test of brute physical strength.

Transitioning transgirl (biological male) competes against biological females, with with the advantage of naturally occurring testosterone levels: girls are disadvantaged. Even if T levels are reduced by 'transition', the girls with their female bodies are unlikely to beat a person with a male body in a test of brute physical strength.

If the transgirl competes against boys, are the boys disadvantaged? Probably not, because if there's been no hormonal 'transition' then they are biological (i.e.with the hormones and physiology typical of males), and if the transgirl has had hormone treatment, if anything the boys who haven't will have an advantage.

So either girls lose out, or girls lose out (and so do women in the adult context). So some people are saying "wait, let's figure out a way around this where girls aren't unfairly disadvantaged," but that position is dismissed as transphobic. Why is it so wrong to care about the girls?

Not wine, *women

and I meant to say "if there's been no hormonal 'transition' they [the transgirl] are biological peers [with the boys]...

I give up. I hate this phone.

222, I understood it!

"So either girls lose out, or girls lose out (and so do women in the adult context)."
This.

Why is it so wrong to care about the girls?

And why are transactivists always men?

Every time I hear of something like this I wonder how the athlete in question sleeps at night.

It's the opposite of sportsmanship and fair play. Recuse yourself rather than compete against people who are not your biological peers. Your win is worthless and empty. Better to give up competitive sport entirely than have a hollow victory based on cheating.

"But it can't go both ways. Do we say that people like the op's example should compete in their new gender to avoid them having an advantage, but in the same breathe do we say people as in new names' post should have to compete in their original gender to avoid them having an advantage?
Neither way works without offending people"

Actually in this case it would be fairer for this person to compete against boys.

But as a matter of principle they would lose. The likes of Andreas Krieger - given so much testosterone by East Germany that gender reassignment surgery followed after retirement - would have lost badly against men.

The problem here is that in having a policy which protects girls against transwomen, they have ended up unintentionally allowing girls to dope and still compete.

The solution would be allow the transboy to compete with boys, but not transgirls with girls, as the latter are advantaged, the former disadvantaged, against fellow competitors. I do not think that would go down well with trans activists.

A better solution would perhaps be a strict ban on steroids - no exceptions.

The reason they have unintentionally allowed someone to dope up and compete is because the ban isn't intended to protect girls' sport competition, it's intended to deny the validity of transitioning.

A strict ban on steroids could led to awful pressure to not take medically necessary drugs in order to be able to continue competing. Which, especially at youth level, could lead to long term health problems.

I do think incorporating fairness for trans and intersex people into general sporting competition is difficult. As well as testosterone levels there are biomechanical advantages in some sports. In some ways I think it should make us question the whole basis of elite sport, which relies on all sorts of birth advantages, not simply the character and effort of the athelete as it is often positioned as.

Surely there are huge health risks taking cross sex hormones?

The answer is for more categorys, transmen could compete with other transmen and transwomen could compete with other transwomen.

dame

To me that is the most fair solution. But I don't see it happening any time soon because it will be seen as 'othering'.

Maybe the solution is to stop having chromosome- or identity- based classifications for different levels of sport but instead have a scale of categories based on muscle density height and weight which classify males and females of similar physique together without caring what genitalia are in their pants?

It's the opposite of sportsmanship and fair play. Recuse yourself rather than compete against people who are not your biological peers. Your win is worthless and empty. Better to give up competitive sport entirely than have a hollow victory based on cheating.

I think professional sports have long moved past being about sportsmanship and true achievement that an individual could be proud of.

It is all about money. And if it is all about the prize money, then it doesn't matter whether you cheated. What counts is the money, not the warm and fuzzy feeling of having won fairly and because of hard work.

Maybe the solution is to stop having chromosome- or identity- based classifications for different levels of sport but instead have a scale of categories based on muscle density height and weight which classify males and females of similar physique together without caring what genitalia are in their pants?

Ah, but that would mean that everyone can participate. Many people who at the moment are not able to compete professionally are probably just too small, don't have enough muscle, etc.
If they were just grouped in another category (assuming there's more than two categories, because if it were only two, then those would all be taken over by males.)

Depends on what you aim for whether that's a problem, though. I wouldn't consider it one, but those who make money with professional sports probably do.

The problem with extra categories is that they just won't cut it: pelvis shape, lung capacity, bone density, bone length and weight, hormonal profile, blood oxygen carrying capacity... there are so many measures in which male and female bodies differ significantly that one eventually concludes that Male / Female is a fundamental and unbreachable distinction in most sports.

To eliminate that distinction eliminates sports for women.