Lia Thomas campaign

[Inamuddle36]

The link in another thread about the anglers who have resigned from the women’s team lead me to this article about Lis Thomas’ campaign to support trans people in sport. I had not heard Lia speak before: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12016583/Trans-athlete-Lia-Thomas-defends-beating-female-swimmers.html

I didn't watch the video, just read the article.

So here we go again, "bans on trans competitors", "rather than be excluded from the sports, trans women should be 'celebrated' for their accomplishments", "transphobic beliefs"....

No one is suggesting exclusion or ban from sports, just exclusion of TW from women's sports. Fairness for the women is not properly addressed of course, we just get "the reality is there are so many women who might be "too tall" or "too strong" or "too fast," and so this debate is actually not about fairness."

True feminist my arse.

Also racist, for repeating the rubbish about black women being excluded from sport.

Lia Thomas is an arrogant, narcissistic male. I've no desire to hear the same dull thought terminating cliches about why men should be allowed to compete against women unfairly because "trans rights".

Instead of smashing the records set by legendary female swimmers, and taking a place of a female swimmer, Lia should embrace their true nature as a very good but not quite elite male swimmer.

I've read what Lia has to say. Which is that no-one makes a fuss about a male competitor having a body that is particularly well adapted to swimming (tall etc), so why should women make a fuss about transwomen being bigger and stronger? Bodies are different. Get over it.
I get the argument, Lia. Some people have natural physical advantages and some don't. Those who have the advantages are the ones who are likely to win. If you enter a sports contest you won't necessarily win, however hard-working and skilled you are.
So why doesn't anyone ask him the obvious question - Why then not just have one swimming competition that everyone, male, female, whatever gender can enter?
Is the answer simply that if there was just one competition for everyone, Lia wouldn't win it?

^^ this

Some girls have big flippery feet, some girls have a huge heart muscle, some have a cockenballs filling their body with testosterone. It's all the same, right?

Ffs Lia. That's beneath you, there's no way your cheating male ass believes that shite.

Trans women aren't excluded from sport.

Sport is segregated by sex: male and female. Everyone is either male or female.

The only people who are actually excluded from competitive sport are people with DSDs who can't compete in their own sex category without unfairly disadvantaging other competitors (a vanishingly small number of people) and trans men who have taken testosterone.

Trans women are perfectly free to compete alongside their own biological sex.

If they want to compete according to their gender identity then they need to set up their own sporting competitions for people who (a) believe they have a; and (b) want to compete according to their, gender identity.

It has got fuck all to do with 99% of the population.

If all the other male swimmers also joined the female category, then Lia would find themself back where they started. A very good but not elite swimmer. Better than most females but not in the top 200 men.

It's like saying, "Let adults compete against children, because that 13 year old is freaky big for his age and he has an advantage so why not adults".

I had not heard of the podcaster who interviewed Lia in the above link, Schuyler Bailar — a transman who was a talented female swimmer as a teen, recruited to Harvard’s women swimming team but transitioned to be a transman before beginning university so swam on the men’s team. The Wikipedia entry for Schyler uses the pronoun “he” throughout, which is confusing when describing “him” as a relay teammate of Olympian Katie Ledecky. More importantly, while the entry details all the pre-transition swimming records, it glosses i we the list-transition results.
i have written a comment on the Wikipedia page asking why his swimming record as a man is not detailed. Given he is known as a trans activist rather than as a swimmer, it would be relevant and interesting to know his relative position as a male swimmer matched his relative position as a female swimmer. We’re any male swimmers displaced from their rankings by having to compete against Schuyler? Surely if he (like Lia) maintains that trans athletes should compete in categories that match their self ID, it is relevant to know what the likely results would be (ie transwomen likely to beat many women but transmen unlikely to beat top men.). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schuyler_Bailar

Equally oddly, the Harvard website does not distinguish between his record as a male and as a female athlete, as if that point is irrelevant.
https://gocrimson.com/sports/mens-swimming-and-diving/roster/schuyler-bailar/7065

Have now found the rather opaque stats. Schuyler finished “top 13%” in the country in his final year as a university swimmer. Given all the universities that compete in US “division 1” swimming, I can safely assume “top 13%” did not win him a medal and therefore did not deprive any “cis” male athlete from winning a medal.
Crucially, he says in this interview https://www.cbsnews.com/news/schuyler-bailar-transgender-swimmer-pride/ he realised when decided to transition and compete against men that he was giving up the opportunity to perhaps swim in the Olympics and succeed as a female athlete. Isn’t this admitting that he is disadvantaged as a natal woman competing against men? And, therefore, natal men might be advantages competing against women???!!!!

The best thing I know Bailar for was KJK’s ‘I know what a dog is’.

While I have some admiration for Schuyler Bailar, Harvard must have been pretty pissed off with having recruited a top female swimmer, presumably on a scholarship, and then finding themselves with a relatively mediocre transman swimmer. Unless it was worth it for the kudos of having a transman on the team.

@Inamuddle36
Crucially, he says ... he realised when decided to transition and compete against men that he was giving up the opportunity to perhaps swim in the Olympics and succeed as a female athlete. Isn’t this admitting that he is disadvantaged as a natal woman competing against men? And, therefore, natal men might be advantages competing against women???!!!!

Well, exactly!

@MargotBamborough
The only people who are actually excluded from competitive sport are people with DSDs who can't compete in their own sex category without unfairly disadvantaging other competitors (a vanishingly small number of people)
Women with DSDs are not excluded from competitive sport with women and do not unfairly disadvantage their competitors. Are you perhaps thinking of Caster Semenya, Beatrice Masilingi et al, who are males with a DSD and who do unfairly disadvantage their female competitors? This cohort of males should be excluded from female competition but unfortunately are still permitted to compete at certain distances.