this post was submitted on 06 Mar 2025
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[–] [email protected] 41 points 2 days ago (8 children)

Not placing a value judgement on this, but you can probably expect a lot of Dems to distance themselves on trans issues. It's a group of issues that takes up a lot of air, and divides the party, while uniting republicans.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

Would be sick to get to vote for someone who actually had opinions and goals and stood for something. If we want to vote for just the general prevailing opinion we should just run an LLM and train it on superbowl commercials and cable news.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 days ago

It's stupid because their donors do not want them moving left, so they continue to pander to these nonexistent folks that they think will move away from the republican party to vote for them, leaving behind their actual base, who will simply not vote.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 days ago

Sadly. You're correct. The existence of people like me is a wedge issue. >_<

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

And they have an opportunity to show cowardice.

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 day ago

It is unfair. I dominate at women's sports, great ego boost when I feel down. Mixed duo in tennis is a good balance though.

[–] [email protected] 42 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (5 children)

Sports are games.

Games are supposed to be inclusive and fun.

Society taking games deathly serious (and equivocating it with academic merit, aka serious pursuits) is the problem.

People rioting and murdering if the game didn't work out for their team is the problem. Putting billion dollar stakes on games is the problem.

Trans people or any people wanting to play games with their friends should be what society fosters and nurtures as the entire fucking point of society's existence. Something something... planting trees something something knowing they'll never sit under...

Nope? let's bring on the climate change induced extinction then. If our values are hyper competitive, dog eat dog bullshit from labor to fucking games, we should go extinct.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Games are supposed to be fair. Unless you're going to completely desegregate men and women's sports, there's a real biological argument to be made here. To pretend otherwise is delusional.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 days ago (13 children)

There is zero biological argument because you cannot make two categories based on sex which encompass everyone.

Example 1:

A cis woman with a genetic mutation which incrases her testosterone levels into the range of cis men. Should she be banned from female competitive sports?

Example 2:

A cis woman with XY gonadal dysgenesis. She has XY chromosomes but the Y chromosome is mutated and doesn't function as it should which causes a "female" phenotype. Should she be banned from female competitive sports?

Example 3:

A trans woman in the 95th percentile of men with regards to physical strength. She is in the 10th percentile of women after transitioning. Should she be banned from female competitive sports?

Example 4:

A trans woman with Klinefelter syndrome and XXY genes. She has naturally very low levels of testosterone and she doesn't require testosterone blockers after transitioning and taking estrogen. Even before transitioning she had less muscle mass, weaker bones and wider hips than the average man as a result of her low testosterone. Should she be banned from female competitive sports?

Example 5:

An African woman who would be in the 1st percentile of man if she were one, both in terms of physical attributes (size, muscle mass, heart size) and competitive results. Some "scientists" argue her race makes her less of a woman and more of a man. Should she be banned from female competitive sports?

There is zero risk of these people "replacing" cis women by the way. Yes, their performance may be greater than that of comparable cis women without any genetical mutations beyond a certajn point.

Yet risk is calculated as [severity] * [likelihood]. And due to the low likelihood stemming from their very low prevalence in the general population, there is no reason to ban them.

Women's sports is about representation of women. Trans women are part of that group, cis women with genetic mutations are part of that group, racial minorities are part of that group. You cannot exclude some women and claim this group is "fair" and representative.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

In some sports there are weight classes, because being a certain weight gives you an inherent biological advantage on average over people of a different weight. The weight classes allow anyone to find well-matched competition regardless of their biology.

Women’s sports vs Men’s sports is a similar idea. Separate people by some biological classification that’s often tied on average to an advantage at the sport, so that everybody has the chance to play against someone of a similar baseline.

That division doesn’t have to exclude trans people, but it does mean that a line gets drawn somewhere. And yes, that line might include some cis people with a genetic abnormality getting excluded as well, and some cis men with a genetic abnormality might be included.

If you want to draw the divisions by something like muscle mass or testosterone levels instead of trying to define sex and gender clearly enough for this purpose, that would probably be easier, although “low testosterone sports” doesn’t have the same marketability as “women’s sports” lol.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The weight classes allow anyone to find well-matched competition regardless of their biology.

That's true. In professional boxing there are 18 weight classes from 46.3 kg (103 lb) to 101.6 kg (224 lb) plus the unlimited weight class. Only very few adults are excluded as the vast majority weighs more than the lower bound.

But with sex-based roles? Two don't really make a fair competition, do they? I mean, otherwise there wouldn't even be a need for per-sport subclasses.

Trans people and people with certain genetic mutations are very, very common though. We're talking about more than 1% of people here. Shouldn't there be a need to ensure they too can compete fairly?

Imagine if in the early 1900's it was discovered that left-handed people are on average slightly better at math than right-handed people. As a reaction, all left-handed people are excluded from math scholarships as they have an unfair advantage over right-handed people. Would you consider this fair? After all, they only made up ~2% of the population and we have to draw the line of who gets a scholarship and who doesn't somewhere.

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (17 children)

Trans people or any people wanting to play games with their friends should be what society fosters and nurtures as the entire fucking point of society's existence. Something something... planting trees something something knowing they'll never sit under...

Coed teams exist. They're finding issue with mtf athletes playing against a league of individuals who didn't go through puberty as a male. That's clearly an advantage, and to say otherwise is to ignore science altogether.

Maybe the solution is non-gendered weight classes for sports, or just more coed teams. Idk

Edit: yall will convince yourselves of anything lol. Really wild the dumb shit some people will say

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 days ago

What about trans women who transitioned before puberty? What about cis or intersex women with elevated levels of testosterone? What about sports where it has been shown that after a long enough period of medical transition trans people have no significant advantage over their cis counterparts?

You appeal to science yet fail to cite a single source, so let me do it for you:

An individual's sex does not determine their success or failure at any athletic event despite the high level of competition. This can be demonstrated when looking at not average outcomes, but the level of overlap among outcomes... While sex differences do develop following puberty, many of the sex differences are reduced, if not erased, over time by gender affirming hormone therapy.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 days ago (2 children)

They’re finding issue with mtf athletes playing against a league of individuals who didn’t go through puberty as a male.

Good news! Puberty blockers exist and have been studied and used for literal decades for other reasons.

That’s clearly an advantage, and to say otherwise is to ignore science altogether.

The science says 2-3 years of hormone therapy levels the playing field and there's no more advantage.

In fact, women who haven't transitioned often have an advantage because their testosterone levels can be higher than women who have transitioned.

And that's the crux of the issue: human variation.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 days ago (1 children)

The science says 2-3 years of hormone therapy levels the playing field and there’s no more advantage.

Would you be opposed to a requirement that trans women wanting to compete in women's leagues undergo 3 years of hormone therapy before being allowed to play?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I think most trans people would agree that's reasonable, but at that point, you also have to talk about the bans on transition for minors, which would affect a minors ability to have that time frame met, and then their ability to play.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Puberty blockers exist and have been studied and used for literal decades for other reasons.

In the case of a trans woman having not went through puberty as a male then yeah true enough as far as I know.

The science says 2-3 years of hormone therapy levels the playing field and there's no more advantage.

Are you sure about that? Because I looked it up and (after a few instances of "we have no idea but maybe not") I found this. I'll also admit that I only read the conclusion so I can't make any guarantees for the quality of the paper.

In fact, women who haven't transitioned often have an advantage because their testosterone levels can be higher than women who have transitioned.

Yeah that's the thing: Testosterone is only one part of athletic ability. The paper lists some parameters that are either not affected or affected but not reduced to within the average range of cis women, but the obvious example would be height.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 days ago (23 children)

Ah, yes, let’s make laws specifically banning 2-5 children from ever having fun.

Like… what the fuck is wrong with you that you think a law targeting under 10 people in the entirety of the US is justified and not literally just bullying those kids on a national level to hope they fucking commit suicide? A law to tell 5 kids, specifically, that fuck them and they’re not allowed to have fun is god damn crazy.

https://www.newsweek.com/how-many-transgender-athletes-play-womens-sports-1796006

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

Member when the neoliberals tried to pretend this douche would be the next presidential pick?

The worst part about neoli erals is places solid blue like Cali get conservative leaders because they'll take dirty money in primaries, then the only option is a Republican.

It depresses turnout till a Republican wins, and that usually comes with the state flipping in an election year because that's when campaigning is highest.

It's not just that they're shitty people who won't fix anything, they're actively hurting dem turnout all over the country when it hits the news

We need higher standards across the board, not just in the oval.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

Member when the neoliberals tried to pretend this douche would be the next presidential pick?

Yeah, that's why he's doing this. Throwing vulnerable minorities under the bus for no gain whatsoever is how you show democratic leadership that you're on their side.

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