UPenn swimmer comes out as trans / switches to women's team after competing on men's team for 3 years and is dominating NCAA

You're conflating a bunch of issues here. Whether a runner competes as a man or a woman, they still need to follow to the rules of the event. Obviously by saying that a transwoman competes as a woman, I am not also saying that she should be allowed to take a car in a road race...

As far as age and weight categories go, those are changeable. When I was a teenager, I ran against teenagers. Now I run against adults. In boxing or other combat sports, an athlete can change weight classes frequently. I don't see how that helps your argument to present two non-fixed categories and then include sex as some sort of fixed category. Wouldn't that be a better argument to say you could compete as a man one year and then as a woman the next, just as a runner might compete in an open category one year and then masters the next?

As far as doping goes, I am not against it. What do I care what vitamins someone takes. It's bad for a sport when I watch a race and see someone get to the line first only to be told, "Actually the guy who got 2nd gets the gold." Popular sports (Football, baseball, basketball, soccer) don't care about doping. It's bad for the sport to police the way that athletes are preparing for competition.

I'm not sacrificing anyone. If Lia Thomas swims in a meet, it doesn't mean there is some woman somewhere who is not allowed to swim. Everyone swims.

The rules are there to ensure competition is fair - that all are subject to the same rules. The rules in sport are not quaint optional extras that you may pick and choose. If you are a senior you cannot compete as a junior, or as master until you reach that age. A heavyweight boxer cannot compete as a light- heavyweight. Males should not compete as females because they have simply re-labelled themselves. That you are not against doping confirms you have no grasp of what fairness in sport means. Marion Jones should have kept her medals, and Lance Armstrong his yellow jerseys. How can one as unprincipled as you are pretend to be defending the rights of women? Of course - they aren't women, they are males who simply identify as women. Like dopers who identify as clean.

Go away

SDSU Aztec wrote:

dhe8282uehdh wrote:

You are missing the point. Thomas is taking heat because he a truly believes he is a she. If he was a he just pretending we would all be in on the joke and appreciate a bunch of dudes taking women's scholarships be ause they can.

It should force the NCAA to make changes.

So destroy the sport to use as leverage to get one transgender swimmer banned? Are the women losing the scholarships on board with your plan?

No, temporarily make the sport a joke to force change. The very occasional trans athlete won't move the needle enough for change but every athlete in a championship team? That will make authorities or even the courts get involved.

I have noted that rules change all the time.

Weight classifications in some sports almost each year.

Amateurism to professionalism.

Being allowed a coach on court.

Nature of running shoes.

Read the WA rules this year and see scores and scores of changes.

So you just change what you mean by fair if you want.

liar soorer wrote:

I have noted that rules change all the time.

Weight classifications in some sports almost each year.

Amateurism to professionalism.

Being allowed a coach on court.

Nature of running shoes.

Read the WA rules this year and see scores and scores of changes.

So you just change what you mean by fair if you want.

Even if rules change everyone is still bound by them.

Lenny Leonard wrote:

As far as age and weight categories go, those are changeable. When I was a teenager, I ran against teenagers. Now I run against adults. [...] I don't see how that helps your argument to present two non-fixed categories and then include sex as some sort of fixed category. Wouldn't that be a better argument to say you could compete as a man one year and then as a woman the next, just as a runner might compete in an open category one year and then masters the next?

This is a really bad argument, and it worries me that you don't recognize that. People CAN'T change their age. They can't move their birth dates around at will. They can run in the master's age group when they hit 40, and not a day sooner, no matter how they feel about their age. If you're 42 and want to compete against the young guys in the open division, go for it! But if you're 25 and feeling old, you can't decide to report a birth date 15 years earlier than the date on your birth certificate. If you're feeling super old, you can't take home the grandmaster's medal at 28. It's true that many master's runners are faster than a lot of younger runners, and a few even win races past 40. But that's irrelevant. What do you think would be the effect on the master's podium spots and awards in a big race if you allowed people to select their own age? If you can't recognize the effect of aging on athletic performance, and think that age is just a "non-fixed category," then you've gone full bonkers cuckoo. You really aren't doing yourself any favors with this line of argument. It weakens everything else you've said.

dhe8282uehdh wrote:

SDSU Aztec wrote:

So destroy the sport to use as leverage to get one transgender swimmer banned? Are the women losing the scholarships on board with your plan?

No, temporarily make the sport a joke to force change. The very occasional trans athlete won't move the needle enough for change but every athlete in a championship team? That will make authorities or even the courts get involved.

So a wave of cheaters will force the NCAA to ban a transgender woman that is following the rules? Interesting logic but since it's only temporary, the female athletes will get their scholarships back, so that's good.

He hadn't advanced any kind of argument.

Go away

It appears that there is tension among the women's team regarding this.

https://www.outkick.com/outkick-exclusive-penn-trans-swimmers-teammate-speaks-out-as-lia-thomas-smashes-more-records/

Very telling quote from a female teammate of Thomas:

“When I have kids, I kinda hope they’re all boys because if I have any girls that want to play sports in college, good luck. [Their opponents] are all going to be biological men saying that they’re women,” Thomas’ teammate told OutKick. “Right now we have one, but what if we had three on the team? There’d be three less girls competing.”

I think that equally telling is why they are speaking anonymously.

"While University of Pennsylvania transgender swimmer Lia Thomas, who spent three years at the Ivy League school swimming as a male, has been busy smashing female pool records, friction has been building within the team, according to a Penn female swimmer who said she feared for her ability to find employment after graduating from college for sharing her honest opinion about a transgender teammate. For that reason, OutKick is granting her anonymity to speak out."

For all the people saying that this is for the athletes to deal with, and the athletes should boycott if they care or raise their voices, consider what is being said here. They are afraid that if they speak up, in the current climate, that they will sacrifice their chances of getting a job after college.

This isn't a mess for the athletes to clean up. It is a mess for the adults who already have jobs as sport administrators to clean up.

I was also shocked by how little she has dropped off in some of her best times (2oo meters, 1:39.3 before, 1:41.9 now, and within seconds of Missy Franklin's NCAA record). I fear that she will win the NCAA events but do so by narrow margins to lower the level of scrutiny.

Yep. There is a whole climate of intimidation and fear of reprisal, that they are afraid to say the obvious, that this is a travesty, that the athlete in question is a selfish, egotistcal jerk. That's the reality despite pages and pages of filibustering nonsense. So not only is the athlete in question bullying the biological female athletes he is competing against without any conscience, but they are being bullied again because no one at the university is willing to speak up for them.

the world turned upside down wrote:

Very telling quote from a female teammate of Thomas:

“When I have kids, I kinda hope they’re all boys because if I have any girls that want to play sports in college, good luck. [Their opponents] are all going to be biological men saying that they’re women,” Thomas’ teammate told OutKick. “Right now we have one, but what if we had three on the team? There’d be three less girls competing.”

A very significant new twist in a saga of our age.

A journalist had this to say about it:

"On that final example of a lie, the one about transwomen in girls’ sports, I want you to think for a moment about a young woman here at Princeton. She’s a magnificent athlete named Ellie Marquardt, an all-American swimmer who set an Ivy League record in the 500-meter freestyle event as a freshman. Just before Thanksgiving, Ellie was defeated in the 500-meter, the event she held the record in, by almost 14 seconds by a 22 year old biological male at Penn who was competing on the men’s team as recently as November of 2019. That male athlete now holds multiple U.S. records in women’s swimming, erasing the hard work of so many of our best female athletes, and making a mockery of the rights women fought for generations to achieve.

“Be grateful for your silver medals, ladies, and maybe work harder next time,” is the message. Imagine what that level of repression does to warp the soul.

Ellie Marquart swam her heart out for Princeton. When will Princeton fight for her? Where are the student protests to say—enough is enough. When a biological male who has enjoyed the full benefits of male puberty—larger cardiovascular system, 40% more upper body muscle mass, more fast-twitch muscle fiber, more oxygenated blood—decides after three seasons on the men’s team to compete as a woman and smashes the records of the top female swimmers in this country, that is not valor—that’s vandalism.

Where is the outrage? Imagine, for a second, what it must be like to be a female swimmer at Princeton, knowing you must pretend that this is fair—that the NCAA competition is anything other than a joke. Imagine being told to bite your tongue as men lecture you that you just need to swim harder. “Be grateful for your silver medals, ladies, and maybe work harder next time,” is the message. Imagine what that level of repression does to warp the soul.

Now, imagine, instead, the women’s swimmers had all walked out. Imagine they had stood together and said: We will meet any competitor head on. But we will not grant this travesty the honor of our participation. We did not spend our childhoods setting our alarm clocks for 4am every morning, training for hours before and after school, to lend our good names to this fixed fight.

I know why students keep their heads down. They are hoping for that Goldman or New York Times internship, which they don’t want to put in jeopardy. Well, any institution that takes our brightest, most capable young people—Princeton graduates!—and tells you can only work here if you think like we tell you to and keep your mouth shut, that isn’t really Goldman Sachs and it isn’t the paper of record. It’s the husk of a once-great institution, and it’s not worth grasping for. Talk to alums at these institutions: they sound like those living under communist regimes. That’s the America that awaits you if you will not speak up."

Interview with Thomas. Makes Elizabeth Holmes sound falsetto/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jDPOQ5D8DM