Trans woman sets new Canadian Record in Masters Women Indoor 5000m

noone wants a third division because there is no need for it. Trans anything does not change anything of importance. just because you believe you are an elephant, does not make you one. Believing to be followed by people makes you schizophrenic, not people actually following you. we dont need an transelephant division.

Then we would still have a third category for people with DSD and people on this board would still be outraged.

Women don't complain in fear of getting shot down .

My (Dem, past NCAA elite in another sport) wife thinks it's ridiculous

No, we wouldn’t. DSD does not mean you are not biologically a male or a female. Caster, Francine, and Margaret are men. They developed differently in certain areas from other men but they are men.

While there certainly are people who are transphobic who are very vocal on this issue, you have oversimplified greatly.

I have posted this several times, but I am a left-of-left liberal on most issues, have a person in my life who is trans who I love and support in every way I can, I walk in my community's Pride March, and so on.

Even so, I oppose the participation of XY humans in sports competing against XX humans.

Why?

Because I understand basic scientific principles regarding athletic advantages that can't be suppressed or rolled back effectively.

I have always supported Title IX and related efforts to create better opportunities for XX humans and believe those are threatened. It takes no imagination at all to arrive at the conclusion that when Title IX was signed into law, the intent was to create equity based on biology. Nobody who voted for that law did so to create opportunity for XY humans to beat XX humans in sporting events fifty years later.

I believe that it is best to nip a threat in the bud with clear, concise, fair policies that protect the rights of the greatest number possible.

Competing against XX humans is not a "right" that XY humans enjoy. It might be a desire, but it is not a right.

And for the record, the trans person in my life agrees. His position is that allowing XY humans to compete with girls and women is "ridiculous" and "makes all trans people look really bad."

Actually, no. DSD is a real thing.

People with DSD, in the cases that we are discussing, have XY chromosomes. They would not need a third category.

Again, the Britain Triathlon model would put them in the Open Division (not the Female (XX) Division).

Are there any sports where natural women are better than men?

Complaining?

How can anyone be shot down by answering anonymous opinion polls? Are they afraid of pollsters?

That would be unfair to people with AIS. There is a reason IOC stopped chromosome test.

And people here would still be outraged because the open division is not called the men's division. (There was a thread started by a guy who complained about a unisex bathroom.)

This is true, but the way you've phrased it makes it sound like male trans-identified athletes lose a great many of the biological advantages they have over females in sports due to suppressing the T that their testes pump out. When in fact, it's been found that T suppression causes them to lose only one advantage entirely - their higher hemoglobin.

All the other physical features that give males such huge advantages over females in sports have been found to be either only minimally reduced by gonadal T suppression (muscle mass and strength) or not affected by gonadal T suppression at all (much larger hearts and lungs, male pelvis and Q angle, male tendon strength).

A study from Brazil published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine in 2022 found that after an average of nearly 14.5 years of continually using medications to suppress their gonadal T - or having their testes removed altogether - trans-identified males still had 20% greater muscle strength and 20% more cardiopulmonary capacity than females of their same age and activity level. (The median age at which the study participants began medical treatment to suppress or eliminate their gonadal testosterone was 17 - age range 12–35 - years. The average duration of the T suppression or elimination was 14.4±3.5 years)

At the same time, suppressing T does not cause male trans-identified athletes to acquire a single one of the physical aspects of female biology that hinder many girls' and women's ability to get into and maintain tip-top shape and optimal weight, to train day in and and day out without fail, and to compete at our best in sports events regardless of when they are scheduled. Such as frequently painful and sometimes unpredictable menstrual periods; the myriad physical and mood changes that girls and women experience over the course of each 28-day ovulation-menstruation cycle; pregnancy; fear of unwanted pregnancy; pregnancy loss; maternity and breastfeeding; childbirth injuries; chronic gynecological conditions that impair many women's health (6-12% of menstruating-age girls and women have PCOS, and another 10% have endometriosis); the various episodic gynecological and urogenital conditions that a majority of menstruating-age girls and women experience at least once, occasionally or recurrently (ovarian cysts, fibroids, recurrent pelvic pain, repeated excruciatingly painful UTIs); menopause; and all the various distinctive features of female anatomy that cause girls and women to be more susceptible than boys and men to injuries such as ACL tears and ankle sprains, concussions and TBIs, broken bones and necks.

Of course, to some LRC posters who consider themselves more enlightened than the rest of us, pointing out such incontrovertible facts and standing up for women's and girls' hard-won right to fair play and safety in sports "has almost nothing to do with fairness of sport. It's simple transphobia . Nothing more.“

DSD is a difficult subject. "Tiffany" is obviously a man. However, someone like Caster Semenya grew up as female but has XY chromosomes.

Yes. Rock climbing. Lynn Hill.

I have more empathy for DSD athletes who may have been raised as girls. But when it comes to sports, being XY males they should not be setting female records in an XX category, taking the spot for girls and women in these races. They should have their own category or compete with the men because they are males (with male organs and endocrinology - internal testicles, testosterone levels and androgen receptors)

Rhythmic gymnastics -- flexibility is the most important factor in this sport.

Please point to news stories and LRC threads that show "all the rage about a third division that solves the competitive fairness issue completely."

AFAIK, until the head of the World Boxing Council announced last week that WBC is introducing two new divisions for trans athletes based on their actual sex so as to eliminate the chances female trans-identified fighters getting beaten to a pulp and possibly killed by trans-identified male fighters, no sports governing body has created additional divisions based on gender identity "that solves the competitive fairness issue completely."

So far, some sports governing bodies and events have created a single new division for non-binary participants of both sexes. Yes, there has been hue and cry over this. But not because people oppose the idea of new divisions if they are merited and justified - and certainly not because this new third division "solves the competitive fairness issue completely" like you say.

The main objections to adding a single new division for people of both sexes who claim to have a non-binary gender identity that I've heard and seen are:

1) Unlike sex and age (and weight in sports like wrestling and boxing), a non-binary gender identity doesn't affect sports performance in any way, so there's absolutely no justification for creating new divisions, awards and prize money for persons who say they see themselves as non binary. Just like there isn't a justifiable reason to create new divisions, titles and prize money for athletes based on their religion, political views, sexual orientation, race/ethnicity, eye or hair color, hair style, fashion preferences, taste in music, favorite foods, etc.

2) Adding a single third category for people of both sexes who claim a non-binary gender identity doesn't solve the competitive fairness issue at all. On the contrary, all it does is create a new way of favoring males and providing males with an added way to benefit from, and cash in, on the physical advantages they have over females that come from being male - while at the same time, the new mixed-sex third division creates more and new kinds of unfairness for female athletes.

Since you keep saying that a single third division is the perfect solution, and those who object to it are motivated solely by "phobia," prejudice and animus rather than concern for fairness for the half of human race who happen to be female: please explain exactly how adding a third division that pretends physical sex differences either don't exist or don't matter in sports "solves the competitive fairness issue completely" like you claim.

Another issue you are ignoring is that some sports governing bodies and events that have created a single new non-binary division for both sexes allow male trans-identified athletes to compete in women's events as well.

At the recent USA Cyclocross Championships, for example, all the winners in the new non-binary category were males; 2 of the top 5 finishers in the women's elite category were males; and several males came in 1st or 2nd in the age-bracketed women's races too.

Go Tiffany!

Also, ensemble water ballet/synchronized swimming. A lot of moves in ensemble WB/SS require swimmers to use sculling to keep afloat on their backs on the surface of non-salinated pool or lake water with their bodies on an even plane. Due to physical factors like men's top-heavy builds, greater bone density and lack of the extra adipose layer that females gain during adolescence, it's much, much more difficult for men to do this than it is for women. For most men, it's impossible.

No, they would not be outraged. There is a big difference between a unisex bathroom and a unisex running race category.