Honest question, you say you compete for fun, but what about the folks you beat who are competing for the sake of competition, which is a little different than fun? I am generally open minded at least in comparison to folks I encounter but I can’t square this one in my head. I am just one person with a single opinion but would like to better understand where I am wrong on this topic.
We are not talking about elite athletics here. If someone is upset about a transwoman finishing 150th in the local 10k race they need to work that out with a therapist or something.
No one's talking about 10k races that don't matter much. But people are talking about races and events in high school or college that do affect things like scholarships or future professional athletic endeavors. That's really where most of the heartburn started, as far as I can tell. I suppose one option could be to have two lists, the nominal ranking of participants and then a trans-adjusted one that removes those participants.
Plenty of people are talking about things that don't matter. They're trying to ban amateur leagues from including trans women even if the league wants to include them.
> That's really where most of the heartburn started, as far as I can tell.
The "heartburn" really started when conservatives decided they could exploit hatred of the other by attacking non-binary folks. They got a "spokeswoman" who finished sixth in the NCAA swimming championships (no future professional career potential) to spread their hate and divisiveness.
It allowed Republican politicians to claim children were allowed to identify as animals and use litter boxes in schools. Spreading lies to breed hate.
It's just a modern application of the playbook against other races (which has also been revived).
> "If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you." - President Lyndon B. Johnson
Being on feminine hormones pretty much removes any advantage if you've been on them for a while. There are typically rules about that for (at least) high level competitions. You can't just walk in and state your gender for that kind of thing.
For example, the olympics were open to transgender women for over 20 years. Number of participants? One. And she finished dead last.
There are some high-profile cases, like Riley Gaines making an entire career out of "losing" to a trans woman - but they were actually tied fifth, and the whole drama is about her getting her trophy in the mail, because who gets to hold the trophy at the ceremony is decided by alphabetical name ordering.
Can you find examples of any trans woman ever beating a cis woman? Obviously - just like you can find examples of a blonde left-handed aquarius beating a righ-handed pisces redhead. But trans women dominating a competition? That just doesn't happen.
I run marathons. It’s not terribly dangerous but a few people die every year, and it’s a good idea to have the medical oversight, aid stations, etc. that an actual race provides.
If I was an unfair threat to some poor girl’s scholarship I’d be happy to find a solution like just not being on the leaderboard.
Instead I see laws, headlines, and debates on my favorite orange site about whether I should be allowed access to that infrastructure at all.
Ask chat gpt how to increase your understanding using Blooms revised taxonomy of learning using college level textbooks and primary source information with Amazon purchase search links.
And follow up every side with a steel man, good faith critical thinking summary with deep, cross cutting questions that strike at the heart of the arguments.
Additionally follow up with which demographics and political class does each position serve.
Also ask for examples of bad faith comments and questions to help identify them to not waste your time engaging.
You can also ask to explain all of that output to a 6th grade reading level if it helps
Asking wishy washy middle of the road questions instead of just asking directly is a political choice to reduce the chance of criticism and to help manipulate the convo in your psychological favor instead of seeking a wide array of information like a normal person that has access to literally to every single philosopher that ever existed writings
If the rules changed mid competition and I lost a race to someone who had been competing on a men’s varsity team and then shortly after competed on the women’s team, it would be very hard for me to just shrug and say they beat me fair and square. That reaction is not unreasonable.
It may not justify sweeping laws, but it absolutely justifies having an honest conversation about fairness.
Welcome to name names instead of wacky hypothetical situations. Probably shouldn't be a national conversation for such a small percentage of people this affects. Like what less than 200 vs hundreds of millions for Healthcare or better labor laws?
Also rules for competition change all the time, random tariffs, random corrupt laws, tax changes, work from home policies, welcome to life, sorry its not fair.
Its unreasonable to get hung up on this trans athlete "problem" when there are so many other things the collective can pay attention to to try to solve
