J.K Rowling attacks another cis female athlete implying she's Trans (via @muiren) https://sfba.social/@muiren/113559844889410473
This may shock you, but this cis female athlete, just like the previous cis female athlete attacked this way by Rowling, Imane Khelif, is a person of color, and comes from Africa.
Apparently for Rowling, you are only a woman until somebody thinks you're too buff and refuses to sign a form:
https://apnews.com/article/zambia-banda-womens-world-cup-79520a0f06bf1c91a18fbeacfdd2fbec
by J.K. Rowling would have easily dispelled such accusations. Zambia 
️ field.@rysiek
You are very misinformed on the nature of this controversy. It has nothing to do with being transgender. Please educate yourself before making harsh judgements.
I try to engage in a respectful discussion of a complex subject, so I will choose to take your request at face value, ignoring the obvious, while unwarranted, sarcastic undertone.
The controversy is about DSDs.
Particularly, about 5-alpha-reductase defficiency — a condition affecting male sex development in a way which leads to new-born boys being mistaken for girls, because of undeveloped extenal genitalia.
There is no suggestion of anyone being transgender in any of these cases, so the whole discussion of countries being LGBT-hostile is entirely irrelevant.
@rcz regarding the tone, I think that's only fair, I did the same with your patronizing tone after all.
Before we jump in, I asked the other two people mentioned earlier if they want to continue being mentioned, I'll re-add them if they confirm. Should have asked first, to be fair.
@rcz and let's do one more thing and remove the specific person from this, as there are going to be a lot of uncomfortable hypotheticals in this thread, I'm sure.
So let' say there is a person called Amal. She has been assigned female at birth, and since then has participated in sports all her life, with considerable success.
When she's twentysomething, suddenly there's a test showing the result you mention.
What gender is she, in your opinion?
@rysiek
There are multiple conflicting definitions of “gender” — I take it here to be a synonym for “sex”, but you're free to specify a different meaning.
If the test shows Amal is a XY person with 5-alpha-reductase deficiency, that would mean Amal is male.
@rcz right. You added the chromosome thing, we'll get back to that.
So a person assigned female at birth, participating in sports for years upon years (meaning being close quarters in changing rooms with other women), is in your opinion now considered male.
Should Amal be allowed to participate in sports as a woman?
Should Amal be allowed to participate in sports as a man?
And, how come nobody noticed until now?
/re-adding @darnell after confirming he's okay with that
I've only added the chromosome thing for clearer context, as, as I said, 5-alpha-reductase deficiency only affects males anyway. But sure, we can get back to that if something isn't clear here.
No, in my opinion Amal should not be allowed to participate in sports as a woman.
Yes, Amal should definitely be allowed to participate in sports as a man.
I don't understand the last question. What has nobody notices until now? Amal has definitely noticed “something is off”. After being mistakenly assigned female at birth, Amal might have not noticed anything until puberty. But then, when menstruation doesn't start, and instead external male genitalia do belatedly appear, Amal definitely noticed that — understandably very embarrassing and confusing — development.
Really, you've decided to pivot to The Bathroom Issue instead of actually engaging with the actual issue we're discussing?
Do you accept that your understanding of this controversy as of two hours ago was wrong on the level of facts, and that you've now learned important additional facts changing this understanding?
Did this realization push you to actually make an effort to reevaluate your opinion?
@rcz but if Amal must switch from participating in female sports to participating in male sports, then it follows Amal must switch from using the ladies' room to using the mens' room?
Is it not the case?
Amal was assigned female at birth, went through her life as a woman, and then at twenty something is informed that she "is a male".
Apart from being "embarrassing and confusing" as you put it, it's a huge practical and personal safety problem for Amal in LBGT-hostile places.
Does it follow? Maybe. It's just a different discussion. We can have that discussion at some point also, bathrooms do have practical and safety-related issues and it's a whole topic. But why do you want to pivot from the topic we're actually discussing?
You asked me a series of questions on this sports issue, but what do you think?
We now know, and Amal knows, that Amal enjoys full sports-related benefit of male development, because this condition doesn't affect it. Amal still wants to take part in a women's kick-boxing competition.
Do you think it's fine?
@rcz @darnell I think it's fine, yes. I think Amal lived her whole life as a woman, and if she considers herself a woman, she is a woman.
I think somehow the "sports-related benefits" are only considered problematic in sports when it just so happens that a discussion of biological sex is involved.
Nobody is banning Phelps from competing with people who do not happen to benefit from similar physical quirks, for example.
I've disscussed the “Phelps argument” in some length here:
https://101010.pl/@rcz/112959498924669006
TL;DR:
We don't have categories for Phelps' quirks. We could have, and then we would expect Phelps to be in the category for people with these quirts and would very much exclude him from the category for people without these quirks. That's how categories work.
But the advantage due to Phelps' quirks was actually relatively small, compared to the *huge* advantage due to sex. We don't have categories for all advantages, but there are reasons we do have categories for some advantages.
And no, it's NOT true that ”sports-related benefits” are only problematic when sex is involved. We do also create (and police) other categories related to sports-related benefits, and do not let people with those benefits into categories without those benefits, for well-understood reasons. There are age categories, weight categories, disability categories. I wouldn't be able to get into a children boxing competition, because I do have a “problematic” sports-related benefit of not being a child.
But let's dig a bit. Let's introduce another hypothetical person, let's call him Bob. Bob is just a plain guy. He's quite sporty and also trains kick-boxing, but he is the only male kick-boxing enthusiast in the area, so he feels left out when the women have their competition. He asks if it maybe the next competition could be organized as open-category, so that he could participate too and kick-box with the women.
Do you think it's fine to let Bob into the ring with the women? Do you think, for example, that there are any safety reasons not to let men kick-box with women?
I think this is very misguided (and wishful thinking). There are still huge differences between sexes in muscle mass and strength, bone density etc., leading to serious safety concerns, even after controlling for these other categories such as weight, age and disability.
(Yes, there are attributes which should not, for good reasons, be used for categorizing sport,s such as race or self-defined identity).
@rysiek @darnell
What you proposing is more invasive testing which would still end up with Amal in the category with all the males. Why would you want to do that? Just to avoid the word “sex”?
I mean, think about it: age affects a lot of sport-related things, that's why we have age categories — so you could also measure those things instead of checking a person's age.
Sure, but why?
@rcz @darnell I'm glad we agree that how invasive the tests are should be taken into account.
You also said that in your opinion there is a set of tests that can be performed to clearly and unambiguously establish whether a given person is "male" or "female".
So: is it possible that some people who (based on that set of tests) are considered "female" would still have muscle mass and strength and bone density, higher than some people who (based on that same set of tests) are considered "male"?
@rcz @darnell in that case, if there are "female-testing" people who happen to have muscle mass and strength and bone density above some "male-testing" people, the "male" and "female" categories fail at that stated goal.
If, instead, the muscle mass and strength and bone density testing was used, it would *achieve* that goal more successfully.
Would you not agree?
@rysiek @darnell
Still, you're proposing highly invasive testing based on a hypothetical problem. You only proposed that there could theoretically be such people — who are these people?
There could be 8 year old boys who have the physique of 15 year old boys — it is possible! — which would prove a safety concern in children sports based on age categories. Do we now, based on that possibility we have now identified, say that age categories have failed, and do we seriously propose replacing them with extensive invasive testing across the board?
@rcz @darnell I don't know, I am not the one proposing invasive testing in sports in the first place.
Gender-related testing is pretty damn invasive. Especially in very public cases like Amal's.
And I would not be surprised if gender-related testing was more often applied to people participating in female disciplines, than male.
Would you agree that is pretty likely to be the case, based on the fact that the stated purpose is safety and fairness, and men are assumed to have a benefit?
@rcz @darnell and regarding the "who are these people" – I don't think it's unreasonable to assume they do exist.
If they didn't, that would mean that every single person that is, according to the set of tests you believe exists, "female" has muscle mass and strength and bone density *strictly lower* than every single person that is, according to the same tests, "male".
That would be an immensely surprising, remarkable thing.
@rysiek @darnell
Strictly speaking, it wouldn't mean that.
Not (a_1 > b_1, …, a_n > b_n)
does not imply
a_1 < b_1, …, a_1 < b_n
But this technicality hides a more meaningful point: it's not some unknown domain where we need to make wild guesses and assumptions what might theoretically happen. There is knowledge about specific developmental mechanisms and specific issues affecting them at various points, which we can use to analyze them and build sensible policies. What is the specific syndrome you are describing? What development led to it?
What you did in your hypothetical is to point to a (theoretical and unspecified) safety concern NOT related to sex, and complain that sex category didn't remove it. You're applying an impossible standard: you demand that when sex category is established, then no safety concern must ever present for any reason ever, even theoretically.
We don't expect that standard from any other measure.
Yes, sex testing would mostly affect female sport, that's true.
No, for nearly all athletes, except only for the very rare cases where more diagnostics after screening is required for health reasons anyway, it's a cheek swab. This is not invasive.
First of all:
> you demand that when sex category is established, then no safety concern must ever present for any reason ever, even theoretically.
No, I merely point out that the "sex category" is unnecessary if we're talking safety and fairness.
You mentioned three specific things – muscle mass, muscle strength, bone density – as the basis of why men and women need to participate separately for safety reasons. So I am using these. Any others that we need to consider?
> Yes, sex testing would mostly affect female sport
That means that there could be people who based on your set of tests would be considered "female" that might be participating in male disciplines. While having lower muscle mass, strength, and bone density.
Is it not unfair and unsafe for them to do so?
If you believe we should be testing anyone, why not test everyone?
And how is it not considered misogynist to make women jump through hoops men don't have to?
@rysiek @darnell
I'm not against sex testing in male sport. The reason I predict it would mostly affect female sport is I assume the main objective for tests is to catch cheaters (people who know they would fail such a test, but enter the competition if there is no test), and obviously there isn't as much motivation for females to cheat their way into male sport as it is for males to cheat their way into female sport.
We see that in the trans issue: there is a lot of discussion about how awful it would be for transwomen having to compete in male category, while transmen seem relatively comfortable competing in female category.
Even in your example, the female enters the male category just to be treated unfairly. Why would she do that to herself, if she can enter the female category?
But this assumption might be wrong, if we think that people just genuinely don't know. Then testing everyone in both categories would be correct, yes.
Also, I think these tests should be done early, when people start competing on low level — to avoid unnecessary public exposure and painful breakdowns of sport careers in which people already put huge parts of their lives. And also for people with DSDs it's just useful information in itself to be diagnosed as early as possible, if they already hadn't until that point.
(Side note: I very much try to steer clear of accusing you of things like misogyny, bigotry etc., while you venture into such accusations repeatedly. I'd really like you to stop that, it's not constructive.)
@rcz I have not accused you, personally, of anything. In this particular case I asked a question about misogyny, which I feel is a valid one, as in many other cases where women are forced to jump through hoops men are not, it is seen (correctly) as misogyny.
I appreciate you responding to that question, and the other two.
Should men who tested "female" in these tests be allowed to continue participating in mens' disciplines?
Should they be allowed to participate in womens'?
@rcz also, over this whole thread you took exception to many things you perceived me as saying or implying, so allow me to take exception with a thing I perceived you as implying – which is that you seem to have labeled Trans sportspeople as "cheaters".
After insisting previously this has nothing to do with Trans issues.
I don't want to dwell on that at this point, just marking it up and letting you know I took note of that.
“Should men who tested "female" in these tests be allowed to continue participating in mens' disciplines?”
I don't think this question has a simple answer.
There are voices that in sports where males have a clear advantage and where safety isn't a concern, it might be sensible to move to a system of a protected female category and an unprotected open category, which in practice would be mostly male category. The justification is that since there is no sex-related advantage to exclude from this category, there is no fairness concern, and so if there are no safety concerns either, there's no reason to exclude women who want to participate there.
There are sports where there are safety concerns, and then the answer will be no. And then there are also some sports where women have an advantage, so there the situation would be mirrored for both sexes — it's not a case which is often discussed because it is rare, but it is there.
“Should they be allowed to participate in womens'?”
Of course.
“you seem to have labeled Trans sportspeople as "cheaters".”
I did not imply that, and I do not believe that. Happy to I had the opportunity to clear that up.
@lxo I appreciate you saying that.
However, I will make my own decisions on how to conduct myself in a conversation with a person I've known for about 2 decades on a topic I care about, as long as Radek is also willing to continue the conversation.
I am using Quiet public visibility setting, and that's so that nobody who doesn't want to follow it, doesn't have to. Fedi software also has affordances for muting a thread.
@rysiek @rcz @darnell @lxo the reason this is interpreted as prejudice is the assertion that someone raised as a woman, who identifies as a woman, and who has always been treated as a woman is actually not a woman, but a "man with underdeveloped external genitalia". Accepting that argument means accepting that trans women aren't women, which is obviously transphobic. The nuance isn't complicated.
I'm not interested in pivoting to that discussion, certainly in this form. I've had enough contact with priests in my life to recognize it for what it is.
What you're doing here is assuming that everyone either shares your metaphysical beliefs or is immoral. This is an extreme form of prejudice, bigotry.
It's certainly fine to attach moral judgement to sharing moral beliefs, e.g. “everyone deserves dignity” — if you don't believe that, people will rightly judge you.
But it becomes bigotry when moral judgement is attached to sharing metaphysical beliefs, like “people have souls”. Even if you believe there's a moral value connected to that metaphysical belief, like if you think: “if people don't believe they have souls, they'll have no reason not to kill one another!” — you *are* bigoted if you assume that people who don't believe in souls are immoral.
This distinction is important. People are entitled to have different metaphysical beliefs than you and they aren't immoral for it. If you start judging them for that, that's just your bigotry.
What you're presenting is clearly a metaphysical belief, not a moral one — there's no inherent moral value to being a man or a woman. You might connect some moral value to that metaphysical belief in your worldview, but that's on you.
So what you're presenting is bigotry, by virtue of saying: either everyone shares my metaphysical belief, or they are immoral.
You're being bigoted.
Stop that.
@rcz @rysiek @darnell @lxo There's no inherent moral value to being a man or a woman, but nor is there an accurate biological definition of what one is based on our current understanding of science. Suggesting that someone is not a woman because of your understanding of their (undisclosed) biology is not a position that's backed by science - but it is a position that enables bigotry and prejudice against trans women. Pretending that you're the victim here is disgusting.
@rysiek @darnell
Obviously, there are many differences due to the fact that we are sexually dimorphic: lung capacity, red blood count, height, arm length, hip width and q angle, tendon hardness, hormonal cycles affecting training etc.
Of course, I'm not saying these are all non-overlapping ranges, just like there are exceptionally strong 8-yolds and very weak 10-yolds, but the differences due to age still warrant separate categories.
And obviously, you don't “need” age categories if you replace them with elaborate system of testing and weighing all of those differences on some kind of a scale — ending up with the same categories but with additional steps.
@rysiek
BTW, when you first asked whether these differences can be measured, I initially thought it's about research.
It's much harder to measure these characteristics in individual cases, because you'd need to somehow differentiate advantage from effort. Someone can have weaker or smaller muscles than a trained adult male, because they are a female, or because they're a child, but also because they just don't train as much.
And I *assume* we would't want to categorize women and children, who put a huge effort in their sport, together with lazy and mediocre men, who could be top of male category had they actually trained, but didn't.
@rysiek specifically asked to avoid talking about living breathing individuals to be civil, let's stick to that.
The consequence of these tests is that male people will not get into female sport category. I also did point out that they should be made early in the career, to avoid unnecessary public exposure, broken lives and other unintended consequences other than the one objective of not letting males into female sport category (and, where relevant, vice versa). I'm all for any measures preventing any other side consequences for the individuals involved. In the ideal world, all of this information is private and nobody ever learns that someone was excluded from a competition due to a test except for people directly involved.
But *not* doing any tests *also* has negative consequences, much more direct and rather unavoidable, particularly for women in these competitions, and these also shouldn't be ignored, should they?
@rcz What negative consequences would not doing any tests have for them?
Seriously, there are obvious fairness and safety concerns arising from not doing tests and consequently allowing into female category people who aren't eligible (i.e. males).
Just as there would be from not testing for any other categories, and allowing heavyweights into featherweight category, adults into U10 category etc.
(Just a technical side note: your posts are marked as German, while you write in English.)
@rcz I don't buy the safety concerns argument, because I'm not aware of any safety issues arising from someones gender. There might be safety concerns arising from characteristics that are typically associated with gender, like weight or age, but those can be solved in a much less discriminating way (like weight or age categories). Relying solely on gender to prevent these safety issues doesn't work anyway.
@rcz About "fairness": thats a weird definition because there is no clear definition of fairness. I wouldn't consider it fair if someone has to give up their whole carreer, team etc. because of some gene test. On the other side I don't see whats so unfair about the person being allowed to play in your category. Someone might be better then you, for reasons that you can't control. That's basically the point of sports, isn't it?
No, issues arising from differences due to sexual dimorphism (not “typically associated with gender”) are not solved by weight or age categories. This discussion already happened in this thread. There's a lot of research on it, which you didn't check and won't be bothered to.
There is a pattern here that I can't unsee, in which even hypothetical issues affecting people who would be excluded from female category by a test saying they're male are instantly taken very, very seriously and deemed insurmountable, while any issues affecting female people are instantly and very, very easily dismissed, to the point of absurdity.
Of course it is unfair to allow ineligible people to play in your category! You know it for any other category. If a 20 year-old entered a U10 category, you wouldn't say: „well, he's better than you and that's a point of sport, isn't it?”
But when it's women, suddenly you don't see any issue.
@rcz Yeah, there are also a few patterns on your side that I can't unsee in which you think you are arguing with an objective open mind while everybody else is just biased.
People being stigmatized because they can't compete in the gender category they competed their whole life in isn't some "hypothetical issue”, it's a potentially life threatening issue that you show hardly any sympathy for. (1/2)
A 9 year old growing out of the U10 category isn't a huge political and sociatal issue, it's what happens to everybody. Being thrown out of their gender category because of some DNA test is. You are completly ignoring the political and sociatal dimension of this whole issue and pretend there is some "objective" way to assign gender, pretending a DNA test isn't as arbitary as anything else. (2/2)
@343max
A DNA test obviously isn't “arbitrary”, it actually tests the DNA.
Please refrain from telling me what I “think”, you have no reason to claim to know that and it actually *is* my prerogative to ascertain who in my view is arguing with an open mind and who isn't, based on how they engage.
I repeatedly addressed the issue of “throwing out of the category they competed their whole life”, even directly in a response to you — and my addressing this point has been consistently looked over by everyone else in this discussion, which, yes, does suggest that my opponents on this issue here maybe aren't arguing with such an open mind.
It's not a rule nor a prejudice from my side, though — it *does* happen that people arguing from your point of view also engage with an open mind and I do recognize when they do.
@rcz For the longest time gender categories in sports existed without people even knowing something like DNA even exists and now when DNA tests became cheap enough some people (like you) decided they are supposed to be the only thing that counts. Of course that is absolutely arbitrary.
@343max
Of course, knowledge makes progress. It doesn't make it “arbitrary”. Denying the relationship between DNA and phenotypes, or sexual dymorphism, is just plain old science denialism, on the level of evolution denial.
@rcz We are talking about sports, about social constructs, about politics, about gender. The reasons why men and women are two different categories in sport has hardly anything to do with Biology and is mostly a pure social construct because mankind at some point decided for no good reason that the most important differentiation between people is if they have a penis or vagina. (1/2)
DNA is a tiny part of Biology which hasn't to do a lot with the topics we are talking about here. So yes, you insisting that a DNA test should be the thing that decides this issue and should be the only thing that decides this issue is completly arbitrary. (2/2)
@rcz Also I didn’t ignore your response to the suffering of these people. For me your response basically boiled down to „well, sucks to be them“ because you are completely downplaying them by implying taking away someone’s gender identity is basically the same thing as turning 11.
@343max
No, it definitely didn't boil down to “sucks to be them”, that's a dishonest summary. And I wasn't talking about “taking away gender identities”, I was talking about eligibility for sport categories.
You're not engaging in good faith here, are you?