Trans athletes make great gains, yet resentment still flares (4 Viewers)

[SaintInBucLand]

But is that actually happening around you?

Ummm I literally posted this in the thread.

I have an opinion on this because my 16 year old daughter is in track and this year there was a dust up at the school over 2 trans girls who joined the team and quickly smoked all the other girls they were competing against during intra school practice. This made my daughter extremely upset and wanted to quit the team. I was able to convince her not to worry about them, and just focus on her personal times.

 

[JenningsTruckers]

We aren't the GOP here. We are parents of children(at least in my case) who just want to be able to participate in sports and not have to be trounced by biological males. Is my daughter's mental well being not as important because she isn't transgender? Should she just have to deal with the fact that she would never be able to have a starting spot on the track team due to trans girls on the team taking those spots from her?

You are 100% percent correct and on spot !! This should not even be a debate , I think everyone's mental thoughts should only be on what's fair and geeze what is right . This whole thing is crazy .

 

[UncleTrvlingJim]

Ummm I literally posted this in the thread.

Dammit, sorry, I missed that part. It definitely sounds like you handled it the right way.

 

[hockey2112]

Life isn't fair. That's just the breaks...

If your sentiment above was applied to the trans side of the argument as a final verdict, then this whole thread wouldn't exist, yes? Why is it ok to lay that "too bad so sad" onus at the feet of the biological girls/women? Does that/ can that not apply to the other side as well or instead?

- signed, a parent of 3 competitive girls

 

[UncleTrvlingJim]

No one's feelings should be the measuring stick... Transgenders' included... The measuring stick should be... Do you have an God Given/Natural/Biological/evolutionary/hormonal/developmental/Chemical/etc. advantage over the people you compete against...? If you do... It's not a fair competition... and hence shouldn't be allowed. Feelings and Identity are of no consequence in the realm of competitive fairness and general sportsmanship.

I think you ruin all competition then, right? because superior athletes have God given/natural/biological/etc advantage over the people they compete against. No amount of hard work will beat a superior athlete who also works hard. Life isn't fair.

The concern for me, is will this stop girls from competing in sports. If it does, then it needs to be fixed. If it doesn't then it's a bit of a tempest in a tea cup.

 

[UncleTrvlingJim]

If your sentiment above was applied to the trans side of the argument as a final verdict, then this whole thread wouldn't exist, yes? Why is it ok to lay that "too bad so sad" onus at the feet of the biological girls/women? Does that/ can that not apply to the other side as well or instead?

- signed, a parent of 3 competitive girls

Because I think youth sports is about teaching hard work and how to get better at something you apply yourself to. The process is more important than the result, in my opinion.

So, my main concern is that every kid get a chance to play youth sports in a supportive environment that they feel comfortable in. This is the platonic ideal that we probably won't actually reach. So then it becomes an exercise of who do we make uncomfortable and why.

I don't think teaching a kid that hey if someone is bigger and stronger than you, it isn't worth doing and so it's ok to give up. I also think asking a trans girl to play on a boys team is probably more mentally taxing on her than cis girl losing to someone bigger and stronger than them.

I have one competitive girl who basically doesn't care if a trans girl competes against her. So I have a bit of a bias. I also have a trans boy which certainly gives me a bias since I can see what that does to a kid on the mental side of things.

 

[Infoman]

I think you ruin all competition then, right? because superior athletes have God given/natural/biological/etc advantage over the people they compete against. No amount of hard work will beat a superior athlete who also works hard. Life isn't fair.

The concern for me, is will this stop girls from competing in sports. If it does, then it needs to be fixed. If it doesn't then it's a bit of a tempest in a tea cup.

This is not a valid argument in any sense of the word... and has been demonstrated many times in this thread... Lebron and Shaq were superior to their competition most nights and were blessed / bestowed with superior talent in many ways... But they are in no way competing in an uneven or non-competitive environment where they have an unfair advantage.... Some nights Lebron got beat by Steph... Some nights Shaq couldn't match Duncan.... But the playing field was even. The 10th best player on most NBA rosters... Would be an unstoppable force in the WNBA.

A better analogy for post-pubescent biological males competing against biological females... Is when Sosa and McGuire were hitting 70 HRs a season due to having an unfair advantage by enhancing their muscle mass and growth, while their competition was not. And Yes.... It's unfair. Life is unfair... But some things are obviously wrong, and create an un-even ridiculous statistical/physical disadvantage over the entire playing field... this subject is one of them.

 

[kizzy821]

The "Let's wait until it becomes a big problem before doing anything" POV is foolish.

What do people really mean when they say now is not the time to discuss something?

It's just a tactic to delay a discussion they foresee themselves 'losing.'

When you can't bring sensical points to the table, you try to avoid going to the table altogether.

 

[guidomerkinsrules]

It is all bs to allow Trans to compete with women...it is unfair

whew. Glad we cleared all the up

 

[guidomerkinsrules]

, I think everyone's mental thoughts should only be on what's fair and geeze what is right . .

that’s literally what this entire thread is about- it’s just that people have different ideas of what’s fair and right

 

[UncleTrvlingJim]

This is not a valid argument in any sense of the word... and has been demonstrated many times in this thread... Lebron and Shaq were superior to their competition most nights and were blessed / bestowed with superior talent in many ways... But they are in no way competing in an uneven or non-competitive environment where they have an unfair advantage.... Some nights Lebron got beat by Steph... Some nights Shaq couldn't match Duncan.... But the playing field was even. The 10th best player on most NBA rosters... Would be an unstoppable force in the WNBA.

A better analogy for post-pubescent biological males competing against biological females... Is when Sosa and McGuire were hitting 70 HRs a season due to having an unfair advantage by enhancing their muscle mass and growth, while their competition was not. And Yes.... It's unfair. Life is unfair... But some things are obviously wrong, and create an un-even ridiculous statistical/physical disadvantage over the entire playing field... this subject is one of them.

So, Lebron was a teenager once. There was not a single teenager he played against in high school who could match him. The difference was that stark. That's the same for all those guys who turned pro.

I went to Georgetown in the 90's with Allen Iverson. They were a top 25 team, but kind of average in the top 25. I used to play basketball in the rec center most nights, and occasionally the Georgetown bench players would come play pick up with us. Most of us playing were high school athletes, and they would routinely just destroy us. It was like children playing with adults. And we were all biological males. It was like we were playing another sport than them. And they were bench players who hardly ever saw the court on a middling top-25 team. These kids all played in high school and destroyed their peers every day. They had God given advantages that no one else had. It was stark and it was obvious. That's what happens in youth sports. There absolutely are people who come along that just mop the floor with everyone else. They didn't do anything to earn that talent... they just had it.

I coach youth sports. And there are kids who are just insanely better than everyone else. They just show up and crush the competition. We had one girl who started soccer this year. Had never before played in her life. But she had played other sports. She was bigger and stronger than everyone on the team by a very wide margin. She became the team's leading scorer day one.

Is it your contention she shouldn't be allowed to play with the other girls because she has God given/hormonal/biological advantages over everyone else? I know it isn't, but why should she be allowed to play and a trans girl not considering she crushes the competition just as easily as some trans girls do? Why?

Basically, it seems like the argument is that trans girls have some sort of choice in the matter and the fear is they are using that to gain some kind of advantage. Is that accurate?

 

[guidomerkinsrules]

The "Let's wait until it becomes a big problem before doing anything" POV is foolish.

What do people really mean when they say now is not the time to discuss something?

It's just a tactic to delay a discussion they foresee themselves 'losing.'

When you can't bring sensical points to the table, you try to avoid going to the table altogether.

It’s more that there is no reason to believe that the issue will grow much larger than it is
Why would we assume that all of a sudden we’re going to get exponentially more trans people than we have historically ?

 

[UncleTrvlingJim]

It’s more that there is no reason to believe that the issue will grow much larger than it is
Why would we assume that all of a sudden we’re going to get exponentially more trans people than we have historically ?

There has been a very large uptick in youth identifying as trans in the past 5-10 years.

 

[kizzy821]

The "Let's wait until it becomes a big problem before doing anything" POV is foolish.

What do people really mean when they say now is not the time to discuss something?

It's just a tactic to delay a discussion they foresee themselves 'losing.'

When you can't bring sensical points to the table, you try to avoid going to the table altogether.

This tactic also applies to complaints about this thread. There's a wrestling thread that's almost a decade old and it stays on the front page. But we're "hysterical" for wanting to continue to discuss this?

 

[guidomerkinsrules]

There has been a very large uptick in youth identifying as trans in the past 5-10 years.

And the question is whether that’s a biological uptick (unlikely) or a social one where people feel it’s safer to come out/self-identify
Like when homosexuals came out of the closet, I don’t think that ‘created’ more homosexuals than had been the biological norm for millennia