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GungnirSniper writes:
"CNN reports a 'transgender woman prohibited from competing in a strength competition as a female is suing' CrossFit for sponsoring the competition. The plaintiff, Chloie Jonnson, 'had sexual reassignment surgery in 2006 and has been on female hormone therapy, according to her lawsuit.' She is also 'legally recognized by California as a woman.'
CrossFit maintains that Jonnson was born as a male, so she should compete in the men's division, according to a letter from the company's lawyer to Jonnson's attorney. It also stated that the company had an 'obligation to protect the 'rights' of all competitors and the competition itself.'
'The fundamental, ineluctable fact is that a male competitor who has a sex reassignment procedure still has a genetic makeup that confers a physical and physiological advantage over women,' according to the letter from CrossFit's lawyer sent in October.
This comes shortly after the Virginia High School League changed its rules to allow transgender students to play sports. Slate has its take on 'arguable concerns of unfair advantage.'
Should the rules take into account the age the person transitioned, hormone levels, or surgical status?"
(Score: 1) by naubol on Friday March 07 2014, @08:33PM
Maybe they don't fit. I'm as "pro queer" as it gets, although after reading my comment you may disagree. However, we, queers that is, are less common than non-queers. A lot less common. The truly "enlightened" individual should have no problem recognizing this fact. Also, I find it unenlightened to begin to proselytize your point of view by calling the other side unenlightened. You are not a saint, yourself, and I strongly believe this tactic tends to backfire. Also, you sound really arrogant and angry. Most people don't want to believe arrogant and angry people.
Given that we're much less common, and given that the whole concept of sports is to make a show of being a level playing ground* where people can fairly compete to show off intrinsic qualities and hard work**. The illusion of this level playing field is destroyed when you take someone who has an "obvious" genetic advantage. You may not believe this is so, but most do.
Now, do they necessarily have a genetic advantage? Being an enlightened person myself, I say show me the evidence. But, also being an enlightened person, I say empirical evidence of the personal kind seems to suggest that this is highly plausible. It is not sufficient to say that androgens are lowered in an MTF through the use of drugs, because androgens have a non-trivial influence on fetal and adolescent development before the drug regimen was introduced, usually as an adult.
You have a very large bias for saying that only the current level of androgens is relevant, which, being an enlightened person, you should acknowledge this bias. Empiricism demands it of you. Now, you could still be right, but you haven't made a convincing argument, which should also be obvious, since you stated something without providing any support, and many people's personal experience seems to contradict you.
Here is a prompt I consider illustrative: The average male is taller than average female. Do you believe that reduction of androgens leads to a reduction in height in an adult? Do you believe that height is a non-trivial advantage in nearly all sports? My answers are, obviously not enough to be significant and yes, I do, respectively.
So, the problem seems to me to be that the illusion of fairness in sports is hard to maintain under the circumstances of an MTF competing with cis women. I still think it is an illusion, that sports are fair, and so I scoff at the idea of sports***. But, if the sports interested people are right that this is a non-trivial advantage, and I still maintain it is quite plausible, then we have a situation where a majority of individuals want to create a system that works quite well* and a small number of individuals can't participate.
Why is this so morally wrong? Why is it unenlightened? We have lots of systems like this. This is different situation than public use of restrooms, where the original intent of the law was to handle heternormative sex issues and is badly applied to MTFs wanting to use the women's room. It is not important that we are treated as fair in all things, being untenable, impractical, and patently ridiculous. It is important that we are treated like people. I don't find sports excluding intersex from participating as their desired gender a violation of the latter principle. I do find the bathroom issue to be a heinous violation of the second principle.
* hahahahahahahahahahahah
** like unusual levels of testosterone due to rare genetic variance, access to great quantities of money, serendipitous access to other resources, etc.
*** I'm just a resentful nerd, damn those jocks!
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 08 2014, @12:12AM
Sounds to me what it all boils down to is thinly veiled discrimination masquerading as a call for fairness. If it was anything else, all sports would either be calling for all abnormally advantaged people (height, strength, what have you) to be excluded, or all sports would have height/weight classes like in boxing.