iNow

Right, but this isn't a biology issue. It's a political one. I'd find this more relevant if we were sitting right now in debate class or in a formal competition. Since we're not, I don't. Let me repeat how I responded to you yesterday when you shared this same feedback when I made a different comparison since the same response applies: I always love when people announce their exit from a thread. Okay, whatever... Just stop replying then.

“We are nonviolent with people who are nonviolent with us.” “I believe that there will ultimately be a clash between the oppressed and those that do the oppressing. I believe that there will be a clash between those who want freedom, justice and equality for everyone and those who want to continue the systems of exploitation.” ”I believe in treating people right, but I’m not going to waste my time trying to treat somebody right who doesn’t know how to return the treatment.” Brother Malcolm had a way with words.

Righto, and another truth is that many thousands of current female athletes also speak out in support of just letting transgendered girls play. In similar spirit, perhaps if we’d ignored the “wishful narratives” of black voices we might still have slaves on plantations actively harvesting cotton today. I’d say it’s a win historically that the rules were changed to favor them, but YMMV.

It was about many things, one of which was rather overwhelming support from thousands of current female athletes competing in existing female leagues. The idea shared was of them rejecting the entire premise that they needed protection from do-gooders seeking to exclude transgendered females, or that it even mattered if the science showed transgendered females MIGHT benefit from some minuscule advantage.

Fair point. In the article I shared most recently, the rather clear suggestion was there was practically no scientific evidence whatsoever suggesting a major or relevant difference. This aligned with another article I read just yesterday but chose not to share here given how the facts within past links kept getting ignored.

No. Despite what many online political conversations would have you think, our poop isn’t actually connected to our brains

Thank you for clarifying. Of course analogies are limited, and that's part of why I reject the premise that transgendered humans are triangles, that cis-gendered females are circles, and that cis-gendered males are squares (1950s poodle skirt and leather jacket jokes about boring nerds aside). People are NOT pegs. We are not cogs or widgets. Athletic rules also don't mandate that all pegs be exactly the same... whether round, square, or otherwise... and that's the point. Even within the round pegs, there's tremendous variability in shape, scale, size, height, weight, physical makeup, etc. As I think is obvious, that variability is a huge part of what makes sports so interesting in the first place... there are MAJOR differences in innate ability and learned expertise and capability, and that's the entire point! The rules of sports in no way imply that only ONE peg type can or should fit. The rules for ALL sports are 100% invented and arbitrary, yet are being used now to exclude a class of humans who are already facing exclusionary and violent pressures everywhere else throughout their lives. Yes, TheVat... We're often repeating ourselves, but that doesn't mean should just shutup and stop. There's a chance people reading from the sidelines might just be convinced by a post today that says the same thing a post a week ago said, even though the week old post had no impact on their thinking.

Nobody is suggesting equivalency. The suggestion is of one of similarity.

I know you aren’t consciously advocating this, but it sounds to me rather equivalent to separate, but equal. We may as well force transgendered athletes to use different water fountains while we’re at it.

If we were building and talking about widgets, perhaps. They’re not widgets, though. They’re humans just like you and me. We’re ALL different from one another in scores of ways, but we generally focus on our similarities instead. I’ve already clearly stated that I reject the framing of transgendered humans being triangular pegs being put into round holes. I personally find them just as round. I merely ran with the analogy introduced by MigL to engage him on his own terms. Your comment about precision in engineering suggests that every other female competing in female athletics are 100% equivalent, cut from a single mold, the same in all ways and tolerances. We both know they’re clearly not, so again (and with respect) I completely reject this rather comical fantasyland style framing of the issue. Humans aren’t cogs, whether cis, trans, or otherwise.

I got to hear him speak in person a few years back. Brilliant man.

I see. Classic no true Scotsman response. I’d have gone another way, myself.

So do high-profile female athletes. Soccer star Megan Rapinoe, former world No. 1 tennis player Billie Jean King and professional basketball player Candace Parker joined nearly 200 other professional, Olympic and collegiate female athletes on an amicus brief contesting the laws. Close to 1,000 collegiate athletes supported trans athletes in two letters, calling on the NCAA to move championships out of states that passed bans. WNBA players Sue Bird and Natasha Cloud, WNBA coach Cheryl Reeve, U.S. paralympian Alana Nichols and scores of other athletes signed on to a similar letter to the NCAA last year.

Very little. You may as put a sock over your mouth. Ever see a surgeon going into surgery with a sock over their mouth? Better than nothing, but not great. Use N95 or KN95 and most importantly make sure it fits correctly.

Nor is suggesting that only one hole shape and bore type is allowed

The shape of the holes is almost entirely arbitrary, ESPECIALLY in sports... a domain where we LITERALLY write the rules however we wish. They're not handed down from on high chiseled into stone tablets. They change every year, and can change to accommodate transgendered humans. Some people, however, seem to think there's something invariant about the roundness or squareness of the edges on those holes... that there is tremendous meaning and importance in them being sized PRECISELY as they are today... while some other people believe the shape of those holes matters far less than how widely or how narrowly they've been bored by the bit. Being a woodworker, I realize that sometimes some hand filing and sanding is required to make the fit proper... I don't look at a hole I've drilled as if it's perfection that can never again be touched with a tool... I'm more than happy to change bits or switch to a different chisel if the outcome I'm seeking calls for doing so. While I do tend to reject the basic premise here that one group of humans are best described as triangles... and while I'm both willing to accept transgendered humans as round and am also advocating that others do the same... My more basic hope is that we at least all focus a bit less on keeping the existing hole so narrow and rigid and focus a bit more on how we at any time may expand that holes bore width without much consequence... that we may expand it so the "triangles" are no longer seen as so ill-fitting and out of place to so very many of our fellow citizens.

Thank you for reinforcing this point which seemed so obvious to me. I wasn't the one claiming gender segregation was instituted to ensure fairness for females. It simply wasn't. It too was about exclusion, and that's the point. The claim was made in this thread that segregation was instituted to ensure fairness and that's plainly false. Quite right. It's just another slippery slope strawman style argument... Remarkably similar to the "what's next if we allow gays to marry? People marrying their dog or their sheep or their kitchen table?!!???!11!one12!?" style of argument we encountered in those interactions years ago. I'll just highlight once more how the legislation being pushed and enforcement mechanisms being used for punishment are NOT focused at elite levels... they're focused on middle school and high school students, and a bit of college. This is about children and how we treat those who don't fit in with our accepted standards as a society. 171 anti-trans bills across fewer than 50 states in US legislatures... just in 2021... and we're only half way through 2021... One hundred and seventy one... and none of them attempt to address the REAL issues causing problems in female sports. Put simply, talking about those 7 elite level athletes is a red herring, as is framing this as an issue about protecting cis-females. This is about little league, not MLB... kids being transported around in minivans by soccer moms, not LeBron James and Tom Brady... this is about operationalizing and making real the the acceptance of transgendered humans and desire to stop discrimination against them which we both seem to share.

Of course they would, but they don't have to choose. They're doing quite well in both sectors, even though revenue sources / profit margins are clearly biased toward AWS.

Proximity, physical and social. Beyond that, we’re mostly hairless apes just being tribal all of the time and flinging feces at each other.

I could suggest many and from multiple perspectives, but unsure how this is relevant or advances the discussion. Anyway, here are a few just off the top of my head: Political considerations and an unwillingness to stand up strongly in defense of accepting transgendered humans as the gender they identify with, similar to how gay marriage was treated about a decade ago. Concerns over loss of funding from huge donors who happen to be a bit bigoted and find transgendered girls icky… and loss of tuition and fees from uptight closed minded parents who’d pull their children from those schools and programs adding to the negative financial hit. Desire to avoid becoming a punching bags on Fox News, NewsMax, and related right wing media and social media platforms and echo chambers who’d mercilessly turn this into the next culture war (though, let’s face it… the only reason we’re even talking about it here is bc they already have). Basically all of the same reasons people fought to keep Jackie Robinson out of baseball… or gays out of the military… or women from voting and owning property… except this time couched in some vague bogeymen notions of huge testosterone addled bicep bulging hulking men pretending to be women and running around the pitch like mindless Mr Hyde beasts simply ripping the arms off of their XX chromosome competitors with drool hanging from their fangs and bulging bloodshot eyes… just separating those arms in one quick pull from the shoulder orbits with a quick crunching sound… and then running around beating those poor puny tiny helpless defenseless girls on the field to death with their own limbs. Mostly that last one is my suggested reason, but there are others, too.

Read those last 3 words in the quote from me again, out loud if needed. Tell ya what. I’ll make it easy. I retract my claim and will simply reinforce my own personal stance: My position is simple and requires no interpretation. Treat transgendered women as women and let them compete in women’s sports. End program.

Here. This thread. About 4 hours ago. Just above. This same page.

Did I stutter? Source already supplied.

My position is simple and requires no interpretation. Treat transgendered women as women and let them compete in women’s sports. End program. This is a position with which even the majority of women’s athletic organizations and athletes already competing in those organizations themselves seem to agree.