how do we gauge "material, observable reality"?
In something like the 800m, presumably they'd all need to race against each other to find out who was closest together in ability. Then all the ability classes would race to find out who was top of each class. So you'd have a fastest class (all men probably) that would get all the media attention, then a load of slower classes containing women and the slower men that everyone would ignore. That's a bit shit isn't it?
(, Tue 29 Jun 2021, 10:35, Reply)
I don't think simply getting people to race against each other would work as an alternative method of categorisation. I'm not pretending there is an easy answer to how you would define that alternative classification, and I don't know what the answer is, but I don't think the existing classifications of male and female are working very well for many trans and non-trans athletes.
(, Tue 29 Jun 2021, 10:47, Reply)
you dont know what the answer is because broadly there is no better system than the one we have now
That is not to say that every effort shouldn't be given to accommodate minority groups wherever possible. But in this case it is not possible without excluding half the population from meaningful competitive sport.
(, Tue 29 Jun 2021, 11:21, Reply)
No, I don't know the answer because it is a very complex question, and society has only started seriously discussing it relatively recently.
"broadly there is no better system than the one we have now"
The current system accommodates the majority of athletes in the majority of competitions, but is causing some high profile issues in the relatively small number of cases where it doesn't work. I don't think we can say there is no better system, because I don't think anyone has seriously looked at alternatives yet.
(, Tue 29 Jun 2021, 15:50, Reply)
You are fundamentally misunderstanding what sport *is*
The categories we have allow us to measure and reward excellence, and so there are barriers to entry/recognition/high level competing based on skill.
What you are discussing isn’t “people that the current system doesn’t support” - there is, after all, a category in which Laurel Hubbard can compete fairly against peers - but you are in fact talking of a shift *away* from useful categories because you are coming from a perspective where your aim is “trans inclusion, with the right to choose their category” rather than “sporting fairness”
(, Wed 30 Jun 2021, 9:17, Reply)
A lot of people discussing this who aren’t really
Sporting experts, and I think their lay position, or assumption is that you have the men’s 100m and the women’s 100m, and that while the men are a bit faster, it’s almost as if the fastest men are the worlds fastest 1-8 with the women being 9-16, because that’s what a casual glance at the olympics might suggest if you’re not paying attention.
They seem not to realise that there’d be zero female Olympians under Happy Toast’s batshit proposals
(, Tue 29 Jun 2021, 10:48, Reply)