Base sporting categorisation on weight
And men are still stronger, pound for pound than women. Significantly so.
Across the board, male people have the advantage, and, all else being equal, male physiology results in greater strength, speed, lung capacity and many other attributes
That is the key issue here, and you haven’t demonstrated why it should be ignored.
(, Tue 29 Jun 2021, 13:19, Reply)
The whole point of my argument is that these characteristics should not be ignored.
Take a range of measurable physical characteristics and use those to create multiple athletic categories to replace the existing categories of "male" and "female".
(, Tue 29 Jun 2021, 16:01, Reply)
"And the gold medalist for '200m hurdles Category 21F Subclass 3: Skeleto-muscular ratio between 14.5% and 18.5% but no greater than 20% fast-twitch muscle fibres as determine by MRI no earlier than 6 months before competition date' is Jamie Switkins of the UK"
(
cumquat may will not be commenting further on the allegations, Wed 30 Jun 2021, 1:33,
Reply)
The “measurable physical characteristics”…
Are the actual fucking RACES.
You can’t categorise sprinting on anything other than speed. And there is no metric for measuring or categorising sprinting as a unisex sport that won’t result in zero female elite sprinters.
]you’re coming over as having no more substance than this
“Look, Trans people want in! So why can’t so called scientists come up with a fair way?”
There is a fair way - trans activists need to recognise that the only way trans women can compete fairly is to recognise that their gender identity does not change their sex, and since sport is segregated by sex, trans women should compete in the male category, and if activists find that the term “male category” is upsetting for them, then we can change it to “open category”. But women’s sport is not a vehicle for the validation of identity. It’s competitive sport
(, Wed 30 Jun 2021, 9:23, Reply)
I'm suggesting that a combination of physical characteristics could be used to determine eligibility to compete in a category, not to decide the outcome of a race. The winner of the race is the first person over the line (of course).
There is no reason why multi category sport would result in zero elite female sprinters (as I have already explained).
I fully agree that sport is not a "vehicle for the validation of identity" and what I'm suggesting as an alternative classification system takes identity out of the equation. It doesn't matter what you identify as; if you don't meet the physical criteria for a category, you don't get to compete in that class.
(, Wed 30 Jun 2021, 19:48, Reply)
You’ve yet to clarify what any of those characteristics are…
and placed them in a context which would put women on a level playing field with men.
So, let’s hear it.
You’re redesigning the Olympic Games based on a criteria other than sex.
With what are you replacing these events?
Men’s 100 metres final
Women’s 100 metres final
A thing to bear in mind in this is that a woman who runs 100 metres in eleven seconds is a *better runner* than a man who runs 100 metres in eleven seconds; it’d reassure me that you actually understand the debate if you’re able to sum up why that’s the case when answering.
Very excited to hear your answer, and particularly interested in how the distinction you come up with is more useful than the one that er…. Divides humans into their two distinct physiologies, the sexes, and rewards excellence in each.
Let’s hear it.
(, Thu 1 Jul 2021, 10:20, Reply)
OK. I've already said that coming up with an alternative solution would be very complex, and I don't claim to have the answer to that, but that doesn't prevent me from outlining the concept.
Athletes would be classified into several different categories (let's say half a dozen for the purposes of this explanation). Classification would be based on a combination of multiple physical characteristics such as weight, testosterone level, VO2 max, muscle mass and density, body fat content, etc. That's not a definitive list, but the objective would be to build a representative measure of potential athletic performance, and assign competitors to a resulting competition category. This would be somewhat analogous to Paralympic classification. Medals would be awarded in each category.
There would have to be qualification events with a promotion system to prevent sandbagging; athletes consistently out-performing their category would be moved to a category with a higher level of classification criteria. If an athlete underperforms in qualification they are pushed out by the other competitors, but they would not automatically qualify to compete in a category with lower criteria.
One end of the classification system would be dominated by athletes who compete in the current "men" category. The other end would be filled with athletes who compete in the current "women" category. Somewhere in between, there would be categories which featured athletes from both of the existing categories, and where races could be won by athletes who are currently classed as "men" or "women".
Here's an example of why I think this system could be fairer than the existing system:
Currently, a woman trans athlete with significant physiological athletic advantages due to their male biological history can compete in the women's category against athletes who are at a significant physiological disadvantage. In the alternative system, that athlete would be forced to compete in a category with more demanding physiological qualification criteria. In the most extreme example, if you formerly competed against elite "male" athletes and retained your athletic performance after identifying as a woman (with no gender reassignment treatments) you would continue to compete against the same athletes under the new system. Conversely, if a trans athlete underwent transition before puberty and developed athletic physiological characteristics that are typical of the majority of competitors in the current "women" category, they could continue to compete against those women athletes.
This system would also assign intersex athletes (who we've already established are not the same as trans athletes) to categories where they would compete against other athletes within a similar range of physiological potential.
That's a long winded explanation, but a simpler way of thinking about this is that the current system is doing exactly the same thing, but segregating athletes into only two categories "men" and "women". This alternative proposal separates athletes into more granular categories, with more sophisticated qualification criteria that are independent of the declared identity of the athlete.
(, Thu 1 Jul 2021, 12:46, Reply)
You haven’t successfully demonstrated
That “women” would not be the group adversely impacted.
There’s a lot of sophistry, but it doesn’t get around the fact that because your motivation isn’t
“Let’s find the best way of categorising athletes”
But is, in fact
“Structure sport around trans peoples feelings”
you are mentioning several combinations of characteristics, without having an example of what a race would look like under your vague idea, and are actively disregarding the most meaningful distinction in athletics, which is “sex”; the category in which Laurel Hubbard can compete fairly is “male people”.
So come on, put it into practice; you get to go back in time to the last olympics and are told “we’re not dividing the 100metres by sex this Olympics, but by more meaningful criteria”
Lay out how this works. What replaces the men’s and women’s 100m final?
What does the 100m determine? Currently, in the two sex categories, it determines these things;
1: the world’s fastest man presently (gold medal winner)
2: the world’s fastest woman presently (gold medal winner)
1: fastest man of all time (world record holder/Olympic record holder)
2: fastest woman of all time (world record/Olympic record holder)
What might your category determine?
If it’s “world’s fastest person”, you’ve erased female sporting success, so it can’t be that. So what is it? Which people compete in the olympics? Is one sex over represented? is equality of participation by male and female people something which your categories will seek to ensure? How?
Once again, as I mention below - Chesterton’s Fence; why *is* sport segregated by sex?unless you can accurately summarise the answer, you’re not arguing in good faith, and are in fact, an ideologue.
(, Thu 1 Jul 2021, 13:30, Reply)
Fastest athlete (gold medal) in each of the new categories. Record holder in each of the categories.
(, Thu 1 Jul 2021, 14:53, Reply)
What are the categories?
You’ve said “a combination of different characteristics”
What combination of what characteristics?
(, Thu 1 Jul 2021, 15:07, Reply)
from the comment just above:
"Classification would be based on a combination of multiple physical characteristics such as weight, testosterone level, VO2 max, muscle mass and density, body fat content, etc. That's not a definitive list, but the objective would be to build a representative measure of potential athletic performance, and assign competitors to a resulting competition category."
(, Thu 1 Jul 2021, 15:25, Reply)
Yes.that’s your abstract
It gets us no closer to how it would look in practice, so you haven’t even begun to demonstrate its usefulness.
Why don’t you lay out some specifics; what characteristics, at what intervals of measurements.
You can’t do it, and you’re embarrassing yourself here. “We could have a combination of weight, muscle, height, strength, hormones”…
Yep. We could. Now explain what that event looks like in practice. And why it’s better than “separate by sex, find fastest man and fastest woman”
But you won’t, because you can’t.
(, Thu 1 Jul 2021, 16:21, Reply)
No problem, I don't mind embarrassing myself.
I'm quite happy to say that I can't definitively author a complete specification for Olympic sports classification. As I have already said, that's an immensely complex problem, for people with much more specialised knowledge than I have.
A very simplified version would be something like this:
Category I: athletes with testosterone levels ranging from a to b, VO2 max ranging from x to y, etc
Category II: athletes with testosterone levels ranging from over b to c, VO2 max ranging from over y to z, etc
Obviously it gets a lot more complex because some athletes might satisfy criteria in different categories, so you would have to carefully define categories to handle that, or place athletes based on the category they match most closely.
I'm not pretending this is anything like a concrete proposal, but I think what I am proposing is clear enough to have a discussion about. It seems you are refusing to even consider the possibility of alternative classification systems because they are not already fully detailed and defined?
(, Thu 1 Jul 2021, 16:56, Reply)
What I’m saying
Is that your proposal doesn’t even begin to show itself to be more useful than the existing category, and doesn’t even begin to show itself as being practical, and doesn’t even begin to address any concerns that a shift away from sex distinctions wouldnt hang women out to dry.
Again - without saying, clearly “this is what sex categories are designed to do…. And this is why they are limited…. And that’s why I propose this…” all you’re actually doing is saying “here are some things that are categories. And I don’t have any further insight”
It’s very lucky that you’re comfortable with embarrassing yourself
(, Thu 1 Jul 2021, 20:38, Reply)
I have addressed all those questions in my previous answers, with specific examples.
I pointed out earlier that you complained I had failed to answer a question you asked, but you had actually replied to a comment which contained the information you wanted! That does make me wonder if you are actually reading what people are writing here.
(, Thu 1 Jul 2021, 22:00, Reply)
Naming a potential criterion without outlining how you see it impacting the structure of the sport
Isn’t an example without you giving your understanding of how it works in practice and why it’s better than what we’ve got currently.
Unless your next post does so, I’m done here.
(, Fri 2 Jul 2021, 8:59, Reply)
There is a trans woman at work.
Lovely lady, joy to work with.
But her hands are twice the size of mine (I,m a Joe Average), and have not decreased in size since transitioning.
She has lost maybe 20kg. But still would smash me to a pulp in fight.
(, Thu 1 Jul 2021, 7:27, Reply)