Former Kentucky swimmer Riley Gaines was among more than a dozen college athletes who filed a lawsuit against the NCAA on Thursday, accusing it of violating their Title IX rights by allowing transgender woman Lia Thomas to compete at the national championships in 2022.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Atlanta, details the shock Gaines and other swimmers felt when they learned they would have to share a locker room with Thomas at the championships in Atlanta. It documents a number of races they swam in with Thomas, including the 200-yard final in which Thomas and Gaines tied for fifth but Thomas, not Gaines, was handed the fifth-place trophy.
Thomas swam for Pennsylvania. She competed for the men’s team at Penn before her gender transition.
Thomas was the first openly transgender athlete to win a Division I title in any sport, finishing in front of three Olympic medalists for the championship. By not making the final, the lawsuit mentions that Florida swimmer Tylor Mathieu, who was not a plaintiff, was denied first-team All-American honors in that event.
Other plaintiffs included athletes from volleyball and track.
Regardless of where anyone sits on this topic, I need you to realize something that none of you are even aware of. By accepting the premise of the argument as “men are generally stronger than women,” you are immediately accepting that trans women are men. It doesn’t matter how you land the rest of your opinion. The fascists got you to accept their presupposition that trans women are just men.
sports are only gender segregated because men can’t handle losing to women.
I think we should defund all sports because it’s just bullshit and we should fund education and have that be competitive.
Organisation x holds a competition. They stipulate the rules for the competition. You don’t agree with the rules. You don’t have to participate. You are also allowed to express you displeasure with organisation x’s decisions. Maybe organise your own competitions. Maybe yours will be better. The sky is the limit!
I will say; I don’t care too much who these people compete with or against. But I do support their right to complain about it.
I totally agree with this!
I remember how bummed out I was when they didn’t allow Miis in my local smash competition, but I didn’t sue them for it!
Their event, their rules. That’s literally how it goes in the e-sports arena. I don’t see why it would be any different anywhere else.
Americans, you know this isnt really freedom right? The ability to only compete against biological women is not a right, nor are you entitled to a blue ribbon.
You know your country is this close to a dictatorship, right?
imagine being so frightened by someone’s gender that you file a lawsuit over it
Imagine being so frightened by someone’s point you go out of your way to mischaracterize it.
maybe i misunderstood it
Sex and gender are different things though
If there’s any real debate to be had, it’s along the lines of male hormones and penises. Should either be present in a place which essentially only exists for the purpose of keeping those things out?
They are. Every sporting governing body I’m aware of requires trans women to be on hormone therapy for a minimum of 2 years before they can compete in the women’s category. This is completely in line with the medical community’s research into how long it takes before the benefits of being biologically male are counteracted by the hormone replacement.
The debate has been had in the medical community and has been resolved. Now random people who never gave a fuck about women’s sports before think they should have input when they have no qualifications, just because they have prejudices.
So the new doping would be not taking the full dose of hormone treatments.
Could be, but they would still be required to pass tests to prove their hormones are in the appropriate range, just like cis women have to do when tested for doping with testosterone.
I mean, that’s already covered by testing. Women’s and men’s sports have different limits, USADA isn’t as dumb as you think.
Unless you’re just completely unaware that such an agency exists, then you just don’t understand how competitive sports actually work.
On this subject I’ve had mix feelings.
I get their point and I do not see this as a fair thing. Now that more people are coming out or transitioning should they try to make a different league or something?
should they try to make a different league or something?
It’d be cool if there were leagues based solely on physical capability, but most women would be in the lower leagues then complain about not being seen as equal to men.
Yeah this one is a mixed bag. Biological males can absolutely have an advantage in certain things. Simple as that. I mean look what happened with the Williams sisters.
This one is an absolute mess of a thing to have to figure out and, at the end of the day, I’m glad I’m some dude on the sidelines and not having to make the call on this one lol.
I feel the same way. I strongly support one side of this story, but the other side also has a valid point. So even when things turn out how I think it should be, it still has a nasty after taste.
I think we should preemptively start a Go Fund Me for the poor guy who has to make the choice.
Correct me, but we are yet to see a trans person winning anything or achieve a significant record anywhere. IIRC hormones do a big effect on anything but bones frame. And we are still talking potentional damage for M2F transitioners only, not F2M athletes or NB athletes.
Honestly, I think the whole perception of international competitive gendered sports like Olympics shall die. Sportsmanship on that level is toxic, many use drugs, costumes and hacks to somehow gain the edge. I see sports as a motivation for regular people to think of their health, not a gambling platform or a thing to boost national pride by injecting ‘winning horses’ with steroids, inhalers, whiskey.
Trans problem in sports is not a problem of trans people who do sports but another reason to redo sports and our perception of them.
Seeing sports as a casual way to get exercise is fine on a personal level if you aren’t an elite athlete, but you can’t force that perspective on millions of people who enjoy competing or watching elite athletes compete. It’s a weird take to want to rewire sports to accommodate a very small minority of people, most of whom wouldn’t even agree with that perspective.
There were abolitions of slavery when most holding voting rights could lose something in the process. Sports are not even close. Reformating them can come hurtless if the focus is pushed somewhere else, like local friendly competitions where there’s no stakes. Americans like their local teams at baseball and football, why it’s impossible to limit them to make regular youth the primal category participating in that, so communities in reverse get more involved, not suoerstars?
Just because you don’t understand the value of a thing doesn’t mean it has no value. Casually tossing aside one of the oldest human institutions is foolish.
We tossed a lot of them out. It shows itself as incompatible with current european culture and cause weird gimmicks to happen. Maybe it’s the time to put it down too?
I play sports casually, but I play really competitively. I love competition.
Gendered sports dying means sports for biological women dying and sports for biological men being basically unaffected.
Something tells me competitive sports aren’t just going to die out because some of us struggle to accept testosterone is a steroid and gives an unfair advantage versus women.
Yep, I know. It can be countered by encouragement of girla\women, but IIRC they want their own league in many sports due to difference in physique and toxic male challengers. Thus I think it’s not mostly about division but maybe the competitive factor?
…right, it’s totally because only men are toxic, no man has ever been mocked for “losing to a girl” due to that same societal toxicity before nor are women’s sports surprisingly rife with hair pulling/scratching/etc
Pretty sure it’s almost entirely the difference in physique that otherwise trivializes women as competitors on any serious level?
I can only talk about toxicity in men, aince I’m one and was in their changing rooms. That’s a pleasure of a public forum we can discuss that for we can see other perspectives.
Correct me, but we are yet to see a trans person winning anything or achieve a significant record anywhere.
The article itself has this to say:
“Thomas was the first openly transgender athlete to win a Division I title in any sport, finishing in front of three Olympic medalists for the championship.”
I’d say that winning a Div1 title ahead of three Olympic Medalist is somewhat significant.
You stand corrected.
There are plenty of instances of M->F transpeople completely obliterating the competition.
There’s actually already been trans women that were setting new records, far surpassing what was previously set. And because to be trans is too just identify… Well this happened https://nypost.com/2023/03/30/male-powerlifter-enters-womens-event-breaks-record/
NYP is not a very good source. But either way - maybe there should be a term limit for their transition or something? I don’t know. Abandoning sport competitions as they are now altogether seems easier than adjusting the time they eat hormones.
If someone goes through gender transition and meets all biological tests (such as testosterone levels, etc.), I don’t see why they should not compete.
Because if they have gone through puberty as a man the physical advantages of height, muscle mass, muscle density etc. conferred upon them because of testosterone and other male hormones do not fully diminish even years after those hormones are fully suppressed.
They were uncomfortable sharing a locker room, I see where you are coming from, but I can also see their point as well.
Where do their comforts and rights stand compared to Lia’s?
Careful there, you’re scaring them with that take
I’m sure a lot of white women felt uncomfortable sharing a locker room with black women when segregation ended. Comfort isn’t a good enough reason to have “whites only” locker rooms so why the hell would it justify “cis only” ones? It’s not Lia’s responsibility if Riley can only handle being around certain types of women.
I think I have to agree that transgender people shouldn’t simply be allowed to compete in women’s sports. Men tend to have a physical advantage, and that is just biology. Yes, there are certainly natural women who can compete against men, but it’s not the norm. I have no clue how to resolve this, but I agree it’s unfair to the majority of women athletes, amd I’d probably be pretty pissed in this situation, too, especially if I were pursuing a professional sports career.
And I worry about women feeling forced to compensate medically or with drugs somehow if this becomes common.
I have no clue how to resolve this
I think the first step needs to be asking why we do this and what we want. We have women’s sports because (cis) women generally cannot compete sufficiently with (cis) men. But what are we trying to accomplish? I would say in middle school and high school our goal should be inclusivity. So trans men and women should be able to compete in their identified genders.
On the other hand in college and the Olympics inclusivity is probably not as important for adults competing at some of the highest levels. So I am more willing to accept some limits, but I’m certainly not well versed enough to know where to draw that line.
Here’s the thing: who cares? Like okay, lots of people care, but why? Why cant trans athletes compete? What wound does anyone suffer?
My understanding is that if the athlete is correctly undergoing Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) the biological advantage is significantly reduced if not removed. I am sure there are exceptions though.
Edit: Everything below
After looking through some studies it seems like Trans fem athletes do maintain some advantage, or atleast the current wait time is not enough for the edge to be eliminated.
Best example I could find https://www.bmj.com/company/newsroom/current-treatment-period-may-be-too-short-to-remove-competitive-advantage-of-transgender-athletes/
I mean, the question is what’s fair both to trans women and cis women. Competing against competitors with an advantage and being excluded are both unfair. Absolutely eliminating advantage isn’t the standard that minimizes unfairness, it’s a balancing act between competing interests.
I’m not sure sports have found exactly the perfect balance, and it may vary a bit by sport, but it doesn’t seem to be wildly off in favor of trans women.
It’s not that they shouldn’t be allowed to compete, I think there needs to be a greater restriction on who and how they compete.
This whole thing started because of Lia Thomas who was a competetive male swimmer from the age of 5 until they completed hormone treatment at the age of 22.
They had the benefit of male puberty and trained as a male. That’s going to make a difference.
Now if you take a child who has not yet hit puberty, put them on blockers, then allow them to transition with hormones and surgery, you’re going to end up with a completely different athelete.
It’s good that the sports organization recognizes that trans atheletes need to be on hormones for a set period of time before being allowed to compete, but there needs to be a policy addressing WHEN they started the hormone treatment.
Starting after puberty has completed should be a non-starter, or at the very least a different category of competition.
The Economist looked at and has a perfectly reasonable solution.
The short version is that gender may be fluid, but biological sex isn’t.
They propose two categories, biological female by sex and Open.
Kinda like it used to be.
I’m not sure what the difference is in this headline versus the one i made the exact same argument in, but i was down voted for it like 3-4 months ago. I wonder what changed everyone’s mind.
