Transgender stuff - what's going on?

[mars]

13 hours ago, Rico1304 said:

 

It’s also fucking nonsense.  

 

8 hours ago, SasaS said:

It's a long article trying every possible angle to argue that the fact a man is competing with women is not an unfair advantege.

 

7 hours ago, Rico1304 said:

(Check out the author of the article). 

Really? I've admitted that I thought there were issues with trans athletes competing against cis athletes so was rather hoping for at least a little counterargument. All I see above is name-calling and ad hominem. Surely there must be articles that present data to support the claim that trans athletes have an advantage?

 

[Rico1304]

1 hour ago, mars said:

 

 

Really? I've admitted that I thought there were issues with trans athletes competing against cis athletes so was rather hoping for at least a little counterargument. All I see above is name-calling and ad hominem. Surely there must be articles that present data to support the claim that trans athletes have an advantage?

 

Not just articles, scientific studies.  Here you go; 

 

 

[TD_LFC]

Laurel Hubbard must have been really shit!!

[Numero Veinticinco]

15 hours ago, mars said:

This is interesting - data suggests Lia Thomas didn't have an unfair advantage. It's a long article but worth reading. Rather a shame this was ever an issue as the spotlight should have been on Kate Douglass' extraordinary performance.

 https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/lia-thomas-trans-swimmer-ncaa-b2044605.html

 

The 'data' is times. Nobody said Thomas was a good swimmer, quite the opposite. The argument that there's no advantage because they didn't swim much faster is ridiculous. The break down of logic in that article is actually pretty impressive. The 'data' actually suggests that a person born with a male body can go from 400th in the world to 1st by swimming against those born with a female body. If the take away is 'the data suggests they don't have an advantage' then it's ignorance and politics. 

[Rico1304]

Emily Bridges is going to be competing in the womens cycling next week. If she beats Laura Trott - which she should as she was faster than any women when she raced as a bloke - it could be interesting.  

[SasaS]

4 hours ago, mars said:

 

 

Really? I've admitted that I thought there were issues with trans athletes competing against cis athletes so was rather hoping for at least a little counterargument. All I see above is name-calling and ad hominem. Surely there must be articles that present data to support the claim that trans athletes have an advantage?

 

Since you quoted me, I don't see I was name calling or using ad hominem arguments. Unless calling a man a man is name calling. As I understand it, Thomas was born a biological male and competed with men, at one point of his life he realized he feels more a woman then a man (or realized now is the time to reveal it to others) , changed the name and a pronoun and began transitioning towards the preferred sex or gender. She still has "his" body, as we can clearly see from the pictures and videos. How she feels in that male body, that is private. Pretending that black is white and white is black to accommodate ideological constructs, I don't see the point personally.

 

If you are heterosexual, you would not be sexually attracted by Lia Thomas because Lia Thomas does not look like a woman. And that is not a construct, that is biology. Why do people insist on pretending that is not so is pretty bizarre to me, five or ten years ago that would hardly be a controversial view. I am pretty certain none of the heterosexuals would sleep with that bearded NY politician in a dress, take her female penis up the ass and pretend to have a heterosexual intercourse. Or maybe they now would, I don't know any more. It is all getting weirder and weirder each year.

[Rico1304]

Losing votes. M

 

 

[Captain Willard]

6 minutes ago, Rico1304 said:

Losing votes. M

 

 

This issue is the voter equivalent of nuclear waste for Labour. Hardly any trans rights supporters vote Tory so they can have a completely clear line on biological supremacy without it costing them votes. Labour doesn’t have that luxury and stand to lose 1000s of votes either way so are desperately trying to avoid answering the question of biology versus self identify as the determination of gender. Expect the Tories to make women’s rights a central issue of the next election. Mrs Willard says it is already being raised on the doorsteps.  

[Rico1304]

7 minutes ago, Captain Willard said:

This issue is the voter equivalent of nuclear waste for Labour. Hardly any trans rights supporters vote Tory so they can have a completely clear line on biological supremacy without it costing them votes. Labour doesn’t have that luxury and stand to lose 1000s of votes either way so are desperately trying to avoid answering the question of biology versus self identify as the determination of gender. Expect the Tories to make women’s rights a central issue of the next election. Mrs Willard says it is already being raised on the doorsteps.  

To compound it the LDs and Greens have the same policies. The idea of left leaning feminists being forced to vote Tory is hilarious.  It will absolutely be exploited at the next election. 
 

Imagine seeing men win womens medals at the next Olympics and then an election immediately afterwards. 

[Rico1304]

Giggle is interesting.  It’s a community for women, by women.  But TW demand access. The founder is being sanctioned by her government for not letting men into the community. 
 

No issue with men pretending they are women, but why should everyone else have to pretend too?

 

 

[mars]

20 hours ago, Rico1304 said:

Not just articles, scientific studies.  Here you go; 

 

 

Cheers - haven't had time to look at these yet but appreciate the reply.

17 hours ago, SasaS said:

Since you quoted me, I don't see I was name calling or using ad hominem arguments. Unless calling a man a man is name calling. As I understand it, Thomas was born a biological male and competed with men, at one point of his life he realized he feels more a woman then a man (or realized now is the time to reveal it to others) , changed the name and a pronoun and began transitioning towards the preferred sex or gender. She still has "his" body, as we can clearly see from the pictures and videos. How she feels in that male body, that is private. Pretending that black is white and white is black to accommodate ideological constructs, I don't see the point personally.

 

If you are heterosexual, you would not be sexually attracted by Lia Thomas because Lia Thomas does not look like a woman. And that is not a construct, that is biology. Why do people insist on pretending that is not so is pretty bizarre to me, five or ten years ago that would hardly be a controversial view. I am pretty certain none of the heterosexuals would sleep with that bearded NY politician in a dress, take her female penis up the ass and pretend to have a heterosexual intercourse. Or maybe they now would, I don't know any more. It is all getting weirder and weirder each year.

Likewise - let's just say it has more detail than your first reply.

[mars]

I accept that transwomen can have an advantage in sports: if a well trained athlete has been taking GAHT (gender affirming hormone treatment) for 3 months, the impact will be small enough to confer an advantage. Lia Thomas has been taking GAHT for almost three years, so in her case I would argue that there is not any clear evidence yet that she has an unfair advantage. The first paper seems to consider GAHT for up to 24 months:

Longitudinal studies examining the effects of testosterone suppression on muscle mass and strength in transgender women consistently show very modest changes, where the loss of lean body mass, muscle area and strength typically amounts to approximately 5% after 12 months of treatment. (my highlight)

The second paper confuses me. On the one hand it states:

The effects of longer duration therapy (36 months) in eliciting further decrements in these measures are unclear due to paucity of data. 

But immediately afterwards:

Notwithstanding, values for strength, LBM and muscle area in transwomen remain above those of cisgender women, even after 36 months of hormone therapy.

 

The weakness of both papers, in my view, is that they consider only untrained trans and cis women. I am not confident that conclusions for untrained people can be applied to highly trained athletes (and unless more transwomen athletes compete, there will remain a paucity of data). The first paper is interesting as it considers the impact of male advantage in different sports - note that for swimming, this advantage is smaller than for most other sports listed.

 

I think the Independent article has merit and while it proves nothing, it does raise doubt over the notion that Lia Thomas has an unfair advantage. The two scientific papers are interesting and to me suggest that this is a complicated issue that requires further study: can we compare results for non-athletes with those of athletes? Should sports bodies require that GAHT be taken for longer than 12 months, and should this period be different for different sports?

22 hours ago, Rico1304 said:

Emily Bridges is going to be competing in the womens cycling next week. If she beats Laura Trott - which she should as she was faster than any women when she raced as a bloke - it could be interesting.  

Indeed. 

[Rico1304]

6 minutes ago, mars said:

I accept that transwomen can have an advantage in sports: if a well trained athlete has been taking GAHT (gender affirming hormone treatment) for 3 months, the impact will be small enough to confer an advantage. Lia Thomas has been taking GAHT for almost three years, so in her case I would argue that there is not any clear evidence yet that she has an unfair advantage. The first paper seems to consider GAHT for up to 24 months:

Longitudinal studies examining the effects of testosterone suppression on muscle mass and strength in transgender women consistently show very modest changes, where the loss of lean body mass, muscle area and strength typically amounts to approximately 5% after 12 months of treatment. (my highlight)

The second paper confuses me. On the one hand it states:

The effects of longer duration therapy (36 months) in eliciting further decrements in these measures are unclear due to paucity of data. 

But immediately afterwards:

Notwithstanding, values for strength, LBM and muscle area in transwomen remain above those of cisgender women, even after 36 months of hormone therapy.

 

The weakness of both papers, in my view, is that they consider only untrained trans and cis women. I am not confident that conclusions for untrained people can be applied to highly trained athletes (and unless more transwomen athletes compete, there will remain a paucity of data). The first paper is interesting as it considers the impact of male advantage in different sports - note that for swimming, this advantage is smaller than for most other sports listed.

 

I think the Independent article has merit and while it proves nothing, it does raise doubt over the notion that Lia Thomas has an unfair advantage. The two scientific papers are interesting and to me suggest that this is a complicated issue that requires further study: can we compare results for non-athletes with those of athletes? Should sports bodies require that GAHT be taken for longer than 12 months, and should this period be different for different sports?

Indeed. 

Take it up with Emma Hilton, she’s very responsive and will engage on Twitter. How you draw a conclusion that the difference would be smaller in fitter people is, well, startling.  Surely though, the entire point is that the TW should be proving their is no advantage, not for women to prove there isn’t.  
 

Lia has a man’s heart, skeleton, muscles and lungs.  It’s crazy to say she has no advantage.  Denying what you can see with your eyes is weird and scary.  

[Rico1304]

Also - if retained advantage was proved to a standard you agreed with would you let them compete anyway? 

[Captain Willard]

17 hours ago, Rico1304 said:

To compound it the LDs and Greens have the same policies. The idea of left leaning feminists being forced to vote Tory is hilarious.  It will absolutely be exploited at the next election. 
 

Imagine seeing men win womens medals at the next Olympics and then an election immediately afterwards. 

Interestingly the Labour Party have a significant majority amongst women under 35 so this is a key issue for their voters. They need to quickly come to a position on this issue of biology versus self identify and make it mandatory for MPs to follow the line . Now that the media smell the blood of ambiguity it is going to come up constantly.
 

They should also bribe Eddie Izzard to go on holiday for 2 years and be unavailable for Question Time. 

[Rico1304]

10 minutes ago, Captain Willard said:

Interestingly the Labour Party have a significant majority amongst women under 35 so this is a key issue for their voters. They need to quickly come to a position on this issue of biology versus self identify and make it mandatory for MPs to follow the line . Now that the media smell the blood of ambiguity it is going to come up constantly.
 

They should also bribe Eddie Izzard to go on holiday for 2 years and be unavailable for Question Time. 

Starmer asked on LBC this morning. 

[Captain Willard]

3 minutes ago, Rico1304 said:

Starmer asked on LBC this morning. 

“Nick Ferrari later grilled Sir Keir several times on whether or not "a women can have a penis", to which he replied: "I'm not... I don't think we can conduct this debate with... 

"I don't think that discussing this issue in this way helps anyone in the long run” 

 

 

That’s not going to go down well with either camp. He’s the leader of a major political party, he can’t um and err then duck the question and hope it will just go away. 

[Numero Veinticinco]

1 minute ago, Captain Willard said:

“Nick Ferrari later grilled Sir Keir several times on whether or not "a women can have a penis", to which he replied: "I'm not... I don't think we can conduct this debate with... 

"I don't think that discussing this issue in this way helps anyone in the long run” 

 

 

That’s not going to go down well with either camp. He’s the leader of a major political party, he can’t um and err then duck the question and hope it will just go away. 

Yeah, they need a coherent stance on this. I haven't heard the interview yet, but Labour need to get their act together and it needs to make sense. 

[Bjornebye]

“Chicks with dicks have rights, now can you ask me something important like how I think the tories are getting away with their daily scandals?” 

[Geoff Woade]

58 minutes ago, Numero Veinticinco said:

Yeah, they need a coherent stance on this. I haven't heard the interview yet, but Labour need to get their act together and it needs to make sense. 

Why though? It’s so far down the list of priorities at the moment they shouldn’t be afraid to play it back with a straight bat (ooer).

[mars]

1 hour ago, Rico1304 said:

Take it up with Emma Hilton, she’s very responsive and will engage on Twitter. How you draw a conclusion that the difference would be smaller in fitter people is, well, startling.  Surely though, the entire point is that the TW should be proving their is no advantage, not for women to prove there isn’t.  
 

Lia has a man’s heart, skeleton, muscles and lungs.  It’s crazy to say she has no advantage.  Denying what you can see with your eyes is weird and scary.  

But I'm not drawing that conclusion - I am simply saying that we don't know whether what applies to non-athletes can be applied to athletes. The two papers relied on studies of non-athletes.

 

That the onus should be on TW to show there is no advantage is a fair point, though the article I posted did attempt that. 

 

 

[Numero Veinticinco]

12 minutes ago, Geoff Woade said:

Why though? It’s so far down the list of priorities at the moment they shouldn’t be afraid to play it back with a straight bat (ooer).

For whatever reason, it's a hot button topic, all over social media, and the left - especially the American left - have really taken it to their hearts as a passionate issue. So they need a stance because otherwise it'll result in lots of people who, frankly, think it's all a load of bollocks from a noisy, tiny minority getting turned off. 

[Rico1304]

6 minutes ago, mars said:

But I'm not drawing that conclusion - I am simply saying that we don't know whether what applies to non-athletes can be applied to athletes. The two papers relied on studies of non-athletes.

 

That the onus should be on TW to show there is no advantage is a fair point, though the article I posted did attempt that. 

 

 

We don’t know but it is a perfectly reasonable assumption.  I don’t think that you’d get many TW athletes signing up to a study that would effectively prevent them from competing where they want to. 
 

It was a pretty terrible article. 

[Section_31]

9 minutes ago, Numero Veinticinco said:

For whatever reason, it's a hot button topic, all over social media, and the left - especially the American left - have really taken it to their hearts as a passionate issue. So they need a stance because otherwise it'll result in lots of people who, frankly, think it's all a load of bollocks from a noisy, tiny minority getting turned off. 

This 'the left' business does my head in to be honest. 

 

Left wing politics are about building social housing, nationalising utilities, unionised jobs and a strong social safety net, yet it's become a catch-all term for what is known in the modern parlance as 'woke'. 

 

I'd like to see what some 80s dockers thought about Owen Jones, I have to say.  

[mars]

On 27/03/2022 at 14:13, SasaS said:

Since you quoted me, I don't see I was name calling or using ad hominem arguments. Unless calling a man a man is name calling. As I understand it, Thomas was born a biological male and competed with men, at one point of his life he realized he feels more a woman then a man (or realized now is the time to reveal it to others) , changed the name and a pronoun and began transitioning towards the preferred sex or gender. She still has "his" body, as we can clearly see from the pictures and videos. How she feels in that male body, that is private. Pretending that black is white and white is black to accommodate ideological constructs, I don't see the point personally.

 

If you are heterosexual, you would not be sexually attracted by Lia Thomas because Lia Thomas does not look like a woman. And that is not a construct, that is biology. Why do people insist on pretending that is not so is pretty bizarre to me, five or ten years ago that would hardly be a controversial view. I am pretty certain none of the heterosexuals would sleep with that bearded NY politician in a dress, take her female penis up the ass and pretend to have a heterosexual intercourse. Or maybe they now would, I don't know any more. It is all getting weirder and weirder each year.

Fair point initially - you described the article. You must decide whether referring to a transwoman as a man is name calling; I'm not going to berate you for it but won't do it myself.

 

I think the argument is about whether there is an unfair advantage so I put it to you that simply looking at pictures and videos isn't sufficient to answer that question (greater mass but weaker muscles would not be advantageous).

 

My view isn't, to my mind, ideological - if you present evidence that Lia Thomas did have an unfair advantage, I'll say fair enough. Rico's articles did make me think but they aren't dealing with people who have been on GAHT for three years nor is the data from athletes. I thought the article I posted was interesting because it compared Lia to other professionals. That her time for the 500 yards was 9 seconds slower than the record holder's time surprised me - how is that possible?

 

Really not sure to make about your second paragraph - swimmers don't do it for me (hockey players, on the other hand, do).