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GadflyBytes's avatar

“transgender athletes who experience male puberty”

Is this phrasing being used so extensively, now, to lay the groundwork for trans identified men, who have not experienced male puberty, to compete against women?

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SJDR's avatar

"I’m going to be a stickler about accuracy—the executive order did not block transgender athletes, as Longman wrote, it barred men from girls’ and women’s sports." and "Transgender athletes come in two sexes, just like sports categories. Women who identify as male or nonbinary are and always have been welcome to compete in the female category. And many do."

To be a stickler right back at you, this is not exactly true: women who ID as male or nonbinary and are on hormones should not be welcome to compete in women's sports. In some cases where they have been, this has caused issues. Mack Beggs should not have been allowed to compete with girls, because of being on T, and when "he" (that is, she) went into the boy's division and was basically met with a boycott from the boys, I think that's a not entirely unsympathetic position: the argument of a lot of the boys was basically "we don't want to get in trouble for beating up a girl even if she is on roids" and "we're Christians in Texas and we don't want to be full body contact wrestling with a girl or have her in our locker rooms", both of which are perfectly legitimate when women hold them.

More accurate to say that girls and women who simply have a belief that they have some kind of extra-material essence that is that of the opposite sex shouldn't be and generally aren't disqualified from participating in sports on that basis alone, but that's not all of them. Nikki Hiltz is annoying but honorable enough so far as I know, that trans guy swimmer who competes with men is great (absolutely no moral issues there, very honorable), but... that hasn't always been all of them.

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