Transgender

[Gralin]

Discussion continuing in Part 2 found here

Transgender - Part 2

Please be aware that the tolerance of anti-trans language on BF is at an all-time low. Jokes and insults that are trans-related, as well as anti-trans and bigoted rhetoric will be met with infractions, threadbans etc as required. It's a sensitive (and important) topic, so behave like...

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[Engimal v3]

Prove it.

Are you being facetious, or do you really believe that the AFL could be a mixed gender league?

 

[kickazz]

One could argue it's all a big overreaction to the (non)revelation that all categories within sporting (or human) contexts are constructed. We made them up, on an almost entirely arbitrary basis.

They are not arbitrary, there is mostly sound reasoning behind them.

 

[ShanDog]

I object to you referring to an argument made before to you in more words as a 'talking point.'

I'm going to put it this way: I don't know enough about those sports to determine whether advantage exists. Therefore - acknowledging that I don't have either the expertise of trans physical characteristics or the technical knowledge of the sports in question - I'm looking at the whole thing with an eye to skepticism, but the lens through which I see the whole thing is that sport is a series of behaviours that are confined by arbitrary rulesets.

Ergo, the societal prerogative to be inclusive trumps a sport's right to exclude. If a sport is unsafe without needing to exclude, it's the sport that needs to change.

Yes, there is. You make it all of a sentence or so later on.

I have no issue with that. Grade all sport by ability; if there's women who can make AFL standard, why shouldn't they be allowed to compete at that level?

Frankly, sports as profit centres is the problem you're seeking to address here; it's not the trans athletes that are to blame for elite level sport being so exclusive. Trying to shift the blame for female sport being at a lower achievement level - or rather, not the top - over to a desire for societal inclusion over a capitalist drive to invest time/money into winning beyond the limits of mere excess strikes me as a rather shallow way to look at the thing; it's trying to slap a bandaid over a volcano, and wondering why lava keeps blowing the ******* thing off.

Are you saying that the children's TV show Crash Test Dummies that I got given for christmas one year is a lie?

With all due seriousness, that just there marks the difference between progressive and conservative thought. You are unwilling to even test for a problem without more evidence due to safety concerns; I'm require having it before I willingly choose to do harm.

I forgot you had these whacky ideas.

With the exception of women playing in the AFL, which I have zero problem with but will never happen, I could spend some time responding to all these points but we really do come from such a far way apart on them (and your solution is 100% never, ever going to happen) so I don't see the point in doing so. With all due respect - I genuinely do like you and think you are an intelligent and good person - what you are saying is an almost nihilistic approach to sport and fairness that reeks of first-year-philosophy-student wishful thinking. Nice for a thought experiment but completely useless as far as legitimate discussion goes.

 

[Gethelred]

Are you being facetious, or do you really believe that the AFL could be a mixed gender league?

No. I'm asking you to demonstrate your purported opinion that not a single woman in or outside Australia could ever achieve a standard that would allow her to debut in the AFL.

Can you meet your claim, Enigmal?

 

[mcnulty]

They are not arbitrary, there is mostly sound reasoning behind them.

And lots of hard, well understood physiology.

 

[Gethelred]

They are not arbitrary, there is mostly sound reasoning behind them.

Is the mostly sound reasoning based around the aribitrary decisions society made; as in, the assumptions made around the sport are reasonable, and it's society's boundaries that are arbitrary?

 

[Gethelred]

I forgot you had these whacky ideas.

With the exception of women playing in the AFL, which I have zero problem with but will never happen, I could spend some time responding to all these points but we really do come from such a far way apart on them (and your solution is 100% never, ever going to happen) so I don't see the point in doing so. With all due respect - I genuinely do like you and think you are an intelligent and good person - what you are saying is an almost nihilistic approach to sport and fairness that reeks of first-year-philosophy-student wishful thinking. Nice for a thought experiment but completely useless as far as legitimate discussion goes.

Where - again - I find your complete unwillingness to contemplate things outside your own biases evidence of a closed mind.

I'm also more than willing to admit I might be wrong, unlike some others who couldn't countenence it in here.

 

[Engimal v3]

No. I'm asking you to demonstrate your purported opinion that not a single woman in or outside Australia could ever achieve a standard that would allow her to debut in the AFL.

Can you meet your claim, Enigmal?

No, but I'm still right

 

[kickazz]

Is the mostly sound reasoning based around the aribitrary decisions society made; as in, the assumptions made around the sport are reasonable, and it's society's boundaries that are arbitrary?

That's a little vague for me - I'll need examples if you want a response.

 

[Gethelred]

No, but I'm still right

That's your best post ever.

 

[ShanDog]

Where - again - I find your complete unwillingness to contemplate things outside your own biases evidence of a closed mind.

I'm also more than willing to admit I might be wrong, unlike some others who couldn't countenence it in here.

Don't conflate my unwillingness to discuss the matter with an unwillingness to consider something. Again, that's tiny-tot thinking.

 

[Engimal v3]

That's your best post ever.

Thank you. But do you really think the AFL could be mixed gendered, or were you just making a point? Genuinely interested

 

[Gethelred]

That's a little vague for me - I'll need examples if you want a response.

Deconstruction, postmodernism. That sort of thing.

 

[Frank Bunn]

Deconstruction, postmodernism. That sort of thing.

So even more vague!

 

[Gethelred]

Thank you. But do you really think the AFL could be mixed gendered, or were you just making a point? Genuinely interested

I'm making a point, the idea point being that we - the universal 'we' - made the rules for what constitutes sporting categories in ways that replicate our own pre-existing biases, and in so doing we ensured that those hard boundaries limit those within a lesser category.

If a woman were to dream to play AFL, and she has the physical capability to do it, should she be allowed to try?

 

[Gethelred]

So even more vague!

Dude, I'm currently doing research towards a 4000 word research project that requires around 35 references. Cut me some slack!

 

[Engimal v3]

I'm making a point, the idea point being that we - the universal 'we' - made the rules for what constitutes sporting categories in ways that replicate our own pre-existing biases, and in so doing we ensured that those hard boundaries limit those within a lesser category.

If a woman were to dream to play AFL, and she has the physical capability to do it, should she be allowed to try?

I see. Absolutely she should.

We just know from the NHL and the NFL that it won't happen realistically.

 

[faible]

If a woman were to dream to play AFL, and she has the physical capability to do it, should she be allowed to try?

The bolded is the issue, I'm not aware of any woman that has the physical capability to do it. There's a clear divide between the physical capabilities of biological men as compared to biological women. (Yes, not ALL men etc.. etc..)

 

[kickazz]

Deconstruction, postmodernism. That sort of thing.

Hmmm. I mean philosophically that might be worthwhile getting into, it's not my strong suit I must say though. Some of these parameters around our discussion could be considered arbitrary in the contexts of those philosophies - but go too far down that path and it gets a bit pointless. We would no longer be discussing transgender sports but discussing higher philosophies themselves in general. I need more drugs for that.

 

[Gethelred]

Hmmm. I mean philosophically that might be worthwhile getting into, it's not my strong suit I must say though. Some of these parameters around our discussion could be considered arbitrary in the contexts of those philosophies - but go too far down that path and it gets a bit pointless. We would no longer be discussing transgender sports but discussing higher philosophies themselves in general. I need more drugs for that.

Oh, that's the problem with deconstruction; while you can deconstruct everything, doing so isn't terribly useful. Foucault vs Chomsky was amazing until Foucault was asked to conclude anything for himself; his philosophy wreaked havoc on traditional philosophy but had nothing upon which it could stand. Deconstruction is - in my opinion - useful but not binding; you can absolutely deconstruct almost anything but it isn't terribly useful to do so to anything. To build a society, you need to have something upon which to base that society upon; an idea, a location, a binding force.

In this case though, I don't think nearly enough thought has been put into whether the constructed categories for elite sport replicate preconceived notions of ability, achievement and safety embedded within wider society by patriarchy and other forces, of which capitalism forms a component. I think signs of this occasionally leak into the coverage of AFLW, with older commentators referring to a spate of soft tissue injuries last season as evidence that women's bodies weren't equipped to deal with the requirements of AFL at an elite level.

The bolded is the issue, I'm not aware of any woman that has the physical capability to do it. There's a clear divide between the physical capabilities of biological men as compared to biological women. (Yes, not ALL men etc.. etc..)

This smells kind of like the "Women can't be special forces" to me.

While most cannot, are you completely unwilling to say the 1% might be able to?

 

[Partridge]

The bolded is the issue, I'm not aware of any woman that has the physical capability to do it. There's a clear divide between the physical capabilities of biological men as compared to biological women. (Yes, not ALL men etc.. etc..)

If you think the AFL might have some legal trouble about concussions now, imagine if they tried that thought experiment out.

 

[Partridge]

Because there aren't women who could make the AFL standard

Forget AFL standard; make it local league standard and the result will be the same.

You don't even need senior level. Have the current AFLW teams right now compete against Under 19 teams and watch what happens.

 

[faible]

This smells kind of like the "Women can't be special forces" to me.

While most cannot, are you completely unwilling to say the 1% might be able to?

I'd posit that not even 1% of women would make the elite ranks of any sport that relies primarily on physical capabilities.

It's a different case to this special forces argument you're using as it's not just a pass mark for entry, it's also being better than the cohort of biological men.

Take the Tokyo games qualification times in swimming;

https://resources.fina.org/fina/document/2021/01/21/3726e45a-7e5d-42bd-8e0a-7d3201f8f69f/tokyo_2020_-_og_qual_events_-_qualifying_time_standards_0.pdf

Not a single female has ever existed that's made any of the Men's A Qualifying times. There is one female that has ever made a B Qualifying time, and that's Katie Ledecky in the 800m FS. So in swimming not even 1% of Women would qualify for the B times, let alone the A times, let alone beat the biological male competitors.

There might be a handful of sports that aren't primarily reliant on physical capabilities (e.g. Chess, Equestrian and such where it might be viable) but I suspect most sports would see a similar pattern to swimming.

In a world where professional sports careers exist, removing the sex / gender (given it's unclear which they really are) categories makes the sport less inclusive (as was noted by kickazz), not more given it would effectively eradicate women from the elite levels of sport.

 

[Frank Bunn]

I'm making a point, the idea point being that we - the universal 'we' - made the rules for what constitutes sporting categories in ways that replicate our own pre-existing biases, and in so doing we ensured that those hard boundaries limit those within a lesser category.

If a woman were to dream to play AFL, and she has the physical capability to do it, should she be allowed to try?

'We' didn't make up the rules of sex segregation of sport around some vague arbitrary decisions or biases. It was because males, on average and at the elite extremes, have physical advantages over women. For example, EPL goalkeepers tend to be about 6'3, WSL 5'8. AFL ruckmen 6'7, AFLW 5'11. NBA average 6'6, WNBA 5'8

Of course if a woman if had the ability to play AFL she should be allowed to. I would be at the expense of about 400 women in AFLW squads if sex segregation in Aussie Rules was removed.

 

[mcnulty]

what you are saying is an almost nihilistic approach to sport and fairness that reeks of first-year-philosophy-student wishful thinking.

It’s the sort of thing floated in the humanities but utterly ludicrous in reality. It’s the sort of woolly headed thinking the ultra progressive left is embarrassing itself with nowadays.

In their futile quest for some sort of unattainable utopia, they’re going to do their best to **** things up for everyone.

Mod edit: don't avoid the swear filter