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Comment by adjkant | Hacker News Reader

To break this down a bit instead of only downvoting:

> I'm 100% against trans participating in sports

There's a nuanced argument to be made here.

> It's disgusting when men pretend to be women just to have a record on their name.

This is not that nuanced argument. I can assure you no one that is trans "pretends" to be a woman for sports records. That comment (as well as the word choice of "disgusting") shows a severe lack of understanding of trans people.

> It's even more disgusting when it's celebrated as diversity or progressive or whatever.

This shows a particular bias against "progressive/diversity" ideas and colors the comments before them with an even worse light that highlights the lack of understanding.

> Does that make me just a "relatively conservative" or full-on "transphobe"?

Just like anything, there are gradients and being transphobic now doesn't mean you have to be in the future.

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> This is not that nuanced argument. I can assure you no one that is trans "pretends" to be a woman for sports records. That comment (as well as the word choice of "disgusting") shows a severe lack of understanding of trans people.

They may not view their own activity as "pretending" to be women, but the position of people like Kay Cole James (and many others, on both the left and right) is that they are simply not women. Whether or not they believe it about themselves is irrelevant.

I understand biology that born-male will be stronger in many sports than born-female even after a lot of hormone therapy (or maybe vice-versa in some sports). Born-female taking male hormones will have advantage over regular female as well in many cases.

You got gender disphoria and need a treatment for it? Sure. But there're side effects. Just like for many treatments.

> This shows a particular bias against "progressive/diversity" ideas and colors the comments before them with an even worse light that highlights the lack of understanding.

I'm considering ideas on their own merit, not how they're labeled. And it's disgusting that progressive/diversity label was ruined buy affairs like that. And yes, I definitely have bias against ideas that seem to have a label they're not worth of.

> Just like anything, there are gradients and being transphobic now doesn't mean you have to be in the future.

I hope definition of "transphobic" will change and I won't be called one in the future.

First, nothing you responded to clears up anything about your negative assumption that transgender people change for sports titles. That will always be transphobic and doesn't look at all into what the life of a trans person today or in the past has looked like.

But the body and hormone levels absolutely do affect physical sports, you're right. If you want to dig into hormones, what about intersex people? What about people classified as women with significantly higher testosterone levels? Despite the classification most hospitals do, a surprising amount of births show non-traditional genitalia, and if you go beyond the external looks then the waters only get murkier. How many athletes are actually not traditionally male or female but were simply never classified as such medically due to a lack of awareness and education? Do you then want to have all sports competitions separated based on hormone levels instead of sex/gender?

> I'm considering ideas on their own merit, not how they're labeled. And it's disgusting that progressive/diversity label was ruined by affairs like that. And yes, I definitely have bias against ideas that seem to have a label they're not worth of.

But you give no argument for the unworthiness of it and instead start from the assumption. Not only that, but you paint with a very broad brush and are not digging into any of the nuance. That doesn't scream openness and combined with other things you said again comes off as ignorance or lack of education on the subject.

> I hope definition of "transphobic" will change and I won't be called one in the future.

That definition will only go the other way as more people become educated on trans people. What defines transphobia is ignorance, not gusts of cultural wind. What would make your actions change will have to be you, not the classification of them.

As an aside generally, being transphobic or racist or sexist should not define you - it's a chance to learn and understand. It's not an identity, despite how it is assigned like one to many public figures these days. What's much more important than never saying or doing something sexist/racist/transphobic/etc is being open to changing and understanding to not do it in the future. Really it's just listening and understanding other people's experiences.

Just be clear I don't share any view points with the person you're debating but the Olympics does(or did) have a testosterone limit for certain female sports.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/olympics/2018/04/26/ne...

> First, nothing you responded to clears up anything about your negative assumption that transgender people change for sports titles

I don't care if they changed gender for the sake of winning sports titles or not. I'm against them competing in sports anyway.

> If you want to dig into hormones, what about intersex people? What about people classified as women with significantly higher testosterone levels?

That's definitely could an issue (see last paragraph). But IMO it's different that this is accidental from the individual's perspective. They themselves may be not aware of this. Sort of like getting lucky with good genes or rare mutation. Meanwhile for a transgender is purely a rational choice to transition. You may argue it's not fully rational since treatment is needed. But ultimately people do choose treatments and accept consequences for all sorts of illnesses.

> But you give no argument for the unworthiness of it and instead start from the assumption. Not only that, but you paint with a very broad brush and are not digging into any of the nuance.

Unfortunately interwebs comments are not well suited for a nuanced discussion. The person I originally replied to didn't go into nuance, neither did I. It'd be great if internet commentary moved towards more nuanced and longer discussions. But unfortunately old good forums with mile-long pagination are getting more and more scarce :( Especially with diverse audience.

> What defines transphobia is ignorance, not gusts of cultural wind. What would make your actions change will have to be you, not the classification of them.

I did research the topic and made my mind. IMO people who just jump on the ever-more-progressive bandwagon are much more ignorant. Ignorance shall be judge on refusing to look into the issue, not on coming to reasonable-yet-subjectively-wrong conclusions.

> That definition will only go the other way as more people become educated on trans people.

Personally I went the other way after reading more into it.

> What's much more important than ever saying or doing something sexist/racist/transphobic/etc is being open to changing and understanding to not do it in the future.

Yes. But that ability to change must be open both ways. IMO today's definitions went way too far and are too close to doing full horseshoe. Understanding is not just pushing the boundaries of what is progressive to no end.

> Do you then want to have all sports competitions separated based on hormone levels instead of sex/gender?

I'd support protection for the lesser (?) gender (women in endurance and power sports, men maybe in gymnastics?). Just have open group and the protected one for the lesser gender. In the long run, we'll probably need one more group for genetically-modified individuals.

They themselves may be not aware of this. Sort of like getting lucky with good genes or rare mutation. Meanwhile for a transgender is purely a rational choice

This gets me curious. In your definition, a person with strongly deviating hormonal levels isn't transgender until they are aware of their situation?

AFAIK modern transgender definition don't include hermaphrodites who were fixed in hospital right after birth.

Someone having issues with their hormones doesn't become transgender either.

So I'd say it's safe to say that the person has to have consciously chosen to transition to be considered a transgender. Also, people who didn't transition (yet) on hormonal level but did minor plastic surgeries and wear clothes accordingly are considered transgenders too.

If someone has XXY chromosomes and consider himself one gender their whole life, do they "trans" between something?

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