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Comment by jp0d | Hacker News Reader

This is a very controversial topic. Many have spoken about it at length. I personally believe it's not fair for women in athletics. There are several excellent suggestions/solutions discussed on this thread. I feel like there needs to be another category which would include people who're naturally male/female/others and/or identify as something/someone else. And keep the existing male and female categories as they are. And of course it goes without saying that I've written this with all due respect to such individuals and I bear no malice towards anyone.

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If you'd asked me 10 years ago I probably would have said something disrespectful. I didn't know enough about trans-rights or lgbt rights. But over the years I've realised that they probably face a lot of injustice and indeed are marginalised in some societies. I've been working for a company that cares deeply about diversity and inclusion, which has helped me learn a lot. But, I still don't think it's fair for women that an individual who lived the prime of their life as a man, benefitting from all the testosterone and muscle mass and then identifying as a woman to beat other women. I think there should be a line. Of course there should be no discrimination against anyone for their race/gender/beliefs etc. But there is a reason why weight categories and gender exist in boxing and martial arts. It's just absurd that we've to even discuss this.

> But, I still don't think it's fair for women that an individual who lived the prime of their life as a man, benefitting from all the testosterone and muscle mass

Are you.... sure about this? Like how sure are you? What do you think you know?

The human body changes surprisingly fast. Astronauts that stay in outer space for too long can't even walk when they return to earth. That "too long" is like... a year basically.

A "lifetime" of muscle mass will last for how long once someone starts taking androgen blockers then estrogen?

The reality is while we think of 'sex' as being some kind of chromosomal thing, that isn't what really separates the 'genders'. After all, apart from genitals, there is little external difference in babies. So it isn't exactly the XY/XX... of course one might say "but that happens during puberty", which is what exactly? The significant rise of sex-hormones. As the saying goes "if you can't make your own, store bought is fine" (regarding neuro-transmitters, sex hormones, etc).

So, are you SURE that an individual that "lived in the prime of their life as a man" is just as strong as they once were once they have spent years on hormone therapy? If you're sure, why are you sure? "I don't think it's fair" ... but why? Is is fair to trans athletes?

Not just as strong, but there does remain an advantage. TFA goes into this:

> Vanbellinghen, 27, whose qualifying efforts were disrupted by injury, pointed out that the retained benefit of taking steroids, even years earlier, is widely known.

It's easier to regain lost muscle mass than it is to gain it in the first place.

> So, are you SURE that an individual that "lived in the prime of their life as a man" is just as strong as they once were once they have spent years on hormone therapy?

Yes. Male puberty confers lifelong physical advantages on the body in terms of muscle mass, heart size, lung capacity and bone density. That's why men dominate women physically in every sport, which is why women have their own special sporting categories so that they stand a chance. Hormone therapy reduces these advantage but it doesn't eliminate them.

> Is it fair to trans athletes?

Probably not, but then is it fair to wheelchair-bound athletes that they're physically incapable of competing with Olympians and so need their own separate event? Maybe the cruel reality of life is that we can't always accommodate everybody?

I don't believe men dominate women in ultra-endurance racing. IIRC though the sample size is quite small it may be that extremely long distance racing actually favors women.

I think most ultra-endurance races tend to have an overall price where everyone competes in the same race.

I recall one race which had an overall price and a women's price. The same person won both and that caused slight kerfuffle.

It's always some obscure exception, as if that doesn't prove the rule.

Agreed. Though in this case it seems to me OP is just providing an interesting tidbit. They didn't try to morph that fact into hand-waving of the vast difference in all other sports.

> Are you.... sure about this? Like how sure are you? What do you think you know?

> The human body changes surprisingly fast. Astronauts that stay in outer space for too long can't even walk when they return to earth. That "too long" is like... a year basically.

> A "lifetime" of muscle mass will last for how long once someone starts taking androgen blockers then estrogen?

You raise a very fair question, but we have sufficient data to really support either position at the moment?

Do we have a way of knowing when an individual (or group of individuals) would have lost the ‘benefits’ to make competition truly fair?

You don't know what you're talking about. Male hormones in the womb and in puberty confer permanent, drastic changes to muscular power. After training, testosterone levels have very minor effects. An average high school boy athlete could take estrogen for 20 years and still be vastly stronger after that than most female athletes.

> Male hormones in the womb

Can you expand on this? I've not heard of fetuses being affected by androgens before.

It doesn't go without saying. Which is why you said it. The pro-trans movement starts from the assumption that any disagreement with their ideology is "harm". They've bullied everyone into accepting what is transparently a ridiculous situation; often by alleging bad faith. I'm very happy to see someone from professional women's weightlifting refer to this as a "bad joke".

"Ideology"? Is it unfathomable to you that people would reasonably be able to feel that they have a different biological gender to how they feel in their mind? And that people cavalierly dismissing their acceptance in society is somehow not harmful?

If you want to talk respectfully about the implications of transgender athletes in sport, that's one thing. But what you are doing is not that. You're trying to dismiss the plight of trans people at large.

I have no issue with how they choose to self identify. I accept trans-identifying individuals and I will use whichever pronouns they ask of me.

What I have an issue with is this type of behavior where they turn things upside down without any care for others. In this case, they're stealing glory from and seriously hampering the careers of lifelong female athletes.

Imagine lifting since you were a teenage girl, and someone else in their mid 30's, who would not have qualified for the men's competition, comes along to take your Olympic medal after going through a sex change procedure. It's deeply disrespectful to women. It requires a certain zealotry to bully your way into female spaces like this.

I apologize for misunderstanding your initial point: couching the pro-trans movement as an "ideology" had read to me as a dismissal of the pro-trans movement at large and if that is not your intent then I retract my initial comment.

That said, I don't really agree with this clarification either: no trans woman is setting out to have gender reassignment to bully their way into competing against women who were lifting since they were teenagers. I think you are attributing this to malice that is simply not there, and it is only an artifact of unfortunate circumstance. Trans women certainly don't want to be in this situation either: I'm sure they would much rather be born biologically female and compete that way!

I respectfully disagree. Hubbard has no business in this competition. It's selfish for her to do this. She is "johnny come lately" to women's weightlifting and has several decades of male puberty under her belt. These photos are actually tragic to look at.

If we're talking about someone who transitions in their teens and has no other options for sport in their adolescence, I would agree that's a much more difficult and ambiguous situation.

> pro-trans movement as an "ideology" had read to me as a dismissal of the pro-trans movement at large

This is the problem. There's no difference to people. Arguing any nuanced part of the conversation is often met with exaggerated reactions of "you're anti-trans" or "you're dismissing transexualism as a whole", which is not the case.

So yes, the pro-trans movement on many online spaces is very ideological - they even claim it themselves (transmedicalism vs. gender identity, etc). Very little of it these days is based on science or medical prognosis.

OTOH very little of how our society bases its treatment of trans people based on science or medical prognosis. The best evidence there is is that dysphoria is real and gender affirming therapies including medical transition is an effective treatment. Yet access to that treatment varies extremely widely, being treated inherently as a second or third class citizen both by culture and in a lot of cases by law.

I do understand as well your reticence around the ideological space that a lot of online spaces take place in. To that I’d just say that this stuff is fairly new, and you have a lot of young people finding and differentiating their identities as they’re going through quite a process.

My opinion is frankly it’s a wonderful thing, to have it so people can prioritize their emotional well being enough to not have their natural individual differentiations beat out of them as so many cultures have done. In doing so, discovering how much of a thing gender dysphoria is for some, and allowing them to lead much much better lives.

Per your last point, the response can swing the other way and also cause harm in some cases: https://www.bbc.com/news/health-51676020

Yes, and detransitioners happen and should be (and are as far as I've experienced) supported. But their argument a bit like if I said that all elective surgery should be illegal because I regret mine. For every story like this you can find a thousand who are waiting years to get any amount of treatment. The UK is well known for having some of the most stringent policies and heavy usage of gatekeeping before anyone gets treatment - FAR more than in the US.

The trans person's intent doesn't matter. What matters is that they are inserting themselves into female competition at an immense advantage. The fact of the matter is that if you allow biological men into female competition, females will never win anything. That is literally why there are sex separated sports. Females cannot compete with males at the highest level of sport, this is just a fact. I don't think we should be destroying the sports dreams of half the population to appease the trans people. It sucks for them, but quite frankly I don't care, because there is no better solution than to exclude them.

In how many areas of life do we "just exclude them" when speaking of minorities to create an ideal ecosystem? This is a slippery slope.

As many as are necessary for the coherence of society. They are welcome to enter into the open (mens) division of a sport. They are not welcome to enter the women's division, because they are not women. We already had this debate a few decades ago and decided women need their own sports divisions. I'm sorry that these people want very badly to play in the women's league, but they are not women, and so they should not be allowed in that league, for all the reasons that engendered the women's league in the first place.

Maybe those natural females were never the best women and the trans are just taking their rightful place after having been excluded.

This ^ is exactly the type of zealotry I'm referring to.

Hubbard has been free to do olympic weightlifting her entire life. Against similarly bodied individuals (men).

I too am excluded from competing in women's weightlifting contests. That is absolutely for the best (though everyone we're talking about here can likely lift more than I can).

I've been curious if anyone has studied why there are more and more transgender people lately. I don't believe it is only due to awareness and perception - it seems to be occuring more and more frequently. Do other animals with similar levels of consciousness experience gender dysmorphia?

Among some populations it may be a social contagion: https://t.co/Bp5FcXDsg3

What other animals have a similar level of consciousness? You can‘t form the idea that you are “in the wrong body” unless that idea has been provided to you by your culture. You need linguistic and social support to even have the concept.

EDIT: Oh, you may be interested in the phenomenon of what you might call “trans” non-human animals: individuals who behave like those of the opposite sex. Apparently in some species their physical characteristics can even change, such as female lions that grow manes. But nobody is confused enough to say “trans lady lions are lady lions“; that confusion is reserved for humans. In mammals, the sex can not change. But it‘s an interesting phenomenon.

Abigail Shrier is a writer and not a scientist, and it can be clearly seen even from the title of the book that she has an agenda. The thesis of the book has been "rejected by the American Psychiatric Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Endocrine Society, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and the World Professional Association for Transgender Health."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreversible_Damage

If you have a peer-reviewed study, that would be much more worthwhile to look at.

Here's a study referenced in the book. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6095578/

The layman's explanation of the phenomenon is that parents observe a rapidly onset expression of gender dysphoria in their teenage daughters which "seemed to occur in the context of belonging to a peer group where one, multiple, or even all of the friends have become gender dysphoric and transgender-identified during the same timeframe."

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27610041

Some people have tried to study this phenomenon but have been shut down by accusations that such research would be transphobic.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/oct/16/academics-ar...

What has been shut down specifically? That letter is very vague.

Are you similarly confident that the dramatic rise in left-handedness in western cultures over the past ~200 years is due to factors other than awareness and perception?

Abigail Shrier's recent book Irreversible Damage explores this question. I highly recommend it.

As I mentioned in another comment:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreversible_Damage

If you have a peer-reviewed study, that would be much more worthwhile to look at.

There is severe hesitation to fund this research by the psychiatric and medical establishment.

As I mentioned in another comment, multiple studies have been done. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6095578/

That study has issues, does it not? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6424477/

Interviewing parents seems like a problematic basis for an entirely new condition to me.

This is just a personal anecdote:

In my puberty I had a strong feeling of rather being a girl and this caused significant mental anguish and some self harm. If had known as much about transgender people back then as I do know I would have likely transitioned then.

Today I'm pretty okay with being a man. I still sometimes have problems with it but not in the same order of magnitude.

From these personal experiences I think it is plausible that more people transition because more people are aware of the possibility and knowing other trans people in their age. I have no idea how big that group is however.

Though it may be an unanswerable question (and maybe too personal, please don't feel obligated to share), do you think you would have been better off transitioning?

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-51676020

This is an interesting case that went through the UK courts. Very analogous to OP’s situation had it happened today.

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