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Comment by kcplate | Hacker News Reader

What always seems lost in this debate is how a trans men can’t generally be competitive in either men’s or women’s sports groupings. Either due to a physical disadvantage due to chromosome and hormonal differences or due to having to settle for an identity disadvantage (forced to identify as their biological sex instead of their gender to be in a competitive group).

Honestly it seems like the easiest solution is eliminate sports groupings by their references to sex or gender, and just divide up by those sciencey things which are generally known to provide the athletic advantages.

Group 1 Above a testosterone baseline and/or if you have XY chromosomes

Group 2 Below a testosterone baseline.

If you don't feel binary grouping is fair, set up multiple groups to accommodate.

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> due to having to settle for an identity disadvantage

There is a female athlete who identifies as a man currently competing in the Olympics: Hergie Bacyadan, in women's boxing.

This doesn't seem to have caused any actual disadvantage. In fact, Bacyadan is reported as saying:

> I'm very thankful that I got to the Olympics. It's a big deal to me.

He may be ok with it, and good for him, but isn’t the fact that he is competing in the women’s brackets to be able to fight competitively sort of proving my greater point? I don’t know of any trans man in a men’s sport that relies on physical athleticism that is dominating or even competitive. But we tend to see the opposite when trans women compete in women’s sports.

Why not just eliminate the gender/sex delineations and focus on benchmarks we know create competitive differences?

I think this illustrates the opposite point: that being of the female sex is the most important eligibility criterion for ensuring fairness and maximising safety in women's sports, and identity is irrelevant to this.

I don't think anyone suggests that having a male identity is an advantage in women sports.

No but the commenter I was replying to suggested removing both sex and identity as eligibility criteria for women's sport. Whereas I was arguing it should be sex first and foremost.

Additional criteria can be added to take care of the edge cases but sex is most important and impactful.

I believe you must of missed the “and/or having XY chromosomes” distinction I made on the first group.

I read your comment as prioritizing testosterone levels over sex. My apologies if I misinterpreted.

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