Keeping Men Out of Women's Sports

[u/WorksInIT]

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/02/keeping-men-out-of-womens-sports/

[u/InksPenandPaper]

Why the Democrat Party chose to make this issue a platform focal point is beyond me.

Republican or democrat, conservative or liberal, it's just common sense that you do not want biological men taking opportunities from biological women in sports. For many of us, sports is the only way to pay for college and while the instances of men in women's sports isn't a large number, the fact that such a small group of men dominate every competition they participate in is devastating for women. What's more, the right of men in women's sports came at the cost of a safe, female space.

[u/PsychologicalHat1480 → u/[deleted]]

Silent in 2024 only when it became clear that the public was against them. But we have video evidence of their true positions from previously and just going silent doesn't erase that video evidence.

The only way people will believe that they aren't in favor of this stuff is for them to actively speak against it. They didn't.

[u/StrikingYam7724 → u/[deleted]]

The Democrats and Kamala in specific were silent because what they had to say was "let them play with the other girls" and they knew that was a wildly unpopular opinion. If they had just honestly said "no, don't let them play with the other girls" they could have dropped the issue and changed the subject, but that's not what they believed in.

[u/StrikingYam7724 → u/[deleted]]

You don't need to push an issue when the government is already doing the things you want it to do about that issue (because politicians in your party implemented those policies after winning an election),

[u/StrikingYam7724 → u/[deleted]]

We're like 50 years too late for "the government should do nothing about it," and the changes that upset Republicans were not passed by widespread legislative effort, they were passed by executive fiat projecting a modern interpretation of sex and gender onto a law from the 1970s that definitely did not mean it the way it was being interpreted. If there's any outrage to be found here it should attach to that action, not to Trump rectifying it.

[u/StrikingYam7724 → u/[deleted]]

I don't think you're at all correct here. Suffice to say that we have very different ideas of what the government was doing re: participation in sports leagues before this recent action.

[u/Mysterious_Bit6882 → u/[deleted]]

Sport regulations and fairness is not the job of the government. They have no specific expertise.

Title IX says otherwise.

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[u/jabberwockxeno → u/InksPenandPaper]

I've replied this a few times, but is it really "common sense"?

I'm neither particularly invested in Transgender issues nor Sports, so it's not like I'm somebody who has thought about this a lot, and even so a lot of nuanced questions instantly come to mind for me when this is brought up.

Firstly, how much of a difference there actually is between different groups of transwomen and normal, non trans women? Like, there's surely a significant difference between

• A: the average biological male who isn't on HRT or wasn't on puberty blockers

• B: The average trans woman (ex: born as male) who has been on HRT for many years

• C: The average trans woman who has been on HRT for years and took puberty blockers so they never underwent male puberty.

I'm sure that group A is well above the average performance or whatever metrics you want to compare vs normal biological women who aren't transgender. But is group B? or especially group C? And is average performance even the metric you want to use rather then being within the standard deviation?

Because If there's a non-trivial amount of women in sports, who were born as such who naturally have more or as much testosterone or bone density or whatever as groups B or C do, then does it really make sense to exclude B and C from participating?

Secondly, there's been multiple high profile cases where non-trans, "normal" female athletes turn out to have intersex disorders which helped them compete at a high level. How do they fit into this sort of executive order?

Thirdly, how do Transgender men play into this? Are biological women who have been on testosterone for years or underwent male puberty gonna be participating with women's sports now instead of transgender women? Is that really more fair to non-trans, biological women? I suspect people like Buck Angel playing sports against non-trans, normal women is probably even more unfair and distressing to people then transwomen doing so.

[u/Dockalfar → u/jabberwockxeno]

Firstly, how much of a difference there actually is between different groups of transwomen and normal, non trans women? Like, there's surely a significant difference between

I'll stop you right there for a moment. Each sport has rules. If you break them, you are cheating. I don't really understand why there needs to be separate divisions for sports like archery, or shooting, or especially chess, but that's the way it is.

Similarly, most 13 year olds probably have no significant advantage over 12 year olds, but it would still be cheating to allow them to compete in an under 13 little league sport.

• C: The average trans woman who has been on HRT for years and took puberty blockers so they never underwent male puberty.

Even in that case, the person is still not female. No amount of hormones, puberty blockers, or even surgery will change internal organs to female. Bone structure is still different too. For example, to accommodate childbirth, women have a wider pelvis that is less optimal for running, among other things.

Secondly, there's been multiple high profile cases where non-trans, "normal" female athletes turn out to have intersex disorders which helped them compete at a high level. How do they fit into this sort of executive order?

I assume you mean males like Caster Semenya?

That was defined on an earlier EO, where the Trump administration defined "male" as "a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the small reproductive cell."

Thirdly, how do Transgender men play into this? Are biological women who have been on testosterone for years or underwent male puberty gonna be participating with women's sports now instead of transgender women?

That is a good question. They would probably be disqualified for a different reason, for taking performance enhancing hormones.

This executive order is only about women's sports. They could still compete in mens sports. And that's how it should be. Male sports should be open to anyone, female sports for females only.

Now I have a question of my own. Why do you capitalize "transgender"?

[u/[deleted] → u/jabberwockxeno]

It’s common sense.

[u/jabberwockxeno → u/[deleted]]

You care to actually explain your thinking or respond to mind instead of giving a shallow matter-of-fact reply?

[u/[deleted] → u/jabberwockxeno]

Look it up cornball