Ask them how often they think about women’s athletics when it’s not about trans women

Michael Phelps has the perfect body for a swimmer. No other athlete could compete at the same level as him, no matter how hard they trained. He had a genetic advantage over every other swimmer when he was active. Both Kiptum and Kipchoge are perfect runners and 99% of people can never match their pace, no matter how hard they train. Professional athletics are innately unfair due to genetic advantage. The only difference is it isn't cis people with an advantage this time.

I think it helps to bring it back to the real world, and not simply rhetorical hypotheticals. A lot of the otherwise well meaning people fall for the false premise that there is somehow vast amounts of trans women in women's sports, but there just isn't. They accept the idea that it's a popular occurrence for a male athlete to transition solely to dominate the women's sports field, but that just doesn't happen in real life.

Joanna Harper, a researcher based at Loughborough University in Britain who studies the effects of hormone therapy on transgender athletes, told The New York Times last year that out of 200,000 women in college sports at a given time, about 50 are transgender.

In 2021, just nine of the 174,000 students participating in high school sports were transgender.

It's really just a plain lie, and not at all worthy of serious consideration. If people who are presented with these facts still choose to be transphobic, then they're simply showing their true colors and using this as an excuse.

Trans women are women, right? And women compete in women's sports, right? So even if they did have an innate advantage, much like the innate advantage tall women, rich women, and able-bodied women have, why would that be grounds to stop them from competing if we don't stop any of the other advantaged subgroups of women?

idk i'd probably just start kicking them

"oh so you know more about this than the olympics?"

im going to kill you and eat your face? idk

First, trans women are women.

Second, any artificial environment will select for some subpopulation. The more restricted the criteria, the more one can expect to favour particular groups of people.

What do I mean by artificial environment? Any environment which does not appear in nature without deliberate human action. A hospital is an artificial environment which selects for people who are sick and healthcare professionals. This is expected, the purpose of the hospital from the onset is to provide healthcare and therefore the inhabitants of the space reflect that. Does that mean one may not see, say, a clown? No, only the likelihood would be low, that is, one would not expect to walk in to a hospital and see clowns making a majority of the people. It certainly seems rather unlikely

Sports are artificially environments which select for the kind of athlete well-suited towards the particularities of the sport. This means minute average physiological differences which conventionally do not have much survival value (as in, survival in a natural environment, the kind humans inhabited exclusively prior).

If we accept that besides the ability to give birth, there is no meaningful difference between any genders or sexes, as survival is not contingent on 'muscular strength' or 'flexibility' or 'height' then we can see that in the patriarchy which obviously favors men in specific contexts, one would expect men to succeed. This is the case, and then the considered 'superiority' is then valuable.

The patriarchy is relevant because it squashes all similarities between individuals (of which there are more than differences) and highlighting the similarities necessarily decreases the 'perceived value' of the differences, again such as average height, muscle mass, etc. Note, there are differences, they are always present, the issue is with 'perceived value', not whether differences exist.

In short since survival and competition have largely been eliminated in contemporary human environments, it is reintroduced in a way to give meaning or satisfaction to the involved parties, a simulacra. This is confused with a genuine natural environment, which does not place importance on whether one is cisgender or transgender.

To give an example, it is uncontroversial to state that if I picked any two random people, one who is fit instead of out of shape, the fit person would likely be the winner in a 100m race. Ok, let us use what transphobes and bigots use as reasoning. We will say that the fit person is a trans woman and the out of shape person is cisgender. This distinction becomes moot when one thinks about management, that is does it matter what the gender–or whether a person is cis or trans–is for the purposes of winning? On the whole, and not only involving the observable competitors?

No, it does not. Once we accept that the argument is contingent on a narrow set of criteria which tend towards the result of transphobia then it can be accepted that any broadening of the environment, describing how it actually is, removes any 'perceived' differences in ability. A woman coach is equally capable as a man coach, as is a trans woman compared to a cis woman, and as is an intersex person to a non-intersex person, etc.

If coaching had a similar tendency towards one gender, somehow, one could move up the ladder. Is there a meaningful difference between the owner of a sports team, between a cis woman and a trans woman? No, there isn't, the differences mentioned above only matter in the narrowest sense. Bigots and transphobes work with the existing artificial competitive environments, sports, which do not have much meaning or value for most people in most situations. Neither did such artificial environments have a meaningful impact on survival in early human history. Obviously sports matter to those involved very much, and that is a subset of the population.

If having higher muscle mass, height, and arm span mattered; why did Homo sapiens outlive and outcompete Homo neanderthal, the larger and stronger hominin? The simple answer and one which can be well reasoned and understood with empirical evidence (empirical, rather than idealistic or fantastical) is that the emphasis on increased strength and height do not matter very much. Perhaps 'intelligence' or 'adaptability' or 'endurance' matter more. Or, perhaps strength really does matter more and Homo neanderthal went extinct for a different reason. The point is it cannot be the sole determinant or as important as conventionally thought, which is what is typically argued for. Human bipedalism, society, language, culture, 'intelligence' etc. are all apparent significant factors to our species survival and thriving. We are no longer in the same natural environment, thus the utility and value of characteristics have changed.

Focus on specific characteristics is good for thought experiments and to determine the limits and to break boundaries, and it is not nor will ever be the most important factor.

I thought there's actual studies that HRT and the like causes significant enough changes that any arguable grey area kinda just goes away after a year or two.

Too lazy to look these studies up atm cause I'm about to take a nap. Also transphobes aren't the kind to actually look at science, despite their claims. So like, peer reviewed articles wouldn't mean shit anyway to those assholes.

Depends on the claims being made.

For the most part, if a person wants to play a sport with other people... why does it matter? Is it a shower thing? Well, get some dividers up. I guarantee you that I don't feel comfortable being around other naked people (except for my spouse). Is it a changing room thing? Well fuck, throw up some more dividers if somebody wants/needs privacy. Using the toilet? Once again, single occupancy stalls, privacy dividers next to urinals, and designing the bathroom so that its more difficult to watch other people pee/poop.

Is it the stupid "bone density thing" that Rogan spouts? Fuck that nonsense, ask them about which sports divide up cis participants by their bone density. Whats that? Its fucking zero? Of course it fucking is. Sports tend to be divided up by things like "Team Wins/Losses", "Height/Weight", "Who has the most fucking money".

In all the sports where transgender/intersex athletes are ALREADY playing, what do we find? Are they dominating the sport? Nope. Of those that do "win", are they winning by so much that no cis gender competitor could hope to catch up? Nope.

Fuck... how many transgender people are even trying to get into sports right now? Not that fucking many I tell you what. And if a team is worried about an opposing team having a transgender athlete, and that somehow them being transgender is a huge advantage, you know what the answer to that fucking problem is? That team goes out and recruits their own transgender player to balance the teams.

Reactionaries always pretend they know far more about an issue than they do. They also blow their issues out of proportion, without exception.

If some chud thinks he's the fucking expert on trans sports because he saw one Joe Rogan episode, and the guest was some famous transphobe, and also there was zero balance, that guy can go eat turd because he doesn't know shit about the issue.

How much do sports actually matter? Would you care who competed or not if there were no cameras? No stadium? It's escapism. You still have to work the same shitty dead end desk job during the week. And you don't like confronting the fact your sexuality is more complex than you thought. Also. Gladdy voting democrat does not make you a progressive.

Ask them if Black people should be banned from playing sports with jumping in them because racists from the early 20th century think they jump higher.

(incase my wording is racist, I am sorry I have problems with making sentences please let me know)

"You don't support trans people."

"Watching sports is stupid and you are a loser for caring about sports."

Bit of a switcheroo but go point out all the ways that these trans exclusionary rules also hurt cis women. Top female athletes in a variety of sports, like Caster Semeya have been banned from their sport due to natural differences in their hormone production.

Under these regulations, promulgated by the sports governing body regulating track and field, women like Semenya, who have naturally occurring higher testosterone levels associated with Differences of Sex Development (DSD), are barred from competing – unless they subject themselves to medically unnecessary interventions to reduce their testosterone levels and conform to an arbitrary and subjective standard of femininity. These regulations came into effect in 2019. Sports governing bodies argued that the regulations broke from the past 50 years of sex testing women athletes, a practice that was humiliating, degrading and discriminatory. However, the revised regulations still subject women athletes to sex eligibility criteria that retain these negative, rights-abusing consequences.

These practices are degrading and discriminatory and undignified.

TERFs will also actively attack and question cis gendered female athletes who have short hair, thinking they are trans.

These acts of discrimination hurt trans men and women, or attempts to exclude them, but it also ends up hurting cis gendered athletes (basically arguing for solidarity here). Every time these bills or exclusionary policies are passed, trans and cisgendered women that do not fit the concept of "normal" looking female are actively harmed. The Bathroom bans in SC, led to lesbian masc women being harrassed by cops (MEN!) inside of bathrooms and having their autonomy violated for going to the restroom. The very thing they were allegedly trying to "prevent".

We also have a human right to free association and human dignity. Why should women (cis and trans) be forced into genital checks or sex testing?

I might also add that sports are treated as an avenue to "rise" in their class position. With kids often cultivating specific athletic careers not just for fun, but because their parents want them to get full/partial rides to college, and possibly make it to the Olympics. If Athletic activities were not high-stakes, with so much riding on the individual performance of specific athletes, the pressure to exclude athletes with alleged "advantages" would cut off. It ultimately comes down to capitalism. Make college cheap, or free. Abolish university sports other than inter-mural leagues. And invest in more accurate research on the effects of estrogen / testosterone on transgender people and sports performance. I know there's papers on the effects of estrogen on muscle density and bone mass. Even if a man was actively trying to switch genders to have an advantage against women, aren't they handicapping themselves? To go through the gender dysphoria, possible mental issues of hormone imbalance, a man could just...train and git gud, or quit.

If it is about "men" in female locker rooms, or predatory creeps interacting with cisgendered women. It should be noted that there's already enough cisgendered creeps actively violating women in women's sports! Without any need to pretend or switch genders. They are called COACHES and DOCTORS. Point them to the The largest sex abuse scandal starting in 1990s, zero trans predators. The FBI even declined to pursue early reports:

Coaches and officials perpetrated, facilitated, or worked to conceal abuse in Michigan, Pennsylvania, California, Rhode Island, Indiana, and elsewhere.[8] FBI agents declined to investigate early allegations of abuse, then lied about it, according to a U.S. Justice Department report. Leaders of USAG, MSU, and the United States Olympic Committee (USOC, later USOPC) ultimately resigned; several coaches and officials faced criminal charges.

A central figure was Larry Nassar, a national-team doctor for USAG and osteopathic physician in MSU's athletic department. More than 265 women said Nassar had sexually abused them under the pretense of providing medical treatment,[9] including former USAG national team members Jessica Howard, Jamie Dantzscher, Morgan White, Jeanette Antolin, McKayla Maroney, Aly Raisman, Maggie Nichols, Gabby Douglas, Simone Biles, Jordyn Wieber, Sabrina Vega, Ashton Locklear, Kyla Ross, Madison Kocian, Amanda Jetter, Tasha Schwikert, Mattie Larson, Bailie Key, Kennedy Baker, Alyssa Baumann, and Terin Humphrey. In 2017 and 2018, Nassar pleaded guilty to federal charges of child pornography and state charges of first-degree sexual assault; he received sentences of 60 years in prison plus another 80 to 300 years.

All my friends know better. Coworkers? I have never engaged in that topic with them. It is not a fruitful endeavor.

I think its pretty much ignorance. I don't really like to have the conversation but like the Olympics has rules around trans athletes and all in all this isn't really a real problem.