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NCAA Statement on Transgender Participation


Don Johnson

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7 hours ago, Kyle said:

The next logical step is age. If sex is just a construct that can be defined to infinity, why not let people identify at whatever age they feel like. No reason sexual biology should be limited to you know, sexual biology. Have Sark start recruiting a bunch of practice squad NFL guys and have them identify as 18-year-olds. I'm sure the lax league will not be impacted by 21-year-old guys competing against 15-year-old girls, cause you know, good players.

Well Sark is familiar with how BYU does things. 

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8 hours ago, Anastasis said:

I can look to nature for example of animals that thrive on eating their own feces, but I don't try to build a youth sports league around the concept. 

I thought he was pulling my leg. Now I guess there is the Appeal to Clownfish Fallacy. #usernamechecksout

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7 hours ago, Ridingtosunset said:

I think I've been pretty on point on the subject of the thread. There are obvious bigger ramifications here. 

You are free to start a thread about those ramifications. That thread is almost certainly a CR topic. 

All posts in this thread need to directly reference the NCAA, the possible moving of sanctioned event locations and the NCAA rules on transgender participation. That's a BROAD topic.

This isn't the talk about trans people and sports thread. 

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8 hours ago, immamac said:

I don't think this should be a legislative issue and I think the NCAA released a fine statement. I don't know what the fuck anything has to do with youth athletics here, this is the NCAA statement not the fucking UIL not the youth basketball association of whatever town or city you live in. 

This isn't a high school sports transgender issue thread, this is a thread on the NCAA statement for transgender participation. The NCAA can do whatever the fuck it wants, and states can also legislate however the fuck they want. Fuck around and find out.

Thanks for pointing this out. This entire thread has fuck to do with the actual thread title and posted article.

Typical Surly.

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I literally couldn't give a fuck if some dudechick participates in a sport i won't be watching anyway. I also wouldn't give 2 fucks if they used common sense and said hey, dudechick, you're not allowed to compete against actual chicks, because that's crazy.

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9 hours ago, immamac said:

Can't tell if serious? States can do whatever they want, the sanctioning and governing body of athletics in the NCAA can also do whatever they want. How does this have anything to do with political ideology? Are you trying to cloak up this thread?

 

<<never serious. just referring to a comment you made on another thread about looking at your posting history when someone called you a liberal fuck.

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14 minutes ago, po elvis said:

<<never serious. just referring to a comment you made on another thread about looking at your posting history when someone called you a liberal fuck.

thought so, but had to confirm.

Just cleaned up this thread, so now it's actually funny and on topic. There is a new thread for the other discussion (which wasn't a bad discussion, just not for this thread)

 

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1 minute ago, immamac said:

thought so, but had to confirm.

Just cleaned up this thread, so now it's actually funny and on topic. There is a new thread for the other discussion (which wasn't a bad discussion, just not for this thread)

 

Didn't see your keep it on topic post until after I had violated it.  Soz mate.

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  • 7 months later...

A transgender swimmer on the University of Pennsylvania women’s team continued to smash records in the pool over the weekend.

Lia Thomas won the 200-yard freestyle in 1:41.93 at the Zippy Invitational in Akron, Ohio, on Saturday to break the school’s all-time mark and establish the best time in the nation this season, according to the university. On Sunday, she won the 1,650 freestyle by more than 38 seconds in 15:59.71 to set another university record.

Thomas, from Austin, Texas, could become NCAA Division 1 swimming’s first transgender All-American or national champion, Outsports reported. The championships are in March in Atlanta, and Thomas has established herself as a strong contender.

Swimming is “a huge part of my life and who I am. I’ve been a swimmer since I was 5 years old,” she told Penn Today in June. “The process of coming out as being trans and continuing to swim was a lot of uncertainty and unknown around an area that’s usually really solid. Realizing I was trans threw that into question. Was I going to keep swimming? What did that look like?”

Thomas, who’s competing as a senior after the Ivy League canceled the previous season due to the pandemic, added: “Being trans has not affected my ability to do this sport and being able to continue is very rewarding.”

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6 minutes ago, Don Johnson said:

A transgender swimmer on the University of Pennsylvania women’s team continued to smash records in the pool over the weekend.

Lia Thomas won the 200-yard freestyle in 1:41.93 at the Zippy Invitational in Akron, Ohio, on Saturday to break the school’s all-time mark and establish the best time in the nation this season, according to the university. On Sunday, she won the 1,650 freestyle by more than 38 seconds in 15:59.71 to set another university record.

Thomas, from Austin, Texas, could become NCAA Division 1 swimming’s first transgender All-American or national champion, Outsports reported. The championships are in March in Atlanta, and Thomas has established herself as a strong contender.

Swimming is “a huge part of my life and who I am. I’ve been a swimmer since I was 5 years old,” she told Penn Today in June. “The process of coming out as being trans and continuing to swim was a lot of uncertainty and unknown around an area that’s usually really solid. Realizing I was trans threw that into question. Was I going to keep swimming? What did that look like?”

Thomas, who’s competing as a senior after the Ivy League canceled the previous season due to the pandemic, added: “Being trans has not affected my ability to do this sport and being able to continue is very rewarding.”

yeah, this is when the rubber hits the road....

 

IMO, there's a fundamental difference in physiology if a body has gone through puberty and the better part of a decade of testosterone. Enough so that there's a material difference and apples-to-oranges comparison of physical capabilities. Southpark hit the nail on the head when they did an episode on it lol

 

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I shaved my whole body and tapered my ass off for weeks to qualify for IHSA state in swimming almost 30 years ago.  I thought I was dedicated.  

This person cut their dick off?  NOW That's fucking dedication.  Could you swim with one of those dick harnesses that actors use to keep their junk tucked up during sex scenes?  I would think that would make you pretty aerodynamic.  

Either science matters or it doesn't.  You don't get to pick and choose which science you believe.  This Thomas swimmer person has inherent biological advantages that the swimmers they compete against don't have, even with switched genitalia.  

Having said that, do I give a single, solitary fuck about this issue which affects about 19 people nationwide?  No, I do not.  If you are trans or want to change genders/sexes, have at it.  I wish you all the legal protection I can help muster and God loves you no matter what.  Am I terribly worried about your "rights" to break legit swimming records against women competition?  I'm lying if I say I am.  But have at it, sports and military does have a way of bringing attention to social issues in a way that straight up political or religious debate never could.  So I wish you the best of luck, unless some male-turned-female swimmer takes a scholarship spot from my daughter who wants to swim at UT-Austin one day.  Then I'm turning into Evil Aunt Becky.  

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15 minutes ago, Lobo said:

So I wish you the best of luck, unless some male-turned-female swimmer takes a scholarship spot from my daughter who wants to swim at UT-Austin one day.  Then I'm turning into Evil Aunt Becky.  

that's the issue.  there is a non-zero number of people that care and are affected.  The number on both sides probably rounds to zero.  i am woefully ignorant of the issues surrounding this.  On one hand, forcing transgender women to train, travel and compete with/against men is not cool and probably overly stressful.  But competitive advantages have to be looked at.

From the NCAA Transgender Handbook on competitive advantage for Female competitors

Quote

Second, some people fear that transgender women will have an unfair advantage over non-transgender women. It is important to place that fear in context.

1) Transgender girls who medically transition at an early age do not go through a male puberty, and therefore their participation in athletics as girls does not raise the same equity concerns that arise when transgender women transition after puberty. Transgender women display a great deal of physical variation, just as there is a great deal of natural variation in physical size and ability among non-transgender women and men. Many people may have a stereotype that all transgender women are unusually tall and have large bones and muscles. But that is not true. A male-to-female transgender woman may be small and slight, even if she is not on hormone blockers or taking estrogen.

2) It is important not to overgeneralize. The assumption that all male-bodied people are taller, stronger, and more highly skilled in a sport than all female-bodied people is not accurate.

3) It is also important to know that any strength and endurance advantages a transgender woman arguably may have as a result of her prior testosterone levels dissipate after about one year of estrogen or testosterone-suppression therapy. According to medical experts on this issue, the assumption that a transgender woman competing on a women’s team would have a competitive advantage outside the range of performance and competitive advantage or disadvantage that already exists among female athletes is not supported by evidence.

The standard set for transgender athletes to compete in their desired side of the sport (male or female) is to complete 1 year of hormone therapy and then they can proceed. Females ID'ing a male can compete on Men's team with or without testosterone augmentation.  Males ID'ing female cannot compete on the women's team without a hormone therapy. Based on https://ncaaorg.s3.amazonaws.com/inclusion/lgbtq/INC_TransgenderHandbook.pdf

- so from above #1  - no idea the % of transgender athletes in the ncca that underwent hormonal therapy prior to puberty but it has to be shockingly small.

- #2 it's non point.  yes, ALL (as in 100% in the world) male bodied are not taller, stronger etc...  But law of averages says that most males at the same age/fitness level would have advantages.

- #3 RE: the bolded part.  i think we are seeing evidence of this.  still very few instances to make assumptions on though.

There does not seem a fair and equitable answer to make everyone whole.  I think they should just continue down the path that they are on until a point where if/when the outliers start to become the norm, then some competitive rebalance may be needed.    

 

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Yeah, and this is just anecdotal and not evidence-based (coming from me, again---very pro trans rights but really just trying to give fuck one about this issue and it's just not happening for me)...but I would also think the sport itself and the competitive advantage of the average born-male athlete over the average born-female athlete.  

Swimming, while technically a team sport in college, is really an individual race against a clock (obviously the wake created by others in the pool has a small impact).  If you don't have breasts, are a bit taller, have broad shoulders, big hands, and stronger calves---you're gonna cut through water better than the female next to you.  That's just science and biophysics 101.  No getting around it.  A former male with those characteristics on their body, even after undergoing hormone therapy, is gonna cut through water differently.  And I don't know that that's fair.  Again, one thing I do know---is I don't think it's on the Top 1000 list of pressing issues in the United States right now.  So in a sport like Swimming or Track or Diving or Golf or Tennis or a pitcher in Softball or Wrestling---where yeah, it's a "team sport" but it's really just you on an island by yourself, somebody born that way with a certain physique/body type/hormone cocktail is gonna have, on the average, an advantage.  That's just how biology and physics work.  

Having said all that, in a sport like soccer or volleyball...where the whole team operates as one entity on both offense and defense...if one person on there has slightly more testosterone than the others and wider shoulders and no naturally occurring breasts...I don't think it's that big of a needle-mover.  so have at it.  Shit have at all of it.  At least we're making progress for trans folks.  At least Dan Patrick isn't screaming about which locker room they get to use before an intercollegiate meet.  That's not nothing.  At least we've moved on to legitimacy of fastest time records.  

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1 hour ago, Lobo said:

I shaved my whole body and tapered my ass off for weeks to qualify for IHSA state in swimming almost 30 years ago.  I thought I was dedicated.  

This person cut their dick off?  NOW That's fucking dedication.  Could you swim with one of those dick harnesses that actors use to keep their junk tucked up during sex scenes?  I would think that would make you pretty aerodynamic.  

Either science matters or it doesn't.  You don't get to pick and choose which science you believe.  This Thomas swimmer person has inherent biological advantages that the swimmers they compete against don't have, even with switched genitalia.  

Having said that, do I give a single, solitary fuck about this issue which affects about 19 people nationwide?  No, I do not.  If you are trans or want to change genders/sexes, have at it.  I wish you all the legal protection I can help muster and God loves you no matter what.  Am I terribly worried about your "rights" to break legit swimming records against women competition?  I'm lying if I say I am.  But have at it, sports and military does have a way of bringing attention to social issues in a way that straight up political or religious debate never could.  So I wish you the best of luck, unless some male-turned-female swimmer takes a scholarship spot from my daughter who wants to swim at UT-Austin one day.  Then I'm turning into Evil Aunt Becky.  

That's the perfect response. Every person that is "pro-transgender athletes" will change positions the moment they are impacted. I think the solution is simple: get rid of the entire concept of "transgender," which I honestly do not even know the definition. And we should apply the standard that some pullout during abortion debates - the folks that have the only right to comment on the issue are female athletes.

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10 minutes ago, Harrison Bergeron said:

That's the perfect response. Every person that is "pro-transgender athletes" will change positions the moment they are impacted. I think the solution is simple: get rid of the entire concept of "transgender," which I honestly do not even know the definition. And we should apply the standard that some pullout during abortion debates - the folks that have the only right to comment on the issue are female athletes.

I mean, that setup?  C'mon.  I could write like ten jokes off of that.  

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43 minutes ago, Lobo said:

Having said all that, in a sport like soccer or volleyball...where the whole team operates as one entity on both offense and defense...if one person on there has slightly more testosterone than the others and wider shoulders and no naturally occurring breasts...I don't think it's that big of a needle-mover.  so have at it. 

If this is true we should do away with a split between men's and women's sports altogether.  If a woman or trans-woman is good enough to make the team, or the entire team is constituted with that, then great.  

But we all know that if this was done then all sports would be 99% men.   Which goes back to the fairness of the issue.

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Why push the issue?  This is 2021 'Murica, man!  We got find the strangest fucking hills on which to make our stands.  

I mean, a full ride to a private university on a swimming scholarship? That's not nothing.  Those are real stakes.  Then throw in possible NCAA records to boot?  But again, who gives a shit?  The science is there...The body type they were born with, genitalia and hormone therapy aside, cuts thru water better than the other women in the pool.  No getting around that.  I wasn't terribly athletic after I had my last growth spurt but I got better at swimming because my calves were strong, my hands were huge, and my shoulders bulged out wide so I looked like fat, ugly Chris Evans.  You could pump me up with all the estrogen you wanted to, my bones weren't gonna restructure themselves...I was still gonna fly through the water at 16 faster than any woman on the Olympic team.  This trans athletes chemical composition may have changed, but their bone structure didn't.  It's like they're  gonna get fucking osteoporosis on the third leg of the Individual Medley 

We're talking about 460,000 student-athletes in the NCAA.  0.5%, according to the stats of advocacy groups, identify as trans in the U.S.  I'm guessing it could be higher because of reluctance to admit it on a survey, even if anonymous.  But also remember that these are college-aged students so that's about the time you really know who you're gonna be sexually and gender-wise (I mean, maybe you don't quite yet know what you're gonna dig in the bedroom in middle age or that you like to wear garter belts during pitching warmups......but you kinda know if you're gay, straight, queer, the wrong gender in your current body, etc.).  So let's say that's about 2,000 trans student-athletes, 2500 on the high end.  As is the case with most NCAA competition, as much as don't want to admit it because we love a major athletic program, most of it doesn't make a shit.  Nobody gives a fuck about the Division II women's cross country records or who's in the final four of Division III Lacrosse except some white people named Brynne and Oliver.  So you're really just talking about a few hundred student-athletes that are trans that are actually competing for high stakes stuff like endorsements, spots on Olympic teams, etc. 

But that race for money and fame and higher level roster spots comes at a price.  It comes at a cost to the women athletes, the ones who have taken the body they've been given by God and Nature and trained their fucking asses off since they could walk.  So for those couple hundred of trans athletes who are competing at a high level in women's athletics, I say kudos and God Bless.  But your spot came at somebody else's expense.  Don't forget that.  I want to accommodate you, but only one swimmer gets to be in Lane 4.  I'll let the other women in the pool sort it out, it's their battlefield.  

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Let them compete but their result is a tie with the next placing competitor.  That way, the transgender athlete gets to complete and place but it doesn't take a place away from the rest of the field.  Any records do not count and any points towards a team score are not awarded.

Edited by CooterBrown
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20 minutes ago, CooterBrown said:

Let them compete but their result is a tie with the next placing competitor.  That way, the transgender athlete gets to complete and place but it doesn't take a place away from the rest of the field.  Any records do not count and any points towards a team score are not awarded.

That's weird. How about this? Biological males and biological females only compete vs their biology. You know the way it has always been. 

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13 minutes ago, CooterBrown said:

Let them compete but their result is a tie with the next placing competitor.  That way, the transgender athlete gets to complete and place but it doesn't take a place away from the rest of the field.  Any records do not count and any points towards a team score are not awarded.

How about having 2 divisions, similar to how we do it now, except that the divisions are:  OPEN (anyone can compete in this one, including trans or women) and WOMEN (only biological women can compete in this one).

This allows the trans to still compete, but without disrupting the biological women's sports.

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Yeah,

1 hour ago, Ag with kids said:

There's a chance that this Lia Thomas could break some of Katie Ledecky's records this year...that would be a travesty.

yeah, competing in the men’s he was just your average good athlete that places well at the conference level. Now competing in the women’s she is suddenly an Olympic level athlete, maybe a record breaking Olympic athlete. 

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22 hours ago, Harrison Bergeron said:

That's the perfect response. Every person that is "pro-transgender athletes" will change positions the moment they are impacted. I think the solution is simple: get rid of the entire concept of "transgender," which I honestly do not even know the definition. And we should apply the standard that some pullout during abortion debates - the folks that have the only right to comment on the issue are female athletes.

Yes we should just pretend that people being transgender doesn’t exist. That will solve it.

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4 hours ago, Ag with kids said:

How about having 2 divisions, similar to how we do it now, except that the divisions are:  OPEN (anyone can compete in this one, including trans or women) and WOMEN (only biological women can compete in this one).

This allows the trans to still compete, but without disrupting the biological women's sports.

Aren’t many mens sports like the NBA etc technically “open”?  I don’t believe there are any rules on the books prohibiting women from competing in the NBA, MLB, or NFL. 
 

Common sense should be obvious here, but sadly it’s not. 
 

Even the USTA all the way down the skill level has an open tournament format for both men and women at their highest levels. They also have female and male divisions separated by rank. 

Edited by ChickenSandwich
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Serious question, has there ever been a transgender man kick all kinds of ass in a mens sport or on a mens team? Or even perform at high level, at least scholarship level? I haven’t heard of it it, but that could well be because it isn’t as much interesting a story. 

I feel like that is an important data point if we want to say “one year of therapy and it all evens out.” 

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16 hours ago, CooterBrown said:

Let them compete but their result is a tie with the next placing competitor.  That way, the transgender athlete gets to complete and place but it doesn't take a place away from the rest of the field.  Any records do not count and any points towards a team score are not awarded.

And they only receive a green participant ribbon

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Gender is just a social construct.  And age if a state of mind.  There should be no gender or age or weight class in any competition. 

Just 1 gigantic open pro-am athletic league.  14 year old Freddy Adus and Alabama Tides mixing it up with the Detroit Lions.  Tyson Fury boxing up some flyweight women. 

 

I'll pay to see it.

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