Judge strikes down anti-trans sports ban after roller derby team fights for its members
Judge strikes down anti-trans sports ban after roller derby team fights for its members
Bruce Blakeman’s anti-trans executive order made headlines across the country and led him to battle with New York Attorney General Letitia James.
The government should not have this level of power. Executive Order or legislation, it doesn't matter, a sports league should be able to set its own policies for membership. As per the Constitutional right to freedom of assembly.
54Sports: more inclusive than the government since 1947.
9This sounds like a good way to foster vast inequality. You'll have good places where people are included and able to grow up into reasonable people, then you'll have other places where people are utterly ostracized and never even have a chance. This isn't some magical capitalist world where people can just pick up and move to wherever is 'best', there will be people who are stuck. When those people don't have the resources they need, the cycle will just end up perpetuating again, and the inequality builds on itself.
The government has to have the ability to keep rogue states from declaring swathes of the population as second class citizens. Yes, there's the obvious downside of "What happens if" - but we're in this together and we have to try for the only tenable solution. That growing inequality will affect the 'good' areas, even if they put their fingers in their ears and say "lalalalalala not my problem".
5right of the people peaceably to assemble...
1
hm what's your opinion on sundown towns i wonder
-3Not a fan.
3
"But what about the sanctity of women's sports?" - People with no interest whatsoever in women's sports.
18Yup. The very same people who regularly mock women's sport.
5
Is roller derby a real sport? I always figured it was more performance than sport like pro wrestling.
-22Yes, it's a real sport.
37A badass one at that. Their athleticism and reflexes are unreal.
18
Roller derby in the 70s was likely scripted. Modern roller derby is almost definitely not. Tons of legit athleticism and power out there.
It's a little dated by now, but watch Blood on the Flat Track. It's about the Roller Derby resurgence from 15ish years ago.
24Even if scripted, roller derby in the 70's took athleticisms and power. I agree the sport of roller derby is different now, but practitioners of the past deserve respect. The level of training/conditioning in all sports is very different now, does not mean past practitioners were not athletes. Comparisons across eras is difficult because standards change.
7
It is definitely a sport, although every time I've tried to watch it, I've been confused as hell. Even reading the rules confuses me. But I don't doubt it's actually as sport. Cricket is a sport and it's really confusing too.
21Don’t know why you’re being downvoted for asking an honest question. You asked it in good faith.
Starting to think you people just can’t live without having something to be angry with.
14My hypothesis: corporate social media has trained us to be combative for engagement, and our habits/attitudes haven't fully adapted to fediverse yet.
1They say getting angry over imagined Internet points.
0
Go watch a roller derby event. It's pretty fun and mostly chaos. But there's some real skill and strategy involved.
10Pro wrestling isn't real?
7You need to watch this incredibly accurate historical movie on the topic
7Its very real Source: I've been officiating it for 13 years
1Is roller derby a real sport?
It's the NASCAR of women's sport.
1Pro soccer is more performance than pro wrestling but we call that a sport
0
This is not a violation of trans rights. People need to accept that men who identify or have transitioned to being women can have a physical advantage over other women.
The entire reason for women's sports is so they can enjoy whatever their respective sport is without competing against men. Because the men would always win. Which is something we constantly see when trans people are allowed to compete in women's sports. They win, and even set records.
-27If a 5ft trans woman who started transitioning when she was a teen faces off against a 6ft cis volleyball player, should the cis woman be not allowed to compete?
What about cis olympians? They all have natural advantages that make their ability to compete at high levels possible, why are you not calling for them to be banned? Britney Griner is a giant at nearly 7ft, surely she shouldn't be allowed to compete when she has such a innate advantage over your average cis woman, right?
31Didn't you read what they wrote? The men would always win. I'm a 5'9" 180-pound cishet man and if I play basketball against Britney Griner, I will definitely win. For sure.
Oh, they meant professional sports? Well I guarantee you that there's literally no possibility that Britney Griner could beat the worst player out of the ~550 men in the NBA. No possibility. Britney Griner is definitely worse than all of those 550 men. Because she has a vagina.
Edit: The blatant sarcasm in my post was undermined by a mod deleting the post I was replying to. Oh well.
17Okay? So what are the rules then? Only trans people that started transitioning before a certain age? Or has been transitioning for a certain number of years? Or should we measure bone density, muscle density, estrogen, testosterone, other various hormones, etc? What if they were a competitive athlete before transitioning? Is it transphobic to ask a person to prove they meet these requirements? Because apparently, based on the mods here, it's transphobic to even consider that a person who was born a man might have a physical advantage over someone born a woman.
It's not like all athletes taking PEDs are better than all of their natural counterparts. But it does afford them an unfair advantage. So we ban their use. A trans person could have an advantage that is the result of them being born a man. This is real and has happened. The existence of that possibility is no different than the possibility an athlete would be superior as a result of PEDs.
-3
Cis women and trans women have been found to have comparable performance in sports. Generally, cis women have an advantage over trans women.
I'm sure that you'll be objective and apply the same reasoning against cis women now that you know they have a physical advantage over other women.
24That must be why we've repeatedly seen instances where trans women set records within the women's category of their respective sport! Because it's all equal and impossible for a trans woman to have an advantage.
Listen, I'm all for keeping things equal. And at the end of the day there are many cases where a cis gendered woman could beat a cis gendered man at a sport. But let me draw a parallel.
Not all male athletes that use performance enhancing drugs are able to beat all of their natural male counterparts. Male athletes on PEDs that do beat their natural counterparts are not necessarily entirely dependent on those drugs to win. Skill still plays a massive role. Even in the world of powerlifting and bodybuilding, athletes on PEDs still need to train hard and put in a ton of work to achieve their results.
So why are PEDs banned? Because we know that the individual taking them could have an advantage relative to themselves. If they had never taken PEDs in the first place, they likely wouldn't be as big/strong/fast.
So how do you logically apply that same thought to someone who has transitioned from male to female? How long have they been transitioning? Are they taking estrogen? Has their body adapted? Should we start measuring bone and muscle density, testosterone levels, and other biomarkers just to determine if they get to participate? What about individuals who transitioned later in life vs early? What if most of their athletic training was before they transitioned, similar to a player taking steroids in the off season? How do you define the line, the point where you can confidently say this person is definitively on par with where they would be if they were born a woman?
This is not a simple straight forward question. And while we try to figure it out, women who are just trying to enjoy their respective sport are occasionally dunked on by people who are the exception to the rule. Records are set that will likely not be broken. And that's not fair
-9
Of the dozen or so times when a top ranked female tennis player played either a much lower ranked or handicapped male player, I think the male lost only once (1973 King vs Riggs, through there are claims that Riggs threw the match).
There exist sports where having XX chromosome is not a disadvantage. Male and female equestrians have been competing against each other in the Olympics since the modern Olympics began.
The issue of gender and 'what makes a woman a woman' in sports is not new. There are plenty of cases of men pretending to be women and claiming top prizes. I don't envy the officials who have to do gender tests , as there are many people who are neither XX or XY.
EDIT: now that I've had some time to go though my sources a little better, I should correct a couple things. According to the Wikipedia article, females have won more than a couple matches against males, though all of those matches involved either a handicap or a much lower ranked male. The Williams sisters themselves only claimed they could beat any male outside the top 200 (but they both lost by a wide margin in friendly sets to #203).
Male and Female equestrians have only been competing against each other since 1952, and not since the beginning of the modem Olympics.
5
"The entire reason for women's sports is..."
...is actually because they were banned from playing sports until 1974, and then when allowed starting beating some men's teams and the men bellyached about it.
1Personally, I have competed in powerlifting, one sport that has gotten attention in the press for not letting trans women compete with cis women, particularly after a trans woman beat out other cis women by huge margin in competition.
I will let the ladies know that the only reason they're in their own division is actually because of oppression and they should have no issue competing against men.
1