The development comes after a presentation to the International Olympic Committee by its medical chief, which highlighted the potential physical advantages of competing in women’s sport after being born male.
The development comes after a presentation to the International Olympic Committee by its medical chief, which highlighted the potential physical advantages of competing in women’s sport after being born male.
Just make the mens competition an “open” competition so that anybody can qualify if they can. A trans-woman competing in the “open” category would be no problem.
Other categories can then stay protected.
'cause I know I feel welcome, and not completely othered and invalidated when I’m forced to play on a team that is otherwise entirely men, whom have athletic advantage over me
Who said it would be entirely men? Chess had this format forever and any woman that had the ability to compete in the top level open tournaments was competing in them.
We’re only a matter of time from a sporting regime where it’s just broadly “open” to a level bordering on chaos, and it’s the only thing that is going to keep people watching.
The “should trans people compete” debate is going to be overshadowed by the “should people with extra hearts and enhanced organs be allowed to compete” debate.
The idea of “preserving fairness” in sports is wild when you think about it. Nothing about sports is “fair” you only succeed by getting an unfair advantage over your opponents, we just like to delude ourselves into thinking that because we set some kind of parameters around this capability to gain an advantage, that it’s “fair.”
I get the giggles watching Anatoly prank videos. He plays a nerdy, Eastern European janitor, pushing a mop around the gym. He regularly astounds the much larger guys by effortlessly lifting their weights.
One of his gags is casually handing the monster weightlifters his 32kg mop. They instantly drop it, “Is there problem? See! Is normal mop.” Picks it up one handed, zero strain.
This one is great! Girls are trying not to straight make fun of him talking about ab training. “Show us yours.” Aight. (Can’t find the better version where you can see his abs, but he’s a monster.)
Whatever his training regime, it’s obvious he has muscle density bordering on superhuman. Talk about advantage!
Or look at Michael Phelps. Dude smokes and is basically Aquaman. I forget what’s unusual about his body, but he’s a rare one.
Webbed fingers and toes, and disproportionately long arms for more power.
In many sports it already is
Couldn’t there just be an open category in addition to men’s and women’s?
I don’t think men need a protected category for most sports, so having both would just be duplication.
If nothing else, it’s just options for someone to pick from. Why allow one person more choices and not another? Everyone should have the same ability to choose.
We already have that. Men can join the men’s sport, which is usually open, like the NHL, but a restricted group can join the women’s sport. So women already have two choices - join a group where they are statistically unlikely to win, or compete against a group which is a better representation of her peers.
If you want more restricted groups, sure, why not? But the more groups there are, the more most sports will be diluted.
Thank you for the insight. I don’t watch or care about the Olympics or sports in general, so this whole conversation is moot. But to clarify, I was thinking more broadly about events at the Olympics, not just traditional sports. I’d think something like archery or fencing or something that’s not purely strength related would be more even.
There are some interesting cases. It took a long time for men to break into synchronized swimming, where women typically have the advantage. Archery still has some strength elements that could be relevant, but shooting should be pretty egalitarian and is still split, as far as I know.
I have never been particularly into sports, and stopped watching the Olympics very much when the amateur requirements were relaxed (when hockey was dominated by NHL stars). There may be some nuances I’m missing, and there is also the aspect of making a sport/competition more welcoming to women, such as women’s chess. While those are interesting social/cultural aspects, they have much less bearing on capabilities of a given sex/gender.
Men’s IS the open category
Thank you for clarifying.
To reiterate my reply to another user, I don’t really watch or care about the Olympics or sports in general. I just out of my ass about things I know nothing about.
Still seems weird to me, though.
It would be dominated by men.
Thats not necessarily true. Depends on the event.
Having a choice of being in a men’s only vs an open category would allow them the choice as opposed to forcing all men to be in the open category, there by reducing the number of men entering in the open category. There would be less opportunity for that to happen.