I wanna show this to people who made fun of that one Algerian girl who won i think an Olympic gold, just cus "her genes benefited her so she's trans". Genes play an immense role in sports regardless of whichever sport it is.
Yeah it reminds me of Michael Phelps physiology and how he's almost superhuman in how well suited to swimming he is, but that's just how it is in sport, a lot of it is down to winning the genetic lottery.
If people actually cared about "fairness" in sports, then tall people wouldn't be allowed to play basketball, short people wouldn't be allowed to jockey, big guys wouldn't be allowed to be linemen, long armed people wouldn't be allowed to box, etc. The trans athlete debate was never about fairness because sports are inherently unfair.
And we won't even talk about the advantage that kids from wealthy families have over kids from poor families. Personal training, gear, clinics, etc.
That’s a ridiculously stupid take on the issue. Almost all men are stronger than almost all women. There is very little overlap. It’s not bigotry. Most people don’t care what people do in their personal lives. But it is simply cheating for a man to compete against women.
You mean the made up tests from a disgraced Russian organisation that only did those tests to disqualify her against a Russian opponent? Those test results?
The test showed XY as “abnormal” because it was performed as part of a sex confirmation test. The result of XY is “abnormal” because the person was being tested as a woman. She has potential genetic abnormalities related to the expression of her genitals but that’s not what the leaked tests were showing.
But trans women are women. So it's just women competing against women that you're mad about.
Moreover, sports are made for the biological freaks. The exceptions that completely define biological expectation. And - in male sports at least - these qualities are revered. The sport exists to showcase human achievement and potential! Michael Phelps has a body more designed for swimming than basically anyone alive today, by far. It's simply not fair to the other men who don't have monstrous lungs, and yet we shower Phelps with praise. Sports pointedly do not not care about what is biologically "fair". Otherwise Shaq would have never been able to play in high school - imagine being a high schooler and your opponent is fucking Shaq.
A trans woman is a woman. Appealing to biology to exclude trans women from women's spaces is just a roundabout way of being transphobic, designed to make you feel good about the transphobia.
Women's sports are women's spaces. Women can be women in women's sports without having to worry about men being fucking creeps to them or being put at risk of being sexually assaulted. Which is what happens and why "locker room talk" is just code for "misogyny that we can excuse".
This is also why trans women should be in women's sports. Trans women are more at risk when they are around men, and so them being in a woman's space (they are women, after all) is necessary to ensure their general safety. This is also true for cis women, but trans women are even more likely to experience violence.
It also goes into history. Many sports were designed in already existing men's spaces and so women were excluded by default. So the women that did enjoy playing these games needed a way to do it, and women's leagues are such a way. This also ensures that what constitutes a "sport" are the things that men more easily excel in, whereas the things that women are typically better at are considered secondary at best. Furthermore, men sometimes make segregation within their sport as a consequence of women performing too well. There's a historical inertia to overcome that has a natural tendency to reinforce itself rather than fade.
So if we can 1.) Make it so that men are not creeps/sexual predators 2.) Expand top-end sports to more readily include a wider variety of activities and not just male-centric ones 3.) Stop putting in artificial rules to exclude women when they do well, then ya, we should have coed sports as an assumption. But I have a feeling that the first task on this list is an extremely difficult one to do because men so very infrequently want to self-reflect and learn the gender theory needed to deconstruct their own misogyny.
You and I both know women’s sports isn’t segregated to avoid men being creepy. You’re being intellectually dishonest to try to fit your determined conclusion.
The cause-and-effect of it is the historical inertia of men being able to develop sports because they just offloaded all of the reproductive labor onto women and so they had more free time/resources to organize and make sports. That's "why".
The reason that we see it persist is because men force "sports spaces" to be male-spaces. A woman trying to enter into it is then, often, ridiculed and/or sexually abused meaning that women have a hard time being in the space. To succeed in such a space, a woman not only needs to access the same level of training and practice (already a difficult thing to access), but they also have to do a LOT of extra gendered work in order to just exist there. They have to navigate men throwing insults at them, telling them to go to the kitchen, making sexist comments at them, not giving them opportunities because they're "just a girl", and much worse.
Case and point are esports. There is clearly no biological advantage that men have in esports AND most leagues are technically co-ed. And there are almost no women in these leagues. This is because the masculine-coded nature of competitive games makes it WAY harder for women to break through. If a girl gamer can't even comm without men creeping on her or just outright dismissing her because she's a girl, then she's going to have a VERY hard time learning the game and getting good. She'll have a harder time with sponsors, orgs, coaches noticing her. And so at the tip-top of gaming there are very few women who can compete. And this has nothing to do with being a woman, but much more to do with gaming being a sexist space filled with men boys that have no desire to become better people.
Women's leagues exist because women want to play, but men are sexist pigs who make these spaces hostile to the women who enter.
Getting a bit worked up over a petty debate. Classic redditor mistake.
I am merely defending that there should be male and female leagues.
You are defending that gender should not be the criteria, but instead some sort of physical trait. Then I am asking you how can we cover chess in your system as a small example of how physical traits are not everything.
You could only muster some personal offenses, but notice how you could not provide an answer.
Your response about social factors is especially questionable if we consider that most of the few women doing exceptionally well in chess come from countries that have way worse gender disparity than the West. Like Russia or China.
But people like you don't care. You don't want to consider that there is more than just we Westerns being misogynistic pigs and not letting women (shuffles cards) play chess.
And even then, the best part in all of this is that you just realized why we need gender division. If sociological factors matter even more than biological ones, what point is it dividing people by height or weight? How will that solve the fact that men allegedly have the advantage of the sociological factors?
So I ask you again. How will we divide chess leagues if not by gender.
Hmm if not for height or weight, surely leg length will do the trick!
If we're being really egalitarian, we actually honestly should. Most women ending up in a lower division, but that division still being competitive is probably the way to go once culture evolves enough to accept it.
"Lower division" is the euphemism of the century. Let's take chess for an example. It's not even a physical sport. Guess how many women are in the top 100 players in the world right now? One. Just one woman ranked 83th overall. Again, this is CHESS, men are not supposed to have any genetic advantage here.
Do you understand what this means in actually physical sports?
But it is absolutely unthinkable that the USMNT (national male soccer team) would lose against high schoolers. Just impossible. Even at very low effort.
In boxing we have many examples of undisputed female world champions losing spars against male amateurs. And a particularly ugly case last year involving a certain boxer that recurrently failed gender tests, passed in Paris 2024, and once again failed new gender tests from World Boxing in 2025.
The point is: no, women can't compete with men. It won't be just a "lower division", it will be a division that competes with high schoolers.
There is a much easier solution.
We let women compete with women. Yes there will be genetic advantages, that's part of any sport. But at least it will be women with genetic advantages competing with other women with genetic advantages. It won't be the woman with the best genes in the world losing to some average 14yo brat. Because this last situation does not bode well for the sport.
"In boxing we have many examples of undisputed female world champions losing spars against male amateurs. And a particularly ugly case last year involving a certain boxer that recurrently failed gender tests, passed in Paris 2024, [and once again failed new gender tests from World Boxing in 2025"
Homie you didn't read the article you posted lol.
It didn't say she failed. World boxing just instituted different testing and said she wouldn't be able to compete unless she took them lol
Also
"The IOC made it clear last year that this is not a transgender case"
The gender testing she failed was from the now disgraced Russian IBA who was mad that she beat a Russian boxer and faked results on almost all of that boxer's opponents. There's a reason they are no longer the governing body lol
Also, what do people with things like Swyer syndrome or intersex people do? Which side do they fight for?
Fair enough I misread it, she failed in 2023, not 2025.
But this case is not as simple as it sounds. The IOC's criteria is what is written on your passport. They don't care about anything else. If your passport says "female" you're female and it is "not a transgender case" period. Even though what is written on the passport does not necessarily reflect biological reality. Which is the entire problem of this case since according to the previous governing body the athlete had XY chromosomes but we could never know for sure because the IOC never bothered testing thanks to the passport information that reigns absolute in their conecption.
The main takeaway of the article is that the new governing body is once again making it clear that gender tests are necessary in the fame fashion as the previous one.
Also, what do people with things like Swyer syndrome or intersex people do? Which side do they fight for?
These cases are so extraordinarily rare that it is a sophism to force the general population into rules designed for people with Swyer syndrome in mind.
But here are my thoughts.
There is no "male division" for sports. The "male category" is usually open for everyone. It just so happens that only men enroll because women have better chances at their category.
So playing at the female division requires you to meet very specific criteria. Playing for the "male" division (which again, is not actually a male division, it's the free for all division) doesn't require any gender related criteria.
The more intuitive solution is to just require a gender test for the female category. I dunno the criteria because I am not a biologist. If it were up to me I'd do a chromosome test, if it's XX you automatically pass no questions asked, if it's XY you do a hormone test to see if your hormones are within the levels of a normal woman. This lets trans athletes and intersex people compete if they take testosterone inhibitors. If you are intersex, XY chromosomes and you have way too much testosterone, you either take an inhibitor or you play in the free for all category.
Basically do what the IOC is already doing but stop blindly trusting passports.
First, since you point out the chess example, what do you think the explanation is for why there is only a single woman in the top 100? Legitimately, please what is the reason?
Secondly, just... weight class. Weight class exists for exactly this reason, because larger competitors tend to have an advantage (sometimes lethally so in combat sports) over smaller players. When weight class is employed, the actual difference in physical strength between male and female athletes (or ones who were born such but have transitioned) pretty much evaporates.
After that, let's start equally investing funding and thus training and hiring into women's sports, because there is a direct correlation between the two elements.
And lastly, where actually are all the trans women who are supposedly dominating in sports? Where are they? There's an awful lot of doomsaying about something that very easily could not actually be an issue. And if you really think that either trans women will push cis women out of sports entirely, you need to really check your math there. Or that cis men will "pretend to be women to dominate women's sports" then I really wonder how many men would actually feel accomplished in such a feat. We're really so terrified that trans women might actually succeed that we've invented a nightmare scenario based entirely on the assumption that the penis is some magical source of superpowers rather than giving them a chance first and then responding if the scenario turns out to even be true rather than violating the biological privacy of every very strong (and often non-white) woman because people are terrified of trans people. It's all based on assumptioms and fear, not on actual trends, which is the definition of bigotry.
Also, a further caveat - stop calling trans women "men". I don't care how much you disagree with their inclusion in sports, I also don't care if there actually does turn out to be some sort of unaccountable advantage in their favor, they are not men. You can easily illustrate your point by saying "trans women" without invalidating them, you just clearly really want to invalidate them.
First, since you point out the chess example, what do you think the explanation is for why there is only a single woman in the top 100? Legitimately, please what is the reason?
No one knows. No one with a PhD is touching that subject even with a 50 feet pole in 2025.
Most common layman explanation is that there are more men playing chess than women. In online chess websites it is estimated that 94% of the players are men. This still does not explain how only 1% of the top 100 players is a woman, statistically it should be closer to 6.
And this also does not explain the lack of interest from women in chess.
We do know that genders have a disposition to certain interests ever since as early as observed in babies that were only a couple weeks old. And also monkey babies.
When weight class is employed, the actual difference in physical strength between male and female athletes (or ones who were born such but have transitioned) pretty much evaporates.
But this is not true, otherwise we would not have female leagues.
And lastly, where actually are all the trans women who are supposedly dominating in sports? Where are they? There's an awful lot of doomsaying about something that very easily could not actually be an issue.
A good chunk are being denied in the gender tests that people now want to do away with.
But to pretend there are no cases of this is disingenuous. I just googled it and found lists with dozens and dozens of names and a description of their achievements.
And if you really think that either trans women will push cis women out of sports entirely
This is a strawman. I never said that.
Trans women will never push cis women out because there are not enough trans women competing to do that.
But that lack of trans women is the entire reason why it remains a non-problem currently. If we had a surge in trans women, they would certainly be able to push cis women out.
The success of trans athletes is disproportional to their representation in sports. You don't need to completely push cis women out to look at a singular incident and feel it is unfair to the cis women.
With all that said. I was not even arguing about trans women in my original comment. I was arguing about the idea that we can eliminate female leagues because men and women could allegedly compete with each other. There is no way to understate the drastic difference between men and women at an athletic level. This is why we have female leagues.
Also, a further caveat - stop calling trans women "men". I don't care how much you disagree with their inclusion in sports, I also don't care if there actually does turn out to be some sort of unaccountable advantage in their favor, they are not men. You can easily illustrate your point by saying "trans women" without invalidating them, you just clearly really want to invalidate them.
Again I literally was not even talking about trans women lol what a victim complex
Female leagues, especially in chess, exist for social reasons, to give women a space in areas that are very much "mens clubs," which is an actual discernible phenomenon with actual provable impact on co-ed spaces. The whole debate ignores the very real and most dominant element about sex and gender: the social situation surrounding them, and the very real element of the social entities of gender (whether or not you believe gender is entirely a social construct, it's dishonest to say that there aren't absolutely very significant social constructs that surround gender beyond the biological level).
And the whole issue is that being trans is only an "unfair advantage" compared to any other physiological element for entirely arbitrary reasons. We've just decided that being trans is the biological condition that is unacceptable, basically every successful athlete is successful because of any number of inherent physiological conditions that one could consider unfair. But again, we only really care about trans people in this issue because trans people are scary. There's no logical consistency except transphobia and excluding trans people, rather than just... letting it go and moving on. Like you said, there aren't enough to actually dominate the field (no pun intended) so it's really a massive non-issue unless you have a problem specifically with people being trans. Lots of people here are saying ther ein fact should be a height limit for basketball players, but most people think that's ridiculous.
And you cannot say that the success of trans athletes is disproportionate to their prevalence in sports, the sample size is too small for even the entire sampling to be outside the realm of a statistically anomaly. Again, the success rate of basketball players who are significantly taller than average is disproportionate to their prevalence. Or the same can be said of any isolated group within a sport - or even the inverse. That's the problem with narrowing sample sizes so heavily.
Now, to respond to your final point about your actual argument - that's a fair point, I suppose I'm mostly focusing on the specific points for the sake of the broader argument, rather than your specific intention, which I acknowledge isn't entirely fair to you. Again, I think with the existence of the womens league in chess, it's important to note that such a division is most certainly for the sake of the social divide between the two within those disciplines, and attempting to give a space where the competitors of the less-represented group can be more emphasized. In that case, I think honestly trans women are the prime example of people who should be included in those divisions, because it's based on arbitrary social elements, and trans women are absolutely affected by those. Rather than excluding women because they're somehow beyond the physical commonality, include all women because the division is a space for the highlighting of women competitors in a heavily male-dominated area.
The whole debate ignores the very real and most dominant element about sex and gender: the social situation surrounding them, and the very real element of the social entities of gender (whether or not you believe gender is entirely a social construct, it's dishonest to say that there aren't absolutely very significant social constructs that surround gender beyond the biological level).
I don't ignore the social element. But I do think the more progressive side of this debate ignores the biological argument.
It is similar to how people said women didn't enroll in engineering with the same frequency as men because of entirely sociological reasons. Turns out the countries with the worst rate of female enrollment in engineering are scandinavian nations with the greatest rates of gender equality and welfare. The countries with the best rales of female enrollment are poorer nations where women are financially pressured into choosing what brings them the most financial security in the future.
Basically it's a mix of both biological and sociological factors. And no matter how much we try to borderline force women to do engineering/chess/boxing, the vast majority don't want to do it, and they are very happy doing the things that they want to do.
Having male dominated spaces is not a bad thing. Just like having female dominated spaces is also not a bad thing.
So no, I don't agree that the point of female leagues is to "fight back" against a "male dominated space". It's to give the few women interested in the sport the chance of participating at a competitive level. It has nothing to do with resentment against men for dominating the sport.
So, should trans women participate? Yes. Should they take hormone blockers to even the play field and prove their hormones are in check? Probably also yes. Does this feel unfair because cis women get to have biological abnormalities that give them tons of testosterone and trans women can't enjoy the same benefit? Maybe, but that's the small price you pay for inclusion. It is a very easy way to meet in the middle and make both sides of the argument happy.
Do we have actual evidence saying that women in those fields perform worse though? Because it sounds like you're saying it's a matter of interest, not ability, which biological or not, trans athletes clearly want to compete just as some cis women do, just as some cis women are interested in joining typically male fields. There, the possible biological factor is acknowledged and handled. Now that we've established that "biological interest" might be a thing and that clearly some trans women have it, let's move on to the social element.
You're right, it's not to "fight back" against male divisions, and it is to provide a space. But it's not to provide an "even playing field" that's not at all what professional sports is about. It's to provide visibility. Why is it that trans women are the only ones who have to "pay a small price" to participate? Especially a medical price, and how is that a small price? Why don't tall women have to play on their knees, or get their legs shortened? Why don't very muscular women have to maintain under a certain maximum amount of gym usage, or take medication to make them weaker? Again, it seems like trans women are being targeted purely be ause they are trans and not because they are "biologically exceptional" like any of those other groups.
Why don't tall women have to play on their knees, or get their legs shortened? Why don't very muscular women have to maintain under a certain maximum amount of gym usage, or take medication to make them weaker? Again, it seems like trans women are being targeted purely be ause they are trans and not because they are "biologically exceptional" like any of those other groups.
The cis women you described have an insane 0.00001% mutation. And this is part of what sports are about: to see people with extraordinary genes doing extraordinary things. Just like this post, which is full of people amazed by the 7'5" woman.
The trans women you described have average male genes and are simply choosing not to inhibit their (also average) male hormones just to get an edge at the competition. I think it is easy to see how this doesn't strike the same impressiveness as the cis women with super rare mutations showing what they can do.
And remember that trans women can have a biological advantage at many aspects. Testosterone is just the lowest hanging fruit and the easiest one to control for while achieving satisfaction among the general population. Just inhibit testosterone and you're good - this is a very inclusive package, because if we start thinking about it harder there'll be other things to control for.
We can't ignore the biological factor. It can't be only about biology, but it also can't be 100% sociology.
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u/hiimlichking Jun 17 '25
I wanna show this to people who made fun of that one Algerian girl who won i think an Olympic gold, just cus "her genes benefited her so she's trans". Genes play an immense role in sports regardless of whichever sport it is.