The sad case of Imane Khelif

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rodoheel said:
That last part is really where we disagree. "Deal with it now before it becomes a problem" is a horrible strategy. Create a much larger societal program in service of solving a hypothetical concern that may or may not come to pass? No thanks. You're willing to hurt a bunch of people and spend a bunch to "protect" people from a problem that may or may not exist.

Again, this is so reminiscent of conservative solutions to other "problems" like "voter fraud" and "welfare fraud." It's like, "we may not be able to prove these things happen but we see the potential for abuse so we should spend a lot of time and effort addressing it right now." I just completely disagree with that approach. Again, the way to solve this current "problem" is to ignore the trolls yelling about an obviously feigned concern for the "sanctity" of women's sports and to let them move on to some other idiotic cultuer-war provocation to be mad about.
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That's where we disagree. I think it will happen. Heck, it's already happened. And I think it will happen more as The topic becomes less taboo and kids become more comfortable with some of these issues at an earlier age. And that's great for the kids but there are a few issues with it.
 
gtyellowjacket said:
That's where we disagree. I think it will happen. Heck, it's already happened. And I think it will happen more as The topic becomes less taboo and kids become more comfortable with some of these issues at an earlier age. And that's great for the kids but there are a few issues with it.
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Even if I accepted your logic, which I don't, you're failing one of the simplest trolley problems possible. Do you allow some harm to maybe happen (your hypothetical trans girls dominating their sports), or do you intentionally cause a lot of harm (testing/challenging girls' sex and gender)?
 
akillesheel said:
Even if I accepted your logic, which I don't, you're failing one of the simplest trolley problems possible. Do you allow some harm to maybe happen (your hypothetical trans girls dominating their sports), or do you intentionally cause a lot of harm (testing/challenging girls' sex and gender)?
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Why would you say troll and then ask a serious question? Of course, I'm not going to respond to that. Have a discussion with Harold minor. Let Rodo and I and anybody else discuss it like adults.
 
gtyellowjacket said:
That's where we disagree. I think it will happen. Heck, it's already happened. And I think it will happen more as The topic becomes less taboo and kids become more comfortable with some of these issues at an earlier age. And that's great for the kids but there are a few issues with it.
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What is "it" in this context? What will happen? What has already happened? Where has the safety of female HS/college athletes been imperiled by a trans or intersex athlete? A trans or intersex kid winning the occasional race, while kids who are not trans or intersex win the vast majority, is not evidence of a problem.
 
rodoheel said:
What is "it" in this context? What will happen? What has already happened? Where has the safety of female HS/college athletes been imperiled by a trans or intersex athlete? A trans or intersex kid winning the occasional race, while kids who are not trans or intersex win the vast majority, is not evidence of a problem.
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In this case it would be intersex athletes competing and winning championships at the high school level. In the wider case that needs to be thought about it will be other sexed girls competing and dominating higher level competitions and competing in contact sports.
 
“The trolley problem is a thought experiment in ethics about a fictional scenario in which an onlooker has the choice to save 5 people in danger of being hit by a trolley, by diverting the trolley to kill just 1 person”
 
farce said:
“The trolley problem is a thought experiment in ethics about a fictional scenario in which an onlooker has the choice to save 5 people in danger of being hit by a trolley, by diverting the trolley to kill just 1 person”
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Doh. Please accept my apologies. I totally misread that.
 
gtyellowjacket said:
In this case it would be intersex athletes competing and winning championships at the high school level. In the wider case that needs to be thought about it will be other sexed girls competing and dominating higher level competitions and competing in contact sports.
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Still have said exactly zero about any existing evidence that trans/intersex athletes in HS/college sports is endangering female athletes. Again, them winning the occasional race does not at all suggest there's any sort of problem, much less one with a safety component.
 
akillesheel said:
Even if I accepted your logic, which I don't, you're failing one of the simplest trolley problems possible. Do you allow some harm to maybe happen (your hypothetical trans girls dominating their sports), or do you intentionally cause a lot of harm (testing/challenging girls' sex and gender)?
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Again. Please accept my apologies. Hopefully the egg on my face and the many follow up posts pointing ot the trolley problem will be penance enough.

This is why I tried to make different decisions based on a girl's age and level of competition. There's a lot of harm to a confused 15-year-old telling her that she isn't normal. Is there as much harm to a 25-year-old Olympian? Is there more harm to the hundreds of elite athletes that are within tenths of seconds of each other that are competing for that Olympic medal and know that they're never going to be able to win against the athlete that is 4 seconds faster than them? In that case, that trolley is going to harm a whole lot more people.
 
rodoheel said:
Still have said exactly zero about any existing evidence that trans/intersex athletes in HS/college sports is endangering female athletes. Again, them winning the occasional race does not at all suggest there's any sort of problem, much less one with a safety component.
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Here are two examples:

Trans field hockey athlete at the high school level.
www.newsweek.com

Shocking field hockey injury sparks fight over transgender athletes

"The Swampscott player ... has the exact same right to participate as any player on any team," the high school told Newsweek.
www.newsweek.com www.newsweek.com


Trans basketball player at the high school level, although in his case it doesn't seem sincere. But to the young girls he injured, I don't think it matters.
www.boston.com

Injuries involving trans basketball player at Mass. school spark controversy

A Lowell school forfeited a recent basketball game after a series of injuries, some allegedly involving a trans player on the opposing squad.
www.boston.com
 
Should children’s genital inspector be an elected position? Is the inspector to be on site in the event of a complaint or will the child be suspended until an accusation of looking too boyish has been investigated? Will every girl be subjected to a genital inspection and blood test before the season or will it be an ongoing process throughout the season? And what if DNA testing and the genital inspection yield contradictory results? Since they clearly don’t have a place in our country should they just be culled?
 
gtyellowjacket said:
Here are two examples:

Trans field hockey athlete at the high school level.
www.newsweek.com

Shocking field hockey injury sparks fight over transgender athletes

"The Swampscott player ... has the exact same right to participate as any player on any team," the high school told Newsweek.
www.newsweek.com www.newsweek.com


Trans basketball player at the high school level, although in his case it doesn't seem sincere. But to the young girls he injured, I don't think it matters.
www.boston.com

Injuries involving trans basketball player at Mass. school spark controversy

A Lowell school forfeited a recent basketball game after a series of injuries, some allegedly involving a trans player on the opposing squad.
www.boston.com
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In your first example, Newsweek specifically says this: "Newsweek could not verify that the athlete is a male who identifies as a female".
Regardless, whether it is a trans person or another female, getting hit in the face by a field hockey ball could be brutal even at a relatively slow speed.

For the second example, did you see the video? The trans girl was basically wrestling the ball from another player on a rebound (the trans player got the ball first). While wrestling the ball away, the other player fell to the floor. If anyone is using this as Exhibit A why trans athletes should not compete, they picked about the worst possible example.
 
gtyellowjacket said:
Again. Please accept my apologies. Hopefully the egg on my face and the many follow up posts pointing ot the trolley problem will be penance enough.

This is why I tried to make different decisions based on a girl's age and level of competition. There's a lot of harm to a confused 15-year-old telling her that she isn't normal. Is there as much harm to a 25-year-old Olympian? Is there more harm to the hundreds of elite athletes that are within tenths of seconds of each other that are competing for that Olympic medal and know that they're never going to be able to win against the athlete that is 4 seconds faster than them? In that case, that trolley is going to harm a whole lot more people.
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I thought you were explicitly talking about teenagers and HS sports, not the Olympics. The former case is where you get into even the possibility of people with the athletic benefits of male puberty being on the same playing field as people who have not, because trans teenagers might not have had the time and/or support to fully medically transition. Like rodo has said, it so far hasn't been an issue - even the trans girls who have made news for success at HS sports aren't going undefeated, or breaking previously unbreakable records, or posing danger to their teammates and competitors.

At the adult and Olympic level, with the guidelines that the IOC (far from a bastion of social progress or equality) currently has, there's absolutely no issue with trans women competing in women's events; all available research says that the amount of hormonal treatment/medical transition that they require depresses the relevant traits by more or less exactly as much as male puberty elevates them. This is why the problem only arose in the case of Khelif - she was not subject to those guidelines as somebody who was AFAB, but looked masculine enough that a bunch of weirdos (and here I include the IBA) started crying about her anyways, causing exactly the kind of harm that rodo and others replying to you are worried about.
 
High school girls who are competitive and good in team sports (soccer, basketball, volleyball, lacrosse, etc.) are playing pick-up games with high school boys and college men all the time. Sometimes they get hurt. Sometimes the males get hurt.

A Chapel Hill girl who became an all-time UNC great , Pam Leake, played in Woollen Gym with great frequency while in high school. Why? She wanted to compete and get better.
 
The colossal distance the goal post has moved on this thread means, to me, that whichever good faith posters who were arguing against Khelif to begin with have grown by leaps and bounds and their worlds have expanded to understand a huge amount of the nuance here. Props and cudos to them.

OTOH, I'm not saying anything about the poster(s) who are just here to take a giant shit on this thread. They are who they are.
 
akillesheel said:
I thought you were explicitly talking about teenagers and HS sports, not the Olympics. The former case is where you get into even the possibility of people with the athletic benefits of male puberty being on the same playing field as people who have not, because trans teenagers might not have had the time and/or support to fully medically transition. Like rodo has said, it so far hasn't been an issue - even the trans girls who have made news for success at HS sports aren't going undefeated, or breaking previously unbreakable records, or posing danger to their teammates and competitors.

At the adult and Olympic level, with the guidelines that the IOC (far from a bastion of social progress or equality) currently has, there's absolutely no issue with trans women competing in women's events; all available research says that the amount of hormonal treatment/medical transition that they require depresses the relevant traits by more or less exactly as much as male puberty elevates them. This is why the problem only arose in the case of Khelif - she was not subject to those guidelines as somebody who was AFAB, but looked masculine enough that a bunch of weirdos (and here I include the IBA) started crying about her anyways, causing exactly the kind of harm that rodo and others replying to you are worried about.
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This isn't correct. The IOC has effectively banned other sexed athletes from several events. They are track and field, swimming and cycling.

When I say effectively, they are deferring to the sports sanctioning bodies and those sanctioning bodies have made that decision.
 
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akillesheel said:
I thought you were explicitly talking about teenagers and HS sports, not the Olympics. The former case is where you get into even the possibility of people with the athletic benefits of male puberty being on the same playing field as people who have not, because trans teenagers might not have had the time and/or support to fully medically transition. Like rodo has said, it so far hasn't been an issue - even the trans girls who have made news for success at HS sports aren't going undefeated, or breaking previously unbreakable records, or posing danger to their teammates and competitors.

At the adult and Olympic level, with the guidelines that the IOC (far from a bastion of social progress or equality) currently has, there's absolutely no issue with trans women competing in women's events; all available research says that the amount of hormonal treatment/medical transition that they require depresses the relevant traits by more or less exactly as much as male puberty elevates them. This is why the problem only arose in the case of Khelif - she was not subject to those guidelines as somebody who was AFAB, but looked masculine enough that a bunch of weirdos (and here I include the IBA) started crying about her anyways, causing exactly the kind of harm that rodo and others replying to you are worried about.
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I really have to disagree. Those examples seem pretty legit to me and some pretty obvious examples of which way this could go. Reading the article on the second athlete, the opposing coach forfeited the game because multiple girls got hurt.

I still think this will be extremely rare, but it's worth debating and deciding how it should be handled in a hypothetical way instead of using individual kids as examples. I guess that's what everyone's doing.
 
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