I will try. This comes up frequently these days with my Trumper friend, so this could be valuable to discuss here.
I think it would be fine for them to compete provided we can ensure a level playing field. I don’t know what that would entail, but studies should be done to get it figured out. Is it a blood draw for testosterone levels (maybe not… sometimes that’s naturally high for either cis gender)? Maybe estrogen? Maybe it’s number of years post transition, though I see difficulty defining the start.
Definitely a tough issue since if we get it wrong and be too accepting or not accepting enough, many athletes will suffer. I would love to hear some more ideas and thoughts on this. I’m tired of getting shot down trying to talk to this guy.
I saw one suggestion which was to so away with male and female competitions, and instead have “open” and “restricted” comps. Open would be available to anyone, male or female, while you could set up as many restricted comps as you needed for the particular sport or activity with whatever rules make sense. So the 100m sprint might have Open, Restricted - Testosterone, and Restricted - Height - with whatever T level or height in centimetres decided by the relevant authority. Whereas something like weightlifting might have Restricted - Weight as it’s own class. The idea being any gender can compete provided provided meet the restrictions in place to make an interesting/fair competition within that bracket.
what is your answer on 3?
Suddenly this thread is playing with fire lol
I will try. This comes up frequently these days with my Trumper friend, so this could be valuable to discuss here.
I think it would be fine for them to compete provided we can ensure a level playing field. I don’t know what that would entail, but studies should be done to get it figured out. Is it a blood draw for testosterone levels (maybe not… sometimes that’s naturally high for either cis gender)? Maybe estrogen? Maybe it’s number of years post transition, though I see difficulty defining the start.
Definitely a tough issue since if we get it wrong and be too accepting or not accepting enough, many athletes will suffer. I would love to hear some more ideas and thoughts on this. I’m tired of getting shot down trying to talk to this guy.
I saw one suggestion which was to so away with male and female competitions, and instead have “open” and “restricted” comps. Open would be available to anyone, male or female, while you could set up as many restricted comps as you needed for the particular sport or activity with whatever rules make sense. So the 100m sprint might have Open, Restricted - Testosterone, and Restricted - Height - with whatever T level or height in centimetres decided by the relevant authority. Whereas something like weightlifting might have Restricted - Weight as it’s own class. The idea being any gender can compete provided provided meet the restrictions in place to make an interesting/fair competition within that bracket.