sycasey said:
oski003 said:
sycasey said:
OdontoBear66 said:
sycasey said:
OdontoBear66 said:
sycasey said:
DiabloWags said:
sycasey said:
Semenya is a prime example of why the "What is a woman?" question is complicated. There are intersex people like her. There are also biological females who show some of the traits you would ordinarily assign to males: testosterone levels, bone structure, density, height, etc. These things would certainly give them an advantage athletically, but isn't that the point of athletics, making use of your physical advantages?
So to me you'll never have the 100% perfect solution. You just need something that maintains basic fairness. Seems like the current rules for trans women can maintain that, which is why I don't think trans women in sports is as big a deal as right-wing outlets would like to make of it.
It's a tricky situation because transgender kids at the high school level who have the advantage of increased testosterone levels wind up blowing a lot of biological females away on the track.
Case in point: The Connecticut State Track Championships where transgenders Terry Miller and Andraya Yearwood wound up going 1-2, with Miller breaking the state record running 11.72
Two Transgender Athletes Set Records At Connecticut Track Meet | Bossip
If you've ever watched Semenya run professionally in the 800m, it's pretty clear that she dominated.
She won Gold at the 2009, 2011, and 2017 World Championships and Olympic Gold in 2012 London and 2016 Rio.
Right, I think trans women athletes should have to undergo hormone therapy to bring the testosterone levels down before competing in the women's division. How much or how long is up for debate.
First, until they titrate "how much, and how long" the participation should be in limbo. I can see if that can be done (not sure) my thinking would have no problem with competing.
Sycasey, I think you are having a hard time giving an inch here as anything would be a concession to the "far right" as I think you see it. It makes it difficult to have a discussion over disagreement.
Well, there are some activists who would like to just let anyone compete as any gender based on their personal identification. I think there should be limitations and do acknowledge there are physical differences between men and women that should be accounted for. I think my position is already the compromise position.
Once again, the NCAA and the Olympics already have specific metrics that trans athletes have to meet in order to compete as women. If you have quarrels with the specifics those metrics, by all means let us know.
I think I may question the metrics as they seem a bit too lean for my liking if a #300-400 ranked male can win in the women's ranks as a transgender, but readily admit I don't know enough scientifically to argue the point.
I guess if that top 300-400 became a 25-100 in the women's there would be a lot less questioning of where the line is drawn. There are so few (relatively) transgender athletes to gain the sample size as well.
To jump to #1 is a bit much in my imagination, legit or not.
Lia Thomas was only that lowly ranked because she was competing as a man AFTER GOING ON HORMONES. At that point she had effectively diminished her own performance about to the level of a woman. Before starting hormones Thomas was competitive with the men. As a sophomore in the men's division she finished second in three events at the Ivy League championships.
That sounds about like exactly the kind of jump you just said you'd find acceptable, no?
Going from number two in the Ivy League to #1 in all of college is an acceptable jump that doesn't evidence competitive biological advantages? Really?
What colleges in this list are in the Ivy League?
https://swimswam.com/2020-2021-ncaa-mens-swimming-diving-power-ranks-january-edition/
Okay, let's get deeper into Lia Thomas' swimming history.
Per Wikipedia, in her freshman year (swimming as a man) she recorded the 6th-fastest time in one event.
Then there's this article:
Quote:
According to a search of USA Swimming records, in the last season where Ms Thomas competed in men's events, she came in ninth across the entire country in the 1,000 yard freestyle and 29th in the 1,650 yard freestyle.
"Lia Thomas was an elite and competitive swimmer while on the men's team at the University of Pennsylvania," says Mr Sockwell. "[The 1650 yard] event would have had Lia in the top 30-34 in the country and right on the bubble of making NCAAs."
So as a freshman and sophomore in the men's division, Thomas was able to be 6th best in one event, 9th best in another, and top 30 in one more. Is it reasonable to think that such a swimmer, remaining a man, might have been able to improve and eventually take 1st place in one event as a senior? Yes, I think so.
The race she won was also kind of slow as compared to other recent women's times at the same event. If there had been better swimmers competing she might have come in 3rd.
Quote:
The Independent compiled a dataset of swim times for all top 8 NCAA women's finishers over the last six years of competition in various events. 2020 was excluded because all NCAA championships were cancelled that year due to the pandemic.
In other words, this data only includes the absolute best college swimmers in these events. It goes back far enough to cover Katie Ledecky's 4m 24.06s record in the 500 yard race and Missy Franklin's 1m 38.10s record in the 200 yard race, both of which still stand today.
In this field, Ms Thomas's time in the 500 yards is the eighth fastest out of 56. That is notable because there are only seven events in the dataset, meaning there are some where her time would have only place her third.
In the 100 yard race, her time is 55th out of 56 in The Independent's data, and her time in the 200 yard race is the 31st out of 5.
Also, let's keep in mind that I was replying to Odonto's standard: "if that top 300-400 became a 25-100 in the women's." Well, it seems like Lia Thomas was originally more like Top 30-100 as a male swimmer before hormone therapy (again, she only dropped to 300-400 after hormones) and became more like Top 10-50 after. This seems about within the range that Odonto would accept.
Honestly, after doing more research on Lia Thomas I'm finding that she's actually a great example for how a trans woman can fairly compete against cis women after completing hormone therapy to change her physiology. Thanks guys! Your attempted "gotchas" have actually strengthened my stance.
In the 500 freestyle, Thomas' time of 4:33.24 from her NCAA-title swim handed her the fastest time in the nation by more than a second over Arizona State's Emma Nordin (4:34.87). Additionally, Thomas' difference from her personal best with the Penn men's program was just 6%, as opposed to the typical 10% to 11% difference generally seen between men and women.
Thomas' best time in the 200 freestyle ended up being her 1:41.93 mark from the Zippy Invitational in December. That effort ultimately ended up 3.76% slower than her best time before her transition. Again, that time was between 7% and 8% faster than the typical separation between men and women.
When Thomas won the 200 freestyle at the Ivy League Champs in 1:43.12, she was even with runnerup Samantha Shelton at the midway point, but crushed the Harvard swimmer over the last 100, highlighted by a 25.04 split for the last 50 yards. The closing split of Thomas was faster than the finishing laps of Missy Franklin in her American-record performance, and the best closing effort of the likes of Katie Ledecky, Mallory Comerford and Siobhan Haughey, among others.
In the 100 freestyle, Thomas' best time prior to her transition was 47.15. At the NCAA Championships, she posted a prelims time in the event of 47.37. That time reflects minimal mitigation of her male-puberty advantage.
During the last season Thomas competed as a member of the Penn men's team, which was 2018-19, she ranked 554th in the 200 freestyle, 65th in the 500 freestyle and 32nd in the 1650 freestyle. As her career at Penn wrapped, she moved to fifth, first and eighth in those respective events on the women's deck.
Now, are there some retained anatomic differences? Your average person who's assigned male at birth is taller than your cis female. And so where having narrower hips and longer limbs is an advantage, yeah there's some retained anatomic advantage. On the other hand, we're not banning tall slender-hipped women. Anatomic advantage is an underlying truth in sport."
For Thomas, there is data available for her prior to and after transition. For those who argue she shouldn't be eligible to swim in the women's category, the difference in her relative performance as expressed in that data is important. In the 200 free, Thomas had the 465th fastest time prior to transition. She is currently the fastest in that event. In the 500 free, she was 65th; she's currently first. In the 1,650, previously her best event, Thomas' highest ranking was 32nd. She has the 11th best time in that event despite not swimming it since December.
"She is still almost undoubtedly better as a female swimmer than she ever would have been as a male swimmer," Harper said. "[But] the notion that all trans women will be better in the women's category than they were in the men's category is flawed. I have seen trans women who had trouble adapting to the changing hormone levels and/or their meds.
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