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Gender Identity and Sports - Once More Around The Track
There has been ample discussion regarding whether trans women should be able to compete in women’s sports, ranging situations as unpopular as Fallon Fox celebrating the bliss of fracturing women’s skulls in cage fights to the silliness of the Boston Marathon extending women’s qualifying times to anyone that says they’re non-binary. For better or worse, some of this is starting to wash out to actual policies at the highest levels of sports, with World Athletics banning trans women from competing as women in the Olympics. Personally, I would regard this as an obvious and easy decision, with no reasonable debate to be had. For the other side, here’s trans sprinter Halba Diouf’s feelings on not being allowed to compete as a woman and here is Science
insistingarguing that the null hypothesis should that be trans women don’t necessarily have an advantage.This is sufficiently well-worn territory that I don’t really expect anything fresh to be said at this point. Instead, I want to focus on something that I’ve always personally thought was quite a lot more difficult to judge correctly, which is athletes that were assigned female at birth, but have conditions that cause them to have abnormally high testosterone, such as XY chromosomes. In recent years, this seems to be coming up more often, possibly because of awareness of it being a thing that happens, possibly because the increased money and visibility of women’s sports has begun to select for increasing levels of biologically unusual people, or possibly because of something that’s not occurring to me. The first one I was aware of was Castor Semenya, who I’ve always had a soft spot for because it seems like a really tough break to have been born labeled as a girl, lived your life as a woman, competed and won at the highest levels, then get told, “nope, sorry, your chromosomes don’t match, so you’re banned in the future”. I hope that regardless of my positions on these issues to always extend that basic level of empathy to someone who truly was not at fault in the creation of a difficult situation.
I recently bumped into an article tying the plight of Diouf to a Senagalese sprinter who turned out to have XY chromosomes and high T, resulting in a ban from the Olympics and this is what gets to the heart of the matter:
First, I’d like to note that this objectively is discrimination and that takes us right to the heart of the point - having a women’s category in sports is inherently discriminatory. That’s the whole point, to discriminate men from women and create a category that is feasible for the best women to win, hence we must determine what a woman is for the purposes of that competition. That a policy is discriminatory simply cannot suffice as an argument against it, particularly when the whole point of the category is to implement a form of discrimination!
Second, I think Coe’s answer is correct and neatly covers all of these scenarios. I used to have a tough time with them, precisely because of the desire to be fair to women like Semenya, but the reality is that Caster Semenya simply isn’t a female and the whole point of women’s sports is to allow women to compete on equal footing against other women. That this will feel unfair and exclusionary to some tiny percentage of the population that has either a gender identity disorder or chromosomal abnormality is barely an argument at all - elite athletics isn’t actually an inclusive activity, it is exclusive and filters for the absolute best in the world for a given ruleset. Within track, use of performance-enhancing drugs is strictly monitored, with spikes in biological passports used to ban athletes even if what they used cannot be identified. With such tight constraints and rules on what physical specifications athletes are allowed to have, I no longer favor something so inclusive as to allow XY or other gender-abnormal athletes to compete - the women have to be actual women competing against other actual women. If nothing else, Lia Thomas has helped provide me some clarity on the absurdity of muscle-bound, testosterone-fueled males in women’s sports.
I find the idea of women's sports chuckle-worthy, about the same tier of interest as the Little Leagues. Aww, you poor things, incapable of standing up in absolute terms, let's make a nice carveout for you so that you can say you tried.
At least in tennis you have something sexy to look at.
The real tough break is having a name that sounds like castor oil with semen in it, as far as I'm concerned.
At any rate, I've always watched the whole trans in sports debacle simply for the popcorn munching potential, since I don't give a shit about the outcome either way, it's always fun to see people tearing their hair out when trying to reconcile mutually incompatible maxims and desired outcomes.
Fuck it, let's have a Transhuman Olympics, where PEDs, augmentation and everything you can do short of fighting the other participants is legal. As a tweet once said, let's see how high humans can really jump.
Whats that phrase again, play stupid games and win stupid prizes? Unless those women were coerced with cattle prods into stepping into the ring, they made the eminently stupid move of embracing their fate instead of boycotting or bowing out. Certainly, if I participated in a wrestling match and my opponent was a Silverback gorilla, I'm conceding right there and then.
Hard agree.
Maybe it's my autism , but having gender segregated sports always struck me as dumb.
I remember competing in wrestling against dudes in my weight class but with about 6" less neck circumference than me and KNOWING they were just fucked; that I could walk up to them and let them do as much shit as they wanted and nothing would stick.
Extending this; I think the two categories I actually respect in sports are natty and enhanced.
One to appreciate the extend of human capacity; the triumph of will over flesh.
One to watch human shaped Rhinos slap dingers all day.
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As others have pointed out this was not in the spirit of the rules in multiple ways. Usually you are a good poster, but this is a bad enough violation that I'm still going to give you a one day ban for it.
All I wish to say is that I find your ruling highly disappointing, especially since this is my first and only ban on The Motte.
In fact, I've made a nigh identical comments at least twice in the past without censure.
At the very least, you'd think being a poster in good standing would earn some leeway, especially since a warning would have gotten the point across just as well.
I also found the situation disappointing.
The past comments should have probably had censure, the fact that you felt such a comment was within the rules is a problem. That sounds like a mod failing.
It did provide you leeway. If you were a problematic poster I would have given 3-7 days, or maybe that would have been the last straw and it would have been a permaban. A warning is appropriate when someone has just barely crossed the line. When overstepping it too far a harsher response is necessary. The further you cross the line the harsher the response. This is to let you know and other posters know where that line is.
Your comment here makes me think the ban was not harsh enough. I'd never reban you for the same offense. But I want to make it as clear as possible: the comment you made was real bad, and it clearly broke a few of our discussion rules. You need to avoid making these comments or you will quickly blow through any good will you have earned through quality comments.
We have permabanned users with multiple AAQCs to their name. It is sad when it happens, but we will do it if it becomes necessary. In the few cases of this happening that I remember, the users always seemed surprised by their permaban. They had became so accustomed to their good posting being a shield that they lost the habits of avoiding bad posting. I have wondered before if that was a failing on the part of the mods. That we let the bad posting go on long enough unpunished (or lightly punished) that it became a habit.
I'm curious. Who?
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Antagonistic, uncharitable and unkind.
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So they should just jettison their entire career and passion and identity to make a point because someone found a way to bring a gun to a knife fight?
By boycotting a fight that brings a risk of severe bodily harm? If they don't, then the lady doth not protest enough as far as I'm concerned.
If someone brings a gun out while you're scheduled for an afternoon bout of competitive knifing, you first clear the premises before trying anything else.
Not that I think their career would be at much risk if they did the above, especially as a group.
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Unfathomably based.
As Sailer likes to remark from time to time, the most popular men’s sports are like a stand-in for war, the most popular women’s sports are like beauty contests.
And the women are happy to oblige. Hence why female indoor volleyball players wear skin tight booty shorts to spend much of their time bent over in the ready position, women’s MMA has a well-trodden MMA -> e-thot -> OnlyFans pipeline, and many female tennis players are more than eager to engage in some Instathottery. Kournikova walked so Bouchard could run.
Meh. I watch MMA and the actual contests aren't beauty competitions. See this. Obviously tastes may vary, but I don't try to get my titillation from any place that might lead me to seeing a woman like that. Women's dress is also not that different from men's (women get a rash guard) so it's not like a volleyball thing.
A few women (Paige VanZant) who are atypically attractive (by sport standards) go into Onlyfans but then you might as well say that being a lawyer, KFC employee and random internet sensations famous for totally different reasons are beauty contestant winners.
Prominent successes like Amanda Nunes and even Valentina Shevchenko aren't really in that niche.
The simple take is that Onlyfans, by virtue of "Uberizing" sex work, allows any attractive woman to translate even a minor platform more directly into simp-provided income. A sport like MMA which pays less will simply have more people joining the game.
You might be surprised (or not) at how much female MMA fighters enjoy being sex objects. An example would be Joanna herself, who got breast implants even when weight cuts were already difficult for her. Her revealed preference was that she preferred optimising being a sex object rather than optimising competitive performance.
Indeed, women’s MMA or volleyball or tennis or even gymnastics or figure skating aren’t literal beauty competitions in the strict sense, where the winner is declared based on who’s supposedly more beautiful. Even literal beauty contests aren’t literal beauty contests, as they typically involve political and idpol considerations, and ability to deliver some progressive-aligned opinion.
Nonetheless, the point of metaphorising popular women’s sports to a beauty contest is that oftentimes, women’s sports are but paths for women to launder and leverage their sexuality, another path to have a plausibly deniable way to display, exhibit, advertise their assets.
I certainly know of Amanda, but I’m not too familiar with her on-goings. However, Valentina is totally in the e-thot niche. “The Bullet” knows what she’s doing: her Insta is filled with bikini pics, and she often posts videos of her doing little dances on social media as can be sometimes seen on /r/ufc and less so /r/mma. It's no coincidence that Valentina is a face that’s launched a thousand simps, hence the infamous ‘complete’ pasta:
*Of all the women's MMA champions of all time (so far) she seems like the most 'complete' human being - by far. Skilled, tough, smart, beautiful, extensive world travels and has lived in the 3rd world for long periods, speaks multiple languages, tactical firearms training/enthusiast, dancer, film/arts school, actress, outdoorsy, etc.
You can tell she genuinely has her shit together, like she could probably be a millionaire running just about any business, if she wanted.
Are there any other female fighters that impressive?*
I would posit it’s mostly because, chances are, a given female MMA fighter has had a lot less paternal investment in her life compared to say, a given WTA player, where fathers are typically quite involved. Thus, many more female MMA fighters will engage in what is sometimes referred to as “fatherless behavior.” The Bouchards, Badosas, and Giorgis of the world will post slutty photos on Instagram to their fathers’ annoyance and exasperation (RIP to their fathers, especially Sergio Giorgi), but haven’t crossed the Rubicon to OnlyFans or porn. At least so far! Growth mindset.
Fair point on JJ's absurd implants - which slipped my mind. Though I don't know what personal circumstances motivated her. Lots of different targets when you optimize sex appeal. It's possible she was seeing the end of her career and wanted to be sexier for the final catch.
My point was that those sports do things that are clearly for titillation e.g. how female volleyball players dress compared to men. In MMA women either dress equally modestly (given existing norms about male-female modesty) or dress more conservatively (from a gender-blind perspective).
And then they go engage in a traditionally masculine activity that is not known to improve anyone's beauty, let alone a woman's.
MMA is...not a good sport for that. Because it pays less at the low end, comes with significant potential physical downsides that affect your sex appeal and is also mainly not a self-feeding sport: people in MMA got there through something else, usually a lifetime of training something else. Something that avoids at least some of these problems (e.g. grappling poses less of a risk to your pretty face).
Mackenzie Dern was already hot. She could have been a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu instathot. Her sex appeal is not improved by getting punched in the face, I don't care what feminists say; that sort of "empowerment" isn't hot.
How bout: plenty of women will use their sexuality as suits them. Attractive athletes will leverage it where they can but it's probably not why they were training at 13. Ronda Rousey didn't give up her youth becoming a judoka to launder and leverage her sexuality I don't think (she did it, like many, cause that's what her mother wanted). But, when she got famous, she did leverage her "hot - for sports" nature.
TBH she could have just dressed provocatively rather than ruin her knees trying to place in Judo. Works for most women.
Oh, I'm well aware of /r/MMA's crush on Valentina. That's why I said "even Shevchenko".
She's "sports-hot" and gets simps for that reason. But my general perception of her is not as an Thot and not that the UFC promotes her that way.
She's promoted (or was promoted) on the grounds of being a technical (some might say "boring") fighter. But, tbf, I don't really follow her Instagram besides the general idea of her as a jet-setting, multilingual, gun-toting, James Bond-esque badass. Maybe I missed things.
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This but unpatronisingly.
I'm far from an athlete, the only sports I do is for health, I never liked competing, and yet I find myself wanting to smack the living hell out fellow nerds who completely miss the point of sports. It is the least surprising thing in the universe, that the person saying the above is also a transhumanist.
In sports, the actual physical achievement is just the cherry on top, a certificate of accomplishment, a badge you can wear and show off, but which you only get for putting in the work, but the actual thing is about the work itself. It's about showing up for training every day, and persisting throughout all the failures. Virtually all benefits of sports, to the individual as well as society, come from the latter not the former, and it's blindingly obvious it should be encouraged in everyone, regardless of their level of achievement. But some people seem to be indeed blinded by it.
Does showing up for daily events in Genshin/WoW/the likes and persisitng useful for society somehow?
Your posting doesn't show causal mechanism besides "blindingly obvious"
About as much as going on a rigorous diet of pizza, hamburgers, coke, and chocolate cake.
How can you not see the difference?
What is the causal mechanism?
Actual professional sportsmen usually like their chosen discipliple (self-selection), so this point doesn't fly.
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Maybe a fairer comparison is having a team and playing a ranked RTS with them?
Depends on the RTS. Chess is complex enough that we kind of treat it as a sport. With video games some of them would probably go in the fast food category, while others could go in the sports category.
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This isn't what sports is about at all. Sports IS about the physical achievement - Usain Bolt doesn't train harder than other people, but he still gets medals, because the medal is for the physical achievement, not for how many hours of your life you can sink into training. And wouldn't this be an argument in favor of women's sports? Women can train just as hard and obsessively as men. But the point is not the training but the result.
Yes, that's why we subsidize it.
The result is what gets the eyeballs, and what inspires people, but I don't think it's the point.
I think you're 100% right here. Fat little kids running around kicking worn out soccer balls to play like Messi is an infinitely positive social good, even if they never get any better than "pretty bad at this." I used to be a pretty big sportsball hater, but now I'm in favor of anything that gets people off their phones and moving around.
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Striving for self-improvement every day is a commendable goal. I agree with your entire last paragraph. However, my frustration with non-transhuman sports is that we've been approaching it wrong. By establishing boundaries on the extent of self-improvement, we've failed to encourage individuals to truly maximize their potential. Imagine how much stronger and healthier you could be with a carefully developed and safe PED stack? Society discourages such considerations. How much greater could you become by aiming for a pair of cybernetic limbs? Integrating the best technology is a core component of human betterment. Rejecting this notion undermines the very premise.
The purpose of sports is to teach people to continuously strive to push the limits of human physicality—except, it seems, when it comes to genuinely pushing those limits. Sports have always been constrained, sanitized by the types of self-improvement that the general public finds acceptable. This approach is marred by the sentiment, 'I don't want to better myself in this way, so no one else should be rewarded for it either.' It's affirmative action for bioconservatives.
I think the easy strawman to this is Mr. Tex's vision of unrestricted sports.
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The purpose of sports is to win. It is, at it's core, a competition. And the goal of competition is to be the victor.
There is no high-minded 'pushing the physical limitations' involved here. I assure you, the last thing you want is to have transhuman philosophy applied by people that, while not insane, are atleast slightly off kilter from the rest of humanity.
You have to be. Consider; These are the people that literally and metaphorically torture themselves just for... what, five minutes of glory? If that? You have the apex, the celebrities, yes, but that's some long odds to bet with chancy return on that investment.
And you don't find reasonable men at the top of mountains.
Sports and competition are the last places I'd be applying transhumanism.
I agree that there is a focus on victory. But come now. Hardly anyone reaches the top without falling in love with something about the feeling of climbing.
And I'm not looking to the tops of mountains for reasonable men. I look to the tops of mountains for Great men. For men so mad that when they reach the top, they begin to teach themselves to fly.
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Maybe there does exist a carefully-developed and safe PED stack which could significantly enhance performance without significant side effects, but as soon as you allow any PEDs, there would be a strong incentive to disregard health and take the highest possible dose. In the end, the ranking still ends up being a combination of genetics and hard work, except all the athletes have now destroyed their hearts and livers. It's a prisoner's dilemma.
Edit: If you allow cybernetic enhancements, implants, etc., you would still need some restrictions, otherwise a shot putter could just mount a trebuchet on their back. The line has to be drawn somewhere, and "no cybernetics at all" is a very natural place to do it.
If the Olympics committee doesn't ban cochlear implants or pacemakers, then we're already past the "no cybernetics" line.
At any rate, I'm personally not concerned about the prisoners dilemma here because the athletes in question are competent adults who can simply choose not to compete or stick to the kiddy leagues/baseline only competitions instead.
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This is a valid concern. Ideally, sports would gatekeep based on the actual end result concerning health and sustainability. Currently, it is acceptable to destroy your body through non-PED methods but unacceptable to improve your health with PED methods. If health is part of bettering oneself, and that's the point of sports, the current system is using very poor heuristics for it.
Regarding restrictions on cybernetic implants, I believe you might be mistaken about where we are drawing the line right now. We do permit glasses, for instance. So, our boundary is more like "Only cybernetics that enhance people to a perceived human norm," which is also a somewhat natural distinction.
I do think the appeal of sports needs to relate in some way to the human body, and technological advancements should be integrated into that body. Otherwise, it becomes more like a vehicle expo than a competition to enhance human morphology. In the long term, we might decide to move on to less human morphologies, but at that point, I think there will be plenty of room to subdivide by factors such as morphology type and weight class.
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Well, yes. The point is pushing to the limits, and even going too far with that is frowned upon (see: doping scandals). You're arguing for pushing past the limits, and if you do that, you're no longer human. As a transhumanist, you likely believe this is the entire point, but there's a whole bunch of us naked monkeys that would like to remain the way we are, thank you very much.
Well, regarding your affinity for the classically human, I'll just reiterate from a past post that I'm fine with the neo-Amish existing. And am even willing to protect them if they decide to stay human while I race ahead into the unknowns of the alien frontier. But I'm not going to sit by and let "you can be whatever you want to be when you grow up" remain an empty platitude parents tell their children. When I say it I mean it.
Yeah, that seems fair.
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Citation needed
Even experience for programming contests generalize poorly to useful programming, and what about growing more muscles or doing useless things?
I think that professional sports are detriment to the society. As they age, athletes can't compete anymore, many did not accumulate enough money, some can find work as a coach but many do not, and often find themselves in crime.
Do you have any examples of this? I'd genuinely never heard of that before.
It was big in ex-USSR, here's song "We are former sportsmen, current racketeers"
https://youtube.com/watch?v=APPx0VtwYpw
Of course, obviously less an issue in richer countries.
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OJ after the civil trial, but he's admittedly somewhat a special case.
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I do not miss the point, I simply do not care about the point.
Not that I'd expect you to notice that, you treat transhumanists like they killed both your parents in a deserted alley.
More chill, please.
I'd like to say that Arjin has been less than charitable before, to the point of threatening to murder all transhumanists.
In that light, pointing out his jaundiced perspective on the matter is me being about as chill as it gets.
I do not recall any death threats, but be sure to report them if you see them.
Maybe he means this. It was an obvious joke IMO, but if I deserve to be spanked, you can spank me, daddy.
I any case, I was also a bit unchill with "that the person saying the above is also a transhumanist".
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It's more about what you're planning to do to my descendants, than what you did to my ancestors, but yeah, I suppose you're right.
It is also about what they did to our ancestors. Do not forget that eugenics was a progressive and transhumanist idea. Unlike backwards conservatives, we progressives understand The Science of Darwinism, and we also have moral strength to do what is right. We will employ population-wide controls to weed out genetic diseases, and make humanity clean once and for all. There will be some eggs broken making this omelette, but the only thing that can cast moral judgement on us is the man at the end of history. And we know for sure that this Man is a transhumanist of unspecified cultural and ethnic background, but who has unlocked the universal [trans]human potential in his true consciousness. This man will thank us for progressing The Work ushering him forth.
Oh, I do bring that up when appropriate, but for the most part I let bygones be bygones.
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