335 karma · joined September 26, 2023
The first place spot on that competition was given to Claire Law, who is a male. In second place is Sarah Flamm, an actual woman, who should have been awarded the winning place.
In fact, the difference between male and female athletic performance is so stark that even the most elite female athletes are at a disadvantage compared to teenage boys: https://boysvswomen.com
Athletes who dope don't always dominate, but it still gives them an unfair advantage. Same as when males compete in women's events.
That said, in some women's sporting leagues these males are actually dominating - see https://shewon.org for a list of the many hundreds of women who have been denied their place on the podium by trans-identifying male athletes.
Does every athlete who dopes win a medal or a spot on the podium? No, but it's still cheating, still an unfair advantage. Again, just as it is when any male competes in women's sport.
Female athletes aren't the only group to have protected competitive categories. For example, dwarf basketball leagues exist, where all players have to be below a certain height. Would it be fair for a player who is actually 6'6" tall to 'identify as short' and enter their competitions? No, of course not. It's as nonsensical and unfair as males 'identifying as female' to compete against female athletes.
Please take the time to read the resources I linked so you can actually understand the argument.
> Your argument is just transphobia and I understand you can be scared of things but don't allow that to ostracize a (small) group of people who just want to fit in.
That small group of people is men who very selfishly desire to compete in women's sports, regardless of how unfair this is on female athletes.
You're only looking at this from the male perspective, and are apparently unwilling to respect or understand women's boundaries. I suspect this is why you're not seeing the problem.
I also linked you data which shows that males have won hundreds of medals in women's competitions, and provided you a case study in the form of a very illustrative graph showing the performance of trans-identifying male weightlifter Laurel Hubbard in the World Masters, compared to both female and male cohorts, which places him solidly in the latter despite competing against the former - for which he 'won' a gold medal.
> Perhaps it is easier for you to think of female sports as "a protected category for people who do not have male levels of testosterone".
No, it's a protected category for female athletes, despite some sporting bodies undermining this in recent years. Testosterone suppression does not unbuild a male, nor does it convert his male body to a female body. All you end up with is a somewhat weakened male, yet one who still retains significant advantage from his testosterone-driven male development.
A female athlete who doped with androgens for years wouldn't be allowed to compete in women's sports even if she's ceased doping, for obvious reasons. Yet somehow it's considered acceptable for male athletes who've had the effects of testosterone in utero, post-natally and throughout puberty to do so, as long as they start androgen suppression as adults - or, for some competitions, do nothing more than 'identify as female'. This double standard makes no sense whatsoever, is clearly unfair, and is an insult to women.
This male advantage remains even for those who choose to lower their testosterone levels; they retain strength and muscle mass above women, and their overall skeletal structure remains intact too: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7846503
One can also easily see the difference when comparing equivalent female and male competitions. For example, here's a graph of weights lifted in a decade of World Masters events, combining both W35 and M35 - it's very obvious which data point is the male competing in the women's event: https://b.thumbs.redditmedia.com/JrzQoA6fWKtYdm8auCMj6RKil0Y...
What all the data we have so far shows is that allowing males to compete in women's sports disadvantages women and shatters their athletic opportunities.
> I think they should be included because it's the human thing to do.
Women are human too you know. Their needs matter as much as those of men, and more so in female-centered spaces. Women's sports don't exist to be a therapeutic setting for men who desire to be women. They're for female athletes, who deserve the same opportunity as male athletes to enjoy fair competition and have their athletic excellence celebrated.
> I think a lot of conservative types not long ago didn't think women should even be playing sports, so it's ironic that the sanctity of female sports is so important now.
It's important for female athletes regardless of what opinions conservatives may or may not have about this issue.
Even just one of these men competing in a women's sporting event is a problem, in the same way that even one athlete doping is a problem. It's unfair and adversely affects every other competitor in the event. So while that website shows hundreds of women displaced from the winning spots, the overall impact is likely more in the thousands or even tens of thousands, depending on how many competitors were in each event.
The more fundamental principle is that women's sports exist to celebrate female athletic excellence, and for women to have spaces to compete fairly and safely against each other, at all levels of competition. Allowing males to compete entirely undermines this.
That's 242 winning places which women lost to men in cycling, 117 in track and field, 65 in mountain biking, 43 in disc golf, 38 in swimming, 20 in powerlifting, and the rest in a wide variety of other sports.
197 first place podium spots that women athletes have lost to men, 177 second places lost, and 168 third places.
Do you still believe this is not a problem for female athletes, even after being shown data proving otherwise?
These males are ruining sports for women athletes, as are the sporting bodies whose policies have enabled this. Some women have even quit the sports they've worked so hard to compete in, because of how unfair this situation is.
Yes there are, see https://shewon.org for an increasingly long list of women who have been pushed off the podium by trans-identifying males competing as women.
Some women are even quitting the sports they've trained so hard for, because these males are ruining the competition, e.g. see https://www.outkick.com/cycling-champ-hannah-arensman-retire....
The males who compete in women's sports aren't being marginalized, in fact quite the opposite, they are dominating the competition and causing female athletes to be marginalized in their own sports. It's rank misogyny, centering male demands and desires way above any sense of fairness and safety for women.
If this website is indeed a parody aimed at the male intruders ruining women's sport, then I'm all for it. These cheating men and the sporting bodies that enable them deserve all the criticism they get.