LGBTQ rights

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Mori Chu
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Re: LGBTQ rights

Post by Mori Chu »

Curious what folks here think about trans competition in the Olympics. Apparently trans athletes are allowed to compete in the Olympic events under the gender they identify with, with some specifics and constraints for each sport. I generally feel very positive and supportive of trans rights. But I do wonder about sports competition and how to make things fair and fun for everyone. In this case it seems that an athlete in the women's boxing had high hormone levels or may have been a trans woman, and she was quite dominant in her fight against a cis woman, who forfeited 1 minute in. Apparently the boxer had failed a gender-related test but was allowed to box in the women's event anyway. The comments under this tweet are mostly anti-trans puke but I do wonder what's the best way to keep things fair.


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TOO
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Re: LGBTQ rights

Post by TOO »

Not a fan, there is just too much of a physical advantage.

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Split T
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Re: LGBTQ rights

Post by Split T »

For what it’s worth, I don’t believe she’s a trans athlete…she was born female and lived her whole life female…she was tested and determined to have XY chromosomes in 2023…I can’t say that I’ve looked into it much, but it’s more of an intersex thing than a trans thing.

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Superbone
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Re: LGBTQ rights

Post by Superbone »

Split T wrote:
Thu Aug 01, 2024 8:32 am
For what it’s worth, I don’t believe she’s a trans athlete…she was born female and lived her whole life female…she was tested and determined to have XY chromosomes in 2023…I can’t say that I’ve looked into it much, but it’s more of an intersex thing than a trans thing.
That's different then. Yeah, I don't think anybody born male should ever be allowed to compete against women.
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Nodack
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Re: LGBTQ rights

Post by Nodack »

I agree. The Algerian girl was banned from previous international events because she failed her gender test. I have been trying to find out if she was just born that way or has been taking anything to enhance her male side. Details are sketchy. The Italian girl seems to think she was fighting a man.

I have no problem with male Trans people competing as men.
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Mori Chu
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Re: LGBTQ rights

Post by Mori Chu »

Yeah I don't think I have an opinion yet; it's a very complex and tough issue. We do seem to have a precedent that it's okay to segregate athletic competition based on various factors like sex/gender or weight class (boxing) or others. So if there becomes a problem with trans folk breaking the sports they compete in, I am not opposed to trying to figure out what can be done to make things enjoyable for everybody.

The example I think about a lot is, I have an uncle who is a former champion chess player. But he's deaf, and he often competed in "deaf chess" tournaments. I thought, why? Why is there a separate category for deaf players? Chess doesn't have any sound. It doesn't seem relevant to separate out deaf players. But they wanted a separate set of tournaments and events just for them, for their community. So sometimes it's about skill level or physical gifts, and sometimes it's just about a community of people who prefer to compete against each other rather than open things up for everyone.

I don't know what you do with, say, trans women who have larger musculatures from being born male. Or folks with nonstandard chromosomes like XXY, or cis women with unusually high natural hormone levels. Such people exist; where can they fit in?

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Mori Chu
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Re: LGBTQ rights

Post by Mori Chu »

Of course, JD Vance and other Republicans have been quick to jump on this. They're calling the Olympic boxer "trans" even though that seems to be factually incorrect. They love to call a trans woman a "man" but my understanding is that this boxer was born with female anatomy despite having XY chromosomes and has always identified as female since birth.


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Nodack
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Re: LGBTQ rights

Post by Nodack »

From what I have been able to gather, she was born a girl and I think is happy with being a girl. The problem was elevated levels of testosterone. I think of the commercials advertising pills to increase testosterone levels so you can be a real man again. I just read this scientific article on it and it contends that elevated levels of testosterone can happen naturally in some women. The runner from Chad has elevated levels and they say it makes her more like a man and gives her an advantage over other women. Is that what happened to the boxer and I think another boxer too?

If that is that case it opens up another Pandora’s box. I am not a doctor or have ever played one but, it seems to me that the different between being a male and a female isn’t that far apart. One chromosome goes this way and you have a girl. One the other way and you get a boy. Sometimes I believe people come out with mixed chromosomes and have different levels of male and female characteristics, physically and mentally.

A girl who feels like a man mentally. A girl who feels like a woman mentally but has elevated levels of testosterone and male abilities. Gays, straight and bi people. I guess we have to deal with that on a competitive level. Do they start matching up testosterone levels in sports?

https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... -athletes/
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Nodack
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Re: LGBTQ rights

Post by Nodack »

From reading this it sounds like she beat some Russian girl in a competition run by the IBA and that’s when the Russian owned IBA banned her. The whole thing sounds like BS and nothing to do with Trans anything. Poor girl.

https://apnews.com/article/olympics-202 ... 1884dcdaa9
Khelif reached the final of the 2023 world championships before she was abruptly disqualified by the IBA, which cited high levels of testosterone in her system. The circumstances of that disqualification have been considered highly unusual ever since it happened, and Khelif called it “a big conspiracy” at the time.

She had previously competed without issues and was disqualified by the sport’s governing body only after she defeated Russian boxer Azalia Amineva in the 2023 tournament. The IBA is controlled by Umar Kremlev, who is Russian and brought in the state-owned energy supplier Gazprom as its primary sponsor and moved much of the governing body’s operations to Russia.

The reasons for the two disqualifications are extremely murky, as is almost always the case with the IBA. The governing body has revealed little about the nature of the tests, including what was tested and who tested it. This lack of transparency would be unacceptable in major Olympic sports, and the IBA has been banned from the Olympics since 2019.

The IOC noted Thursday that the boxing association’s own documents say the decision was made unilaterally by the IBA’s secretary general.
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Mori Chu
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Re: LGBTQ rights

Post by Mori Chu »

Trump is talking about the controversy around the Algerian women's boxer, Khelif. While I do think competitors like Khelif raise interesting questions about fair play, it is factually false to call Khelif "transgender" and I also think it's false and hurtful to call her a "man" or "male boxer." Trump specifically says that Khelif "transitioned" which is completely untrue.

Khelif is a good illustration of the complexities of gender: born and always identified as female, with female genitalia, but with the XY chromosome pair much more common in males. The tidal wave of hate she is getting from the GOP is really staggering. Want to talk about the issue, fine, but stop calling her a man and leave her alone; it isn't her fault she's born that way, and she's competing within the rules of the sport and Olympics as currently established. What do you want from her? (To just go away, because she is "yucky" to them, most likely.)


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Split T
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Re: LGBTQ rights

Post by Split T »

This is the world we live in…just repeat a lie that will get your followers all worked up…two weeks from now when the Olympics are over it will be forgotten.

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Mori Chu
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Re: LGBTQ rights

Post by Mori Chu »

A college in Virginia has banned transgender students outright.


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