I have concerns too. The most pressing concerns are about how they’re being threatened and bullied, and centrists like Harris and Newsom are facilitating it.
I’m also concerned for their safety and wellbeing. That’s why you’re concerned, right Mrs. Harris?
…That’s why you’re concerned, right?
Concerned about, not for.
Fucking spineless weathervane. No wonder she lost. Focus group driven decision making.
Oh look it’s not just Newsom and that rep from Georgia anymore. The spineless democrats are testing the waters now to see how throwing trans people under the bus will go.
It is not throwing trans people under the bus to keep trans women out of competitive female sports.
This needs to stop being a hill that people want to die on. It’s fucking rediculous to argue they should be allowed to participate in a discriminatory category we created intentionally to allow non-competitive persons to have their own competition.
Sorry trans women, theres literally one extremely specific thing you aren’t allowed to do. I support you in literally any other life endeavor, or in playing that sport recreationally or competitively in an open gender category.
Calling women athletes “non-competitive” tells us what you think of women athletes.
There are competitive sports where gender literally doesn’t matter (like darts.) There are sports that require subdivisions within them to allow equally skilled athletes of different physiological builds to compete (boxing.)
The thing is, sports regulatory bodies were already making the decisions of how trans and intersex athletes can compete. To say that trans athletes should be kept out of all competitive female sports shows that you either have it in for trans people or you just don’t understand sports.
And no one yet has given a coherent argument for why the government should be involved.
You and I both know that women are not competitive with men in most sports. You pretending that they are (or could be) is just a bad faith argument.
The darts argument is also in bad faith, there’s no restriction in the primary darts tournament series based on gender at all, and they do not have a separate women’s category for the normal tournaments. There are a handful of women’s only events, but they are not part of the main tours in which anyone can compete.
Find me an example of a professional female boxer beating a professional male boxer within the same weight class. I’ll wait. Here’s arguably one of the best female boxers, with a 54-0 record and multiple world titles. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucia_Rijker, She got KOed in the second round by an amateur kickboxer, who was male and 10 pounds lighter than her (1-2 weight classes down depending on the ruleset). He wasn’t as good on technique, but just cleaned her out with more speed and power anyways.
The whole point of having a women’s category is to allow fair competition. Allowing trans women to compete breaks that fairness principle. Just like any sort of doping breaks that fairness principle. If something is possibly unfair, then it’s unfair. Even if most people don’t gain an advantage, it’s still unfair. Unfairness cannot be allowed in competition, it ruins the whole thing.
You’re right that the government shouldn’t be involved, but they were getting banned by sports bodies left right and center for competing unfairly, so it’s the same outcome. The government should still back off and lets sports bodies do it, but it won’t change the inevitable outcome.
Politicians shouldn’t be regulating sports. Period.
Sure, but many sports have banned it without the government’s intervention. So my point still stands.
Do you have examples of non government intervention here? It seems like most organizations were in the process of rewriting their rules to be more inclusive which is why conservatives turned this into a panic.
FINA (The world Swimming body) banned them a few years ago. https://www.npr.org/2022/06/19/1106173020/swimming-bans-transgender-women
World Boxing banned them recently. https://worldboxing.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/World-Boxing-Sex-Eligibility-Policy_FINAL_20Aug25.pdf
World Rugby banned them as well. https://www.npr.org/2022/06/19/1106173020/swimming-bans-transgender-women
World Athletics goes even further, banning any transgender woman who went through male puberty from rankings AND also banning some female at birth women in the ban if they have certain sex-disorders and don’t keep their testosterone levels extremely low.
I’m not sure any of these groups are writing them to be more inclusive, unless they simply had no policy before. Lots of the groups that allowed them are even increasing the restrictions, since the old guidelines around testosterone less than 10 nmol seem to have been found to be insufficient and some of those groups have dropped it to 5 instead.
Testosterone is a hell of a performance enhancing drug.
In that first article it notes that the instigating decision was the olympic comittee relaxing testosterone requirements and allowing individual sports to make determinations.
The FINA does straight up allow trans men into men’s sports. If you read the FINA policies one of the ways for a trans woman to compete is to have started puberty blockers at 12 yrs old and maintain normal female levels (less than 15 nmol) whereas the target for therapy is 50 nmol (standard male levels are 300+ with 500 being typical)
So the weird thing here is that it’s not uncommon to see cis women with ~20-30nmol especially among career athletes where they’re already selecting for oddities. The criticism here seems understandandable; I’m not sure its entirely about fairness.
I think the thing that’s crazy about that is that it basically excludes every trans person because its almost impossible to get on blockers that early.
The boxing rules are just sad. How dumb.
Its important to note though these are international orgs targetting top athletes. I’m not sure governments can regulate them. The state intervention being requested is to remove like 2k kids nationwide from like junior varsity teams.
Trans men in men’s categories is a non-issue. It’s a non-issue for a reason, they have no advantage and they’re usually at a disadvantage. There are like a half dozen famous attempts of trans men who have tried to break into competitive mens sports, and none of them have been successful at climbing the rankings or winning any significant competitions, any medals I’ve seen are like (they won silver at the 34-40 age category for Duathalon - This was Chris Mosier) where yes it’s technically competitive, but nobody is winning any prize money.
The public generally speaking doesn’t have any issue with trans men competing against men.
This is the opposite in women’s sports, despite making up such a small portion of the population, there have been more than a few instances of trans women medaling in international competition.
Lia Thomas did such a significant amount of harm to the trans image because of her choices in this regard, but she is living proof that transitioning CAN be unfair in women’s sports. When something can be unfair in competition, it needs to be banned.
At the end of the day, I wish trans women all the opportunities of the world, except competitive women’s sports.
Separate but equal, total neolib move that’s super classy. “Your discomfort is tolerable because I don’t have to deal with it”
Also this is not the only example of dems throwing trans under the bus. The far more egregious example is newsom going on right winger podcasts and giving validity to the utter bullshit of the cass review and the idea that you shouldn’t be allowed to transition until your mid 20s (plus all the sports bullshit). Backing legislature that is anti trans too. not just sports stuff, though there is a lot of that. The NDAA banning trans care for any military children was voted in by several democrats and some states did the same for Medicaid with dem support. Texas’s bathroom bill had some dem support. Memorializing Charlie Kirk, a total shithead who was openly and vehemently anti trans. Etc
No spine, no moral code. End result is a minority class that has constant existential anxiety because one side actively wants to destroy them and the other is like “supporting you is like a whole thing, I’m just in this for the donor money”
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Wouldn’t women have to deal with “discomfort” from losing to males they have no chance of beating?
Do you understand that you’re implying all women are physically inferior to all men? That a man could never lose a race to a woman?
Or do you think we should always exclude all the top athletes because everyone else would also feel “discomfort from losing to [people] they have no chance of beating?"
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Disregarding the rest, transwomen are not all born with typical XY chromosomes and the XX/XY karyotypes for sex designation are a lot more complicated than xx=lady and xy=guy.
Aside from extra or damaged chromosomes, chimerism, and other genetic differences, there are mitigating factors in genetic expression that can affect development in a number of ways. As one example, there are women with XY chromosomes who don’t even know it, and recent studies have found a lot more of them than previously thought to exist.
So, even before taking into account gender dysphoria, sex isn’t that cut and dry in the first place.
Like clockwork, the censorship never fails.
Everyone should make a habit of checking the modlogs to see what these tyrants are trying to keep from us. It’s despicable.
In this case, I’m being censored for saying: “Wouldn’t women have to deal with “discomfort” from losing to males they have no chance of beating?”
checks modlog
I don’t think that was it.
“Women’s sports should exclude men because men are physically superior to women.”
“Trans women literally are males, and I wasn’t specifically referring to them; I was referring to all males.”
“Literally no group of people cries wolf as much as transpeople trying to censor anyone who isn’t loyal.”
Your rhetoric matches that of notable asshole Riley Gaines who competed and tied against Lia Thompson at UPenn then went on to become a maga darling on this issue specifically and eventually just on trans hatred. The linked article is about her rhetoric and how she believes trans sports is the wedge issue to remove trans rights altogether by progressively erasing more and more. They won’t stop here.
Otherwise the trans issue has been debated to death but essentially if someone has been on hrt for a significant period of time the picture is far muddier than what you portray.
I don’t know who those people are and don’t have to answer for anything they’ve said or done. Stay on topic.
Are you trying to suggest that it would be acceptable to have MTF transpeople competing with women if they are “on hrt for a significant period of time”?
You can say that if it’s your argument. You don’t have to say “things are muddier” and expect me to fill in the gaps for you.
Don’t order me around. Maybe face the fact that you are bedfellows with fascist garbage that are using this wedge issue as a foot in the door to completely eradicate what they call “trans ideology” (a fucked up term).
I do have to say that because the issue is overly nuanced and you appear to want to dumb it down to a single issue. Thus: muddier. Hrt for 1-2+ years significantly lowers muscle mass and upper and lower body strength. Hemoglobin is lowered and stamina is impacted. Many of the competitive advantages are neutralized, but not all. Depending on the sport essentially all are. Wingspan and hand size do not change (unless transition started very early, which is another issue that right wing assholes try to block, but that’s a whole separate thing). So what sport? Rowing? More debatable. Golf? Less debatable. Transition started very early, like 7-8 years old? Less debatable.
See? Muddy, nuanced. But again, this has been discussed to death but you morons dont listen and keep just focusing on its not fair because biology even though your understanding of biology apparently ended in 8th grade with a c- in the class
Yeah, you have no idea what you’re talking about.
I’m not looking for you to “dumb it down.” You need to take a stance and own it if you want to say anything of value.
Are you trying to suggest that it would be acceptable to have MTF transpeople competing with women if they are “on hrt for a significant period of time”?
It’s a yes or no question, but you seem to be incapable of giving a yes or no answer. If it depends on the sport, then say “yes for this sport, but no for this one.” You can’t say “more or less debatable” and then say “it’s been discussed to death” as though that means anything.
It’s been discussed so much that you’re unable to take a stand? Seems like more discussion is required, but like I said you don’t seem capable of having one. If you can’t stick your neck out and say “it’s okay after this criteria is met for trans women to compete with women in this sport,” then what are even trying to argue?
The real problem here is that you’re afraid of your own argument, so you want other people to make it for you. That’s just not good enough.
It’s ridiculous your politicians are concerning themselves with school sporting or just sporting events in general.
Leave the schools and sport orgs to decide if they can compete.
There are much more serious problems to deal with than this nonsense
This needs to stop being a hill that people want to die on.
This applies to you and your position at least as much as the people you’re talking about
It really doesn’t. The polling on this issue is very clear, even trans supporters aren’t very in favour of it and its causing a massive backlash against trans rights in general.
Ooo yeah let’s be concerned over the, what .002% of our population doing things they wanna do and being who they wanna be. Yeah that’s a big talking point when 80% of the rest of the country can’t afford rent.
Fuck. Just leave trans people alone already Jesus Christ…
I was about to say its’s 0.75% for USA, but your are probably right once you factor in how many Trans people then have to care about getting into a sport.
USA seems to think every citizen plays or watches sports.
I have had coworkers and randos ask if I saw the game last night, so I have to ask which game? They mention a football/hockey/baseball game. I reply that I don’t watch team sports. They then continue to talk about the game like I’m a decades old fan catching up on what I missed. At this stage I’ve tuned out the details and am actually wondering how their whole life centers around somebody elses accomplishments in a city they have never been to. And also wondering how they missed the cue that I’m not interested in sports.
But that is USA; identity based on guns and sports. Trans somehow becomes an attack on their identity.
The US’s sports obsession is one of the contributors to rising fascism.
The passive but passionate adherence to teams or individual competitors is a form of atavistic servility that is easily repurposed into tribalism.
Who cares what kamala thinks or says?
She lost, quite predictably, after being annointed by establishment tools that brought us hillary and joe, and will fail us with newsom if they can.
Do not follow their lead. They are doomed to fail in unseating r’s let alone restoring society.
She’s trying hard to get back in the game, so she can lose again and lock us even further into fascist rule.
Her willingness to keep showing up is reminiscent of the Washington Generals.
Pretty much. It’s another “Hey let’s demonize those nasty Democrats!” because those get clicks. Because those conservative stories about raping kids and shooting up a place doesn’t get any traction anymore.
We already know who’s most likely to rape kids and shoot places up, and it’s sure as shit not trans people. It’s just more right-wing projection.
Jesus fucking Christ, sports shouldn’t be a political issue at all. It’s literally a fucking game, the government and politicians shouldn’t be involved in this shit at all in the first place. We should care about as much about Kamala’s opinion on the WNBA as we do about her opinion on Minecraft. The leagues are privately-owned companies, let them run their fucking company how they want (which up to this point, has been trans-inclusive).
Agreed, but people are sooooo into sports and their teams. Sometimes I think we’ve turned politics into sports teams, making bipartisan politics harder to achieve.
Why do you think GW Bush’s daddy bought him a baseball team, and why do you think Trump was involved in WWE? The same rube-manipulation techniques that are used in sports are used in fascist politics.
only sometimes?
Generally yes. But the government also enforces civil rights, including against sex and gender discrimination, especially at public (i.e. government-funded) universities.
Did no one actually read the article past the vaguely misleading headline?
“I agree with the concerns expressed by parents and players that we have to take into account biological factors such as muscle mass and unfair student athletic advantage when we determine who plays on which teams, especially in contact sports,” Harris reportedly wrote. “With goodwill and common sense, I believe we can come up with ways to do this, without vilifying and demonizing children.”
There’s no peer-reviewed, statistically sound evidence that trans people have unfair advantages in sports.
Not that sports should matter that much.
Oh, so they are going to mandate weight and height classes across the board for all sports and stop separating sport by gender?
Prior to Republicans passing laws to outright ban transgender athletes from participating altogether, they actually had standards in place for how long athletes had to be on HRT, before they were allowed to compete. By all physical accounts, this meant that those athletes had comparable muscle mass and bone densities to the gender they identified as.
What else would you expect? Even between biological girls of the same age, there are significant differences between individual athletes. Once you include training, diet and other normal genetic factors…the differences between a trans athlete on HRT and a cis athlete is actually well within those standard margins. Any advantage they might have, comes from skill and training alone.
It was more of a joke in how ridiculous it would be to implement such a system… the logistics would be crazy for team sports…
But like you said, it would be easier to just let them play…
If you want to be crazy you can add a new format for anyone, but men… and make the men’s category just open so that anyone can join…
My problem with the article is how much air Americans give to the topic of trans athletes in sports when Americans have more pressing problems. Healthcare, affordability of life, violence are real issues affecting Americans much more than sports games. I don’t think giving air to this conversation is helping Americans.
That’s the entire point of all these “culture war” issues. They’re used as distractions for more pressing matters, that the ruling class really doesn’t want to address, because they know conservatives will be outraged by them, and progressives won’t be able to just let people be victimized, for no reason. If the public tires itself out, fighting over topics like these, there’s a better chance we won’t have the energy to demand real action on more expensive things.
“with goodwill and common sense, I believe we can…”
When the folks across the aisle you’re champing at the bit to reach demonstrate goodwill and common sense, maybe you might have a ghost of a chance. Until such time, you’re validating the position that trans women have no place in established sports.
So…until then, goodwill and common sense shouldn’t apply to your approach? What policy should you adopt, until the other side decides to get their shit together?
Should we advocate for exactly the kind of hyperbolic position that Republicans use as a strawman, to argue against inclusion?
Everything that comes put of Kamala’s mouth concerns culture war crap. I’m convinced she’s just a MAGA sock puppet, because not only does she have no chance of winning over republican voters, but also now alienated democrat voters with this crap. Unbelievable!
Ignore her, and newsom. Jon stewart 2028.
Liberals are toast bro 🤣
Neoliberal garbage. This is why she lost to literal fascists.
And behold the thing that I said was going to happen, has happened. More democrats engaging in transphobia to try to pry votes away from the fascist party by being fascist-lite.
Can we stop pretending the democrats can be reformed now? Their leadership has time and time again proven they do not give one fuck about progressive politics.
Why should I give a shit what a politician says about fucking sports, period?
This ends up being very effective as a wedge issue for Republicans, because they can make shit up about the other side, and run against the lies they tell themselves, because the truthful situation is complicated and the lie is simpler to understand.
Some sports are strictly separated by gender, and some are not. Generally speaking, it’s people who administer the leagues that make that decision. Everything from pro leagues down to rec leagues will have rules based on gender, and they are created by whoever administers the leagues to foster competition.
I don’t feel qualified to know which sports confer a distinct advantage to people who go through male puberty. It certainly isn’t all of them, but there must be some where it makes sense to exclude humans who have gone through male puberty from women’s leagues. But, I don’t feel most politicians are qualified to know that, either. People who know each sport best should make that decision, based on science and the knowledge of their sport, and politicians should just butt out. But you get better soundbites by lying about it and airing grievances about it than by being rational.
It’s only a wedge issue because of people like Harris. If she had a spine and decent values, she could have explained that actually trans athletes in sports are not a serious concern, because look at the data FFS.
My first reaction especially given other things I’ve heard about this book was Wtf is wrong with this lady?
The full quote is not quite as bad as I assumed:
“I agree with the concerns expressed by parents and players that we have to take into account biological factors such as muscle mass and unfair student athletic advantage when we determine who plays on which teams, especially in contact sports,” Harris reportedly wrote. “With goodwill and common sense, I believe we can come up with ways to do this, without vilifying and demonizing children.”
Every time somebody brings up concerns over trans athletes I always think about these images of Katherine Switzer running the Boston Marathon:
I question why we have gender divisions in the first place, bc it’s definitely not that society was ever concerned about fairness. The reason gender divisions were created in the first place, is the same reason we originally had racial based divisions until one day we didn’t.
That guy wasn’t physically assaulting Switzer and trying to stop her from becoming the first woman to run the Boston Marathon bc he was concerned she may be at an unfair disadvantage. He was trying to stop her bc back when the marathon first started somebody made “No girls allowed!” one of the rules, and this guy was uncomfortable with change. It seems pretty obvious now, that was just a dumb and unnecessary rule to begin with.
If this is all really about fairness like people claim, then maybe we should consider just nixing gender divisions entirely and moving to something like weight class or skill level divisions for competitive sports.
There are plenty of sports where gender divisions basically dont exist until you hit the college level. Hockey is a prime example. There are all-girls select youth teams, but all teams that arent exclusively for girls are open to anyone that can hang. There are plenty of girls that play competitively with boys through highschool hockey. There are plenty of women who play with men at the adult level in beer leagues and the like. But at the juniors, college, pro, and olympic levels they are gender divided.
Realistically at the highest levels of play some division does make sense, as that is where the highest level of physicality is allowed, and generally that is the reason why it can be less safe for women to be playing alongside men. As well as the fact that few women would be playing college or pro hockey if there were not gender divisions.
That said however, I see no reason why the odd woman that can hang in upper levels hockey shouldnt be allowed to play, nor would they be barred from doing so if they could. Likewise I can see how forcing womens upper leagues of the sport to accept cis men who cant hang in the upper levels of mens hockey would push women out of the sport. So it makes sense that they have exclusivity there.
Its one of those issues where I have no issue with gender divisions at the highest levels, in the interest of allowing a professional level of womens sport to exist, but at the same time trying to apply that same logic to youth sports completely falls apart. All youth sports should be just be open gendered competitions. If you see open-gendered hockey at the 12-14 year old level the girls are often 1-2ft taller than any of the boys and physically the more dominant group, and yet no one says the boys’ safety is at risk over it.
Not to mention that lost in all of the trans fear-mongering is the fact that when people take hormones their bodies significantly change. If someone born male starts hormone therapy to transition, their feet will shrink, they will lose muscle mass, so on and so forth. So at the end of the day they truly have zero physical advantages over cis women they would compete with in sport. Women’s leagues in the upper levels of a sport make sense, but it also makes perfect sense to allow transwomen to play with them. People dont seem to understand that male physicality is the result of a continual supply of hormones making you look as you are, not solely the result of past hormonally influenced growth. If you cut off the hormones making you a big strong man, you will no longer be big nor strong
I think divisions at the highest level are understandable, but does it absolutely have to be gender based division?
For contact sports like hockey, it would be interesting to see if you really went with a strict division by something like weight class how much would gender really change competitiveness?
Even in gender based divisions for noncontact sports like basketball, individual skill level can be more important than mass. Mugsy Bogues was a pretty rare case, but he was 5’3" and holding his own with guys that were well over 6’ tall.
Maybe divisions with some combination of weight and skill level? Or some other factor? Idk I feel like we’ll never really know until somebody is willing to try.
Generally they are gendered based on physical purposes, but what youre saying makes some sense yeah. In hockey, its gendered both because men play a more physical game and because historically (at least until more recently) women havent had equal access to the sport at the youth level. So both physicality and skill are lacking among women at the pro level. If you forced a women’s league to be open to cismen then cismen would push out all of the women, as they have had more time to develop their skill. The end result would be that many women wouldnt be able to hang well enough to compete with men just as they cannot compete on a mens olympic or pro team. So having a womens exclusive league makes sense. But there also is no rational reason to bar transwomen from competing, since they are also women.
Basketball is the same, and is also a contact sport really. In womens ball, the three point line is shallower than it is in mens basketball because of physicality differences. Mens basketball is also often played more physical and less technical. Womens sports in general often lean on technical skill over physical dominance, which personally I find more interesting to watch. But yeah, there is no reason to bar women from competing with women at high levels of sport just because some of those women might have been born male
The best way for us to move towards having open classes of as much of all sports as is possible would be to make youth sports open-gendered competition, so that any given sport ultimately moves towards neutral rules and styles of play. No different three point lines, etc. And allow women to develop technical skills that can work around their opponents physical advantages the same way that small men are able to find ways to do it in pro mens sports. But that takes time to develop, we cant just drop the rules without that development and expect women not to get clobbered by men when they arent used to competing with men under mens rules and styles of play. Equal access to sport and development is crucial to creating the kind of world that youre talking about, and were pretty far from that
The NFL already allows women. But I don’t think there are any female players, due to physical differences and lack of developmental leagues, like you mentioned.
I think they’ve had female referees, though.
Men have the advantage. I mean high school boys out compete woman Olympians. Sorry but testosterone is a hell of a drug.
Bc testosterone helps build secondary sex characteristics like muscle and bone mass. Other than that it’s not some kind of secret formula for success.
If you had a male and female matched pound for pound for muscle and skill level why would testosterone matter?
There was even a woman goaltender for the Tampa Bay Lightning organization in the 1990s! She tried out for the team and was in minor league hockey for five years.
She did play in two preseason NHL games, in 1991 (allowing two goals on nine shots) and 1993.
