Caitlyn Jenner Says Biological Boys Who Are Trans Shouldn't Compete in Female Sports

submitted by purrvana from tmz.com

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[–]wokuspokus 10 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 0 fun11 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

I meant in regards to professional sports. It doesn’t really matter if he competed in the 1920s or 2000s- the differences between men and women are eternal. A lot of athletes have spoken out against it with logical arguments. There also has been athletes who are pro-transwomen in women’s sports but they don’t provide any actual science. Interestingly I haven’t seen a male speak up for TW in women’s sports, but there’s been a few women wanting to pull up the drawbridge behind them. It is good to have a high profile, sensible trans person speaking out against the madness. Will certainly be interesting to see what the dems do.

[–]MarkTwainiac 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Just to clarify: Jenner's original comment to TMZ was about males competing in "girls' school sports" specifically. Not about professional sports. This tracks with the bills that have been proposed, and in some cases passed, by many state legislatures: they are about scholastic sports from primary school through college/uni. For a variety of reasons, funding primary among them, states have considerable say over what happens in schools and between schools within their borders. The federal government does as well, which long has created tension and conflict between the federal government and the states about certain issues, most notably racial segregation, prayer in schools, sex ed, evolution & creationism.

Professional sports and amateur sports that are extracurricular & not connected in any way to schools are different areas not subject to state control to the extent that scholastic sports are. Also, Jenner's fame as an athlete came from him competing in sports as an "amateur." Professional athletes weren't allowed in the Olympics until 1986. From his Wikipedia entry:

In the 1970s, Olympic athletes were considered to be amateurs and were not allowed to seek or accept payment for their positions as sports celebrities... After the expected Olympic success, Jenner planned to cash in on whatever celebrity status could follow a gold medal in the same mold as Johnny Weissmuller and Sonja Henie, who had become major movie stars following their gold medals. This would require forgoing any future Olympic competition.

In the late 70s, Jenner was signed by a NBA team, though he never actually played for them. He later had a short career as a professional race car driver. An excellent golfer, Jenner has also competed in many pro-am golf tournaments, but I believe always as an amateur.

Since his "transition," Jenner has competed in - and won - some women's golf tournaments, uses women's locker rooms, and also often (sometimes?) uses the women's tees rather than the men's. https://www.desertsun.com/story/sports/golf/ana-inspiration/2017/03/29/caitlyn-jenner-returns-desert-lpga-pro-am/99788708/

Most significant, in the past Jenner has publicly been unequivocal in stating that that males who identify as the opposite sex should be able to compete in girls & women's sports across the board because, he has claimed, the International Olympic Committee has determined beyond doubt that males who suppress their T as part of "transition" have no advantages over females in sports. At the start of this trans propaganda film from 2016 https://youtu.be/qZ8axU8POs4 Jenner said:

I don't think a transgendered athlete - male to female, female to male, whatever it may be - really has any advantage whatsoever. There's so much more to sports than gender, than your identity. No one gives anything away in sports. You've got to earn it.

At 14:13 he said

The public thinks that the trans female has a tremendous advantage over all the other girls. I think the IOC is proving that this is not the case.

And he added that so long as an adult TIM abides by the IOC's rule to lower his T to 10 nmol/L (a level 5-33 times higher than the normal female range) for 12 months, then being male

is no advantage whatsoever,

It's because of his past position and his behavior that his comments about school sports yesterday are so significant - and hypocritical.

[–]lefterfield 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I know that you meant in regards to professional sports. Not trying to be pedantic, I just see people doing this all the time now where personal experience is the only knowledge that's taken seriously. On something as basic as this, being an olympic athlete should be irrelevant. Any man or woman or says it's unfair should be heard, because it's obvious.

[–]MarkTwainiac 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I agree with you completely about the "privileging" LOL of" lived experience" and personal knowledge generally.** I was just trying to clarify the other issues. In the discussions about "saving women's sports," a lot of the distinctions that are important keep getting lost. Like it's become common to say today that in the US there were no girls & women's sports until Title IX. Which isn't true. Many girls & women who grew up before Title X did tons of sports, but we mostly did them outside of & apart from school. Title IX affected only affected scholastic sports (and other school programs).

Even if every state legislature in the US passed laws prohibiting males from using gender identity claims to participate in female scholastic sports, it would still not settle the matter for all the sports in the US - amateur & professional, youth & adult - that take place outside educational contexts, and whose rules are set by a dizzying array of sports governing bodies such as the NFL, MLB, NBA, Little League, NHL, USTA, USTAFA, PGA, LGPA, USA Swimming, US Ski & Snowboard, USA Surfing, WorldSkate, Amateur Softball Association of the USA, US Croquet Association and so on.

**I would, however, add that having "lived experience" in an area or personal dealings with certain situations sometimes is what prompts people to look into and study up on a particular topic. For example, I've been prompted to research physical differences between the sexes because a couple of genetic diseases that manifest very differently in males & females run in my family, and I only learned about the puberty of infancy coz I have children.

To become an Olympic-class athlete, a person really has to spend years learning in great detail about how human bodies work and what they can do - and in virtually every sport there have always been different performance standards for the two sexes. So the way I see it, being an Olympic athlete actually is relevant, or can be. Which is why the statements in support of female-only sports from Daley Thompson, the UK athlete who won the Olympic gold in the decathlon after Jenner, have also been important and newsworthy. Same goes for the statements about Caster Semenya and other XY DSD athletes in women's sports made by Edwin Moses, the great USA track & field athlete of the 70s & 80s who won golds in the 400m hurdles in 1976 and 1984.

I actually think Jenner's personal insight informed by his "lived experience" here might be valuable. After all, he first became an athletics star in school sports at a time when virtually all school sports opportunities in the USA were for male students only. Moreover, he first made his name in two sports - USA style football, then the decathlon - in which female athletes cannot compete either coz it's too dangerous (football) or the rules specifically say this sport (the 10-event decathlon) is for males-only and no female decathlon is allowed. (After much lobbying, the Olympics finally added a women's 7-event heptathlon in the 1980s; and since 2001 the IAAF has allowed a women's decathlon. However, there is still no women's Olympic decathlon.) As a result of his "lived experience," Jenner has to be aware that if he had declared himself to to be a woman in his youth & expressed his "authentic self" his whole life, he never would have had any chance in hell to become one of the most famous, most heralded athletes of all time.

Also, as a father of six, a stepfather and a grandfather, as well as a man who has been married to three different women - and who has spent 53 years of his life as a man married to female partners, starting at age 23 - I suspect that from his own personal experience, Jenner knows full well deep down that there are lots of differences between girls & women and all the boys & men who wish they were & claim to be the opposite sex. A lot of TIMs who once publicly insisted there was no difference - including public figures like Jan Morris, Renee Richards, Debbie Hayton - later on came out stating that based on more "lived experience," observation and consideration, they changed their minds. Even Joanna Harper, the TRA TIM who trumped up the dodgy "science" to get the IOC to let TIMs into women's sports if they suppress their T for a year, has done an about-face, admitting this year that the claims he made to the IOC in 2015 are not supported by the actual science.