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readyAIMfire53
Joined: 20 Nov 2004
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Location: Durham, NC
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 Posted: 04/09/24 8:11 pm ::: |
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| patsweetpat wrote: |
Speaking as someone who used to be a volunteer crisis line counselor at The Trevor Project-- a hotline for gay and trans youth with suicidal ideation-- I think there are some well-meaning folks in this conversation who don't realize how much harm they do when they scapegoat and other-ize transgender people... and especially transgender youth (such as the transgender child referenced in the linked article upthread). Trans youth represent the most vulnerable and at-risk population we have in this nation. And the difference for them between being accepted for the gender with which they identify, and not being accepted, is often literally the difference between life and death. Not hypothetically, maybe, someday in the future. Now, today, per actual existing data.
I'm not naive enough to think that the above will change the minds of 99.9% of the people browsing through here whose minds are already made up. But maybe that .1% person who reads this might think twice about whether or not his/her hot take on this issue is truly worth the sometimes-fatal harm said take can inflict on others. |
Thank you Pat! Your contribution to this topic is enormous. I will add that for many, there is not a clear DNA answer to which gender they "belong" to. There are a significant number of anomalies leading a person to have an ambiguous biological gender.
If the young people who know which gender they are can undergo whatever treatments before puberty, then they will have biological attributes within the range for the gender they are. The current trend to disallow such treatment means that young people who know they are trans will be denied the opportunity to compete at all since going through puberty can push their values out of the range for their gender.
I was born before school systems had sports teams for girls and even colleges failed to have sports teams before Title IX was passed and enforced. I know what it means to not have the opportunity to compete. I know I would have earned a college scholarship if they had existed for girls. Those who prevent young people from receiving treatment are, in fact, denying the opportunity to compete to these young people.
Those who believe young people can't "know" which gender they are simply haven't met a young person who knows. I knew I was not a girl at age 8, as did all the boys and girls in my elementary school classes who literally pushed me into the boys' line after recess. I also knew what they didn't know: I was not a boy either. I didn't know until much, much later that I was non binary. If I could know at age 8 that I was not a girl and also not a boy, then other 8 year olds can also know which gender they are or are also non binary.
You can yell at me until you're blue in the face that I did not really know what I knew. Yelling will not make you right. I know what I knew. And other young people can know what they know about their gender. They should be allowed to live the life they know they were born to live and, like every other person who needs medical treatment at whatever age, they should be allowed to receive it.
The issue of whether trans people who went through puberty should be allowed to compete as the gender they know they are if their biological values are out of range for their gender is a much more complex issue, as Howie alludes to. I will keep speaking out whenever this topic comes up about what I KNOW that relates to the issue - that young people be allowed to receive treatment before puberty to live as the gender they know they are.
I repeat: gender is not clear by DNA for all people. Those who claim it is clear are simply ignorant of the facts.
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wnbafan
Joined: 20 Nov 2004
Posts: 737
Location: Delaware
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| Posted: 04/10/24 6:28 am ::: |
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| readyAIMfire53 wrote: |
| patsweetpat wrote: |
Speaking as someone who used to be a volunteer crisis line counselor at The Trevor Project-- a hotline for gay and trans youth with suicidal ideation-- I think there are some well-meaning folks in this conversation who don't realize how much harm they do when they scapegoat and other-ize transgender people... and especially transgender youth (such as the transgender child referenced in the linked article upthread). Trans youth represent the most vulnerable and at-risk population we have in this nation. And the difference for them between being accepted for the gender with which they identify, and not being accepted, is often literally the difference between life and death. Not hypothetically, maybe, someday in the future. Now, today, per actual existing data.
I'm not naive enough to think that the above will change the minds of 99.9% of the people browsing through here whose minds are already made up. But maybe that .1% person who reads this might think twice about whether or not his/her hot take on this issue is truly worth the sometimes-fatal harm said take can inflict on others. |
Thank you Pat! Your contribution to this topic is enormous. I will add that for many, there is not a clear DNA answer to which gender they "belong" to. There are a significant number of anomalies leading a person to have an ambiguous biological gender.
If the young people who know which gender they are can undergo whatever treatments before puberty, then they will have biological attributes within the range for the gender they are. The current trend to disallow such treatment means that young people who know they are trans will be denied the opportunity to compete at all since going through puberty can push their values out of the range for their gender.
I was born before school systems had sports teams for girls and even colleges failed to have sports teams before Title IX was passed and enforced. I know what it means to not have the opportunity to compete. I know I would have earned a college scholarship if they had existed for girls. Those who prevent young people from receiving treatment are, in fact, denying the opportunity to compete to these young people.
Those who believe young people can't "know" which gender they are simply haven't met a young person who knows. I knew I was not a girl at age 8, as did all the boys and girls in my elementary school classes who literally pushed me into the boys' line after recess. I also knew what they didn't know: I was not a boy either. I didn't know until much, much later that I was non binary. If I could know at age 8 that I was not a girl and also not a boy, then other 8 year olds can also know which gender they are or are also non binary.
You can yell at me until you're blue in the face that I did not really know what I knew. Yelling will not make you right. I know what I knew. And other young people can know what they know about their gender. They should be allowed to live the life they know they were born to live and, like every other person who needs medical treatment at whatever age, they should be allowed to receive it.
The issue of whether trans people who went through puberty should be allowed to compete as the gender they know they are if their biological values are out of range for their gender is a much more complex issue, as Howie alludes to. I will keep speaking out whenever this topic comes up about what I KNOW that relates to the issue - that young people be allowed to receive treatment before puberty to live as the gender they know they are.
I repeat: gender is not clear by DNA for all people. Those who claim it is clear are simply ignorant of the facts. |
Thank you for your post.
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pilight
Joined: 23 Sep 2004
Posts: 66926
Location: Where the action is
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| Posted: 04/10/24 6:59 am ::: |
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| Most eight-year-olds still believe in Santa Claus. It's understandable that adults are skeptical or even dismissive of what they say they know.
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Howee
Joined: 27 Nov 2009
Posts: 15740
Location: OREGON (in my heart)
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| Posted: 04/10/24 10:16 am ::: |
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| pilight wrote: |
| Most eight-year-olds still believe in Santa Claus. It's understandable that adults are skeptical or even dismissive of what they say they know. |
....which is a flaw or error in judgment on the part of the adults involved. This is why some societal education is in order: there is an enormously tangible difference between the whimsical child wanting to be Batman or Cinderella for a while, and the child who behaves, lives and breathes like the gender opposite their bio bodies for an extended time.
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snichols
Joined: 24 Mar 2010
Posts: 89
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| Posted: 04/10/24 10:26 am ::: |
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| pilight wrote: |
| Most eight-year-olds still believe in Santa Claus. It's understandable that adults are skeptical or even dismissive of what they say they know. |
Which has historically been a problem when it comes to child sexual abuse. Some thirty years ago I served on a jury for a child sexual abuse case, and one of the jurors just refused to believe the 9 year old child. She was removed for other reasons, and we convicted the defendant.
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bcdawg04
Joined: 12 Apr 2016
Posts: 566
Location: Seattle
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| Posted: 04/10/24 12:11 pm ::: |
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| patsweetpat wrote: |
Speaking as someone who used to be a volunteer crisis line counselor at The Trevor Project-- a hotline for gay and trans youth with suicidal ideation-- I think there are some well-meaning folks in this conversation who don't realize how much harm they do when they scapegoat and other-ize transgender people... and especially transgender youth (such as the transgender child referenced in the linked article upthread). Trans youth represent the most vulnerable and at-risk population we have in this nation. And the difference for them between being accepted for the gender with which they identify, and not being accepted, is often literally the difference between life and death. Not hypothetically, maybe, someday in the future. Now, today, per actual existing data.
I'm not naive enough to think that the above will change the minds of 99.9% of the people browsing through here whose minds are already made up. But maybe that .1% person who reads this might think twice about whether or not his/her hot take on this issue is truly worth the sometimes-fatal harm said take can inflict on others. |
Thank you for sharing this perspective. I don't think it is the same kind of discrimination faced by women who were assigned female at birth and have identified as female for their entire lives, but transgender people are also a gender minority and also subjected to gender discrimination.
Two or three seasons ago, the NWSL created a policy for transgender athletes. One of the players, Quinn (who plays for Seattle and also has an Olympic gold medal with the Canadian WNT), has called the rule "problematic". They feel that the rule doesn't do enough to protect trans athletes, and the rule has no protection for nonbinary players.
I do believe that people who go through puberty as male generally have a physical advantage over those who do not. But I do not know what the solution here is. I think the place to start, though, is to have compassion for all underrepresented groups. I hope we can find a way to protect both transgender athletes and cisgender women/girls in sports.
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Michael
Joined: 23 Mar 2006
Posts: 602
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| Posted: 04/10/24 5:17 pm ::: |
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| bcdawg04 wrote: |
| patsweetpat wrote: |
Speaking as someone who used to be a volunteer crisis line counselor at The Trevor Project-- a hotline for gay and trans youth with suicidal ideation-- I think there are some well-meaning folks in this conversation who don't realize how much harm they do when they scapegoat and other-ize transgender people... and especially transgender youth (such as the transgender child referenced in the linked article upthread). Trans youth represent the most vulnerable and at-risk population we have in this nation. And the difference for them between being accepted for the gender with which they identify, and not being accepted, is often literally the difference between life and death. Not hypothetically, maybe, someday in the future. Now, today, per actual existing data.
I'm not naive enough to think that the above will change the minds of 99.9% of the people browsing through here whose minds are already made up. But maybe that .1% person who reads this might think twice about whether or not his/her hot take on this issue is truly worth the sometimes-fatal harm said take can inflict on others. |
Thank you for sharing this perspective. I don't think it is the same kind of discrimination faced by women who were assigned female at birth and have identified as female for their entire lives, but transgender people are also a gender minority and also subjected to gender discrimination.
Two or three seasons ago, the NWSL created a policy for transgender athletes. One of the players, Quinn (who plays for Seattle and also has an Olympic gold medal with the Canadian WNT), has called the rule "problematic". They feel that the rule doesn't do enough to protect trans athletes, and the rule has no protection for nonbinary players.
I do believe that people who go through puberty as male generally have a physical advantage over those who do not. But I do not know what the solution here is. I think the place to start, though, is to have compassion for all underrepresented groups. I hope we can find a way to protect both transgender athletes and cisgender women/girls in sports. |
I do have one option towards a "fair" solution. Leah Thomas was ranked well above 500 as a men's collegiate freestyle swimmer. By transitioning, they became the record holder at the 500 swimming against cis women. Clearly not fair. But we know the time range for the 550 ranked cis woman in the NCAA's. So figure out how much weight Thomas needs to carry in a weighted vest as a handicap to put their times back in line as a woman competitively to where they were as a man. Same with track events. Some sports, like Rugby, Hockey, the throwing events in track and field, I don't think can be leveled and trans athletes should be barred OR in the field events, have a reducing modifier on their throws so they only get credit for 70-80 % of the distance they throw. In basketball, put the lines on the floor like the old European lane and trans males cannot enter that on offense, and cannot leave their feet on defense or else it is a technical foul for illegal participation. Additionally add the weighted vest and ankle weights to reduce their leaping and running ability down to that of the women they are competing against. For volleyball either ad enough weight so the trans athlete cannot jump any higher than the top 30% of cis females they are competing against or ban them from the front row and being able to spike the ball.
There is no amount of chemical modifications that will over-write genetic advantage, even if the drugs are started pre-pubescent. Bone density is always going to favor the born male, even with puberty blockers, same with muscle density and skeletal alignment. Additionally we do not know the long term ramifications of using drugs to block male puberty. They two cases I know of from the 80 both ended up with physical and psychological issues that may have been linked to never being allowed to go through puberty. Gary Coleman and Michael Jackson. So I think until there is some firm evidence that this will not cause long term irreparable harm, I really do not think it is responsible to block puberty chemically at this time. Clearly letting males transition to women competing in sports without some form of balancing being put in place is clearly dangerous for the cis-women being forced to compete against them. I also think it is deplorable that teenaged women are being forced to change in front of fully biological males in their locker rooms, but that is an argument for another day.
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Michael
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Silky Johnson
Joined: 29 Sep 2014
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| Posted: 04/12/24 8:37 pm ::: |
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| pilight wrote: |
| Most eight-year-olds still believe in Santa Claus. |
It is worth acknowledging that an eight year-old who still believes in Santa Claus is the product of the active and deliberate efforts of the adults in their life to fill their head with misinformation.
Not all that dissimilar to an eight year-old who believes that transgender people are mentally ill, or that being gay is a sin.
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Richard 77
Joined: 19 Nov 2004
Posts: 4142
Location: Lake Mills, Wisconsin
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| Posted: 04/13/24 6:02 am ::: |
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| Silky Johnson wrote: |
| pilight wrote: |
| Most eight-year-olds still believe in Santa Claus. |
It is worth acknowledging that an eight year-old who still believes in Santa Claus is the product of the active and deliberate efforts of the adults in their life to fill their head with misinformation.
Not all that dissimilar to an eight year-old who believes that transgender people are mentally ill, or that being gay is a sin. |
I'm going to be 65 next month. I still believe in Santa Claus._________________ If you cannot inspire yourself to read a book about women's basketball, or any book about women's sports, you cannot inspire any young girl or boy to write a book about them. http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/Richardstrek |
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Phil
Joined: 22 Oct 2011
Posts: 1274
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| Posted: 04/13/24 3:18 pm ::: |
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In another forum (not even basketball related) I saw a reference to the Cass Report.
The opening description:
| Quote: |
The Review was commissioned by NHS England to make recommendations on how to improve NHS gender identity services, and ensure that children and young people who are questioning their gender identity or experiencing gender dysphoria receive a high standard of care, that meets their needs, is safe, holistic and effective.
The report describes what is known about the young people who are seeking NHS support around their gender identity and sets out the recommended clinical approach to care and support they should expect, the interventions that should be available, and how services should be organised across the country. |
Discussion of the report and a link to download it can be found here:
https://cass.independent-review.uk/home/publications/final-report/
I went to the link downloaded and started reading it. It is 388 pages so I haven't read it all, but I did get through the intro, the summary and recommendations which brings you to about page 45.
Unfortunately, it can be summarized into words "it's complicated".
While they don't literally use the phrase "on the other hand" that concept appears many many times. This isn't surprising, as it hasn't been long enough pull together long term or even medium-term studies. It does provide a useful context for understanding the subject.
Last edited by Phil on 04/13/24 6:52 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Howee
Joined: 27 Nov 2009
Posts: 15740
Location: OREGON (in my heart)
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The general ADULT public has so little understanding by experience, and gorge themselves on the blatant misinformation that exists.