this post was submitted on 09 Aug 2024
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[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

My argument is that if testosterone is considered an advantage in a sport, then athletes shouldn't be banned for their anatomy, but instead the sport should adapt and sort athletes by T levels if it truly matters. Men shouldn't be getting hurt by other men with higher testosterone, either. And we should be MORE inclusive of athletes who don't fit the gender binary by getting rid of these men's/women's categories that aren't really helpful or accurate anyway.

If a sport included both men and women at the higher level, then they will compete at lower levels. It's not like we'd be asking women to box men for the very first time in an Olympic setting, if we organized the groups by testosterone and some women and men ended up competing.

Some sports including fighting sports can have rule changes or be redesigned to give women advantages. If we look at those warrior challenges, many of that has to do with center of gravity. If women can get their hips over stuff, they are good, but for men it's often their shoulders. If women run the course a little differently, they can often do really well. That's not because they are "worse" athletes, they are just athletes different than men.

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[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

but instead the sport should adapt and sort athletes by T levels if it truly matters

I may even agree with you here, but I think this is going to be a nightmare. Continuous testing, plus, while sex is a proxy for many attributes at once, testosterone is only one. Then you need many more parameters to compare and create categories, on a global scale. This assuming we actually understand such parameters well enough.

Men shouldn’t be getting hurt by other men with higher testosterone, either.

I guess the difference between low testosterone men (assuming there are many in high competition levels) and high ones is smaller than high testosterone women and low testosterone men. So yes, I agree, but this is hardly a problem in practice.

If women can get their hips over stuff, they are good, but for men it’s often their shoulders. If women run the course a little differently, they can often do really well.

I really don't see how you could do this in most sports and make it fair and interesting. Sure, you jumped 20cm lower, here is your gold medal because there is an estimated disadvantage for you of 25cm. Yes, you arrived 45s after, here is your gold medal. It seems like a terrible idea and even harder to implement in sports with points (football, tennis, volleyball etc.). Considering the relative low amount of "corner cases", keeping sex as a category seems more reasonable imho, although with its limits. I am interested in what women athletes think.

That’s not because they are “worse” athletes, they are just athletes different than men.

There is nothing moral behind "worse". There are differences that simply provide advantages to men and make them faster/stronger/taller which is an advantage in many sports.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago (1 children)

So which is it that's an issue? Is it sex or is it testosterone? And how do you define sex? What if someone has testosterone but isn't responsive, in the case of people who are XY and appear to be cisfemale and are simply nonresponsive to testosterone?

We weigh people continously.

We aren't asking for other parameters. Stop strawmanning. I asked for testosterone and weight for combat sports.

Why must this fully be accurate and correct when you're completely fine with the less precise heuristic we have currently going based on gender?

It's not a problem in practice because we force a false gender dichotomy that literally disqualifies these specific athletes.

They are only "corner cases" because you define gender as red and yellow and thus leave out orange, green, and purple.

Women athletes think a variety of things because they are a variety of people.

There are advantages to men when the only men allowed to represent men are high testosterone and the only women allowed to represent women are low testosterone.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

Are you misunderstanding my argument on purpose?

You and I both know that testosterone is not the only thing. There are people who have different sensitivity (low reception) to it, for example, then there is the problem that testosterone (and probably other stuff too!) has an historical effect on development that is not captured by a snapshot in time. I am not strawmanning, I simply assumed that since both of us know that testosterone level at time T is insufficient data, you would need at least more parameters to make fair categories. If that's not the case and you actually meant just using testosterone level and weight, than I think this is a bad idea. Actually, I think this is worse than the sex categorisation. This way you are 100% bundling together people with high T and low reception (I.e. didn't get most of the benefits) with people with low T and high reception. You are also exposing yourself to men artificially lowering testosterone levels after having gotten all the historical developmental advantages to compete in "lower" categories (similarly to how it happens today with weight).

They are only "corner cases" because you define gender as red and yellow and thus leave out orange, green, and purple.

No, I don't. They are corner cases because we can look at the reality and observe that this is a problem with a relative small incidence. I think your proposal will present way more corner cases and problematic situations.