<story><title>Rival weightlifter speaks out on transgender Hubbard&apos;s Olympic place</title><url>https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1108399/anna-vanbellinghen-hubbard</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>trainsplanes</author><text>I won&amp;#x27;t risk saying this in real life or anywhere where my real identity is known, but I do wonder if the end result will be similar to what&amp;#x27;s common in many parts of Asia: a third&amp;#x2F;fourth gender.&lt;p&gt;Instead of saying trans people are 100% identical to the gender they identify as, they&amp;#x27;ll be seen as something different. E.g., In Thailand there&amp;#x27;s the concept of kathoey (westerners refer to them as ladyboys). The Indian subcontinent and culturally related areas have hijra. They&amp;#x27;re not seen as the same as women, but they&amp;#x27;re not seen as men either. They&amp;#x27;re something else, and it&amp;#x27;s okay.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve also seen a lot of westerners trying to push their ideas of gender globally and getting enraged when it doesn&amp;#x27;t fit. Some people get enraged when, for example, Thai kathoey aren&amp;#x27;t simply referred to as women, but for a lot of those people in Thailand, they don&amp;#x27;t see themselves as identical to women. So while trying to stop people from misgendering people, they overstep and misgender people who weren&amp;#x27;t being misgendered.</text></item><item><author>asdfasgasdgasdg</author><text>I feel like with this issue at some point we are bound to reach a breaking point. It&amp;#x27;s just a question of how far along things will go before we get there. People are more and more open about being transgender and there is more and more support for transgender individuals having the chance to live life as their correct gender. This is a great thing!&lt;p&gt;However, it presents a huge problem for women&amp;#x27;s athletics, particularly in sports where strength differences are a large determiner of performance differences. If, as it is said in some circles, a full .5% of the human population is transgender, we are going to continue to see huge increases in openly transgender people competing in sport. In sports where long term exposure to male hormones enhance performance, it&amp;#x27;s hard to see how life-long XX bodies will be able to compete. Which seems like a bad outcome since the whole point of the existence of women&amp;#x27;s sport is to allow women to have space to compete without facing insurmountable built-in disadvantages.&lt;p&gt;It may take a couple more decades but I don&amp;#x27;t see a stable equilibrium where MTF athletes are competing with cis-women in high level sport, especially if they made their transition during adulthood.&lt;p&gt;I would be fascinated to hear about different models for how this plays out. I&amp;#x27;ve read the occasional news article about it but I&amp;#x27;m not really very familiar with the thinking on the other side of this issue, particularly when it comes to the physical advantages trans women have over cis women in sport.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Mediterraneo10</author><text>It is common to hear a transwoman claim (indeed, even occasionally here on HN) that anything other than recognizing them as equal to ciswomen is an act of violence and prejudice against them, and at worst, they utter some invective about “TERFs”. So, suggesting the recognition of a new gender is unlikely to satisfy at least those strident individuals.</text></comment>
<story><title>Rival weightlifter speaks out on transgender Hubbard&apos;s Olympic place</title><url>https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1108399/anna-vanbellinghen-hubbard</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>trainsplanes</author><text>I won&amp;#x27;t risk saying this in real life or anywhere where my real identity is known, but I do wonder if the end result will be similar to what&amp;#x27;s common in many parts of Asia: a third&amp;#x2F;fourth gender.&lt;p&gt;Instead of saying trans people are 100% identical to the gender they identify as, they&amp;#x27;ll be seen as something different. E.g., In Thailand there&amp;#x27;s the concept of kathoey (westerners refer to them as ladyboys). The Indian subcontinent and culturally related areas have hijra. They&amp;#x27;re not seen as the same as women, but they&amp;#x27;re not seen as men either. They&amp;#x27;re something else, and it&amp;#x27;s okay.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve also seen a lot of westerners trying to push their ideas of gender globally and getting enraged when it doesn&amp;#x27;t fit. Some people get enraged when, for example, Thai kathoey aren&amp;#x27;t simply referred to as women, but for a lot of those people in Thailand, they don&amp;#x27;t see themselves as identical to women. So while trying to stop people from misgendering people, they overstep and misgender people who weren&amp;#x27;t being misgendered.</text></item><item><author>asdfasgasdgasdg</author><text>I feel like with this issue at some point we are bound to reach a breaking point. It&amp;#x27;s just a question of how far along things will go before we get there. People are more and more open about being transgender and there is more and more support for transgender individuals having the chance to live life as their correct gender. This is a great thing!&lt;p&gt;However, it presents a huge problem for women&amp;#x27;s athletics, particularly in sports where strength differences are a large determiner of performance differences. If, as it is said in some circles, a full .5% of the human population is transgender, we are going to continue to see huge increases in openly transgender people competing in sport. In sports where long term exposure to male hormones enhance performance, it&amp;#x27;s hard to see how life-long XX bodies will be able to compete. Which seems like a bad outcome since the whole point of the existence of women&amp;#x27;s sport is to allow women to have space to compete without facing insurmountable built-in disadvantages.&lt;p&gt;It may take a couple more decades but I don&amp;#x27;t see a stable equilibrium where MTF athletes are competing with cis-women in high level sport, especially if they made their transition during adulthood.&lt;p&gt;I would be fascinated to hear about different models for how this plays out. I&amp;#x27;ve read the occasional news article about it but I&amp;#x27;m not really very familiar with the thinking on the other side of this issue, particularly when it comes to the physical advantages trans women have over cis women in sport.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Zababa</author><text>I wonder about that. From what I&amp;#x27;ve understood while talking to trans people and reading what they wrote (so a small sample that&amp;#x27;s probably biased), the place in the society associated with their gender (the one they transitionned into) is really important. For example, in my experience, trans women want to be recognized as women and live mostly the same as cis women.&lt;p&gt;I first encountered this because I was puzzled as to why so many trans people seemed to be renforcing gender roles instead of trying to abolish them. The answer is that gender roles matter a lot to them, and fitting in matters a lot to them too. That&amp;#x27;s why I think the &amp;quot;third gender&amp;quot; solution would be really unsatisfying for most (or at least a part).</text></comment>