Obviously this won’t work for all sports, but things like football, track, soccer, it would allow for de-gendered team, even allowing athletes with the skills but not the genetically-endowed physical attributes to have a place to play.
Note: I know very little about sports and being on a sports team, so please point out anything that doesn’t make sense.
The recent issue with transgender people in sports is manufactured as a tool to spread trans hate. It’s a non issue that preys on Americans’s sense of fairness.
For team sports you can assign a point value to each player and force the team to deploy a maximum total value, like for armies in WH40K
I’m sure this would lead to injuries, but some soccer team putting out one goliath and a bunch of rule-qualifiers does sound really funny.
I feel like it’d probably be better to group based on performance. I don’t see why this wouldn’t work for pretty much all 1v1/FFA/small-team sports/games.
soccer
“Male” soccer is not restricted to men. Both genders are allowed. There are only men because they outperform women.
edit: Although FIFA forbids women from access to the main World Cup. Also the statement above is true generally, but not everywhere.
The NFL isn’t male only either. Not supporting anything but agreeing that some sports are segregated by performance
Even at lower levels of football women are typically only kickers.
Not true. Some countries allow it on a national level, but many do not. I believe The Netherlands allows it, but only at lower competition levels.
I think FIFA forbids it entirely, but I’m not entirely sure.
You are right, it’s not allowed in the FIFA World Cup. I didn’t know.
ok cool what about the op’s thoughts?
He addresses them with that statement. There are plenty of women that are in similar weight classes as men but you don’t see any in male sports.
Even though male sports does not have a gender requirement. This is essentially an indirect way of saying that there are biological differences between male and female that go beyond weight.
There are various differences you could point out. Males have lower body fat %, which means more muscle. Their bones are shaped differently and are more dense. Men tend to be more aggressive and competitive. Men tend to have stronger bones, joints, tendons, and ligaments.
Men have more red blood cells, their hearts are bigger so they can pump more blood, and greater lung volume relative to body mass. So even a male and women same weight and height the man will be able to circulate oxygen more quickly.
There are many more examples if you go do some reading.
One of the differences may not be huge by themselves. But when you take the differences above and combine them, it creates a situation where in almost all sports, men play virtually unopposed by women.
Look up the Serena Williams interview. She’s undoubtedly the best female player in the world. She doesn’t stand a chance against a the 203rd best tennis male player.
This difference even applies to areas like chess. The highest ranking a woman ever got was 6th in the world, Judith Pulgar. Amazing player, but out of the 2500 or so grandmasters in the world, 42 are women.
Some of these differences can be explained by women around the world not being encouraged to play chess, but that does not explain all.
There are large biological differences when you look at the population in a statistical sense. And when you look at the most extreme samples from the edge of the normal distribution… that’s where the best athletes / chess players are going to come from.
The chess one isnt quite right. There’s been experiments where if a woman player didn’t know her opponent was a man she would perform better. It’s called stereotype threat phenomenon.
It also happens when a male player knowingly goes up against someone higher in the league than himself and he performs below his own standard average.
Basically people in general psyche themselves out of their best performance when going against someone they perceive to be better than them whether that’s factual or not. Confidence and undermining confidence can change a whole lot about how a person does in any given game or task.
You think that accounts for the differences? 42 of 2500 grandmasters are women because all the women are scared and intimidated of the men?
Maybe this plays some small effect but I doubt it’s statistically significant enough in this context
Like you said, it happens to men playing higher rated men. In order to go up in ranking, you need to play and beat progressively higher rated opponents.
By the very nature of being a high level player, that player would have had to go through that.
It’s a phenomenon that’s been observed across multiple sports, not just between men and women chess players. It’s particularly poignant in men vs women’s chess… because of people repeatedly telling women they are inherently worse than men. Like you are doing right now.
There’s been multiple studies on this. So yes, I side with the data that stereotype threat phenomenon has a significant impact on women’s performance in chess against men.
Show me. Link me a couple.
I don’t think this effect can account for more than a small fraction of the difference. Let’s look at the research. I couldn’t find anything from a quick search but maybe I’m using wrong terms.
There’s an effect on both sides.
Contrary to what people assume, aggressive chess is a good strategy.
Due to a lot of factors I don’t really want to get into, most chess players think men are naturally better than women.
So a woman who thinks she’s playing a man is immediately on the defense, and a man who thinks he’s playing a woman starts out very aggressively.
Which means a man and woman of equal skill, the man will likely win.
It’s called stereotype difference and it’s not just chess related.
I don’t know why people always pick chess because there’s no physical difference while ignoring the mind games we even play on ourselves in those situations.
Just people completely ignorant of what they’re talking about and grasping at straws to find something that agrees with them
Chess? What percent of woman players are GMs and what percent of male players are GMs? Because it sounds like sampling bias.
Women make up roughly 15% of US Chess Federation members. They make up roughly 1.5% of grandmasters.
That’s an order of magnitude difference.
Here’s a podcast about a study
https://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/mens-chess-superiority-explained-08-12-29/
Normally I’d just link studies…
But I feel like if you’re this opinionated about things we figured out long ago, maybe listening would help more than reading.
Because it wouldn’t have taken much for you to Google this at some point and realize we’ve been studying this for decades, and maybe, just maybe, science is better than your assumptions.
There are a lot of factors in play, and you seem to think it’s because of…
What exactly?
Like it seems like you’re just arguing women are bad at chess?
I’ve read multiple papers on this topic. I’m a 2000 rated player and have tutored girls in chess. This is an interest of mine.
There is a very large gap in performance. The research overall implies a complex variety of factors. This includes what you mentioned, along with other inequities. It also includes the fact that women players are roughly 11 years younger on average and therefore haven’t peaked yet, which will account for some.
But there is evidence that there is also an innate biological difference. Men score better on visuospatial intelligence tests when compared to women. Chess, especially at a high level, involves a lot of this type of thinking.
I’m not arguing that women are bad at chess. Humans are individuals and there are varying levels of players in both genders.
Just that if you look at the extremes (which the top chess players will be) you’re going to see a higher level of males even if we fixed all of the inequities currently influencing the gender gap in chess.
We don’t know if the 10x difference is 5% due to biology or 50% due to biology. But we know it’s a non zero number
Essentially I used it as an example in the wider context of why we have women’s leagues and men’s league in sports.
also it’s called football dammit :(
I think because guys are pound for pound stronger than girls. I’ve read stories on Reddit years ago by girls who are wrestlers or fighters and get into a playful tussle with some random guy and they describe it as terrifying.
On average, but there’s outliers.
Like, there are women out there with higher testorone than the average man, and crazy is a huge factor.
I played rugby in college and we hung out with the women’s team and drunk coed wrestling was definitely a common thing.
Every once and a while a non rugby player would think it was just an excuse to roll around with a hot chick, and they would get absolutely demolished. Like I’m not talking about underestimating the woman and losing quickly due to technical skill. Just getting absolutely manhandled by a girl without the socially ingrained fear of violence and pain. Like, I was one of the biggest guys on the men’s team and had wrestling experience, I still lost to some of them. Women almost a foot shorter and that I had more than 50 pounds on. Because they really wanted that W and kept trying till they got it.
Hell, for two years we had coed practice including full speed tackling and scrimmages. Top end speed was usually the only clear difference, and even then the fastest five players on the field was never all guys.
Like, there are women out there with higher testorone than the average man
No, that doesn’t happen, the adrenal glands and ovaries do not produce enough t to reach even very low male levels, testosterone for the most part is produced in the testicules which cis women do not have. that much testosterone would transition a woman into a man, they would grow beard and get a deeper voice, that’s how HRT works for FtMs.
they would grow beard and get a deeper voice, that’s how HRT works for FtMs.
Plenty of people with XY chromosomes can’t grow facial and have a high pitched voice well into their 20s or even after
And plenty of people with XX chromosomes shave/wax/bleach facial hair and have deep voices.
Hormones aren’t binary, there’s a bunch of different hormones that can be in a lot of different ranges
And that’s not even getting into the other options besides XX/XY
Stop trying to make everyone conform to your binary views on gender.
She’s not talking about gender he’s talking about sex. Someone born with testicles with XY chromosomes is always going to produce more testosterone than someone born with ovaries with XX chromosomes - assuming both sexual organs are functioning as expected.
Oh, nice to know that girl who beat me (in the same weight class) at wrestling was cuz her sexual organs weren’t working properly.
We’re talking about testosterone in blood not wrestling abilities. A 300lb woman will beat an 110lb man in wrestling. Doesn’t mean she has higher T.
Amazing how one can dismiss another’s personal experience by simply insisting a different scenario happened.
Sorry this is bothering me a bit but if by “He” you meant me, I use she/her pronouns I’ll put It in my bio :)
Changed it. I always assume people online are male for some reason. I didn’t read your username
Thanks! 💜
assuming
A whole bunch of shit while ignoring all the contex…
I’m talking about 18-22 year olds and the women are on the women’s rugby team comparing them to men who have never needed to shave and their voice hasn’t cracked.
If you think every 18-22 year old guys has been thru puberty…
That’s as ridiculous as not understanding that hight T women would be attracted to high level athletics and then overly represented in elite athletes.
What you are doing is the equivalent of someone who stops paying attention to science in sixth grade but believes they’re an expert at 47.
You got the cliff notes version and think people should address you as Doctor.
Shits a lot more complicated than you think.
A high T woman is 70 ng/dL and that already is starting to imply some sort of adrenal tumor or polycystic ovary syndrome. The normal range is a lot closer to 20~30
A low T man is ~250 ng/dL and average is around 400~500 ng/dL
A woman will not have T levels similar to men because they don’t have testicles. Even the highest T females compared to lowest T men.
The only time this would be true is in 1 in 10 million cases. If that’s your whole argument, then OK. It is theoretically possible if the woman has an adrenal tumor and the man is effectively castrated.
But for virtually all other cases this simply cannot happen due to human physiology.
What do you not understand about 18-22?
Which, if you haven’t noticed, is still the age range of a lot of Olympians and elite athletes.
Hell, some sports average under 18.
It’s like you didn’t even read my comment. You’re just fucking insisting everything fits in your nice little division of two piles and no one else can exist.
It’s the same line of thinking as transphobes…
And I have no desire to ever interact with people stuck in that thinking. And immediately regret trying to help you understand the finer points.
I remember Serena Williams making a comment that the men can just hit harder and faster. So even a sport like tennis men just have an advantage.
Having watched some badass girls wrestle dudes and win it’s an up hill battle. Women are typically stronger then men at a young age like single digit age but one puberty hits it’s all off the table.
Now shooting(archery/firearms) I have seen girls out preform men and it’s a fair sport of accuracy. Also in motor sports women can be competitive there and also have an advantage of being smaller and lighter. Every 100 lbs is a 1/10th a second
Yeah, there was an exhibition match between Serena and Venus and the 203rd ranked male player.
I feel like weight class doesn’t do it. Women have higher body fat %. Is a welterweight woman athletically equivalent to a welterweight man? I don’t think so.
Then go by muscle % x body weight or something.
I think all athletes should be forced to use large amounts of testosterone to even the playing field. Let’s see what the human body is really capable of
I’ve talked for years with friends of mine about MLB+Steroids+Aluminum Bats. I want to see someone hit two 700ft homers in a night.
Ok but what if… We just got rid of sports.
We could also get rid of fun, I guess.
Only clink-clang work from now on.Bad idea. We need games so we don’t raid each other’s monkey groups.
Ok but you see, that was part of the plan all along!
E Sports. Liquid bread and electronic circus.
Modern problems require modern solutions.
Sounds awfully unhealthy. I wouldn’t be in favor of that. I like swimming.
Because a man tends to be stronger, faster, and more athletic than a woman of the same weight. It won’t work for football, track, or soccer.
It would work for marathons though. Figure that out
Testosterone also increases red blood cell count, so even male endurance athletes have an advantage. Look at Tigst Assefa who holds the women’s World record for a marathon at 2:11, she’s 120 lbs, the top 5 male marathon runners are all at 120 lbs too and run 10 minutes faster.
You sure? I cannot find records adjusted to weight, but the male record is ~2:01h and the female 2:17h
Edit: Why is there a cake next to my name? It cannot be that I am on lemmy for a whole year already? Fuck.
Get rid of gendered sports. Next, legalize steroids for women; keep them illegal for men. Solves part of the problem, but I have no idea how trans people would fit into this scenario, though.
Why is everyone downvoting? This is a joke… right?
I’d hope so, and yet…
Shouldn’t a woman and a man with the same height, weight, and body-muscle percentage be basically identical in terms of athleticism or am I wrong?
Skeletal structure and muscle connection make a huge difference in leverage and speed.
Just make an “open class” where any identification, body mods, and performance enhancing drugs are unregulated. The best athletes that science can create.
Everyone would die of heart attacks. I’m glad no one is trying this, the death rate would be through the roof.
You’re wrong, they are trying it. Search for the Enhanced Games
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumo
sumo wrestlers life expectancy is 15 years shorter than an average japanese, they were already doing that
That’s not due to performance enhancing drugs and body mods though, right? That’s due to diet and associated lifestyle.
Although I think I still see your point; some sports not only encourage but require the top echelon of the sport to sacrifice their long-term health for the sake of a competitive edge. I’d use sumo as a cautionary tale as to why it’s a bad idea, rather than proof that athletes are willing to make that sacrifice.
or why don’t we just keep everything as is because it’s not a big fucking deal despite what bigots say
if you really wanted to “fix” or “save” womens sport, just start by fucking paying them the same as men and giving women’s sport the same attention on tv
You know how the market economy works?
You are the market economy.
Testosterone level AND weight. Wait til they find out what happens when you’re on hormone blockers.
Low T league and high T league.
Maybe a middle T league?
I’m sure we can work it out.
I love it. We’re here to watch people play games after all, there should always be a way to work it out.
I’m still a fan of just removing all the rules around drugs and bodies. Let’s see what 21st century science can do!
It would be a kinda fun league to watch, but I dont want to hear about athletes dying because they took obscene amounts of steroids to be the best.
I want to say that because understanding of steroids and sports medicine they could be done in a way to prevent that for many sports. But o also know that would require rigorously enforced regulation which athletes would then try to game, which would probably lead to more deaths on the field.
Fuck that. You wanna go nuts on steroids then shoot up meth and cocaine before a race, go ahead. We’ll put defibrillators every 10m around the track. Catch that dragon, sports person.
Just merge men’s and women’s sports, nobody watches 'em anyway
So like women’s biathlon using men’s 100m dash as targets ? Women’s race walking V men’s discus ?
How many trans people are actually competing?
Are they dominating in the sports they’re competing?
Are their testosterone level similar to their competitors?
I am sincerely asking because I don’t care enough to look it up myself.
The issue is so few trans people are competing that there isn’t enough data to make any claims.
I don’t care for competitive sports at all, so to me it’s an overblown non issue. All it does is that people form all sorts of stupid opinions over sports that don’t matter. Like if i were a swimmer and would at some point realize that i need to be a woman to be complete, i would ditch fucking swimming. Or i would ask if i could compete with the same people as i did all my life. Or if it were that fucking important to me i would ask to compete but not as a real competitor.
I remember that story from this swimmer who became a lady, and completed with other ladies and absolutely crushed them. Isn’t that perfect for anti LGBTQ people to get outraged? And again, i was reading what the LGBTQ community thought about it, and one of the most upvoted comments were that dudes have heavier bones or something and if anything it would be a handicap to him/her. Which imo makes it even worse, because that just sounds like crap to me, and if you need to result to arguments like that it only makes you seem like you know it’s wrong, you just make things up. Sports simply aren’t important enough.
