[Theory5]

Why wouldn't people support transgendered people able to be the gender they wish and being able to do so in all possible aspects? Be they transwomen wanting to play female sports, or transmen wanting to play male sports (which you oddly leave out of your question).

[devit]

Because the fittest people with an expressed SRY gene (aka "biologically male") are generally 10-15% better at sports than those without it (aka "biologically female") so if you allow SRY-expressing MtF transgender people to compete in the female category against non-SRY cisgender female people (rather than only letting them competing in the male category), and there are enough of them at top levels, no cisgender woman will ever win anything.

Also, this incentivizes male athletes that can't win medals but are close to take hormone replacement theory solely so they can compete in the much easier female category and win medals, which runs in the same arguments against doping.

On the other hand, if you don't, then MtF transgender people are not likely to win anything, since hormone replacement therapy reduces performance (but not enough to match non-SRY people).

[SilverRed]

>incentivizes male athletes that can't win medals but are close to take hormone replacement theory solely so they can compete

This might seem absurd but when you consider that they already go to extreme lengths to sneak in highly dangerous and life altering drugs just to win, I can see it happening.

[unrealhoang]

There has been normal athletes pretended to be disabled to cheat the paralympic game, so yeah, it obviously will happen.

[SilverRed]

I have heard this is a very serious problem with even genuinely disabled athletes pretending to be in worse condition than they actually are to get in easier games/handicaps.

[djrogers]

Does it seem absurd when you consider that some totalitarian regimes pluck 4 year olds from their families and send them to gymnastics schools, all for the chance to get an extra gold medal?

[CJefferson]

That's a strong claim, and so far women's sports aren't being dominated by trans people. Can you provide any evidence?

[JoeyBananas]

> Why wouldn't people support transgendered people able to be the gender they wish and being able to do so in all possible aspects?

Ok, that is a plausible argument. However, it's missing one major component: How could anyone argue that this is one of the aspects or life where it is actually possible to treat someone as their preferred gender? If I had to cherry pick an example of an aspect of life where it is not possible to treat a transgender person as their preferred gender, it would be Olympic sports.

That's probably precisely why they are doing this. They're obviously trying to make a political statement. They want it to be the inspiring event that puts this Olympics in the history books. But I mean... Come on people, there are obvious reasons why this athlete is not going to be remembered heroically for their political message in the same way as someone like Jesse Owens.

[djrogers]

> or transmen wanting to play male sports (which you oddly leave out of your question).

It’s not odd, because it just hasn’t come up as an issue. In fact most pro sports leagues are not men-only. If a woman or f2m transgender could make the cut on an NFL team, there are no rules against it.

[unrealhoang]

Because it's cheating with unfair advantage? Transmen wanting to play male sports is left out intentionally because it's the highest level of competition of human being. Male sports became male sports simply because female could not compete and it's unfair for female, any human think they can compete at that level is welcome to try, there won't be any complains.

[smegcicle]

> transmen wanting to play male sports

I don't think it's odd to leave out of the question, since there would be very little opposition to such a proposal.

The argument against would be mostly twofold: 1) it might be 'weird' to have a 'girl' in the men's locker room 2) depending on the sport, there might be an issue of safety

either way, not a big deal- as some other commenter said on here, women's sports is a carveout for a specific demographic (biological females, as if that's in question), and transgenders of all kinds would be much more welcome in regular 'men's' sports, or their own 'hormone free-for-all' programs, than an already established subgroup that does not wish to be so infiltrated.

[swader999]

Sports only work on a fair playing field.

[leephillips]

People use “gender” to mean all kinds of different things. What do you mean by the word in your question? The second part is easy to explain: “Be they transwomen wanting to play female sports”. If by “transwomen” you mean biological males who have “transitioned” to women (more neutrally called “trans-identified men”), the answer is because they are not female, so it is unfair to allow them to compete with females.