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by lewdev 80 days ago
Is it fair to say that they can just compete in the men's division?
3 comments

From a biological perspective, the women being banned here are not just men and as far as I'm aware cannot realistically compete in the men's division any more than any other woman. Practically these changes bar women athletes with certain medical differences from competing in the Olympics.

I'm not an expert so idk whether that's fair or not but that's what this decision is doing.

To be fair, that could be said of many other medical conditions as well, especially chromosomal abnormalities such as Down Syndrome. Many humans, from the moment they are born and through no fault of their own, have virtually no hope of ever competing in the Olympics let alone winning, just because at such competitive extremes, any significant genetic disadvantage takes you out of the running.
It would not be fair, because the point of having divisions is allow women to compete in a competition that is not dominated by men.
> It would not be fair, because the point of having divisions is allow women to compete in a competition that is not dominated by men.

Really, what it is is being dominated by Testosterone. Also why we ban steroid use, and many other things along the same lines.

I would suggest that most Olympians - both female and male (whatever your definition) likely have a higher than normal amount of that hormone.

Maybe we just make 100% of Olympic Athletes take E to balance things out.
I think you're falling for Sticker Swap Fallacy. The goal is to have fair match-ups in sports. Gender and sex are two possible labels to use to assist with this, but they're imperfect enough that we probably ought to not use them as the primary differentiator.

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/C7LcpRtrHiKJRoAEp/sticker-sh...

The solution is simple: class every sport like boxing.

Pick a sports-relevant metric and split into divisions. Some sports will naturally fall into gendered divisions, while others will have varying degrees of co-ed competition among competitors of similar ability.

The way out of this is not to pick a better scissor of sex or gender, it's to pick a better scissor of ability.

This "solution" can really only be proposed by someone who has not played sports. This would simply result in women being unable to compete in sports professionally, outside of a couple small niches like ultra long distance swimming and a couple sub-disciplines of gymnastics.

I do not consider that to be a good thing.

It really depends on the way classes are divided. Dismissing the general concept demonstrates a fear of change rather than a legitimate openness to fair play.
No it doesn't, and no it doesn't. Proposing this concept demonstrates a profound ignorance of what competition at the top level of sports actually looks like.

The concept is just bad, unless your goal is to prevent women from being able to make a living playing professional sports.

Doesn’t Boxing use weight classes?
Weight classes within gender classes. Women would have no chance to compete against men of identical weight, all else equal. Men have more lean mass.
Sounds like lean mass would be the right way to structure divisions then.
Dude, men are better than women at virtually every single sport. What are you talking about.
For most of the sports there is no men's division - it's open for everyone.