[kelseyfrog]

The thing is, we're already using a scissor for ability, just a poor one with the exact problem you describe - it renders trans women unable to make a living playing professional sports. Throwing one group under the bus for another cannot be avoided so long as sex or gender are part of sports divisions.

Please let go of the need for this.

[baumy]

You are clearly out of your depth. Have you ever competed in high level sports? Please don't speak on things you know nothing about. It takes a lot of gall to tell someone 'please let go of the need for this' when they are pointing this out. I will do no such thing, but I likely will give up trying to educate you.

I won't respond further unless you pick an example sport, and propose how your "scissor for ability" would work, in concrete detail. If you do this, I will be happy to explain why this would result in neither women _nor trans women_ having any chance to make a living as professional athletes.

[PaulDavisThe1st]

I have competed in reasonably high level sports, and my wife was US Masters duathlete of the year a few years ago (with me as her coach). I think you're wrong, though it's easy to see why.

Currently, with sex-based categories, a woman can be declared "the best in the world" and most people won't waste much time on the question "yeah, but could she beat the best men?" (granted, some will). They will accept that, e.g. she has the fastest time over 26.2 miles in the world right now, even though a few hundred or a few thousand men worldwide are faster.

If you use performance based metrics to create the categories (the way that road cycling does, for example, though still within gender divisions), that "title" would go away, and likely a woman would only be "the best in the world in division X", other than in (as you noted) some endurance, climbing and gymnastics sports where an elite subset of women could potentially be the best of "top" category.

It isn't completely obvious that this is a negative - how much of a change it would be would depend on a lot of other changes (or lack thereof) in how sport was organized. Certainly if it continued to focus on only the top division, then women would be shut out of most opportunities to be professional. But that's not inherent in the design. I do concede, however, that it is quite a likely outcome of such a category structure.

[wstrange]

If we are talking about amateur sports where the stakes are low, the concept of slotting athletes into divisions makes sense.

In elite sports, no one wants to see "best in division X". They want to see the best hockey players, the best golfer, the best skier, etc. The money incentives are considerable.

This would destroy women's professional sports.

[PaulDavisThe1st]

Implicit in what you're saying is that they want to see the best sex-identified athletes in a given sport. If that wasn't true, women's sports would have no audience and we know now (finally!) that this is not the case.

I personally think that we'd live in a much better world where you compete against others who broadly speaking are in the same performance category as you.

But I do appreciate that the transition to such a world would, indeed, destroy women's professional sports, and thus I do not attempt to really advocate for that transition. If it could happen overnight (it cannot), perhaps I would, but that's not where we live.

[machomaster]

WNBA is being sponsored by men's NBA and they would not have survived without.

The merr existence is not an evidence of success.

Kids' little leagues also exist, but can't be compared, with actual professional men's sports.

Where is women's American football? Women's baseball? Crickets...

Women's icehockey is in such a state, that there are only 2 decent countries dominating everybody, and they would get destroyed by men's amateur players.

There are only few women's sports disciplines that are actually popular on their own. Like figure skating and tennis. And the athletes would get annihilated by their male counterparts.

[PaulDavisThe1st]

The world's best female ultradistance runners, rock climbers (particuarly sport and bouldering, but lead also), ultradistance swimmers, are all on a par with their male counterparts and occasionally better.

Since I personally don't have any interest in team sports of any type, I have nothing to say about your observations, though I will continue to wear my "I'm here for the women's race" t-shirt whenever I can.

[kelseyfrog]

Let's use the present scissor and the current state of affairs, which at present excludes some women for the sake of others. Which, I'll remind you, comes with all of the problems we currently experience.

[machomaster]

And solves a lot more of the problems, including the ones we are discussing.

[kelseyfrog]

You do get how it doesn't, right?

[1718627440]

His proposal is to make divisions by whatever way it would be the justest way. If that would be the man/woman division for a given sport, than keeping it is part of his proposal. His proposal is not going to be less just than the current rules by definition, but it IS a bit vague.

[kelseyfrog]

Her* (sorry)

[1718627440]

Fair. Did I fail at reading comprehension or at making implicit assumptions?

[kelseyfrog]

No worries. I assumed that everyone who was trying to lecture me about women's sports was a man.