World swimming's governing body has effectively banned transgender women from competing in women's events, starting Monday.
FINA members widely adopted a new "gender inclusion policy" on Sunday that only permits swimmers who transitioned before age 12 to compete in women's events. The organization also proposed an "open competition category."
Here's the problem: The ban should be absolute, since advocating for, which this does, the destruction of a minor's sexual function ought to get you locked up in a cell full of fire ants.
I have no quarrel with an "open" competition group but let's cut the crap: When it comes to events where musculature and cardio are determinative of success there are going to be a severe deficit of "XX" chromosome people successfully competing in such events.
For those of you who continue to insist on stupid, have a look here.
I just ran this race a few days ago. I placed 21st overall and got bumped for first in division (50-59 age men) by 10 seconds. I couldn't beat that guy, but I did keep Hanna and Michael from passing me. In fact I passed her on the way into the stadium, where the finish was, and I could hear her behind me. Nope, not today, said I, and the last part of it, which was around the warning track and then a run around the bases from 1st to Home where the mat was, got what I had left -- which was, surprisingly, a decent little bit after the fairly-ugly hills on the course itself.
Now look at the people faster than I was. There were 20 of them. Three were women and all three were at least 20 years younger than I am, with one being 15. The closest 50+ woman in the race finished 44th overall at 29:01, more than four minutes behind me.
That's not because I'm Superman; I am most-definitely NOT. It's because I was conceived by a combination of sperm and egg that contained an XY chromosome pair and, from that moment forward, my physiology developed differently than someone who was conceived with an XX chromosome pair. This is determined at the moment of conception by the male's sperm which is either "XO" or "XY" and beyond that instant in time there's nothing you can do about it, ever, no matter what you do.
Once in a while you get an error in that process like all other biological processes. This is how mutation happens in every organism and yet in virtually every case these are defects, when you get down to it. That is, they produce harm objectively -- someone with Klinefelter's, for example, is "XXY" and typically has a micropenis. Most men (and, I dare say, most women) would consider that a defect.
AP and all the screaming "advocates" are lying. For example:
The debate essentially boils down to advocates who want to protect the space Title IX carved out for cisgender women — women whose gender identity matches the sex they were assigned at birth — and those who want transgender athletes who compete as females to enjoy the same protections as anyone else. Consensus is nowhere in sight, and the fights are piling up.
Sex is not "assigned" at birth; that is a damned lie and anyone who runs it should be loudly shouted down, and if necessary and they try to turn that lie into public policy, jailed or worse.
You don't "assign" sex at birth you recognize what is or is not present at the time of birth as objective fact.
If the baby has a penis it is male. If the baby has a vulva and no penis it is female. Period.
If it truly isn't clear genetic testing will prove one way or another, but it is rarely not clear. About one in a thousand, or 0.1% of children, are not instantly and obviously male or female at the time of birth and that is not "assigned" -- it was determined by which sperm and egg joined at the moment of conception. Anyone who claims an "assignment" was made by someone -- anyone -- at birth is a damned liar and a monster. Period.
From said lie all the rest of the remaining bullshit with regard to this issue flows.
Title IX may be a wart-filled mess but it was passed because women's sports typically received less funding. Is that "fair"? Do you have a right, as a consequence of being alive, to "fairness" in that regard? I argue the answer is NO because the fundamental issue is what people wish to spend money attending and thus which particular thing(s) attract more voluntary financial support.
Nobody is forced to go to a football game and spend money. They go because they want to see it. In a marketplace of ideas the best ones attract the most money.
To force "equality" in this regard is to steal from those who, in the view of the general public, are more attractive of someone's funds. If people pay $100 for a ticket to watch men throw a pigskin around and tackle one another, but will not fill a stadium at any price when women play their version of said game, whether it be football, baseball/softball, basketball or similar that's not "inequality" -- its consumer preference.
To forcibly extract $20 of that $100 football ticket and give it to the girls sports team is theft at gunpoint and no amount of arm-waving and bullshit changes that. Yet here we are, and now, having argued for the "feelz" said women are screwed because the very same "feelz" are being weaponized by men who take drugs or even cut off their penis because they are profoundly unhappy with what happened at the time their first cell came into existence and therefore wish to punish others for their unhappiness.
Women deserve this outcome because it was women who argued against fact in the first place and demanded this garbage be put in place originally. If you want women's sports to have a big gate (and thus be self-supporting) figure out what people want to pay to attend and support and provide it.
FINA is right but again the problem arose in the first place because feelz were put before facts and weaponized. This in turn allowed those who know damn well they've got a biological advantage conferred upon them at the moment of conception in certain sports to turn around and "Black Knight" women's sports, taking the very arguments that were made to put feelz before facts and shoving it up women's asses.
The answer isn't to talk about "trans" anything.
The answer is to stop being stupid and repeal that which was passed to legislate feelz that contradicted facts, in this case Title IX, and tell those who are factually men but wish they were women that while they're free to do whatever they'd like in their private lives once they are adults at their own expense we will not, as a society, allow them to screw women out of a fair contest nor will we let them screw anyone of either sex out of a single nickel to assuage their insanity -- or anyone else's.