Lia Thomas sues to be allowed to try out for US Olympic Team

[Never Made it to Graceland]

Disgusting. I hope she gets laughed out of court. Is she trying to hurt the trans rights movement? No one can really be this delusional, right?

I honestly would not be that surprised if Lia Thomas was a Republican plant. I can’t think of a single individual who has done more harm to the trans rights movement than her.

Ah good, you've arrived. The transphobic gang from the last thread is almost all here. Now we just need everyone's favorite ironic yellow avatars and we can have another sh**tshow.

I mean it’s just a straight up fact that the Lia Thomas incident was absolutely terrible optics for the trans rights movement, but go off

And I'm sure you'll just continue to ignore the recent studies showing why it shouldn't have been as posted above.

Don't concern troll that you care about trans people and that's why you're in these threads fighting so hard about something that doesn't affect you.

Wasn’t Lia Thomas competing in the female division before going on HRT for at least a full year (which iirc is now the requirement)?  If so, those studies would be completely irrelevant since they concern trans athletes who have been on HRT for a sufficient amount of time

Not sure about that, but as I mentioned in the previous thread there was something like a 50 rank national difference for her from a freshman men's ranking to a senior women's... she was not some scrub before and did not become a powerhouse by transitioning which is the Riley Gaines narrative.

[Never Made it to Graceland]

Lia's high performance is an outlier among the transfem athletes we've seen iirc. And even then it wasn't enough to warrant banning her from competing. A study by the Olympics people found that the narrative that trans women are inherently stronger overall is deeply flawed.
 https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/olympic-trans-women-ioc-study-rcna148437

Lia Thomas is not a biological female. 

That's a bottom line here.  I don't care about the studies, and I don't necessarily believe your sources.

Well God forbid facts and studies about biology get in the way of your feelings on it.

That Lia Thomas is not a biological female is an indisputable fact.

It's highly disputable. She's been on hormones a long time by now, her body chemistry, fat distribution, etc are unambiguously female at these stage. The claim that biological sex is based on chromosome variations that's direct effects IIRC basically amount to controlling hormones in the womb is not any more valid than the idea that it's based on the measurable differences caused by hormonal factors over a long period of time.

What?

If you have a Y chromosone, you are a biological male. End of story. Even the crazist activists don't even argue this fact

Wow. Great analysis.

24/7 obsession with this story and you don't even understand the basic science behind it.

A few months back, a girls basketball team in Vermont had to forfit a game because their players kept getting hurt by a trans girl athelete on the other side

Nope. They forfeited the game because they are a Christian school, do not believe transgenderism is real and refused to play. Their players didn't get hurt, they did not play.

[Pres Mike]

Lia's high performance is an outlier among the transfem athletes we've seen iirc. And even then it wasn't enough to warrant banning her from competing. A study by the Olympics people found that the narrative that trans women are inherently stronger overall is deeply flawed.
 https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/olympic-trans-women-ioc-study-rcna148437

Lia Thomas is not a biological female. 

That's a bottom line here.  I don't care about the studies, and I don't necessarily believe your sources.

Well God forbid facts and studies about biology get in the way of your feelings on it.

That Lia Thomas is not a biological female is an indisputable fact.

It's highly disputable. She's been on hormones a long time by now, her body chemistry, fat distribution, etc are unambiguously female at these stage. The claim that biological sex is based on chromosome variations that's direct effects IIRC basically amount to controlling hormones in the womb is not any more valid than the idea that it's based on the measurable differences caused by hormonal factors over a long period of time.

What?

If you have a Y chromosone, you are a biological male. End of story. Even the crazist activists don't even argue this fact

Wow. Great analysis.

24/7 obsession with this story and you don't even understand the basic science behind it.

A few months back, a girls basketball team in Vermont had to forfit a game because their players kept getting hurt by a trans girl athelete on the other side

Nope. They forfeited the game because they are a Christian school, do not believe transgenderism is real and refused to play. Their players didn't get hurt, they did not play.

Nope, they foreited at halftime after 3 players were injured
https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=583122.0

[Never Made it to Graceland]

Lia's high performance is an outlier among the transfem athletes we've seen iirc. And even then it wasn't enough to warrant banning her from competing. A study by the Olympics people found that the narrative that trans women are inherently stronger overall is deeply flawed.
 https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/olympic-trans-women-ioc-study-rcna148437

Lia Thomas is not a biological female. 

That's a bottom line here.  I don't care about the studies, and I don't necessarily believe your sources.

Well God forbid facts and studies about biology get in the way of your feelings on it.

That Lia Thomas is not a biological female is an indisputable fact.

It's highly disputable. She's been on hormones a long time by now, her body chemistry, fat distribution, etc are unambiguously female at these stage. The claim that biological sex is based on chromosome variations that's direct effects IIRC basically amount to controlling hormones in the womb is not any more valid than the idea that it's based on the measurable differences caused by hormonal factors over a long period of time.

What?

If you have a Y chromosone, you are a biological male. End of story. Even the crazist activists don't even argue this fact

Wow. Great analysis.

24/7 obsession with this story and you don't even understand the basic science behind it.

A few months back, a girls basketball team in Vermont had to forfit a game because their players kept getting hurt by a trans girl athelete on the other side

Nope. They forfeited the game because they are a Christian school, do not believe transgenderism is real and refused to play. Their players didn't get hurt, they did not play.

Nope, they foreited at halftime after 3 players were injured
https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=583122.0

That was in Massachusetts, not Vermont. You got your Fox News headlines mixed up there.

As for that story it's hard to say whether that's veritable or relevant to this issue without more info from a reputable source.

[Ferguson97]

Lia's high performance is an outlier among the transfem athletes we've seen iirc. And even then it wasn't enough to warrant banning her from competing. A study by the Olympics people found that the narrative that trans women are inherently stronger overall is deeply flawed.
 https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/olympic-trans-women-ioc-study-rcna148437

It’s pretty telling that the three usual suspects (Pres Mike, VBM, Horus) have completely ignored this.

The transphobes know deep down that they don’t have any facts to back to their arguments, and that their entire perspective is no more sophisticated than that of a toddler looking at asparagus and going “yucky, I don’t like it!”.

[Born to Slay. Forced to Work.]

Lia's high performance is an outlier among the transfem athletes we've seen iirc. And even then it wasn't enough to warrant banning her from competing. A study by the Olympics people found that the narrative that trans women are inherently stronger overall is deeply flawed.
 https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/olympic-trans-women-ioc-study-rcna148437

It’s pretty telling that the three usual suspects (Pres Mike, VBM, Horus) have completely ignored this.

The transphobes know deep down that they don’t have any facts to back to their arguments, and that their entire perspective is no more sophisticated than that of a toddler looking at asparagus and going “yucky, I don’t like it!”.

Well considering one of the first responses was “disgusting” that tells you that right there

[7,052,770]

Than, they said new rules solved the problem forever. So why was I making a big deal out of it?

See, I was right.

Did she win her lawsuit? Is she going to? (No and no are the answers, by the way.)

[VBM]

Lia's high performance is an outlier among the transfem athletes we've seen iirc. And even then it wasn't enough to warrant banning her from competing. A study by the Olympics people found that the narrative that trans women are inherently stronger overall is deeply flawed.
 https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/olympic-trans-women-ioc-study-rcna148437

It’s pretty telling that the three usual suspects (Pres Mike, VBM, Horus) have completely ignored this.

The transphobes know deep down that they don’t have any facts to back to their arguments, and that their entire perspective is no more sophisticated than that of a toddler looking at asparagus and going “yucky, I don’t like it!”.

I literally did though? This study is irrelevant to the Lia Thomas issue because the trans women in this study were on HRT for over a year, while Lia Thomas wasn’t.

[Pres Mike]

Than, they said new rules solved the problem forever. So why was I making a big deal out of it?

See, I was right.

Did she win her lawsuit? Is she going to? (No and no are the answers, by the way.)

Perhaps. But it shows the issue isn't "settled"

[emailking]

Maybe but I think what he's saying is that maybe you should wait until she wins something or gets a major concession before worrying about it.

[TheTide]

The biggest issue here is that too many people take sport far too seriously.

[Since I'm the mad scientist proclaimed by myself]

Lia's high performance is an outlier among the transfem athletes we've seen iirc. And even then it wasn't enough to warrant banning her from competing. A study by the Olympics people found that the narrative that trans women are inherently stronger overall is deeply flawed.
 https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/olympic-trans-women-ioc-study-rcna148437

It’s pretty telling that the three usual suspects (Pres Mike, VBM, Horus) have completely ignored this.

The transphobes know deep down that they don’t have any facts to back to their arguments, and that their entire perspective is no more sophisticated than that of a toddler looking at asparagus and going “yucky, I don’t like it!”.

I literally did though? This study is irrelevant to the Lia Thomas issue because the trans women in this study were on HRT for over a year, while Lia Thomas wasn’t.

She's clearly been on HRT for more than a year now, so even if your claim is true, it isn't relevant right now.

[Since I'm the mad scientist proclaimed by myself]

Lia's high performance is an outlier among the transfem athletes we've seen iirc. And even then it wasn't enough to warrant banning her from competing. A study by the Olympics people found that the narrative that trans women are inherently stronger overall is deeply flawed.
 https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/olympic-trans-women-ioc-study-rcna148437

Lia Thomas is not a biological female. 

That's a bottom line here.  I don't care about the studies, and I don't necessarily believe your sources.

Well God forbid facts and studies about biology get in the way of your feelings on it.

That Lia Thomas is not a biological female is an indisputable fact.

It's highly disputable. She's been on hormones a long time by now, her body chemistry, fat distribution, etc are unambiguously female at these stage. The claim that biological sex is based on chromosome variations that's direct effects IIRC basically amount to controlling hormones in the womb is not any more valid than the idea that it's based on the measurable differences caused by hormonal factors over a long period of time.

What?

If you have a Y chromosone, you are a biological male. End of story. Even the crazist activists don't even argue this fact

lol. You do know that the concept of "biologically male" is a category made up by humans, right?

[Yelnoc]

Lia's high performance is an outlier among the transfem athletes we've seen iirc. And even then it wasn't enough to warrant banning her from competing. A study by the Olympics people found that the narrative that trans women are inherently stronger overall is deeply flawed.
 https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/olympic-trans-women-ioc-study-rcna148437

Lia Thomas is not a biological female. 

That's a bottom line here.  I don't care about the studies, and I don't necessarily believe your sources.

Well God forbid facts and studies about biology get in the way of your feelings on it.

That Lia Thomas is not a biological female is an indisputable fact.

It's highly disputable. She's been on hormones a long time by now, her body chemistry, fat distribution, etc are unambiguously female at these stage. The claim that biological sex is based on chromosome variations that's direct effects IIRC basically amount to controlling hormones in the womb is not any more valid than the idea that it's based on the measurable differences caused by hormonal factors over a long period of time.

What?

If you have a Y chromosone, you are a biological male. End of story. Even the crazist activists don't even argue this fact

lol. You do know that the concept of "biologically male" is a category made up by humans, right?

I'll bite. Is male-female sex distribution not a common feature throughout the animal kingdom?

[kwabbit]

Lia's high performance is an outlier among the transfem athletes we've seen iirc. And even then it wasn't enough to warrant banning her from competing. A study by the Olympics people found that the narrative that trans women are inherently stronger overall is deeply flawed.
 https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/olympic-trans-women-ioc-study-rcna148437

Regardless of the long-term averages, it’s obvious that Thomas succeeded because of a biological advantage from having lived and trained for 20 years before transitioning. She got progressively worse throughout the one season she competed in Women’s swimming and I doubt that she could actually make the team at this point, but she still reaped an unfair advantage in 2022.

[President of the great nation of 🏳️‍⚧️]

What's the deal with transgender people? They're not transgender, and they're not people!
Opinion not my own.

[Never Made it to Graceland]

What's the deal with transgender people? They're not transgender, and they're not people!
Opinion not my own.

Guys on Atlas will see this and be like "hell yeah"

[Since I'm the mad scientist proclaimed by myself]

Lia's high performance is an outlier among the transfem athletes we've seen iirc. And even then it wasn't enough to warrant banning her from competing. A study by the Olympics people found that the narrative that trans women are inherently stronger overall is deeply flawed.
 https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/olympic-trans-women-ioc-study-rcna148437

Lia Thomas is not a biological female. 

That's a bottom line here.  I don't care about the studies, and I don't necessarily believe your sources.

Well God forbid facts and studies about biology get in the way of your feelings on it.

That Lia Thomas is not a biological female is an indisputable fact.

It's highly disputable. She's been on hormones a long time by now, her body chemistry, fat distribution, etc are unambiguously female at these stage. The claim that biological sex is based on chromosome variations that's direct effects IIRC basically amount to controlling hormones in the womb is not any more valid than the idea that it's based on the measurable differences caused by hormonal factors over a long period of time.

What?

If you have a Y chromosone, you are a biological male. End of story. Even the crazist activists don't even argue this fact

lol. You do know that the concept of "biologically male" is a category made up by humans, right?

I'll bite. Is male-female sex distribution not a common feature throughout the animal kingdom?

The existence of sex differences definitely exists, but how humans perceive and interpret these distributions is socially constructed. Some animals can switch sides of the reproductive binary(eg some frogs). More importantly for our purposes,  most of the things that differentiate male and female humans in our minds can be changed from one to the other with the right technology. Chromosomes cannot be changed with our current technology, but pretty much all of the differences in biology between post-pubescent males and females are either changeable via hormone replacement at any time(eg fat distribution, skin character/texture, muscle character, internal chemistry, body fat percentage, sense of smell, subtle differences in emotions, certain subtle aspects of the voice, bone density AFAIK) or are determined by the hormones present during puberty*(eg differences in bone structure, the character of the vocal cords** breast growth***). The few that can't be swapped at all aren't usually relevant to day to day life(reproductive sex organs, chromosomes). Is the idea that we should define biological sex based on the differences that have large impacts on our daily lives rather than ones that require genetic testing or nudity to notice not a reasonable one? And in the concept of sports in particular, shouldn't biological sex be determined specifically by the factors that influence sports performance?

*whether at the "normal" age or after puberty blockers are stopped

**The vocal cords drop when the body has high t levels for a while, and doesn't undrop with estrogen. This is why trans woman sometimes "sound like men" when they talk.)

***breast growth is the reverse of vocal cords, happening when the body is exposed to large amounts of estrogen and progesterone and not going away when testosterone levels are heightened)

[HisGrace]

I was pretty open minded on this but we've already done the experiment here. Lia Thomas was a crappy male college swimmer who took all the hormones and transitioned, and then set all kinds of records and won everything as a woman swimmer. I think it's pretty clear that transwomen shouldn't be competing with regular women in endurance based sports like swimming. Don't really care about abstract research when we have a practical example, that's supposed to be how the scientific method works, basing your conclusions on observed reality and not just hypothesizing endlessly.

[emailking]

She wasn't crappy she just wasn't amazing.

[Sol]

I was pretty open minded on this but we've already done the experiment here. Lia Thomas was a crappy male college swimmer who took all the hormones and transitioned, and then set all kinds of records and won everything as a woman swimmer. I think it's pretty clear that transwomen shouldn't be competing with regular women in endurance based sports like swimming. Don't really care about abstract research when we have a practical example, that's supposed to be how the scientific method works, basing your conclusions on observed reality and not just hypothesizing endlessly.

Ironically this is a misunderstanding of how science works, in that it assumes that Lia Thomas's strong performance is representative of all trans women in sports. The news article posted upthread already presents evidence from actual transfeminine athletes.

I'm aware I'm not convincing anybody (and I'm probably going to regret posting in here since it'll give me alerts for various horrible posts) but the problem with trans sports bans is that they:

• Assume that the fact of aggregate sex differences in various kinds of physical ability means that an individual man/trans women will always be better than a cis woman (note how this discourse always ignores trans men).
• Assume hormone therapies have no effect on individual performance
• Ignore the presence of dramatic biological variation within sexes

On point one, I think we can all think of cis women who are better than some or most cis men at various physical tasks. Again, in the aggregate it's true that cis men tend to be better at this stuff than cis women, but people differ a lot from each other. If we think about men and women's athletic ability as two normal distributions, there's a huge amount of overlap there. If the argument for trans exclusion is that cis women won't get a fair shake against trans women who are from a sex which is stronger (in the aggregate), then that ignores the many AMAB people whose athletic ability is naturally on the lower end of the distribution on the basis of their assigned sex.

On point two, it's just fairly straightforwardly true that hormone therapies influence the bodies of people who are transitioning, in a way which reduces or even removes a gap with cis women. It's pointed out in the article which Scarlet posted upthread. We would expect that this would push trans women closer to cis female performance on various metrics, especially so for younger people's whose puberties aren't extremely different from cis women. If we're allowing potential outlier anecdotes, I'll note that I've definitely become a bit physically weaker in being on hormones, not that I was much of a Charles Atlas type before.

And finally, sports already have a lot of natural biological variation in ability. There are cisgender women who have an extremely strong biological advantage based on their frame, natural hormonal levels, etc. Even if we reject the previous two points, we're still left with the problem that trans sports bans are discriminating against one kind of woman for a (perceived) biological advantage while doing nothing about other kinds of women with a biological advantage.

Of course, that gets to what the core issue is. If you look at opinion polling on various trans related issues, you'll see that there's a gap between what might be termed a "tolerant position" --i.e. 'live and let live' and an "accepting position" -- i.e. trans people are authentically their gender. The former generally gets much more support than the latter, which means that there are a lot of people who think "trans people should be allowed to live a dignified life, but it's a bit weird and I'm still seeing them as a woman/man." Speaking personally, the fact that that the tolerant position is a decent majority of Americans is a win for trans people.

But the right sees that too, and so seizing onto the sports issue, where assigned sex is so salient, is a way of pushing people in that "tolerant but not accepting" bucket into a viewpoint where they'll be more open to increasingly hostile anti-trans rhetoric. Trans sports bans have been the first step along a path of anti-trans legislation all around the country.

[7,052,770]

I was pretty open minded on this but we've already done the experiment here. Lia Thomas was a crappy male college swimmer who took all the hormones and transitioned, and then set all kinds of records and won everything as a woman swimmer. I think it's pretty clear that transwomen shouldn't be competing with regular women in endurance based sports like swimming. Don't really care about abstract research when we have a practical example, that's supposed to be how the scientific method works, basing your conclusions on observed reality and not just hypothesizing endlessly.

The following sentences should not be misinterpreted with an endorsement of Thomas's participation at the NCAA Division I Women's Swimming Championship. The bolded part is not true at all. Are you actually under the impression that it is?

You're never going to flip anyone to your side when they read arguments like this and can immediately dismiss them.

[7,052,770]

For those who may not remember, Thomas:

• Was the #89 ranked male swimmer nationally in her final year as a man, despite being hindered by female hormones. This may not be elite, but it sure isn't "crappy" if you're in the top 100
• Was the #32 ranked female swimmer nationally in her only season as a female, which isn't really elite either
• Did not set any records as a female swimmer
• Won 1 national championship as a woman while competing in 4 events

I think it's fairly obvious that she did have some advantage over ciswomen swimmers, but why overstate the argument by saying she "set all kinds of records and won everything as a woman swimmer" when that's an objectively false statement?

[ingemann]

The biggest issue here is that too many people take sport far too seriously.

People discuss it because it’s very clear cut, I don’t understand precisely how puberty blockers work and really don’t understand the long term effect of them, and anyone here who claim they understand it is full of fecal matter, and honestly no better than the people who have done their own research on vaccines.

But this is a very simple matter, where we get to judge whether the expects are really expects or just activists. Just as we get to judge our fellow posters and discover whether they’re able to think for themselves or they’re just followers.

[Pres Mike]

Lia's high performance is an outlier among the transfem athletes we've seen iirc. And even then it wasn't enough to warrant banning her from competing. A study by the Olympics people found that the narrative that trans women are inherently stronger overall is deeply flawed.
 https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/olympic-trans-women-ioc-study-rcna148437

Lia Thomas is not a biological female. 

That's a bottom line here.  I don't care about the studies, and I don't necessarily believe your sources.

Well God forbid facts and studies about biology get in the way of your feelings on it.

That Lia Thomas is not a biological female is an indisputable fact.

It's highly disputable. She's been on hormones a long time by now, her body chemistry, fat distribution, etc are unambiguously female at these stage. The claim that biological sex is based on chromosome variations that's direct effects IIRC basically amount to controlling hormones in the womb is not any more valid than the idea that it's based on the measurable differences caused by hormonal factors over a long period of time.

What?

If you have a Y chromosone, you are a biological male. End of story. Even the crazist activists don't even argue this fact

lol. You do know that the concept of "biologically male" is a category made up by humans, right?

I'll bite. Is male-female sex distribution not a common feature throughout the animal kingdom?

The few that can't be swapped at all aren't usually relevant to day to day life(reproductive sex organs, chromosomes). Is the idea that we should define biological sex based on the differences that have large impacts on our daily lives rather than ones that require genetic testing or nudity to notice not a reasonable one? And in the concept of sports in particular, shouldn't biological sex be determined specifically by the factors that influence sports performance?

Yeah, this is just pure craziness. You clearly are too far out of the mainstram to argue with. All I can say is thank God that your views aren't mainstream even by trans activists.