[spike5882]

We have yet to see a trans athlete change gender with the purpose to create an advantage.  

Perhaps not. However, Lia is certainly capitalizing on that advantage, isn't she. Six foot five, broad shoulders, 15+ years training and competing as a guy. . . .

When does it become not okay? When a trans girl maims or kills a cisgender girl in a contact sport?

Good lord.  You make it sound like hordes of football players are running to their doctors to transition. A pretty far fetched perspective you have. In your world, pretty soon all these males will be infiltrating all of women sports, maiming and killing other girls along the way, so they can more easily win and finally get paid since they weren’t good enough as a male. But wait, there’s no money in women’s sports. Hmm. So what actually would be their motivation…a ribbon, a medal, a trophy? Genuine question.

And how exactly is she capitalizing on transitioning?  I don’t see her taking advantage of anything since she has transitioned; she has just swam and been pretty quiet about it.  Has she gotten tons of endorsements or NIL money?  Another genuine question.  Just how is she capitalizing?

Breaking swimming records - many would argue unfairly - isn't "capitalizing?"

Making a team (at someone else's expense) isn't capitalizing?

Look, I get it.  Transitioning is not easy, and there are lots of trials and tribulations for those who do it.  So why "penalize" these folks when they are already going through so much by taking something away from them that is obviously so important them (important enough to endure commentary like this - and far more severe, I'm sure)?

But like everything in life, policymaking is all about a balancing of interests.  And fairness.  And the needs of the many versus the needs of the few . . . or the one.  There is no hard and fast rule or recipe that spits out the optimal policy, as each issue has its own set of circumstances, interests, sense of fairness, numbers affected, etc..  

But here, the fairness coefficient and the numbers of benefitted versus adversely affected are just so out of whack that the correct policy seems pretty evident (at least from here).  And again, at least from the view of a father of a cis daughter who has worked hard to compete in her sport.

I also get your side, and I don’t think your daughter should have any reason to feel like the hard work she has put in has been for naught.  I have great respect for any athlete, as it is hard work.

I tend to view policies a bit differently.  In this particularly case, I don’t think the policies currently were made for one person.  She just happens to be the first that is pushing the boundary in any way to make the policy relevant, which may eventually lead to the policy being changed.  Which in that case, it may be an example of a policy being set for one person (and there is a chance that it is changed to be against her.) 

My perspective is as a cis male without any daughter of any gender.  Nor any connection to a competitive female athlete at this moment (beyond some beyond their prime professional volleyball players that are friends from my time at Stanford, but nothing familial.) Given this, I do not have the emotional ties to this as many people do.  It does seem like the majority of people with issue with this problem currently have daughters competing competivitively at the moment (or have issues with trans in general; definitely not implying that is you or anybody who has posted here, just stating in general.)  Coincidentally, I had a conversation about this with my mother last night.  My sister was a swimmer earlier in her life, having swam in the Olympic trials at 15, then decided to stick with basketball and was a top 25 recruit in the nation and played at a P5 school.  She was the one who brought it up, having seen something on the news about it.  I was amused as it’s been quite a long time since we had discussed sports, and it was also very coincidental as I had been responding with my opinion here.  I hesitantly obliged in the conversation.  I say hesitantly because I grew up in Indiana and my parents carry what is perceived by me to be a very small town conservative opinion about most things and it usually doesn’t lead to productive conversations about this type of subject (partly because we differ in opinion but also partly because she gets upset when I ask her to explain her side more so that I can try to understand it.)  I was a bit surprised by her response.  She also understood both sides as well, but if I had to sum it up her response was: ‘I put so much emotional energy into you and your sister’s sports your whole childhood, running you both around everyday, every night, every weekend, and for what? You’re happy doing your thing now.  Your sister has 5 kids and is happy doing her thing now.  I sit and watch your sister push her kids in their sports and she gets so emotional like I did, and it frustrates me.   Because in 20 years they’re all going to forget all the emotions of sports as they continue their life after, just like I have forgotten the purpose of being so emotional about it then. It just sucks you in emotionally and I’m glad that’s not the case for me anymore. So, as long as she is following the rules, what more do people want from her?’  I was a little shocked (and honestly proud) because that is not the person I knew growing up.  I say all this bc it is easy to be emotionally involved (actually kind of required) when your kid competed in any sport at a high level. I do understand that.  But I’m not sure that policies should be set based on emotions.  By the time the emotions of your daughters athletic career later in life, you probably won’t care about the policies in general.  From that perspective, whether this policy or a policy totally unrelated, I think it is key to be decided from an unemotional perspective and I personally think policies should be meant to protect the small minorities not the masses.  The masses will survive; the minorities need the help.  Im not saying they should be creating an advantage necessarily, which is obviously why this particular policy is so difficult.  It’s a new topic, new medical studies to try to understand, a new way of looking at fairness.

[spike5882]

We have yet to see a trans athlete change gender with the purpose to create an advantage.  

Perhaps not. However, Lia is certainly capitalizing on that advantage, isn't she. Six foot five, broad shoulders, 15+ years training and competing as a guy. . . .

When does it become not okay? When a trans girl maims or kills a cisgender girl in a contact sport?

Good lord.  You make it sound like hordes of football players are running to their doctors to transition. A pretty far fetched perspective you have. In your world, pretty soon all these males will be infiltrating all of women sports, maiming and killing other girls along the way, so they can more easily win and finally get paid since they weren’t good enough as a male. But wait, there’s no money in women’s sports. Hmm. So what actually would be their motivation…a ribbon, a medal, a trophy? Genuine question.

And how exactly is she capitalizing on transitioning?  I don’t see her taking advantage of anything since she has transitioned; she has just swam and been pretty quiet about it.  Has she gotten tons of endorsements or NIL money?  Another genuine question.  Just how is she capitalizing?

Breaking swimming records - many would argue unfairly - isn't "capitalizing?"

Making a team (at someone else's expense) isn't capitalizing?

Look, I get it.  Transitioning is not easy, and there are lots of trials and tribulations for those who do it.  So why "penalize" these folks when they are already going through so much by taking something away from them that is obviously so important them (important enough to endure commentary like this - and far more severe, I'm sure)?

But like everything in life, policymaking is all about a balancing of interests.  And fairness.  And the needs of the many versus the needs of the few . . . or the one.  There is no hard and fast rule or recipe that spits out the optimal policy, as each issue has its own set of circumstances, interests, sense of fairness, numbers affected, etc..  

But here, the fairness coefficient and the numbers of benefitted versus adversely affected are just so out of whack that the correct policy seems pretty evident (at least from here).  And again, at least from the view of a father of a cis daughter who has worked hard to compete in her sport.

I also get your side, and I don’t think your daughter should have any reason to feel like the hard work she has put in has been for naught.  I have great respect for any athlete, as it is hard work.

I tend to view policies a bit differently.  In this particularly case, I don’t think the policies currently were made for one person.  She just happens to be the first that is pushing the boundary in any way to make the policy relevant, which may eventually lead to the policy being changed.  Which in that case, it may be an example of a policy being set for one person (and there is a chance that it is changed to be against her.) 

My perspective is as a cis male without any daughter of any gender.  Nor any connection to a competitive female athlete at this moment (beyond some beyond their prime professional volleyball players that are friends from my time at Stanford, but nothing familial.) Given this, I do not have the emotional ties to this as many people do.  It does seem like the majority of people with issue with this problem currently have daughters competing competivitively at the moment (or have issues with trans in general; definitely not implying that is you or anybody who has posted here, just stating in general.)  Coincidentally, I had a conversation about this with my mother last night.  My sister was a swimmer earlier in her life, having swam in the Olympic trials at 15, then decided to stick with basketball and was a top 25 recruit in the nation and played at a P5 school.  She was the one who brought it up, having seen something on the news about it.  I was amused as it’s been quite a long time since we had discussed sports, and it was also very coincidental as I had been responding with my opinion here.  I hesitantly obliged in the conversation.  I say hesitantly because I grew up in Indiana and my parents carry what is perceived by me to be a very small town conservative opinion about most things and it usually doesn’t lead to productive conversations about this type of subject (partly because we differ in opinion but also partly because she gets upset when I ask her to explain her side more so that I can try to understand it.)  I was a bit surprised by her response.  She also understood both sides as well, but if I had to sum it up her response was: ‘I put so much emotional energy into you and your sister’s sports your whole childhood, running you both around everyday, every night, every weekend, and for what? You’re happy doing your thing now.  Your sister has 5 kids and is happy doing her thing now.  I sit and watch your sister push her kids in their sports and she gets so emotional like I did, and it frustrates me.   Because in 20 years they’re all going to forget all the emotions of sports as they continue their life after, just like I have forgotten the purpose of being so emotional about it then. It just sucks you in emotionally and I’m glad that’s not the case for me anymore. So, as long as she is following the rules, what more do people want from her?’  I was a little shocked (and honestly proud) because that is not the person I knew growing up.  I say all this bc it is easy to be emotionally involved (actually kind of required) when your kid competed in any sport at a high level. I do understand that.  But I’m not sure that policies should be set based on emotions.  By the time the emotions of your daughters athletic career later in life, you probably won’t care about the policies in general.  From that perspective, whether this policy or a policy totally unrelated, I think it is key to be decided from an unemotional perspective and I personally think policies should be meant to protect the small minorities not the masses.  The masses will survive; the minorities need the help.  Im not saying they should be creating an advantage necessarily, which is obviously why this particular policy is so difficult.  It’s a new topic, new medical studies to try to understand, a new way of looking at fairness.