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UPenn Bends to Trump Admin; Revokes Lia Thomas Medals
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Anonymous
Good! This is the right move. Mom of a DD- 3 sport athlete. |
Anonymous
People don't object to trans men in men's sports because, since these athletes were born female and went through female puberty, trans men are never in a position to totally dominate a sport. Even on testosterone, most trans men are too small and lack the muscle mass to compete at the highest levels of the sport. The fact that people don't get upset about trans men in mens sports should actually be a hint to people that the objections here are based on fairness for the athletes and NOT based on bigotry. If this were really just about gender essentialism and bigotry towards trans people, then the trans men would get as much attention. They don't. The current NCAA policy, adopted in response to both the Trump administration's policy positions and the judicial shut down of Biden's Title IX rule change, allows any athlete who identifies as a man to compete on a male team. Trans men taking testosterone as part of their transition can apply for a medical exemption to be able to continue to take it while competing, since it is a banned substance. The policy is very inclusive of trans men. Yet the same policy will not allow trans women to compete on women's teams, regardless of whether they are taking hormones. Because the policy is based on the idea that the creation of a woman's category in sports existed to give women, who would otherwise not physically qualify to compete against men even if that category were open, a chance to compete. If athletes who have the same physical advantages as men (height, musculature, lung capacity, etc.) were allowed to compete against cis women who are physically incapable of having those advantages, having never gone through male puberty, it essentially destroys the women's sports, as it directly conflicts with the reason for them existing. As evidenced by Lia Thomas, one of the very few trans women to compete directly against cis women at the collegiate level, quickly surpassing all teammates and competitors during her short time swimming at Penn. This is not about being anti-trans. It's just about realities of how male and female bodies develop and a societal desire to give women an opportunity to compete at a high level in athletics. |
Anonymous
Respectfully, you are the one who has mixed up your facts. The rule you are referencing explicitly carved out athletics. The Department of Education later proposed a separate and standalone regulation on athletics, but it was never finalized. |
Anonymous
Can we agree that the person referring to Lia Thomas as “he” is anti-trans though? |
Anonymous
| UPenn were a bunch of cowards when they let Thomas compete and they're a bunch of cowards now. |
Anonymous
Obviously. |
Anonymous
PP here, and nope. The expansion of Title IX to include transgender students did not "explicitly carve out" athletics. It was a blanket expansion of Title IX to include gender identity and sexual orientation, including athletics. You are right the Biden administration later tried to create a separate set of regulations on athletics, because at that point they realized what a flashpoint the sports aspect of their new Title IX rules would be. However they abandoned that effort and those rules were never enacted. But the only reason they even tried is because it rapidly became clear that their blanket expansion of Title IX could result in a huge mess and controversy in women's athletics, so they were going to try and ret-con that with some more nuanced rules that might have been more restricted (basically enshrining the old NCAA rules about needing to have been on hormone blockers for a certain length of time into federal regulatory code). This article does a good job of outlining the sequence of events: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/judge-tosses-bidens-title-ix-rules-rejecting-expansion-of-protections-for-lgbtq-students Also, to respond to another PP -- Biden's rule change on Title IX is not what enabled Lia Thomas to compete in the women's division at Penn. She came in under the NCAA rules requiring hormone blockers for a certain amount of time. But the example of Thomas is likely one of the reasons Biden's administration abandoned efforts to create more nuanced rules for trans women. Thomas was following the NCAA rules yet still dominated at a level that many people believe indicates that she simply has an unfair physical advantage as a result of being born male and having undergone male puberty. I tend to agree. I think if Biden hadn't tried to intervene using Title IX, it is very likely that Thomas's success would have led the NCAA to reconsider those rules, perhaps extending the amount of time an athlete must be on hormone blockers, perhaps reconsidering whether it is possible for a trans woman who transitions after reaching physical adulthood to fairly compete against women. I do think it would have been a nuanced rule making and would have relied on evidence and consideration of all factors. Instead, Trump won the election and took it out of the NCAA's hands. They were essentially forced to ban all trans women from women's sports, a far more restrictive rule than might have existed had Biden left Title IX alone (or just focused on expanding the rule based on sexual orientation, but leaving the gender identity quagmire alone). |
Anonymous
Way to minimize again. I spoke to a lot of people I knew in real life to see if we could work together to get some movement. Let me guess, you were against school closures but you never made any attempts to get people on the ground to support you to reopen. |
Anonymous
Hormone levels are a miniscule element of the differences and superiority that male bodies have over female bodies when it comes to sports |
Anonymous
There is so much misinformation out there. I will just say that text of regulation literally stated that the general rule would not apply to sports and that there would be separate final rule on athletics. |
Anonymous
I am a little reluctant to agree with this because I think you are the poster consistently refusing to refer to Lia Thomas or other trans women as she. However, this poster is correct that going on hormone blockers as an adult simply cannot undue the physical differences between a trans woman and a cis woman when one was born male and underwent male puberty. The reason swimming has become a point of particular contention is because it is a sport where these difference result in vastly different results. Height and wingspan alone can be the difference between beating a team, national, or world record. You start to see the impact of lung capacity especially at the longer distances. Here's an example: Katie Ledecky holds the world record in the women's 1500m freestyle, at 15:20.48 (long course). Grant Hackett holds the world record in the men's 1500m freestyle, at 14:31.02. Ledecky's world record time would rank her 65th in the world in the men's division. The fastest female 1500m swimmer in the world, in history, would struggle to qualify for the Olympics if competing against men. |
Anonymous
We are talking past each other. The proposed rule included a prohibition on any categorical ban of trans athletes, and also stated that any non-categorical bans would be restricted, and could not be based on overbroad generalizations or false assumptions. The proposed rule also said that there would be additional rule making to provide clarification on the issue of trans athletes, before the rule was finalized. However, the Biden administration abandoned efforts to create those additional clarifying rules before the proposed rule change went into effect in August 2024, saying they would instead develop those additional rules after the November election. Then Harris lost the election. Then a court struck down the rule change anyway. There was no "carve out" for athletics. What happened was that they proposed a rule that would have greatly restricted the ability of schools or governing bodies from setting their own rules on trans athletes, by bringing gender identity under the protection of Title IX. They said they were going to create more specific rules to address how this would work, but then they realized if they released those rules right before the election, it would anger the vast majority of Americans who don't think the government should force schools to let trans women compete in women's sports. So instead they said they would release those rules later, after the election. But the rule itself says that it is intended to apply to trans athletes. |
Anonymous
Trump has already reduced title ix protections for sexual assault survivors. He did that in his first weeks in office. The GOP DGAF about women's athletics - or women. They just want to spin up wedge issues to garner votes. And the idiots fell for it. |
Anonymous
Gee - she didn't win an arm wrestling match just to prove her own point. Shocker. My athletic DD routinely beats boys in arm wrestling. |
Anonymous
Believe all women except when they talk about sexual harassment by transwomen, right? |