The 'Trans' Issue.

[The Voice of Reason]

14 hours ago, John Wright said:

 

But we do have a system of handicapping in football, it’s called leagues or tiers.

We put those of approximately the same ability in the same leagues. Those who are worse go down, those who are better go up, or at the very top get to join international competitions to make even more obscene amounts of money ( not necessarily from ticket sales ).

 

I don’t agree that leagues are a system of handicapping in football.

We don’t “ put” those of approximately the same ability in the same leagues. Teams are in those leagues, and the position in those leagues, by virtue of their results.

League positions are no more than a ranking of points achieved from match results. Like producing a table or list of who was fastest, second fastest or least fastest in any given TT race

I accept that between the four professional English leagues there are limits on how many are promoted or relegated from each in any season. I don’t believe this constitutes handicapping though. It’s just being practical.
The alternative to having four divisions  would be to have just one league of 92 teams in which each would have to play 182 games a season which wouldn’t really work.
 

 

Edited May 29, 2023 by The Voice of Reason
Making last sentence a paragraph on its own

[John Wright]

27 minutes ago, The Voice of Reason said:

I don’t agree that leagues are a system of handicapping in football.

We don’t “ put” those of approximately the same ability in the same leagues. Teams are in those leagues, and the position in those leagues, by virtue of their results.

League positions are no more than a ranking of points achieved from match results. Like producing a table or list of who was fastest, second fastest or least fastest in any given TT race

I accept that between the four professional English leagues there are limits on how many are promoted or relegated from each in any season. I don’t believe this constitutes handicapping though. It’s just being practical.
The alternative to having four divisions  would be to have just one league of 92 teams in which each would have to play 182 games a season which wouldn’t really work.
 

 

It’s a type of handicapping, or categorisation based on ability ( previous results ), so that teams in each league, tier, division play against other teams of roughly the same ability. That’s not any different in reality to handicapping in golf.

It gives teams of lesser ability the chance to win their league, tier, division, whereas with a 92 team league many would be beaten/slaughtered every game. It’s no different in effect.

All I’m saying is that there are ways in which existing sports deal with different ability and achievements and potential, seeding, tiering, classification, divisions, handicapping. There’s no sensible reason why the same can’t be applied to resolve the trans issue. 

Even you recognise ability is reflected in results, which, within the rules, determines which leagu.

[offshoremanxman]

5 hours ago, The Voice of Reason said:

I don’t agree that leagues are a system of handicapping in football.

Talking of handicaps I don’t get how that midget woman qualifies for the special Olympics. Being a bit small is not the same as being blind or having one leg. It seems a bit of an unfair advantage to me that someone otherwise fully able bodied gets to win awards in swimming. Rather like the trans argument.  

[The Voice of Reason]

21 minutes ago, offshoremanxman said:

Talking of handicaps I don’t get how that midget woman qualifies for the special Olympics. Being a bit small is not the same as being blind or having one leg. It seems a bit of an unfair advantage to me that someone otherwise fully able bodied gets to win awards in swimming. Rather like the trans argument.  

Fair point,

Apparently she has achondroplasia which means that your limbs are shorter relative to your torso. But is that a handicap? Or as much as a handicap as having one arm or no arms?. It’s a matter of degree I guess

She always comes across as very pleasant when she’s on the One Show

Edited May 29, 2023 by The Voice of Reason
Addition of last paragraph

[offshoremanxman]

20 minutes ago, The Voice of Reason said:

Fair point,

Apparently she has achondroplasia which means that your limbs are shorter relative to your torso. But is that a handicap? Or as much as a handicap as having one arm or no arms?. It’s a matter of degree I guess

She always comes across as very pleasant when she’s on the One Show

It’s a similar argument though. If I was a disabled swimmer I’d be complaining about why this midget was allowed to compete as being fully able bodied with all faculties is clearly a significant advantage. Similar to what they’re claiming for trans athletes. 

[John Wright]

24 minutes ago, offshoremanxman said:

It’s a similar argument though. If I was a disabled swimmer I’d be complaining about why this midget was allowed to compete as being fully able bodied with all faculties is clearly a significant advantage. Similar to what they’re claiming for trans athletes. 

Why?

Have you looked at the classifications for paralympics and international or national para sport. 

First, if you think someone with achondroplasia or other forms of dwarfism is able bodied, and not disabled, it says more about you, and VoR, than anything else.

Second, she won’t be competing against swimmers  with missing limbs, or sight impairment, etc, but with other competitors with growth restriction.

[offshoremanxman]

18 minutes ago, John Wright said:

Why?

Have you looked at the classifications for paralympics and international or national para sport. 

The rules for swimming are here

https://paralympics.org.uk/sports/para-swimming

“Athletes with different impairments compete against each other, because sport classes are allocated based on the impact the impairment has on swimming, rather than on the impairment itself”

Simmonds is Class S6 which is 

Swimmers with short stature or amputations of both arms, or moderate co-ordination problems on one side of their body, for example.

In terms of benchmarking equivalent handicaps it’s not hard to see how someone who has all four limbs might regularly manage to win races against people with missing limbs.   

Edited May 29, 2023 by offshoremanxman

[John Wright]

16 minutes ago, offshoremanxman said:

The rules for swimming are here

https://paralympics.org.uk/sports/para-swimming

“Athletes with different impairments compete against each other, because sport classes are allocated based on the impact the impairment has on swimming, rather than on the impairment itself”

Simmonds is Class S6 which is 

Swimmers with short stature or amputations of both arms, or moderate co-ordination problems on one side of their body, for example.

Egg all over face moment. I only recall watching  her swim against other growth restricted athletes. Must be mistaken.

That being said, to assume that she’s able bodied, but short, is still not accurate or acceptable.

[wrighty]

2 minutes ago, John Wright said:

Egg all over face moment. I only recall watching  her swim against other growth restricted athletes. Must be mistaken.

That’s how it used to be. Categories were all of a similar disability. Presumably there got to be too many, so they changed to the system now where disabilities are said to be ‘equivalent’. Some are nonsensical, or seem so to me. You can be a para-swimmer if you have a cruciate ligament deficient knee. About a third of the all blacks have cruciate deficient knees.

There have been all sorts of shenanigans with disability classifications over the years, and all sorts of cheating. Dyslexic football players - supposedly a mental impairment. Wheelchair basketball players with nothing wrong with them. Blind athletes who could see. And then there’s clamping - if you’re paraplegic with a bladder catheter you can clamp it and end up with a massive adrenaline response which apart from being potentially fatal could help you wheel your chair a bit faster. 

[offshoremanxman]

6 minutes ago, John Wright said:

Egg all over face moment. I only recall watching  her swim against other growth restricted athletes. Must be mistaken.

That being said, to assume that she’s able bodied, but short, is still not accurate or acceptable.

All I’m trying to say is that I don’t think a handicap system would work for trans athletes as it doesn’t seem to work for the Paralympic’s. Who is to say that having no arms is the same has having two arms and two legs but just being a bit short? It doesn’t seem to make sense and I’d love to see what impairment assessment or rating system they use to work out that this is fair. For that reason I can’t see how you could possibly do it for trans athletes either.

[The Voice of Reason]

1 hour ago, John Wright said:

Egg all over face moment. I only recall watching  her swim against other growth restricted athletes. Must be mistaken.

That being said, to assume that she’s able bodied, but short, is still not accurate or acceptable.

Bloody hell! 
Is that an acknowledgment ( albeit qualified) that you were wrong ? (or mistaken as you prefer to call it)

Theres a first!. You are human after all🙂

Edited May 29, 2023 by The Voice of Reason
Addition of question mark

[The Phantom]

16 hours ago, wrighty said:

football players - supposedly a mental impairment.

And then there’s clamping - if you’re paraplegic with a bladder catheter you can clamp it and end up with a massive adrenaline response which apart from being potentially fatal could help you wheel your chair a bit faster. 

That's surely the majority of the footballers? 

Some of the wheelchair guys used to also do various other self harm antics such as crushing their balls, sitting on pins etc to also get the same adrenaline boost.  It's actually known as 'boosting'. 

I'm not entirely sure how you'd check in an event if someone is crushing their own balls though.  Could get a bit weird. What about trans athletes in wheelchairs?  Does someone have to check all the females for balls? 

[quilp]

On 12/6/2018 at 10:06 AM, quilp said:

"I'm fascinated by the way that concepts apparently arise from nowhere, take hold in popular imagination, then become naturalised and beyond question. One such idea is that individuals can be "born in the wrong body," so that men can be women. Since there is no scientific evidence, neuroscientific or otherwise, that an unambiguously biological male can in fact, be female, how can society have arrived at a stage where people who question the claim that, "Trans women are women" are routinely labelled Nazis, bigots and 'Trans-phobes?'

A new nomenclature has arisen which bifurcates women into two groups: 'Cis' (biological women) and 'Trans.' This performs a linguistic sleight of hand that enables the idea that some men can be women. But no matter how cultivated their 'feminine' outward-appearance, 'Trans-women' (as opposed to Transsexuals) have penises.

The concept that 'Trans-women' are women, and that we must believe this because they affirm it is further translated into the idea that 'Trans-women' are even more oppressed by the patriarchy than their 'Cis' sisters. Progressives routinely turn with vitriol on women who challenge this newly-minted 'Truth,' labelling them "Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminists' or TERFS, no matter how moderate, thoughtful or indeed 'Trans-friendly' those women are. 

This new definition of womanhood is having bizarre effects on our political institutions. The Labour Party now admits men who identify as women on to all-women shortlists, without any necessity for a gender-recognition certificate. A number of these men have successfully applied to the Jo Cox Women In Leadership programme.

Then there's the misogyny. Labour continues to support Lily Madigan (Trans) in the role of Women's Officer for Rochester and Strood, despite His bullying of gender-critical feminists and other women. One of his latest Twitter missives states that, "TERFS can go fuck themselves" and he is allowed to say this (amongst other profane insults) with impunity not only by the party but by Twitter itself. Labour also (briefly) appointed Munroe Bergdorf (Trans) to an LGBT working group. Bergdorf had recently been quoted in the magazine 'Grazia' saying that feminists are "biological-essentialists" because they "summarise women as walking vaginas... ...a similar approach to that of misogynists."

A kind of informal, 'Ministry of Truth' has emerged around the Trans issue -- or rather a, 'Ministry of Propaganda' since it is responsible for the falsification of historical events and biological facts. In keeping with the concept of 'doublethink' the Ministry creates and then spreads 'Truth' through the new language of 'Cis' and 'Trans.'

And in a chilling twist, it is now feminists who are the alleged misogynists, purely because they don't allow human beings with penises to control the political narrative. The statement -- both mundane and tautological -- that women don't have penises is now considered inflammatory! A feminist group distributed stickers making this observation recently in Liverpool, the Police opened an investigation!

A cold wind of authoritarianism is blowing through our allegedly progressive, Liberal-democratic society. And not only in regards to this issue.

When telling the truth becomes hate-speech, when oppression becomes ethics, when non-facts become Truth, we all better watch out..."

The Cass Review published. No revelations, not much that most people didn't know already...

https://sex-matters.org/posts/updates/the-cass-review-is-a-damning-indictment-of-what-the-nhs-has-been-doing-to-children/

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/apr/10/children-are-being-used-as-a-football-hilary-cass-on-her-review-of-gender-identity-services

 

[Chie]

Nil

Edited April 11 by Chie

[The Phantom]

Watching Star Trek Discovery last night.  One of the characters has decided she is now a they/them. 

Although admittedly she/they are host to a long-lived symbiont that has inhabited and has the personalities of many previous hosts (male and female).