A record number of athletes openly identifying as LGBTQ+ are competing in the 2024 Paris Olympics, a massive leap during a competition that organizers have pushed to center around inclusion and diversity.
There are 191 athletes publicly saying they are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer and nonbinary who are participating in the Games, according to Outsports, an organization that compiles a database of openly queer Olympians. The vast majority of the athletes are women.
That number has quashed the previous record of 186 out athletes counted at the COVID-19-delayed Tokyo Olympics held in 2021, and the count is only expected to grow at future Olympics.
“More and more people are coming out,” said Jim Buzinski, co-founder of Outsports. “They realize it’s important to be visible because there’s no other way to get representation.”
The moment a single trans athlete wins top 3 in their sport, expect every troll to suddenly become an expert biologist. But they don’t actually give a single fuck when trans athletes lose.
Would be interesting to see something that could prove or disprove if transwomen get any benefits. All I’ve seen is inconclusive or partial results (see my other comment). For that reason, I don’t think IOC’s guidelines can be thought of as being finalized or uncontroversial.
I have a very real problem with any guy ever competing in a woman’s sport. It’s a hard line that should never be crossed. Your biological sex at birth is quite valid, there is no discussion on this topic in the realm of sanity.
This is the line that most sane people also draw, and if you think otherwise you need to get off the Internet.
Trans women/girls aren’t “guys” - GTFO with that!
If the only puberty someone goes through is a female puberty, where does their advantage come from? Hormone blockers exist for a reason and they do a really good job at delaying puberty for younger trans people.
What you’re saying is, that trans women/girls who have gone through a transition before puberty are physically equal to born women. You clearly agree that there must be some regulation at least onto when the transition happened.
The sports organizations which allow trans atheletes do exactly that. Example:
https://www.aclu.org/wp-content/uploads/legal-documents/049-9_exhibit_i.pdf
“the International Olympic Committee (IOC) determined criteria by which a transgender woman may be eligible to compete in the female category, requiring total serum testosterone levels to be suppressed below 10 nmol/L for at least 12 months prior to and during competition.”
Good enough for the Olympics? Good enough for me!
I didn’t say that, but the point I was getting across was that systemglitch is drawing this black and white box that isn’t the world we live in.
People have different kinds of transition stories and that’s OK. As of today the Olympics does have regulations in place. I’m not an expert on what those are, I just know they do take into consideration more than what systemglitch is thinking they should do. (Also, intersex people do exist and again these are situations the Olympics has to account for.)
Sorry to correct, but it absolutely is the world we live in. You’re fighting to change it.
End of the day, transitioning has many downsides and massive toll. Sorry, but maybe competing has to be one of them. Your example of pre puberty child that then goes to compete doesn’t exist, right? Every example brought up is about someone who transitioned after their bodies were “done” growing.
As you said, don’t paint it black and white when there is whole lot of grey on both sides.
The sports organizations which allow trans atheletes do exactly that. Example:
https://www.aclu.org/wp-content/uploads/legal-documents/049-9_exhibit_i.pdf
“the International Olympic Committee (IOC) determined criteria by which a transgender woman may be eligible to compete in the female category, requiring total serum testosterone levels to be suppressed below 10 nmol/L for at least 12 months prior to and during competition.”
Good enough for the Olympics? Good enough for me!
Shows how insane our society has become.
The IOC isn’t exactly “our society”.
Depends how you look at it I guess.
If you had a look at the actual statistics, with measures such as “be on hormones for at least X months before competing” in place: Middling athletes stay middling, shoddy stay shoddy, stellar ones stay stellar. If Michael Phelps transitioned and then competed and won it wouldn’t be because of being born as a man, but because he’s a genetic freak. Ideal limb structure, something about his lactose processing, you name it, he’s been born with tons of advantages.
Which brings me to another point: No, the competitions have never been fair. Grit and determination is necessary, but definitely not sufficient, to win the Olympics. Athletes transitioning to get an edge? I believe it when transphobes demonstrate it, under doctor’s supervision, on themselves. More likely they’d off themselves due to dysphoria before they could even dream of competing.
Go back to reddit pls
Very inclusive of you.
Why would I want to include bigots / trolls?
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What percentage of all athletes is that?
1.7% Roughly. 191/11000, as that was the closest estimate.
As a population the estimate is 5% of people so probability there are almost twice as many athletes who are in the closet then those who are out.
I imagine at least a half of the countries participating in the Olympics being morbidly bad at LGBTQ+ rights and that a biggoted campaign against a sportsperson can cost them their entire career or life adds to the reasons why there’re more of them we don’t see. They phut Muh Mutherland to shame! is a big target to put on someone’s back if not for the state, but for it’s most reactionary citizen.
I don’t know if this specific group has the same distribution of LGBTQ+ folks as the general population, but as a second thought I’m sure the amount of persons being aware of their own sexuality and gender identity or learning them can top their own nation’s metrics because of the exposure to the international sports scene.
Maybe some of them aren’t in the closet but have never been asked.
Wow. Impressive.
One day, I’ll learn how this works.
I wonder how many of those are from Africa and the Middle East.
(just kidding, we all know it’s zero)
https://www.outsports.com/2024/7/17/24097560/celebrating-out-lgbtq-athletes-2024-paris-olympics/
The list of out athletes is heavily weighted to parts of the world where being LGBTQ is both legally and culturally accepted. This includes countries in North and South America, Western and Northern Europe and Australia and New Zealand. There are out athletes from 27 of the 206 participating nations (including the Refugee Olympic Team).
The countries with the most out athletes at the Paris Olympics: USA (31), Brazil (30), Australia (22), Germany (13), Spain (12), Great Britain (11), Canada (11) and the Netherlands (10).
There are only three out athletes from Asia that we know of at the time of publication: two boxers from the Philippines and one from Thailand. There are only four athletes from Africa: three South Africans, and one from the Refugee Team, boxer Cindy Ngamba, born in Cameroon and now living in Great Britain. There is only one athlete from any Muslim-dominated country (a Turkish volleyball player), places where being out and gay is often illegal or dangerous, and none from Russia, which has cracked down on LGBTQ rights in the past decade.
Thank you for the source, much appreciated!
and none from Russia
Isnt russia banned from the olympics?
Russians can’t compete under a Russian flag, but Russian athletes may still participate under a neutral flag
I’ve no idea how stating this is relevant to the conversation
Calling out hypocrisy. Cheering LGBT representation is pointless if only a select few get to benefit while others are harshly repressed.
Small steps I suppose. Can’t police the entire world, but we can promote the behavior we’d like to see to try to encourage the repression to be removed
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Most cis sportswomen have naturally elevated “masculine” hormones. Trans women see many physical changes (like fat redistribution and changes in muscle n fat mass) after commencing hormone therapy. Therefore, the “advantage” that they have over cis women is negligible. It is in fact comparable to the advantage that some cis women have over other cis women (the hormone thing that I mentioned in my first sentence).
But no, being assholes towards trans people is cool, and there clearly aren’t other issues to worry about. /s
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There is an undeniable trend of mtf athletes breaking female records. Trying to hide from that does noone any good.
Trans athletes have been accepted in the Olympics since 2004, yet not a single one has so much as qualified for a games since then, despite having such a “big advantage”
And globally the only trans person to ever get a professional title was a div 1 swimmer in the US.
That’s just factually incorrect. Laurel Hubbard qualified for and competed at the Tokyo Olympics.
Ah okay, my information is clearly out of date, but I think my point still stands as she came 7th
No, not at all. There was also Quinn who won a Gold medal at the same Olympics. And Laurel Hubbard won silver at the World Championships and gold twice at the Commonwealth Games but was 43 years old by the time of the Tokyo Olympics.
Additionally, you have to consider that the current rules regarding trans athletes are only in place since 2015. Before it was required to undergo sexual reassignment surgery and have your gender legally changed. And even after the changes, many trans athletes couldn’t compete at the Olympics because the governing bodies of their sport are more restrictive. So even if trans athletes have a “big advantage”, there are plenty ways to explain their lack of presence at the Olympics.
Please give us a widely accepted definition for ‘female’ based in science.
Females have larger gametes. Males have smaller gametes. Just because this doesn’t apply to 100% of cases doesn’t make this an accepted definition – everything has exceptions in nature. 98-99% is good enough for a categorization though.
Does this affect how transwomen do in women’s category? Probably 98-99% not (hah), since IOC has declared this all works just fine?
Still it’s still a bit controversial, e.g. https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/55/11/577.full?ijkey=yjlCzZVZFRDZzHz&keytype=ref this study showed one set of cases where hormone treatment removed most differences in transwomen vs women but they remained significantly faster runners.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7846503/ this seems to show that transwomen lose very little of their biological advantage. "Rather, the data show that strength, lean body mass, muscle size and bone density are only trivially affected. "
Who made this the accepted definition? Because you haven’t shown me who came up with it and who agrees with it.
Also “doesn’t apply to 100% of cases” is not a way to scientifically define something, so I doubt it’s accepted. But feel free to prove me wrong since you came up with links that don’t support your claim.
Does not contain male levels of testosterone post maturity.
What are ‘male levels of testosterone’ exactly?
Are men with hypergonadism not men?
Don’t be obtuse. It’s considered a malady in males, hence the full term “Male hypogonadism”.
Your definition of female:
“Does not contain male levels of testosterone post maturity.”
That includes men with hypogonadism.
It’s not my fault that the medical term doesn’t agree with your definition.
Oh? Explain why you think “male” is specified in the disease then if my definition were not correct?
You defined ‘female’ purely based on testosterone levels. That’s not my fault if it fits some men.
XX chromosomes
So you’re not female if you have Swyer Syndrome.
In Swyer syndrome, individuals have one X chromosome and one Y chromosome in each cell, which is the pattern typically found in boys and men; however, they have female reproductive structures.
People with Swyer syndrome have female external genitalia and some female internal reproductive structures. These individuals usually have a uterus and fallopian tubes, but their gonads (ovaries or testes) are not functional. Instead, the gonads are small and underdeveloped and contain little gonadal tissue. These structures are called streak gonads.
Not a woman, right? Despite not even being able to tell even when you see them naked, right?
How about XXY people? Men or women? Because they usually look like men, but at least one got pregnant.
Correct. Human, worth just as much as everybody else, but not technically female.
So males can get pregnant?
Your own quote tells me that people with chromosomal abnormalities tend to be sterile, so no. XX makes you a woman. XY makes you a man. Abnormalities are just that, abnormal. Trans people have problems and cutting them up is not the solution.
That is not how science works. There is not “exception to the rule” in science. That’s not how it works. If you can’t come up with a scientific definition that biologists agree with you on, just admit it. None of you seem to be able to. You think you know the science, but you can’t back it up.
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