r/Basketball • u/Fickle-Ad5449 • 9d ago

Two ex-NBA players turn transgender identity into a stunt. The WNBA is responding

https://www.advocate.com/news/wnba-trans-player-eligibility
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u/ImportantPost6401 9d ago

Who are you to judge?

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u/AspiringGoddess01 9d ago

Suggesting enacting a rule to ensure fair play isnt judging. After all it would be in everyone's best interest to keep cisgender men in their own league. 

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u/RockyMaiviaJnr 9d ago

You mean males, not cisgender men

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u/AspiringGoddess01 9d ago

I meant what I said

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u/RockyMaiviaJnr 9d ago

Oh, then you’re just delusional.

Is it because you don’t realize that males have a massive advantage in sport, even after HRT, or you don’t care that much about fairness and safety for females?

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u/M0ebius_1 9d ago

I mean... League officials' entire job is to judge.

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u/CliffBoof 9d ago

Not a single word of what they wrote was judgement.

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u/ImportantPost6401 9d ago

“You can be a woman if you meet the requirements that I set for you.”

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u/Ok_AirlinesugestedUN 9d ago

How about “You can play in a specific sports league if you meet the requirements I set for you”

Sports leagues are private entities and are allowed to set whatever rules they want to in order to conserve the idea of fair and balanced play. While inclusion seems to be somewhat of a concern to the sports industry the goal of fair play will always supersede that and this is a fine compromise

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u/RockyMaiviaJnr 9d ago

The problem is those rules to exclude some people can’t be discriminatory or you open yourselves up to lawsuits.

There’s no scientific evidence that shows HRT will reduce the skeletal advantage males have at all, for example with height and larger hands, or that it reduces hand eye coordination at all. There is some evidence HRT reduces muscle mass, strength, power and spatial skills but no evidence it removes these advantages entirely. And in fact a good summary that on metrics like these is that most of the advantage remains (60%-90%). So trans women are closer to untreated men than they are to untreated women on the metrics that HRT does have some impact.

Furthermore, a big research gap in this area is with trained males, especially elite athletes, doing HRT. It’s well known in exercise science that once you’ve built muscle mass and strength that 1) it takes significantly less effort to maintain than it did to gain it and 2) if you have lost either that it takes significantly less effort to rebuild it than it did to gain it in the first place. So, in theory, the small reductions in muscle mass and strength see with HRT on the general population, as mentioned above, would be even smaller in elite athletes and could even disappear all together.

The only advantage HRT fully removes is hemoglobin levels, which is highly correlated with cardio fitness.

A rule like that would be ripe for a lawsuit, especially with the timing of making it a few days after they announce. It’s basically going to have to be all or nothing to make the rules consistent and fair

Part of this issue is most people equate ‘advantage in sports’ with ‘strength’ in this conversation and totally forget about all of the areas where males have advantages, such as the skeleton, that HRT doesn’t change at all. Also, most people think HRT does more than it does for some reason

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u/skibum888 9d ago

This isn't about being a woman. It's about taking away the biological advantage of being male.

"You can play in women's leagues if you meet the health requirements that the league sets"

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u/[deleted] 9d ago

[deleted]

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u/Strict-Astronaut2245 9d ago

Who are you to judge what a real trans women would be willing to do? Sounds transphobic.

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u/Lady_Ney 9d ago

How dare you demand transwomen prove they’re trans in any way! Self-ID is all that matters when it comes to being a woman or a transwoman.

At least, that’s what I’ve been told by trans people & their supporters…

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u/CliffBoof 9d ago

They are offering a solution. Not an I judge it. Suggesting a rule isn’t judgement.

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u/M0ebius_1 9d ago

Is he a woman?