The Socialists, led by Pedro Sánchez, the prime minister, included plans to limit participation in female sports to “people with a female biological sex” in a policy document decided on at the party’s congress over the weekend.

The decision to also remove Q+ from a plan to protect sexual and gender minorities from the impact of social inequality sparked fury from LGBTQ+ activists and politicians from Left-wing partners of Mr Sánchez’s minority government.

The passing of a transgender rights reform in 2023, allowing anyone to change their official sex simply by stating their wish to switch, caused a bitter rift within Spain’s ruling Left-wing forces.

Carmen Calvo, the former Socialist deputy prime minister, said at the time the reform would “destroy the powerful battery of equality legislation in our country”.

Pathetic display from so-called socialists

  • kernelle@lemmy.world
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    19 days ago

    Ignorant passerby here, and genuinely want to change my mind, but how exactly is it fair for a trans person to compete against a biologically female person?

    If we go back to the original reason for this sexist devide, it stems from a fundamental biological difference between two genders. How we identify ourselves has little impact on these biological differences no?

    Furthermore I was listening to a podcast recently and they were talking about how the greatest female tennisplayer to have ever lived is would be ranked 2 or 3 thousand in a unisex world ranking. Seeing a worldrecord being set by someone working within the confines of the female body is impressive, seeing that same record broken by someone without the same constraints just devalues the other persons achievement.

            • Diva (she/her)@lemmy.mlOPM
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              19 days ago

              I can, I just did, bone density, body build and muscle strength cannot be fully reversed. I’m not saying every trans athlete will better or ‘unbeatable’ as you put it. I’m saying they’ll have an unfair advantage.

              Bone density is actually one of the things that absolutely goes down with HRT, they even mention that in the study you cited.

              Studies in nonathletic trans women after GAHT demonstrates no change in height, but have shown decreases in hemoglobin, bone density compromise, and decrease in muscle mass and strength, which continue to decline beyond 2 years.

              While absolute muscle mass is higher, their relative muscle and fat mass percentages and muscle strength corrected for lean mass are no different to cisgender women.

              no significant difference with cisgender women for running times by 2 years and sit-ups by 4 years after GAHT. An advantage in push-ups or upper body strength over cisgender women may remain at 4 years

              This is all from the study you just linked, if you really are interested in learning maybe you could try reading the sources you’re bringing to the table.

              Just to close out, again citing the study you provided:

              with so few trans athletes and extremely low participation of trans people in sport, recruitment into such research will be challenging.

              It’s almost like this is a non-issue that is being brought up by assholes to discriminate against an out-group.

              A reminder that this comm is not for debating trans rights, (rule 4) I’ve let it slide thus far, but I’m really starting to question my judgement.

                • Diva (she/her)@lemmy.mlOPM
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                  19 days ago

                  Note I said not fully reversed.

                  Are you interested in defending your statements or learning?

                  Bone density in trans women actually can end up being lower than in cis women, citation

                  I did, it’s clear that there could an adventage, not that there definitely will be.

                  It’s a tiny fraction of the population, even less of whom are going to be athletes. Cis women are perfectly capable of having higher testosterone levels and muscle mass than trans women.

                  Frankly a far bigger advantage when it comes to competing in sports is being wealthy enough to even have time/money to train for and attend these types of events on a regular basis rather than working to survive.

                  Don’t put me in the opposition just because I’m trying to understand and educate myself

                  Don’t get defensive then.

                  Reality lies somewhere in the middle, but seems like you’re not willing to talk about the gray zone.

                  The reality is that the ‘sanctity’ of sports competition is and has been a farce, excluding trans people entirely is a shit way to address whatever supposed problem there is, and the people who are interested in excluding trans people don’t give a shit about evidence anyways.

            • njm1314@lemmy.world
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              19 days ago

              Wow for a so-called ignorant passerby you sure have a lot of talking points ready. That’s amazing.

        • AntiOutsideAktion@lemmy.ml
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          19 days ago

          I looked up a study on google so now I will explain to all of you what your lives are like. I came here to be the professor not the student.

          “Ignorant passerby genuinely want to change my mind” didn’t survive a single reply

    • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
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      19 days ago

      The broader issue is discrimination, and if one class of people should be allowed to be singled out and discriminated against.

      • LaLuzDelSol@lemmy.world
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        19 days ago

        Isn’t that the whole point of women’s sports though? To exclude a class of people (men) so that others (women) have a chance to compete on their own?

      • kernelle@lemmy.world
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        19 days ago

        For sure, I am very aware of the overlying issue here. And let it be known that I have always been supportive of the movement.

    • finderscult@lemmy.ml
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      19 days ago

      So a few things;

      A) on the professional level sports ain’t about fair. It’s about who has the biggest natural advantage and enough money and time to develop the skills to make use of that advantage. Take the Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps who has genetic mutations, plural, that mean we’re likely to never see anyone ever break his records.

      Now that’s just the professional level, and a less than professional level sports are about fun, not fairness; and in a team game it’s about teaching social skills over fun.

      B) post bottom-surgery on hrt trans people, either main direction, have no biological advantages. In mixed leagues there are trans women that are far below cis women, and there are trans men far below cis men. This scare mongering that trans women specifically would have this massive advantage simply isn’t represented in the real world where trans people have competed with cis people directly.

      C) You want the secret to athleticism? It’s not sex, it’s t level. Testosterone is literally the magic key for sports. Trans women that no longer produce as large amounts of t (see. Above) consistently under perform cis women with high natural t levels. To preempt this as well, bone density isn’t fixed. The Joe Rogan scare mongering on women’s boxing is that trans women supposedly have higher bone density than cis women. This can be true, sometimes, but most often it’s not. Estrogen attacks bone density, and does so ridiculously quickly when you have elevated levels from any source. It takes just 3 years on average for your bone density to drastically change when your hormones balance changes.

      D) this type of discrimination leads to false accusations, harassment and death threats more than preserves any integrity in sports. The Olympic boxer Imane khelif is a cis woman. XX. This trans hysteria has tainted her win, because she doesn’t look woman enough, whatever that means. Many cis women that don’t fit the local stereotype of “woman” are harassed because of people freaking themselves out about the trans Boogeyman. This type of harm outweighs any and all harm to sports, period.

      • Norah - She/They@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        19 days ago

        B) post bottom-surgery on hrt trans people, either main direction, have no biological advantages.

        I’ve never before heard of this need for bottom surgery to even out any biological advantages. Can you explain more, or provide a link to some more info?

    • Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      19 days ago

      Equating transgender women with cisgender men is biologically inaccurate.

      The tests assessed body composition, lung function, cardiopulmonary exercise testing, strength and lower body power.

      Among the results was a determination that the trans women athletes had decreased lung function compared to the cis women athletes.

      In addition, the bone density of the trans women athletes was found to be equivalent to that of the cis women. Bone density is linked to muscle strength.

      The researchers say their findings “reveal notable disparities in fat mass, fat-free mass, laboratory sports performance measures and hand-grip strength measures between cisgender male and transgender female athletes.

      “These differences underscore the inadequacy of using cisgender male athletes as proxies for transgender women athletes.”

    • emergencyfood@sh.itjust.works
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      19 days ago

      Two points:

      1. Top-level sports isn’t fair. Most famous athletes are outliers in terms of height, weight, muscle mass, etc. Some, like Phelps, have genetic or developmental differences that give them a pretty significant advantage.

      2. I must admit that the legal definition of ‘transwoman’ varies from country to country. In India, where I live, a person can legally change their gender without any medical intervention, and such people might have a physical advantage over cis-women. But in the vast majority of countries, they have to take hormones and / or do surgical procedures that reshape their body to be more ‘feminine’. Once they do that, they have no significant advantage over cis-women.