Rugby League bans trans athletes from top events

7 comments
  1. The article doesn’t say, but are there significant numbers of trans men and women trying to play Rugby League at this level?

  2. Deutsche Welle did [a good article on whether trans athletes have any advantages](https://www.dw.com/en/fact-check-do-trans-athletes-have-an-advantage-in-elite-sport/a-58583988), or at least, compared to some of the other tripe I’ve come across that fails to cite their sources.

    From reading it, I got that as far as strength is concerned, trans women have no advantage after two years’ of hormone therapy.

    The take home message I got from that article is that any bans should be considered on a sport by sport basis, so it’s good that that is currently what the Rugby League is doing. If their concern is that trans women are stronger than cis women, then a ban of two years’ from start of hormone therapy should be sufficient unless they want to err on the side of caution, given that it’s only the one study that shows this.

    EDIT: Also, why the downvotes? Was it wrong of me to provide a link to further the discussion or was there something flawed with the article? How the hell am I supposed to know what I did wrong if you don’t say what I did wrong?

  3. Honestly all of these pronouncements feel premature. Trans athletes have clearly already been allowed to compete and there haven’t been any that have absolutely dominated.

    If the threat of *a* trans athlete doing well at any sport is such a horror, then why were they allowed in the first place? And if they were allowed in the first place, surely the sensible thing to do would be to run at least one season including them instead of outright banning off the bat.

    E: I really don’t understand why this has been so doggedly downvoted. It just seems logical to me. Decide to ban or not to ban on the strength of what players you have and what the results are, not based on an *assumption*, no?

  4. I think trans people are something like 0.4% of the population. Of that 0.4%, a tiny number will be athletes.

    Trans in sport is a wedge issue that I think they need to surrender at the moment. The amount of pain and difficulty the issue ends up causing, the amount of hate that is then justified just isnt worth it.

  5. Good. The science is clear. It shouldn’t be controversial to ban them while they investigate. And it shouldn’t be controversial to keep the ban if they feel they need to.

    You know, you don’t need to be on any sort of drug therapy to claim you’re transgender. There’s nothing stopping a big 7ft man saying he’s trans and joining a women’s league. It’s a hypothetical situation but that’s what they’ve got to deal with when they’re trying to protect other women.

    Ban them all. Look at the evidence. Perhaps there is a point in the future after say 5 years of drug therapy where the advantages aren’t there. Then they can have evidence of this and make exceptions on a case by case basis.

    It’s all just common sense.

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