Panelists Thoughts on TRANS in SPORTS
Episode Stats
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Summary
In this episode, we discuss the issue of trans people playing in sports of the opposite gender, as well as whether or not they should be allowed to play in them. We also talk about the benefits and disadvantages of using hormones in sports, and how to integrate trans people into them.
Transcript
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What are you guys' opinions on trans people playing in sports of the opposite or like trans women playing in women's sports?
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I feel like it's something that cannot be generalized.
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Every sport has different levels of contact, different aspects that you need that could either benefit or not be benefited by the use of like hormones.
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So I think personally, it's something that can't be generalized and it has to be seen as like a sort of like subject by subject situation or matter.
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Volleyball, see, I mean, it depends on how much depth you want to go into.
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I mean, I don't know volleyball to a certain extent.
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I can imagine that, you know, if, for example, you've got someone who is female to male and they're taking testosterone and they're playing with like cis women,
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you could comment on the fact that testosterone allows like muscle build quicker or like, you know,
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therefore they might get like a harder, a harder spike, for example.
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But then I know some insanely strong cis women.
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So does that really take things like into another dimension in the game?
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So I don't think there's been enough research or enough.
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I don't, I don't think there's been enough of a look into it.
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So for the time being, what do you think they should do?
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Should we integrate or should we keep them separate?
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Volleyball, women's and men's sports in general.
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Well, the problem is I can talk a lot and I didn't want to like drown these guys out,
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It does depend on the sport and the governing body.
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But there are a number of things that I would do probably differently because testosterone
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isn't the only thing we should be taking into account depending on the sport, especially
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because there are a number of differences between men and women that aren't changed just
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Um, for example, men have more type two muscle fibers and women have more type one type two
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is more for bursts of strength and type one is for endurance.
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So women are better in endurance and are better at like running really fast.
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So an obvious example of where I think it may end up being unfair would maybe be with
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Um, but the longer the distance, the running, the more fair it becomes, um, with volleyball,
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And I played a lot of team sports when I was a kid, not volleyball.
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I played netball, which is the girl bad version of basketball and rounders, which is the bad
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girl version of, um, baseball is really English bad sports.
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But I will say, so assuming we're talking like at school level, so like before anyone's
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really had time to transition or do much, I played with boys in rounders and it was not
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And then I'm out there in like the depth of field running after the damn balls for like
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Um, it kind of depends on what level, which game and how you're integrating people.
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Um, I am an advocate for not throwing the baby out with the bathwater, so I think it can
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work, but I don't know if it's working right now.
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I mean, I think that they should just be able to play to be honest.
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I mean, even with people who are born a certain way, there's people that are better at doing
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I mean, I understand that, uh, mainly for men who transition into women.
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I think I understand what they're saying sometimes.
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For example, you know, if it was to say like boxing, you know, um, a person who was born
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a man and then transitioned into a woman, maybe later on in life, fully developed into
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puberty and then decides to get into a ring with a woman who was born a woman.
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Um, I think that might be a bit techie, but I think the whole point of transitioning is
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And if you've got an interest in, if you have an interest and a passion in sport, I don't
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think you shouldn't be allowed to play that sport because you've decided to transition.
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I understand how it can be unfair physically, but it comes with it, you know, it comes with
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Um, even if we just take things like height, like I'm in the top 1% of height for females.
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And I was like short when it came to getting recruited for colleges.
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Like if we brought men in there, I'd be in the top 15%.
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And like, I really wouldn't have any opportunity if men were, you know, even if it's like trans
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women, like after they transition, the height stays the same.
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I think usually like, for example, with my previous example with boxing, there's usually
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So with boxing is probably like a little bit okay.
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But, um, like you said about, um, running, I don't, I'm not too sure.
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I don't know that information about, um, I think you said, sorry, what did you say?
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Twitch muscle fibers, so men and women tend to have a different percentage of both.
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Um, so when I say endurance, I'm talking like ultra endurance is where men and women tend
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to be, they compete together and women win often.
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Like it's about 50-50 who's winning, but ultra endurance.
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It's not fringe, but it is crazy because I mean, when you're doing these types of ultra
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endurance swimming, there's a decent chance of death.
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Like somebody just died recently trying to swim the channel crossing.
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It's like, have you seen those people that go off of Niagara Falls?
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I think it's Manhattan Island swimming and British Isle alone.
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So if you, as I said, sprinting that counts for short distance swimming as well.
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Well, but even with marathons, men are still faster.
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I mean, there, there might be like a fringe ultra marathon, but that's like.
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Ultra endurance is definitely longer than a regular marathon.
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But I'm saying more people compete in a marathon and you said it's still 50-50 for ultra endurance.
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I just can't imagine that's that popular of a sport.
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Like, it's very hard, obviously a lot of people don't want to do it because it's as difficult
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Um, but it, it just becomes, so men would have the disadvantage because they don't have the
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So when they transition, they don't have the advantage within that endurance necessarily.
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And assuming that there is some negative impact to certain things when they're taking
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estrogen somewhat, I think it's fine for endurance sports.
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There are some where I'm fairly sure it's not fine.
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And then there's some in the middle where I think we need more research done.
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Like, I'm not going to say no or yes to the ones in the middle because, um, I'm not sure.
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I do think that we need to study more, less just reduction of testosterone and more the
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other things that make men, you know, stronger in various ways, like lung capacity and height
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For volleyball and basketball, it is super important, but there's a bunch of sports where
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height either doesn't matter or being shorter is actually beneficial.
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But I think for the sports where height does matter, it is important to, it might just be
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Like you can compete, but only if you're under the height of the tallest women that can compete.
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Cause then you're not like four or five inches taller than they are or something.
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And I, I can appreciate that you're in a difficult position with that.
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But even if they're the same height, it's like, they're stronger than us.
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Like, like how many people are there on a volleyball?
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Team sports are the thing that I have the least amount of experience with too.
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Well, my, my thing is like, if we're going to title it women's sports and men's sports,
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I think it's like misleading if we go to a tournament expecting it to be women.
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And then there's, there's trans people there, you know, like, cause, cause then it's like,
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Like I agreed to play in the way, like, cause that's why I was pissed off this weekend,
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because it was like these, like one, one of the teams would just set the trans, trans woman every single time.
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And it's like, and one other team had, had four or five.
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So it's like from different Philippines and Brazil must just, yeah, it must be big there.
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I always got the impression that it wasn't really enough transgender people to have their own sort of sports.
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So I will hypothesize how I would temporarily fix this situation later.
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Cause I don't want to ramble too much and let everyone, cause these guys haven't really spoken yet.
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So obviously you're an athlete, so you've actually played.
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So you actively have, you can have an opinion because you're in that situation.
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So personally, my opinion is, is that it's kind of, it's just really a struggle.
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I feel for like a female athlete, you're going there.
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Obviously you just mentioned that you go there and it's like for transgender players on the opposing side.
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And it's like, you do, do you feel uncomfortable?
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Do you feel like, Oh, you know, I might not be able to be, you know, like you're not comparable biologically.
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So like I've played like, um, co like basketball, like you always play at park.
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So I've played pickup, but I know if I play, I played basketball for maybe 16 years.
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And I know if I go against the guy who's played maybe five to seven, he'll beat me like easy.
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I think it's like, I personally feel like if there are, like you're saying, I mean, there's like four transgender people on the other side.
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I feel like then you should just have volleyball specifically just for transgender people, because then that would make more sense.
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It's just, it's just not, I feel like it's not fair.
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And then when there's too many exceptions, it just gets messy.
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You know, this is volleyball transgender people, you know?
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Um, I think there should be a whole separate league for you guys because, um, thinking of the people that are coming to watch it, right?
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Like their mindsets are like, if it's just women playing, there should be just women playing, right?
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And they're coming to support their women that are playing, right?
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So I just feel like maybe if they had their own league with their own supporters, it kind of works out.
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But change is going to come at some point where we are going to integrate both all three genders, right?
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If I went up against a 6'7 dude, I would never get to play.
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Because I know a lot of the argument is like, well, I'm tall.
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Like, I'd be taller than a lot of, you know, people that are trans that transitioned or whatever.
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But I think the issue that I get into is like, still the top percentage are going to be taller than the top percentage of women.
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Do you know if that four-person team, they were all taller than you?
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But even, you could just tell, like, when they were playing, like, they're just more athletic.
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So you have to train for like, I don't know, I would say like five years before you really even get good volley rallies going.
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But like, men can kind of just do it off the cuff because they're just so much stronger.
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It's hard to explain unless you know the sport.
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I can imagine that there is an advantage with being taller because of the height of the net, right?
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Guys can do these just like, crazy ups that women just, it takes us so much longer to get there.
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Did you find the same disadvantage even with the shorter players?
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You can just tell, I can't really describe what it was.
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Like, they're a little bit quicker, a little bit more agile.
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Like, they could just do things that the women couldn't.