thelawnet wrote:I think possibly we have wandered from the title since, but in the case of human transgender athletes it's not that hard to categorise them according to their biological sex, which they will have altered only following puberty in the presence of large amounts of the hormones of their sex, and resulting in irreversible changes to skeletal structure, stature, muscle, bone mass, and so on. Attempting to alter that later in life is a bit like the stripes on a poodle, and while a transwoman might have endogenous hormone levels similar to a natal woman, that doesn't reverse the effects of puberty - I have a sister two year's older than I, and she used to physically bully me somewhat. At some point during puberty I became conscious that I was suddenly MUCH stronger than she, and this stopped. This was not through any sporting effort or training of my own, but simply the natural results of male rather than female puberty.
To the extent that we have 'male' and 'female' categories in sport they exist because of this sexual dimorphism that is the product of adolescence, nothing to do with 'gender identity'.
It may not be hard to classify *most* athletes according to their biological sex. The implication is, as has been form the start of this thread, that that makes it okay to discriminate against those who don't fit your neat categories.
I don't think it's ok.
I aslo don't think that it's ok to compare transfolk to 'stripes on a poodle'. I would very much like you to think about how that sounds.