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- May 6, 2021
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- Slightly Conservative
I was not trying to argue whether an advantage is fair or not. I merely wish to point out that you are essentially saying that fairness (to the extent that we are able to agree on) only matters in sports when there is money involved. This is a warped view. Do you agree?There are always advantages and disadvantages, some key areas of which I explicitly highlighted such as having the money to afford better coaching, equipment and more time training, and having the right genes to get long legs or a sturdy frame or whatever's good for your preferred sport. Whether an advantage is fair or unfair is a matter of convention within the sport/organization; it's pretty universally accepted that certain performance-enhancing substances (eg. steroids, drugs) are better kept out of competition, while other performance-enhancing substances (eg. vitamins, diet) are acceptable. If you asked me to justify why money constitutes a 'fair' sporting advantage I'd have a pretty damn hard time doing so, besides the difficulties of removing its influence. Meanwhile having certain genetic or epigenetic characteristics describes transgenderism, intersex or hyperandrogenism quite aptly, and it is the range of human ability due to both genetic variation and training which is one of the most fascinating things about competitive sporting.
But having lived a life where one has been treated unfairly has almost nothing to do with whether one has physical advantages in a sport. The former is a sociological issue. The latter is physiological. I guess you could try to argue that these two are somehow inter-twined but that would really require some sort of pretzel logic.There is nothing 'unfair' about being intersex, transgender or the like - quite the opposite, in terms of life in general these people are very often treated unfairly by others.
I wasn't saying it is equivalent to doping. I am saying that, if we take what you mean to be true, aka, "someone getting first place has no real effect on anyone else anyway", then it necessarily follows that we should not even care about what players do to win, and this can include both things that are fair and unfair. Since apparently, as long as there is no money involved, we don't really care who wins.It's got nothing to do with doping to score the win, no honest comparison.
And why do you place so much emphasis on money anyway? Why do you imply a sporting even is only important if there is money on the line. Are you really not bothered by this line of thinking?
I am not even arguing about whether an advantage is unfair or fair anymore. What do you think the purpose is for entering a sporting competition? And what does, "spirit of sportsmanship" mean to you?As to whether it nevertheless constitutes an 'unfair advantage' in a sporting context specifically, the obvious and reasonable middle ground of hormone level requirements to mitigate or remove competitive advantages makes sense. But asserting that in these cases specifically - unlike long legs etc. - it suddenly becomes absolutely paramount to prove beyond any doubt whatsoever that 100.00% of any potential advantage has been completely nullified and removed seems like extreme special pleading bordering on bigotry (and sometimes quite openly so).
Help me understand the thought process behind "someone getting first place has no real effect on anyone else anyway." What kinds of effects would it take for you to care about the outcome of a sporting event? I know money is very important. But what else is important to you?Long and short, I'm saying that any athletes who want to complain about people winning because of their advantages have a hell of a lot of other advantages, far more common and often far more artificial advantages, that they can start focusing on before transgenderism should enter their sights; which suggests that it's not really about the supposed advantages and genuine 'fairness' at all, in most cases, but simply about seeing some easy targets to try and take out of the running.
Also, did you see my post, # 244?