The end of women's sports

[Mark Rippetoe]

I agree that this will be the demise of the USAPL. They will die by litigation.

As long as there is a separation in sports between biological male and female, there will have to be a standard for what a male and female is. Chromosomes might be a good standard but drug testing is not. “Gender” clearly has lost all meaning.

Perhaps what comes out of this, as an unintended consequence, is a ban on drug testing across all sports. Any chance coach?

Logical, of course. But ESPN/SI are involved, so logic will be an interesting yet irrelevant factor.

[TommyGun]

Yes, I absolutely love the idea and it will eventually happen. I am in the very early stages of playing with the ruleset for bench press. With that said, I want the USSF operating extremely well first and that requires the development of the judges certification. That is the current priority but rest assured we are interested and willing to explore.

What? I am all in on being a USSF judge. Are we talking a cert or weekend training session? Seriously Jordan give this some thought on what you would be looking for, and what knowledge base is required.

[FatButWeak]

... numbers favor the Feminists, as does logic and reason.

LOL Truly a first

[Scaldrew]

This groups loves to lump EVERYBODY who isn’t a white male conservative under the umbrella of the oppressed - gays, trans, blacks, Muslims, women, etc.

Not to pull an "actually", or get too political, but it's somehow worse. Two weeks ago, a protest started where school children started "striking for the climate", essentially to call out a member of parliament on her lack of a policy on the environment. Immediately--and I do mean that quite literally--one of the leader figures, a 17 year old girl who claims to be gender neutral, said it was "a shame that so many white males are taking part in the protest". As if one can really be particular about the nature of the protesters when you're just starting out and asking everyone to participate.

As to the "pitting two sides against each other", I'm under no pretense that this'll bear any fruit whatsoever. These sorts of narratives are so obviously self-defeating and internally inconsistent that even everyday laymen can successfully poke through the holes and expose all number of failings. That hasn't stopped these narratives or the propogators from enduring. It was entirely inconsistent to claim the burqa as a symbol of emancipation and resistance of white male oppression when women locally were burning theirs to free them from their quite real oppressors. But it's red herrings all the way down, as usual. Once you raise fair and valid criticism, they just turn it around on you and paint you as some loon, some bigot, and then you lose the conversation; the side that agreed with you will agree with you, and the side that disagreed will disagree. No headway is made.

The people spreading these narratives pay no attention to the inconsistencies, or the people they hurt, those they claim to in fact protect. That would require them stepping down momentarily from their ivory tower and actually get their shoes muddy, and those sumbitches are expensive.

[Jordan Stanton]

What? I am all in on being a USSF judge. Are we talking a cert or weekend training session? Seriously Jordan give this some thought on what you would be looking for, and what knowledge base is required.

Its just starting development now. Stay tuned!

[Neal]

Is the general consensus in this thread that trans lifters should continue to lift in the gendered divisions they were biologically born into, and primarily because it is unfair to women born biologically as women to compete again women that were born as men? Should they compete in those classes for the rest of their lives? What do the participants in this thread think would be the most "fair" to all involved?

[Mark Rippetoe]

Training Female Lifters: Neuromuscular Efficiency | Mark Rippetoe

This should explain my position.

[AndrewLewis]

Is the general consensus in this thread that trans lifters should continue to lift in the gendered divisions they were biologically born into, and primarily because it is unfair to women born biologically as women to compete again women that were born as men? Should they compete in those classes for the rest of their lives? What do the participants in this thread think would be the most "fair" to all involved?

Divisions in sports exist not to make things "fair" per se, but to make competition exist and flourish. If you had a 300lb man powerlift "against" a 130lb man, how could the 130lb man possibly hope to compete. He wouldn't even try. You'd see only 6'7" super heavyweight men compete, and women probably wouldn't even bother.

From the standpoint of direct contact sports (soccer, football, MMA), it's a safety issue. You'd be out of your mind as a 130lb man to fight a 300lb man. Even an untrained 300lb man could accidentally hurt you. We see this a lot in BJJ. I'm not afraid to train with 270lb black belts. I'm afraid to train with 270lb white belts, because they will accidentally hurt me.

Note that non-athletic competitions do not have these divisions. A 300lb man at a chess tournament is just as potentially competitive as a 100lb woman or even a 100lb child with the same experience. There are brackets of the chess circuit that I wouldn't even sort of be competitive in because of my lack of training - some of those circuits have children who I outweigh by 100lb.

With this in mind, men and women should be divided for a sake of competition flourishing and safety. An individual born with the advantages of testosterone in utero has the potential to massively out-compete an individual born without those advantages. What would the result be? Women wouldn't bother and the "women's" division would be exclusively MtF trans-individuals. The sport would die and not even the trans-individuals would benefit.

[Barry Charles]

Powerlifting is a sport of arbitrary variables and parameters.

Weight categories, especially given variable weigh in requirements are arbitrary. Age brackets are arbitrary. Rules and equipment are arbitrary. Judging, on top of the rules, is subjective.

Drug testing and enforcement is arbitrary. Raw vs classic vs single ply vs multi-ply is arbitrary as are the certification of the personal equipment/costume.

I’m sure im leaving a lot out but as an experiment, let’s see who here can state and defend what the heaviest deadlift of all time is?

Categorically separating male and female, ironically, is the least arbitrary. It also happens to be posing the biggest problem to many sports in general.

None of this will be solved until people realize that sports were invented to demonstrate unfairness, not to ensure it.

[Mark Rippetoe]

None of this will be solved until people realize that sports were invented to demonstrate unfairness, not to ensure it.

A real gem, Barry. Thank you.