The view from where I sit
A cartoon series had an episode in which human competitors competed against humans, robot competitors competed against robots, and one who had parts of both groups who couldn't fairly compete against either. That's what came to mind when I read this article.
The point that caught my eye was that, if I'm paraphrasing this correctly, the unfair competitive advantage of trans women has not been proven; and from what I've read here, that's the case because there's no way to measure it accurately. The variables named in that link, such as the advantages of training and trainers, are to augment the competitor natural traits (height, for example) through that person's natural processes. If those processes prompt the argument that everything's a chemical, that's the same argument the icon made for the fabulista; because just as there's a difference between 'I was at someone else's house' and 'it's your baby' (did I mention I enjoy comedy?), there's still a difference between the advantages conferred through food and exercise versus through the effects of steroids. This brings to mind the question of the level at which competitiveness becomes unhealthy, as well as historical examples of people who were already athletic receiving performance enhancers that drastically changed their bodies, this one in particular. (I'll emphasize that I'm not comparing steroids themselves to trans operations and hormones, but the effect of traits that wouldn't occur in a competitor were it not for those interventions.)
There's a difference between people born with it and people who need operations and hormones for it. You're measuring the effect of human intervention versus natural human development; a contest that's no longer between athletes, but the chemists and engineers and surgeons behind them. If a person needs hormones or an operation to achieve parity with other competitors, it's no longer an apples-to-apples comparison, which means it isn't a level playing field; and for me, it's another reason to find another game to watch.
As for the sentiment that pointing this out is like saying you don't belong in sports - whether you belong in sports or not is beside the point, because it's not just about you; and if you're in a team sport, you know that better than I do.
But since that's not my situation, try this person who probably got shunted aside because narrative. (Quite a laundry list, that.)
Keeping an eye on Junction Dwellers (the second one especially sounds like the vaca-ばか situation), double standards (is it easier and more accurate or just plain racist to refer to a virus and its variants by their geographical origin?) and issues beyond a siccing that has an air of the cultish (is it about helping people or beating someone else's score, Dorian?).
Ending with this because it's what completes a blanket, a hot drink, and a thunderstorm.
