Then don’t compete
Yeah right.
If that were true he wouldn’t be doing what he’s doing. If that were true he would go on competing against men, or give up competitive swimming. If it were true he would make very sure he did nothing whatever to take advantage of his True Self at the expense of women. If it were true he would be sharply aware that exploiting his advantage over women to cheat them out of medals and opportunities would be a terrible look. He would find the very idea painful, and flinch away from it. He would know he had no right to make the mix-up of his birth into the wrong body a problem for women. He would look at himself in the fucking mirror and say no way and that would be the end of it.
I recommend this podcast as a good breakdown of the Thomas affair from a science of sport perspective, although I recognize that that is a lesser issue than the others you raise.
I agree that trans people in general, and even Lia, don’t transition specifically to cheat in competitive sports. That strikes me as the wrong juncture to say the cheating occurs. The decision to knowingly cheat comes when they decide to enter the female division of a sport rather than the male.
“Making history” they say. Maybe, but it’s a dubious distinction to be the most notorious cheater since Lance Armstrong.
clamboy @1, thanks for sharing. I’ve been casually following Ross Tucker for a while now. He’s a voice in the wilderness (among several.)
@ Holms #2:
Not “trans PEOPLE in general,” trans-identified MEN. And it’s not “to cheat in competitive sports,” it’s for men to cheat in WOMEN’S competitive sports. That’s significant. It’s not just any transing, and it’s not just any sports. I don’t agree that WilLIAm Thomas didn’t transition specifically to cheat in women’s competitive sports. I think that’s exactly what he was doing; he was doing it consciously, deliberately, and maliciously. He decided to cheat and found an easy way to do it. I think that every trans-identified man who attempts to compete in women’s sports decided to declare himself to be a woman precisely for the purpose of cheating in sports. They decided to cheat first, and declared they were “women” (in order to cheat) second.