To clarify, the pictured poster Caroline Kwan is an ally, not a TERF. The TERFs referred to in the title are the ones ‘protecting a very specific idea of what a woman is’
this post was submitted on 11 Aug 2024
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It is a complicated issue, hence the need for details. In a nutshell, rare people like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caster_Semenya have such a significant competitive advantage against vanilla females they would come to dominate some female olympic disciplines to the point it would destroy female olympics as a sport competition. I would argue they need to compete in their own class for the same reasons of fairness as female and male ligas are distinct.
This cannot be discussed rationally in the current political shitstorm unfortunately.
No matter what arbitrary divisions are in place, be that gender or weight or race or whatever, there will always be people who dominate the field. That doesn't destroy the Olympics as a sport competition, that is the Olympics as a sport competition. Competing in order to find the best of the best, the "freaks of nature" who manage to far surpass the average person.
Competition is core to human nature, but so is fairness. Which is why men and women compete in different categories. If you want to discourage women athletes to compete it would seem somewhat unfair to me, but really I only care enough to correct technical points in a discussion.
But where are you basing your definition of "fairness"? If you exclude people with a biological advantage, since that would be unfair, then literally all current athletes would be excluded, since by qualifying for the Olympics they have proven that they have a strong biological advantage over the average person.
The only solution is to Harrison Bergeron everyone.