Right-wing conservatives and those who identify as “gender critical” are up in arms after World Eightball Pool Federation allows trans women to participate.
In recent years, transgender athletes have been targeted by laws and internal policies aimed at barring their participation in sports. Initial bans on transgender participation were mainly in elite swimming and high school athletics, but increasingly, these bans are extending to areas where the argument of an “unfair advantage” is even more challenging to justify. Recent controversies and bans have included transgender participation in disc golf, beauty pageants, and chess. Now, a new target has emerged for those opposing trans participation: pool.
On Saturday, the Daily Mail reported that Alexandra Cunha, currently ranked fifth in World Eightball Pool Foundation (WEPF), quit, stating, “I recently played against a transgender player and was devastated by the loss.” Her decision followed a policy change by the organization. Two months prior, their policy required participants to be “born female.” Following criticism, the organization amended its policy to allow transgender players, incorporating guidelines about medical transition and testosterone suppression in accordance with International Olympic Committee standards.
Cunha, along with other players against transgender inclusion who had started a Signal chat, argued that transgender women possess an unfair advantage in pool. They told The Daily Mail that transgender women might execute a stronger “break” in the game. It’s important to note that no studies have been cited to confirm any such advantage for transgender women in pool.
Outrage from far-right newspapers and “gender critical” accounts was swift. Riley Gaines, also famous for placing in 5th place in a swimming race in which she competed against a transgender woman, retweeted a post calling a trans competitor a “trans identified male,” a derisive acronym used towards transgender women that shortens to “TIM,” a stereotypically masculine name. Helen Joyce, who has openly advocated for a “reduction” in trans people, called one of the women who quit “a bloody heroine.” News stories decrying trans participation in pool were pushed on the far-right website Breitbart as well as the “gender critical” magazine Reduxx.
Quickly though, people began to mock the idea of trans women having an insurmountable advantage at pool. Speak Out Sister, a trans-inclusive feminist organization, remarked, “Amazed to find out that strength is an advantage when playing pool. Guess the cues and balls are heavier than we knew.” User She Guevera jokingly responded, “Rightly so, they have a clear unfair advantage in judging angles and distances.🙄” Many others pointed out how the outrage over trans people in pool is similar to outrages of transgender people in other competitions with dubious “advantages” that transgender people supposedly have.
In recent months, transgender people have been targeted in a much wider variety of competitions than one might expect. Earlier this year, the Disc Golf Pro Tour announced it would shut down five events for all women just to stop a transgender woman from competing after she won a court case allowing her to compete. FIDE, the world’s largest chess organization, also made headlines earlier this year whenever it announced that under new guidelines, transgender women have “no right to participate” in women’s chess. Earlier this year, Italy banned transgender women from beauty pageants after a trans woman won the title of Miss Netherlands. Increasingly, the rationale for banning transgender people from these competitions has grown suspect.
It is important to note that the initial focus on transgender people in sports in the current wave of legislative attacks on trans people was a political calculation designed to usher in discrimination on transgender people. Terry Schilling, leader of The American Principles Project, described his organization’s initial relentless focus on trans people in sports as a means to an end: “The women’s sports issue was really the beginning point in helping expose all this because what it did was, it got opponents of the LGBT movement comfortable with talking about transgender issues.” In a later interview with the New York Times, he stated, “We knew we needed to find an issue that the candidates were comfortable talking about, and we threw everything at the wall.”
Evidence does not support the claim that transgender athletes are dominating sports. Transgender women have been eligible to compete in the Olympics for two decades, yet no transgender woman has secured any medal. Furthermore, policies targeting transgender individuals often end up being used against cisgender athletes who face accusations of being transgender following their victories. In states where bans are not in place, individual organizations may implement various medical criteria related to transition for competition eligibility, as was the case with WEPF. Despite these measures, those opposing transgender inclusion remain discontent with the participation of transgender athletes in competitions against cisgender counterparts, regardless of the competition involved.
almost as if transphobes are ultimately just misogynist and simply just hate women and think they’re inferior to men
From the sounds of these people, transgenderism sounds like something everyone should do because it somehow makes you superhuman.
FYI, transgenderism is not a thing. Trans people are not a condition or an ideology.
Transgenderism is a term almost exclusively used by transphobes.
People can’t be conditions or ideologies, you are correct. The person you’re responding to didn’t claim otherwise. My first guess, far and away, is that you are responding to a typo.
FWIW, the oldest use of the term “transgenderism” I can find is by a transgender activist who had controversial beliefs, to say the least. Like you, I remain deeply unconvinced it is a real word with a real definition.
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What about measuring a trans person’s performance and then setting them in a suitable performance group?
This is the answer to all of this. Weight class exists in multiple sports and no one cares. Just pick a way to group people by skill.
Weight class isn’t an answer. At any given weight and training level, on average, someone with cis female ranges of testosterone will have less muscle mass than someone with cis male levels of testosterone.
Even after anti androgens and/or orchiectomy?
No. A trans woman on androgen blockers etc does not have testosterone levels in the cis male range. They normally have cis female range, and even lower if they’ve had bottom surgery of some kind
Yes
I said weight class is an example of how classifying ppl into skill groups bothers no one. The actual way to pick groups would be sport by sport.
I mean, the person you’re replying to said skill level.
That’s true. But even that isn’t fair. Extant hormones impact athletic potential independent of skill level.
But sure, grouping people by performance level is, in theory, a solution, but it ignores the social element of being the “odd one out” in your group, which will discourage people who are outliers from participating, and it doesn’t address the impossibility of assessing people’s performance levels on that scale
You’ve lost me. Why does grouping by skill level lead to people being the odd one out?
I said performance level. Testosterone gives athletic advantage. Which means that for any given training level, on average, someone that has significant testosterone in their system will perform better than someone who does not.
And that means that by and large, we still end up with roughly gender based divisions, with the odd exception for outliers. And those outliers are often going to be the “odd one out” in their group.
In pool??? It bloody well does not.
And assuming all men are better at sports than all women is ludicrous. Could you beat Venus Williams at tennis? Nope. You don’t have the skills.
That’s what we already had. The transphobes are dismantling it.
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If your sport can easily be destroyed by the existence of trans people, your sport is stupid to me
This is based on Daily Mail reporting, so my go-to is to assume that literally every word of it is false.
I’m wondering why pool competitions are split?
from what i can tell sport like pool is split not because of any physical advantage, but because there are just so many more men competing that women get drowned out, which doesnt justify transphobic blocking of participation, but yeah
They told The Daily Mail that transgender women might execute a stronger “break” in the game.
I am a cis woman and I frequently break too hard and end up with balls flying off the table, so I can personally disprove this particular poppycock.
Pool, darts, archery, shooting… the biological component is not a major issue there, but individual skill is. This whole thing needs to be approached sensibility but public discourse only present an all or nothing worldview
break too hard and end up with balls flying off the table
That’s not breaking too hard. That’s lack of control on the cue ball.
I’d say women have an unfair disadvantage, since their boobs can be in the way of the pool cue.
Other than that, not really.
To be fair, a lot of the blokes I see playing pool down the boozer have that exact same problem
So as long as the trans woman has boobs, she can play with the cis women?
Yes, and flat chested cis women play in the mens side, which is now titled the ‘no boobs league’
👆 Champing at the bit to be morally outraged on someone else’s behalf
What if they use them to stabilize the cue?
Why does pool even have gendered leagues?
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Full disclosure: I’m not trans
I think the only way to be fair is to remove gendered sports completely. Have everyone compete together then rank them. As an example:
Fastest cis-female Fastest cis-male Fastest trans-female Fastest trans-male Fastest non-binary
And everyone splits the prize money for first prize. There would be no second or third prize, but rankings are fine
(Ordered by alphabet in case anyone’s wondering why I listed this the way that I did)
In team sports have an even number of trans persons. Example: Team A has 1 trans masc 2 trans fem and 1 non-binary member in addition to a fair mixture of Cis persons. Team B would have to match
Otherwise we’ll be debating this until the end of time
I take it you don’t partake in sports much?
Correct, I don’t. However, I understand the competitiveness, the contact, the aggression, etc. I think rules can be adjusted, extra protection given, and harsher penalties given for causing injuries to others
Just because something has been a way for a long time, doesn’t make it the best or only way
The people who watch sports would hate your proposal for a number of reasons.
The gender divide is not pointless.
I disagree. I’ve brought up the topic with people who watch sports, and they’ve agreed with me. You disagree, and that’s fine
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I mean it makes sense really, they may be women but they have XY chromosomes and if one of them grab a it they will have both extra reach with the | end (or / end depending on how it hangs) AND the ability to use both hands on the ⌄ part give added stability since you can use both hands. I mean sure X chromosomes have a ⌄ hand hold too but its harder to get the angle right with the ^ part on the other end.
