Kolabear gave more information than I did, but the difference is also that Banda failed to meet gender regulations over 'high testosterone' and disqualified from the Africa Cup of Nations. It is unknown to us what gender she was born. But this disqualification from the Africa Cup of Nations is why she is under scrutiny. https://www.bbc.com/sport/africa/62057259
Note that there has never been a statement from CAF that she was disqualified for any "testosterone test." From that BBC article: When asked by BBC Sport Africa on Sunday how it was possible for Banda to have played in the Olympics but not at Wafcon, Caf's communications director Lux September responded by saying "there is no such decision from the Caf medical committee". Her agent also claims that there was never a testosterone test or a disqualification from CAF. She was held off the squad by the Zambian FA, the same one that keeps a coach for the team that has multiple accusations of sexual abuse and assault, perhaps not the most honorable authority on matters of gender. They brought her back to the squad for all subsequent competitions. But maybe some people are happy to make medical diagnoses on people they have never met based on internet innuendo from the wizard lady.
The Zambian Football Association [FAZ] said they are working towards a long-term solution to what they feel is 'stringent' testosterone testing that ruled out star striker Barbra Banda from Africa Women Cup of Nations. Banda, 22, was one of four players omitted from Zambia's final AWCON squad after refusing to undergo hormone suppression treatment, after her testosterone levels were said to be above the Confederation of African Football's limit for the tournament. Mungala acknowledged that the Zambian federation were made aware that Banda's testosterone levels were outside CAF's guidelines in the aftermath of her star turn at the Olympics ... https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_...critical-stringent-barbra-banda-hormone-tests
Well, at least, we're moving away from bald assertions that Banda is female ("so that's that / end of argument") to torturous quibbling over how hard it is to know anything. I'm surprised no one's yet started quoting the first six meditations by a fireplace from Descartes' Pensées "Tests aren't 100% accurate" is the defense. It's true of COVID-19 testing, true of blood-alcohol testing for drunk-driving. So the answer, obviously, is to not do testing at all (!?) So we're supposed to believe Zambia held Banda out of the WAFCON tournament to hurt their own chances, the same federation which "brought her back to the squad for all subsequent competitions" and the same that took her to the Olympics the year before where she had two hat-tricks. So… test! No, we're not "happy to make medical diagnoses on people they've never met", we're the ones saying, "Test!" Your side is the one saying no to testing, no to evidence, in order to be able to say later, "there's no evidence". This is Orwellian. And for what? To allow biological men (ie men) into women's sports, into women's spaces like jail cells, locker rooms, rape-crisis centers. This is the hill your side has deemed worth dying on. Doesn't sound like a federation that wanted to screw Banda to keep her off the team From a SportsResolution article dated July 11, 2022 *** JK Rowling, the "wizard lady", is spot on. She's a liberal. She's Left. You know who's happy to her smeared (and some of you are the ones engaging in innuendo since you bring up the word) and vilified? The right-wing. They are happy to make this a left vs right issue because they know they're winning on it. They are happy to see Rowling smeared and treated as if she's a right-wing ally of Trump and Musk
Interesting discussion about Banda and her sex. The important point seems to be: where do you draw the line at declaring someone is female -- and thereby eligible to compete in sports? Banda was apparently identified as female when born -- and the right wingers are saying (I think) that sex at birth should be the deciding factor on whether a person is male or female. So, that should make Banda eligible to play as a woman according to the right. (Am I right or wrong or left confused?) Do we have to make a decision on that question in the not too distant future?
It's not up to anyone but the league. They've made the determination that she is eligible. Discussion over as far as this forum is concerned. Any further discussion goes into the MAGA thread in politics.
Ha ha ha. I think you are "left confused", but we probably all should be because neither the orthodox Left or Right have particularly coherent views on the matter. Yes, we do have to make a decision in the not too distant future. It's not a case where I would say we need to make a decision the day before yesterday, but some of us are going to have to make it sooner than we'd like because otherwise Donald Trump is going to make it for us… and take all the credit for it It's hard to be diplomatic about this. Is there anything we (the fans) leave up to the league? Is there anything the league does that we don't second-guess? Abusive coaches (both alleged and confirmed). Salary-caps. Free-agency. "Discussion over as far as this forum is concerned" — Is this a moderator talking? Because I sure don't see "Moderator" by the user-name. Now maybe you've been talking to moderators and you're in cahoots with them. I wouldn't be surprised that your sentiments mirror those of the moderators, but it sure is piss-poor form to allow one Forum member to start bullying the other members around, talking like a moderator, or a Dolores Umbridge, smacking our wrists with a ruler and posting up new rules and regulations. And why would the discussion go into the "MAGA thread" anyway? JK Rowling isn't MAGA. Neither is Martina Navratilova. Nor are is a growing number of women (and men) — liberals (but not apparently any women soccer players or coaches) — who are rejecting radical transgender ideology and want to see women in women's sports
This is definitely not a right vs left issue. I am a liberal and I do not want born men in the women's sports arena. I do not know a single person who does, other than Rapinoe. It is dangerous, and I think that is what people like Rapinoe miss. Men have stronger bones, have more physical force, and would cause injuries to women on a tackle. How does the league know who was born female? Are they collecting birth certificates or taking their word? The San Jose State volleyball player is a perfect example of a male born athlete sneaking into the women's sports arena. No one knew, even his roommate, for some time that he was born male. Track and field tests for steroids and other performance enhancing drugs because of the competitive advantage. Why is it asking too much to test for gender with a cheek swab when safety is at issue?
I think this is notable but not for the reason you're insinuating. The player in question didn't "sneak" into anything bc it seems like she socially transitioned before high school, always being on the girls team, and likely has done some level of medical transitioning as well if people around her didn't know of her birth gender until after she explicitly told people. Sure, she's taller than average and great at spiking, but none of her stats are outside the range of other top players and there's no danger to other players in volleyball (unless you want to count those spikes which, again, aren't outliers in her case). This is a really silly question considering all the paperwork involved in getting player contracts written up and such, especially for international players. I'm 110% sure that official government identification documents are required for everyone, and those will include gender identity. Besides, the league doesn't necessarily care who's born female - they already have rules in place for allowing transgender women to play. It has the approval of the NWSLPA as well, so if there is any raised danger for a collision with a trans player vs a cis player, (which there's nothing more than anecdotal evidence of,) the league and PA view it as minor compared the benefit that being more inclusive gives. (IIRC, the PA actually wants the league's rules loosened.)
The volleyball players disagree with you. There is a dangerous element to a male playing with women: "Slusser said that one of her teammates is transgender and poses a safety risk to her teammates and opponents" "Slusser claims that the player’s “spikes significantly increased the risk of her, teammates and opponents being concussed. If the ball was not blocked at the net by a defender, it was difficult for the players to react to (the player’s) spike.” “Throughout the 2024 pre-season and during their regular in-season practices, Brooke and her teammates have been afraid of getting concussed from getting hit in the head by a volleyball struck by (the athlete).” ------------- Please share a link where the NWSL says it allows transgender (male to female) players to play? Do you work in the league office or in a club and have seen what documents are required? Do you know if there is any gender verification? Your beliefs do not equate to facts. I do not know so I asked the question. Your answer is 'silly' if you cannot support it beyond your assumptions. No one is denying trans athletes ability to compete. But women's sports is not a catch-all for all trans athletes. Just play in your birth gender leagues.
https://prod-nwsl-cdn.s3.amazonaws..../2021-NWSL-Policy-on-Transgender-Athletes.pdf There was a lot of talk about it when it was released three years ago - mostly from journalists analyzing the policy, but as recently as last year it's been targeted by players who said it was too strict. https://www.allforxi.com/2021/4/3/22360802/nwsl-transgender-player-policy-needs-work https://justwomenssports.com/reads/quinn-ol-reign-nwsl-transgender-athlete-policy-pride-month/ What I do know is that the NWSL (and each club therein) is a business based in the US so there will be basic employment guidelines that are required of all US-based businesses, as well as work visas for anyone coming internationally. I have yet to encounter a job anywhere, directly or indirectly, that doesn't require proof of identification as requiste for employment. So sure, it's an assumption, but it would be beyond shocking if NWSL and its clubs didn't examine the official government ID of every player involved. The players claiming there's a dangerous element and being afraid of that thought is very different from the fear being justified. Pardon me if I have trouble believing that teammates who played with the player in question for two years with no concerns until only after she came out as trans are truly afraid of her spikes - which, as I said earlier, might be strong but aren't out of the realm of other top women's players. And maybe they are scared of all strong spikers across the league - but if that's the case, it's not fair to single out the trans player as a problem if it applies to many top cis players too.
You are ignoring the premise of the argument - a male born player playing with women has physical strengths that can hurt women, not to mention competitive disadvantages. I am not sure why you are insistent on letting male born individuals into female spaces. How do you know if people did not complain before? We only know what was reported. Female players fear should matter. Title IX exists for a reason. Surely you know how international players have falsified their identification in Major League Baseball right? Fake birth certificates with fake birthdates. The transgender policy you linked says that NWSL can test for testosterone at their discretion. What about an athlete you may lie about their assigned birth?
I'm not ignoring the premise. I thought it was clear from my previous posts about the NWSL/NWSLPA's (lack of) concern about collisions of from comparing the SDSU volleyball player's stats and spikes to other cis player that, while that premise may have legs in theory if you focus on comparing cis men to cis women, the functional reality of trans women renders that premise as entirely overblown. So I have addressed it - I'm just rejecting it as a reasonable basis for continued argument. That is, focusing on the fact that trans women are "male born" more than the fact that they are currently trans women is where I take issue. From seeing every transition I have, be it public figures, social media personalities, colleagues, or friends, I know that going through years of medical transition brings a person physically in line with their gender. Yes, there will often be some residual signs of their birth gender, but even those are usually toned down to be within the range of natural variation of their current gender. As such, any argument that tries to clock fully transitioned female athletes on things like speed or strength or what have you is inevitably going to limit the top end of cis female athletes as well, which is why I view the concerns about those things as being overblown. What I am insistent on is letting women be women and play women's sports. That's why I support both (fully transitioned) trans women as well as the cis women who are naturally physically gifted that otherwise get caught up as collateral in these arguments. The other thing I take issue with is how most opponents of trans women athletes often say they're "invading" women's spaces or in it just for the competitive advantage or doing various "deceitful" tactics to get in. It's incredibly loaded language suggesting a ton of ill intent that, like the premise of danger earlier, is not at all representative of the functional reality of trans women athletes. It says a lot more about the opinions and fears of the people using those terms than it does about the individuals they're talking about. Fear is something to consider, yes, but unfounded fear is often more detrimental than helpful. Historical lessons on homophobia and racism and xenophobia and the like should be more than enough to teach people that transphobia, whatever masks it takes, really isn't any different.
A person who transitions does not lose their bone structure, which is where many injuries can occur (mismatch in strength of bone structures). I don’t think women’s leagues should be the catch all for all trans athletes. Why do trans women need to play women’s sports? There is men’s league that aligns with their physical advantages. We can agree to disagree on this one.
This is very political. No born male should be available to play in a league where born women are at but I don't know how can you test that.
I read something that swimmer Lia Thomas claimed she lost 15-20% of her muscle strength after the transitioning, 15 seconds slower on her main event. I still agree though that women’s sports should be for just for female born
At least one point calls for an immediate rebuttal. If we're concerned about the women — those who are "biologically women, "cis women" in the parlance of transgender ideologues — then TEST. Test for XY-Chromosomes, at least for starters. It's a simple cheek-swab. *** The next step would be to test for testosterone levels.Maybe that gets a little more complicated — I'm not an expert and maybe we need the guidance of medical experts since the anti-testing crowd claims that many elite female athletes, even (presumably) with XX-chromosomes have "elevated" levels of testosterone. I haven't researched those claims but "elevated" may be a bit of a weasel-word. At least I'm suspicious of it. From a Wikipedia article on Testosterone Regulation in Women's Sports I think the competitions studied were World Track and Field championships around the years 2010 to 2102. The normal range of adult males is considered to be around 14 nmol/L to 45 nmol/L off the top of my head. So it seems plausible that if, instead of requiring testosterone suppression via hormone treatment, we ruled ineligible those individuals who needed hormone treatment to meet the prescribed limit, we would immediately clear 99% of the athletes otherwise "caught up as collateral in these arguments" What's the answer? Test. Clearly the people who care about biological women getting "caught up as collateral" are those who say, "Test" And the ones who say "don't test" are the ones who clearly don't care * to be fair about the Wikipedia quote, the paragraph immediately seems to offer some contradictory conclusions from another study. Yeah, it all gets confusing. Here's the rest of that paragraph
Lia Thomas can claim whatever. She was ranked 554 in the 200 freestyle as a male and finished 5th in the NCAA nationals as a woman, with a time only 3.76% slower than her time as a male when the average range for time differences between male and female swimmers is 10-11%.
I'm an old college bio major and thought I understood the difference between XX and XY. That seems pretty easy and, back in my competitive days, marked the difference between male and female athletes. There was no need for testing back then because, so far as I and my contemporaries knew, no one was trying to play sports across those boundaries. (This was pre-Renee Richards.) Within each of those two groupings, there could be any range of physical and body biochemistry characteristics, that was just a matter of genetic and other good or poor fortune. Being relatively short and slim, and with not great hand-eye coordination, that was simply something I had to deal with in sports. There are, of course, XX body ranges and XY body ranges with characteristics, including at the edges of each one's respective bell curves, overlapping. That simply was a reality that favored some in sports and disfavored others. When an athlete decides to embark on the trans journey, and then wants to cross to the other chromosomal group for sports participation, that changes the XX-XY simplicity. I use "decides" intentionally, since it is a personal decision. I do not mean it is personal decision to have a female psyche in an XY body, rather I mean it is a personal decision to do what one can to modify the XY body to be more like an XX body (or vice versa). I think a serious question is whether a person's making this decision should be allowed to disrupt the XX-XY simplicity for sports participation. My inclination is, it should not. This is different than what I think about whether transitioning should be up to the individual or subject to government intervention. There, I firmly believe it should be up to the individual. I think that is a completely different issue than sports participation. It is an appropriate matter for personal choice. But I think choices have consequences, one of which should include having to stay in your chromosomal group for sports participating, with whatever disadvantagesl and discomforts your decision has resulted in. If there were sufficient numbers of trans athletes, I would support there being trans competitions, but at least at this point that doesn't seem realistic. There also is an aspect of transitioning that I think needs more consideration than I ever have seen, which is that it may be, to some extent, a disavowal of at least one aspect of diversity -- a female psyche in an XY body, or vice versa. I.e., that is too much internal diversity for a person to deal with. In relation to this, it is possible that transitioning takes away an element of diversity that could be beneficial for our larger society. But, none of us is in anyone else's shoes, which is why I believe the question of transitioning must be a matter of personal choice.
this last election was really swayed still by thr impact of Covid as prices of all goods skyrocketed all over the world. No matter who was in power(DEMS or REPS) wouldn’t of been able to stop it—-if the REPS were in power(20-23) they would of been blamed & would of instead seen an DEM landslide in 2024. Unfortunately notworthy(fighting for the little guy) causes take a direct hit to a point they even get scapegoated for today’s problem. So the switch to more right wing going to make it tougher for the trans community, there’s even talk of banning trans from public restrooms to go along with ban on all sex change operations. It be interesting to see how the NSWL reacts to all this—-it’s obviously supports the LBGTQ community & got an very good college educated fan base, but still got to worry if all of an sudden they get boycotted(by tv networks & sponsors)—already Hollywood producers are saying their going to cut down gay/trans characters out of their movies & tv shows
Some more "Men in Women's Sports" news caught my eye a couple nights ago. Students protesting at a California high school over one girl losing her place on the cross-country team to a transgender runner are now also protesting that their free-speech rights to protest are being banned. They claim they are being told they can't wear T-shirts that say "Save Women's Sports" and the shirts were compared to wearing swastikas In the Fox News article (of course we should be wary of a Fox News article but more on that later), they also quoted a 16-year old New York girl who plays high school soccer (soccer in bold for the benefit of those looking for excuses to dismiss the relevance of this news on a soccer forum) It is madness the extent to which people on our side, the center and left side, are willing to go to suppress opinions, in the process creating activists out of high school girls and other young people for whom we are all the enemy, the stereotypical liberal elites talking down to everybody else, sending them to Dolores Umbridge's office for detention, teaching them that we will punish them for insufficient adherence to the Gospel of Sister Megan Rapinoe Explains It All to You. And for what? Transgender gobbledygook doctrine Naturally it's fair to note that neither Fox News nor the NY Post are reliable sources for the news. But in this case, what is there to fault? It's just straight reporting of what high school students are doing, albeit without our editorializing every other sentence to show why they are guilty of Wrong-Think. That's hardly a valid criticism, rather it exposes a fault that mainstream "liberal" news media occasionally succumbs to. from "High school facing student uprising over ban of shirts protesting transgender athletes" reported by Jackson Thompson
Trump did not win. The election was rigged by cyber intrusions and other interference. You don't have to believe me, but I will be proven right in the next 30 days. The world events are all unfolding as planned. Five Eyes caught them red handed. It was a honey trap and they were being watched all along.
There's no evidence of the election being rigged. Just like there was no evidence of the election being rigged back in 2020, there will not be any evidence of that happening by the next 30 days.
Is there any discussion of election rigging in the NSR (Non-Soccer Related) / Politics section of the Forum? In this case, that seems the proper place for discussion of election rigging, real or imagined Meanwhile, the FIFPro Best XI list was announced with two NWSL players, Marta and Barbra Banda, on it. With both the league communications office and the Commissioner, Jessica Berman, celebrating the announcement — and the earlier unequivocal and strident statements of support for Banda from both Emma Hayes and the Executive Director of the Players Association, Meghann Burke — I have to wonder if any players feel pressured to stay silent and go along with current league and NWSLPA policy. The Yates Report uncovered pressure on players to stay silent on other matters, after all With the ideology of the NWSLPA and its leadership extremely clear on this, it is the Commissioner's responsibility to ensure that players have the ability to express their views, even if anonymously to the league, in an anonymous questionnaire for example. The result of the FIFPro Best XI, which is voted on by players, leaves little doubt that most players currently support players like Barbra Banda in the sport and prevailing doctrine as to what a woman is and who can claim to be a woman and play in women's sports. Nevertheless, it's important to see if there's any significant dissent when women feel free to express it; and to see if those levels of dissent change over the next few years. From the Commish on X-Twitter: 1866110370764480749 is not a valid tweet id again, if the BigSoccer link doesn't work you can type/paste into the URL wwwdotxdotcom + /JessicaBerman1/status/1866110370764480749 *** ADD — I'm reading a bit on the testosterone aspect (which should not be considered the primary aspect in place of XY chromosomes, by the way) and I'll get around to posting some of my findings in the next couple days
the FIFA pro list don’t make sense; it’s got five English players on it, no Americans. This year England failed to qualify for the Olympics & Nation League playoffs. At home, they lost to France & Germany while only managing ties Sweden & US, why are their players getting so highly honored?