John Oliver is The Hero!

Also asserting that a person’s AGAB is “medically speaking, NONE OF YOUR FUCKING BUSINESS!”
yes that is an actual quote from Last Week Tonight

I find it funny that Lia Thomas had an "unfair advantage" that helped her win one college championship (out of multiple she participated in) while staying far behind Katie Ledecky's record time but Michael Phelps was just "naturally gifted" while shattering olympic records.
Error 404, logic not found.
- I'm always stuck on Lance Armstrong, a guy who came out of chemotherapy with a seeming supernatural endurance and won seven consecutive Tour De France titles. Dude got the endorsement of the US Postal Service. He was a national celebrity for at least a decade. Damn near dodged the entire doping scandal to boot, because "No its fine, I'm being treated for testicular cancer" was a get-out-of-piss-testing-free card.
  Nevermind the entire early '00s HGH-powered Barry Bonds / Mark McGuire / Roger Clemmens / Sammy Sosa baseball era. Or fucking Wrestling! How many pro-Wrestlers were zooted to the gills on pharmaceuticals?
  Nobody seemed to care, then. But now, we're supposed to pretend estrogen is a performance enhancing drug?
  
  Na, doping is something else. As the other comment said, they don't say estrogen is a PED, they say testosterone suppression and HRT don't matter.
  
  Or fucking Wrestling! How many pro-Wrestlers were zooted to the gills on pharmaceuticals?
  Pro wrestling isn't a real competition, it's scripted, and winners are either pre-determined, or "chosen by the audience."
  But now, we’re supposed to pretend estrogen is a performance enhancing drug?
  No, they're pretending that being AMAB means that puberty blockers and testosterone suppression don't matter. They're saying that trans women are men.

I saw the dislikes and immediately knew he was pro trans.
- They also made two shows (2 and 9 years ago) about trans rights where they were pro trans also. Since then I liked this show even more and feel like they have our back ❤️

i love how not one of the terfs that claim to be for fairness in sports even mention the four other cis women that placed ahead of riley and lia thomas.

ELI5 this for me, I'm not even on this sub but whatever.
Everyone loves Messi, the dude takes a metric shit ton of forbidden drugs because he has a medical issue, wins a WC and competes because everyone recognises and accepts a medical condition is an acceptable reason to have exceptions.
Then, enter trans athletes. They have a medical condition, they take drugs to remediate the fact they were born in the wrong body, they win because the karma for the immeasurable amount of suffering they endure is being good at a random sport. Everyone dislikes that and calls it cheating.
I'm not an ally or anything. Being in the EU and seeing the fandom of Messi, can someone please explain to me why that cunt of a tax dodger gets an exception and Mary from down the street, who just won the district football competition, and wants to live her life in peace, is called a cheater.
Just make it make sense, and while you're at it, explain why the fuck is this a discussion that permeates the airwaves almost weekly.
- One single word explains everything, really: transphobia
- I'm the USA, it's just another we hate the others. Others being anyone not a white Christian. Trans people are just a very small minority that most people that support trump can't relate to because they don't know any in their rural community. Typically trans people can't live in rural areas because of either a lack of doctors that will provide them care or the lack of facilities.
  I see the same thinking when these Trump supporters demonize migrant workers but them hire them to do work for them because they are some of the "good ones". Imagine that, the minorities you are exposed to are normal people.
  
  people that support trump can't relate to because they don't know any in their rural community. […]
  I see the same thinking when these Trump supporters demonize migrant workers
  "Fun" fact: here in Germany, xenophobia is strongest in those areas with the lowest percentage of inhabitants perceived as migrants.
  People often fear and hate what they don't know. Larger cities are melting pots of lots of people with diverse backgrounds, and larger cities usually correlate with a higher percentage of inhabitants with progressive world views
- They don't do it because they think it's unfair, they do it because they dislike trans people and don't want to phrase it in a way that is outwardly offensive
- From what I've read, there is no evidence that Messi continued taking HGH after adolescence. He certainly has not received an official PED lifetime pass or anything. There are a bunch of rumors around him, and I'm no conspiracy theorist but I wouldn't be stunned if ALL pro athletes are on PEDs (I remember NFL insiders talking about how if you could test reliably for HGH you would have to ban half the league).
  I will keep my other opinions about trans athletes to myself because the left does enough infighting as it is.
- I'm gonna be killed for this, but is the number of successes the same for F2M as it is for M2F? I'm genuinely curious.
  I'll gladly delete this if it's terrible.
  
  I don't really follow sports all that closely, but it looks like there probably is?
  https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/athletes-assigned-female-transitioned-mens-sports/
  Though honestly I can't think of all that many mtf athletes either, it's not like trans women are overrepresented in sports. Plus ftm athletes don't support the narrative transphobes want to push around "men invading women's spaces/sports" they tend to get forgotten in general, but especially in sports. There will be a lot of survivorship bias in how people perceive the success of trans athletes, any trans woman who does well will be seen as "unfair", but any who are completely average at the sport won't be noticed (or will be reported on misleadingly, like when Glenique Frank got 6,159th in the London Marathon and it was reported everywhere as "trans runner beats 14,000 women"). And like I said trans men already get ignored, so their inclusion in sports is definitely not being spoken about to anywhere near the same level. All of that combines to make trans women seem overrepresented in high level sports and trans men basically nonexistent but that's not really accurate.
  
  No clue, nor am I inclined to use time to find out.
  At the end of the day, it really doesn't matter. Success at sports is not only dedication, it's also luck in the genetic lottery, regardless of the sport.
  I believe I'm an outlier in this thought, I think that segregation between male and female sports make no sense.
  
  I don't think there has ever been a high-level successful F2M trans athlete. At least not in any pro league I'm familiar with or the Olympics. I do think F2M (and women in general) should be welcome to compete in "mens" leagues (which are actually gender neutral it's just very hard for women to qualify).

My question to transphobic republicans is that would you be still against trans women in sports if they ate a vegan diet? Since you all love to claim that vegans are “weak and unhealthy”

This was one of his longest episodes on YouTube too!

"Cheeky little cunt aint he?" A londoner to his son
Aaah london true delight

Okay honest question. I have no idea what the truth here is, so please dont come at me.
There was this whole thing with a trans woman mma fighter, who won big or something. People said it was unfair.
Was it? Wasn't it?
back when, i guess it made sense for me. I am all for people being who they are, but not participating in punching each other in the faces seemed like a fair compromise, i thought.
But i don't know, is it? What do you guys say?
- A whole lot of this BS is based on the idea the women are physically inferior to men.
  The truth is that when you account for muscle mass/body fat ratios and height, that benefit goes away almost entirely. Men (or more accurately, people with more testosterone) add muscle mass quicker, and will see better results from exercise. Women (or people with less testosterone) can get the same results, but it takes more time.
  If you think that all women are inferior to any man (throw back to trump saying he could beat a female swimmer to her face) I'd welcome to you watch the vid where some dipshit bro tried that same thing on Rhonda Rousey.
- https://tube.fede.re/w/16650f54-3c69-4d81-b7ae-17f0a3889dbd
  The John Oliver video goes through your concerns and talks about how:
  a. most trans athletes haven't been winning big, ppl with an agenda have been twisting facts to make it seem like they have.
  b. a blanket ban is not the answer, but each sport competition making their own rules based on how many years of hrt the athlete has been on, how much of a difference sex makes for that sport, etc. Which is what was happening for years.
  c. There are much bigger and more common issues with women's sports that we need to address like coaches assaulting athletes, lack of resources compared to male teams, etc. And the same ppl claiming to protect women's sports by banning trans athletes are voting against measures to fix these issues.
  
  That makes a whole lot of sense.
  I am generally against "across the board" rules, as it often hurts more people than they benefit. Making individual rules for each sport makes sense.
  Also yes, do something about judges raping athletes, like wtf?
- The men complaing about it can also fight the mma women to find out how "easy" it is.
  
  A woman trained in mma fighting a man that isn't... I bet the woman will win lol. But is that a fair comparison do you think?
  
  I hate to quote Joe Rogan cause he's a tool but he summarized it well. A professional female martial artist can beat most men. A professional male martial artist can beat all women.