In general? I guess a good example would be transgender athletes. This is a controversial subject but a reasonable argument can be made that people who grew up with higher levels of testosterone have an unfair advantage over people who didn't. This concern is often dismissed as bigotry. This fits the above description that said "portraying any disagreement as based in identity differences there can be no functional discussion of the facts at hand"
Thank you. I think that's a good example. For instance, I don't think I understand why people would want to ban those who were born identifying male from athletics because they have more testosterone than those born identifying female. Clearly, if the hormone levels are the issue, they should just sample the hormones of athletes at some point in their developmental process and ban anyone with too much testosterone from the womans' events, regardless of their gender identity. Identify as a woman but your testosterone levels are outside 1-sigma from average at 13? Sorry; doesn't matter if you were born a woman and have always thought of yourself as a woman, you're banned from Olympic Women's Pole Vault for life.
> Clearly, if the hormone levels are the issue, they should just sample the hormones of athletes at some point in their developmental process
Of course hormone levels are the issue, that's why we don't allow the use of human growth hormone and testosterone at the Olympics. It's called doping. And your proposed solution is completely impractical. In addition, your phrasing "if the hormone levels are the issue" seems to contain a veiled accusation of bigotry by suggesting that the actual issue is something else.
> Identify as a woman but your testosterone levels are outside 1-sigma from average at 13? Sorry;
Using 1-sigma in your example is a straw man. Normal female range is 15 to 70 ng/dL, normal male range is 300-1200. I suggest that if anyone has a testosterone level of 300 or more they should not be allowed to compete with women (but with that level of testosterone a human body would likely not develop as a female body in the first place). This should only apply to sports where testosterone is a direct advantage, e.g. there's no issue with a trans athlete competing in women's chess. Then again, I don't think they check for testosterone doping in chess competitions either.
See how much more difficult it is to discuss this issue without resorting to accusations of bigotry? That itself is the problem: We can't even sort these kind of problems out as a society because the conversations are shut down before they could begin.
With respect, I don't see where you're seeing an accusation of bigotry; I certainly didn't intend one. You agreed hormone levels are the issue; how is "if hormone levels are the issue" a veiled accusation of bigotry?
> Using 1-sigma in your example is a straw man. Normal female range is 15 to 70 ng/dL, normal male range is 300-1200
My error; I was speaking from pure hypotheticals without knowledge of how the numbers break down. The regulations from IAAF (and the research from the IAAF) indicates "About seven in every 1,000 elite female athletes have high testosterone levels." (https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/02/190212160030.h...)
Still, their stance seems odd... That a person with naturally-occurring testosterone should be required to take suppressing hormones. If the goal is to see "natural" talent apart from doping, how does forcing athletes to take hormone suppressants satisfy that goal? It seems to pretty self-evidently be reverse-doping.
It's also unclear to me why the IAAF would consider higher levels of testosterone to be an advantage in need of intervention but not, say, being born at and training in a higher altitude, which we know increases lung capacity https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4175264/. We don't force athletes training in Santa Fe to train at lower altitudes for six months before an Olympics. Why treat testosterone levels differently?
> With respect, I don't see where you're seeing an accusation of bigotry; I certainly didn't intend one. You agreed hormone levels are the issue; how is "if hormone levels are the issue" a veiled accusation of bigotry?
It suggests that the issue is something else, not what was raised. It reads as an accusation that the hormone issue is just an excuse for an other agenda. If that wasn't your intention I belive you, but it can be easily misread.
> If the goal is to see "natural" talent apart from doping, how does forcing athletes to take hormone suppressants satisfy that goal?
I think the goal is both finding what humans are capable of, but also rewarding human achievement. If a world record can only be broken or a race can only be won by someone in the top 0.1% of testosterone levels then 99% of people have no reason to even try to compete.
Training at a high altitude is still within the reach of natural human ability, while taking hormones isn't. Although I would support the idea that everyone can take as much testosterone as you need to get to 1200 ng/ml (or some other reasonable threshold) but not more.
This discussion reminds me of a scene in The Twelve Tasks of Asterix where he is about to race the best Olympic runner in the world, and he jokes that they also have races in their village but it's not that exciting because everyone drinks the magic potion, so they all finish at the same time and have the winner be decided by lottery. Guess that's another (slightly unsatisfying) hypothetical solution to the problem ;). Useful as a thought experiment though
That is one completely valid but also slightly reductionist way to look at it. I think it is quite telling that even trans people are saying "yeah that topic is a bit too messy to untangle even for us, and we're the ones living this experience" - the issue is mainly that there are multiple valid requirements are inherently contradictory. I suspect the issue of transgenderism and athletics is a very good example of a Wicked Problem.
This seems like a controversial subject because it's one frequently used without any actual scientific basis or rationale behind it. Hence, bigotry.
A good example of such a situation is what happened to Caster Semenya who is biologically a woman and has had her testosterone levels used against her in attempt to discredit her and her performance, despite evidence contrary to the idea that it's testosterone that gives her an unfair advantage.
And ultimately if we were to make that argument in the first place, then we should argue to limit all professional athletes (male and female) by testosterone level as it is not a consistent thing in either men or women rather than using it as a bludgeon against specifically transgender athletes.
