The Official Irish Rugby Thread

[How bad boy]

All through Covid "follow the science".

This issue: "no, follow this alternative science"..

You know that gender isn't that simple? Firstly that a lot of the boundaries between sexes are social, rather than biological differences, and secondly, even the biological boundaries aren't massively clear sometimes, e.g. males with XX chromosomes, people with XXY chromosomes, girls with only one X chromosome:
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/differences-in-sex-development/

Those conditions tend to be relatively rate (e.g. males with XX chromosomes is at a rate of only 1:20,000), but they absolutely do happen, to pretend they don't is very much ignoring the science.

And of course, scientifically speaking, male and female humans are remarkably similar in the animal world.

The but "men are bigger than women" thing isn't even fully consistent (e.g. my mother in law is 6ft tall). The average Dutch woman is 5'6, the average Filipino Man is 5'4. Why the enormous difference? Mostly sociological and local environmental, the average South Korean is almost 6 inches taller than 100 years ago and are on track to be taller than the average American in the next 30 years or so if current trends continue. Ugandans are getting shorter at a fairly rapid clip.

Americans Are Shrinking, While Chinese And Koreans Sprout Up

A massive study looks at how heights around the world have changed over the past century.

www.npr.org

It's all about "on average", but there's a massive range. One Samoan I used to play with was 6'6, 21 stone and was the fasted player on our team. Certainly wouldn't want to put him up against 99.9% of women, but I'd say 99% of men would struggle to stop that magnificent bastard in full flow too. He flattened me many, many times.

There are freakishly large, strong and fast women, as there are with men. I'm not sure how many fit, strong transsexuals are looking to play women's rugby at a decent level, the drug therapies tend to not be great for your health, but I can't imagine it's a particularly large number. hence why simplistic rules based on supposed assertions of science are frequently a mess.

This area is a minefield and gender is a much, much more fluid concept for folks in their teens today vs even folks 20 years older than them. It very much reminds me of the rampant homophobia pre-90s. I suspect it'll end up in the same place in 20 years time where people end up saying "Yeah, fuck it, whatever, call yourself what you like".

With all that said, that too low a barrier an entry to women's rugby is undeniably a problem. Saying "This week, I'm a woman and therefore in the women's team" is definitely something that needs to have some level of controls around. Just don't know how common a problem it is. Nor am I particularly certain that hard and fast rules help much with right now if it's not a common occurrence.

 

[Killyoursons]

You know that gender isn't that simple? Firstly that a lot of the boundaries between sexes are social, rather than biological differences, and secondly, even the biological boundaries aren't massively clear sometimes, e.g. males with XX chromosomes, people with XXY chromosomes, girls with only one X chromosome:
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/differences-in-sex-development/

Those conditions tend to be relatively rate (e.g. males with XX chromosomes is at a rate of only 1:20,000), but they absolutely do happen, to pretend they don't is very much ignoring the science.

And of course, scientifically speaking, male and female humans are remarkably similar in the animal world.

The but "men are bigger than women" thing isn't even fully consistent (e.g. my mother in law is 6ft tall). The average Dutch woman is 5'6, the average Filipino Man is 5'4. Why the enormous difference? Mostly sociological and local environmental, the average South Korean is almost 6 inches taller than 100 years ago and are on track to be taller than the average American in the next 30 years or so if current trends continue. Ugandans are getting shorter at a fairly rapid clip.

Americans Are Shrinking, While Chinese And Koreans Sprout Up

A massive study looks at how heights around the world have changed over the past century.

www.npr.org

It's all about "on average", but there's a massive range. One Samoan I used to play with was 6'6, 21 stone and was the fasted player on our team. Certainly wouldn't want to put him up against 99.9% of women, but I'd say 99% of men would struggle to stop that magnificent bastard in full flow too. He flattened me many, many times.

There are freakishly large, strong and fast women, as there are with men. I'm not sure how many fit, strong transsexuals are looking to play women's rugby at a decent level, the drug therapies tend to not be great for your health, but I can't imagine it's a particularly large number. hence why simplistic rules based on supposed assertions of science are frequently a mess.

This area is a minefield and gender is a much, much more fluid concept for folks in their teens today vs even folks 20 years older than them. It very much reminds me of the rampant homophobia pre-90s. I suspect it'll end up in the same place in 20 years time where people end up saying "Yeah, fuck it, whatever, call yourself what you like".

With all that said, that too low a barrier an entry to women's rugby is undeniably a problem. Saying "This week, I'm a woman and therefore in the women's team" is definitely something that needs to have some level of controls around. Just don't know how common a problem it is. Nor am I particularly certain that hard and fast rules help much with right now if it's not a common occurrence.

A fair bit of that sounds plausible, but given what I know (and I'm definitely not an expert), I'm inclined to think that trans women should not be allowed to play women's rugby. The relevant points aren't really to do with average size but with the average performance gains that males get by undergoing puberty. This seems to be the single biggest factor in explaining why, across a wide range of sports, the top male performers are routinely well ahead of the top female performers (where performances are directly comparable). Ross Tucker (Saffer sports scientist, has a podcast called Real Science of Sport) is imo very persuasive on this. Afair he was more or less agnostic on this issue until fairly recently, but he cites recent studies which show that male gains in puberty across a wide variety of measures are not levelled out by testosterone suppression. So basically a biological male who has been through puberty will have a big advantage over your average female competitor in a whole host of ways which are relevant to rugby.

I agree that the problem might not be a big one in terms of numbers, but I think the principle is important as well. Women's sports are in general a protected category. Just as there would be a problem if, say, a small number of twenty-eight-year-old club hurlers could be somehow eligibile to play minor for Cork, there is a problem if someone from the non-protected group (in this case, men) can participate in the protected category.

Edit: here's a good discussion on Tucker's podcast https://podcasts.apple.com/za/podca...aten-fairness-in/id1461719225?i=1000522515770

 

[Hank Scorpio]

The matter of Sex , male or female is biology. Its that simple.


Gender identity politics and the wave of bullshit associated with it have seemingly intelligent people tieing themselves up in knots trying to argue up is down.


World rugby have been clear on this issue.




Call yourself whatever you want, biological males playing female sport, in this instance rugby are a danger to female players.


End of. Varadkar can do one too,woke vote chasing tosspot

 

[How bad boy]

The matter of Sex , male or female is biology. Its that simple.

It's not though.

 

[Hank Scorpio]

Sex is grounded in material biology.

We are part of the family of mammals, and so all of us are female or male.

Females have a chromosomal makeup of XX. Males have a chromosomal makeup of XY.

Females produce large gametes called ova. Males produce small gametes called sperm.

This is all very basic biology. That’s what sex is.

For the purposes of a public health campaign you refer to women as women, and men as men.

That's biology.

Gender issues, be it stereotypes, preferred pronouns etc, have no basis in biology.
Anyone trying to muddy the waters on official information on sex, with gender issues is an idiot.

 

[How bad boy]

Sex is grounded in material biology.

We are part of the family of mammals, and so all of us are female or male.

Females have a chromosomal makeup of XX. Males have a chromosomal makeup of XY.

Females produce large gametes called ova. Males produce small gametes called sperm.

This is all very basic biology. That’s what sex is.

For the purposes of a public health campaign you refer to women as women, and men as men.

That's biology.

Gender issues, be it stereotypes, preferred pronouns etc, have no basis in biology.
Anyone trying to muddy the waters on official information on sex, with gender issues is an idiot.

Some have XO, some have XXY, Some with XX have male developed genitals, some with XY have female genitals. Some have "ambiguous genitals, which aren't clearly one or the other. Some don't have properly developed genitals of their birth sex and so grow up different.
Sure, it's only about 0.5% of the population, but it's not at all as simple as you pretend.

Then there's gender identification, which I think is what you've got a problem with. It's part of the same issue, but a very long way from the whole issue.

Do you know many trans or non binary people? Ever had a chat with them about their lives?

 

[Hank Scorpio]

Some have "ambiguous genitals"

Say no more m8...


XO is a chromosome disorder , occuring in females and XXY syndrome is another genetic disorder that occurs in boys, both present infertility problems.

Stop trying to muddy the waters on basic biology m8.


World Rugby have been clear on the issue of trans players in womens rugby. Its a player welfare issue, and the IRFU are dead right on this one.

 

[Megelus]

Possibly a tangent, but one somewhat related. In boxing how comparable would male and female fighters of the same weight classes be?

 

[flyingspud]

Let's do away with all these "artificial" divisions, male, female, whatever you're having yourself..sure do away with the age thing, can't be ageist now, play all sports like that and see what a shitshow it would be.

 

[The High King]

Some have XO, some have XXY, Some with XX have male developed genitals, some with XY have female genitals. Some have "ambiguous genitals, which aren't clearly one or the other. Some don't have properly developed genitals of their birth sex and so grow up different.
Sure, it's only about 0.5% of the population, but it's not at all as simple as you pretend.

Then there's gender identification, which I think is what you've got a problem with. It's part of the same issue, but a very long way from the whole issue.

Do you know many trans or non binary people? Ever had a chat with them about their lives?

That's the nub m8.
Tbf I think .5 is being generous.
I do. They have mental issues. However maybe my sample was skewed and maybe their mental issues were a symptom rather then the reason.