Continuation Transwomen are not women - part 13

[Roboramma]

Do we know the total number of women in the women's league and the total number of men in the men's league?

[Upchurch]

Originally Posted by Roboramma

Do we know the total number of women in the women's league and the total number of men in the men's league?

"men and women in the open league"

Just looking at the names, it's not obvious to me which is which.

[Upchurch]

The video I posted was from 6 years ago. Lurking through various forum boards and subreddits, there is some rumble about 2-3 years ago about ratings inflation or changes. There is also some pushback on that idea, so I don't know. I couldn't find anything about trends in rating values over time, positive or negative. Apparently there is also a competing rating system, but the general vibe I got was that Fargo beat that out.

All I can say is that, since it was produced by the Fargo group itself, it seems reasonable that the values and assertions made in the video were probably accurate 6 years ago. If things have changed since then, I don't know what or how.

[Matthew Best]

Originally Posted by Upchurch

How have we proven that men preform better when we can literally see that women can play at the same level as men?

So 1 woman in the Top 100 (at No 59, no less) counts as "playing at the same level"? Colour me skeptical.

[Roboramma]

Originally Posted by Upchurch

"men and women in the open league"

Yes, thanks for the correction, although I need to correct your correction: it should be "men in the open league".

The question I'm trying to address is: Given that men outnumber women (by 100 to 1?) at the highest rating levels, do they outnumber them to a similar degree in the number playing in the sport?

[Upchurch]

Originally Posted by Roboramma

Yes, thanks for the correction, although I need to correct your correction: it should be "men in the open league".

The question I'm trying to address is: Given that men outnumber women (by 100 to 1?) at the highest rating levels, do they outnumber them to a similar degree in the number playing in the sport?

I'd think we'd want the total number of men and the total number of women and I'm assuming there are possibly some women who only play in the open league. It's pickin' the nits, I know.

[Roboramma]

Yeah that's right. That's what I was trying to get at.

[Upchurch]

Originally Posted by smartcooky

If we transfer that thinking to any other sport, say, middle distance running, the 20th ranked female should be a competitive match with the 20th ranked male. Lets test that

20th ranked male in the 1,500m is Timothy Cheruiyot of Kenya.
Performance ranking points: 1286
Personal best 3:28.28 (Monaco 2021)

20th ranked female is in the 1,500m Josette Andrews of the USA
Performance ranking points: 1282
Personal Best time: 3:59.72

According to the ranking system these two should quite competitive in a race. The reality is that, at the moment Timothy is breaking the tape at the finish line, Josette is still running down the back straight, yet to enter the final turn.

I meant to address this earlier and just forgot. The problem with this example is that the video I posted earlier demonstrated that the ratings for one group was roughly equivalent in the other, by using players who have ratings in both leagues. The above example doesn't do that. We don't know what the mapping between the two sets of "ranking points" are. (And honestly, I don't even know what "ranking points" represents. Whereas the pool ratings are a calculation based on, as I understand it, the ratings that players have played against and who won.

Without that critical step, this is not an analogous comparison.

[Roboramma]

The above point by Upchurch does seem valid to me.

On the other hand, given this:

Originally Posted by Matthew Best

So 1 woman in the Top 100 (at No 59, no less) counts as "playing at the same level"? Colour me skeptical.

It seems like there's a pretty strong argument for sex-based segregation in pool. If we just collapsed it all into an open league, we'd have one woman in the top 100 players. Whatever the reasons for the disparity, it doesn't seem unreasonable for women to want to have a separate league in which they have some reasonable opportunity to play at the highest level.

This doesn't mean that there's a moral obligation to have such a league, only that there is some value in having one.

(Note, it also doesn't seem resolved whether or not there is a male-advantage in the sport. If women pool-players are outnumbered 100 to 1 by male pool players, that would be consistent with no male advantage. But are they? My above comment is actually agnostic on that point, though).

[smartcooky]

Originally Posted by Upchurch

I meant to address this earlier and just forgot. The problem with this example is that the video I posted earlier demonstrated that the ratings for one group was roughly equivalent in the other, by using players who have ratings in both leagues. The above example doesn't do that. We don't know what the mapping between the two sets of "ranking points" are. (And honestly, I don't even know what "ranking points" represents. Whereas the pool ratings are a calculation based on, as I understand it, the ratings that players have played against and who won.

Without that critical step, this is not an analogous comparison.

The problem for the video uploader is that his "critical step" relies on just ONE player, Karen Corr, as a link between the two leagues, and then he tries to extrapolate this out to apply to all players in both leagues. This is never going to work as it is based on one-off games between Karen Corr and some men.

The only way to do this properly is for ALL of the men and ALL of the women to play in a regular, combined league, where every player plays against every other player in the league, multiple times. If we end up with players like Kelly Fisher, Chieh-Yu Chou, Allison Fisher, Kristina Zlateva, Jasmin Ouschan and Wang Wan-Ling spread evenly throughout the rankings there might be a point to be had. If they all end up lower down the rankings (which is what I think you happen) then the claim would be dismissed.

[Upchurch]

Originally Posted by smartcooky

The problem for the video uploader is that his "critical step" relies on just ONE player,

He uses two players, actually: one at the 700 range and one at the 500 range. The two who play the most in both leagues, from the way he puts it, and got consistent results.

Originally Posted by smartcooky

The only way to do this properly is for ALL of the men and ALL of the women to play in a regular, combined league, where every player plays against every other player in the league, multiple times.

This is the God of the Gaps approach; if we don’t have ALL transitional fossils, then must be God. I agree that more mapping points would be more convincing, but requiring ALL players to play against ALL other players, isn’t possible. Also, apparently, there are few cross-over players with enough games to be statistically significant. In proper GOTG form, if there are two players who don’t, you can claim that it STILL isn’t enough evidence.

[theprestige]

Another reason to suspect that the sex segregation in pool is not misogynist is that it runs counter to the established pattern of feminist activism.

Feminists have a hundred-year track record of vocally opposing sexist segregation and inequality wherever they see it. Feminists have fought publicly, and vehemently, for equality of access and representation in pretty much every part of society where these things can be found. Voting. Elected office. Corner office. Firehouses. Fighter jets. Special forces. Old boys' clubs of all kinds.

Perhaps the only aspect of our society where feminists haven't been demanding inclusion is in sports. Most sports don't even prohibit women from playing in the men's league. The reason there's no women in the NBA isn't because the NBA is misogynistically denying them access. It's because women don't want to be in the NBA. There's feminist outrage about women not being allowed to try out for the fire brigade, or for the Army Rangers. There's no feminist outrage about women not being allowed to try out for the New York Yankees or the Las Vegas Raiders.

Megan Rapinoe doesn't want to play on the men's team. Breanna Stewart doesn't want to play in the NBA. Paula Scanlan doesn't want to compete in the men's division in NCAA swimming and diving.

It would be a very unexpected result, if sex segregation in pool turned out to be sexist, if women just somehow hadn't noticed that they were being unfairly discriminated against in this one thing.

[Upchurch]

Originally Posted by theprestige

Another reason to suspect that the sex segregation in pool is not misogynist is that it runs counter to the established pattern of feminist activism.

[snip]

It would be a very unexpected result, if sex segregation in pool turned out to be sexist, if women just somehow hadn't noticed that they were being unfairly discriminated against in this one thing.

I can’t spreak so much about pool, but I’ve had more experience in chess. To me, it appears they have a similar structure and dynamic, and little to no physical biological sex advantages. In chess, there very much was a misogynistic ban, but even after that was lifted there were (and still are) societal pressures in the “girls don’t play chess. That’s a boys game” kind of way. Susan Polger has a lot to say about it.

When searching the pool side of things, like I said, I came across multiple similar anecdotes and some more explicit harassment stories, as well. This is social gender role enforcement. One of the ways to work around that is to have games/tournaments/leagues that are explicitly for girls/women that are free of those pressures, ostensibly until the underlying gender roles catch up socially and there is enough crossover to make the separate league moot.

[smartcooky]

Originally Posted by Upchurch

He uses two players, actually: one at the 700 range and one at the 500 range. The two who play the most in both leagues, from the way he puts it, and got consistent results.

Still not good enough

Originally Posted by Upchurch

This is the God of the Gaps approach; if we don’t have ALL transitional fossils, then must be God.

Oh rubbish!!

Finding all transitional fossils is unachievable, that why theists use it

A fully open, combined league is achievable if the impetus is there. In fact some sports have already achieved it.

In Horse Racing & Harness Racing, and Equestrian Sports at all levels from Pony Club through the Olympics to World Championships in all disciplines including dressage, jumping, and eventing, and most western disciplines such as open horsemanship, showmanship at the halter and barrel racing, men and women compete together.

In the Nacre 17 class of sailing men and women compete together

Originally Posted by Upchurch

I agree that more mapping points would be more convincing, but requiring ALL players to play against ALL other players, isn’t possible. Also, apparently, there are few cross-over players with enough games to be statistically significant. In proper GOTG form, if there are two players who don’t, you can claim that it STILL isn’t enough evidence.

Many more mapping points are required. Basing it on one or two players is sloppy work and unconvincing.

[smartcooky]

Originally Posted by theprestige

Megan Rapinoe doesn't want to play on the men's team.

And we have all seen why that might be, haven't we..

Soccer Football
Dallas Under 16 School team 5
USA National Womens Team 0

[Upchurch]

Originally Posted by smartcooky

Stilll not good enough

Oh rubbish!!

Finding all transitional fossils is unachievable, that why theists use it

A fully open, combined league is achievable if the impetus is there. In fact some sports have already achieved it.

There are currently approximately 300,000 players in the Fargo system across 130 countries. Even if distance was no issue, every player would have to average a little less than 1,000 games a day for an entire year to get the sample size you’re asking for, before requiring each player have multiple games with every other player. And all that assumes the pool of players remains static, which I’ve have no expectations that it would.

No, what you’re asking for is just as unachievable.

ETA: I did a google search for average game length, which the smallest value given is 8 minutes. It would take a person at least 4.5 years of play time to play all 300,000 players once.

[theprestige]

Originally Posted by smartcooky

And we have all seen why that might be, haven't we..

Soccer Football
Dallas Under 16 School team 5
USA National Womens Team 0

Yeah, but pool is different. Pool isn't a physical activity. /s

[Upchurch]

Originally Posted by theprestige

Yeah, but pool is different. Pool isn't a physical activity. /s

“athletic”

[smartcooky]

Originally Posted by Upchurch

There are currently approximately 300,000 players in the Fargo system across 130 countries. Even if distance was no issue, every player would have to average a little less than 1,000 games a day for an entire year to get the sample size you’re asking for, before requiring each player have multiple games with every other player. And all that assumes the pool of players remains static, which I’ve have no expectations that it would.

No, what you’re asking for is just as unachievable.

ETA: I did a google search for average game length, which the smallest value given is 8 minutes. It would take a person at least 4.5 years of play time to play all 300,000 players once.

That is plain ridiculous, and not at all what I was suggesting (and its very disingenuous of you to claim that I was).

Those players worldwide all play in different leagues. What I am suggesting is, for example, instead of having a Women's Welsh League, and a Men's Welsh League, you simply have a Welsh League in which Men and Women compete against each other. We would soon see if this sorts the boys out from the girls.

[Upchurch]

Originally Posted by smartcooky

That is plain ridiculous,

That’s what I was said, only without the unnecessary ad-homs

Originally Posted by smartcooky

and not at all what I was suggesting (and it’s very disingenuous of you to claim that I was).

It is literally what you suggested:

Originally Posted by smartcooky

The problem for the video uploader is that his "critical step" relies on just ONE player, Karen Corr, as a link between the two leagues, and then he tries to extrapolate this out to apply to all players in both leagues. This is never going to work as it is based on one-off games between Karen Corr and some men.

The only way to do this properly is for ALL of the men and ALL of the women to play in a regular, combined league, where every player plays against every other player in the league, multiple times.

You said absolutely nothing about a “combined league(s) separated by region. It may have been what you meant, but it isn’t what you said. I’m no mind-reader. That’s why I said it wasn’t possible, and I meant what I said.

[smartcooky]

Originally Posted by Upchurch

That’s what I was said, only without the unnecessary ad-homs



It is literally what you suggested:You said absolutely nothing about a “combined league(s) separated by region. It may have been what you meant, but it isn’t what you said. I’m no mind-reader. That’s why I said it wasn’t possible, and I meant what I said.

Comprehension is not your strong suit is it? This is probably why Joe Morgue gets so pissed off when you start playing your "I don't understand the question" game.

THE UPLOADER USED KAREN CORR AS AN EXAMPLE... THAT IS THE EXAMPLE I WAS USING... The leagues she plays in!

FFS, get a grip!!

[JoeMorgue]

Guys he literally can't help it because, and here's the core problem HE DOESN'T UNDERSTAND IT. It doesn't make sense to him either, he just got told "this is what you have to think if you want to be a liberal/progressive" and that's it.

This is like the 2nd or 3rd time we done this with one of the hard core "I am the Lorax for the Trans people, watch me call everyone who doesn't just nod and agree a transphobe" types has been argued into a corner with simple, basic, "Lay out what you exactly think and how it's supposed to work and a minimal amount of the mental framework you used to get there" questions and fell back into "Durrr I don't understand, explain it more, durr explain it more."

Because they don't "understand" it anymore then we do. They just know "Here's the new official victim group and here's their place on the progressive victim stack."

[theprestige]

Transphobia of the gaps, ladies and gentlemen.

[Roboramma]

Originally Posted by Upchurch

He uses two players, actually: one at the 700 range and one at the 500 range. The two who play the most in both leagues, from the way he puts it, and got consistent results.



This is the God of the Gaps approach; if we don’t have ALL transitional fossils, then must be God. I agree that more mapping points would be more convincing, but requiring ALL players to play against ALL other players, isn’t possible. Also, apparently, there are few cross-over players with enough games to be statistically significant. In proper GOTG form, if there are two players who don’t, you can claim that it STILL isn’t enough evidence.

I think I'm occupying a sort of middle position between you and smartcookie. The fact that the players who he looked at who play in both leagues have similar scores in both leagues definitely makes me update my credence in the fact that the scores across leagues are comparable to each other. I do think that only using two players for this comparison is a little small, and so my credence isn't as high as yours seems to be, but there is definitely information in that, and so our credences necessarily should be updated on that information. Smartcookie's requirement for testing all players is obviously too high. But how much should we update? It's not so clear. Put another way, if you have a woman with a rating of 500 in the woman's league, what sort of error bars should you put on your estimate of what her score would be in the men's league (and vice versa)? Definitely not zero, but also not +/-500 points.

But this all seems beside the point. We still haven't really addressed the fact that of the top 100 rated players, only one is a woman. That still seems like evidence that there is a disparity here. It's not conclusive (again, if women players were outnumbered 100 to 1 that would explain it), but that's a very high ratio of men to women and it seems unlikely (10 to 1 wouldn't surprise me) so until some evidence one way or the other is presented, my current guess is that there is some male advantage underlying the disparity in the top 100 ranked players.

This is in part due to the fact that there are what I see as valid reasons to expect such a disparity (known male physical advantages that at least plausibly apply to pool).

[Brainster]

Originally Posted by Upchurch

I wonder if women would agree that that men refusing to compete with women is the only form that sexism in a tournament could take.

Oh, oh, I know! They could also have women refusing to compete with men. Those sexist bitches!

[Elaedith]

Another one for the reading list.

Trouble with Gender: Sex Facts, Gender Fictions by MIT philosopher Alex Byrne. This must be advocating literal genocide because it was reviewed positively by Kathleen Stock and apparently asserts that sex is binary. Out now in the UK and January in the US.

[smartcooky]

Originally Posted by JoeMorgue

Guys he literally can't help it because, and here's the core problem HE DOESN'T UNDERSTAND IT. It doesn't make sense to him either, he just got told "this is what you have to think if you want to be a liberal/progressive" and that's it.

Well I'm a liberal/progressive, and I promise you, no ****** tells me what to think!!

IMO, as a general rule, transwomen were born male, developed as a male, are male, and will always be male. No amount of hormone or steroid therapy or surgery or other medical treatments will ever change this fact. Changing sex is impossible.

As a consequence, under no circumstances should transwomen ever be permitted access public spaces reserved for females, or participate in sports reserved for females.
‎
‎

[JoeMorgue]

Originally Posted by smartcooky

Well I'm a liberal/progressive, and I promise you, no ****** tells me what to think!‎

I never said nor said anything that reasonably could be construed to mean "all liberals/progressive." You can actually explain your reasoning and lay out your opinions in normal human speech, so my beef is not with you.

But this discussion has made it painfully obviously that SOME people do just get told "this is what your tribe thinks, repeat it and call people names if they don't agree."

Very simple, very basic, very reasonable questions have been asked and the "Well you see it's a complicated nuanced spectrum of complicated nuance on a spectrum wash rinse repeat" and "Durrr I don't understand the amazingly simple question you asked can you restate so I can pretend not to understand it again" and "oh by the way you're a transphobe" routine is getting a little too on the nose how many times we're going through it. (Prediction. The next step will be the "Well aww shucks it don't matter we're just people talking on the internet" thing.)

Again we're like on the 3rd or 4th "I am the Lorax, I speak for the Trans" who's done the exact same steps.

As I pointed out with the UR example, we are not stupid and we can tell when people like having someone to hate/argue with more then they care about the group they are actually pretending to care about.

[Marcus]

Originally Posted by theprestige

Yeah, but pool is different. Pool isn't a physical activity. /s

I would be tempted to think that anyone who claimed that was trolling, but I suppose if they have only ever seen it on tv and never played a tournament they might actually believe it.

[jeremyp]

Originally Posted by smartcooky

The problem for the video uploader is that his "critical step" relies on just ONE player, Karen Corr, as a link between the two leagues, and then he tries to extrapolate this out to apply to all players in both leagues. This is never going to work as it is based on one-off games between Karen Corr and some men.

The only way to do this properly is for ALL of the men and ALL of the women to play in a regular, combined league, where every player plays against every other player in the league, multiple times. If we end up with players like Kelly Fisher, Chieh-Yu Chou, Allison Fisher, Kristina Zlateva, Jasmin Ouschan and Wang Wan-Ling spread evenly throughout the rankings there might be a point to be had. If they all end up lower down the rankings (which is what I think you happen) then the claim would be dismissed.

This is not the case.

His thesis is that Fargo ratings for men and Fargo ratings for women are about the same for the same ability. This is the only claim he makes in the video. He does not claim that men and women are overall equal ability across the population. In fact he seems to deny this at the beginning by acknowledging that there are more professional male players than female players.

He says that this is the case because there are tens of thousands of matches between men and women each year (time stamp 2:08) which means that there is enough cross communication to normalise the ratings in the two groups. This is presented without evidence in the video but I think somebody has definitely done the analysis since the idea that it is a single scale for all pool players world wide is a pretty big selling point on the web site.

The example is only there as supporting evidence. If the thesis was wrong, Karen Corr's rating calculated against just women would be different from her rating against just men. It isn't.

Where it all goes wrong for Upchurch is that the thesis "Fargo ratings are the same for men and women" is not the same as the thesis "women have no disadvantage at pool". The alarm bells should have been ringing right at the beginning. A graph is presented with "seven of the top twenty women in the World" on the right but on the left are "prominent men with ratings in the same range as those female players" not seven of the top twenty men in the world.

In fact, if you look at the current Fargo ratings, the top woman in the World is at 59 (see also dpace's post above) in the top 100 and the second woman doesn't make the top 100. It's even worse if you limit the comparison to USA players. No USA woman gets close to being in the top 100 USA players.

So for whatever reason, males have an advantage over females at pool. If the sport was not segregated, no female would ever win anything.

[Abooga]

https://wingsoverscotland.com/the-sa...arth/#comments

Well, I read this and thought I'd share it here. According to the Rev's latest investigation, being trans is actually several times safer than being not-trans! Interesting findings.

[Abooga]

https://wingsoverscotland.com/the-sa...arth/#comments

Well, I read this and thought I'd share it here. According to the Rev's latest investigation, being trans is actually several times safer than being not-trans! Interesting findings.

[Brainster]

Originally Posted by Abooga

https://wingsoverscotland.com/the-sa...arth/#comments

Well, I read this and thought I'd share it here. According to the Rev's latest investigation, being trans is actually several times safer than being not-trans! Interesting findings.

It's also quite remarkable that over half the transwomen killed were "sex workers", which is a notoriously dangerous profession (one of the few where women voluntarily meet alone with men they don't know personally).

[smartcooky]

... towards listening to the science rather that the emotions and threatening rhetoric of TRA's

https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/sport...et-by-icc.html

Cricket: Transgender women barred from internationals as part of new regulations set by ICC

After a nine-month consultation process, the ICC has decreed any player who has gone through male puberty is ineligible to play international women's cricket, regardless of treatment taken to transition.

"The changes to the gender eligibility regulations resulted from an extensive consultation process, and is founded in science and aligned with the core principles developed during the review," said chief executive Geoff Allardice.

"Inclusivity is incredibly important to us as a sport, but our priority was to protect the integrity of the international women's game and the safety of players."

[Matthew Best]

Brighton Skeptics in the Pub were planning to have a meeting featuring Helen Lewis in conversation with Hannah Barnes, discussing matters trans. Tickets were put on sale and the evening sold out. However, trans activists complained and the event has now been cancelled - and seems to have completely disappeared from any Brighton Skeptics in the Pub website/social media. It's as though it was never even scheduled.

Seems a bit non-sceptical to abdicate all possibility of being sceptical over a topic, but that's the way things are now, I guess. It's as though they refused to have meetings discussing homeopathy for fear of offending homeopaths.

"BRIGHTON SKEPTICS is committed to the promotion of science, rationalism, skepticism and critical thinking across the South East. We hope to challenge misinformation and stop harmful beliefs through the use of reason and compassion."

Hmmmm.

[Roboramma]

For whatever reason, that reminded me of these two blog posts:

https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=3376

https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/10/2...-of-lightning/

[Manopolus]

Doubled post. Tech issues.

[Manopolus]

Wow, big thread. It might have been said before, but I just want to throw out a postulate:

Words mean whatever we decide they mean. That includes the boundaries of said words. Until we fully agree on an actual definition for this sound we use, classification arguments are completely meaningless. In the traditional sense, perhaps we are trying to redefine a word in these modern times. So what? You still know what (or who) we mean when we use the term.

[Matthew Best]

It's not just about the words, man.

[Manopolus]

Originally Posted by Matthew Best

It's not just about the words, man.

Well, probably not. It's about declining someone a particular status. Fine. You've successfully let us know that you won't have sex with them. Mission accomplished.

Anything else?

If there's anything else you'd like to let us know about your willingness to interact with them, please do tell. Maybe you don't want to kiss them, either? In a similar respect, I don't want to kiss extremely obese women. I don't insist that we call them something other than women, however.