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cmulli4

Women’s records/swooping

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JohnMitchell

If they've had the surgery, it's hard to deny them a spot in the women's lineup. Are you worried their size or possible strength advantage will give them an unfair edge?



Usually I'd be worried about an advantage but this seems to be one of the rare competitions where I don't see how it could matter.

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This quote from the Wikipedia page for Dr. Renee Richards, the transgender tennis champion, who took her fight to the supreme court to be allowed to compete as a woman in the US Open.

"Richards has since expressed ambivalence about her legacy, and came to believe her past as a man provided her with advantages over her competitors, saying “Having lived for the past 30 years, I know if I’d had surgery at the age of 22, and then at 24 went on the tour, no genetic woman in the world would have been able to come close to me. And so I’ve reconsidered my opinion.”

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It is my belief and understanding that genetically men have more body strength than women. Paticualrly upper body strength. An example would be in apes. An ape has approximately 8 times the strength of a human male. I don’t want to compete in any strength contest with an ape. If you like you can YouTube MMA fighter fights a chimp. Men have, regardless of transgender, more strength than women, particularly in the upper body. So pulling in front risers would in my opinion be a detriment for women compared to any born male. This won’t be an issue now since the female will smoke the said male. However do we want to set this standard, what about the females competing against me? Can I now set a female speed record? All it takes is a drivers license saying I’m female. That’s easy to get in California.
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JohnMitchell

This quote from the Wikipedia page for Dr. Renee Richards, the transgender tennis champion, who took her fight to the supreme court to be allowed to compete as a woman in the US Open.

"Richards has since expressed ambivalence about her legacy, and came to believe her past as a man provided her with advantages over her competitors, saying “Having lived for the past 30 years, I know if I’d had surgery at the age of 22, and then at 24 went on the tour, no genetic woman in the world would have been able to come close to me. And so I’ve reconsidered my opinion.”



I'm just not familiar enough with swooping to get the connection. I didn't know that body strength made a difference, but now that you mention it I can see how it would. I was thinking of it as strictly a timing and technique thing.

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Glad I could humor you, I hope you didn’t take that statement seriously. Your lol proves my point. Just because she can beat men is not relative to this situation. We could get rid of gender identity in competition all together. I’m sure that some would take issue with that also.

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cmulli4

Glad I could humor you, I hope you didn’t take that statement seriously. Your lol proves my point. Just because she can beat men is not relative to this situation. We could get rid of gender identity in competition all together. I’m sure that some would take issue with that also.



You're trending too close to the gender v. sex debate.

I don't know swooping rules well enough to debate them. I do feel that sex doesn't matter and a light male would have as much of a hard time as a light female. if you hang the same weight from the front risers it shouldn't matter.

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Skydiving, including swooping, where gender shouldn't matter. IMO the only reason we still have women's records and women's categories is to promote women's involvement in the sport. While an admirable goal, I don't think that distinction should be made at the pro level.

- Dan G

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LeeroyJenkins



You're trending too close to the gender v. sex debate.

I don't know swooping rules well enough to debate them. I do feel that sex doesn't matter and a light male would have as much of a hard time as a light female. if you hang the same weight from the front risers it shouldn't matter.



TLDR: So, you have two options, split the competition via sex, or have weight classes.

Thank you for clarifying the first bit, but scientifically/medically there is no debate, only in colloquial usage. Seriously, it's hard to fathom this isn't understood clearly yet: sex = biological reproductive capacity however you want to define that, you'd think "oh chromosomes" but lol, it gets complicated (Google "Complete AIS" and have your mind blown, one of many examples). Anyway, for 90+% of the population that is M and F. Gender is a social construct regarding behavior, appearance, and social expectation. For most of you that distinction doesn't matter and again for a huge majority of the population, is still M and F, but anyway, you want to talk science you have to learn the rules. Merriam Webster is irrelevant.

As for the second part, the max additional weight is ~16kg according to FAI ( see link ). Search the document for "Addendum E." With max total weight + added weight, topping out from 93kg to 99kg (205-219lbs) depending on the jumpers initial weight.

So for a 60kg female (130lbs) and I think we can agree, pretty "average" athletic build weight, perhaps even a little heavy; their max allowed added weight is 16kg (35lbs). So topped out she is sitting at 76kg (167lbs), lighter than a lot of the guys in swoop meets without any added weight (And I'm sitting here at 220 naked). So as far as raw mass women would generally be at a disadvantage, and then on top of that they would have to compete wearing heavy weight belts and manage that added mass (in the example above + 27% body mass) with an upper body that hasn't been doped up with testosterone for the last 18+ years.

So yes, light guys would have just as much of a hard time, but statistically there are a lot less of them, and for women, to be fit and 180lbs (15-20lbs below the male average in the US), they are most likely a body builder.

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I don't really see the ability to pull a front riser as an issue - I truly doubt any woman competing in swooping has an issue with front risers. To me it is all a weight issue - I could see dividing competitions into weight classes rather than dividing by sex. That would be a fairer division. A 130 pound guy does not really have any advantage over a 130 pound woman. The female may be shorter and have less drag if anything..

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Anachronist

***

You're trending too close to the gender v. sex debate.

I don't know swooping rules well enough to debate them. I do feel that sex doesn't matter and a light male would have as much of a hard time as a light female. if you hang the same weight from the front risers it shouldn't matter.



TLDR: So, you have two options, split the competition via sex, or have weight classes.

Thank you for clarifying the first bit, but scientifically/medically there is no debate, only in colloquial usage. Seriously, it's hard to fathom this isn't understood clearly yet: sex = biological reproductive capacity however you want to define that, you'd think "oh chromosomes" but lol, it gets complicated (Google "Complete AIS" and have your mind blown, one of many examples). Anyway, for 90+% of the population that is M and F. Gender is a social construct regarding behavior, appearance, and social expectation. For most of you that distinction doesn't matter and again for a huge majority of the population, is still M and F, but anyway, you want to talk science you have to learn the rules. Merriam Webster is irrelevant.

As for the second part, the max additional weight is ~16kg according to FAI ( see link ). Search the document for "Addendum E." With max total weight + added weight, topping out from 93kg to 99kg (205-219lbs) depending on the jumpers initial weight.

So for a 60kg female (130lbs) and I think we can agree, pretty "average" athletic build weight, perhaps even a little heavy; their max allowed added weight is 16kg (35lbs). So topped out she is sitting at 76kg (167lbs), lighter than a lot of the guys in swoop meets without any added weight (And I'm sitting here at 220 naked). So as far as raw mass women would generally be at a disadvantage, and then on top of that they would have to compete wearing heavy weight belts and manage that added mass (in the example above + 27% body mass) with an upper body that hasn't been doped up with testosterone for the last 18+ years.

So yes, light guys would have just as much of a hard time, but statistically there are a lot less of them, and for women, to be fit and 180lbs (15-20lbs below the male average in the US), they are most likely a body builder.

I'm not sure if the first part was directed at me or not but we fully agree and that was a pretty good summary of sex v. gender.

As for swooping it seems like weight classes would make a lot of sense. All the PE needs to go somewhere for heavier people.

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Not directed at you specifically LJ, just elaborating since the can o' worms got opened.

I agree with the last two comments, weight classes make more sense with a top end "unlimited" and bottom end
But then you have to reorganize everything in something that is already poorly organized and all the guys would end up in "unlimited" because that would be the most prestigious class; and all the girls ending up in the bottom two classes unless they wanted to play in "unlimited" too. So it might not actually work in practice and more or less end up with M vs F anyway with just a couple exceptions of the most skilled women and really light men.

Not to mention, the competitor pool is already pretty small, and you have pro and am classes too. So it is very likely you'd end up with 1 or 2 competitors in a single class, aka pointless.

M and F is basically a defacto weight class for most part anyway, and much simpler to orchestrate.

But I don't compete so I really don't care. :P I guess it really just depends on what the handful of female competitors want. I'd say if they want F only, fine, if they want to compete against guys, fine.

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Anachronist, while your intentions are good, weight isint the main issue. We have NB who is one of the best ever, he’s probably 130 lbs. and we have Greg who’s probably 250, also very good. Those numbers don’t include weight or gear. We can go down a rabbit hole about speed and drag, but let’s not. Point is...there is no female competitor that is as strong as Nick at his 130 lbs. whatever happens, I guess we can decide our gender. If it comes down to that everyone will suddenly become female.

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cmulli4

Anachronist, while your intentions are good, weight isint the main issue. We have NB who is one of the best ever, he’s probably 130 lbs. and we have Greg who’s probably 250, also very good. Those numbers don’t include weight or gear. We can go down a rabbit hole about speed and drag, but let’s not. Point is...there is no female competitor that is as strong as Nick at his 130 lbs. whatever happens, I guess we can decide our gender. If it comes down to that everyone will suddenly become female.



How small is that dudes canopy?


Also, the basically fallacy the everyone would become female has been disproven so many times. People aren’t going to start taking esterogen for years/get their license changed just so they can compete in a different skydiving class.

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Of course everyone is going to completely change their bodies and legal status just to have a slight competitive advantage over people they weren't competing against in the first place. Haven't you heard of the rash of elite athletes undergoing elective amputations just so they can kick ass at the Paralympics?

- Dan G

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>Wouldn’t separating classes by Wing Loading be easiest and most effective?

That doesn't scale well. A 3 to 1 wing loading with a 120 lb jumper gives you very different performance than a 3 to 1 wing loading with a 220 lb jumper.

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cmulli4

If it comes down to that everyone will suddenly become female.



This is pretty willfully naive. From everything I've seen, being trans fucking sucks. Suggesting that people would put themselves through that hell for a record is absurd.

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You are right about changing sex to win. However someone that was a competitor and has changed their sex has now decided that he will take the female records. So it is after the fact. It’s a moot point in this instance because said person can’t beat her, however in my opinion a precedence of this should not be set.

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