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TCCender

Gorillas
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  1. Exactly, one would hope. Doesn't always happen though.
  2. One could have wrestlebacks after the quarterfinals, only. If you're a regional #4 drawing the top #1 in the state in round one of semistate, to have been the #4 coming out of regionals, you will have had to have lost twice at Regionals. There are at least 3 ahead of you, and then someone outside your regional is the "ringer" death draw. So that wrestler does not have a case, really, to claim to be one of the best 4 at semi-state. But, those who lose in round 2--the current "ticket" round, they easily could be a top 5 wrestler in the state, lose to a top 3 wrestler in regionals, and then draw the number 1 in the state in the ticket round. I have literally watched the number 3 in a given class go down to the number 1 in regionals, and draw the number 2 in the ticket round and be out of state. THIS is the problem that the wrestlebacks are intended to solve, NOT taking away the upsets, which will always happen, it seems completely disingenuous to say "well then they weren't the best on this particular day", while the left out top 5 wrestler watches someone they've beaten 3 times this year in the grand march reveling in the whole pageantry that is "State". The IHSAA seems not to understand what "Going to State" is to a wrestler. It is a defining moment...a lifetime of work...and this is what COULD be corrected if we had an open mind. So I say, wrestlebacks after round 2, but NOT after round 1. As for time, I agree that is a concern. I'm not sure how all the semi-states look, but at New Castle we spend every year at LEAST one hour in "breaks". This year we had 3, totaling about 90 minutes or so. The New Castle "breaks" are becoming legendary. That is easily enough time to put in a single wrestle back round.
  3. The truth is that the two types of calls you reference, stall calls and the out-of-bounds calls, have always been this way in Indiana. If you move in from some other states it is quite striking actually how much stalling can be allowed here sometimes, and how some referees call the sideline. Unfortunately, there are some programs here that actually coach to this...they're teaching their wrestlers to wrestle at the sideline, back off the mat, and take asinine amounts of time back to the circle, etc--almost as if they're daring the referee to call something. I can think of one instance though this past semi-state weekend, where a wrestler from a particular program lost on a questionable takedown at the sideline call at the end--this wrestler all season wrestled in a time-wasting style, backing off, moving to the sideline, etc, and it finally bit him in the butt. They're going to keep doing that, until the the refs starting putting that fist up in the air, or award that takedown at the sideline thereby dissuading teams from using that technique. Over the years I've decided just to go with it--it can be frustrating but there's not much that can be done, and the lesson that the kids have to learn is that they have to find a way to win, regardless.
  4. Let me try to answer this. The answer to your question of is this a choice is, NO, it is not a choice. It is biologically-driven, but the phenotypes that arise are much more complex than simply external genitalia, and so in truth there is assigned gender, and there is true biological gender. What happens in the brain during development may or may not correlate to what grew in the groin area in utero. You can read my previous post on the genetic and biological basis of gender for more detail. For 99.7% of people, this is easy, coordinated and consistent. Assigned gender equals biological gender in these circumstances. For the other 0.3% of cases, gender assigned at birth does not correlate to the rest of their biology. The only choices to be made, then, are whether to live life as the wrong gender, or change to the correct one, and then WHEN to make any change. So those of us who are men....think about all of our thoughts, urges, behavioral tendencies, etc. We don't really choose these. Some is taught by our upbringing, but some is not--it is part of our biology. It is encoded in us. Males and females are distinct, mentally as well as physically. This is controlled by brain chemistry, and brain chemistry is ultimately controlled by our hormonal axis. Now imagine having all of these same thoughts, behaviors, urges, etc, but being born with female external genitalia (or in some cases ambiguous genitalia that is guessed upon and surgically corrected at birth). Imagine the confusion this person must have. Almost all of transgender situations can be traced back to expression ambiguities or polymorphisms in either the hormonal axis genes or the sex chromosomes. So, no, in that sense you are correct--you cannot "choose" your gender, only whether or not be public as one or another gender. To this end, the comparison to ethnicity is flawed. You cannot choose your ethnicity either, but there isn't necessarily an agreed upon "norm" to what ethnicity behaves as. True, if one is of a certain ancestry, one has to be aware of certain genetic tendencies toward some diseases. Yet this woman you speak of who "decided" to be African American cannot, in truth, choose this. What does that even mean? Any African American can do anything someone of European, Asian, or Hispanic ancestry can do, and vice versa. On the other hand, there is a pattern to what a man does, and a pattern to what a female does, and feels. In this, then, the bigotry here comes in if one does not accept a person for who they truly are, or discriminates against a person simply for who they are in an unwarranted fashion. We can debate the particulars, such as this great thread has done above, in that it would be more appropriate for Mack to wrestle in the male division. This statement is not bigoted. It also is not bigoted to be concerned about what exogenous hormonal therapy might mean for performance, as long as we keep it based on the science and not hyperbole. On the other hand, if we scorn transgender people, call them crazy, think of them as weirdos, or discriminate against them in an unwarranted fashion, then I would say that this would qualify as bigotry. So far the only example on this thread of that (someone referring to Mack as an "it") was taken down. I hope, as a society, all of us can have the type of discourse shown on this thread. If so, we can help transgender people achieve normalcy in their lives, and be better for it.
  5. Personally I myself wouldn't boo a student athlete for this either....but actually I was referring the harsh comments some were said to have yelled (I wasn't there, obviously, so I'm going on news paper reports), and comments I hear all the time regarding transgenderism, including news article comment section entries. I wonder what the truth is regarding whether they even tried to use the law to get into the male division. I wonder what would have happened if in September or October they had filed suit. I'm sure a big time lawyer might have picked up that case pro bono to bring national attention to these types of ill-fated laws. Now I read that some in Texas are so pissed that they want a full out ban on all potential therapeutics, all with mandatory and random testing. This policy can be debated on its merits of course, but it is amazing to me that nationally some 20-25% of high school athletes have admitted to using various forms of PEDs, with some sports more than others. But that staggering number isn't what prompts the call for widespread testing in Texas: it's the fact that there's a transgender involved that puts them over the edge. I wonder though, in football-crazed Texas, what is going to happen when some rootin' tootin' Texan's all-star D1 recruit linebacker son gets suspended senior year for PED use that is picked up as a result of a possible mandatory policy that is put in place to target transgender students.
  6. Just to be clear, no one who took part in this discussion exhibited any bigoted behavior, and we're all agreeing it seems that Mack should have competed as a male. However any read of any news article on this event can see the comments sections filled with bigotry against transgendered people, and society in general is loaded with anti-transgender bigotry right now. Fabio thought his position was biased in favor of transgendered people because he personally knows and has loved ones in this situation, and merely point out that I don't think that is really biased, but rather an inside perspective. One's perspective is undeniably changed when you know and love someone in the targeted group, no matter what that group may be. Those in that Texas arena who were swirling insults at Mack, or those filling the news pages with their hate-filled comments would figure NOT to have the inside perspective that Fabio has. I think the sport will be fine as long as we stick to the science and recommendations of those who know how transgender works. If we fall back on the IOC style policy and require a 4 year time with at least one year at the appropriate serum T level, we'll have all the legal justification to keep the girls division fair from those who might try to game the system. One of the great things about wrestlers in my experience is that they want to be the champion and EARN it. It just would be empty for any real boy to "fake" being female to get a medal. If they want a medal that bad they can just come see me and I'll go buy them one. If one stoops to that level to be fake, any championship would be meaningless, and I have faith in our boys that they won't do that--I just don't see it happening, but who knows. Like I said, if we stick to scientifically-justified policy, we'll be fine.
  7. I wish Indiana had enough female wrestlers competing to warrant a full tournament like this. Texas has some 4x the number of people, and so probably also 4x the number of interested competitors in female wrestling. To your other point, this has actually been addressed in sports with the support and consent of the Endocrine Society. Four years of anti-androgen therapy must be done before a male-to-female transition is considered female, biochemically. The IOC guidelines require that female trans athletes declare their gender for four years, and then demonstrate a testosterone level of less than 10 nanomoles/liter for at least one year prior to competition and throughout the period of eligibility. This also came up in MMA a couple years ago. It has been demonstrated that strength and structure effects of male-to-female transition are fully abrogated by 4 years of therapy and more than one year with the 10 nmole/L T level. So, probably in effect this would eliminate a male-to-female from competing as a female for intents and purposes in high school. I would suspect that those promoting the "birth certificate assigned gender" laws popping up in certain states should know this--it is well documented. They are either intellectually lazy or with sinister intent in passing these laws, therefore. Pretty much when in doubt the athlete should compete as a male. I am quite certain that the promoters of these laws are much more interested in making political firing shots than they are in understanding the issues at a deep level. This is why they pass the laws with such haste, and why Mack and his female opponents are now in the situation that the STATE LAW put them in. Thank you, Novice bat, for the info. Still not clear from these data about non-transitioned TGs verses fully-transitioned, but anyway the main issue you addressed. Acceptance and living as they truly are is the true issue. You are right though, it is a terrible stat to be contemplating. Our job as people should be to help them in anyway we can!
  8. I wouldn't call it bias, I'd call it a perspective, one that can only come with knowing personally someone affected. Like almost anything, it is hard to be bigoted against something when you know and love someone affected, and therefore understand better the issue.
  9. Thanks. I'll look more into that as well, and we'll see what we can find.
  10. DelCo, I wonder if you might be able to post the studies you refer to. I've not found any clear cut evidence in my pubmed search in either direction on this point. There seems to be a paucity of data on a before and after comparison of actually undergoing the transition, but it is clear that a non-transitioned transgender youth has very high suicide rates compared to the general population, which is obviously expected.
  11. Two things are happening to make this an issue. First, most people do not understand even a little bit the biology of gender, but more importantly they want to be deeply opinionated on the topic without even doing a little bit of learning on this topic. Secondly, we are embroiled in a culture war that caused both people and legislatures to fire shots of battle without thinking things through. Here, the state of Texas (among others) hastily passed a law that requires the assigned gender at birth to be the only possible gender to be participated in for any high school athlete in a state-sanctioned event. Note my wording there: "assigned gender at birth"--this is distinctly different from "biological gender". Many aspects go into "biological" gender besides external genitalia, and they involve brain chemistry and the sustained action of the endocrine system--things controlled by genetics. Did you all know, for example, that 1 out of 1000 live births involves ambiguous gender at birth? Physicians are in fact quite good at assigning what turns out to be the correct gender, but in some 10% or so of the cases this is done incorrectly. This means that a state of 6 million people has some 600 or so transgender people simply because of incorrect assignment at birth. The birth certificate will only record what is assigned, not anything to do with any genetic abnormalities. Now add to that mutations in hormone biosynthesis pathways that make up even more of the transgender population, and you get a total of 0.3% of the USA population who is transgender because of clearly defined GENETIC causes. That's 700,000 Americans. Should they be excluded, when in today's age of awareness the time of puberty makes it clear that something is wrong in an incorrectly assigned individual? Basically, anyone who is treating them with scorn, discrimination, or harshly criticizing them is the same jackass as someone who would ridicule someone with Down's syndrome or any number of other genetic abnormalities. Yet in our haste to fire shots in the culture war or simply to address someone's "ick" factor, we now have laws being passed such as this, by those who have not thought through the issue and who clearly do not understand the biology. In not thinking it through, the rules in Texas (and I suspect other states) now mandate that this student athlete must compete against girls if he's to compete. This is not the ideal situation. Would some people game the system? Sure. I doubt that this is what is happening here, however. Here we have someone, a "tomboy" as it were, who has wrestled while assigned incorrectly as a girl while small, and upon puberty clearly knows himself to be miss-assigned. Mack is now transitioning to male, and should have been competing against males, as such. Biological hormonal therapy is tightly controlled when administered, and does not offer a competitive advantage over other cis-gender boys of the same age. It is no different than if a boy had a testicular malignancy early on and needed hormonal therapy for replacement after the testes would have to be removed. This is what is meant by "medically" appropriate therapy. In fact the regimen used for gender transition would certainly NOT be the most effective way to gain an athletic advantage: the chemical nature of these hormones is different, they have different serum half-lives, they have different androgen receptor affinities, and different responses to something called "aromatase", which actually makes estrogen from testosterone: a normal process in both men and women but that which does not happen with the designer anabolic androgens that "cheaters" take. The issue is complicated, but I hope we can take a few moments to read about the biology of gender. If Texas had a more responsible law that was thought out by those who understand the issue, Mack would have been competing against boys, and we'd not hear much about this.
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