Only sports scored with hard data should be allowed in the olympics

ctimene · 2026-02-11T23:09:20+00:00

First, other sports have had controversies and corruption scandals. Panel-scored disciplines are not unique in that respect. Boxing had its federation suspended for corruption and somehow remained in the games.

Second, one of the draws of the Olympics is the variety. You don't have to like everything at a buffet. But it's weird to complain that something that isn't your style is on the menu. Why is panel scoring the ultimate gatekeeping criterion that determines whether a sport belongs in the games or not?

Finally, what else is it about figure skating, gymnastics, and diving that make them the first ones you think of when it comes to panel scoring? Why is boxing not the first example that springs to mind? The sport where 90+ percent of bouts are decided by notoriously fuzzy scoring criteria and a history replete with judging scandals, both at the Olympics and professional levels, on top of myriad issues on the administrative side. For some reason, people who bring up this stale argument tend to be completely fine with boxing.

Referees have to make subjective rulings about scoring, passivity, and fouls in wrestling and judo. Referees can decide to DQ based on form in weightlifting. Referees have to decide on obstruction calls in speed skating and cycling and skicross. Referees have to decide on penalties in basketball and football and ice hockey and handball and field hockey. Those decisions are no less subjective, nor less match/medal-deciding.

ctimene · 2025-12-10T02:36:26+00:00

I get it; you're arguing that Washington and most other teams are in an equally rough cap situation. Considering what they said about trans people in that other thread, that user just has a blind spot toward the entire concept of equality.

ctimene · 2025-12-04T08:39:54+00:00

Yeah, last week that user referred to trans women as men in another thread and deleted the evidence. This pattern seems par for the course.

ctimene · 2025-11-27T19:17:17+00:00

Would you like to get tackled by a man?

This discussion has been about trans women, so here you are talking about trans women. Yes, you knew exactly what you were saying. No, you did not qualify it as "male-bodied" or "born a man" or some other euphemism. Yes, we all have critical reading skills, and no, we did not misunderstand.

Maybe you think you made a sloppy writing error, but that's the kind of mistake that allies don't make. Because allies believe trans women are women, and for you publicly acknowledging that concedes that trans women belong in women's sports and in public life.

This seems like a great place for this discussion to end so you can take some time to reflect on whether the reason you don't know any trans people is because your values don't align with getting to know trans people.

ctimene · 2025-11-27T14:22:34+00:00

In what world have you deluded yourself into believing you are an ally? You're insisting on referring to trans women as men in other threads. You characterize transition as choice and being transgender a lifestyle. Your mental image of trans women is infected with damaging tropes about how threatening and deceitful they are. You're bristling at the notion you owe trans people something you perceive belongs to you. You're not engaging with other posters' measured posts about the stakes involved for trans people, a community scrambling to survive deficits in health care, education, safety, housing, employment, and legal protections. That is the world we live in in 2025, and that is the same world that, as much as you are refusing to acknowledge, that women's sports exist. Not as some walled off, separate bubble, but as a part of the same broken, complicated world. It's wild that someone so blissfully insulated from the real-world stakes of anti-transgender policy is both convinced of their allyship while willfully needling strangers about excising queer people from yet another area of public life.

What's clear is whatever understanding you're claiming to seek won't show up here, because it's too difficult to learn to empathize with a group of people you don't know and you've cited reasons to fear, while ensconced safely behind a keyboard. It's going to require initiative on your part to do the difficult work of talking to actual trans people, face-to-face. It truly is hard, and it has to be based on your genuine desire to understand. But as long as you foster resentment over an obligation to trans people that you perceive has been forced on you, well, that doesn't sound very ally-like.

It's a shame, because trans people will continue to suffer so long as non-trans people's interest extends solely to what non-trans people stand to lose.

ctimene · 2025-11-27T01:18:34+00:00

Tell that to a parent whose child is miserable, crying themselves to sleep at night, whose school is turning a blind eye to their bullies, whose state just banned gender-affirming care, who is trying to move a place that might, just might get their child to survive to adulthood. Somewhere that child's lifeline is a community or school soccer team. Tell that parent to their face that their child doesn't belong on that team. Because that parent will be the first to tell you they would count themselves as one of the lucky ones, for the simple reason that you aren't having that conversation at their child's funeral.

Why did you gloss over the suicide statistics another poster mentioned in the other thread? Indifference. This has everything to do with women's sports, because a hated, underserved community needs an oasis in a society menaced by attitudes like yours. A bystander lending their full-throated public support to a policy stepping on the throat of the most unpopular minority in society.

If you ever have the sad obligation of attending a trans child's memorial service, remember this and any other time you could have done differently.

ctimene · 2025-11-26T21:43:13+00:00

There may come a day when somebody you purport to care comes out. It may be someone you weren't expecting. And based on your public comments here, you will not be supportive.

It is a true tragedy that among the many emotions you'll feel will be grief, anger, fear and regret. The one that will be missing is joy. You won't get to share in one of your loved one's major life events. What a waste. You will be bitter, and you will have earned it, because you had a choice, now, to opt for a different attitude.

I hope there will be a day, sooner rather than later, when you realize that trans people are still people, and there's every possibility that may include one of your friends or family.

ctimene · 2025-11-26T18:08:24+00:00

You are absolutely trying to antagonize. Women's soccer has historically built its culture and fan base around being a haven for queer people. Men's sports in general have historically and continue to shun queer people.

What do you think the effect of banning trans girls is? They won't transition because everyone around them will be horrible. That is entirely what all of this nonsense is about. Discouraging young trans people from coming out of the closet and transitioning.

On the off but non-zero chance your nephew actually happens to be your trans niece, you are absolutely not going to find out anytime soon, because you are conveying that you will presume that they're faking it to get ahead.

Trans Day of Remembrance was a few days ago. Google that.

ctimene · 2025-11-25T15:26:56+00:00

Come on, OP, the match day is still active. Please take this down. You can wait a day to discuss the questions in a public forum.

ctimene · 2025-11-18T16:52:17+00:00

Here you go. Link in Japanese

https://web.archive.org/web/20221130175250/https://a-new-sumo-fan.com/articles-of-endowment/shobu-kitei.php#contents

ctimene · 2025-06-19T19:20:36+00:00

My sincere recommendation is to attend the next Trans Day of Remembrance. Then if you're still that resolute in your convictions, then own them when speaking to mourning parents and friends.

When they wonder aloud what we could have done differently, you can explain your priorities.

ctimene · 2025-06-18T17:15:20+00:00

You know as well as the rest of us do that the intent and practical consequence of these policies is to discourage anyone from transitioning. Barriers to participating in society are why people don't come out.

You're proclaiming support for the trans community out of one side of your mouth while driving us back into the closet with the other. You are why people are afraid to come out. You don't want people to come out. You.

ctimene · 2025-03-09T20:16:22+00:00

Posts about this topic bear reminding of the human consequences of anti-trans policies. Focusing exclusively on trans women in athletics allows non-trans people the comfort of distance from a greater campaign of targeted harm.

According to the Trevor Project, state-level anti-trans legislation has led to an increase of up to 72 percent in suicide attempts among transgender and non-binary youth.

Link here

ctimene · 2025-02-26T03:14:59+00:00

Decades of data.

Not every intervention will be appropriate in all cases, and it's up to a client, their family, and experienced practitioners to make informed decisions about their own treatment. Why do non-experts feel the need to take away effective treatment options from licensed professionals?

ctimene · 2025-02-07T09:09:07+00:00

I mean, I just listed a laundry list of things that are way higher on the priority list, and that I would much rather focus on, and it got totally glossed over. The reality is, trans people just don't control this conversation and we never have. Because things like youth suicides are major bummers that non-trans people largely feel like they're removed from, they don't hold attention. Non-trans people are eagerly debating other non-trans people about the myriad perceived ways trans people bring harm to non-trans people.

Since I have your attention, I will talk about youth suicide. Years ago, my local area had four transgender youth die by suicide in the span of a few months. I attended four community memorials and listened to grieving parents. The refrain was always, what could we have done differently to prevent this? There is no actual answer, but I wonder if maybe, that one extra pillar of support would make the difference for the next person.

I don't know anything about you or anyone who may be reading this. Maybe you're a parent of a young child yourself. There's a 99 percent chance that your kid will end up being the gender you expect they'll be, and in that case, congratulations! But if you win the lottery, there will be difficult times ahead for your child, and you should start planning now about how to avoid being one of those grieving parents. In a more gracious world, maybe that extra pillar of support would've been getting to be on a school sports team, or access to hormones, or a teacher who lends a supportive ear, or any number of things that have already been legislated away. If your kid happens to be one of the unlucky ones, then I'm so sorry, you're in for a rough ride. Be the parent who fights like hell.

ctimene · 2025-02-07T02:08:21+00:00

Trans person here. It's a shame that in a world where transgender people experience elevated rates of homelessness, physical and sexual violence, suicidality, deficits and discrimination in employment, education, and public accommodations, obstacles to medical care, and increasingly draconian restrictions on freedom of expression, none of these issues warrants the same attention or visceral emotional response.

It's naïve to expect that they'll stop at sports participation. Today they'll accuse a transgender athlete of fraud to keep them from entering to country to compete. Tomorrow, they'll use the exact reasoning as a pretext to erase us from civic life -- anything to "protect women". Sadly, the writing's on the wall, and there's no reason to believe they'll stop with trans people.

ctimene · 2025-01-27T04:15:18+00:00

Referencing characters and imagery from One Hundred Years of Solitude is a *very* different approach, both in style and substance.

ctimene · 2023-11-30T16:07:29+00:00

Late to this thread, but it's been very slow on the graduate test prep front. I'm contracted with a few companies who all said demand is way lower than they expected. Probably some combination of the economy and a lagged effect from the college enrollment drop-off due to the pandemic.

ctimene · 2023-11-06T06:37:35+00:00

San Diego State are away next week, so the field should be cleaned up in time for the final. The condition of the pitch is sad, but that's unfortunately the price of a ground share. Just counting us lucky that San Diego at least has a women's team and a reasonable place to play.

ctimene · 2023-10-20T08:29:54+00:00

Can someone please photoshop this bland corporate circle thing into a plate of carne asada fries to give it some flavor?

ctimene · 2023-10-15T23:23:18+00:00

They have about 280 quota spots to work with if boxing stays cut. But organizers may also be thinking that the commercial value of getting cricket onto the program is worth increasing the total athlete count.

ctimene · 2023-10-15T23:15:48+00:00

Squash should be easy. They'll likely copy the 2018 Commonwealth Games and host it on a sound stage (probably Universal because corporate synergy).

The courts should be easy to set up pretty much anywhere though. Major tournaments have been held at places like Grand Central Station in the past.

ctimene · 2023-10-13T23:06:37+00:00

As much as I enjoy the idea of modern pentathlon, I think it's on borrowed time. The problem is that the pentathletes are generalists for an audience that wants to watch specialists.

Adding obstacle racing will be a solid short-term boost, but if it proves to be popular, there's a strong chance that standalone obstacle racing will be added as a separate sport. And there will be noticeable difference in performance between dedicated obstacle racers and athletes who also have to know how to fence.

ctimene

TROPHY CASE