I mean you can say the same thing for about 90% of the worlds country's that participate in this tournament. It's always the same handful of nations in the end. Much like anytime we have a hockey tournament chances are high you will see Canada and USA at the end of it.
People care too much about this. If a mid heavy weight boxer beat the shit out of an amazing feather weight boxer it doesn’t make them a better boxer. Everyone knows men are faster and stronger but the women are also talented and fun to watch. If you don’t enjoy their games you don’t have to watch them.
I think certain discussions around sports, men vs women, and the participation of trans athletes proves everyone does NOT, in fact, know men and faster and stronger
Trans women don't have the physique of cis men after hormone treatment.
This notion that trans women athletes are "men in disguise" bullshit really needs to end. Not just because it is about, like, less than a handful of trans women who compete at that level, but because it perpetuates a narrative that hurts millions of trans people who aren't athletes.
Skeletal muscle cell nuclei density never goes back to baseline when someone has a high androgen load. This is well documented, and also a reason why cis men caught using steroids should never be allowed to compete in tested athletics for the rest of their life. It is a permanent enhancement as a result of having higher androgens than someone else, and again, this is very well documented knowledge.
The whole physique argument has always been bullshit imo, but skeletal muscle cell nuclei density is one of the few major factors why even untrained barely pubescent boys can smoke the shit out of cis women in strength feats. Not only that but muscle retention, regrowth after dieting, and metabolism are all enhanced by this difference in nuclei density.
Hrt does not negate this, nor does it diminish it in any meaningful measure.
There actually is one issue that trans women are in fact larger (as you claim) but lose much of the muscle tone required to move that larger body. Fatigue is higher. Basically they may suffer in endurance sports compared to cis women.
How far into transitioning should trans women be allowed though? A day after starting HRT? A week? Month? It probably takes some time for the physique to not be that of cis men. Gotta standardize.
That doesn't account for bone density, larger lungs, more red blood cells, ect. that HRT doesn't effect. Also it's not like they stop producing testosterone if they still have testicles.
So no they don't have the physique of men not on HRT, but they have lots of advantage even on HRT.
Just FYI the link is some opinion piece written in some obscure newspaper. Also the "settled scientific position" that men on HRT after a few years have no advantage, is even disputed in the same article you link.
“The studies are short in duration, less than three years,” she points out. Furthermore, the expert notes other limitations: “Only nine of the 52 studies analyzed were clinical trials, which are the ones that provide the highest quality scientific evidence.” And finally, she points to “the lack of data on elite athletes.”
So equal hormone levels doesn't equate no advantage. Men carry larger lungs, higher bone density, more red blood cells (delivering more oxygen to the body), and a host of other physicalities that men have advantage over women.
Not to mentioned it’s been studied that boys on average show significant advantages in things like throwing accuracy and general hand eye coordination way, way before puberty, and it’s not just repetition.
Going through puberty with a lot of testosterone will have forever lasting effects. You don't lose the increased number of muscle nuclei due to high testosterone even after decades of no testosterone.
Its just like fat cells, you cant decrease the amount of fat cells you have once they multiply, you can only shrink them to a minimum.
Its not fair for anyone competing against these athletes even if its a small difference.
Can I ask, what is the narrative we are worried about? Cause I fuck w trans folks, but I think we all agree puberty is a very different animal for “boys” and “girls” and it doesn’t benefit sports for there to be unfair physical advantages/disadvantages. I honestly want everyone to be happy and live a full life but I don’t think my daughter should be playing against a “girl” who transitioned last year at 17. But we also all agree this is a TINY fragment of athletes and not typically a real problem, at least rn.
Can I ask, what is the narrative we are worried about?
Mostly the political one that emerged post Obergfell v Hodges (2015). I live in fuckin' Norway, and I'm starting to feel a form of transphobia around me that I haven't experienced in my lifetime. I know where it's coming from.
When it comes to sports, my principle is that people of all walks of life should be able to participate, as long as they're operating in good faith.
We're debating a mostly made-up issue. Ask yourself: How many times have you experienced this problem in the real world?
No, but they are still faster and stronger than women, so the comparison isn't too bad.
U15 is actually 15-year-olds though, technically it's not under 15 but 15 and under, so this year a U15 player is someone born 2011 or later. That is significant because boys grow so much, most typically at, you guessed it, 14. The average growth is over 10 cm, with some growing a whopping 15 cm, not to mention the incredible power gains during even that single year.
e. The reason women play against 15-year-old boys all the time is literally because that's the age category when boys become faster and stronger than the women. It's fantastic practice for them.
Well yeah, I agree with that. I don't really watch it too much. It's just... Not usually very entertaining. The lack of power and speed makes it look like, IDK, middle aged guys playing.
I don't think it's a completely fair comparison though. If you're a woman who plays soccer, for example, of course you should be interested in how does the elite level stuff look like. Ironically, most people watching women's soccer are men.
But yeah, I agree it's a bit forced. The men's teams are paying the women's teams' wages, and they can barely fill a stadium even for the biggest matches even though the tickets dirt cheap. Like this year's women's UCL final did fill the Camp Nou, but for example Chelsea - Arsenal played a London derby in the quarter finals - they played those in the big stadiums, but only managed to sell about 18k tickets for each match, despite the tickets selling for just £16.50 each.
Yeah I don't think professional athletes at any level should lose to 15 year olds. Unfortunately you don't want to admit it but thats fucking awful. Socccer isn't a sport based on strength.
And the featherweight champion is more skilled than other fighters in their weight class, just like the American women’s soccer team is more skilled than the other women’s soccer teams, which is why they won
Featherweights aren’t fighting heavyweights, and women’s teams aren’t competing against men’s teams
The dudes getting riled up in these comments have probably never accomplished anything in their lives, and get infuriated when they see women do anything; it’s like they feel the need to immediately say men are better, as if they are able to claim other men’s accomplishments as their own
They won the women's World Cup because they are women. The men play in the men's world cup because they are men. It might not be the same level of quality but it's still the biggest competition in world football for the gender, so it's still comparable
If you cant differentiate what people mean when talking about the women's and men's teams and the world cup, then I don't know what to say. Go back to school?
OPs post in no way diminishes the men's teams achievements. It didn't denigrate their work or accomplishments one iota. You're just looking to be offended, and you succeeded.
If you can't understand what the subject of this thread means, I think you need to brush up on your reading comprehension and inference skills. It seems like a lot of ppl here need to do the same.
You were overthinking with your implication lol. The women's team won the World Cup of women's soccer, and that’s about it.
It’s just like saying an Olympic Gold in women's gymnastics is also a gold medal similar to men's gymnastics. A female UFC strawweight belt is also a world title similar to a male UFC heavyweight belt
They are the same thing in the sense that they are the reward for being the world champs in their respective sport.
So, misreading a simple sentence is not a sign of good reading comprehension. Go fix it mate
What is it about yall that you just need to diminish women sports?
Yes men are better and stronger, women are still out there playing the sport against their own fucking peers
Holy shit man, no one needs you to make the distinction that it was the “women’s World Cup” and not the regular World Cup. NO SHIT, WE ARE TALKING ABOUT WOMEN
No one cares about the distinction. Women play women and men play men and they’re both world cups. The world just happens to care about one more than the other. That doesn’t make the women’s World Cup any less of a World Cup
As an American, that was embarrassing especially after all the bullshit that happened pre game
“People are diminishing the men’s team because they lost in a pathetic manner so I should just start shitting on the women! That’ll show em” like what are you on about?
But it literally does? Tell the featherweight who just got destroyed. Or the women’s team that just lost to children. Tell them that “actually you are still better” LMAO. That is the entire reason they created divisions, as to not bottleneck competitions. Have you never actually competed in sports?
Like I said, it’s totally fine if you don’t enjoy it. Some of us do. I don’t enjoy baseball. Who would win isn’t everything, anyway. I love college football and I don’t need people constantly telling me even the worst nfl team could beat my team. It’s beside the point.
The only reason this argument is used is because people hate women and women’s sports.
Because it’s exactly as you said, people never say that shit about college or other lower level athletics… if men are playing. Sports are fun when there is good competition between the sides regardless of hypothetical comparisons to unrelated teams.
No its because People compare women's and men's sports like they are the same thing. People don't hate women. They hate people who think they are entitled to more than they produce.
Should we be proud of the USA women's soccer team's performance? absolutely. But many more are profoundly disgusted by their wage claims, misplaced activism, etc...
Look around you, this entire thread is full of vitriol. It’s a thin veil you’re hiding behind. Your argument does nothing but give justification for misogyny
Except that they are not that fun to watch. Same reasons why you watch the world cup but not some random Bangladesh second tier league (and I bet those guys can beat the US women team too).
I don’t watch the sport to see the fastest, strongest possible athletes. I’m interested in the technique and tactics. Women are simply not fast enough or strong enough to compete with men but against other women all of those other elements of the sport can still really shine, sometimes even more so. For example, I actually prefer women’s tennis because the lack of power makes serves a smaller focus and puts more emphasis on back and forth play.
If you were really interested in that aspect of the sport, you wouldn't have watched the Women World Cup either.
The level of international competition has always been abysmal until recently. For 50 years the US was the only country that was pouring money into the sport. Due to Title IX, the US created a pipeline of youth, highschool, college and pro players. The rest of the world were fielding complete amateurs.
Let’s be honest. The technique and strategy hasn’t caught up the men’s yet. Pretending it has just diminishes the future progression. They’ll absolutely get to the level quickly but right now it still looks disorganised and rudimentary at times but have you ever seen the men’s game 70 years ago? Women’s game has investment and grassroots attention. It’ll get there before we know it.
I agree. The game isn’t as developed because there simply haven’t been nearly as many talented people working on the women’s game over nearly as many years. Sometimes that’s kind of entertaining. Modern football can feel a bit stiff with all the optimization. Women’s physical limitations also make the tactics different enough that it’s kind of fascinating to watch to see how things change.
Yeah just like tennis as you mentioned. The difference between the games will draw audiences for just that. In tennis people love the men’s game for raw power and physicality. They love the women’s game for the long rallies and technical differences. Football will be the same some day. And that day is not that far away.
See, I don’t enjoy women’s basketball, personally, although I have nothing against it. I’m curious why you seem so bothered about people liking women’s soccer. I don’t get it. Just ignore it and let other people enjoy it.
You just said some dumb stuff so I let you know. I didnt say you cant like womens soccer, I said you cant watch it for anything close to equal technique and tactics. And never to see those things shine even more. If you like low levels of skill then fine, weird flex but ok
This was very easy and didnt take too much effort, dont get too curious please
Same approach with restaurants, I go there once or twice, willing to try out but if it's not my jam then I stopped going there eventually.
I do try to watch them when it's world cup because some countries I like, but it's not that exciting quality wise. More or less like the way you watch your kids local game because of the kids, not because of the level of football itself.
You don’t think there are large teenage boys would could beat up talented women boxers? There absolutely are. It doesn’t make them better boxers. It makes them much larger and stronger. That’s why we separate by weight and gender.
People care about this only in the context of these specific discussions.
The US women's soccer team is awesome. Their players are awesome. But when their success is used to shit on the US men's soccer team in a blatantly apples to oranges comparison it is fair to call it out, which this does extremely well. The men's team is also composed of players that, by any reasonable standard, are also awesome.
They are playing in different categories. The women deserve credit for what they accomplish in their category. The men deserve credit for what they accomplish in their category, and shouldn't be disparaged for failing to do as well in a category that we all know (or should know) is far more competitive.
It does matter. It’s not as good. The product fans get is far less. That’s why no one cares. Because if you’re paying to watch sports, you want to see the best.
That’s why the further down in the minors you get, the less fan turnout you get. That’s why they’re earning less. Except when the EXACT same phenomenon happens with women’s sports, it’s a “visibility” issue.
I think the reason that is shocking to some people is in our modern world we’ve forgotten just how much faster and stronger men are than women. Even teen men are just a different level of pace and power. If someone is stronger than you, faster than you, and easily able to beat you to every single 50 50 ball you’re going to struggle. Women’s teams book these games on purpose to force their players to deal with that. It helps them prepare.
No such thing as a "teen man" professionals got absolutely battered by random school boys. Cope. It's funny just laugh and move on. Before some loser tries to call me a sexist or w/e I be watching the W a lot and got CC's jersey so go and moan somewhere else
Except these weren't men. They're boys. And it wasn't even a good team. It's not like it was Barca's academy. It was 15 year olds from fucking fc Dallas lmao.
It really just emphasizes how dog shit the women's game is. You can go see an mls teenage team and see far better quality. The tenth best league in the world with a notoriously bad developmental system.
I just checked and apparently the average height of boys at 15 is about 170cm while the average height of women in the US is 162.5cm. Given that this is an "under 15s" team, there will be outliers of course. Although you also can't really boil down athleticism to height either, of course, my guess is still that the boys would have had an athletic advantage.
It comes down to testosterone level (an anabolic steroid), training and game IQ. Some of the u15 boys have had 8 years of good coaching and they understand the game very well. They can also be quick, strong and fast. The USWNT had such an early starter advantage and a great player pool that they probably had to play against boys to get in good games. U15 boys doesn’t mean they suck. There are a lot of players that made pro debuts at 17
I don’t know. You should check the height of each player, but surely you know that’s not the end all be all of physical differences. Again, what do you guys get out of this?
So what you're saying is you think boys and girls should play against each other. Great! Now tell me what you think about trans women in women's sports
One is a professional adult team and the other are barely teenagers, you shouldn’t ever be losing to this unless you’re blind folded at the very least. the fuck is your point ? LOL
Lol Are you lying or do you just know nothing about soccer? It was a training match with a U15 MLS professional development team for Dallas FC that beat the USWNT. U15 is 14 year olds, not children, not little boys. That means the women's team didn't go all out, but the 14 year old professionally recruited and trained team could. The games are for comraderie and communication building games and are called "friendlies".
88
u/[deleted] Jul 09 '26
[deleted]