Transgender man wins women's 100 yd and 400 yd freestyle races.

"Do you believe biological women are so incapable of beating transwomen in any sports that the only way to ensure fairness is to ban all transwomen from competing against cis women?"

I know this wasn't directed at me, but I'll answer it anyway just for clarity. Yes is the short answer. Nobody of the male sex should be competing in the female sex category, irrespective of their gender. It's an issue of fundamental fairness.

"I think that is the crux of it. A core belief that a biological female will never be able to beat a biological male - even when that biological male has been taking testosterone reducing drugs, and oestrogen, for a number of years. I simply do not share that belief. I find it sexist and dismissive for women's abilities."

You have mis-dentified the core belief. The core belief is that someone of the male sex has an overhwelming advantage over someone of the female sex AT THE SAME LEVEL. For that reason it is unfair to allow someone of the maile sex to compete in the female category. It doesn't matter if they are sub-elite ,a nd will be defeated by a higher level female. If they displace just one Female of any level from a position in an event than that is fundamentally unfair to that female. ALL female competitors deserve fair competion, not just elites (Irrespective of what the Rugby governing body might use as an excuse to get out of making hard descision)

"And given the lack of trans women winning at major events in the 40+ years since Richards won the right to compete as a woman the stats certainly don't point to any significant advantage favouring transwomen. Richards actually lost at Wimbledon in the doubles. One of her winning opponents was Navratilova."

Again, fairness <should> go beyond elite sports. All athletes at any level should be entitled to fair competiton. Just because you haven't seen an elite level transwoman (Although I would definitely count making the Olympics as elite level, even if you don't) is irrelevant.

Lia Thomas displaced biological female athletes from every race she took part in that wasn't the first round. That's unfair on those female athletes.

Lia Thomas is a great example as she has competed at similar levels in male female categories. You should be comparing those performances not with Ledecky unless you want to compare her pre transition performances with Phelps.

• During the last season Thomas competed as a member of the Penn men’s team, which was 2018-19, she ranked 554th in the 200 freestyle, 65th in the 500 freestyle and 32nd in the 1650 freestyle. As her career at Penn wrapped, she moved to fifth, first and eighth in those respective events on the women’s deck.

How do you explain that level of improvement if she had no advantage for transwomen.

Even if its an exceptional men's competition and a very average women's competition it looks like a big improvement to go from even 32nd to eight though that could possibly happen, 554th to 5th and and 64th to 1st would be big improvements.

Comparatively Lia Thomas is slower as a woman but not as much as the average difference so I'm not sure what you want comparative heat times for. It would show women are slower.

Well look at the article I linked. It gives percentages on the amount Lia Thomas is slower versus the typical male female difference

Percentage differences make more sense than seconds unless of course you want to say there's no difference.

Percentage is relative. For all I know it’s 8% of a spread of 3 seconds.

That's the point it puts context on the difference.

3 seconds could be a lot or nothing depending on the total duration. 3 seconds in 10 seconds is a lot. 3 seconds in 3 hours is very little.

3 seconds is massive in a sprint, not so much in a marathon, we have never seen a woman come within 3 seconds of a man in a marathon and if you work it out, women dont comes within that ratio in most athletic sports, it why we have males and female categories, we can see who are the best in each category, men against men, women against women and in the future trans against trans, the last one is the one that will have the least interest in from the vast majority of people.

eh, depends on the contexts. Again I don't know if 8% is a lot. 8% more battery life aint ****, 8% more GDP is a Tiger Economy, and <2% of your metallurgical recipe can determine whether you just made cast iron or stainless steel. Percentage wise, blood alcohol content of 0.8%, is considered impairing, and only a couple points can lead to death by alcohol poisoning.

3 seconds of 3 hours can be everything if that was your one opportunity

"1 second faster than Emma" but Thompson got 6% slower when she transitioned? And then 3.76% slower (clearly calculated from the time, which wasn't posted..)

But then goes back to alleging that she is 7 and 8% faster than other women, in the 200 FS. While also saying she was also... one... second... faster than Emma in the 500 FS, which is only a difference of... 0.6%

So I mean again... I have no **** clue how they're conveying anything useful or compelling here.

This is where you clearly don't understand the issue. Lia Thomas was a very average swimmer at her level as a man relative to her competitors. She is performing at a higher level relative to her competitors as a woman. It doesn't mean she's going to win every time.

If there was no difference then she would be performing at a similar level in the women's class to the men's class unless she did something else to improve. In other circumstances that sort of improvement might look like doping.

Filled to the gills with drugs, Griffith Joyner could still only reduce the gap to 6%.

The debate really is over, Trans people can compete against one another or in an open category, they will not be taking women's places be it in sports or changing rooms in the very near future, they are not being discriminated against, they are being accommodated for the same as other minority groupings in sports.

Lol, it's lunacy

Just not understanding how the same athlete got slower between the two divisions. And the information being presented to me is needlessly obfuscating as I said.

The article said when she transitioned, she recorded times slower than her times in the mens division. And it helpfully didn’t post all the relevant times, just went on about the percentages. If this delta is because of hormone suppression that’s one thing but the article doesn’t argue that

I’m saying that the article being used to drive the narrative is obfuscating. I’m not “delighted” I am still left without clear explanation for what occurred.