I think maybe we're not all as far apart as it may seem. In regard to your previous post about chess and billiards, that's just crazy. I don't understand why people would even really consider those things "athletics" but whatever. People nitpicking about trans in those areas are just dumb. At the same time, as you say, there are areas where It's absolutely dangerous and ridiculous that a biological female would be forced to compete against a trans person. Just look up the case of the MMA fighter who cracked two women's skulls. Terrible. But beyond that there's the whole fairness problem such as we saw with the case of Lia Thomas, and others.
Your last paragraph above shows exactly why this whole area is so incredibly difficult. Hormones are very powerful. So powerful that they affect our brains - longstanding research has shown that the overwhelming majority of children who identify as trans will desist after puberty. Why? Hormones. Just going through puberty will change people's minds, literally. So there's a scientific argument to just let them be and they will grow out of it. There's also the consent dilemma - We have always considered children as unable to consent to anything until they reach a certain age. We are now seeing de-transitioners who are suing their doctors because they say they were unable to fully consent. They certainly could sue their parents as well. It's a mess. At what point is it morally acceptable to allow these kinds of life-changing procedures to be performed on someone who is unable to consent? There are scary parallels to lobotomies and forced sterilizations on certain demographics back in the day.
Getting back to your point on people who don't want people who experienced male puberty to compete against females, and also not wanting these procedures performed on children, I see your point. But there's no easy solution here. Which is why I keep saying that at some point I think there may have to be a third category. The problem is that there are so few people who would compete in that category, which is why it kind of goes back to testosterone as being the delineating factor between the male category and the female category. Sometimes you just have to draw the line somewhere, and it has to be in the most reasonable place.
Yeah, I think we're not as far apart on this as it seems.
However, and last thing I'll say on this, but I contest your assertions about detransitioners. It's true there are some people that have regretted transitioning and have wished to detransition, and those people definitely deserve to be heard and sympathized with, but those numbers are incredibly small, boosted by an apparatus that wants to make it seem like there are scores of trans people who regret it because they don't believe trans people are legitimate.
Children under 18 are not undergoing "life-changing procedures" unless said procedures are medically necessary, and there is a massive amount of barriers to any trans person looking to get healthcare in order to transition all over the country (most trans people need medical evaluations that take 12-18 months before they can be allowed to do any body modification surgery, regardless of their age). Children under 18 start with simple environment changes (using different names and pronouns, and dressing in the gender they identify as), then move on to puberty blockers (which are 100% reversible) and hormone replacement therapy (which I believe are 100% reversible) before they're allowed to consider sex reassignment surgery. There may be a few instances where this is not the case, but it is true for 99+% of trans children in the US.
But have you considered that forcing a trans child to go through puberty (which is not reversible) might be the opposite side of the same coin your arguing against here? If they start taking puberty blockers and HRT, and decide they are not trans, they can always reverse that decision, but being forced to "transition" into the gender/sex they do not identify as against their wishes seems just as traumatizing, to me.
In full transparency, I have several trans family members and a lot of trans friends, all of whom have transitioned later in life, and who all say they knew they were different at a younger age and wish they had been able to transition earlier. Every single one of them has experienced a much higher quality of life after transitioning.
If you want to continue to talk about this, I'd be happy to go deeper in DMs!
