I've sat back and watched this thread for several days now, and just don't get it. What the hell are you MEN so F__cking worried about transgenders playing on the Women's Tour. Some of your comments and reasoning are in my opinion so DAMNED STUPID that I look at the STR8 world and wonder where all your STUPIDITY came from.
A very very dear friend of mine many years ago enter the BCA Nationals as a transgendered female (yes she is a female) and won. Yes she placed 1st. And I sat back and watched all you str8 men and women running back and forth between the rooms at the Riviera spouting off about "the he/she playing in the Women's Open".
Get the hell over it. As a gay man I have played in several leagues all over the country and had the listen to the FAG jokes and talk behind my back but it never bothered me because I KNEW WHO I WAS!!!!!! .... Your insecurities are all showing. The number of league nights I have had to listen to the FAG JOKES all night got me to the point that whenever I competed on the table and beat one of the offenders, I would shake his hand and ask him how it felt to be beaten by a FAG. Mouths dropped but it seemed to do the trick. The jokes and innuendos ceased when I was around cause I'd call you on it. And enough of you were STRONG ENOUGH IN YOUR SEXUALITY to accept me for who I was, just as I accepted them for who they were.
When I saw this thread start up, I could not find it coincidental that the weekend before 49 members of the LGBT community were murdered and 53 others wounded, and someone starts up a tread about TRANSGENDER individuals playing in Women's Tournaments. The WPA has considered the situation and written rules and regulations into their organization to RECOGNIZE THAT TRANSGENDERS DO EXIST. Why are you MEN so damned concerned about it. If you want to compete on the WPA Tour, start the hormones and phycological treatments that have to be endured by these individuals to become who they really feel that they are.
Live and let live GENTLEMEN. Life goes on and there are more pressing issues in this country right now that demand our attention than a thread like this.
Please don't start sending me vicious attacks in response. I've heard it all before in my almost 70 years on this planet. I enjoy the game of pool. I enjoy the relationships that I have made over the many years that I have played and the acceptance most have extended to me. It all boils down to one thing. WE ARE ALL PEOPLE. DESERVING OF THE RESPECT AND CARING THAT WE ALL DESERVE INDIVIDUALLY.
I see the person, male or female or transgender or gay or lesbian, white or black or Asian. We are all people, and we enjoy playing the same game. And that's what it is. A GAME. I win. I lose. But I don't care who I lose to or beat. I will shake their hand and say great shooting. Have a beer, and go home and go on with my life.
IT'S TO SHORT TO GET ALL CAUGHT UP IN THIS BULLSHIT.....
ok .... my rant is over .... CARRY ON !!!!!
I haven't seen anyone saying they want to ban anyone from anything simply because they are gay or transgendered and they are opposed to those things. The question is whether there is a biological advantage from being born male, if this advantage is retained while wearing a dress or after going through gender reassignment, and the fairness in competing on the women's tour with those who were not born with that biological advantage.
Men are very clearly superior to women at pool (for whatever the reasons, and the reasons are actually a part of this debate). So there are three really good questions that are involved here and that naturally being and should be discussed. The first question is, are men biologically superior at pool because of something physical and/or psychological that they are born with as opposed to it being solely because more men play pool than women, or because of environmental factors, or some other reason that is not biological? The second question is, that if this superiority at pool is in fact due to something biological that men are born with, does a man automatically lose all of that physical and/or psychological advantage once he gets his stuff cut off and/or takes hormones? And the third question is, if getting his stuff cut off and/or taking hormones does not in fact make him lose all of the biological advantages he was born with, is it fair for him to be able to compete with those that were born female and do not have those same biological advantages? I guess a fourth question could even be that even if the male advantage is solely environmental or otherwise not at all biological, is it fair for a transgender former male to compete on a women's tour since they got to have those advantages?
Those are very fair and reasonable questions to ask and are not anti-gay or anti-transgender in any way. If men are biologically superior at pool because of a physical and/or psychological advantage that they are born with, and they don't in fact lose all of that advantage even after taking hormones and/or after gender reassignment surgery, then there is an extremely strong argument to be made that it would not be fair to allow transgender women who were formerly men to compete with the women just the same as it is not fair for men to compete with the women--because they still retain some or all of those biological advantages that they were born with which makes such competition unfair. Those are very fair questions to seek answers to, and is a dilemma that must be addressed and answered, and that discussion as was being done in this thread is not in any way, shape, or form discriminatory. Your accusatory post and wording was way out of line and frankly I thought it was kind of offensive considering that it didn't even begin to apply here.