A few disjointed thoughts after wading through all of this:

1. I am the 30th slowtwitch user to weigh in on this thread, and I *believe* I am the third female slowtwitch user to do so (I think I sussed out that Trizebbie and Island are female, apologies if I misgendered anybody in scanning the posts). So a thread purportedly about something that would impact women's sports is wholly dominated by...not women. Of course all humans can have input on this discussion and can have thoughts, but it is definitely illustrative that 90% of the discussion participants aren't female.

2. As I swam in college, *many* men approached me earlier this year to ask me what I thought about Lia Thomas. Most of these men were, shall I say, less accepting of the LGBTQIA+ community than I or most of my friends are. In several cases, there was a smug undertone of "I bet I caught you on something where you don't support trans women." My response was always "She followed the rules of the appropriate governing bodies and is fully free to compete and I support her right to do so. Those rules were more or less based on the Stockholm consensus from 2003 which was developed by some of the brightest minds in sports physiology and other relevant fields. It is possible that their findings should be reexamined with new data and research, but that reexamination should be done by other world renowned experts, and in the meantime, the current rules stand." Every single man who came to me with this question was surprised that this was my response and most of them tried to convince me that my viewpoint was wrong. Again, interesting and illustrative.

3. Personally, as a relatively competitive age group triathlete (regularly qualifying for world championship races and making the podium at local/regional races), I welcome all women, including trans women competing under the rules that govern their participation. Out of the literal thousands of women who have beaten me in sport over the years, probabilistically, a few of them were likely trans. Cool. Welcome to the very large club of women who are better than me in sport.

4. It is also extremely interesting to me that nobody ever mentions trans men in sport. As Ryan noted earlier, "I don't think anybody batted an eye when Chris Mosier transitioned." I happen to be involved with the sport of artistic (synchronized) swimming as a coach/official, and this is a sport where the women's field is MUCH more competitive, and a sport where those born as women have distinct physiological advantages in several aspects of competition, most notably, greater flexibility. I have literally not once heard anybody suggest that trans men will take over the events with male competitors.

It's ALMOST like this isn't about sport for most people, but is instead about policing women's bodies.