Even when the athlete is from a country where being trans would be illegal.

It’s so strange that the people who are most strident about “there are only two genders and you can only be the gender you were assigned at birth” are the first to insist that a woman is secretly a man because she’s good at sports, or a man is secretly a woman because he doesn’t watch sports. You’d think the gender essentialists would be most strident about great women athletes being women no matter what, but somehow gender is something assigned at birth that you can’t decide to change about yourself, but can be removed by a committee of old white men if they don’t like you.

Not that it matters but I thought it was his abnormally large heart or lungs that made him a monster athlete?

I don't get it

I thought it was his big feet made him better at the kick.

It’s a lot of things. You’d be hard pressed to engineer a better swimming body, and he has the mental drive to take full advantage of it.

I thought it was his enormous teeth and dorsal fin that- no wait I'm thinking of someone else.

Jack McBrayer?

When women succeed in sports, they get accused of being a man in disguise instead of being praised as being gifted like Michael Phelps is.

There's nobody in this comment section getting mad 🤷🏽‍♂️

It’s consistent, they think there’s two genders and they conform to those roles. Men are strong and have a penis, women are weak and do not. If they see a strong woman they’re not saying being strong makes her a man, they’re saying because she’s strong the only way that makes sense to them is that she must be a man (with a penis) in disguise. Otherwise their narrow worldview falls apart

:(

I heard an example of this once, where people were citing Katie Ledeki as a female athlete who would never be mistaken for a man.

And then people started accusing her of being a man.

I've heard people complain that women with small breasts have an unfair advantage in several sports because women with large breasts are weighed down by them.

Large breasts can turn into something to work around. I've seen quite a few posts over the years regarding continental cleans from women new to lifting.

You forgot that you’re on Lemmy, friend lmao

I knew a guy who swam at the same college under a scholarship, and this guy was only like 5’9” but worked his ass off. Swam with Phelps a couple of times and then realized he might not be destined for swimming greatness.

These men are self destructive. There’s nothing you can say to us that we haven’t already said to ourselves.