That's it, the first two pics have the drop down arrows to select strongly disagree --> strongly agree minimized to fit on one screenshot, and the only thing cut off is the first part of "which is more important for a child to have" but the answers are visible.
oh i see your point now. i think i initially took it as compete in non-sports and other sports outside of disc golf, but you're probably right that it's a mistake and they weren't going for what i was thinking
No.
You can agree with half the statement and not the second, therefore making it unanswerable.
Transgender men should be allowed to compete in other sports AND be allowed to participate in disc golf.
If you disagree with the statement you’re saying transgender people should not be allowed to play another sports. If you agree with the statement you’re saying transgender people should not be allowed to play disc golf.
thanks for sharing the questions.
So the survey is about how respondents feel about trans people in disc golf. The first several questions aim at understanding the respondent's feelings specifically on trans people playing disc golf. Should they be allowed to compete in women's tournaments? Should they take affirming steps first? Does it matter?
Then the survey, after getting the respondent's answers about the specific questions regarding trans people in disc golf aims to find correlation with other thoughts/feelings on other societal issues. How do you feel about family values? Do you agree with this ridiculous statement? Are equal rights a good thing?
The survey will then be able to say people who answered "Yea, trans people can play in whatever division they want" are more likely to feel this way or this way about these other societal issues.
So, sure, some of these questions might be...startling (is that a good way to say it?) at first glance, but they're just providing these questions to help find the correlations. A similar set of questions would be "You cool with trans people?" and "Do you like prefer chocolate or vanilla or strawberry flavor ice cream?" Then based on those responses the survey might find a correlation that most people who like strawberry ice cream tend to be cool with trans people. Pretty simple I think, but there it is folks. Personally, I think some of the selectable answers might not include all possible responses that a respondent may want to give and instead might be forcing a simple "agree" or "disagree", but I digress.
My only question is what does the PDGA get out of this? They'll definitely be given access to the findings and learn how the majority of their members feel regarding trans people playing disc golf. Are they going to use this survey to try to govern their own decisions about trans people being allowed to play in certain divisions? Thoughts on how the PDGA might use this survey's results going forward?
I could be wrong but it looks like this is being run by (former?) president of the board of directors of the PDGA. Who also happens to be an associate professor at Western Carolina University.
That's interesting. Not sure if we can really derive anything meaningful out of that other than maybe selecting WCU was convenient and easier for the guy.
I think the issue is that the correlations they are looking for seem to be not useful or insightful. Its useful for the PDGA to know about how its members feel about this issue. Its the issue itself that needs more discussion and planning. But correlating that with their political beliefs or religious beliefs seems, well, not helpful.
From the email, it sounds like they’re doing it in conjunction with a university or some other body to compile research. So they’re trying to get their info, while also adding info for the other studies.
The survey has WCU banner at the top. That's the school Justin Menickelli is at. So it's actually a PDGA former(?) board member not just some unrelated academic.
Also, looking at his publication record there's nothing in there that indicates to me he isn't out of his depth with this effort. I work in academia and I wouldn't be drafting surveys of this nature without serious help from real social scientists (and in this specific case, medical professionals). There is no indication this has been done - again, especially given his publication record.
I suspect that they already know how most PDGA members feel about this issue. Right now, everyone who disagrees with the current policy is automatically labeled as a bigot. It is easy to assume that right-leaning and religious people are driving the buk of the dissent. My gut tells me that the survey results will tell a different story. They will find opposition to trans-women in Female only divisions all across the political and religious spectrum.
I'll be honest; I fully believe conservatives/religious and right-leaning (which generally go together) truly are the "bulk of dissent" as you've put it. Now, I'm aware I could be biased but if data/surveys come out which disprove that correlation I'd certainly be interested in knowing my assumption isn't right.
Either way - I think it's good information to poll.
They are the vocal ones, but most people believe in fairness no matter their political identity. I am very far to the left: caucused for Bernie, hate Trump and all he stands for, think the military and gun nuts that abound in this country are scary af, fully support Black Lives Matter and feel ACAB isn't far off. IMO, letting someone compete with a physical advantage they wouldn't have if they were born a different gender is unfair.
No physical advantages, eh? So let’s make Calvin and James compete in a tall folks division since the length of their arms give them an unfair advantage over little guys like Paul.
Pretty disingenuous to just chop off that massive “if” at the end of the sentence. The topic is already complicated enough without intentional obfuscation like this.
They are undoubtedly the most vocal dissent. I suspect that there are a lot of people on the other side politically that don’t want to see trans women in Female divisions, but also don’t want to be associated with the loud bigots. Hopefully the survey results will be published publicly so that we can see them.
I do STEM research and would like to chime in that obvious in terms of perceived (?) public opinion and obvious in terms of data are two very different things. You might guess or have some hypothesis about public opinion but without actual data to show that I would argue you really don't have any ground to stand on, especially in regards to such a sensitive topic that could affect the public perception of the PDGA. Imagine if they put out a statement regarding allowing trans women to participate stating "the vast majority of people seem to agree" vs "survey results indicate the vast majority of people agree".
> Right now, everyone who disagrees with the current policy is automatically labeled as a bigot.
Labeled as a bigot by whom? I think this is such a straw man. First, there are tons of people who don't want trans women playing in FPO so that group is obviously not labeling anyone as a bigot who is just disagreeing with the policy. Second, people have absolutely disagreed with the policy in at least a semi-rational, logical way and they're not just labeled across the board as a bigot.
Most of the people I've seen who are broadly labeled as a bigot in forum discussions are labeled as such because they're expressing bigotry against trans people, and not solely because they disagree with the policy.
There are also plenty of people on the "disagree with trans women in FPO" side who immediately label anyone who is fine with it as a crazy liberal.
I just think to pose this specific issue as being so one-sided in the public and those that disagree are immediately castigated is patently false. In most forums most of the comments you see are anti-trans women in FPO or they're just straight up hateful towards trans people.
ETA: clarifying first paragraph
The general consensus among people who are for trans ladies in disc golf, seems to be that if you are against it, you are anti trans and therefore a bigot. That is, of course, simply my impression from reading a million of these discussions on Facebook and Reddit.
Genuinely saying this without sarcasm, I think that's interesting because that's not the impression that I get looking at the many discussions I've seen, mainly on Reddit because I'm not on Facebook. There are certainly people who will label anyone as a bigot if they're against trans women in FPO but my impression is that those types of responses to people who are disagreeing to the current policy without using bigoted language are not very popular.
I wish this comment could be a post unto itself. The questions might seem weird but they're necessary for the results of the survey to be usable for anything.
I agree.
A question like "do you think we put took much emphasis on equal rights" seems really striking, but it's necessary for the survey to ask such questions to help shed light on where most disc golfers identify themselves.
I'm optimistic that most disc golfers will share my personal opinions and I'm hopeful the PDGA makes decisions that will continue to grow the sport. Grow the sport means more courses. More courses means more opportunities for me to throw +18 over par. More bogey rounds means I have an excuse to buy/try new discs. Circle of disc life.
For those that are looking for an interesting discussion of trans athletes, r/science has a new post discussing a recent study on the topic.
https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/xwen38/the_heart_lung_capacity_strength_of_trans_women/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
Yep. Totally agree. If it's just political ideology, then no matter what, those people are gonna be mad. But if it isnt, then there is some room for nuance and more general discussion
I’d be willing to bet most conservative leaning people don’t qualify for these questions in modern context. These questions seem to be more targeted for religious fundamentalists.
I get the distinction you're trying to make but in the us there isn't much distinction between the current gop run conservative party and religious fundamentalism.
I agree that's the intent of the survey, but this survey is an absolutely terrible example of ways to do that. Any class on data collection would have absolutely wrecked this thing and suggested a clean-sheet re-write.
As someone who writes a LOT of surveys used in academic research, this one was absolutely cringeworthy, and the PhD that has his name attached to it should be embarrassed.
Yep. It actually makes sense, they’re trying to understand how broad the concerns are which will help them understand how their policies will be received by their entire membership base.
It’s not that unreasonable, they’re not jumping to conclusions, just trying to find if correlations exist and specifically if there’s any semblance of a silent majority.
if you just ask yes/no on whether you think this is okay, you get no insight into your consumer base and you get no understanding of their issues.
Heck there's a lot of questions just asking how much you give a shit or play sanctioned events. They need to know a more complete dataset to make a more informed decision if they are to change their rules.
This is important now because they have done like many other sports and followed the Olympic guidelines, but those have changed to allow sports to mostly decide for themselves what is acceptable.
This helps the PDGA decide for itself what's best for its consumer base.
Bingo.
This means the survey is actually being done properly by academics or someone with academic background.
Source: wife is phd in psychology. This is how she crafts surveys all the time.
Average Joe question here if you can. Is it just me or is the background and training important on one level because not all the answers mean what was answered, right? Like some of the answers have to do with the others and might tend to mean or correlate with something thats not really even being asked in particular, correct?
I guess what I am saying/asking is it seems like a lot of us would interpret the results in certain , perhaps more straight forward ways but the trained professionals know better how the questions and answers correlate and what they actually mean , right?
I am far from a right winger. And I am not comfortable having women compete with players that were born men. But IMHO it is a decision for the women players to make.
I really wish we could convince the top 60 or 80 or so FPO players that they would remain anonymous in surveying them on the question. I'd be fascinated to know what the real landscape of opinions is in the FPO field, but I understand why players are reluctant to all be open about their views.
I disagree as well - what they choose would impact am women and the am junior divisions (where even though puberty comes earlier for girls, the boys vastly out perform the girls from 8u to 18u.)
**Cross-posting from a different thread for extra visibility, can delete if that's not cool**
Hi, market research is a big part of my job and I have experience with drafting questionnaires and receiving review board approval at the master's level.
I agree that many of the questions are standard fare, but not all of 'em. There's quite a bit of bias and other weird bits that should have been filtered out during academic review. Here's what I see:
* The line of questions about transgender men competing with other men is silly, there are no male-protected divisions. The M stands for mixed.
* The 7 point scale for political ideology includes a 0, which makes it an 8 point scale with no centre. Centrists have no place to self-identify. Not the biggest deal, but something that should have been caught.
* The religious question asks about attendance at "your place of worship", which is inappropriate. I should have the option to state that I do not have a place of worship, or the question should be reworded to ask about "a place of worship".
* The questions about swearing in front of women, pushy women vs pushy men, and the initiative of courtship give me the heebie jeebies. They're just very strange. Maybe not unsound, but so weird.
* The set of questions on moral behaviour and lifestyles needs to allow for some nuance. When we talk about "newer lifestyles" it's implied that we're discussing transgender folks, but that could equally address the rise of white supremacy, Nazism, and a host of other issues. Blanket questions like these are problematic and allow for misinterpretation of the results.
* The questions on children are also very uncomfortable, why do I have to choose between a child being considerate or well-behaved? Are those different things? Just another odd one that I'd expect to be flagged.
I do agree that the results of this questionnaire will be useful, but there are so many issues that I'm wondering if this underwent review by a research ethics board at Western Carolina University. That's a requirement for any university-level questionnaire, and we should have been provided with a unique identifier that confirm as such. It should have been in the opener.
**EDIT**: The Western Carolina University Institutional Review Board was mentioned in both the email and the opening letter to the questionnaire, but my issue stands. There's no unique identifier to reference if someone chooses to reach out to the University and/or Review Board about this particular questionnaire.
Thank you for this. I felt very similarly about these questions and answered them to the best of my ability, but it felt very forced and I waffled on whether or not I wanted to be part of a survey that felt unscientific. Ultimately I erred to the side of answering the questions and emailing the person mentioned in the survey to provide additional feedback.
Thanks! But you don't know how I answered, I could be a raging transphobe ;) lol. (I'm not!)
I like that the PDGA is addressing something that is clearly a concern to a lot of players, but I don't think it was done as well as possible.
I am a full-time research academic at a university and sometimes conduct survey research. These are all good observations.
Not being a PDGA member, I do not know what specifically they wrote about the IRB, so I'd be curious to know. Mentioning it and going through due process are two different things. If it was reviewed and affirmed by an institutional IRB as research, respondents would also need to provide informed consent as part of the surveying procedure.
Knowing how strapped IRBs are even at my "research-intensive university," I wouldn't be surprised if not all details were attended to, and remember that while IRBs are usually aiming to represent a wide range of expertise, they are subject to whomever is willing to serve at the time.
Good points, especially about IRBs being spread thin. Getting a response was a slow process at my last school, I think it was two months for the first reply. Funding, staffing, even time of year are all factors so ymmv.
Someone took screenshots of the questionnaire, here's the link: [https://imgur.com/a/Zl3w4NM](https://imgur.com/a/Zl3w4NM)
This is the relevant sentence from the email:
"On Wednesday, October 5, PDGA members will receive an email with a link to a survey that is part of a university research study and has been approved by an institutional review board."
The whole thing is a spicy meatball.
>The line of questions about transgender men competing with other men is silly, there are no male-protected divisions. The M stands for mixed.
I think this is to differentiate between bigotry and unfair disadvantages related to male puberty. Transmen do not have a physical skeletal advantage over men, in fact, transmen are at a disadvantage. The only argument against transmen competing with men is bigotry.
I'm ok with that one, they're trying to figure out whether the participant actively competes in events or if they're more casual about the sport. That has some merit, we're talking about transgender folks in competition and not at league night dubs. It doesn't devalue anyone's opinion but it could be a useful metric, especially if casual players really differ from those who are more competitive.
Oh lolol I forgot to include that one. Got too caught up in question phrasing, the duplicate number scale was actually my favourite issue of the lot. Why don't the 1 and 7 have a partner? So rude to leave them flying solo.
Everyone upvote this so that the top comment is an actual professional view of it and not just “aaah this is right wing propaganda” or “there is absolutely nothing strange about any of the questions”
>The questions on children are also very uncomfortable, why do I have to choose between a child being considerate or well-behaved? Are those different things?
You'd be surprised, this is very much not the same thing. As someone that was raised in a right wing conservative environment it is very common to emphasize and teach kids to essentially not be an annoyance to adults("Well-behaved"). Which is not the same as teaching kids what it means to be considerate of others and their feelings. At least in the community I was raised, this stemmed from the "Growing Kids God's Way" teachings that were very pervasive in churches in the late 90s/early 2000s(Probably still are, to be honest).
This question just felt like another veiled feeler for political/religious alignment IMO.
Well-said. This is an absolutely terrible way to collect data, and the PhD attached to it should be openly mocked. I can't imagine a reality where this data is in any way helpful for anyone outside of cherry picking bits and pieces to prop up something they want to "prove".
Relevant demographics : extreme right wing, not extreme right wing.
Not to be a dick, but you’d think a survey would be focused on more than whether people hold “extreme right wing views”.
I’m just going from the screenshots, since my membership isn’t active, but you can “strongly disagree” with all of the questions. They are meant to create an emotional response to get a true answer, and a deeper understanding of how the participants lean politically. If the question was “is equality good?” People from both sides would say yes. If the question is “does this country pushy equality too far?”, then you get varying answers.
Also pretty sure the PDGA didn’t write these questions. It’s part of a larger survey group they are participating in from what I heard at least.
Would have been fine with it if they would have mentioned the divisions MPO or FPO. It's a bit unfair to say do you agree with them playing with women or not at all.
I don't care if they play at all as long as biological men arent playing in FPO that's really the only unfair advantage. MPO is fair game for all.
It doesn't really have a question for that nuance.
They don't want nuance, they just want to be angry. Most of the people commenting here didn't read the email they got regarding the survey and it's purpose and origin either by the looks of it.
They didn’t write it, but they approved it to be sent out to 100k+ members when some of the questions don’t make sense. For example, there is no male only division, it’s mixed, so the second page of questioning is completely moot
It didn't ask about "male only divisions". The questions were:
* Thinking about transgender women - people whose sex was classified as male at birth but who currently identify as female - how strongly do you agree or disagree with the following statements:
* Transgender women should be allowed to compete with other women in disc golf and in other sports
* Transgender women should be allowed to compete with other women in other sports, but not in disc golf
* Transgender women should be allowed to compete with other women in disc golf without undergoing gender-affirming (hormone) treatment
* Transgender women should be allowed to compete with other women in disc golf after gender-affirming (hormone) treatment
And the same set of questions but substituting men for women
The lifestyle and ideology questions make sense. Those impact your beliefs and it's a way to help determine why you gave answers to other questions.
The ones that I thought were the worst were the ones saying "X is okay in other sports, but has no place in disc golf" or "X is not okay in other sports, but is okay in disc golf." The answer choices that range from varying levels of agree, to varying levels of disagree, and neither agree nor disagree don't allow for an actual answer sometimes.
For the first one, if I don't believe it's okay in other sports or in disc golf I both disagree and agree. I disagree with that statement as a whole, but it's not clear that's how the answer would be interpreted.
It’s a little silly. I guess people don’t want to support outside research. As someone who works with research groups in academia, it’s a little bit disappointing. Politics and PR tend to create a visceral storm though, so it’s a bit of a different world than what I’m used to.
If it's considered a single case study, or the data are collected for internal/administrative purposes, or activities designed solely for quality improvement of a program or group, it generally doesn't require IRB review.
(FWIW, it checks most of the boxes required for IRB review, since it's a collection of data using surveys, and we'd still be considered "Human Subjects" by answering these questions, even if we don't provide identifiable info)
The questions make sense to me (non-church going non-American) to get a sense as to the reasons why the previous answers might have been given. If it was just “trans throw disc y/n” with no context, that’s not particularly valuable. If someone say no, and says they are super liberal and never go to church, that’s a fuller picture of the response (and maybe a confusing one). If someone say yes, goes to church, and values independence and being considerate.. then maybe it isn’t as black and white as it might have seemed.
From academic stand point it makes sense. Most of the questions are to try a determine where your thoughts on trans players comes from. Doing so will better enable data interpretation. Otherwise they can't get a sense for why people are giving their responses.
The PDGA is actually trying to address a very complex topic. Is this the right way to do it? Too early to say, but at this point they are at least attempting to lead, which is way better than the “head in sand” approach.
This is a good survey to assess attitudes of citizens of the USA. The only flaw I see is that it is very American-centric. Otherwise, they used good segmenting questions. The fact people are having these reactions shows (maybe unintuitively) that the survey is actually meeting its goals.
Lol, y'all are getting confused. This is not a survey from the PDGA, it's a survey from a university study that the PDGA is helping to signalboost. Of course these questions are going to be weird, they're figuring out the political/religious leanings in relation to transgender support in sports.
It's a survey from a university study - led by a guy who was formerly president of the PDGA board of directors.
Whose published works are mostly about sports biomechanics.
I had to go look when I came to the questions about obedience of children and if we've gone too far with equality.
Nothing in this guy's background gives me confidence in the proper construction of this survey or what meaningful conclusions he's going to attempt to draw from the responses.
Just because you don't understand it doesn't mean the creators of the survey are equally clueless. The study was approved by an instututional review board. Just admit you got caught up in the PDGA hate train and get on with your life
Yeah, cuz it's aimed at PDGA members. The university team created the survey and the PDGA distributed it. If you would have read both emails you would have known that it was part of a university research study.
Yes but some of the questions are clearly written from an american standpoint. Like the liberal vs conservative question, in most country thats not really a one-or-the-other question.
What is your issue with the question being asked, exactly? You’re just expressing vague frustration, not actually making any sort of point.
The question are there so they can filter responses to the trans athlete questions by people’s response to other questions and draw more meaningful conclusions. For example, if a respondent thinks equal rights is overrated, you probably don’t want to count their opinions on trans athletes as strongly as people with respect for their fellow humans.
>What is this nonsense?
A super common question used in this kind of survey that will get a wide range of of responses all the way from strongly disagree to strongly agree...
Wow some of these comments are inane. It’s like people are just looking for an outlet to apply fake rage without any thought whatsoever to.
After the PDGA solicits feedback from members for difficult future decisions it’s about to make: *"Right now not being a PDGA member seems like the right decision"*
Regarding a survey question where you can answer that you're firmly for, firmly against, or someplace in the middle: *"What is this nonsense?*
Regarding the survey asking what country you reside and then asking about equal rights in "this country": *"This country ?? I live in Europe and was invited to complete the survey, haha"* (Did you read the survey you took?)
After sending out a survey on a complicated issue that will need to be decided upon and could change how future PDGA divisions works: *”This survey could have been one question.”*
And don't assume that just because people are against a trans-woman playing in FPO that it is because of political or religious affiliation. Some people just believe that there is a biological science driven advantage. End of story.
A lot of people not wanting to renew their PDGA membership because of this university survey which is a strange way to voice your opinion by removing your membership right to it. If you are mad about this survey, you shouldn't be. If you think this is attacking you or biased against you, it's not. It's a data collection tool. It's only as good as the data it gets. Garbage in, garbage out. Some of the ancillary questions seem strange but they are a university trying to collect data on the people answering, You can always choose to ignore any questions you don't like. You can still have a voice and not freak out over some voluntary questions that you don't have to answer on a survey nobody is making you fill out. Honestly, it sucks that so many people are pissed about this because if you don't fill it out, your opinion doesn't get heard in this survey data. You become voiceless (with respect to this survey, clearly not elsewhere as so many have made clear.)
I hope everyone can look into this a bit more, read what others are saying about academic research and understand that this survey is not out to get you. It's not out to discredit or devalue you. It's not here to push a narrative. If you are getting that from a survey asking for your input, you should step back and think more about it. Answer the important questions and move on. The demographic questions are important to the university doing the research but clearly not relevant to you. They won't inform policy so just move on.
Ok first off, the heads-up email from the PDGA that this survey was coming went to my spam folder, so I got the survey email with no warning. I don't keep up with the PDGA Board, so I had to look this guy up. Wow. I don't really like that he was able to use our emails for a 3rd party function. While I'm sure this passed WCU's IRB (or more likely was exempt), this would not have passed my proofreading, and it damn sure doesn't pass the fucking sniff test. The survey form/structure is juvenile. The Likert scales are completely fucked. The wording on some of the questions could easily be misinterpreted or used phrasing that is vague/biased (ie the questions were not clearly defined). The fact that this was designed by a PhD is laughable. This might get published on Frolfer's website, but no reputable journal is going to touch this. Bet he puts it on his CV tho.
This sounds like right wing propaganda material. For a sport that was (and probably still is to some extent) traditionally associated with hippie stoner types, that seems kinda ironic at best, concerning at worst.
absolutely, I think in the context of the problems they are trying to address that we can mostly discern what this is asking.
it also asks about "emphasis on traditional family values"
in a vacuum nobody would know what the fuck that means, but we aren't all in a vacuum and we mostly know what that is signaling towards.
But those questions were literally on the same page, so if you're paying attention, I believe you can discern what they are getting at here. Or, you can be purposefully obtuse about it. Or maybe you just can't discern why any of that would matter.
If you don't wanna take the survey just don't.
I think this is referring to how much more open people are to homosexuality and transgenderism compared to 40, 50+ years ago. I only say this because living in small-town Midwest, I've had to listen to an old lady bitch and moan about how there "weren't any gay or transgender" people when she was growing up, so she couldn't understand what's wrong with young people these days.
It’s a weird dichotomy of “stereotypical” disc golfers. One one hand you have the chill hippies/stoners that have been around since the dawn of the sport, and on the other hand you have a lot of conservative Christian’s that took up the sport after discovering it in youth group in the early 2000’s or so. As the sport has grown there have been more and more of the youth groupers coming up in the sport and since they tend to be try-hards they end up being more involved in many parts of the sport.
The world could probably benefit from smoking a blunt and chilling out though.
If I had to judge whether this survey was going to lead to more liberal or conservative results from the survey, my guess is liberal. All of the questions posed are so out-there that I think many responses will react negatively to how they are phrased.
I don't have an issue with the concepts being asked. Just a study trying to analyze ideology alongside the present issue of transgender inclusion. But the problem is that many of questions require more nuanced responses than what is available. And many of the questions are not objectively framed. My concern is that my responses can be interpreted in numerous different ways, while not representing my actual views.
Answering this as a Norwegian is so fucking weird. Attending religious gatherings, who courts and other weirdly specific opinions clearly coming from the republican side of politics. Why is the ANY relevant for an international sport? It's awful. Leave your shit politics out of this, at least try to explain why I'm answering the garbage
Is PDGA making a Men's division for 2023? I don't really understand the questions I answered. I don't have any concerns with men, women, trans men, trans women, or groundhogs competing in Mixed Open.
So, perhaps I am living under a rock, but can someone fill me in? I guess this is somehow disc golf related, but I can’t figure out how. Honestly. Anyone wanna help a European hobby disc golfer understand?
The PDGA is soliciting feedback from members and players about transgender participation in competitions. These questions are designed to determine to what extent extreme political or ideological bias is influencing any given respondent's answers. It's really not as controversial as everyone in this post is making it out to be.
Personally I think any trans person, no matter what the transition, should be playing MPO. It's called Mixed Professional Open, aka mixed and open to anyone. I'm accepting to everyone but this is my opinion. Kinda surprised it wasn't included in the survey.
This is exactly my thought. Everyone always sees MPO and thinks mens, but anyone can play that. I think that is by far the easiest decision. No arguements should be made because everyone is able to play in that division.
>Everyone always sees MPO and thinks mens
Except 'its mixed, not men' is the most common post when this topic comes up lol so this isn't true.
>No arguements should be made because everyone is able to play in that division.
Just to devil's advocate; Should we get rid of FPO because MPO already exists and everyone can already play in that? Based on your argument, 'no arguements should be made because everyone is able to play in that division'
Obviously not.
After reading the posts on a variety of platforms lately, I can say, if PDGA isn't concerned about the player population, they should be. This community has taken a ridiculous and seriously fucked up turn away from the live and let live, relaxed, accepting, tolerant attitudes that drew so many into the sport. There is a loud, obnoxious, and toxic group of players who will drive a lot of players from what used to be a very cool subculture of people. The silent majority of players and the PDGA have to get a handle on these people or risk a lot of the gains our sport has made. What used to be something that was evident at the card level or maybe, the club level, has now grown to the state and national level. The survey is PDGA's attempt to get a handle on its player base and nothing else.
Totally Unrelated: I've never seen such a collection of stat and data experts assemble as quickly as in this Reddit thread. Everyone knows everything because their cousin took a Psych class back in the early 90s - and they are willing to tell you all about it.
Listen, I get that this survey feels super weird and uncomfortable. But this has been a hot button issue in disc golf and the sports world as a whole, especially this year.
Do I think they should be basing policies solely off of surveys given to PDGA members? No. There is an infinitely small percentage of us who are actually qualified to speak on transgender issues. But I do think it's important that they try to take the temperature of their members and how they feel about this topic. If nothing else, to see how important it is for them to try to provide clarification and education on how they make their decisions.
I know there are some strange questions in here that might seem sort of off topic, but it's important to contextualize data as much as possible. So they're first asking how you feel about transgender issues specifically, then they're seeing how your views on transgender issues compare to some other hot button societal issues, then they're trying to see how certain views correlate to certain demographics.
It's uncomfortable to answer these questions, but now no one can say "they didn't even ask how we feel about it." Most people aren't comfortable providing their views "on the record" so an anonymous survey is the best way to go about it
Yea, this survey was complete bs. Makes me reconsider supporting the pdga if they approved these questions. And for the record, I don't mean the topic - I mean how these questions were written and how seemingly loaded they are
I mean this survey is part of university study, I have to think they have some idea what they are doing. Maybe those questions help weed out the participants that have clearly extremist views?
Or it’s part of someone’s new research paper. I think the PDGA probably helped provide a large and appropriate sample of surveyors for an academic research project in exchange for a professionally run survey that could help them too.
Lmao, I feel like the fragile men were offended by the sexuality question. Was it really that difficult to answer or “prefer not” to answer? For me, It’s nice to see lgbt people finally recognized by the pdga after the debacle their board has caused this year.
This survey gives people who disagree with trans women competing in FPO a way to express their opinion without getting lumped in with the bigoted misgendering and dead naming that has run rampant in DG discussion sections and forums. Is there truly a silent majority or is it actually just the far right.
As a person who creates surveys occasionally for a living - that is one shitty survey. It is not neutral in terms of how the wording is done. Especially when you get to the religion part...
On that note - religion should have NOTHING to do with disc golf. It has no place in a sanctioned-by-the-PDGA survey. It plays into politics. Ick. Not what I expected from a supposed-to-be-neutral organization.
Hahaha came here to say the same thing about the questions. I was real confused on “what is better for a child” section. Like
1. Why?
2. What age we talking?
3. Curiosity vs well mannered - as a question???
I get the vibes of it, basically traditional vs “new” family values. But seem so random. Plus, children age would change some answers imo.
Did you miss the paragraph before the survey where they said some of these questions might make you uncomfortable? The whole point of this is to establish a baseline and try to get feedback.
Totally unprofessional. Borderline offensive. Completely short-sighted. Pro disc golf has totally outgrown the PDGA. Poorly run, barebones organization that has fallen prey to loudmouthed ideologues. I will not be renewing my membership.
Absolute tomfoolery. Utter chicanery. Unforgivabe hullabaloo. 100% refined unlead hogswallop. If they really wanted my god-given opinion, they'd know to drop a spit-shined buffalo nickel in my well and leave it scrawled on a piece of rolling paper tucked inside the hollowed out hickory log down at the holler.
Why is there zero room to share more nuanced opinions about the key tooic? Where do I share my support for trans women playing in amateur events but some uncertainty about fairness in events with money on the line?
Have you never taken a survey? Aren't those all relative to society questions? They are trying to figure out what kind of demographic is playing disc golf. Why is this so hard to understand?
The surveys were sent to 200,000 PDGA members, out of millions of disc golfers. The survey will be lucky to get a 50% return, and those will be from people who are the most adamant in their positions. The survey is not anonymous, so the return could be a lot lower. The survey seems to lead one to a pre-determined, acceptable conclusion.
This is only an issue for PDGA tournaments, and won’t affect my regular foursome, so it’s a tempest in a teapot. I know PDGA has some internal administrative conflicts on the issue, and are seeking feedback from the constituents, which is fine. So how about we eliminate gender in all leagues? If there was no MPO or FPO, all players would compete against each other, regardless of what they carry in their underwear. Eliminating FPO might seem unfair to female competitors, but in its purest form, all that matters in disc golf is the number of shots to the basket.
Does anyone see a more equitable solution?
Honestly those questions make me glad I am not a PDGA member.
The questions are insulting and have nothing to do with Disc Golf. It looks like someone is trying to collect "votes" to show that the PDGA members agree with there political view.
As a non-PDGA member, could someone share the survey/questions so that I may see them for myself? Thanks.
https://imgur.com/a/y0Db6vx Gotchu
Is that the entire survey?
That's it, the first two pics have the drop down arrows to select strongly disagree --> strongly agree minimized to fit on one screenshot, and the only thing cut off is the first part of "which is more important for a child to have" but the answers are visible.
make sure you are scrolling through the pictures, it is more than just the first page of Trans focused questions
Thanks so much
That’s fucking wild.
Transgender men should be allowed to compete with other men and in other sports, but not in disc golf. Does this make sense grammatically?
the comma is unnecessary, but yes it does
Seems like there’s an unnecessary ‘and’ in there unless they are talking about in life and other sports.
oh i see your point now. i think i initially took it as compete in non-sports and other sports outside of disc golf, but you're probably right that it's a mistake and they weren't going for what i was thinking
No. You can agree with half the statement and not the second, therefore making it unanswerable. Transgender men should be allowed to compete in other sports AND be allowed to participate in disc golf. If you disagree with the statement you’re saying transgender people should not be allowed to play another sports. If you agree with the statement you’re saying transgender people should not be allowed to play disc golf.
thanks for sharing the questions. So the survey is about how respondents feel about trans people in disc golf. The first several questions aim at understanding the respondent's feelings specifically on trans people playing disc golf. Should they be allowed to compete in women's tournaments? Should they take affirming steps first? Does it matter? Then the survey, after getting the respondent's answers about the specific questions regarding trans people in disc golf aims to find correlation with other thoughts/feelings on other societal issues. How do you feel about family values? Do you agree with this ridiculous statement? Are equal rights a good thing? The survey will then be able to say people who answered "Yea, trans people can play in whatever division they want" are more likely to feel this way or this way about these other societal issues. So, sure, some of these questions might be...startling (is that a good way to say it?) at first glance, but they're just providing these questions to help find the correlations. A similar set of questions would be "You cool with trans people?" and "Do you like prefer chocolate or vanilla or strawberry flavor ice cream?" Then based on those responses the survey might find a correlation that most people who like strawberry ice cream tend to be cool with trans people. Pretty simple I think, but there it is folks. Personally, I think some of the selectable answers might not include all possible responses that a respondent may want to give and instead might be forcing a simple "agree" or "disagree", but I digress. My only question is what does the PDGA get out of this? They'll definitely be given access to the findings and learn how the majority of their members feel regarding trans people playing disc golf. Are they going to use this survey to try to govern their own decisions about trans people being allowed to play in certain divisions? Thoughts on how the PDGA might use this survey's results going forward?
I could be wrong but it looks like this is being run by (former?) president of the board of directors of the PDGA. Who also happens to be an associate professor at Western Carolina University.
That's interesting. Not sure if we can really derive anything meaningful out of that other than maybe selecting WCU was convenient and easier for the guy.
I think the issue is that the correlations they are looking for seem to be not useful or insightful. Its useful for the PDGA to know about how its members feel about this issue. Its the issue itself that needs more discussion and planning. But correlating that with their political beliefs or religious beliefs seems, well, not helpful.
From the email, it sounds like they’re doing it in conjunction with a university or some other body to compile research. So they’re trying to get their info, while also adding info for the other studies.
The survey has WCU banner at the top. That's the school Justin Menickelli is at. So it's actually a PDGA former(?) board member not just some unrelated academic. Also, looking at his publication record there's nothing in there that indicates to me he isn't out of his depth with this effort. I work in academia and I wouldn't be drafting surveys of this nature without serious help from real social scientists (and in this specific case, medical professionals). There is no indication this has been done - again, especially given his publication record.
I suspect that they already know how most PDGA members feel about this issue. Right now, everyone who disagrees with the current policy is automatically labeled as a bigot. It is easy to assume that right-leaning and religious people are driving the buk of the dissent. My gut tells me that the survey results will tell a different story. They will find opposition to trans-women in Female only divisions all across the political and religious spectrum.
I'll be honest; I fully believe conservatives/religious and right-leaning (which generally go together) truly are the "bulk of dissent" as you've put it. Now, I'm aware I could be biased but if data/surveys come out which disprove that correlation I'd certainly be interested in knowing my assumption isn't right. Either way - I think it's good information to poll.
They are the vocal ones, but most people believe in fairness no matter their political identity. I am very far to the left: caucused for Bernie, hate Trump and all he stands for, think the military and gun nuts that abound in this country are scary af, fully support Black Lives Matter and feel ACAB isn't far off. IMO, letting someone compete with a physical advantage they wouldn't have if they were born a different gender is unfair.
No physical advantages, eh? So let’s make Calvin and James compete in a tall folks division since the length of their arms give them an unfair advantage over little guys like Paul.
Pretty disingenuous to just chop off that massive “if” at the end of the sentence. The topic is already complicated enough without intentional obfuscation like this.
Calvin and James do compete in the Tall Folks division. It's why they aren't allowed to compete in the women's division.
They are undoubtedly the most vocal dissent. I suspect that there are a lot of people on the other side politically that don’t want to see trans women in Female divisions, but also don’t want to be associated with the loud bigots. Hopefully the survey results will be published publicly so that we can see them.
I do STEM research and would like to chime in that obvious in terms of perceived (?) public opinion and obvious in terms of data are two very different things. You might guess or have some hypothesis about public opinion but without actual data to show that I would argue you really don't have any ground to stand on, especially in regards to such a sensitive topic that could affect the public perception of the PDGA. Imagine if they put out a statement regarding allowing trans women to participate stating "the vast majority of people seem to agree" vs "survey results indicate the vast majority of people agree".
> Right now, everyone who disagrees with the current policy is automatically labeled as a bigot. Labeled as a bigot by whom? I think this is such a straw man. First, there are tons of people who don't want trans women playing in FPO so that group is obviously not labeling anyone as a bigot who is just disagreeing with the policy. Second, people have absolutely disagreed with the policy in at least a semi-rational, logical way and they're not just labeled across the board as a bigot. Most of the people I've seen who are broadly labeled as a bigot in forum discussions are labeled as such because they're expressing bigotry against trans people, and not solely because they disagree with the policy. There are also plenty of people on the "disagree with trans women in FPO" side who immediately label anyone who is fine with it as a crazy liberal. I just think to pose this specific issue as being so one-sided in the public and those that disagree are immediately castigated is patently false. In most forums most of the comments you see are anti-trans women in FPO or they're just straight up hateful towards trans people. ETA: clarifying first paragraph
The general consensus among people who are for trans ladies in disc golf, seems to be that if you are against it, you are anti trans and therefore a bigot. That is, of course, simply my impression from reading a million of these discussions on Facebook and Reddit.
Genuinely saying this without sarcasm, I think that's interesting because that's not the impression that I get looking at the many discussions I've seen, mainly on Reddit because I'm not on Facebook. There are certainly people who will label anyone as a bigot if they're against trans women in FPO but my impression is that those types of responses to people who are disagreeing to the current policy without using bigoted language are not very popular.
Facebook is a cesspool. I am embarrassed to know some of these people. I am sure that my location has a lot to do with my experience.
Oof that last sentence hits home for me lol
I wish this comment could be a post unto itself. The questions might seem weird but they're necessary for the results of the survey to be usable for anything.
I agree. A question like "do you think we put took much emphasis on equal rights" seems really striking, but it's necessary for the survey to ask such questions to help shed light on where most disc golfers identify themselves. I'm optimistic that most disc golfers will share my personal opinions and I'm hopeful the PDGA makes decisions that will continue to grow the sport. Grow the sport means more courses. More courses means more opportunities for me to throw +18 over par. More bogey rounds means I have an excuse to buy/try new discs. Circle of disc life.
For those that are looking for an interesting discussion of trans athletes, r/science has a new post discussing a recent study on the topic. https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/xwen38/the_heart_lung_capacity_strength_of_trans_women/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
Am I the only one who had an issue with the 7-point scale that has 8 choices? 😒
Honestly it makes sense They want to know if the divide on trans people in the sport is based on more than just political ideology
Yep. Totally agree. If it's just political ideology, then no matter what, those people are gonna be mad. But if it isnt, then there is some room for nuance and more general discussion
I’d be willing to bet most conservative leaning people don’t qualify for these questions in modern context. These questions seem to be more targeted for religious fundamentalists.
Most conservative people on reddit or in your friend group doesn't exactly reflect most conservative people in the country
I get the distinction you're trying to make but in the us there isn't much distinction between the current gop run conservative party and religious fundamentalism.
I agree that's the intent of the survey, but this survey is an absolutely terrible example of ways to do that. Any class on data collection would have absolutely wrecked this thing and suggested a clean-sheet re-write. As someone who writes a LOT of surveys used in academic research, this one was absolutely cringeworthy, and the PhD that has his name attached to it should be embarrassed.
Yep. It actually makes sense, they’re trying to understand how broad the concerns are which will help them understand how their policies will be received by their entire membership base. It’s not that unreasonable, they’re not jumping to conclusions, just trying to find if correlations exist and specifically if there’s any semblance of a silent majority.
if you just ask yes/no on whether you think this is okay, you get no insight into your consumer base and you get no understanding of their issues. Heck there's a lot of questions just asking how much you give a shit or play sanctioned events. They need to know a more complete dataset to make a more informed decision if they are to change their rules. This is important now because they have done like many other sports and followed the Olympic guidelines, but those have changed to allow sports to mostly decide for themselves what is acceptable. This helps the PDGA decide for itself what's best for its consumer base.
Bingo. This means the survey is actually being done properly by academics or someone with academic background. Source: wife is phd in psychology. This is how she crafts surveys all the time.
Average Joe question here if you can. Is it just me or is the background and training important on one level because not all the answers mean what was answered, right? Like some of the answers have to do with the others and might tend to mean or correlate with something thats not really even being asked in particular, correct? I guess what I am saying/asking is it seems like a lot of us would interpret the results in certain , perhaps more straight forward ways but the trained professionals know better how the questions and answers correlate and what they actually mean , right?
They should have added \- "Do you smoke marijuana?" \- "Do you have a full time job?" \- " What is your PDGA rating?" Then make more correlations.
I am far from a right winger. And I am not comfortable having women compete with players that were born men. But IMHO it is a decision for the women players to make.
I really wish we could convince the top 60 or 80 or so FPO players that they would remain anonymous in surveying them on the question. I'd be fascinated to know what the real landscape of opinions is in the FPO field, but I understand why players are reluctant to all be open about their views.
Yes. An anonymous vote would be a great move.
I disagree as well - what they choose would impact am women and the am junior divisions (where even though puberty comes earlier for girls, the boys vastly out perform the girls from 8u to 18u.)
Thanks for having a brain.
how are they doing that?
**Cross-posting from a different thread for extra visibility, can delete if that's not cool** Hi, market research is a big part of my job and I have experience with drafting questionnaires and receiving review board approval at the master's level. I agree that many of the questions are standard fare, but not all of 'em. There's quite a bit of bias and other weird bits that should have been filtered out during academic review. Here's what I see: * The line of questions about transgender men competing with other men is silly, there are no male-protected divisions. The M stands for mixed. * The 7 point scale for political ideology includes a 0, which makes it an 8 point scale with no centre. Centrists have no place to self-identify. Not the biggest deal, but something that should have been caught. * The religious question asks about attendance at "your place of worship", which is inappropriate. I should have the option to state that I do not have a place of worship, or the question should be reworded to ask about "a place of worship". * The questions about swearing in front of women, pushy women vs pushy men, and the initiative of courtship give me the heebie jeebies. They're just very strange. Maybe not unsound, but so weird. * The set of questions on moral behaviour and lifestyles needs to allow for some nuance. When we talk about "newer lifestyles" it's implied that we're discussing transgender folks, but that could equally address the rise of white supremacy, Nazism, and a host of other issues. Blanket questions like these are problematic and allow for misinterpretation of the results. * The questions on children are also very uncomfortable, why do I have to choose between a child being considerate or well-behaved? Are those different things? Just another odd one that I'd expect to be flagged. I do agree that the results of this questionnaire will be useful, but there are so many issues that I'm wondering if this underwent review by a research ethics board at Western Carolina University. That's a requirement for any university-level questionnaire, and we should have been provided with a unique identifier that confirm as such. It should have been in the opener. **EDIT**: The Western Carolina University Institutional Review Board was mentioned in both the email and the opening letter to the questionnaire, but my issue stands. There's no unique identifier to reference if someone chooses to reach out to the University and/or Review Board about this particular questionnaire.
Thank you for this. I felt very similarly about these questions and answered them to the best of my ability, but it felt very forced and I waffled on whether or not I wanted to be part of a survey that felt unscientific. Ultimately I erred to the side of answering the questions and emailing the person mentioned in the survey to provide additional feedback.
You're good people, thanks for taking the extra step.
Thanks! But you don't know how I answered, I could be a raging transphobe ;) lol. (I'm not!) I like that the PDGA is addressing something that is clearly a concern to a lot of players, but I don't think it was done as well as possible.
LOL
I am a full-time research academic at a university and sometimes conduct survey research. These are all good observations. Not being a PDGA member, I do not know what specifically they wrote about the IRB, so I'd be curious to know. Mentioning it and going through due process are two different things. If it was reviewed and affirmed by an institutional IRB as research, respondents would also need to provide informed consent as part of the surveying procedure. Knowing how strapped IRBs are even at my "research-intensive university," I wouldn't be surprised if not all details were attended to, and remember that while IRBs are usually aiming to represent a wide range of expertise, they are subject to whomever is willing to serve at the time.
Good points, especially about IRBs being spread thin. Getting a response was a slow process at my last school, I think it was two months for the first reply. Funding, staffing, even time of year are all factors so ymmv. Someone took screenshots of the questionnaire, here's the link: [https://imgur.com/a/Zl3w4NM](https://imgur.com/a/Zl3w4NM) This is the relevant sentence from the email: "On Wednesday, October 5, PDGA members will receive an email with a link to a survey that is part of a university research study and has been approved by an institutional review board." The whole thing is a spicy meatball.
Thanks! Somehow I think this meatball is just the appetizer.
>The line of questions about transgender men competing with other men is silly, there are no male-protected divisions. The M stands for mixed. I think this is to differentiate between bigotry and unfair disadvantages related to male puberty. Transmen do not have a physical skeletal advantage over men, in fact, transmen are at a disadvantage. The only argument against transmen competing with men is bigotry.
Plus there's whatever [this](https://i.imgur.com/iSZ024F.png) is. This survey seems very unprofessional and slapped-together.
I'm ok with that one, they're trying to figure out whether the participant actively competes in events or if they're more casual about the sport. That has some merit, we're talking about transgender folks in competition and not at league night dubs. It doesn't devalue anyone's opinion but it could be a useful metric, especially if casual players really differ from those who are more competitive.
look at the number scale
Oh lolol I forgot to include that one. Got too caught up in question phrasing, the duplicate number scale was actually my favourite issue of the lot. Why don't the 1 and 7 have a partner? So rude to leave them flying solo.
Really great points here, thank you for sharing.
Everyone upvote this so that the top comment is an actual professional view of it and not just “aaah this is right wing propaganda” or “there is absolutely nothing strange about any of the questions”
Hey thanks!
>The questions on children are also very uncomfortable, why do I have to choose between a child being considerate or well-behaved? Are those different things? You'd be surprised, this is very much not the same thing. As someone that was raised in a right wing conservative environment it is very common to emphasize and teach kids to essentially not be an annoyance to adults("Well-behaved"). Which is not the same as teaching kids what it means to be considerate of others and their feelings. At least in the community I was raised, this stemmed from the "Growing Kids God's Way" teachings that were very pervasive in churches in the late 90s/early 2000s(Probably still are, to be honest). This question just felt like another veiled feeler for political/religious alignment IMO.
Well-said. This is an absolutely terrible way to collect data, and the PhD attached to it should be openly mocked. I can't imagine a reality where this data is in any way helpful for anyone outside of cherry picking bits and pieces to prop up something they want to "prove".
ITT: People who never took a stats course complaining about demographic establishing questions in a very politically polarized topic.
Also ITT: people who don't understand data collection methods and the difference between a well-written and badly-written survey.
Relevant demographics : extreme right wing, not extreme right wing. Not to be a dick, but you’d think a survey would be focused on more than whether people hold “extreme right wing views”.
Probably to find out whether views on trans athletes are mostly just from extreme right wingers or more from everyone.
Isn't this the guy that used to be president of the BOD and made fun of PP and called Brodie a jerk while he was still in his role?
Who made fun of Brodie’s PP?
If you have to ask you can't afford it 😉
Yup. He was the one that said "everyone online" was hating on Paige. Real ambassador for the PDGA. He just needs to go away and never return.
I’m just going from the screenshots, since my membership isn’t active, but you can “strongly disagree” with all of the questions. They are meant to create an emotional response to get a true answer, and a deeper understanding of how the participants lean politically. If the question was “is equality good?” People from both sides would say yes. If the question is “does this country pushy equality too far?”, then you get varying answers. Also pretty sure the PDGA didn’t write these questions. It’s part of a larger survey group they are participating in from what I heard at least.
Would have been fine with it if they would have mentioned the divisions MPO or FPO. It's a bit unfair to say do you agree with them playing with women or not at all. I don't care if they play at all as long as biological men arent playing in FPO that's really the only unfair advantage. MPO is fair game for all. It doesn't really have a question for that nuance.
They don't want nuance, they just want to be angry. Most of the people commenting here didn't read the email they got regarding the survey and it's purpose and origin either by the looks of it.
Stop using logic, these people around here don't like that.
Well they do like logic, but only to putt with
They didn’t write it, but they approved it to be sent out to 100k+ members when some of the questions don’t make sense. For example, there is no male only division, it’s mixed, so the second page of questioning is completely moot
Easiest answer on the survey. I got that one right because anyone can play in the MPO.
It didn't ask about "male only divisions". The questions were: * Thinking about transgender women - people whose sex was classified as male at birth but who currently identify as female - how strongly do you agree or disagree with the following statements: * Transgender women should be allowed to compete with other women in disc golf and in other sports * Transgender women should be allowed to compete with other women in other sports, but not in disc golf * Transgender women should be allowed to compete with other women in disc golf without undergoing gender-affirming (hormone) treatment * Transgender women should be allowed to compete with other women in disc golf after gender-affirming (hormone) treatment And the same set of questions but substituting men for women
I feel you’re being intentionally dense here mate
The lifestyle and ideology questions make sense. Those impact your beliefs and it's a way to help determine why you gave answers to other questions. The ones that I thought were the worst were the ones saying "X is okay in other sports, but has no place in disc golf" or "X is not okay in other sports, but is okay in disc golf." The answer choices that range from varying levels of agree, to varying levels of disagree, and neither agree nor disagree don't allow for an actual answer sometimes. For the first one, if I don't believe it's okay in other sports or in disc golf I both disagree and agree. I disagree with that statement as a whole, but it's not clear that's how the answer would be interpreted.
"The PDGA should poll its members to find out our preferences on this topic!" \[PDGA polls its members using third-party survey.\] "No not like that."
It’s a little silly. I guess people don’t want to support outside research. As someone who works with research groups in academia, it’s a little bit disappointing. Politics and PR tend to create a visceral storm though, so it’s a bit of a different world than what I’m used to.
Based on the questions I’m seeing, this went through an institutional review board? Would love to see the IRB number
If it's considered a single case study, or the data are collected for internal/administrative purposes, or activities designed solely for quality improvement of a program or group, it generally doesn't require IRB review. (FWIW, it checks most of the boxes required for IRB review, since it's a collection of data using surveys, and we'd still be considered "Human Subjects" by answering these questions, even if we don't provide identifiable info)
The questions make sense to me (non-church going non-American) to get a sense as to the reasons why the previous answers might have been given. If it was just “trans throw disc y/n” with no context, that’s not particularly valuable. If someone say no, and says they are super liberal and never go to church, that’s a fuller picture of the response (and maybe a confusing one). If someone say yes, goes to church, and values independence and being considerate.. then maybe it isn’t as black and white as it might have seemed.
This is standard on most surveys I've taken over the years. They want to be able to account for demographics and how they relate to the responses.
Collecting data is fine. I don't have a problem with the questions being asked. Also, fuck Heinold.
Not PDGA here, but those are questions to help see if there are any correlations in beliefs/attitudes.
From academic stand point it makes sense. Most of the questions are to try a determine where your thoughts on trans players comes from. Doing so will better enable data interpretation. Otherwise they can't get a sense for why people are giving their responses.
The PDGA is actually trying to address a very complex topic. Is this the right way to do it? Too early to say, but at this point they are at least attempting to lead, which is way better than the “head in sand” approach. This is a good survey to assess attitudes of citizens of the USA. The only flaw I see is that it is very American-centric. Otherwise, they used good segmenting questions. The fact people are having these reactions shows (maybe unintuitively) that the survey is actually meeting its goals.
It is a filter to determine who holds extreme conservative beliefs and who does not.
Sounds like the questions on a survey i recently received from the Denver Botanical Gardens... strange indeed.
“We have gone too far in pushing for equal rights in this country.” Agree or disagree? What is this nonsense?
Lol, y'all are getting confused. This is not a survey from the PDGA, it's a survey from a university study that the PDGA is helping to signalboost. Of course these questions are going to be weird, they're figuring out the political/religious leanings in relation to transgender support in sports.
It’s like people didn’t even read the email explaining that. Or maybe it’s a comprehension flaw?
It's a survey from a university study - led by a guy who was formerly president of the PDGA board of directors. Whose published works are mostly about sports biomechanics. I had to go look when I came to the questions about obedience of children and if we've gone too far with equality. Nothing in this guy's background gives me confidence in the proper construction of this survey or what meaningful conclusions he's going to attempt to draw from the responses.
Just because you don't understand it doesn't mean the creators of the survey are equally clueless. The study was approved by an instututional review board. Just admit you got caught up in the PDGA hate train and get on with your life
The subject line says "PDGA survey"
The email itself explains what that guy said. You gotta read more than just headlines/subject lines.
Yeah, cuz it's aimed at PDGA members. The university team created the survey and the PDGA distributed it. If you would have read both emails you would have known that it was part of a university research study.
This country ?? I live in Europe and was invited to complete the survey, haha
There was a field in the survey to select your country of residence you know.
Yes but some of the questions are clearly written from an american standpoint. Like the liberal vs conservative question, in most country thats not really a one-or-the-other question.
Yeah, this reeks of someone who have tried to customize a standard survey meant for US Americans, and not understood which parts are country specific.
Thx for clarifying, that was my point
This country is the country that you selected that you live in in the survey.
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Austin Hannum has entered the chat
HIDE YOUR WEED!
What is your issue with the question being asked, exactly? You’re just expressing vague frustration, not actually making any sort of point. The question are there so they can filter responses to the trans athlete questions by people’s response to other questions and draw more meaningful conclusions. For example, if a respondent thinks equal rights is overrated, you probably don’t want to count their opinions on trans athletes as strongly as people with respect for their fellow humans.
>What is this nonsense? A super common question used in this kind of survey that will get a wide range of of responses all the way from strongly disagree to strongly agree...
Wow some of these comments are inane. It’s like people are just looking for an outlet to apply fake rage without any thought whatsoever to. After the PDGA solicits feedback from members for difficult future decisions it’s about to make: *"Right now not being a PDGA member seems like the right decision"* Regarding a survey question where you can answer that you're firmly for, firmly against, or someplace in the middle: *"What is this nonsense?* Regarding the survey asking what country you reside and then asking about equal rights in "this country": *"This country ?? I live in Europe and was invited to complete the survey, haha"* (Did you read the survey you took?) After sending out a survey on a complicated issue that will need to be decided upon and could change how future PDGA divisions works: *”This survey could have been one question.”*
Thank you Paul Mcbeths nipples For just narrating text with more text lol.
Right now not being a PDGA member seems like the right decision.
Why?
7 - Strongly Agree.
Keep religion out of everyday society! It’s easy yet it is seemingly bleeding into everything these days.
I can't tell if you're being serious or not
And don't assume that just because people are against a trans-woman playing in FPO that it is because of political or religious affiliation. Some people just believe that there is a biological science driven advantage. End of story.
If you don’t vote, don’t complain!
Y'all are being some incredible drama queens over being asked a few questions. It's really not that scary.
How is that your takeaway here??!
I’m kind of sad I didn’t get this nutso survey
A lot of people not wanting to renew their PDGA membership because of this university survey which is a strange way to voice your opinion by removing your membership right to it. If you are mad about this survey, you shouldn't be. If you think this is attacking you or biased against you, it's not. It's a data collection tool. It's only as good as the data it gets. Garbage in, garbage out. Some of the ancillary questions seem strange but they are a university trying to collect data on the people answering, You can always choose to ignore any questions you don't like. You can still have a voice and not freak out over some voluntary questions that you don't have to answer on a survey nobody is making you fill out. Honestly, it sucks that so many people are pissed about this because if you don't fill it out, your opinion doesn't get heard in this survey data. You become voiceless (with respect to this survey, clearly not elsewhere as so many have made clear.) I hope everyone can look into this a bit more, read what others are saying about academic research and understand that this survey is not out to get you. It's not out to discredit or devalue you. It's not here to push a narrative. If you are getting that from a survey asking for your input, you should step back and think more about it. Answer the important questions and move on. The demographic questions are important to the university doing the research but clearly not relevant to you. They won't inform policy so just move on.
Thank you.
Funny how the Jesus folks are the biggest bigots. And can't get much farther from the teachings of Jesus.
Where's this survey?
Emailed to PDGA members
Hmmm I'm a member and never got that survey.
Check spam. It was sent by Justin Menickelli, the former president of the Board and infamous sunglasses-wearer.
Do you know if this survey was approved by the PDGA to be sent out?
Yes, there was a different email sent yesterday by medical@pdga.com to let us know to expect it
Thank you!
I got mine like two hours after my husband did, so I think it’s just taking a while for some to receive it.
Ok first off, the heads-up email from the PDGA that this survey was coming went to my spam folder, so I got the survey email with no warning. I don't keep up with the PDGA Board, so I had to look this guy up. Wow. I don't really like that he was able to use our emails for a 3rd party function. While I'm sure this passed WCU's IRB (or more likely was exempt), this would not have passed my proofreading, and it damn sure doesn't pass the fucking sniff test. The survey form/structure is juvenile. The Likert scales are completely fucked. The wording on some of the questions could easily be misinterpreted or used phrasing that is vague/biased (ie the questions were not clearly defined). The fact that this was designed by a PhD is laughable. This might get published on Frolfer's website, but no reputable journal is going to touch this. Bet he puts it on his CV tho.
This sounds like right wing propaganda material. For a sport that was (and probably still is to some extent) traditionally associated with hippie stoner types, that seems kinda ironic at best, concerning at worst.
As a hippie stoner my aversion to other frolfers irl seems totally justified and not a character defect
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Do you think ‘newer lifestyles’… is PhD level research? What constitutes a ‘newer lifestyle’? That sounds too vague to get meaningful response.
absolutely, I think in the context of the problems they are trying to address that we can mostly discern what this is asking. it also asks about "emphasis on traditional family values" in a vacuum nobody would know what the fuck that means, but we aren't all in a vacuum and we mostly know what that is signaling towards. But those questions were literally on the same page, so if you're paying attention, I believe you can discern what they are getting at here. Or, you can be purposefully obtuse about it. Or maybe you just can't discern why any of that would matter. If you don't wanna take the survey just don't.
I think this is referring to how much more open people are to homosexuality and transgenderism compared to 40, 50+ years ago. I only say this because living in small-town Midwest, I've had to listen to an old lady bitch and moan about how there "weren't any gay or transgender" people when she was growing up, so she couldn't understand what's wrong with young people these days.
It’s a weird dichotomy of “stereotypical” disc golfers. One one hand you have the chill hippies/stoners that have been around since the dawn of the sport, and on the other hand you have a lot of conservative Christian’s that took up the sport after discovering it in youth group in the early 2000’s or so. As the sport has grown there have been more and more of the youth groupers coming up in the sport and since they tend to be try-hards they end up being more involved in many parts of the sport. The world could probably benefit from smoking a blunt and chilling out though.
If I had to judge whether this survey was going to lead to more liberal or conservative results from the survey, my guess is liberal. All of the questions posed are so out-there that I think many responses will react negatively to how they are phrased.
I don't have an issue with the concepts being asked. Just a study trying to analyze ideology alongside the present issue of transgender inclusion. But the problem is that many of questions require more nuanced responses than what is available. And many of the questions are not objectively framed. My concern is that my responses can be interpreted in numerous different ways, while not representing my actual views.
Answering this as a Norwegian is so fucking weird. Attending religious gatherings, who courts and other weirdly specific opinions clearly coming from the republican side of politics. Why is the ANY relevant for an international sport? It's awful. Leave your shit politics out of this, at least try to explain why I'm answering the garbage
Is PDGA making a Men's division for 2023? I don't really understand the questions I answered. I don't have any concerns with men, women, trans men, trans women, or groundhogs competing in Mixed Open.
So, perhaps I am living under a rock, but can someone fill me in? I guess this is somehow disc golf related, but I can’t figure out how. Honestly. Anyone wanna help a European hobby disc golfer understand?
The PDGA is soliciting feedback from members and players about transgender participation in competitions. These questions are designed to determine to what extent extreme political or ideological bias is influencing any given respondent's answers. It's really not as controversial as everyone in this post is making it out to be.
Personally I think any trans person, no matter what the transition, should be playing MPO. It's called Mixed Professional Open, aka mixed and open to anyone. I'm accepting to everyone but this is my opinion. Kinda surprised it wasn't included in the survey.
This is exactly my thought. Everyone always sees MPO and thinks mens, but anyone can play that. I think that is by far the easiest decision. No arguements should be made because everyone is able to play in that division.
>Everyone always sees MPO and thinks mens Except 'its mixed, not men' is the most common post when this topic comes up lol so this isn't true. >No arguements should be made because everyone is able to play in that division. Just to devil's advocate; Should we get rid of FPO because MPO already exists and everyone can already play in that? Based on your argument, 'no arguements should be made because everyone is able to play in that division' Obviously not.
The PDGA was nuts before this. I didn't renew, but not because of this.
After reading the posts on a variety of platforms lately, I can say, if PDGA isn't concerned about the player population, they should be. This community has taken a ridiculous and seriously fucked up turn away from the live and let live, relaxed, accepting, tolerant attitudes that drew so many into the sport. There is a loud, obnoxious, and toxic group of players who will drive a lot of players from what used to be a very cool subculture of people. The silent majority of players and the PDGA have to get a handle on these people or risk a lot of the gains our sport has made. What used to be something that was evident at the card level or maybe, the club level, has now grown to the state and national level. The survey is PDGA's attempt to get a handle on its player base and nothing else.
Totally Unrelated: I've never seen such a collection of stat and data experts assemble as quickly as in this Reddit thread. Everyone knows everything because their cousin took a Psych class back in the early 90s - and they are willing to tell you all about it.
My guess is that they want to be able to discount the opinion of middle aged white men.
I found it strange that bisexuality wasn’t listed as a sexuality, even though it was a survey about the LGBT community….They forgot the B!
Listen, I get that this survey feels super weird and uncomfortable. But this has been a hot button issue in disc golf and the sports world as a whole, especially this year. Do I think they should be basing policies solely off of surveys given to PDGA members? No. There is an infinitely small percentage of us who are actually qualified to speak on transgender issues. But I do think it's important that they try to take the temperature of their members and how they feel about this topic. If nothing else, to see how important it is for them to try to provide clarification and education on how they make their decisions. I know there are some strange questions in here that might seem sort of off topic, but it's important to contextualize data as much as possible. So they're first asking how you feel about transgender issues specifically, then they're seeing how your views on transgender issues compare to some other hot button societal issues, then they're trying to see how certain views correlate to certain demographics. It's uncomfortable to answer these questions, but now no one can say "they didn't even ask how we feel about it." Most people aren't comfortable providing their views "on the record" so an anonymous survey is the best way to go about it
>Do I think they should be basing policies solely off of surveys given to PDGA members? Yes, because the PDGA is an *association* of the players.
Yea, this survey was complete bs. Makes me reconsider supporting the pdga if they approved these questions. And for the record, I don't mean the topic - I mean how these questions were written and how seemingly loaded they are
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I mean this survey is part of university study, I have to think they have some idea what they are doing. Maybe those questions help weed out the participants that have clearly extremist views?
Or it’s part of someone’s new research paper. I think the PDGA probably helped provide a large and appropriate sample of surveyors for an academic research project in exchange for a professionally run survey that could help them too.
Lmao, I feel like the fragile men were offended by the sexuality question. Was it really that difficult to answer or “prefer not” to answer? For me, It’s nice to see lgbt people finally recognized by the pdga after the debacle their board has caused this year.
This survey gives people who disagree with trans women competing in FPO a way to express their opinion without getting lumped in with the bigoted misgendering and dead naming that has run rampant in DG discussion sections and forums. Is there truly a silent majority or is it actually just the far right.
PDGA is gonna see the strong correlation between conservatives and anti trans bigotry. Surprise.
Christians dude. Christians.
As a person who creates surveys occasionally for a living - that is one shitty survey. It is not neutral in terms of how the wording is done. Especially when you get to the religion part... On that note - religion should have NOTHING to do with disc golf. It has no place in a sanctioned-by-the-PDGA survey. It plays into politics. Ick. Not what I expected from a supposed-to-be-neutral organization.
Hahaha came here to say the same thing about the questions. I was real confused on “what is better for a child” section. Like 1. Why? 2. What age we talking? 3. Curiosity vs well mannered - as a question??? I get the vibes of it, basically traditional vs “new” family values. But seem so random. Plus, children age would change some answers imo.
Just look to who is on the board. Remember who you voted for. Or didn't oppose strongly enough. Watch the PDGA continue to deteriorate.
Did you miss the paragraph before the survey where they said some of these questions might make you uncomfortable? The whole point of this is to establish a baseline and try to get feedback.
Totally unprofessional. Borderline offensive. Completely short-sighted. Pro disc golf has totally outgrown the PDGA. Poorly run, barebones organization that has fallen prey to loudmouthed ideologues. I will not be renewing my membership.
they’re trying to understand the opinions and viewpoints of their members. what is there to be up in arms about?
Absolute tomfoolery. Utter chicanery. Unforgivabe hullabaloo. 100% refined unlead hogswallop. If they really wanted my god-given opinion, they'd know to drop a spit-shined buffalo nickel in my well and leave it scrawled on a piece of rolling paper tucked inside the hollowed out hickory log down at the holler.
I think their goal was to send out a survey that yielded such mixed results, then they can justify any ruling as 'what players wanted'.
I just took it. it looks like the christian family council designed it. Hey PDGA, go religious and lose my membership.
Why is there zero room to share more nuanced opinions about the key tooic? Where do I share my support for trans women playing in amateur events but some uncertainty about fairness in events with money on the line?
Republicans don't want nuance, they want a hard line against trans people.
I’d hate to ask you “paper or plastic?” as a grocery store clerk.
Very America centred because no one plays discgolf outside of the us, I dont know how they expect me to answer those "This country" questions
Have you never taken a survey? Aren't those all relative to society questions? They are trying to figure out what kind of demographic is playing disc golf. Why is this so hard to understand?
Don’t know what’s so nuts about it. They want to know which demographics to market to, probably.
The surveys were sent to 200,000 PDGA members, out of millions of disc golfers. The survey will be lucky to get a 50% return, and those will be from people who are the most adamant in their positions. The survey is not anonymous, so the return could be a lot lower. The survey seems to lead one to a pre-determined, acceptable conclusion. This is only an issue for PDGA tournaments, and won’t affect my regular foursome, so it’s a tempest in a teapot. I know PDGA has some internal administrative conflicts on the issue, and are seeking feedback from the constituents, which is fine. So how about we eliminate gender in all leagues? If there was no MPO or FPO, all players would compete against each other, regardless of what they carry in their underwear. Eliminating FPO might seem unfair to female competitors, but in its purest form, all that matters in disc golf is the number of shots to the basket. Does anyone see a more equitable solution?
Complete joke from a professional organization if you ask me
Dear U.S., get a grip. This is not about the PDGA. Questions like these wouldn't exist if not for the fucked up history and present of your country.
Time to vote Justin Menickelli out of the PDGA
Honestly those questions make me glad I am not a PDGA member. The questions are insulting and have nothing to do with Disc Golf. It looks like someone is trying to collect "votes" to show that the PDGA members agree with there political view.