[slab_happy]

DSD athletes are not trans and so they arent what this is about either, but they are the edge cases where their biology is atypical. They are very very rare...they have "male" testes and their bodies benefit from "male puberty".

Just because I'm a massive pedant: this is technically incorrect in that "DSD" (disorders/differences of sex development) refers to all the conditions otherwise known as "intersex" conditions, a wide category with rather fuzzy boundaries.

Plenty of people with DSDs don't have XY chromosomes and/or don't have testes and/or don't go through "male" puberty.

For example, one relatively common DSD is CAIS (complete androgen insensitivity syndrome), where women have XY chromosomes but their bodies have zero ability to respond to androgens.

The athletes like Caster Semenya who are currently being banned from competing in certain events (unless they have medical treatment to lower their testosterone levels) are those who have specific DSDs which mean that a) they have XY chromosomes and also b) their bodies have the capacity to make use of at least some of the androgens they produce.

Athletes with other DSDs are not banned at all.

[Murph]

Athletes with other DSDs are not banned at all.

Totally agree and apologies if I gave the impression it was anything else.

[slab_happy]

Athletes with other DSDs are not banned at all.

Totally agree and apologies if I the impression it was anything else.

No worries, I just figured it was worth clarifying that point.

[joel182]

Because there will always be a very strong genetics element to sport. Whether that is your natural testosterone level or the length of your legs, size of your hands (especially for something like swimming). So where do we draw the line?

Good question Dexter.

The line used to be drawn at whether an athlete was a woman, which meant female, which meant biologically designed to produce eggs.

So you stop being a woman after menopause or what?

[Murph]

Hi Joel, not sure if serious but no, that really isn't how it works.

The basics: Animals, including mammals, produce gametes (sperm and egg) through meiosis in gonads (testicles in males and ovaries in females).

Hang on, maybe it doesnt work like that. And I was wrong about the cock blown off example too. If I've just nutted am I still a man?

[joel182]

Hi Joel, not sure if serious but no, that really isn't how it works.

The basics: Animals, including mammals, produce gametes (sperm and egg) through meiosis in gonads (testicles in males and ovaries in females).

Hang on, maybe it doesnt work like that. And I was wrong about the cock blown off example too. If I've just nutted am I still a man?

So, maybe its time to move on from 'the basics'. These really aren't simple questions.

Much like if you want to move on from a basic understanding of physics you have to go beyond a simple model of an indivisible atom and study quarks and crazy math that I'm not clever enough to understand, if you want to really understand the biology of the sexes you have to put aside the simple definitions and embrace the complexity.

Questions like "does having two X chromosomes make you female?" or "does the SRY gene make you male?" are really difficult to answer. Even lacking a precise definition of male/female we can have a pretty good go at it. In both of these cases it seems the answer is no, and - in my opinion anyway - that's a cool answer! Genetics and our understanding of sex and gender are interesting topics because they are difficult and complicated, not cause they're super simple.

[JulieM]

Deleted as I've read more of the thread and realised the point has been made several times.

[JulieM]

I feel like there's a couple of missing voices in this conversation (not specifically on here). One of them is this one:-


The other is the voice of the elite female athletes. The Inga Thompson article linked by Ben above is an interesting one (as an ex-elite athlete herself) in that underlying message of what she's saying agrees with a lot of folk on here (trans-women shouldn't be allowed in elite female sport), but the way she's said it (equating it with the BLM struggle and saying people should take the knee) is a bit grim. I'd like to hear the voice of the elite female athlete both pro and anti-inclusion, but with a more measured approach to the what and why than Thompson managed. Katie Archibald made a statement last year that is one of the few I've seen.

Unfortunately many current female athletes feel that they can't speak out for fear of losing sponsorship or being deluged with negative publicity. As set out in the 2021 Sports Council report "The overwhelming majority of people who considered fairness and safety could not be achieved with transgender inclusion into female sport did not feel confident to voice these opinions. Some said that they had been threatened with sanction or disciplinary action if they spoke out. Many of the interviewees who held positions with sporting agencies said their personal opinions were in direct conflict with that of their employer or agency’s stated position, many felt they had no option but to remain silent in order to keep their job.". These women only took part in the research because they were given the opportunity to contribute anonymously.

On a personal note, I responded last year to the British Orienteering Federation's consultation on transgender participation and felt a pang of discomfort when they asked for my membership number to allow me to respond. Not that I'm a pro athlete or sponsored or anything (I'm very much a bottom of the results plodder) but I just felt nervous about publicly expressing views that, in some circles, would have me labelled as a transphobe.

[JulieM]

Exactly the same arguments were advanced for women in the military and the physical demands required, particularly for the elite arms, by well qualified experts, thirty years ago. For the elite arms, up until about five years ago. Pretty damn sure when the MOD lifted the embargo, they were expecting (under expert advice) to be proved correct in their prior position that the data showed women would never be able to achieve the requirements.

Not to be dismissive of military training but they're not pushing the boundaries of human physical achievement and so it's much easier to gain parity (though arguably women are probably working harder to meet those standards than men are). At the extremes of sporting prowess those distinctions between male and female become much more pronounced.

Given the societal pressures that almost all females have been raised under and which are only now beginning to be altered; we have no clue of the full potential or even what an “average” woman might look like, act or be capable of, within a couple of generations.

You probably had a point 40 years ago but the gender gap in world records has been pretty static since the 80s, suggesting that the low hanging fruit of challenging societal expectations, access to training facilities etc has largely been picked. Additionally, I feel like this argument is somewhat insulting to female athletes. It's like saying they're just not trying hard enough, that they could be competing with the men if their parents had given them a football instead of a Barbie, or if they spent more time training and less time, I dunno, painting their nails or something.

[Oldmanmatt]

You probably had a point 40 years ago but the gender gap in world records has been pretty static since the 80s, suggesting that the low hanging fruit of challenging societal expectations, access to training facilities etc has largely been picked. Additionally, I feel like this argument is somewhat insulting to female athletes. It's like saying they're just not trying hard enough, that they could be competing with the men if their parents had given them a football instead of a Barbie, or if they spent more time training and less time, I dunno, painting their nails or something.

On the military training, you underestimate the requirements at the elite arm level. Significantly so.

On the above, really?

Did I suggest anything about painting nails? What an arsehole response.

I’ve spent the last decade or so dealing with the impediments thrown up by society/sporting bodies against both my daughters; just to compete in youth competitions (the FA being the worst). It wouldn’t even occur to me to blame the girls themselves.
The bullying from other players and even coaches (once an official) of my youngest daughter, because she plays in a mixed team (she’s 14) and is the only girl; is staggering. Despite being the striker and the teams top scorer (actually, I tend to think because is more accurate). Some of the stuff that parents have shouted, really crushed her and her mother. “Fuck up the fat bitch” (when she was twelve). “Flatten the fucking dyke” (last season, she was 13, it was a Mum that shouted that). She’s been physically assaulted, off the pitch.
Until recently, there was no opportunity for her to play for a girls team, there simply wasn’t one locally. She’s shifting to a girls team now, because she’s actually found one that really plays and is now entering the Pioneer youth league. However, the main motivation is that the bullying has ramped up again, from her own team.

One example.

I don’t believe I’ve seen either of the girls wearing nail polish, except for weddings and school proms. The youngest flat refuses to wear a dress or skirt. (Which lead to her primary school amending it’s uniform policy, some years back).

Incidentally, the youngest couldn’t play football for her primary school, because the school coach (a woman), stated bluntly that girls should not play football. There was a huge push back by a few parents and the teacher ended up taking early retirement. She’s 14 now. She’s still not allowed to play football in PE, because girls are not allowed to play football in that school, except as an after school club.

I’m pretty sure society has moved on dramatically from when I was 10, but I’m fucking certain it has a long. Long, way to go before something approaching parity is achieved.

[Oldmanmatt]

Actually, not the best response, too emotionally motivated.

What I’m talking about, is that even after the provision of opportunity (which is still largely only available in the “West”), the “Crab Bucket” effect is still very strong.

This isn’t something that affects only sports, or even just women. Education, social mobility, employment/career aspirations etc etc are all subject to it.

When any individual attempts to move in to (?, well you know what I mean) an area that their immediate family/society/peer group think is “not for the likes of them”, that family/society/peer group will apply all kinds of pressures to prevent that move.

Since I don’t believe that women, in general, in the West (let alone in developing countries) are as free to choose their sporting activities as their male counterparts, I don’t believe the pool of elite female athletes currently competing, is truly representative of the general pool, that would be available, if everything was truly equal, from the earliest stages of development. This is not a condemnation of the current elite female athletes. Far from it. Even in “accepted” female sports, those at the top have overcome considerable pressure from society that would rather see them as baby makers. I guarantee that somebody (even if a minority opinion) will openly tell an elite female athlete that she should be at home looking after children, or some such. I don’t suppose anybody ever said that to Lynford Christie.

[slab_happy]

In 2003 the IOC were willing to accept trans women so long as they had (cock & balls off?) reassignment surgery, hormones and legal regocnition (no athletes fitting this description ever qualified) but in 2016 this was changed to just hormone reduction.

And one single trans woman's qualified for the Olympics since then (Laurel Hubbard) -- and she's had surgery so would have qualified under the old rules too.

Hardly an opening of the floodgates.

If a trans woman's on hormone therapy, whether she's had surgery or not won't make any difference to her athletic performance (hormone therapy can get simpler after orchiectomy because your body's no longer producing any testosterone so you don't need to take anti-androgens to suppress it, but the same effect is produced by taking anti-androgens before surgery).

in Canadan weightlifting it's anyone saying they are a woman on the day

Actually, the Canadian Powerlifting Union's comp rules apparently require showing a passport with the same gender as the category you intend to compete in.

And changing the gender marker on your passport in Canada requires signing a legal declaration. So, if he did that, dude just committed document fraud, which sounds fun for him: https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/C-46/section-57.html

But in any case, if the only person abusing the system is a cis guy trolling, that's not an argument against trans women being allowed to compete.

[Murph]

And one single trans woman's qualified for the Olympics since then (Laurel Hubbard) -- and she's had surgery so would have qualified under the old rules too.

Hubbard was just the first openly trans athlete

In 2019 Phillipa york said it would be 100 years before we see the first openly trans olympian so while I'd agree it wasnt a flood, it was comfortably ahead of York's prediction. Idk, maybe she was a bit biased or blinkered. I also don't know what difference "openly" makes here unless its to distinguish from alleged male doping in the good old days (there may have been males competing as females before sex testing was a thing). Either was, I don't think it makes any difference whether the male competing against females is openly or secretly trans, this is about fairness.

Is there really no difference between athletic performance of a male with or without gonads? Im not the expert here, you are, but my understanding was that if you keep your balls then you take some drugs that lower T to get into ghe range. If you lose your balls then your T goes down to zero. You cant function to any extent in any athletic pursuit and then have to take exogenous T to make up for it. But if you are a woman I don't think you can just take T if yours is a bit low and you fancy a boost. Is that right? Is it fair?

Canadian dude is the former Head Coach of Canadian Powerlifting and was protesting an unfair rule.

Fraud or not, if Canadian law doesn't require a person to be on some sort of WADA-approved hormone therapy in order to be legally recognised as a female/woman then - in the interest of fairness - Canadian legal recognition shouldn't be used to determine who is eligible to compete. Do you agree?

[Ballsofcottonwool]

Biology aside, anyone assigned male at birth has an advantage due to male privilege and the misogynist nature of human society.

[Murph]

Actually, not the best response, too emotionally motivated.

I have nothing but empathy / sympathy with what you've been through here OMM - it sounds disgusting and unacceptable.

Football or other team sports to one side....do you honestly believe that the reason there is a systematic 10%+ difference in running times between the best males and females is because of opportunity and bias?

I am talking about pure athletic or power output.

The way you talk about it, it's as if you think that gap is entirely or at least mostly because of society when JulieM is saying it really isn't.

This doesn't mean I condone any of the behaviour you have faced, I want to be super clear about that.

[Oldmanmatt]

Actually, not the best response, too emotionally motivated.

I have nothing but empathy / sympathy with what you've been through here OMM - it sounds disgusting and unacceptable.

Football or other team sports to one side....do you honestly believe that the reason there is a systematic 10%+ difference in running times between the best males and females is because of opportunity and bias?

I am talking about pure athletic or power output.

The way you talk about it, it's as if you think that gap is entirely or at least mostly because of society when JulieM is saying it really isn't.

This doesn't mean I condone any of the behaviour you have faced, I want to be super clear about that.

No.

My point was (way back) that whilst it will always be more likely that a “man” will be (for the sake of argument) the worlds fastest over 100m, given the massive increase in population, ever increasing access, opportunity and shifting societal attitudes, at some point, the person with the best combination of power, weight etc, might just have been born without balls. Between that and now, a variety of possibilities exist.
Currently, there are 3 billion-ish women on the planet. The genetic variety and combinations is mind boggling.
To take a hypothetical extreme to illustrate, imagine all 3 billion women are born today, raised and nurtured identically to their brothers, every single one trained and prepared to run the 100m. Do you not think we would see a considerable improvement of the best times, over the real current times?
Of course, doing the same with the males would improve their times too.
But, there is going to be a diminishing return, there is a maximum speed that a human can reach under it’s own steam, a plateau around which only the conditions of the day will determine the “winner”.
To be clear, if you are an Olympic 100m runner, you are a freak. If you are the world record holder, today, I don’t even know what to call you, because you are 1 in 7 billion (actually, way more, because as far as we know, you are faster than any other human who ever existed).

Ultimately, my underlying point is that, trying to judge where women’s performance in the 100m might peak, based on where we are after barely more than a single lifetime’s worth, of thus far limited emancipation and opportunity, seems ambitious.

[slab_happy]

Biology aside, anyone assigned male at birth has an advantage due to male privilege and the misogynist nature of human society.

I may be misunderstanding your intent here, but I feel like I have to point out that society certainly doesn't continue to grant anyone "male privilege" if they come out as a trans woman.

Transmisogny (hatred directed at trans women specifically for being trans women) is real and incredibly virulent, and trans women are the victims of violence (including sexual violence) at horrifically high rates.

So yes, we live in a misogynist society -- and trans women are targets of that hatred too.

[slab_happy]

Hubbard was just the first openly trans athlete

So we might have two whole competitors?

And I see that (if the allegations are true and she is trans), Barrett has also had surgery and would also have qualified under the old rules.

However, I will note that the Washington Times is a very right-wing newspaper owned by the Moonies which has promoted conspiracy theories like the Seth Rich one, claims that Barack Obama was a secret Muslim, and claims that the January 6th attack on the Capitol was really carried out by "Antifa". And the entire story seems to be based on obsessive transphobe Graham Linehan finding an old unverified Twitter account which people think might be Barrett's. So personally I'm going to take it with a pinch of salt.

But in any case, if she is trans, then she's also had surgery and the rule change would make no difference for her.

If you lose your balls then your T goes down to zero. You cant function to any extent in any athletic pursuit and then have to take exogenous T to make up for it.

Nope, as far as I'm aware trans women who've had orchiectomies don't have to take exogenous T in order to "function to any extent to any athletic pursuit."

I'm not sure where you got that idea from? If you've got a source for it, let me know.

Is there really no difference between athletic performance of a male with or without gonads?

If by "males" you mean trans women -- thinking about it, I don't know off the top of my head if anyone's done a direct comparison between the performance of trans women who are taking anti-androgens to suppress testosterone to "normal female" levels and those who've had orchiectomies. Though I doubt it because there's so little research full stop.

Arguably, the latter group at least could be disadvantaged compared to cis women, since we do get a bit of testosterone produced by our ovaries.

And there are plenty of cis women with testosterone levels that are naturally above the ones trans women are now required to meet in some sports (2.5 nnm/l), and as long as you don't have XY chromosomes, there's no requirement to suppress endogenous testosterone at all.

But the goal of anti-androgens as part of hormone therapy is to suppress testosterone as much as possible anyway; trans women aren't trying to hang onto any of it, because they are trying to reverse the effects of testosterone on their bodies. That's kind of the point.

(This makes it in some respects much less of a conflict than with DSD athletes, where many of them very understandably don't want to be forced into medically unecessary treatment to change their bodies when they're perfectly fine with them.)

If by "males" you mean men -- there's obviously a huge difference between the performance of a man who's had his testicles removed, and one who hasn't and who also isn't taking anti-androgens because he's not a trans woman.

This is an example of why talking about trans women as "males" is unclear and potentially misleading, by the way.

[Murph]

Sorry slab I thought I thought i would help out by saying more than one but maybe the WT are full of shit. Heres another lot mKing the claim, probably even more full of shit . While we are here though I also raise you a third trans woman at Tokyo. I dont claim to know how many competed in total, just that the "only one" claim that is regularly made is likely to not be totally accurate.

Of course, not a flood, but certainly it wasnt "none for at least a hundred years" as predicted by York.

The orchiectomy point, like I say, not the expert, happy to accept that balls-on makes no difference so long as hormones controlled. I cant remember where I got the idea and a quick Google didn't help.

[mrjonathanr]

I found this summary of World Athletics’s current rules around this helpful:
world-athletics-new-regulations-dsd-transgender-athletes

[slab_happy]

Sorry slab I thought I thought i would help out by saying more than one but maybe the WT are full of shit. Heres another lot mKing the claim, probably even more full of shit . While we are here though I also raise you a third trans woman at Tokyo. I dont claim to know how many competed in total, just that the "only one" claim that is regularly made is likely to not be totally accurate.

Of course, not a flood, but certainly it wasnt "none for at least a hundred years" as predicted by York.

The orchiectomy point, like I say, not the expert, happy to accept that balls-on makes no difference so long as hormones controlled. I cant remember where I got the idea and a quick Google didn't help.

Okay, so we've definitely got Chelsea Wolfe as well.  Though she went as a reserve on the team and didn't actually end up competing.

(And hey, Google tells me she's autistic!  Cue me doing the "one of us, one of us" chant. This has absolutely no relevance to the current discussion, just makes me happy.)

I'm not sure why you think it invalidating York's prediction is so significant, though. That's just one opinion from a retired athlete who happens to be trans.

And obviously we both agree that it's not a flood.

[Fiend]

(And hey, Google tells me she's autistic!  Cue me doing the "one of us, one of us" chant. This has absolutely no relevance to the current discussion, just makes me happy.)

That goes back to Barrow"s anecdote on the other thread that his friend in the medical profession found there was invarably underlying mental health conditions with trans perple, leading to the possibility of "Cure the autism, cure the trans leanings". I wonder if leeches, trepanning, or electric shock therapy would be best?? 

[slab_happy]

If you lose your balls then your T goes down to zero. You cant function to any extent in any athletic pursuit and then have to take exogenous T to make up for it.

Nope, as far as I'm aware trans women who've had orchiectomies don't have to take exogenous T in order to "function to any extent to any athletic pursuit."

I'm not sure where you got that idea from? If you've got a source for it, let me know.

Men competing in the men's category who have unusually low testosterone because of a DSD or other medical condition are allowed to take exogenous testosterone under a therapeutic use exemption, e.g. this Olympic swimmer:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedro_Spajari

So I'm wondering if that could possibly what you're thinking of? But that's because it's considered necessary treatment for a medical condition, not because you need testosterone to "function to any extent to any athletic pursuit".

(Also, doesn't apply to women.)

There are female athletes who have CAIS, whose bodies are incapable of responding in any way to androgens (and who thus don't even get the physical effects from androgens that non-DSD cis women experience -- famously, women with CAIS tend to have great skin because they don't get androgens causing acne!).

[slab_happy]

Sorry slab I thought I thought i would help out by saying more than one but maybe the WT are full of shit. Heres another lot mKing the claim, probably even more full of shit .

Oh, I registered that the claim got repeated a fair bit, especially in anti-trans circles (if a site insists on referring to trans women as "trans-identified males", that's a very loud dogwhistle -- they use it to avoid ever saying "trans women", and also because they can abbreviate it to "TIM" and they think it's hilariously witty to have an acronym that's a man's name to apply to trans women).

But it still doesn't seem to have a source other than, as I said, obsessive transphobe Graham Linehan finding an old unverified Twitter account which might be Barrett's.

Worth being aware that there's a whole thing where some people get very into "transvestigating" and trying to prove that famous or semi-famous or mildly notable people are "secretly trans". It seems like a hobby for some of them.

Recently some of them came up with a conspiracy theory that Daniel Radcliffe was only expressing support for trans rights because his girlfriend is "secretly trans", which they concluded because she's tall and looks insufficiently feminine for them. She is now pregnant:

https://www.thepinknews.com/2023/04/09/daniel-radcliffe-erin-darke-transphobia/

So, yeah, Barrett might or might not be trans, but I feel it's probably best to avoid that whole rabbit hole and stick to discussion of the athletes like Hubbard and Wolfe who we know are actually definitely trans.

[slab_happy]

(And hey, Google tells me she's autistic!  Cue me doing the "one of us, one of us" chant. This has absolutely no relevance to the current discussion, just makes me happy.)

That goes back to Barrow"s anecdote on the other thread that his friend in the medical profession found there was invarably underlying mental health conditions with trans perple, leading to the possibility of "Cure the autism, cure the trans leanings". I wonder if leeches, trepanning, or electric shock therapy would be best?? 

Miriam Cates would support exorcism, I suspect ...

(Okay, we only know that her church did exorcisms to try to cure gay people of being gay, but I think we can make a guess.)

Actually, historically, one whole school of conversion therapy aimed at stopping "effeminate" male children from growing up to be gay or trans was deeply intertwined with a lot of the same psychologists trying the same tactics to "cure" autistic children. In both cases, the strategy being basically "punish them until they stop acting weird".

I might dig up some links later, but it's incredibly depressing and involves at least one suicide and thus feels like a bit of a downer in a reply to a joke.