UKBouldering.com
places to visit => indoor walls => competitions => Topic started by: Fiend on May 06, 2023, 07:32:21 pm
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It seems it's okay to discuss sensitive gender issues on this forum so far, and this is a topic I've been wanting to post for a while to see what ideas people can explore, so here we go. This is meant to be separate from the general trans issues thread (https://ukbouldering.com/board/index.php/topic,33540.0.html), and hopefully it will work to keep general TG issues there.
This topic about the question: Should what degree should trans-gender women be able to compete in biological women's sport events? And of course on here it can apply very much to climbing competitions.
A couple of assumptions (this is based on my understanding, not extensive research):
1. There is a consistent difference between biological males and biological females in most physical aspects of most sports (presumably including muscle mass, strength, speed, endurance etc), and this leads to a consistent difference in competitive sport performance, hence almost universal segregation of men's and women's competitive sports to provide a more equal playing field within the genders.
2. Since the difference is usually manifest as biological males having an advantage over biological females, the main TG-related issue would seem to be that TG women could have a possible advantage over biological women, and that the other way around, TG men are less likely to have a possible advantage over biological men, hence the focus of the question.
So back to the question:
Should what degree should trans-gender women be able to compete in biological women's sport events, given that they could have an advantage over biological women due to having been born biological men had having gone through some advantageous physical development as biological men?
From chatting to a few friends, male and female, there seems to be a few "solutions":
1. Yes they should be allowed, subject to mild regulations such as hormone levels, as that's most fair to TG women - but this is then possibly unfair to biological women athletes due the possible advantage above.
2. No they should not be allowed as that's most fair to biological women - but this is then possibly unfair to TG women who are wanting to treated fully as female and thus express themselves as female athletes.
3. Yes BUT subject to strict regulations about when the TG women have started hormone therapy and started transitioning, to prevent excess advantageous development as biological males (this has been proposed in some sports bodies, sorry no citations I'll leave that slab_happy), as this will have the closest possible result of being a level playing field as the TG women will be as close as possible physically as biological women - but this seems to have a whole lot of complexities as to what is suitably stringent and also what could be dangerous or premature for TG women.
4. No BUT there should be a separate category for TG athletes, as this would bypass the physical advantage issue - but there's unlikely to be nearly enough TG athletes for this to be feasible.
It seems to me there is no right answer, only "least wrong" ones. Having said that, in a very small sample size, it seems to be 2. i.e. No, that is the least wrong. My transphobic friends jump on that straight away with militant dogmatism that precludes any form of discussion or acknowledgement of it being a grey area and other answers being worth considering, but my open-minded friends, and myself, also conclude 2. (or maybe 2.5!) after some pondering and discussion, if only on the basis of ethical principles of the most happiness / least harm to the greater number of people.
However I would be interested to read other ideas!!
P.S. This can very obviously be viewed in the context: What would one feel ethically about the issue, as a spectator, interested follower, or indeed female climber, in terms of the IFSC climbing competitions (which I'm now back watching with interest)??
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I’ll kick off by saying you’re asking the wrong question to get to a sensible answer.
A better question to ask would be:
What is ‘sport’ and what is sport’s purpose? To what extent should ‘sport’ be regulated (or not regulated) to provide as level a playing field as possible for all sporting participants? To what extent does amateur versus professional status in sport change the answer?
Figure that out, and the gender/transgender status of participants in ‘sport’ naturally follows.
But my knee-jerk answer would be ‘4’. Not enough participants? Well-done you got a silver for being second out of 3. Used to be the same for some age groups/genders in climbing comps but numbers grow over time to reflect increased prevalence in the population. That seems ‘fair’.
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The separate female category exists because males are bigger, faster, stronger, and have a greater percentage of lean muscle mass. In most sports, this gives males a significant advantage that cannot be overcome by greater talent or work.
The separate female category allows females to compete where it would otherwise be impossible for them to compete at the top level. In contact/combat sports, it allows females to compete without the added safety risk of competing with bigger, faster, stronger people.
Once someone has gone through male puberty, they will always retain much of that advantage over someone who went through female puberty. Hormone treatment reduces the size of the advantage, but it does not remove it, a significant advantage remains for life.
So I can't see any way that someone who has been through male puberty can be accommodated in competitive female sport.
That then leaves us with the question of how best to accommodate transgender athletes within competitive sport. I don't have a satisfactory answer to this:
1) They cannot compete fairly and safely in women's sport, regardless of hormone treatment.
2) They cannot compete fairly and safely with men or they'll be subject to the same disadvantages.
3) Having a separate transgender category (or 2 categories?) seems exclusionary. In niche sports, there would be very few people to compete against. This still feels like the least bad option to me.
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3
Especially as its not like athletes aren't already subjected to strict hormonal regulations anyway (which a lot of them circumvent)
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None of the above.
There should be a balance struck between the rights of non-trans people to fair competition and the rights of trans people to inclusion, but you're not going to achieve that with a one-size-fits-all approach. There is far too much variation between sports and within the population of competing trans people to apply one pan-sport rule. Much better would be for a sport's governing body to have a panel of experts who know the sport and its science to make decisions on an individual basis. This body can hand down a guidance policy to the grass roots and, if they cannot make a decision or if there is an appeal, it can be referred up the chain.
There's probably practical issues within that model but that's my "in an ideal world" scenario.
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Pete: I'll kick it right back at you with the riposte that the question I've posted is the question people are actually asking (and is more interesting and of more practical concern than whether Rowling should be crucified upside down or boiled in acid (whynotboth?)), from what I see in the media and social media. I don't see as many people asking questions about the existential nature of sport - BUT I do think yours are very good questions too (along with the value of competition too).
Will: Washing one's hands of it and passing the buck is definitely a valid answer. But if it's done on a sport-by-sport basis, what would be an optimum answer for competitive climbing?? (Given we're all armchair experts on that)
Incidentally I just remembered that I came up with another likely wrong answer whilst discussing this before:
5. Yes but without any placing, i.e. allowed TG women to compete in women's sport for their own personal challenge / satisfaction, but they don't get positioned within any rankings, don't get medals etc - the sort of compromise that will probably be unappealing for both sides.
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It's not washing your hands of it to defer the decision-making to people who actually know what they're talking about. Nobody ever gave me the buck to pass.
I'm not even an armchair expert on competitive climbing. For instance, I don't know whether there are any climbing-specific developments that occur during puberty which would confer a lifelong unfair competitive advantage.
One thing I do know about climbing is that it's possible to do well at it by being good at different elements of it. Was it Margo Hayes who flexibilitied her way up La Rambla with a less burly sequence than the men who were trying it? That might not be so applicable to comp climbing and I don't know to what extent hormone therapies will make things more fair. I think Taylor Parsons might have touched upon it in the podcast but I can't remember the specifics.
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2 or 4 seems best to me. I dislike Will's idea - if there happens to be a sport where sex doesnt matter then just remove the categories full stop
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2 or 4 seems best to me. I dislike Will's idea - if there happens to be a sport where sex doesnt matter then just remove the categories full stop
Show jumping comes to mind as a sport where gender does not seem to predict performance. There are a few more.
For most sports, anyone who has taken steroids has an unfair advantage over other athletes as the improvements to muscle cells are permanent. That is why I think that there should be lifetime bans after testing positive for steroids, regardless of circumstances. If someone who has taken steroids still see themselves as a competitive athlete, well tough luck. (This is quite a lot more common situation than trans athletes, and I do feel a lot stronger about this than the original topic.)
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We've discussed this in person so I guess you know my views on this. I think we have to go back to the fundamental question of the purpose of sex segregation in sport. It allows women to compete on a level playing field, allows the best women to succeed and recognises female excellence and without it the Olympics etc would be a total sausagefest. This is because men have natural physical advantages in strength, power, muscle mass, height, body composition that mean that in the vast majority of cases they'll be able to run/ride/swim faster, throw further, press more weight etc than a woman of equivalent ability. I think this this is fairly uncontroversial so the question then becomes; to what extent can this be mitigated by interventions (e.g. hormone treatment)?
From what I've read and listened to, it seems clear that no amount of hormone regulation can completely remove the male advantage gained through undergoing male puberty. If adult T suppression fully worked then you'd expect to see trans women performing at the same level relative to women as they did to their male peers before they transitioned but that doesn't seem to be the case - instead they go from good performances to winning medals, breaking records etc. The Science of Sport podcast has done several very good episodes going through the data that are worth seeking out.
The second question then is how much unfairness are we prepared to tolerate in the name of inclusion? The argument here seems to be that there aren't that many trans women so what does is matter if a few women are denied podium positions, sports scholarships, sponsorship deals, olympic places etc because the principle of inclusion is more important. And that not upsetting or disadvantaging trans women by making them compete with men in an open category is more important than not disadvantaging cis women. This is a value judgment that sports bodies are entitled to make but they should be honest that they're making that trade off instead of pretending there's a way to balance safety, fairness and inclusion with no losers. Personally my preference is for either a trans category or for the men's category to become 'open' as the best way forward in most cases, but I do accept that this does come with some psychological/emotional drawbacks for the trans athlete community.
As to climbing specifically, I do feel like there's less of a male advantage than in other sports. As a few points of anecdata, I used to be very into ju jitsu but sadly, there were few women at my university club at a similar level. So I'd often be paired up with men and even when weight matched, could be easily overpowered if we were at the same sort of skill level. In fact I've done a fair few male dominated sports (road cycling and MTB) and invariably, comparing my results in sportives or enduros, I place considerably higher against women than against men. But at my level I've never really felt disadvantaged in climbing vs my male peers, probably because climbing is so much more complicated with head factors, technique, flexibility, route choice etc all playing into it. But at the top end the men are better, they do harder problems in comps etc, so my suspicion is that the weight of evidence would suggest that trans inclusion in women's comp climbing should probably not be allowed.
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{Okay, I just realized this turned into one of my ridiculously long posts, so apologies in advance for that.}
From what I've read and listened to, it seems clear that no amount of hormone regulation can completely remove the male advantage gained through undergoing male puberty.
Personally, I don't think the science is anywhere near a consensus on this -- from what I've read, it's still very much being fought over. There's a massive shortage of research specifically on athletes (rather than trying to extrapolate from studies on untrained people), and almost all of the research reviews seem to be written by people with an agenda one way or another, which makes it hard to assess. I've got my personal biases, but I think there's room for good-faith discussion.
Nobody seems to be arguing about the fact that hormone therapy produces a major drop in performance across most dimensions; the question is just how much that is, how long it takes, and whether it's enough to remove all potential advantages.
And when people make claims about retained advantages from puberty, some of the time it's about things like height and bone density, which I raise my eyebrows at a lot.
Yes, people who go through a "male" puberty will tend on average to be taller, and height doesn't change significantly after hormone therapy, and being taller can be an advantage in some sports -- but that doesn't mean that a trans woman will have an unfair advantage over a cis woman who's the same height. Tall cis women also exist! Short trans women exist! You're talking about stuff which is well within the natural range of variation for cis women too.
There was a mildly farcical thing a couple of years back when the Rugby Football Union announced that trans women players who were over 170cm tall or 90kg in weight would need to undergo a special assessment to see if they posed a risk to other players -- and a whole lot of cis women started pointing out that they exceed those limits.
(I'm over 170cm tall, and I think anyone who's met me in real life would be able to tell you that I would not be a safety hazard for anyone to play rugby with. Once they stopped pissing themselves laughing at the idea.)
It really strikes me as "off" to treat those things as examples of retained advantages and count it against against people that they can't change their skeletons, when it doesn't give them any advantage over a cis woman of the same height and build (and there are plenty of cis women with those heights and builds).
You have the logical implication that, in the entirely imaginary and implausible event of me getting into a climbing competition, it wouldn't be an unfair advantage for me to be the height I am, but if a trans woman competitor was exactly the same height as me, that'd be an unfair advantage caused by her being trans ...? Just does not make sense in my brain.
So that strikes me as very different from things like aerobic endurance and explosive power, which (if retained) clearly would provide specific advantages.
If adult T suppression fully worked then you'd expect to see trans women performing at the same level relative to women as they did to their male peers before they transitioned but that doesn't seem to be the case - instead they go from good performances to winning medals, breaking records etc.
Except that no trans woman has ever won an Olympic medal (only one's even made it into the Olympics), and the only records being broken that I can find seem to be regional or age-group ones, and there really aren't that many of those.
I found one article on trans women winning medals and it had to resort to including billiards, darts and "disc golf" ("formerly known as frisbee golf" according to Google) to get the number up to 20, which suggests that the numbers are not exactly overwhelming:
https://www.outsports.com/trans/2022/3/1/22948400/transgender-trans-athlete-championship-national-world-title
Lia Thomas's best times aren't even near those of Katie Ledecky, the reigning record holder, and this round-up found out that her times wouldn't have been enough to win in most years out of the past 10:
https://www.essentiallysports.com/us-sports-news-swimming-news-lia-thomas-is-fast-but-stats-reveals-she-wont-even-make-it-to-top-10-against-katie-ledecky/
Most of the claims about athletes going from being good when competing as men to great as women seem to be based on micro-scrutiny of the careers of Thomas and of Laurel Hubbard specifically, and arguments about exactly how good they were or weren't when they were competing as men.
But Joanna Harper's work on trans distance runnners (which is very small scale, but among the very little research out there that's actually on trans athletes) found that people's age grades (their times compared to the records for their age and gender) stayed remarkably similar after transition.
Like I said, super small scale, it only involved eight people, we need more and better research, but I feel like that still puts it slightly ahead of trying to generalize based on two people:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/307766116_Race_Times_for_Transgender_Athletes
And you've had trans women competing in some sports as women since at least 1977 (when Renee Richards won a lawsuit to be allowed to compete in the US Open).
If there's this huge retained advantage, IMHO we should be seeing women's world records being annihilated, we should have seen it ages ago -- and instead the best trans women athletes are performing in a way which is completely in keeping with how very good women athletes in their sport are performing. They're not even at the very top! None of them have been truly exceptional or ground-breaking so far, just "very good"!
So we get into these micro-arguments about whether these two specific athletes went from "pretty good" competing as men to "very good" competing as women, or not. To me, that's just not enough to convince me that there's this obvious retained advantage.
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3. Yes BUT subject to strict regulations about when the TG women have started hormone therapy and started transitioning, to prevent excess advantageous development as biological males (this has been proposed in some sports bodies, sorry no citations I'll leave that slab_happy)
Oh hi, it's me! :wave:
If you're thinking about the sports (e.g. World Aquatics) which have announced that they'll allow trans women to compete only if they can prove they did not experience “any part of male puberty beyond Tanner Stage 2 or before age 12, whichever is later" -- IMHO, that's actually cruel, because not only do incredibly few children get started on medical treatment that early, it's in a climate where half the world is doing its damnedest to ensure that even fewer are allowed to:
"We're going to ban gender-affirming medical care for kids -- but then we'll punish people because they weren't able to get it quickly enough!"
It might not be an unreasonable move in a world where it was normal and common and easy for trans kids to be getting medical treatment by the age of 12, and people who didn't come out and get treatment until later would be the rare unfortunate exceptions.
But it's a slap in the face when it's almost impossible for anyone to meet those criteria.
In the UK currently, I believe that to be getting puberty blockers by 12, you’d need to be out as trans, have convinced your family to get on board, have a referral, and get onto the GIDS waiting list by around age 7. And there are some kids who are that loud and assertive about who they are, but it’s still a hell of a hurdle to expect a seven-year-old to clear!
However, regarding the miniscule group of people who did get treatment that early (and I don't know if there are even any competitive athletes from that group at the moment), I will note that as far as I can see, there's no conceivable way they could have an advantage. They can't retain any advantages from having gone through male puberty, because they never went through it.
(And pre-puberty, performance differences between boys and girls are more-or-less nonexistent.)
So if 2 and 4 would ban even those women who transitioned before puberty, I can't see any rationale for that except transphobia.
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None of the above.
There should be a balance struck between the rights of non-trans people to fair competition and the rights of trans people to inclusion, but you're not going to achieve that with a one-size-fits-all approach. There is far too much variation between sports and within the population of competing trans people to apply one pan-sport rule. Much better would be for a sport's governing body to have a panel of experts who know the sport and its science to make decisions on an individual basis. This body can hand down a guidance policy to the grass roots and, if they cannot make a decision or if there is an appeal, it can be referred up the chain.
There's probably practical issues within that model but that's my "in an ideal world" scenario.
This is a valid point. Different sports have really different demands and contexts.
I'm fascinated that roller derby is one of the few sports with a significant number of trans athletes (at least partly due to its ties with queer communities), and it's a fairly brutal full-contact sport, though one that has roles for players of a wide range of sizes and builds -- and based on their experiences with inclusion, they've gone in from including trans women if they provide evidence of testosterone suppression to "fuck it, if you want to be in you're in":
https://www.teenvogue.com/story/anti-trans-laws-sports-roller-derby
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Will try to find time to reply sometime when on my laptop not my phone, but I broadly disagree with most of slab_happy's analysis. Fortunately (from my perspective!) most of the elite sporting world also seems to. Agree that more research would, hopefully, make things easier
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One of the issues you can take with slab_happy’s thoughts are that you can’t cherry pick height and bone density alone and say “well there are some tall women too”. There are two big problems here.
1) it’s not just these two traits, it’s height, bone density, muscle mass, aerobic endurance, etc etc. The best evidence (and for sure it’s not perfect) tells us that none of those advantages can be removed entirely.
2) sure, there are some tall women, but an averagely tall man like Barrows is taller than 99.99 percent of U.K. women. So you take a tall, but not outstanding man who after transition would be an exceptional woman, which is kind of the whole point.
There are more things I disagree with in those posts, but I’ll leave something for barrows.
For the reasons slab_happy has pointed out I think option 3 is barbaric.
Despite being quite confident that trans participation in women’s sport is unfair to cis female athletes I still think you have to trade off inclusivity and fairness. Sport isn’t JUST about the Olympics and winning medals so there’s a case to be made for accepting some level of unfairness to cis women competitors for the benefits given by inclusivity at the grass roots level.
There’ll also be some sports where the male advantage is small enough that trans women could take part in female events without “too much” unfairness.
But in general, I feel that the male advantage is just too large (20% in jumps FFS!) and too hard to remove that the default should be that sports should have an open and a female category. And this is definitely true for contact sports or those with safety implications.
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Not a convincing argument imo slab_happy. Your points about athletic comparisons between males/females ignore the selection biases that exist to even make it into the category of 'professional sportsperson'. To even get to compete in an event reliant for success on athletic attributes, by definition requires the person to be above average in those attributes. So any half-decent professional sportsman in any sport reliant on athleticism - strength, power, height, muscle mass, speed, etc. (ignore sports like snooker, darts, etc.) - is starting from a physical baseline of being *not* an average male.
You could be correct that it might be the case that 'average athletic former man who's now a trans woman versus above average athletic woman = level playing field'. But it's definitely not a level playing field if someone retains remnants of male power, strength, speed, height, reach, aggression, etc. As well as the training adaptations bestowed by those attributes while they were male and progressing in their sport. As you yourself say.
re: medals. It's relatively early still in the prevalence of significant numbers of trans women competing professionally as women (where they're currently allowed to). Why in that case would we expect any trans woman to have medalled at an Olympics? How many are competing at the highest level? Genuine Q btw - I don't know, but I didn't think it was very many. Small numbers of trans professional sportswomen shouldn't be expected to become visible in an even smaller number of Olympic medalists until the numbers get much larger.
Also - option 4 in Fiend's list doesn't preclude 'pre-puberty'. That was your take, not his or (I presume) anyone else's. I'd say in my completely-unqualified-to-have-an opinion that pre-puberty is likely to be more even than post-puberty. Which is sort of what the sporting bodies are suggesting no?
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Personally, I don't think the science is anywhere near a consensus on this -- from what I've read, it's still very much being fought over. There's a massive shortage of research specifically on athletes (rather than trying to extrapolate from studies on untrained people), and almost all of the research reviews seem to be written by people with an agenda one way or another, which makes it hard to assess. I've got my personal biases, but I think there's room for good-faith discussion.
I agree there's a need for more research but there is clearly a consensus on male advantage. As put in the Sports Council report last year;
"Adult male athletes have on average a 10-12% performance advantage over female competitors in swimming and running events, around 20% advantage in jumping events, and 35% greater performance in strength-based sports (e.g. weightlifting) for similar-sized athletes. When average-sized males are compared with average-sized females, the difference is such that the males are half as strong again as females.
According to data from the NHS, 50% of males are taller than more than 95% of females, with longer, straighter limbs, and bigger hands and feet. Males have greater muscle mass (concentrated in the upper body), bigger hearts and lungs, and greater stamina through higher hemoglobin (oxygen carrying capacity) than females."
So to justify any deviation from that, such as allowing trans women to participate in female sport, then the onus must be on those who want to make the change to provide the evidence that no male advantage is retained after transition.
Nobody seems to be arguing about the fact that hormone therapy produces a major drop in performance across most dimensions; the question is just how much that is, how long it takes, and whether it's enough to remove all potential advantages.
Have you read Hilton and Lundberg (2021)? Their analysis of longitudinal studies suggests that "the effects of testosterone suppression on muscle mass and strength in transgender women consistently show very modest changes, where the loss of lean body mass, muscle area and strength typically amounts to approximately 5% after 12 months of treatment.". So only negating a portion of the male advantage, leaving male bodied athletes at an advantage over female. (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33289906/). And Harper et al (2021) also found that "values for strength, LBM and muscle area in transwomen remain above those of cisgender women, even after 36 months of hormone therapy.".
There was a mildly farcical thing a couple of years back when the Rugby Football Union announced that trans women players who were over 170cm tall or 90kg in weight would need to undergo a special assessment to see if they posed a risk to other players -- and a whole lot of cis women started pointing out that they exceed those limits.
I think that was just a cack handed way of avoiding having the discussion about banning trans women from rugby but I agree it was poor - better to deal with the issue as a whole rather than try to make case by case assessments. Of course, now that they have recommended rugby remains segregated by sex there are a host of people arguing that it should be done on an individual basis...
It really strikes me as "off" to treat those things as examples of retained advantages and count it against against people that they can't change their skeletons, when it doesn't give them any advantage over a cis woman of the same height and build (and there are plenty of cis women with those heights and builds).
The difference is about the way those attributes are dispersed through the population. For basketball, being tall is obviously a huge advantage and so most players are exceptionally tall. The average WNBA player is 5'11" - well above average for women but a pretty average height for men. So trans women are far more likely to possess the attribute of being tall than the average cis woman, giving them a massive advantage. Now you could argue that, because this is something that can't be trained for that it's not an unfair advantage in trans women but to me it doesn't feel very fair. However, the height thing is a red herring - the main issue with retained male advantage is, as mentioned above, strength, lean body mass and muscle area.
Except that no trans woman has ever won an Olympic medal (only one's even made it into the Olympics), and the only records being broken that I can find seem to be regional or age-group ones, and there really aren't that many of those.
Yet. It wasn't that long ago that the rules for trans participation were much more stringent. Until 2015, athletes had to undergo a full surgical transition to be allowed to compete. We're seeing a lot more trans athletes now and they're performing at a higher level. These things take a while to filter through and we're only now starting to see the effect of people who were 'very good but not world class' switching over into the women's category. Personally I think the various sporting bodies are better off considering the evidence now and making a decision on the principle of it rather than waiting for a trans olympic medal winner and then having to decide whether that was because of male advantage.
Most of the claims about athletes going from being good when competing as men to great as women seem to be based on micro-scrutiny of the careers of Thomas and of Laurel Hubbard specifically, and arguments about exactly how good they were or weren't when they were competing as men.
Is there anything in either of their past careers to suggest that they were competing at the same level? Laurel Hubbard was a fairly average male lifter but made it into the Olympics at an age 20 years past most weightlifters' peak, Lia Thomas seemed to be much further down the field. More recently Austin Killips just won the Tour of the Gila as well as various cyclocross events, despite only taking up cycling 4 years ago.
But Joanna Harper's work on trans distance runnners (which is very small scale, but among the very little research out there that's actually on trans athletes) found that people's age grades (their times compared to the records for their age and gender) stayed remarkably similar after transition.
Like I said, super small scale, it only involved eight people, we need more and better research, but I feel like that still puts it slightly ahead of trying to generalize based on two people:
Harper's work here methodologically unsound - in addition to the small sample size, less than half the times could actually be verified independently which raises serious questions about how far the data can actually be trusted.
If there's this huge retained advantage, IMHO we should be seeing women's world records being annihilated, we should have seen it ages ago -- and instead the best trans women athletes are performing in a way which is completely in keeping with how very good women athletes in their sport are performing. They're not even at the very top! None of them have been truly exceptional or ground-breaking so far, just "very good"!
So we get into these micro-arguments about whether these two specific athletes went from "pretty good" competing as men to "very good" competing as women, or not. To me, that's just not enough to convince me that there's this obvious retained advantage.
I refer to you my point above - we are staring to get close to the point where a good enough male athlete transitions and is in a position to do just that. But should we wait for that or should we make a decision on the balance of evidence that suggests that male advantage exists and testosterone suppression doesn't eliminate it? Personally I think it's far better for sport, and for the individual athletes involved, to make a decision on the principles of it rather than having to decide, on an individual basis, whether someone's victory is because of their male advantage.
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A final point (that seemed to disappear in my last post) is that unfair advantage doesn't stop existing just because someone doesn't win. I couldn't win the women's TdF on an ebike but that doesn't mean it's not giving me an unfair advantage. I'm also pretty short and I reckon there are some 11 year old girls who are taller than me and better at climbing. That still wouldn't make it fair for me to compete in a kid's bouldering competition.
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Also - option 4 in Fiend's list doesn't preclude 'pre-puberty'. That was your take, not his or (I presume) anyone else's.
First off, what I said had an "if" in it -- if excluding the category of "trans women" also excludes trans women who transitioned before puberty (which, logically, it does unless you state the exception).
Secondly, that is very much the take of a lot of people, including politicians such as Nadine Dorries who've demanded that anyone who was "biologically born a male" be banned from any women's sports, or all the people trying to get even pre-pubertal trans girls banned from school sports.
You can't just assume "oh well of course people who transitioned before puberty would be an exception" without stating it.
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In another life time ago I raced in veterans cycling road races. Sometimes to make up a decent size field of 60, they would put juniors males aged 16 to 18 , vets males aged 40 plus and adult women together. Although in general these were regional races sometimes they were part of national series for women.
Usually a junior won followed by a vet or two then the women. You could put the results down to tactics but I would think it was down to physiology.
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The difference is about the way those attributes are dispersed through the population. For basketball, being tall is obviously a huge advantage and so most players are exceptionally tall. The average WNBA player is 5'11" - well above average for women but a pretty average height for men. So trans women are far more likely to possess the attribute of being tall than the average cis woman, giving them a massive advantage.
But we're not talking about populations, we're talking about individual athletes. No-one competes as a population.
This has the nonsensical implication, as I said, that if I as a cis woman am tall, I am not at an unfair advantage, but if a trans woman is the same height as me, then she is.
Actually, it has the even more nonsensical implication that if a trans woman is much shorter than me, she's still at an unfair advantage over me because she's "far more likely to possess the attribute of being tall".
However, the height thing is a red herring
Agreed! Which is why I think people should stop citing it, and it makes me skeptical when people need to keep doing so.
And Harper et al (2021) also found that "values for strength, LBM and muscle area in transwomen remain above those of cisgender women, even after 36 months of hormone therapy.".
Which, if borne out by other studies, would be a solid argument for saying "okay, three years is insufficient, you need to have a longer period of testosterone suppression before competing in women's categories" -- I absolutely agree with you on that much.
However, the Harper review also found out that all those values dropped significantly -- 36 months is just the furthest for which they could find data, and they found very little of that.
So my response is "okay, let's get more data on what happens at 3 years, and then at 5 years, and etc. etc." because I think there's quite likely to be a point where the advantages are gone (apart from unchangeable things like height).
I wouldn't presume that you keep forever loads of extra lean body mass that you no longer have the hormones to maintain, because that's not how hormones or bodies work.
(As someone currently being beaten into the ground by perimenopause, I'm feeling painfully conscious of how you don't get to just keep the athletic ability you built up before when you go through a hormonal shift ...)
They also found that trans women had a markedly lower level of strength and muscle mass than cis men even before they started hormones, so they're dropping from a lower baseline to begin with, which is completely fascinating:
Of interest, compared with cisgender men, hormone-naive trans-
women demonstrate 6.4%–8.0% lower LBM, 6.0%–11.4% lower
muscle CSA and ~10%–14% lower handgrip strength. This
disparity is noteworthy given that hormone-naive transwomen and
cisgender men have similar testosterone levels. Explanations
for this strength difference are unclear but may include transwomen
actively refraining from building muscle and/or engaging in disor-
dered eating or simply not being athletically inclined, perhaps influ-
enced by feelings of an unwelcome presence in sporting arenas.
Taken together, hormone-naive transwomen may not, on average,
have the same athletic attributes as cisgender men.
(I'm not making a point here, just can't resist quoting it because I'm a massive nerd, that detail was new to me and I'm geeking out.)
Personally I think it's far better for sport, and for the individual athletes involved, to make a decision on the principles of it rather than having to decide, on an individual basis, whether someone's victory is because of their male advantage.
I agree that we're currently in a godawful situation where women like Thomas and Hubbard and Killips follow all the existing rules in their sports and compete entirely legitimately, and then get trashed by the world for doing so. Or, as with Emily Bridges, where they follow the existing rules and then the rules get changed at the last minute apparently just to prevent them from competing.
That's not sustainable and that's a shitty situation for everyone. Even if you don't think they should be allowed to compete, they're doing so in good faith because they love their sports and want to do the thing they're good at, and they deserve better than being treated as culture-war fodder.
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Surely this:
For most sports, anyone who has taken steroids has an unfair advantage over other athletes as the improvements to muscle cells are permanent.
Contradicts this:
...because I think there's quite likely to be a point where the advantages are gone (apart from unchangeable things like height).
I wouldn't presume that you keep forever loads of extra lean body mass that you no longer have the hormones to maintain, because that's not how hormones or bodies work.
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But we're not talking about populations, we're talking about individual athletes. No-one competes as a population.
This has the nonsensical implication, as I said, that if I as a cis woman am tall, I am not at an unfair advantage, but if a trans woman is the same height as me, then she is.
It's not nonsensical, it's the difference between an attribute being exceptional vs commonplace. A 6ft man isn't exceptionally tall, he's pretty normal. A woman being 6ft tall is up near the top end of the distribution. Ditto hand size, lung size and all the other things that tend to come along with height.
Actually, it has the even more nonsensical implication that if a trans woman is much shorter than me, she's still at an unfair advantage over me because she's "far more likely to possess the attribute of being tall".
No-one is saying that there isn't some crossover between male and female physical traits, that would be obviously nonsensical. An individual trans woman may not have an advantage over you because of height (because you're tall for a woman) but I don't think we should be going down the route of individually assessing specific people as to whether their male traits are enough to give them an advantage, rather we should be deciding on the basis of research whether retained male advantage is unfair to women in elite sport.
Which, if borne out by other studies, would be a solid argument for saying "okay, three years is insufficient, you need to have a longer period of testosterone suppression before competing in women's categories" -- I absolutely agree with you on that much.
However, the Harper review also found out that all those values dropped significantly -- 36 months is just the furthest for which they could find data, and they found very little of that.
So my response is "okay, let's get more data on what happens at 3 years, and then at 5 years, and etc. etc." because I think there's quite likely to be a point where the advantages are gone (apart from unchangeable things like height).
Fine, so let's revisit this when we have more data. But no evidence of retained advantage beyond three years is not evidence that there is no retained advantage. Until we have that data the presumption should be, on the basis of the evidence we do have (the three year data and the knowledge of the size of the gap between male and female athletic performance), that male advantage exists and is not wholly negated by T suppression.
They also found that trans women had a markedly lower level of strength and muscle mass than cis men even before they started hormones, so they're dropping from a lower baseline to begin with, which is completely fascinating:
Of interest, compared with cisgender men, hormone-naive trans-
women demonstrate 6.4%–8.0% lower LBM, 6.0%–11.4% lower
muscle CSA and ~10%–14% lower handgrip strength. This
disparity is noteworthy given that hormone-naive transwomen and
cisgender men have similar testosterone levels. Explanations
for this strength difference are unclear but may include transwomen
actively refraining from building muscle and/or engaging in disor-
dered eating or simply not being athletically inclined, perhaps influ-
enced by feelings of an unwelcome presence in sporting arenas.
Taken together, hormone-naive transwomen may not, on average,
have the same athletic attributes as cisgender men.
That is interesting and highlights two things. The first is the need for more studies in trained athletes, as a better baseline for comparison on the effects of hormone treatment. The second is that it is possibly one of the reasons that trans athletes have historically underperformed - we have a more accepting culture now of celebrating people's differences and a less obsessive focus on 'passing', meaning trans women hopefully feel under less social pressure to try to conform to feminine norms and try to minimise certain male characteristics.
I agree that we're currently in a godawful situation where women like Thomas and Hubbard and Killips follow all the existing rules in their sports and compete entirely legitimately, and then get trashed by the world for doing so. Or, as with Emily Bridges, where they follow the existing rules and then the rules get changed at the last minute apparently just to prevent them from competing.
That's not sustainable and that's a shitty situation for everyone. Even if you don't think they should be allowed to compete, they're doing so in good faith because they love their sports and want to do the thing they're good at, and they deserve better than being treated as culture-war fodder.
This I totally agree with! It's an awful situation where people have followed the rules in their sport and are singled out and vilified, called cheats etc. I'm not for a moment condoning that, nor am I suggesting that there is a wave of mediocre men transitioning purely to gain an advantage. But nor do I think that people expressing concern about fairness in sport is necessarily the result of deep-seated transphobia or a desire to exclude trans people from social activities (though I think there's obviously a strong undercurrent of that from some bad faith actors trying to weaponise this as a culture war issue when they've never cared about women's sport in the past). I'm also positive towards trans participation in grassroots or community sport, where competition and excellence isn't really the point of the thing (as long as safety isn't an issue).
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In another life time ago I raced in veterans cycling road races. Sometimes to make up a decent size field of 60, they would put juniors males aged 16 to 18 , vets males aged 40 plus and adult women together. Although in general these were regional races sometimes they were part of national series for women.
Usually a junior won followed by a vet or two then the women. You could put the results down to tactics but I would think it was down to physiology.
But trans women on hormone therapy are not physiologically the same as cis men, so that's kind of irrelevant here.
How close (or not) they are physiologically to cis women in athletic terms is what's under debate, but they certainly have substantial disadvantages compared to cis men.
(Seriously, the guys here should take a moment to contemplate how you’d feel as a climber if you were told you needed to have a medical treatment that’d reduce your strength, reduce your explosive power even more, make you start to shed muscle mass, gain at least 10-15% or so additional body fat, and for bonus points make your skin thinner so you’re much more likely to get torn up while jamming. And how desperate you'd need to be to go OH THANK GOD, YES PLEASE, BRING IT ON.)
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(Seriously, the guys here should take a moment to contemplate how you’d feel as a climber if you were told you needed to have a medical treatment that’d reduce your strength, reduce your explosive power even more, make you start to shed muscle mass, gain at least 10-15% or so additional body fat, and for bonus points make your skin thinner so you’re much more likely to get torn up while jamming. And how desperate you'd need to be to go OH THANK GOD, YES PLEASE, BRING IT ON.)
I'm learning a lot from this thread but this strikes me as missing the point. No one is suggesting anyone is transitioning for competitive advantage unless they're a moron. The point is surely whether it is fair to cis women if this hypothetical guy would then go on to compete in womens climbing comps. Obviously its a trade off between inclusion and fairness as several others have pointed out.
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But trans women on hormone therapy are not physiologically the same as cis men, so that's kind of irrelevant here.
How close (or not) they are physiologically to cis women in athletic terms is what's under debate, but they certainly have substantial disadvantages compared to cis men.
But have substantial advantages over cis women, going by the weight of evidence.
Your focus is on the individual. But what's being debated is how great an advantage an average trans woman in a population of athletes* has over a cis woman in a population of athletes*.
Sporting regulations have to apply at the level of all participants, not individuals, or they become nonsensical. That makes them unfair on an individual level for some people, but fair on average. Underlying that is a debate about the purpose of sport.
Sport (in the context of this debate) is a physical challenge with equality of opportunity (via laws), that generates an outcome of winners and losers as a by-product of their athletic attributes and skill. Professional sport is probably a very poor place to look for equality of outcome!
* Which brings selection bias because the average professional athlete isn't the average man/woman, physiologically. And in sports where fine margins bring big consequences, this matters more than the non-athlete/no sporting population.
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But we're not talking about populations, we're talking about individual athletes. No-one competes as a population.
This has the nonsensical implication, as I said, that if I as a cis woman am tall, I am not at an unfair advantage, but if a trans woman is the same height as me, then she is.
I think this is where most of the differences in opinion come from. I would strongly argue that we are talking about populations, because that's how categories work. This is what others like Pete and Stu have pointed out above, in slightly different words. It all falls into this same bucket of going from being the 80% percentile to the 99% percentile or whatever.
You seem to be saying that trans woman x who's 5'11 (or has lung capacity of Y, or whichever attribute we use) isn't at an advantage because that value falls within the range seen for female athletes. But that ignores the fact that trans woman x would have been 5'5 and have lung capacity <Y if they were born a female. Janja is probably genetically predisposed to being better at rock climbing than me, but that doesn't make it fair for me to compete in the female category.
You could argue for categories based on some enormous assessment of how likely you are to be good at a sport instead of something simple like sex - it would be a coherent solution to much of this in many ways, but it would be unworkable and I don't think it would be that interesting or inspiring to watch the world's 100th fastest man (number picked arbitrarily - I've not looked it up) competing against the world's fastest woman.
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Nobody has outlined possibly another perspective.
Transwomen are women and as a consequence their inclusion in competitive women's sport cannot disadvantage women any more than the inclusion of stronger than average women or taller than average women.
Women's bodies fall on a spectrum from petite and pre-equipped with traditionally female genitalia to large, muscular and equipped with what were seen as traditionally male genitalia. This variation does not make women's sport unfair any more than any other inter-group variation such as height, weight or skill. No hormone treatment required.
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I'm learning a lot from this thread but this strikes me as missing the point. No one is suggesting anyone is transitioning for competitive advantage unless they're a moron.
Unfortunately there are a lot of people out there suggesting exactly that.
Not anyone in this thread, I hasten to say, but they are certainly out there! And it really doesn't help with enabling the wider debate (not the one taking place here) to be carried out in a sensitive and thoughtful way.
But that wasn't the point I was aiming to make.
webbo seemed to be assuming that trans women on hormone therapy are physiologically equivalent to cis men (apologies if I'm misreading), and I was pointing out that we know this is very much not the case.
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Nobody has outlined possibly another perspective.
Transwomen are women and as a consequence their inclusion in competitive women's sport cannot disadvantage women any more than the inclusion of stronger than average women or taller than average women.
Women's bodies fall on a spectrum from petite and pre-equipped with traditionally female genitalia to large, muscular and equipped with what were seen as traditionally male genitalia. This variation does not make women's sport unfair any more than any other inter-group variation such as height, weight or skill. No hormone treatment required.
It's one interpretation. It's based on placing the greater value on gender identity over other physical attributes.
You could come up with other interpretations, based on elevating other attributes. Here's one:
Dolphins are mammals and as a consequence their inclusion in competitive mammalian swimming events cannot disadvantage other mammals (humans for e.g.) any more than the inclusion of stronger than average or taller than average human mammals.
Mammal's bodies fall on a spectrum from petite and pre-equipped with traditionally female genitalia to large, muscular and equipped with what were seen as traditionally male genitalia. This variation does not make Dolphins participating in mammalian competitive swimming events unfair any more than any other inter-group variation such as height, weight or skill. No hormone treatment required.
Ultimately it comes down to value judgements and trying to understand the purpose of things like sport.
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Nobody has outlined possibly another perspective.
Transwomen are women and as a consequence their inclusion in competitive women's sport cannot disadvantage women any more than the inclusion of stronger than average women or taller than average women.
Women's bodies fall on a spectrum from petite and pre-equipped with traditionally female genitalia to large, muscular and equipped with what were seen as traditionally male genitalia. This variation does not make women's sport unfair any more than any other inter-group variation such as height, weight or skill. No hormone treatment required.
The same argument could very easily be used to say that we shouldn't have female categories in sport full stop - everything should just be an open category. Aside from that, at its extreme that approach allows for self identification with no restrictions. Which is very obviously absurd in a sporting environment (https://www.nationalreview.com/news/male-canadian-powerlifter-breaks-womens-bench-press-record-in-protest-against-trans-inclusion-policy/). So basically, nobody outlined it because it's dumb :lol:
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Fine, so let's revisit this when we have more data. But no evidence of retained advantage beyond three years is not evidence that there is no retained advantage.
Agreed, I'm not saying it is.
the second is that it is possibly one of the reasons that trans athletes have historically underperformed - we have a more accepting culture now of celebrating people's differences and a less obsessive focus on 'passing', meaning trans women hopefully feel under less social pressure to try to conform to feminine norms and try to minimise certain male characteristics.
But then you have the "heads I win, tails you lose" situation where we want trans women to feel less social pressure and to be able to push their physical limits as athletes -- but whenever they do so and succeed in sports in any way, it's taken as evidence against them, that they shouldn't be allowed to compete (or should only be allowed to compete in the men's category, where they'll be severely disadvantaged).
As someone with a disability (autism), I'm rather familiar with the situation where any time I really push my limits to do something (however severe the cost to me), it's then taken as evidence that my disability's not really real, and I'm just not trying hard enough the rest of the time.
It's an awful position to be in, to feel that anything you succeed at will be used against you.
I'm also positive towards trans participation in grassroots or community sport, where competition and excellence isn't really the point of the thing (as long as safety isn't an issue).
Yeah, at the very least you need much, MUCH looser rules there. Not least because expecting casual, amateur players to start submitting exact data on their testosterone levels over time is absurd.
I have an acquaintance who's blazingly furious that culture wars rule changes might potentially mean she loses several of her team-mates off her amateur women's ice hockey team, and feels very reasonably that this has fuck-all to do with supporting grassroots women's sports.
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Aside from that, at its extreme that approach allows for self identification with no restrictions. Which is very obviously absurd in a sporting environment
Sport, at its heart, is highly unfair. The short and the weak are unable to compete on a level playing field with the strong and able. Why is absurd that one subset of the population cannot compete equally. This is the very defining characteristic of sport.
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Why is absurd that one subset of the population cannot compete equally.
You'll have to edit the typo in that bit for me to respond - it could easily be a typo in either direction!
That way of thinking is fine, but can only lead to one single open category in all sports - no male/female, no weight classes, no para competitions. I can see a coherent position to argue for that, but no coherent argument for keeping categories while turning them into a joke which is why self-identification in sports is absurd.
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But then you have the "heads I win, tails you lose" situation where we want trans women to feel less social pressure and to be able to push their physical limits as athletes -- but whenever they do so and succeed in sports in any way, it's taken as evidence against them, that they shouldn't be allowed to compete (or should only be allowed to compete in the men's category, where they'll be severely disadvantaged).
But maybe that's the trade off they have to make...? You should be able to socially and legally transition and be treated with dignity and respect to your identified gender but you can't participate in elite sports as that gender.
You seem to be arguing that it's ok to disadvantage women in sport by allowing people with retained male advantage to compete against them, but that it's not ok to disadvantage trans women athletes by making them compete against men. One side will be disadvantaged and you're making a value judgement that it should be cis women. That's a totally legitimate view to hold but I don't agree with you - I think we should prioritise fair competition for female athletes, then safety and then inclusion.
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Sport, at its heart, is highly unfair. The short and the weak are unable to compete on a level playing field with the strong and able. Why is absurd that one subset of the population cannot compete equally. This is the very defining characteristic of sport.
If we had strength/height classifications for certain sports then it would be totally legitimate to restrict them to people who met those criteria. Do you think it would be OK for a heavyweight boxer to compete against a flyweight? Or for an adult to compete against children?
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Do you think it would be OK for a heavyweight boxer to compete against a flyweight?
Going off topic, but this is technically allowed. Whilst the heavyweight cannot compete at flyweight, there are no rules stopping the flyweight from competing at heavyweight. In practice, it is unlikely this would get sanctioned in the UK or USA but i'm sure somewhere would sanction the bout if the right sums of money were exchanged (boxing is corrupt).
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No, that is relevant and a really good point. You can choose to put yourself at a disadvantage but not to put your opponent at a disadvantage. Similarly, AFAIK trans men can choose to compete with women (if they're not undergoing hormone treatment so no unfair advantage) or to compete against men (putting themselves at a disadvantage).
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It's a shame there isn't a less wooly categorisation than gender. We could then use this to subdivide people where innate physical differences were concerned.
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It's a shame there isn't a less wooly categorisation than gender. We could then use this to subdivide people where innate physical differences were concerned.
Surely the less wooly categorisation is sex based on whether the person has XX or XY chromosomes? Anyone with XX chromosomes is allowed to compete in a protected category and everyone else competes in an Open category.
This doesn't solve the tricky question of inclusion for DSD athletes, but there are far fewer DSD athletes than trans athletes, it's far more nuanced and probably more appropriate to be dealt with on a case by case basis
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I'm also positive towards trans participation in grassroots or community sport, where competition and excellence isn't really the point of the thing (as long as safety isn't an issue).
Yeah, at the very least you need much, MUCH looser rules there. Not least because expecting casual, amateur players to start submitting exact data on their testosterone levels over time is absurd.
I have an acquaintance who's blazingly furious that culture wars rule changes might potentially mean she loses several of her team-mates off her amateur women's ice hockey team, and feels very reasonably that this has fuck-all to do with supporting grassroots women's sports.
Raises a bunch of interesting questions about why we do competitive sport to begin with, which I think yields very different answers depending on what level you are talking about, from amateur sport (mostly about fun?) to professional sport (mostly money?) to Olympic sport (mostly international relations?).
And then that raises what to me is an even more complicated question - why have a women's category to begin with? Which seems to require a good answer to the first question to begin to tackle properly!
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I'm also positive towards trans participation in grassroots or community sport, where competition and excellence isn't really the point of the thing (as long as safety isn't an issue).
Yeah, at the very least you need much, MUCH looser rules there. Not least because expecting casual, amateur players to start submitting exact data on their testosterone levels over time is absurd.
I have an acquaintance who's blazingly furious that culture wars rule changes might potentially mean she loses several of her team-mates off her amateur women's ice hockey team, and feels very reasonably that this has fuck-all to do with supporting grassroots women's sports.
Raises a bunch of interesting questions about why we do competitive sport to begin with, which I think yields very different answers depending on what level you are talking about, from amateur sport (mostly about fun?) to professional sport (mostly money?) to Olympic sport (mostly international relations?).
And then that raises what to me is an even more complicated question - why have a women's category to begin with? Which seems to require a good answer to the first question to begin to tackle properly!
They’ll try and break you for that last paragraph.
For me it rings true in a analogous area of women’s (and trans people’s) increasing acceptance and obtaining the rights and respect due to them, that is integration into the military.
I was lucky enough to be involved at the dissolution of the WRNS and they’re absorption into the RN and the opening of all roles. This coincided with decriminalisation of alternative sexualities in the armed forces, as well.
I worked with and trained many young women entering a previously exclusively male world.
Many of those women were wholly unprepared, by life, for those roles. Society generally raised girls differently to boys (still does, but I’ll come back to that) and they entered at a physical disadvantage.
Now, we have women who have passed P company and the All Arms Commando course ( I admit, it makes me smile that I have now worked with a Commando named Daisy) and they are physically and mentally on a par with their peers. To a very large extent, as I see in my own children, they have grown up differently from previous generations. Being “muscular” is more acceptable, being more interested in traditionally male pursuits, is more accepted. From what I can see, this will only improve, despite the mainstream school system doing all it can to prevent it (my youngest plays football for JPL, two youth pioneer league clubs, as a striker, but isn’t allowed to play football in PE at school. Girls do Netball and Hockey. Only).
The worlds best (whatever) athlete, will always be the one with just the right genetic mix of weight, height, strength etc and just the right opportunity and social environment for whatever they excel in. Sooner or later that combination will appear in somebody without a penis. It probably already exists and the “opportunity and social environment” are still suppressing it.
Of course, more men (simplified for clarity) will possess the best genetic mix for (say) the Hundred Meters, than women, but I’d bet there are potential candidates out there ( a bit like the hypothetical piano sauvant, who lives and dies in a remote rice paddy, never seeing a piano).
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I'm also positive towards trans participation in grassroots or community sport, where competition and excellence isn't really the point of the thing (as long as safety isn't an issue).
Yeah, at the very least you need much, MUCH looser rules there. Not least because expecting casual, amateur players to start submitting exact data on their testosterone levels over time is absurd.
I have an acquaintance who's blazingly furious that culture wars rule changes might potentially mean she loses several of her team-mates off her amateur women's ice hockey team, and feels very reasonably that this has fuck-all to do with supporting grassroots women's sports.
Raises a bunch of interesting questions about why we do competitive sport to begin with, which I think yields very different answers depending on what level you are talking about, from amateur sport (mostly about fun?) to professional sport (mostly money?) to Olympic sport (mostly international relations?).
And then that raises what to me is an even more complicated question - why have a women's category to begin with? Which seems to require a good answer to the first question to begin to tackle properly!
They’ll try and break you for that last paragraph.
For me it rings true in a analogous area of women’s (and trans people’s) increasing acceptance and obtaining the rights and respect due to them, that is integration into the military.
I was lucky enough to be involved at the dissolution of the WRNS and they’re absorption into the RN and the opening of all roles. This coincided with decriminalisation of alternative sexualities in the armed forces, as well.
I worked with and trained many young women entering a previously exclusively male world.
Many of those women were wholly unprepared, by life, for those roles. Society generally raised girls differently to boys (still does, but I’ll come back to that) and they entered at a physical disadvantage.
Now, we have women who have passed P company and the All Arms Commando course ( I admit, it makes me smile that I have now worked with a Commando named Daisy) and they are physically and mentally on a par with their peers. To a very large extent, as I see in my own children, they have grown up differently from previous generations. Being “muscular” is more acceptable, being more interested in traditionally male pursuits, is more accepted. From what I can see, this will only improve, despite the mainstream school system doing all it can to prevent it (my youngest plays football for JPL, two youth pioneer league clubs, as a striker, but isn’t allowed to play football in PE at school. Girls do Netball and Hockey. Only).
The worlds best (whatever) athlete, will always be the one with just the right genetic mix of weight, height, strength etc and just the right opportunity and social environment for whatever they excel in. Sooner or later that combination will appear in somebody without a penis. It probably already exists and the “opportunity and social environment” are still suppressing it.
Of course, more men (simplified for clarity) will possess the best genetic mix for (say) the Hundred Meters, than women, but I’d bet there are potential candidates out there ( a bit like the hypothetical piano sauvant, who lives and dies in a remote rice paddy, never seeing a piano).
Actually, special mention required here for Lily Mae, who is really quite something. I haven’t met her, but she’s caused a stir… https://instagram.com/lily_mae_fisher?igshid=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ== (https://instagram.com/lily_mae_fisher?igshid=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==)
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The worlds best (whatever) athlete, will always be the one with just the right genetic mix of weight, height, strength etc and just the right opportunity and social environment for whatever they excel in. Sooner or later that combination will appear in somebody without a penis. It probably already exists and the “opportunity and social environment” are still suppressing it.
It'd be interesting to see an open climbing comp series. I wouldn't be entirely surprised if Janja is the best climber in the world (though I'd prefer to see her quit comps and go on a Bosi style rampage outdoors).
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Surely this:
For most sports, anyone who has taken steroids has an unfair advantage over other athletes as the improvements to muscle cells are permanent.
Contradicts this:
...because I think there's quite likely to be a point where the advantages are gone (apart from unchangeable things like height).
I wouldn't presume that you keep forever loads of extra lean body mass that you no longer have the hormones to maintain, because that's not how hormones or bodies work.
But taking massive doses of exogenous anabolic steroids is not the same thing as having ordinary male levels of testosterone, and I therefore wouldn't presume they'd automatically have the same long-term consequences (they might or might not, but I'd want to see evidence).
Especially since trans women are not only taking medication to suppress testosterone, they're taking estrogens which have a load of effects actively reversing the past effects of testosterone on their bodies.
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It's a shame there isn't a less wooly categorisation than gender. We could then use this to subdivide people where innate physical differences were concerned.
Surely the less wooly categorisation is sex based on whether the person has XX or XY chromosomes? Anyone with XX chromosomes is allowed to compete in a protected category and everyone else competes in an Open category.
This doesn't solve the tricky question of inclusion for DSD athletes, but there are far fewer DSD athletes than trans athletes, it's far more nuanced and probably more appropriate to be dealt with on a case by case basis
It's less woolly but also not very helpful, IMHO -- putting the issue of trans women to the side, most cis women who don't have XX chromosomes aren't going to have any competitive advantage.
For example, Turner syndrome (XO chromosomes) is just going to make you unusually likely to be short and have heart problems. And women with CAIS have XY chromosomes and "normal male" levels of androgens -- but their bodies can't make use of those androgens at all (whereas typical cis women's bodies do benefit from our own much lower levels of androgens).
Conditions like 5αR2D where your body produces high levels of androgens and you can make some use of them are in the minority when it comes to "DSD conditions where you don't have XX chromosomes".
Conversely, there are some very common conditions where you can have XX chromosomes and unusually high levels of androgens relative to the female average.
It's also somewhat incompatible to try to have a non-woolly rule (XX chromosomes or not) and then also try to handle exceptions on a nuanced, case-by-case basis. That just made it woolly!
Also of course it requires chromosome testing for everyone, which might be feasible for people competing at the world level, but not for anything below.
"We'll test your chromosomes but only if someone thinks you look too butch or is suspicious that you're too good" has turned out in practice to be absolutely poisonous.
there are far fewer DSD athletes than trans athletes
Citation needed? You could be correct, but I couldn't find any data one way or another on a quick Google, so please let me know if you've got a solid link; I'd be interested.
We can't just extrapolate from estimates of the percentage of trans people in the population (where we only have very rough estimates at the moment anyway) versus estimates of the rate of DSD conditions, because one of the questions is whether trans women and/or women with DSDs are over-represented among elite athletes.
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Surely this:
For most sports, anyone who has taken steroids has an unfair advantage over other athletes as the improvements to muscle cells are permanent.
Contradicts this:
...because I think there's quite likely to be a point where the advantages are gone (apart from unchangeable things like height).
I wouldn't presume that you keep forever loads of extra lean body mass that you no longer have the hormones to maintain, because that's not how hormones or bodies work.
But taking massive doses of exogenous anabolic steroids is not the same thing as having ordinary male levels of testosterone, and I therefore wouldn't presume they'd automatically have the same long-term consequences (they might or might not, but I'd want to see evidence).
It's not just a case of "might or might not", the evidence is available; studies showing retained benefits were literally using testosterone, not "massive doses of exogenous anabolic steroids".
Especially since trans women are not only taking medication to suppress testosterone, they're taking estrogens which have a load of effects actively reversing the past effects of testosterone on their bodies.
Reversing some but not all of the effects is the point.
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Bit of a straw man this:
...because I think there's quite likely to be a point where the advantages are gone (apart from unchangeable things like height).
I wouldn't presume that you keep forever loads of extra lean body mass that you no longer have the hormones to maintain, because that's not how hormones or bodies work.
The debate isn't about *forever* hormone levels across a person's lifespan, the debate is about how much *and for how long* competitive advantage is conferred on a trans woman in high-level competitive sport by being born with male levels of T, and training as an athlete to a high level from a young age to then change gender and continue competing against cis women who don't have that physiological history.
Talking about *forever* levels of hormones isn't a relevant timescale. The relevant timescale is a condensed period of time during a person's life taking in the first 20-30 years following puberty. For truly elite-level sport - arguably where this matters the most - it's a much shorter window.
In some events you only need a competitive advantage over other athletes for one day. For longer-term advantages we're still only talking a small number of years, because people normally only compete professionally for a small number of years out of their overall lifespan.
As other have pointed out, we're at the early stages of increased # of trans athletes and it seems the most rational approach is to see what the evidence shows over the next 5-10 years for retained physiological advantages. In the meantime use a precautionary principle following what the evidence currently suggests, that there likely is an advantage in the short term, but for how long that remains we're not sure.
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Talking about *forever* levels of hormones isn't a relevant timescale.
Sure, but I wasn't the one who introduced the claim that changes were "permanent" -- that was jwi.
It's not a straw man if you're responding to something that someone actually said.
I agree that how long you might have retained physiological advantages for is what we're mostly debating (or hoping for clearer evidence on).
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Bit of a straw man this:
...because I think there's quite likely to be a point where the advantages are gone (apart from unchangeable things like height).
I wouldn't presume that you keep forever loads of extra lean body mass that you no longer have the hormones to maintain, because that's not how hormones or bodies work.
The debate isn't about *forever* hormone levels across a person's lifespan, the debate is about how much *and for how long* competitive advantage is conferred on a trans woman in high-level competitive sport by being born with male levels of T, and training as an athlete to a high level from a young age to then change gender and continue competing against cis women who don't have that physiological history.
Talking about *forever* levels of hormones isn't a relevant timescale. The relevant timescale is a condensed period of time during a person's life taking in the first 20-30 years following puberty. For truly elite-level sport - arguably where this matters the most - it's a much shorter window.
In some events you only need a competitive advantage over other athletes for one day. For longer-term advantages we're still only talking a small number of years, because people normally only compete professionally for a small number of years out of their overall lifespan.
As other have pointed out, we're at the early stages of increased # of trans athletes and it seems the most rational approach is to see what the evidence shows over the next 5-10 years for retained physiological advantages. In the meantime use a precautionary principle following what the evidence currently suggests, that there likely is an advantage in the short term, but for how long that remains we're not sure.
Height is at least a small determining factor in the significant majority of competitive sports, so those can be immediately said to have lasting competitive advantage. For the small minority of remaining sports I believe the burden of proof should be to prove there isn't a lasting competitive advantage rather than the other way round. The presence of heightened testosterone during puberty has a significant, lasting effect on the body. Unfortunately given the limited sample sizes of elite trans athletes it's unlikely that we will be able to have sufficient evidence either way for a given time period of suppressed test. Trying to judge things by what evidence we have leads to ridiculous judgements as in the Semenya case - unfair on every athlete involved.
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I hesitate to add anything to a topic that often generated more heat than light (this place excepted) but anyways…
Sport is a marvellous thing, and if your sport includes competition, it’s a shame to blanket exclude anyone that might fall somewhere non binary, trans, rainbow, etc. Even the terms are tricky.
I struggle to square this with practicalities of defining who can compete where, with whom at what level. I have huge sympathies with anyone for whom this is important and/or their job as an administrator.
Small example from my own experience, a friend of mine was often head to head with Lauren Jeska at fell races. I’d chat to both on the start line. Both of them were ripped, but for different reasons. Lauren was born Michael and transitioned before starting running seriously, but soon got very very good. Both got to national level.
Governing bodies were struggling how to handle her case when she started winning national titles. UKA had no transgender policy until 2011. I won’t bore you with the details but Lauren is now serving a prison sentence for an attack on a UKA official at their headquarters.
The whole thing is tragic, and I suspect we’ll still be grappling with the nuance in 10 or 20 years. It’s certainly more complex than some would have you feel.
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Similarly, AFAIK trans men can choose to compete with women (if they're not undergoing hormone treatment so no unfair advantage)
Yes -- in fact, one of the people who's beaten Lia Thomas (twice!) is a trans man, Iszac Henig, who'd delayed starting hormones until after he finished that season with the Yale women's swimming team.
He wrote a fascinating essay about his experiences: https://web.archive.org/web/20230105100705/https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/05/opinion/trans-athlete-swimming.html
There are also various non-binary athletes like Quinn and Alana Smith who aren't on hormones and choose to compete in the gender they were assigned at birth.
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Saw this and thought it might raise a smile.. reckon he's retained some competitive advantage:
(http://i.imgur.com/XxNhgdp.jpg) (https://imgur.com/XxNhgdp)
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Tbh a lot of jokes and memes like that just read as wildly dismissive of trans people, like that it treats their gender identification as fundamentally unserious. I think it's a pretty insensitive thing to post, myself.
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You’re free to think that.
I’m open-minded and comfortable with people’s rights to freely express their gender identity, and I’ve no hang-ups with anyone wherever they are on a sexuality or gender spectrum.
But I’m also comfortable cracking jokes about the issue without feeling that I mustn’t say, do or think anything for risk of offending somebody.
The intent wasn’t to dismiss the topic as unserious, the intent was to smile at a very hot topic currently - of sporting bodies and scientists trying to work out the complicated issue of what athletic advantage a trans athlete might have over a non-trans athlete. Let the scientists work it out and apply as fair a rule as they can. Somebody will always be offended with that outcome as well.
There has always been a fine line between humour and offence, since forever. If humour can be inferred to be offensive to somebody then it’s because that’s one of the elements of making something funny. Humour that doesn’t potentially touch a nerve or potentially offend…🤔 not really humour is it.
I see how someone might take that meme the way you do. You’re free to to infer whatever intent you want to, and to be offended, or to be offended on behalf of someone else who you think might be offended.
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Ah yes, the One Joke:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/one_joke
I'd guess this wasn't your intention, but the One Joke is usually aimed at an audience that's going "hahaha yes, that's just what all this trans nonsense is like, someone 'identifying as' something ridiculous that they're obviously not in order to gain an unfair advantage, how absurd."
There has always been a fine line between humour and offence, since forever. If humour can be inferred to be offensive to somebody then it’s because that’s one of the elements of making something funny. Humour that doesn’t potentially touch a nerve or potentially offend…🤔 not really humour is it.
That's why comedians coined the line about the distinction between "punching up" and "punching down".
There's a difference between jokes which target people who are in a relatively safe/powerful position and can take some ribbing, or need taking down a peg, and jokes which target a vulnerable minority group.
Especially a group who are currently being targeted by legal changes and outright violence because other people think their gender is a ridiculous pretence that they're carrying out for some nefarious purpose (e.g. to get into the women's loos in order to sexually assault people).
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I'd guess this wasn't your intention, but the One Joke is usually aimed at an audience that's going "hahaha yes, that's just what all this trans nonsense is like, someone 'identifying as' something ridiculous that they're obviously not in order to gain an unfair advantage, how absurd."
Thankfully the audience here doesn't seem to be that audience at all, and is more focused on exploring what happens if said biker strips down the motorbike frame, changes the wheels, wears lycra, adds pedals, and strips away 95% of the engine propulsion and is pretty much the cyclist they always knew they were, and whether the 5% of residual propulsion offers enough of an advantage to outweigh inclusivity.
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Slabs, the 'punch up versus punch down' is contested by many comedians, and isn't widely accepted by society as what makes good comedy. You can find narratives from different comedians to support either view. There's a whole other debate around it which would derail this thread, but suffice to say that you and I will disagree on this. I believe comedy and free speech is far more nuanced than a black and white: 'punch up, but never punch down'. Where I do agree with you is to be aware when you're punching down, and the potential harm it might cause, and to not be a gratuitous twat as far as reasonably possible.
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Agreed that UKB very much doesn't seem to be that audience, but it still left a bad taste for me.
And I think it's worth people being aware if jokes have subtext and common associations that are maybe not what they intended.
I know from friends that the One Joke will make a lot of trans people flinch hard. Or just sigh very very wearily.
Thankfully the audience here doesn't seem to be that audience at all, and is more focused on exploring what happens if said biker strips down the motorbike frame, changes the wheels, wears lycra, adds pedals, and strips away 95% of the engine propulsion and is pretty much the cyclist they always knew they were, and whether the 5% of residual propulsion offers enough of an advantage to outweigh inclusivity.
Now I'm cackling because I can imagine some UKB-ers being inspired to set out with their toolkits to deconstruct their motorbikes and find out. Let's tackle the REAL questions here!
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Slabs, the 'punch up versus punch down' is contested by many comedians, and isn't widely accepted by society as what makes good comedy. You can find narratives from different comedians to support either view. There's a whole other debate around it which would derail this thread, but suffice to say that you and I will disagree on this. I believe comedy and free speech is far more nuanced than a black and white: 'punch up, but never punch down'. Where I do agree with you is to be aware when you're punching down, and the potential harm it might cause, and to not be a gratuitous twat as far as reasonably possible.
Actually, I'm aware of the debate and agree with you that it's way more complicated and nuanced than just "punching up good, punching down bad".
But it's a useful distinction that makes a good jumping-off point for some of those more nuanced discussions about what is or isn't okay in comedy -- and, as you say, a useful thing to be aware of.
Where I do agree with you is to be aware when you're punching down, and the potential harm it might cause, and to not be a gratuitous twat as far as reasonably possible.
Total agreement on that point.
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Pete, I would say, to use your phrase from the other thread, posting that meme very much cheapens your position :icon_beerchug: Also I've been seeing those jokes online (often posted by family or 'friends') roughly forever, so my response to it might well be more emotional than you might imagine.
Trans issues in sports seem way harder to resolve to me than many other trans issues. Historically, in our cultures, 'man' and 'woman' have been predominantly used to mean both 'people with particular body types' AND 'people fulfilling certain social roles'. That obviously causes problems when people conflate the two, especially when body types and personalities exist on a massive multidimensional spectrum. There have been a lot of social roles over the years that allow people to not conform to the 'norm' for their perceived gender - monks, nuns, Albanian sworn virgins, cat ladies, fashion designers, etc. - but it'd be a lot easier for trans people (and indeed all gender/sexuality nonconforming people) if the confusion wasn't baked into the language in the first place (look up 'third gender' on wikipedia for examples of cultures with a bit more nuance in the language).
In sports, though, male/female categories exist and they have to mean something physically (arguably in sports they shouldn't have ANYTHING to do with social roles, but unfortunately sport doesn't exist in a vacuum outside of society). Even without trans people, you get people with DSD who don't fit into one category or the other.
IMO the least-worst of a really horrible bunch of options is to have an 'open' category where anyone can compete, and a second category for those with expected sport-relevant physical traits comparable to those of cis, non-DSD women (this would include trans men who haven't taken hormones, and DSD people who haven't been through a period of high testosterone etc.). What you then call those categories is a whole other :worms:
The crucial bit there is 'sport relevant'. I'm pretty sure there are some competitive sports where there aren't any relevant physical traits (jockeys?). In climbing, the biggest physical characteristics that correlate with grade are strength to weight ratio (both finger strength and upper body strength) and hip flexibility.
Strength to weight ratio tends to decrease with increasing height (if you double in size, your weight will go up by a factor of 8 as you've doubled your height, width and breadth, but your strength will only increase by a factor of 4, as it depends on the cross sectional area of the muscle which has only doubled in two dimensions). That's why average height actually decreases at higher route grades - interestingly, it stays pretty constant for bouldering, which might suggest that additional reach is a bigger factor in bouldering than for routes. Hip flexibility is much likely to be higher in people assigned female at birth.
I think the hot take here is that trans women could potentially have a disadvantage over cis women in climbing (obviously speculative, and studies would be needed to say which effects would outweigh the others), but that the real thing we need to watch out for in climbing is some trans dude in the future with Janja-esque genetics who started taking testosterone at 16 flashing Silence and then clean sweeping the IFSC :bounce:
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I'd guess this wasn't your intention, but the One Joke is usually aimed at an audience that's going "hahaha yes, that's just what all this trans nonsense is like, someone 'identifying as' something ridiculous that they're obviously not in order to gain an unfair advantage, how absurd."
I have a strong belief that people can do what they like and request that they are addressed in any way they desire.
I can also see how others may see this as an ultimate liberal test. The request to deny the evidence of their own eyes to follow a socially demanded fiction. There is a whiff of the Orwell quote "The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command." about it.
I think the idea that people do it to gain an advantage is secondary to this fundamental issue that people feel.
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The problem with that photo is that it is set up to mock. It’s out of keeping with the thoughtful debate in this thread and doesn’t add to it in a constructive way. That’s a shame Pete, because your posts are often very worth reading.
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This has already been done above.. but all comedy mocks JR - that's one of the essential elements of something being comedy. It isn't the 'mocking' per se you have issue with (or it might be, but then you have an issue with all comedy). It's what it mocks that you take issue with. And I get that. I also get that I might not have added value to the thread, so apologies if so. But I still found it funny.
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I wasn’t looking for an apology. Does all comedy mock? Not sure about that. However, images do have structure which creates the tone. The way that is set up, hammily superimposed, hairy biker style of subject, it’s sneering. I’d rather know what you think, you’ve usually got a worthwhile take on things.
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I'd guess this wasn't your intention, but the One Joke is usually aimed at an audience that's going "hahaha yes, that's just what all this trans nonsense is like, someone 'identifying as' something ridiculous that they're obviously not in order to gain an unfair advantage, how absurd."
I have a strong belief that people can do what they like and request that they are addressed in any way they desire.
I can also see how others may see this as an ultimate liberal test. The request to deny the evidence of their own eyes to follow a socially demanded fiction. There is a whiff of the Orwell quote "The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command." about it.
I think the idea that people do it to gain an advantage is secondary to this fundamental issue that people feel.
Okay, here's a question.
Imagine you meet a colleague who is named Michael Smith on their paperwork, and they say "Actually, I go by Mike, I hate it when people call me Michael."
Or you meet a woman who's married to Joe Bloggs, and she says "Please don't call me Mrs Bloggs, I use my maiden name."
If you then insisted on calling them "Michael" and "Mrs Bloggs", that would be what's technically known as a "dick move", right? And they'd be entitled to ask you to knock it off. Not complicated.
One of my sisters has, since the age of about four, gone by what's legally her middle name.
If someone said "No, that's not actually your first name, I'm going to insist on calling you by the thing it says first on your birth certificate" -- that would be a dick move, and also just really inexplicably bizarre and rude.
(And of course many trans people have legally changed their names, and many of them have gender recognition certificates which make them legally that gender under British law.)
Or -- let's up the stakes.
Let's talk about adoption. Legally adopting children doesn't change anyone's DNA. It doesn't make them biologically related to their adoptive parents.
But if someone said "I refuse to refer to these people as 'parents' just because they've adopted kids, this is a socially-demanded fiction, this is not a real family, I can see with my own eyes that they don't look alike, I am being oppressed in an Orwellian way by being asked to treat them as a family" -- seriously, would you be down with that?
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Not to mention that "the evidence of one's own eyes" is far, far less reliable than people like to imagine.
Speaking as a cis woman who's been "sir"-ed often throughout my life, as well as occasionally getting harassed because people can't work out what gender I am. Or, on one very memorable occasion, harassed because people thought I was a gay man.
It's amazing how easy it is to fail to "pass" as the gender you were assigned at birth.
And not even because I was trying; this is just what I look like when I dress and cut my hair in a way that feels comfortable to me.
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And, there it goes…
I’m going to stick my neck out and try to express how I actually feel about this issue.
Almost impossible to do so in this format, without twenty pages of nuanced clauses, but fuck it, I’ll try.
It’s a side show.
We (pretty much the entire species) have been drawing lines in the sand, inventing discrete categories, that simply are inadequate to describe ourselves.
I mean, there’s seven billion of us, give or take. Each of us genetically distinct, each of us experientially distinct, despite any seeming similarities. Suddenly, for the first time in our history (at least since we left Africa the first time) we are starting to experience the universe and ourselves, as a species as a whole (and all within a single life time).
A real “fuck me, this is clearly way more complicated than I thought” period in our development.
Doesn’t matter which aspect of humanity you pick, race, politics, sexuality, gender, favorite doughnut topping; absolutely every aspect pops up on a spectrum, with weird and unexpected distributions.
So, I guess, I don’t know why we’re arguing about the need for change (not here particularly, in general).
To me, it seems, if the category of “Men” is (clearly, to me) not a particularly helpful way of categorising a section (that apparently isn’t even really a section) of humanity, then it’s time we came up with something different.
If we need anything more specific than “probably not a Dolphin”, of course.
I suppose I still call myself “a man”, but it’s mainly habit and primacy. We could have different habits. Probably will, seems unlikely that the cat is going back into the bag, Regardless of how much hesitation, set backs and angst leaving the bag incurs, the bag is open.
If I was placing a bet on where this will end up? Open “human” category. I mean, our concept of inter human competition will have to change. We’re so hung up on the first three. In reality, if we ran an entire species race tomorrow and you come in in the one millionth place, you are pretty fucking special. Go you! Fucks sake, come in at 3.49 billionth, you’re above average.
Hopefully, that was clearly an exaggerated and humorous silliness to illustrate a serious point.
On Pete’s meme.
Of course it’s funny.
Because it quite accurately predicts that there are people who will take the piss for they’re own gain/simply to be a twat.
Could it be construed as an attack on a particular set of people (read, an amorphous, ill defined smudge on a murky, hard to see, spectrum)?
Yup.
So, it’s not funny.
Schrödinger’s meme, innit.
Depends on your own implicit biases when you view it.
Regardless of the poster’s/author’s intent.
My first response was the “some people are twats” one. At a guess, that would be the majority response within this group.
Funny that the anti-trans interpretation would be the same, the closer you got to either extreme of pro/anti trans divide…
Last word on the sport aspect. We already have a huge number of categories, within many sports, as the Paralympics and Special Olympics, a few more won’t break us. However, until “we the species” change our attitudes, we’re stuck with the Men’s 100 mtr Olympic champion being the Apex of human athleticism.
(Load of bollocks. Bet my Kelpie could beat him if there was a juicy bone on the finish line).
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I would 100% agree with you that referring to people in a way which they do not like is a dick move. Be this their name or their titles.
Freedom however must cut both ways.
If people have the freedom to refer to themselves in any way they desire and the freedom to request that I refer to them in the way they desire, then I must retain the freedom to call them whatever I like. This may be a dick move, and in many ways is no different to my freedom to insult or belittle, but it must exist, as it is the flip side to their freedom.
Firstly I would respect a trans woman's desire for me to use whatever name or address they requested. However moving on from this things become complicated.
Society owns the definitions of words. I am quite happy for the definition of woman to move and change to reflect social changes, in a similar way to the use of family has changed or developed to include adopted children or blended families.
If we change the definition of woman to include all those who were born male and now identify as woman then there is no problem of inclusion of trans woman in woman's sport. Woman born as woman may have a disadvantage and possibly space should be made for them in the Paralympics but it is not unfair for them to compete in a woman's category with people who traditionally would have been seen as male.
I am happy with the statement that trans woman are woman. It is unfortunate that the impact of this statement is either to ask people to accept that black is white or to widen the definition of woman to the point at which it is doubtful if it retains a useful purpose.
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Fair points Matt. Like you say, bias is in the eye of the beholder.
Okay, here's a question.
Imagine you meet a colleague who is named Michael Smith on their paperwork, and they say "Actually, I go by Mike, I hate it when people call me Michael."
Or you meet a woman who's married to Joe Bloggs, and she says "Please don't call me Mrs Bloggs, I use my maiden name."
If you then insisted on calling them "Michael" and "Mrs Bloggs", that would be what's technically known as a "dick move", right? And they'd be entitled to ask you to knock it off. Not complicated.
This matter of identity sits at the heart of a whole cluster of social issues. Some of this is about who we are think we are. Some of this is about power.
There’s no meaningful distinction between the identities of Mick and his slightly more serious version, Michael. There’s not much worth fighting over, unless you really want to belittle Mick/Michael. Trans identities however, force us to re-examine our concepts of sex and genders, and logically, that includes assumptions about ourselves.
Contesting a persons right to self-identify is also about who gets to control which identities are considered valid. It’s setting out the parameters of who is dominant in society. Like Leonard Cohen said: who gets to serve, and who gets to eat. It’s a way of asserting power.
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The worlds best (whatever) athlete, will always be the one with just the right genetic mix of weight, height, strength etc and just the right opportunity and social environment for whatever they excel in. Sooner or later that combination will appear in somebody without a penis.
Hey OMM, I see you've just posted again but I don't think it changes this ...
Turns out in excess of 1,600 people have run a 4 minute mile. They are all men. The record is 3:43.
The women's record is 4:12 - half a minute slower.
So women aren't even close. Basically, the fastest woman possibly wouldn't even be in the top 5,000 all-time.
The best-of-the-best in physical sports are men and they always will be - no matter how much participation and opportunity gaps are closed. Sure, it's *possible* that a woman could beat all the men but it's unlikely to happen on a thousand year timeframe (horse riding, darts, your local parkrun & some random ultra do not count).
This all seems so obvious I'm not sure why I've set it out. Women's sport should basically be seen as a protected classification, that biological men should be excluded from no matter how much their testosterone is reduced.
[Off topic perhaps but I am v much of the mind that DSD females should be able to compete as women without requiring testosterone suppression, that whole attempt to define a woman as T<2.5nmol/L was and is a shitshow]
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The best-of-the-best in physical sports are men and they always will be - no matter how much participation and opportunity gaps are closed.
This is only correct if you fail to accept that trans-women are women. Once you accept that trans-women are women then the opportunities for women to breeze past their previous limits are realized and women will be able to compete equally with men.
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The worlds best (whatever) athlete, will always be the one with just the right genetic mix of weight, height, strength etc and just the right opportunity and social environment for whatever they excel in. Sooner or later that combination will appear in somebody without a penis.
Hey OMM, I see you've just posted again but I don't think it changes this ...
Turns out in excess of 1,600 people have run a 4 minute mile. They are all men. The record is 3:43.
The women's record is 4:12 - half a minute slower.
So women aren't even close. Basically, the fastest woman possibly wouldn't even be in the top 5,000 all-time.
The best-of-the-best in physical sports are men and they always will be - no matter how much participation and opportunity gaps are closed. Sure, it's *possible* that a woman could beat all the men but it's unlikely to happen on a thousand year timeframe (horse riding, darts, your local parkrun & some random ultra do not count).
This all seems so obvious I'm not sure why I've set it out. Women's sport should basically be seen as a protected classification, that biological men should be excluded from no matter how much their testosterone is reduced.
[Off topic perhaps but I am v much of the mind that DSD females should be able to compete as women without requiring testosterone suppression, that whole attempt to define a woman as T<2.5nmol/L was and is a shitshow]
Ah, see that 1600 number was kinda my point.
Bearing in mind the seven billion number.
I think we’re looking at it from the wrong perspective.
We devalue an amazing achievement. The fastest woman (under current definitions) is enormously faster than the average human. That “woman” is still the fastest “woman” regardless of racing in a closed or open category, her time doesn’t change (possibly an argument that racing against faster opponents might drive her to an even better time, maybe). The difference is only our (and her) attitude to exactly the same data.
Oh yeah…
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.
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 might be right.
But that probably means both categories are approaching the apex of their potentiality or advance at the same pace, which seems unlikely to me,
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If we change the definition of woman to include all those who were born male and now identify as woman then there is no problem of inclusion of trans woman in woman's sport.
Interesting. I agree, there would be no problem of inclusion of trans women in women's sport....but there would be a big problem of including cis-women in women's sport.
Woman born as woman may have a disadvantage and possibly space should be made for them in the Paralympics but it is not unfair for them to compete in a woman's category with people who traditionally would have been seen as male.
Are you saying there should be a "women-born-as-women" category that is in the paralympics, while the women-born-as-men-or-women category is the one that's at the Olympics?
I reckon there is enough interest to put on some women-born-as-women events at the main Olympics tbh.
This is only correct if you fail to accept that trans-women are women. Once you accept that trans-women are women then the opportunities for women to breeze past their previous limits are realized and women will be able to compete equally with men.
I think I'm just going to use your definition of women-born-as-women to cut through the confusion. Women-born-as-women will not be troubling the top end of human sporting achievement any time soon. We can accept that trans-women are women all we want but I think you've also drawn a distinction between different types of women. If you haven't, then presumably trans-women can compete in the women-born-as-women category at the paralympics?
Or is this a wind up?
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Ah, see that 1600 number was kinda my point.
Bearing in mind the seven billion number.
....
We devalue an amazing achievement. The fastest woman (under current definitions) is enormously faster than the average human. That “woman” is still the fastest “woman” regardless of racing in a closed or open category, her time doesn’t change (possibly an argument that racing against faster opponents might drive her to an even better time, maybe). The difference is only our (and her) attitude to exactly the same data.
For me, being the fastest ever woman is a heck of a lot more impressive than being the 5,000th fastest human, so it does diminish it quite a lot to just throw this woman's achievement in the "human" category.
If we fully accepted the "trans-women are women" argument then its pretty unlikely that this 4:12 time even is the fastest for a woman. One of those 5,000 ahead of her probably also have female pronouns.
It's all relative, yeah fast for a human but top 5,000 isn't going to qualify you for anything if we are gender neutral.
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If we fully accepted the "trans-women are women" argument then its pretty unlikely that this 4:12 time even is the fastest for a woman.
Language is a problem here- quite obviously, otherwise there’d be no debate around pronouns. The term ‘woman’ is a signifier of a cluster of traits which ‘trans woman’ does not completely match. In a social sense you can argue it can, or should be accepted as being, a fair match. Physiologically it doesn’t 100%
So it seems to me trans women are currently in an awkward simultaneous woman/not woman state. Possible to be 100% recognised as a woman in the high street, but not in the stadium. A new and unique category is difficult to fit into existing categories. I suspect the debate around what constitutes biological femaleness, maleness and hormone levels will continue to develop before this is resolved.
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In sports, though, male/female categories exist and they have to mean something physically (arguably in sports they shouldn't have ANYTHING to do with social roles, but unfortunately sport doesn't exist in a vacuum outside of society).
If nothing else, we now have assorted non-binary athletes (including Olympians like Quinn) who aren't on hormones and have chosen to compete in the category for the gender they were assigned at birth.
So regardless of what category you think trans women should be in, we're going to have to get better at distinguishing the sports categories from the identities of the people in them.
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So regardless of what category you think trans women should be in, we're going to have to get better at distinguishing the sports categories from the identities of the people in them.
Whilst I think the majority of people in this conversation would agree that splitting the physical and social elements of sex and gender would allow this neat solution do you think this will be acceptable to the wider trans community?
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So regardless of what category you think trans women should be in, we're going to have to get better at distinguishing the sports categories from the identities of the people in them.
do you think this will be acceptable to the wider trans community?
Do you mean "the wider trans community" or do you mean "people/bots on Twitter". We can probably skip a lot of the choss if we ignore the latter.
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Woman born as woman may have a disadvantage and possibly space should be made for them in the Paralympics
:lol: Good smackdown
For me, being the fastest ever woman is a heck of a lot more impressive than being the 5,000th fastest human, so it does diminish it quite a lot to just throw this woman's achievement in the "human" category.
Ditto.
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So regardless of what category you think trans women should be in, we're going to have to get better at distinguishing the sports categories from the identities of the people in them.
Whilst I think the majority of people in this conversation would agree that splitting the physical and social elements of sex and gender would allow this neat solution do you think this will be acceptable to the wider trans community?
But it's not a neat solution to anything: separating sporting category and gender identity still doesn't answer the question of which category trans women should compete in, since trans women on hormones are physiologically very different from cis men in a number of respects, many of which have a huge impact on sports performance.
Deciding they should have to compete against cis men puts them at an unfair advantage; deciding they should compete against cis women might (or might not, debate continues) put the cis women at an unfair advantage.
My point is that, as mentioned, there are already non-binary athletes who choose to compete in a category which doesn't match their gender identity. So regardless of anything else, we are going to have to get better at separating category and identity, just to treat these athletes with basic respect.
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I may have misunderstood, but I think Potash is basically saying: trans women are women where gender identity is important, but are not women where sex-at-birth is important... then asking if those who like simplistic slogans like "trans women are women" would accept that? The set of situations where sex-at-birth is the key issue is likely to be limited, but elite sport is probably one of them. The lack of nuance in "trans women are women" strikes me as as simplistic as the "I know what a woman is, do you" bollocks from the Tories, at least unless everyone agrees to reserve some words for gender (identity) and others for sex (at birth) - which is presumably where this will end up in 10 years?
My point is that, as mentioned, there are already non-binary athletes who choose to compete in a category which doesn't match their gender identity. So regardless of anything else, we are going to have to get better at separating category and identity, just to treat these athletes with basic respect.
Presumably not such an issue with "open" and "born female" as category names?
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My point is that, as mentioned, there are already non-binary athletes who choose to compete in a category which doesn't match their gender identity. So regardless of anything else, we are going to have to get better at separating category and identity, just to treat these athletes with basic respect.
Presumably not such an issue with "open" and "born female" as category names?
One really difficult question to answer comprehensively is: what does "born female" actually mean? This article in Nature (https://www.nature.com/articles/518288a) is a cool introduction to some of the ideas about how difficult it is to define female as a category from a genetic perspective and how thinking of sex as a spectrum is probably a better biological model.
edit: There's also some excellent charts in this article (https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/sa-visual/visualizing-sex-as-a-spectrum/) to help visualise some of the complexity.
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The set of situations where sex-at-birth is the key issue is likely to be limited, but elite sport is probably one of them
.....
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Presumably not such an issue with "open" and "born female" as category names?
Yeah, it's only sport where it's relevant, and having open or born female categories should be where we end up.
Apologies if I've mixed up sex and gender elsewhere in my earlier witterings, I'm using the terms available - women's sport - when ideally it should be called "assigned female at birth and not medically transitioning" sport.
Joel182 -
Appreciate being biologically male or female isn't always straightforward, but those cases are rare compared to TG women (or men) in general. (Think I've seen 1 in 20k figure for females with DSD but a good fraction of a % identifying as trans). Slab has already shared the article about a 46XY woman who got pregnant naturally, fascinating stuff, but TG women in sport isn't really about that. That's more about DSD women in sport.
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My point is that, as mentioned, there are already non-binary athletes who choose to compete in a category which doesn't match their gender identity. So regardless of anything else, we are going to have to get better at separating category and identity, just to treat these athletes with basic respect.
Presumably not such an issue with "open" and "born female" as category names?
One really difficult question to answer comprehensively is: what does "born female" actually mean? This article in Nature (https://www.nature.com/articles/518288a) is a cool introduction to some of the ideas about how difficult it is to define female as a category from a genetic perspective and how thinking of sex as a spectrum is probably a better biological model.
edit: There's also some excellent charts in this article (https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/sa-visual/visualizing-sex-as-a-spectrum/) to help visualise some of the complexity.
That article in nature looks at chimera.
Chimerism and identical twins raise important theological questions. If the soul is imparted at the moment of conception do chimaera have two souls? Do identical twins have one? Is murdering a chimera four times worse than murdering an identical twin?
(sorry it's a bit off topic but I think the question of whether someone is one or two people trumps their gender. They should be banned from elite sport unless it's doubles regardless)
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I may have misunderstood, but I think Potash is basically saying: trans women are women where gender identity is important, but are not women where sex-at-birth is important...
I don't know what Potash is trying to say, but I have to point out that you can't chop things up and get a nice clear-cut solution that way, because there are also a whole lot of other factors in the mixture like "hormonal make-up now" and "hormonal make-up for the last decade" and "what kind of puberty you went through", and they don't all line up neatly. Which is what makes something like the sports discussion so messy and complicated.
If someone's sex-at-birth is male, but by the age of 4 they're screaming "I'm a girl!", go on puberty blockers when they're 10 and cross-sex hormones a few years after that, and never go through male puberty -- is their sex-at-birth really the key factor determining what sports category they should compete in?
Not to mention that you wouldn't even have agreement on what sex-at-birth means.
Caster Semenya was assigned female on the basis of her genitalia at birth and grew up as female. There are people who would say this means she's female (and also has a DSD/intersex condition). There are also people who say that the fact that she has 5α-Reductase 2 deficiency and XY chromosomes means that that assigning her as female was a "mistake" and she's really in some sense "biologically male".
The lack of nuance in "trans women are women" strikes me as as simplistic
But as you acknowledge, the cases where sex-at-birth (whatever we mean by that) is the determining factor are likely to be limited.
And also as a matter of empirical fact, various sporting bodies do exclude some cis women (such as Caster Semenya) from competing in particular women's events, for a variety of reasons. You can exclude someone from competing without having to rule that they're "not a real woman" -- or at least, sporting bodies say that's not what they're doing, whether they're managing it or not.
"Trans women are women, even though possibly they might need to be subject to special rules in some elite sporting contexts, but their gender identity is still valid" really doesn't scan well, as chants go.
And generally speaking, what people are marching and chanting about is wanting to be able to use the toilets with safety and dignity and to not be horrendously discriminated against in the workplace and not be forced into conversion therapy and to have access to necessary health care and not be hate-crimed for walking down the street and be treated with some level of basic respect in society, rather than having certain people doing the equivalent of going "LOLZ YOU'RE REALLY A MAAAAN, PENIS PENIS PENIS" at them all the fucking time.
That being the context: yes, "trans women are women" is what you chant.
(Speaking as someone who's chanted it, and will do so again.)
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You should be able to socially and legally transition and be treated with dignity and respect to your identified gender but you can't participate in elite sports as that gender.
I've read the whole thread with interest but think this is ultimately my view when it comes to elite sports. I don't see a way round it which doesn't disadvantage female athletes who were born female and went through female puberty, which is by far the majority. more research is needed etc but as someone said above absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. None of that detracts from my view that trans women should be treated as women in every aspect of their daily life.
Sport below the elite level is different, and should probably follow something of a sliding scale whereby pub level sunday sport should be basically genderless, and higher level sport subject to more stringent protocols, but I daresay nobody can truly say what these should be and whatever is decided will have a proportion of people unhappy about it.
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Article from cyclingnews by Phillipa York:
https://www.cyclingnews.com/features/philippa-york-cycling-needs-transgender-education-not-exclusion/
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That article is exactly the type of crap that makes people prone to instinctively dismissing that side of the debate. Given the title it's ironic as hell.
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This thread has been a good reasonable debate. The video below from RossTucker gives a good overview of the situation in elite sport on why primary biological sex matters in elite sport.
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Alex is being a bit antagonistic IMO, but it is a terrible article.
It's full of straw men and logical fallacies.
Straw men - no-one serious believes people will transition purely for competitive advantage, but the article pretends to take this seriously.
Logical fallacies - much space is devoted to arguing that testosterone suppression is bad for performance. Well of course it is, but that doesn't prove that all, or even most, of the advantage was retained.
Then there's the easily dismissed old chestnut of "show me the trans domination". I hate it when the performance of actual trans athletes is used as evidence in this discussion - in either direction. It's irrelevant. Someone higher up posted a nice example of entering the TdF on an e-bike. You'd still come last, but you'd have an unfair advantage.
I think many contributions to the discussion from the pro-inclusion side are quite low-quality and full of motivated reasoning. I think I understand why - it must feel very personal and emotional for many. However, I think the pro-trans-inclusion side would have more success if they admitted there is very likely retained advantage and made the case that inclusion is more important than fairness.
Articles like the one linked above just harden the position of people on the other side of the debate IMO.
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I actually posted it as I follow cycling and saw it today whilst looking at the site. I guess I posted it simply as I was reading it and thought it might be of interest to some on here - there are not that many ex-elite level athletes who have transitioned themselves and their views on the matter could be of interest.
Sorry if you, Alex etc didn't rate the article, having seen some of the abuse/arguments directed at folk like Austin Killips, Lia Thomas (where the points raised in the article are the milder ones) I posted this as a response to that, but on reflection the debate on here hasn't drifted into that territory. It didn't add anything to the scientific debate. I would say that if you think it was full of straw men then I suggest you take a look at the sort of arguments that trans athletes (and trans folk in general) do face, not just from raving loons on twitter, but from mainstream media and folks in position of power within sport, and then think about how that sort of commentary will effect anyone who identifies with this group. (another cycling website, from yesterday: https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/after-claims-of-intimidation-and-personal-attacks-cynisca-cycling-and-board-member-and-anti-trans-advocate-inga-thompson-part-ways)
I do find the trans issue very emotive, but actually a lot less so in the sporting context. I think most trans folk are much more concerned about being able to walk down the street/go to the toilet safely/access the medical support they need.
It's also noticeable that Ross "I'm going to call them male even though I know it will offend some people" Tucker is brought up as a good overview of the science of it all (sorry Sheavi, maybe not something you were aware of). If someone doesn't have the respect to use the correct pronoun, is happy to deliberately offend one side of an argument then either that person is so lacking in understanding of the debate, or is so biased towards one side of the debate that I struggle to give their thoughts credibility. At the least their views should be taken with their biases in mind.
I actually agree that the current UCI etc regulations are likely biased towards inclusion over fairness (which is likely something Ross brings up, with some science behind it, but I'm not sure if I want to give him the youtube views. Maybe says more about my sensitivity on the subject). Wouldn't it be wonderful if there could be a way for trans women to compete fairly, and be accepted amongst other women.
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I actually posted it as I follow cycling and saw it today whilst looking at the site. I guess I posted it simply as I was reading it and thought it might be of interest to some on here - there are not that many ex-elite level athletes who have transitioned themselves and their views on the matter could be of interest.
Sorry if you, Alex etc didn't rate the article, having seen some of the abuse/arguments directed at folk like Austin Killips, Lia Thomas (where the points raised in the article are the milder ones) I posted this as a response to that, but on reflection the debate on here hasn't drifted into that territory. It didn't add anything to the scientific debate. I would say that if you think it was full of straw men then I suggest you take a look at the sort of arguments that trans athletes (and trans folk in general) do face, not just from raving loons on twitter, but from mainstream media and folks in position of power within sport, and then think about how that sort of commentary will effect anyone who identifies with this group. (another cycling website, from yesterday: https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/after-claims-of-intimidation-and-personal-attacks-cynisca-cycling-and-board-member-and-anti-trans-advocate-inga-thompson-part-ways)
I do find the trans issue very emotive, but actually a lot less so in the sporting context. I think most trans folk are much more concerned about being able to walk down the street/go to the toilet safely/access the medical support they need.
It's also noticeable that Ross "I'm going to call them male even though I know it will offend some people" Tucker is brought up as a good overview of the science of it all (sorry Sheavi, maybe not something you were aware of). If someone doesn't have the respect to use the correct pronoun, is happy to deliberately offend one side of an argument then either that person is so lacking in understanding of the debate, or is so biased towards one side of the debate that I struggle to give their thoughts credibility. At the least their views should be taken with their biases in mind.
I actually agree that the current UCI etc regulations are likely biased towards inclusion over fairness (which is likely something Ross brings up, with some science behind it, but I'm not sure if I want to give him the youtube views. Maybe says more about my sensitivity on the subject). Wouldn't it be wonderful if there could be a way for trans women to compete fairly, and be accepted amongst other women.
What Ben said….. hardcore topic, about as tough a subject as they come!! I find it definitely helps to think about how the other side would feel(whichever side you are on).
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I actually posted it as I follow cycling and saw it today whilst looking at the site. I guess I posted it simply as I was reading it and thought it might be of interest to some on here - there are not that many ex-elite level athletes who have transitioned themselves and their views on the matter could be of interest.
It is of interest. It just isn't very useful for getting any closer to the truth of whether there's an athletic advantage and if so how large, for trans-women athletes over non-trans women athletes. The truth of that can only be discovered by looking at objective facts - not emotional opinions on how someone feels about the issue.
I would say that if you think it was full of straw men then I suggest you take a look at the sort of arguments that trans athletes (and trans folk in general) do face, not just from raving loons on twitter, but from mainstream media and folks in position of power within sport, and then think about how that sort of commentary will effect anyone who identifies with this group. (another cycling website, from yesterday: https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/after-claims-of-intimidation-and-personal-attacks-cynisca-cycling-and-board-member-and-anti-trans-advocate-inga-thompson-part-ways)
Two straw men don't cancel each other out though. Ideally each side should be engaging with respect for the other's views and feelings, while sticking to facts. Clearly that doesn't happen and there are dickheads, of all stripes, either who don't like difference (anti-trans), or who can't accept evidence. Most people are in the silent middle is my assumption.
I do find the trans issue very emotive, but actually a lot less so in the sporting context. I think most trans folk are much more concerned about being able to walk down the street/go to the toilet safely/access the medical support they need.
I agree with this, anyone has the right to be respected and to not be vilified or excluded from society. Sport is valuable because it provides a somewhat objective way of channelling our competive and combative spirit, via a contrived physical/mental/emotional challenge - into entertainment. It's a good substitute for the more barbaric versions of human-v-human competition humans enjoyed for most of history. But part what makes sport valuable - its attempt at fair competition - also makes it brutal for the people it excludes who don't fit into the categories. A civilised society needn't exclude people in normal day to day life though.
It's also noticeable that Ross "I'm going to call them male even though I know it will offend some people" Tucker is brought up as a good overview of the science of it all (sorry Sheavi, maybe not something you were aware of). If someone doesn't have the respect to use the correct pronoun, is happy to deliberately offend one side of an argument then either that person is so lacking in understanding of the debate, or is so biased towards one side of the debate that I struggle to give their thoughts credibility. At the least their views should be taken with their biases in mind.
It's a shame you don't want to watch his youtube presentation because it covers everything talked about on this thread (except the psychology of comedy) in more detail. You don't have to like him or agree with his views (I'm unaware of his wider views) to form an opinion on the facts presented. You can then go and look through the 13 studies he talks about. From the Q&A at the end you can see that the 13 studies on retained advantage currently don't extend beyond a shortish time period, which he makes clear. I watched it and thought 'more data required but weight of evidence is fairly clear, so far'.
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Wouldn't it be wonderful if there could be a way for trans women to compete fairly, and be accepted amongst other women.
It would - one of the reasons I find the sport argument worth discussion is it's pretty much the only area where there's some real tension between the rights of two groups. It seems like in other areas of discussion (shared spaces, women's toilets etc) there's just hurtful, poorly-thought-through opposition.
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It's also noticeable that Ross "I'm going to call them male even though I know it will offend some people" Tucker is brought up as a good overview of the science of it all (sorry Sheavi, maybe not something you were aware of). If someone doesn't have the respect to use the correct pronoun, is happy to deliberately offend one side of an argument then either that person is so lacking in understanding of the debate, or is so biased towards one side of the debate that I struggle to give their thoughts credibility.
Idk - is male a pronoun? I don't know the back story but Ross wasn't blithely mis-gendering anyone from what I saw. I thought the video was fairly balanced.
Certainly it was a lot more thoughtful than where phillipa seemingly dismissed sex differences by saying that different people are different sizes and there's more difference within a sex than between the sexes. That's not really the point.
I actually agree that the current UCI etc regulations are likely biased towards inclusion over fairness (which is likely something Ross brings up, with some science behind it, but I'm not sure if I want to give him the youtube views.
Yeah he pretty much says this - reckons the advantages largely persist except for haemoglibin levels which resemble female levels quite quickly.
Also reckons the sex differences are largest in strength-based sports, weightlifting and rugby e.g. and so not sure if he says it but there's not going to be a one-size-fits all fix.
There's a q&a about the potential for doping to be allowed for females to allow them to compete with trans women but he reckons even in the East Germany doping days, where women fully doped, their performances still didn't approach those of the men.
Idk, maybe I'm not very good at this, but he didn't really come across as a hater. Really happy to be called out if I should have felt different.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if there could be a way for trans women to compete fairly, and be accepted amongst other women.
Amen
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I agree with this, anyone has the right to be respected and to not be vilified or excluded from society. Sport is valuable because it provides a somewhat objective way of channelling our competive and combative spirit, via a contrived physical/mental/emotional challenge - into entertainment. It's a good substitute for the more barbaric versions of human-v-human competition humans enjoyed for most of history. But part what makes sport valuable - its attempt at fair competition - also makes it brutal for the people it excludes who don't fit into the categories. A civilised society needn't exclude people in normal day to day life though.
Agree with this ofc. At the risk of pointing out the obvious but surely climbing - proper climbing, not comps - is a fantastic place for inclusion. No need for anyone to question your pronouns at the crag.
Very difficult to take a lot of other sports seriously before you have to be classified one way or another. Appreciate a lot of other sports have non-official/non-competitive sides, but for climbing it really is a massive part of it.
Or maybe I'm just weird and it's all about the comps...
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Idk - is male a pronoun? I don't know the back story but Ross wasn't blithely mis-gendering anyone from what I saw. I thought the video was fairly balanced.
Certainly it was a lot more thoughtful than where phillipa seemingly dismissed sex differences by saying that different people are different sizes and there's more difference within a sex than between the sexes. That's not really the point.
Not meaning to derail this too much, and I actually agree with a lot of what folk are saying re retained advantage etc. But on the Ross Tucker thing it was an earlier podcast. He repeatedly refers to trans women as "biological males", " Still a biological male" Etc when talking about folk like Lea Thomas, people who have transitioned and met the requirements to compete. Trans women seems like a better term to me? He then quotes an ISC report and says "ISC report says: " Never be an advantage for a trans-women" Male. Never be an advantage for a male, I'm saying male even though that will offend some people" So he deliberately goes out of his way to call trans women male, wants to correct the quote to male. Again trans women seems like a better term for trans women than male? Less offensive and also (for a science podcast) more scientifically accurate. So he deliberately calls trans women male, even though it's scientifically less accurate as far as I can tell purely to cause offense.
That puts him in the
dickheads, of all stripes,
category to me, and therefore I'm not going to listen to his stuff regardless of how reasonable he comes across in the latest vid or how good his quoted reports are.
This may seem like I am being a snowflake, taking offence where non is intended etc but I know far to well the effect this sort of trans phobia can have on young trans kids lives and mental health.
Sorry, carry on with the debate, and a summary/link to the reports from the vid would be nice.
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This may seem like I am being a snowflake, taking offence where non is intended etc but I know far to well the effect this sort of trans phobia can have on young trans kids lives and mental health.
Haven't got involved in this debate, the issues are very complicated and while I do have some tangential experience of them I haven't had time (and possibly clarity on my own views) to respond. I do think the level of debate here is pretty good particularly when compared to what you see in the media.
However I do want to say that imo you aren't in any way being a snowflake, Ross Tucker is being a dick and deserves to be called out.
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Thanks Ben, sorry I didn't know any of that, agree sounds v dickish and unnecessary.
I've gone back in to look for the references and it's just in the qna - he says there's two summaries, "one by Joanna Harper and one by Hilton and Lundberg".
Googling them, the Harper study possibly refers to this one (fwiw, Harper is a pro-inclusion trans woman herself)
https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/55/15/865.abstract
Hilton and Lundberg perhaps refers to this one.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40279-020-01389-3
Not read either myself.
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Article from cyclingnews by Phillipa York:
https://www.cyclingnews.com/features/philippa-york-cycling-needs-transgender-education-not-exclusion/
The only argument in this I see as particularly problematic is the fact that " transgender athletes are not a problem as they are not winning". I've always seen this as problematic as what happens if they start winning.
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Straw men - no-one serious believes people will transition purely for competitive advantage, but the article pretends to take this seriously.
If they saw a competitive advantage and thought they would get away with it, then countries like Russia, China, Kenya etc would 100% try to pressure/force athletes to transition in order to try and win more medals/titles. Their record with doping makes it clear that competitive advantage is far more important to them than athlete welfare.
But it is a side issue that shouldn't frame the debate.
The important issue is to decide what the desired compromise is between inclusion, fairness and safety in sport. Once that compromise has been decided upon, it is up to the sporting authorities to frame the rules to achieve that compromise while preventing abuse by ruthless countries/coaches etc and ensuring that there is no incentive for bad actors to try to impose transitioning on an athlete.
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I can’t find the podcast El Mocho where Tucker makes those comments. However, from a pure biological technical view is he incorrect to state that TW biology is male? From what I’ve read and heard from experts in the field, is you can change gender but not sex. The discussion is about fairness in female sport, protecting it from male advantage.
Anyway from a more human viewpoint with all its complexities, I can only imagine how difficult it must be for trans people to navigate in the world. I can only say that regardless of sex and gender we’re all human at the end of the day and are all equally deserving of respect, with the right to live a peaceful and happy life.
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I feel like there's a couple of missing voices in this conversation (not specifically on here). One of them is this one:-
I think the pro-trans-inclusion side would have more success if they admitted there is very likely retained advantage and made the case that inclusion is more important than fairness.
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.
https://amp.theguardian.com/sport/2022/apr/20/katie-archibald-claims-ioc-unfair-to-female-cyclists-and-trans-women
It doesn't need to be sensationalist nonsense like Thompson's to have an impact.
When Seb Coe announced the new World Athletics guidelines earlier this year, he stated that the "majority of people we consulted did not want trans women in elite women's sport". However, what wasn't clear is who they asked and what majority meant - 51%, 99% or somewhere in between? Apparently the figure was 80% when World Swimming (or whatever the governing body is called) asked a similar question, but I still don't know who was asked. If they just asked elite women swimmers, I'd love to hear the voice of both the 80% and the 20%. I hope the voice of either of those groups isn't being silenced by any perceived potential backlash from sponsors or other competitors, because people should be able to put forward a reasoned opinion on issues that affect them without fear of losing their livelihood.
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I can’t find the podcast El Mocho where Tucker makes those comments. However, from a pure biological technical view is he incorrect to state that TW biology is male?
Well, in terms of the English language, it doesn't make a lot of sense to talk about a "male woman" or a "female man."
We don't currently have very good terms for referring to the biological traits without implicitly connecting them to gender, though I expect people will be working some out in the near future.
And stuff like calling trans women "males" or "men" and refusing to refer to them as trans women will be regarded by many people as deliberately offensive.
From what I’ve read and heard from experts in the field, is you can change gender but not sex.
Depends what you mean by "sex".
We talk about that as if it's one single unitary thing, but actually it tends to refer to a bunch of different biological factors, some of which can be altered and some of which can't, as a matter of empirical fact.
If you're talking purely in terms of chromosomes -- you can't change them, sure, but as discussed in this thread and the other one, there are cis women out there with XY chromosomes (about 1 in every 20,000 is the current estimate), and some of them won't ever know unless they're tested.
So trying to define "sex" as chromosomes forces you to some weird places.
In terms of hormones, they obviously can be changed. You've got the argument about whether someone might have retained advantages if they went through puberty with a different hormonal set-up, which is what much of this thread has been about. But the physiology of a trans woman on hormones is still very different from that of a cis man.
(And you've also got women with common conditions like PCOS who may have much higher levels of androgens than the female "norm".)
If it's "does this person have a penis or not" -- obviously that can be changed, and also it doesn't work as a definition of "sex"; a male soldier who gets his penis and scrotum blown off by an IED doesn't become "female" because of it.
And then you have the attempts to define sex in terms of uteruses -- not great for all the cis women who've had hysterectomies or were born without them, or the cis men with persistent Müllerian duct syndrome -- or large versus small gametes, or whatever, but that's all getting into stuff that's much less relevant to the sports context.
So, yeah. We can talk about different biological factors, some of which can't be altered and some of which can. Biology is very real and concrete!
But IMHO, it's surprisingly hard to pin down one single unitary thing which you can point to and call "biological sex", at least not without ending up in some odd philosophical tangles.
Anyway from a more human viewpoint with all its complexities, I can only imagine how difficult it must be for trans people to navigate in the world. I can only say that regardless of sex and gender we’re all human at the end of the day and are all equally deserving of respect, with the right to live a peaceful and happy life.
I'm really glad that everyone here generally seems to be in agreement on that.
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And stuff like calling trans women "males" or "men" and refusing to refer to them as trans women will be regarded by many people as deliberately offensive.
It's technically correct to refer to a trans woman as male though isn't it slab? Thats what sheavi was asking.
(Agree could be offensive, but surely depends on context).
Referring to a trans woman as a man is a whole other kettle of fish but that isn't what Tucker has been accused of.
From what I’ve read and heard from experts in the field, is you can change gender but not sex.
Depends what you mean by "sex".
I think you are over-complicating it. Sure, various abnormalities and some people not fitting neatly into categories Male and Female (which is what i would assume was meant by "sex") doesn't mean it something you can just change - which is what sheavi was asking.
Having your cock blown off or having PCOS doesn't (i think) change your sex and no-one is suggesting it does.
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And stuff like calling trans women "males" or "men" and refusing to refer to them as trans women will be regarded by many people as deliberately offensive.
It's technically correct to refer to a trans woman as male though isn't it slab?
Except we don't have a precise technical definition of what "male" means, any more than we have a technical definition of "biological sex".
Most of the time, we all know what we mean because someone's gender and their genital arrangements and their reproductive organs and their chromosomes and their hormones and their phenotype will all line up tidily in the way we expect.
But sometimes life's more complicated.
Sure, various abnormalities and some people not fitting neatly into categories Male and Female (which is what i would assume was meant by "sex") doesn't mean it something you can just change - which is what sheavi was asking.
But what is it that you think people "can't just change"?
Because if it's chromosomes, then sure, absolutely, they can't change those! If it's hormones or genital arrangements, they absolutely can.
If you want to postulate that there's a single unitary unchangeable thing that "biological sex" refers to, then you have to be prepared to say what you think that single unitary thing is.
And it doesn't help you to say that "sex" means "categories Male and Female" unless you're prepared to say what those mean. What's the single unchangeable biological thing that defines being "male" or "female"?
Having your cock blown off or having PCOS doesn't (i think) change your sex and no-one is suggesting it does.
So, "sex" can't be defined by your genitals or your hormones then, can it?
various abnormalities
If you're offering what is intended to be the logical definition of something, you don't get to go "everything abides by this definition, except for some things which don't but they're 'abnormalities' so they don't count."
I'm going to refer once more to one of my favourite scientific papers (because human biology is wild):
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2190741/
If you want, you can define "biologically male" as meaning "having XY chromosomes" (at least for humans; we'll put aside the species which have other chromosomal arrangements).
But that means you have to look at this ordinary woman who went through an ordinary menarche, gave birth to two children, and had an ordinary menopause, and say, "Yes, she is biologically male."
And, I mean, that's a philosophical position you can hold, if you want! You can fight it out with the people like Emma Hilton who'll be maintaining that she has produced "large gametes" and is therefore the very definition of "biologically female"! :popcorn:
Or you can do what some of us do and accept that it depends on how you define those terms, and it's all a bit messier and less clear-cut than maybe we once imagined. So if you want to say someone's "biologically male" or "biologically female" -- okay, in what sense? What are the specifics you're referring to?
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Also, my propensities to philosophical wankery aside --
And stuff like calling trans women "males" or "men" and refusing to refer to them as trans women will be regarded by many people as deliberately offensive.
It's technically correct to refer to a trans woman as male though isn't it slab? Thats what sheavi was asking.
(Agree could be offensive, but surely depends on context).
Referring to a trans woman as a man is a whole other kettle of fish but that isn't what Tucker has been accused of.
To quote:
But on the Ross Tucker thing it was an earlier podcast. He repeatedly refers to trans women as "biological males", " Still a biological male" Etc when talking about folk like Lea Thomas, people who have transitioned and met the requirements to compete. Trans women seems like a better term to me? He then quotes an ISC report and says "ISC report says: " Never be an advantage for a trans-women" Male. Never be an advantage for a male, I'm saying male even though that will offend some people" So he deliberately goes out of his way to call trans women male, wants to correct the quote to male. Again trans women seems like a better term for trans women than male? Less offensive and also (for a science podcast) more scientifically accurate. So he deliberately calls trans women male, even though it's scientifically less accurate as far as I can tell purely to cause offense.
That's not like someone saying, "well, I believe XY chromosomes are what define you as being biologically male, and therefore in that sense trans women are male." Which might still bother some people, but yeah, arguably that's someone trying to refer to a specific biological distinction.
Or like talking about someone having gone through "male puberty", for another example.
As I said, we don't yet have very good terms for talking about various biological things without implicitly connecting them to gender.
But what El Mocho describes is someone refusing to refer to trans women as trans women, and instead going out of his way to refer repeatedly to them as "males" instead of calling them trans women, even though he knows it's going to cause offense.
And it's a much less precise and informative term in this context, in that it doesn't distinguish between trans women on hormones and cis men, two groups who have major physiological differences.
(Also, if you think that trans women are by definition biologically male, then there shouldn't be any problem with calling them trans women, right? It's built in. The "trans" is right there in the phrase so everyone is clear about what's going on!)
At which point, in my opinion, he doesn't get to claim that it's all about the pure dispassionate objective science any more.
It's a bit like someone who refuses to say "lesbians and gay men" and insists referring to "homosexuals" instead, you know? In that case, it's technically correct to say that they are, but we can all recognize that this person's biases are showing.
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I agree with Murph, this line of discussion strikes me as overcomplication.
Public discourse around sex is simply not going to evolve to a level where it incorporates every person with a rare medical condition or people who have their cock blown off. It actively harms trans causes to argue that it should imo. People just instinctively go "give me a break, what a load of bollocks" ; I kind of have and I genuinely do care about the issue and would consider myself pro trans rights, just with a different view on elite sport. Imagine how people trying to care/learn feel!
None of that is meant to come across as confrontational, and I apologise if it does (it's late and I'm tired!) but I really do think that its unhelpful. It's possible to have a good discussion about the fluid nature of sex and gender without completely losing sight of common sense.
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That's kind of why I said "my propensities to philosophical wankery aside" in the second post, to be honest.
Because I'm aware that I'm an autistic person with a philosophy degree, and me doing the equivalent of lying on the floor drumming my heels and screaming "but this is LOGICALLY INCOHERENT and LACKS CONCEPTUAL CLARITY" is not going to land with everyone.
(And I'm not speaking on behalf of anyone but myself -- these are purely my own personal views, so don't blame the trans rights movement for my shit.)
I do personally think it's important not to use terms like "biologically male" as if those refer to something solid and unambiguous with 100% clear-cut meanings, when the reality is that we can't and don't agree on how they apply in edge cases. The "rare medical conditions" are sports controversies in their own right because of that (see Caster Semenya). Mostly "common sense" works fine -- just sometimes, it doesn't.
However, you can think that trans women are "biologically male" because they have XY chromosomes (or whatever your reason of choice is), and that this is perfectly straightforward and common-sensical, and still think that when someone refuses to refer to them as trans women and deliberately keeps referring to them as "males" instead, that's both a dick move and an indicator of that person's likely biases.
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Surly any labeling to highlight difference is problematic as it identifies two classes of women. Especially as the word trans, in a duel gender world, is just latin shorthand for "woman who has crossed over from man".
However, you can think that some women are "trans women" because they have XY chromosomes (or whatever your reason of choice is), and that this is perfectly straightforward and common-sensical, and still think that when someone refuses to refer to them as women and deliberately keeps referring to them as "trans women" instead, that's both a dick move and an indicator of that person's likely biases.
Language is really slippery and I can see the advantages of using trans women to avoid writing male up front. It's still in there though packaged within the meaning of the words though.
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But what El Mocho describes is someone refusing to refer to trans women as trans women, and instead going out of his way to refer repeatedly to them as "males" instead of calling them trans women, even though he knows it's going to cause offense.
And it's a much less precise and informative term in this context, in that it doesn't distinguish between trans women on hormones and cis men, two groups who have major physiological differences.
(Also, if you think that trans women are by definition biologically male, then there shouldn't be any problem with calling them trans women, right? It's built in. The "trans" is right there in the phrase so everyone is clear about what's going on!)
At which point, in my opinion, he doesn't get to claim that it's all about the pure dispassionate objective science any more.
Have you listened to the podcast mentioned by El Mocho where Ross Tucker says those things? Do you have a link? It'd be good if people could listen and make their own judgement.
I do personally think it's important not to use terms like "biologically male" as if those refer to something solid and unambiguous with 100% clear-cut meanings, when the reality is that we can't and don't agree on how they apply in edge cases. The "rare medical conditions" are sports controversies in their own right because of that (see Caster Semenya). Mostly "common sense" works fine -- just sometimes, it doesn't.
However, you can think that trans women are "biologically male" because they have XY chromosomes (or whatever your reason of choice is), and that this is perfectly straightforward and common-sensical, and still think that when someone refuses to refer to them as trans women and deliberately keeps referring to them as "males" instead, that's both a dick move and an indicator of that person's likely biases.
In the spirit of philosophical wankery let me indulge :)
It might be useful for people upset at trans people being called biologically male when their gender identity is 'woman' to consider that all definitions are models that try to describe the world well enough so that we can make enough sense of our environment to get by efficiently and live good lives. But models aren't 100% accurate*, they're accurate enough to be useful to make sense of our world.
* an inaccurate language convention that I read somewhere recently that you may find amusing:
Unless the main force your dick is withstanding is torsion, then 'shaft' goes against nominative conventions. Given the main forces experienced are normal forces, i.e. tension and compression, it would be more appropriate to call it a 'rod' or 'beam'.
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Surly any labeling to highlight difference is problematic as it identifies two classes of women.
There are all sorts of labels that identify different subsets of women -- for example, white women, disabled women, British women, cis women, middle-aged women, etc. (to mention some of the subsets I'm in).
That doesn't mean that any of them create a two-tier system of women, which is what you seem to be trying to imply. Calling me a middle-aged woman doesn't qualify my womanhood or make me less (or more) a woman than anyone else.
It's literally just how adjectives work.
If you want to argue that all adjectives are problematic -- have fun with that, I guess?
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It might be useful for people upset at trans people being called biologically male when their gender identity is 'woman' to consider that all definitions are models that try to describe the world well enough so that we can make enough sense of our environment to get by efficiently and live good lives. But models aren't 100% accurate*, they're accurate enough to be useful to make sense of our world.
That's a view of language that I'm very much inclined to agree with.
And like I said, concepts like "male" work well enough in a "common sense" way most of the time, because most of the time people's gender and their chromosomes and phenotype etc. etc. all line up in the way we expect.
Lots of definitions are useful and functional but get fuzzy at the edges.
But if you accept that these definitions are models which are just accurate enough to be useful, then you can't also insist that "biologically male" is some single unitary unchangeable thing where 100% of the time we can conclude with certainty whether someone is or isn't "biologically male".
Especially when some people behave as if saying trans women are "biologically male" then proves something (whether it's that their gender isn't really "real", or that they must have an unfair advantage, or whatever).
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Have you listened to the podcast mentioned by El Mocho where Ross Tucker says those things? Do you have a link? It'd be good if people could listen and make their own judgement.
The podcast is the year in review one for 2022, think the trans stuff starts about 30mins in.
I didn't bring up the Ross Tucker stuff on here to cause a pile on on him etc, more that I had listened to his stuff in the past (and felt it had all been interesting) and knew other folk on here listened to his podcast so thought it would likely get brought up, and just to highlight that I think he might not actually be quite as impartial/unbiased as he claims/people might think.
In discourse around marginalised groups people’s choices about the language they use are really important. It’s recognised that language choices come with implications and also shape the way we think and feel about a particular topic. Words are also signifiers of underly attitudes and values. Compare with Suella Braveman using the word “Invasion” when talking about small boats.
In the quote I highlighted earlier, Ross changes a statement from ‘transwomen’ to ‘male’, and he says ‘even though this will cause offence’. Although there is an argument that ‘male’ is biologically accurate, by explicitly choosing this over ‘transwomen’ (no less accurate?) Ross shows that he is either unaware of the significance, in which case he shouldn’t be presenting himself as an expert on the issue, or that he is not as balanced, rational and unbiased as he would have you believe.
I didn't start listening to the podcast looking to take offence, like I say I've listened to a fair few of the podcasts, enjoy them and hadn't felt he was unreasonable in what he said or how he said it previously. But a number of things stood out to me from this podcast as a whole. Ross brought up how the transwomen had all been crap athletes before they transitioned (the argument Phillipa brought up in her article) but without actually bringing up any of the facts. He was then really annoyed that trans athletes had been consulted in some process rather than women athletes (personally I think both should have been consulted). Finally they make fun of the non-gendered category in the New York marathon, laughing about how slow the times were and how much the prize money was (I might have become oversensitive by this point, when I listened back a second time this seemed less obvious, more a feeling that I got)
Regarding the repeated use of biological male over transwoman: Ross is talking about trans athletes podiuming/winning cyclocross and swimming events, so although not focusing totally on individuals he is talking about specific people/competitions. He calls them biological males etc (I can't remember all the specifics, and it's a lovely day so I'm not gonna listen to it all again right now). These are trans women who have met the requirements to compete at those events which include meeting certain levels of testosterone etc. They have transitioned both socially and also medically to some degree (to be allowed to compete), so to repeatedly call them biological males might be technically accurate but it's not as accurate as saying trans woman athlete would be – they have lost some of the advantages a biological male has. It all jarred with me. It felt he was being inaccurate deliberately to either cause confusion/back up his statements, or to cause offence to the people in question (or both) and repeatedly calling a trans women biologically male will be hurtful to them.
Ross has worked with UK/World? Rugby to create their trans inclusion policy, supposedly as an independent/unbiased sports scientist so you would have thought he would make sure he used the correct and non hurtful language when referring to trans folk. Imagine if you were a trans woman rugby player who could no longer compete and you heard him using this sort of language? How fair would you think the process was?
As others on here have said it is looking like (from the direction the science seems to be pointing) that it might well not be possible for trans women to compete 100% fairly with women so the interesting point to debate is how it is possible to balance fairness with inclusion and at what levels in sport the rules should apply etc.
Obv you are all welcome to listen the podcast and make your own mind up on how he used the words, and I'm sure a lot of what he links to/talks about is interesting. I'm not going to listen to his stuff again. And I won't be massively upset if you all think his language was fine and accurate. Hopefully we can move on from the semantics of what he did/didn't mean as it is definitely drifting away from the debate about balancing fairness and inclusion in sport.
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Rather than trying to adjust a system that excludes people and has to make a decision about priortising fairness or inclusivity how about a new system that removes sex and/or gender from sporting categorisation, and use the things that actually make a difference in competition? It would be slightly more complex than the current binary, but infinitely less than the 50 sports classes across 10 impairment types in the paralympics.
That could look like five categories, based on perhaps height, weight and hormones, with the algorithm for each sport adjusted for which aspect gives the most advantage. Depending on sport, and for example, category 1 would consist of smaller, lighter people who have not experienced a male puberty and are not taking additional hormones. Category 5 would consist of taller, heavier people who have had a male puberty and/or are taking additional testosterone. Categories 2-4 create the spectrum in between.
This would actually drive inclusion in sport – consider category 1 rugby, for example, meaning that 5 ft tall, 9 stone-ers could safely enjoy the sport in a way that probably isn’t possible at the moment. Even down to school sport, this would cover safety, fairness and inclusion – you could take out hormones almost entirely at a local/grassroots level and compete based on height and weight (consider two 13 year olds – a 4ft 6 pre pubescent boy and a 5ft 11 post puberty girl playing basket ball); as you approach national organisation competition level, puberty/hormones can be added into the categorisation algorithm (without blood testing).
Elite sport categorisation could be more detailed, including current testosterone levels as well as historical. And international bodies could adjust the algorithms to reflect their sport, and even include other advantage measures, like ape index for climbing…
Genetic advantage would be more balanced out by hard work, training, and a range of other factors.
Thinking of climbing specifically we might decide height has no bearing on ability so we would reduce (or not include) this as a factor. We might decide other factors, such as ape index do so add them into the mix. Obv things like finger strength are a massive advantage but it is both hard to figure out to what level this is genetics/might want categorising and to what degree it’s down to training and hard work.
I’m sure there are many issues with this idea!
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The Ross Tucker podcast from just after 37min.
https://play.acast.com/s/realscienceofsport/2022-review-from-outrageous-cheats-to-deciding-the-worlds-gr
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Catching up on a few things although I don't have much to add myself.
"Trans women are women, even though possibly they might need to be subject to special rules in some elite sporting contexts, but their gender identity is still valid" really doesn't scan well, as chants go.
It is maybe the more accurate one tho!
And generally speaking, what people are marching and chanting about is wanting to be able to use the toilets with safety and dignity and to not be horrendously discriminated against in the workplace and not be forced into conversion therapy and to have access to necessary health care and not be hate-crimed for walking down the street and be treated with some level of basic respect in society, rather than having certain people doing the equivalent of going "LOLZ YOU'RE REALLY A MAAAAN, PENIS PENIS PENIS" at them all the fucking time.
All of which there is little debate about from sane-minded people!!
Also can I chant the "PENIS PENIS PENIS" bit in everyday life away from this debate / issue??
Wouldn't it be wonderful if there could be a way for trans women to compete fairly, and be accepted amongst other women.
It would - one of the reasons I find the sport argument worth discussion is it's pretty much the only area where there's some real tension between the rights of two groups. It seems like in other areas of discussion (shared spaces, women's toilets etc) there's just hurtful, poorly-thought-through opposition.
As above. It seems like the main area there there is a possible issue to explore and (in theory!) to resolve. The other ones listed aren't.
But on the Ross Tucker thing it was an earlier podcast. He repeatedly refers to trans women as "biological males", " Still a biological male" Etc when talking about folk like Lea Thomas, people who have transitioned and met the requirements to compete. Trans women seems like a better term to me? He then quotes an ISC report and says "ISC report says: " Never be an advantage for a trans-women" Male. Never be an advantage for a male, I'm saying male even though that will offend some people" So he deliberately goes out of his way to call trans women male, wants to correct the quote to male. Again trans women seems like a better term for trans women than male? Less offensive and also (for a science podcast) more scientifically accurate. So he deliberately calls trans women male, even though it's scientifically less accurate as far as I can tell purely to cause offense.
And this is why I blocked a previous friend on FB, because he was posting articles and videos about preventing trans women from competing in sport, all with titles like "Man identifying as woman" "Trans-identifying man" etc. I laid into his hypocrisy about claiming he wasn't transphobic when that was the material he was sharing, he took the huff, so I out-huffed him and blocked him. Ah social media politics.
Anyway I very much agree with your and other's objections to this terminology being used (if there is any possible need to include the "male" bit, I'd prefer "born male" because that implies a historical event from which the trans woman has changed from). Since differentiation can be useful for the competitive sport debate, how about, errrr, "trans woman", since that already bloody well covers the differentiation - as well as making the "woman" bit very prominent.
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if there is any possible need to include the "male" bit, I'd prefer "born male" because that implies a historical event from which the trans woman has changed from).
That's why you get phrasing like "assigned male at birth" or "assigned female at birth", because it gets across the relevant info (the doctors went "it's a boy!" or whatever), without implying anything about what someone's "real" gender is or was.
It's also very useful in the case of intersex people, where whether the doctors got it "right" even in purely biological terms may be up for debate: people will argue about whether Caster Semenya is in some sense "biologically male", but she was indisputably assigned female at birth.
Sounds clunky, but that's why it gets used.
(Also I have a personal suspicion that some people are still mentally scarred by the term "womyn-born-womyn", which was produced by the lesbian-feminist wars over trans inclusion in the '70s and '80s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Womyn-born_womyn )
Since differentiation can be useful for the competitive sport debate, how about, errrr, "trans woman", since that already bloody well covers the differentiation
Yeah, right??? "We need a special term to refer to people who identify as women but were assigned male at birth, and to differentiate them from other women if needed" -- oh look, how handy, we already have one!
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You should be able to socially and legally transition and be treated with dignity and respect to your identified gender but you can't participate in elite sports as that gender.
I've read the whole thread with interest but think this is ultimately my view when it comes to elite sports.
Yeah, I'm in the same boat.
I'm generally in the "people can be what they want, and do what they want, but competing into an elite, possibly professional, sport isn't really a right." category.
If it's for self-affirmation purposes, then in some sports you could still have a PB which you can directly compare to a sanctioned event, e.g. "Person X ran 100m in <10 seconds, so would have won the race if they'd competed", but allowing trans-women to compete in the Olympic just doesn't seem a fair or even necessary conciliation.
I just think competing at an elite/professional level is a privilege, not a right - and just as with doping, some people just shouldn't be allowed to compete at this level as it won't be a level playing field otherwise, which is the point of elite sport.
Which I agree is harsh, and doesn't sit 100% comfortably with me - but I can't think of a fairer alternative.
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Firstly I want to say I think this is a very complex topic with no easy solutions. While reading through this I was wondering about parallels to previous issues around intersex competitors in the Olympics (for which there have been a variety of end results https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_intersex_Olympians). It then made me wonder what we're trying to see in the Olympics (and other competitions). Is it the person that's worked the hardest? 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?
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Or in Adam Peaty's case, hypermobility in his knees and ankles.
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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.
[People really have overcomplicated this...sex definition in humans is exactly the same as with any other animal...are you biologically designed to produce eggs or sperm? It's a genetic coin flip. There are edge cases, like a coin landing on its side, but these will most times fall one way or another on investigation. Apologies for labouring the point but there's been alot of confusion on this. Sex is not a spectrum and someone with a small cock who plays with dolls and likes eurovision is just as "male" as Giga Chad himself (https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/001/370/936/a25.jpg)]
Sizes of hands, length of torso etc is not a protected group in sport, so it's irrelevant that a tall athlete or a fit athlete has an advantage over a short unfit one except it they are competing in, say, a weight class.
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". So the IAAF have considered that they should level the playing field for their inclusion in female sport. This itself is a compromise. I used to think - by instinct - that they should be included but the trans argument and what is a female question have me coming round to the idea that, for sport, a female is someone who doesnt benefit from male-Y-chromosone-biological-advantage. I personally really feel for them but regardless, they are not what is meant by trans woman.
Overall I also don't think anyone has put it better than JulieM...
You should be able to socially and legally transition and be treated with dignity and respect to your identified gender but you can't participate in elite sports as that gender.
...though I do question why draw the line at "elite". At whatever level trans women are included in womens sport it is at the cost of fairness so it should be something that women want - and I would suggest that support should be emphatic. Is it?
And at what level of transition should a male be considered a (trans)woman for sports anyway? Latest view from the IAAF/ Seb Coe trans women are ok to compete so long as they havent been through puberty (https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1135208/world-athletics-trans-athletes-ioc). 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 (https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/jan/25/ioc-rules-transgender-athletes-can-take-part-in-olympics-without-surgery) this was changed to just hormone reduction. In Conneticut high school track they use a pretty broad (pun not intended) definition of woman - which some girls take exception to (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/feb/13/transgender-athletes-girls-sports-high-school) and in Canadan weightlifting (https://www.eviemagazine.com/post/bearded-weightlifter-identified-as-woman-troll-competition-trans) it's anyone saying they are a woman on the day - which one trans woman in particular thinks is a bit too woke.
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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?
Sizes of hands, length of torso etc is not a protected group in sport, so it's irrelevant that a tall athlete or a fit athlete has an advantage over a short unfit one except it they are competing in, say, a weight class.
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". So the IAAF have considered that they should level the playing field for their inclusion in female sport. This itself is a compromise. I used to think - by instinct - that they should be included but the trans argument and what is a female question have me coming round to the idea that, for sport, a female is someone who doesnt benefit from male-Y-chromosone-biological-advantage. I personally really feel for them but regardless, they are not what is meant by trans woman.
I don't know if I agree with DSD athletes being edge cases in terms of competitive sports. They are rare in the world, but my point is that aren't most high level competitive athletes genetic edge cases in some ways or other. In other words, the top athletes in any sport are in some way genetically suited towards it. They are not penalised for this in any way and in fact are usually praised for this. My key question then is how do you draw the line. Somebody born with ulnar dimelia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulnar_dimelia) might become the best climber we have seen (with some training) should we exclude them from competing?
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The point is that they are edge cases as to regards determining their sex - they have male gonads. And sex is the category that women's sport is interested in.
Hand size, number of joints, size of biceps, vo2 - these are irrelevant if they arent the basis of identifying eligibility.
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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.
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Athletes with other DSDs are not banned at all.
Totally agree and apologies if I gave the impression it was anything else.
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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.
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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?
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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). (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammalian_reproduction)
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?
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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). (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammalian_reproduction)
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.
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Deleted as I've read more of the thread and realised the point has been made several times.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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 (https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/jan/25/ioc-rules-transgender-athletes-can-take-part-in-olympics-without-surgery) 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 (https://www.eviemagazine.com/post/bearded-weightlifter-identified-as-woman-troll-competition-trans) 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.
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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 (https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/aug/3/stephanie-barrett-canadian-olympic-archer-triggers/)
In 2019 Phillipa york said it would be 100 years before we see the first openly trans olympian (https://road.cc/content/news/269035-idea-transgender-people-are-going-take-over-womens-sport-absolutely-ridiculous) 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?
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Biology aside, anyone assigned male at birth has an advantage due to male privilege and the misogynist nature of human society.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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 (https://www.feministcurrent.com/2021/07/06/whats-current-mary-simon-named-canadas-first-indigenous-governor-general/). While we are here though I also raise you a third trans woman at Tokyo (https://www.insider.com/tokyo-2020-4-transgender-athletes-talk-about-their-olympics-experience-2021-8). 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.
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I found this summary of World Athletics’s current rules around this helpful:
world-athletics-new-regulations-dsd-transgender-athletes (https://www.runnersworld.com/news/a43401709/world-athletics-new-regulations-dsd-transgender-athletes/#:~:text=Athletes%20with%20Differences%20of%20Sexual%20Development%20(DSD)%20will%20need%20to,to%20new%20regulations%20released%20today.)
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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 (https://www.feministcurrent.com/2021/07/06/whats-current-mary-simon-named-canadas-first-indigenous-governor-general/). While we are here though I also raise you a third trans woman at Tokyo (https://www.insider.com/tokyo-2020-4-transgender-athletes-talk-about-their-olympics-experience-2021-8). 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! :bounce: 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.
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(And hey, Google tells me she's autistic! :bounce: 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?? :-\
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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!).
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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 (https://www.feministcurrent.com/2021/07/06/whats-current-mary-simon-named-canadas-first-indigenous-governor-general/).
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.
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(And hey, Google tells me she's autistic! :bounce: 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.
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For anyone who would like to be appalled and depressed:
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/US/06/07/sissy.boy.experiment/index.html
http://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/what-are-little-boys-made-of-main
Rekers’s co-author on the paper about “Kraig”, Ivar Lovaas, was simultaneously running very similar treatment programs aimed at “curing” autistic children via behaviour modification. Though with the addition of electric shocks as punishment.
The thinking in psychology at the time was that being gay and being trans were gradations of the same thing, and it was all about gender identity— if you had a boy who was feminine (which was thought to be about identifying with his mother), he was destined to grow up to be gay, and if he was extra feminine, he might become a "transsexual".
Then as being gay became much more socially acceptable (and it became overwhelmingly clear that therapy didn't "cure" anyone from being gay), some of the conversion therapists shifted ground to "well, okay, maybe we can't prevent your gender non-conforming kid from growing up to be gay, but we can at least stop them from being trans!"
So if you run into anyone nowadays who tries to tell you that therapy aimed at "curing" trans kids is totally different and has no connection to conversion therapy for gay kids -- historically, it began as the same thing, and some of the big names in conversion therapy for trans kids were previously doing it to treat gay and "pre-homosexual" kids too (or, like Kenneth Zucker, dangling the possibility that conversion therapy might make them heterosexual as well as cis).
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Apparently Lance Armstrong is starting a podcast on trans inclusion and fairness in sport.
Irony is dead.
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Apparently Lance Armstrong is starting a podcast on trans inclusion and fairness in sport.
Irony is dead.
He knows what it's like to be cancelled, according to his social media.
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The "readers added context" here is pretty delightful:
https://twitter.com/lancearmstrong/status/1672775264580042752