Biological males in women's sport

ceadaoin.

El CabaIIo wrote: »

Because Basketball isn't a protected sport whereas Womens is by definition, short basketballers aren't protected in sport, women are. I think a huge issue in understanding this that politics gets in the way of science. What if I told you that the top three women in the Rio Olympics 800m final were all on testosterone inhibitors at one point.

They have all gone through male type puberty which amounts to the fundamental difference between male and female performance. The "transpobhic" comments levelled at Martina are completely ridiculous and are coming from a political bias. She has no issue with how these athletes identify, she just has an issue with people who went through male puberty competing in womens sport.

I wish people would understand the difference between gender and sex before they got outraged and calling people transphobic. The major issue is people not looking at data and information and speaking out.

Here's an article that everyone who is giving Martina stick and rushing to conclusions should read mainly focusing on Caster Semenya. The article is between highly regarded sport scientist Ross Tucker and former trans athlete/reknowned rights activist and biologist Joanna Harper. She is regarded as one of the top eperts on this.

https://sportsscientists.com/2016/05/hyperandrogenism-women-vs-women-vs-men-sport-qa-joanna-harper/

Is a trans woman like Joanna transphobic because she says the same as Martina? No because this whole outrage is way overblown.

Except Dr Harper doesn't agree that trans women or intersex women have any advantage, once they lower their current testosterone levels.
She believes that the advantages of going through a male puberty disappear.

In fact, she advised the IOC and was instrumental in the recent ruling that allows trans women to compete with lower testosterone levels (but still with a much higher limit than biological females would ever have naturally). Based off a study she conducted where 8 trans athletes self reported by email whether they had any decrease in performance, she concluded that they have no advantage. She never even met these people or verified any of what they were telling her. Yeah sounds like a rigorous study alright.

kildare lad

Men are better at everything, even at being women it seems

El CabaIIo

ceadaoin. wrote: »

Except Dr Harper doesn't agree that trans women or intersex women have any advantage, once they lower their current testosterone levels.
She believes that the advantages of going through a male puberty disappear.

In fact, she advised the IOC and was instrumental in the recent ruling that allows trans women to compete with lower testosterone levels (but still with a much higher limit than biological females would ever have naturally). Based off a study she conducted where 8 trans athletes self reported by email whether they had any decrease in performance, she concluded that they have no advantage. Yeah sounds like a rigorous study alright.

I think it's important to point out the bolded part here as she does agree that non-inhibited people have an advantage. A lot of people think intersex and trans athletes should compete freely.

The advantages will never disappear as bone structure and other elements are all formed through puberty. Women grow wider hips etc etc but it testosterone inhibition severly degrades performance. We seen that with Semenya and Dutee Chand when they were limited by the IAAF. The restriction on inhibition is still 3 times the level of 99% of biological females so there will still be issues.

Comparing if they have an advantage over biological females and by how much is always going to be an impossible case to argue as you can't compare Semenya now for instance between her possible performance levels if she never had the condition. It's a fruitless debate.

I agree with what yoi are saying in that Dr. Harper hasn't gone whole hog on this but I was posting to show the people who are outraged at Martina and other people and calling them transphobic that it is overblown outrage and experts in the field are on the same wave length as Martina.

The science is always going to be hard to prove and unprove because there is no way to compare which is why this T limit has been put in place, lifted and is now trying to be put in place again. The science can only prove so much.

I personally don't agree with everything Joanna says but I think it's a good place to start for people to realise this is isn't just a purely political debate. There is a lot more to it than that and you have to dig for facts before rushing to create a twitter witch hunt.

AllForIt

jmayo wrote: »

That is one truly fooked up organisation that lambasts one of the women that pioneered bisexual/lesbian acceptance in high level sport along with another tennis player Billy Jean King.

Absolutely. I couldn't believe my eyes when I read this development today given the stature of who we're talking about here.

I think this is going to cause a serious rift between the homosexual and transgender communities and if I'm honest that's exactly what I would like to see.

I would like to see a transgender advocacy group and a completely separate LGB advocacy group. As a member of LGB I don't feel any special connection to the T community whatsoever. When the groupings are so loose I may as well be aligned with black anti-racist activists if the issues are just simply about discrimination. And they can call me transphobic if the like, I don't care. They throw that accusation around so much nowadays that it's lost it's effect.

I really think that transgender activists have lost the plot. It's like they are not fighting an anti-discrimination war but some kind of ideological one and thus behaving as you'd expect ideologues to behave.

Teddy Daniels

ceadaoin. wrote: »

McKinnon only started cycling in her late 20s. In the space of a few years she has risen to the top and has even won a world championship. Beating women who have trained their whole lives.

Same with Laurel Hubbard, and Tiffany abreau. Setting world records within a few years or even months of competing. Has anyone ever heard of this happening when people are competing against their own sex?

Martina has spent years in women's sports. She knows what she is talking about. It's pure misogyny and gaslighting to simply tell her to shut up , that she is wrong. Pretty much everyone is on her side here, with more people coming out in support publicly.

While I agree with much of this post, how is it misogyny to tell MN she is wrong???

ceadaoin.

Teddy Daniels wrote: »

While I agree with much of this post, how is it misogyny to tell MN she is wrong???

McKinnon's attitude towards Martina comes across as misogyny to me. Person who has identified as a woman and been involved in women's sports for a few short years, telling a legend like MN, a trailblazer for gay and lesbian athletes and who has been involved in womens sports for longer than they have been alive to sit down and shut up. Even pulling the "do you know who I am" card! Do you think they would dare to take on a legendary male athlete in this way? I don't.

McKinnon has also said on Twitter that lesbians should "get over their genital hang ups" (ie get used to dick). She pretty much acts like a person who enjoys bullying women, and not just on the cycling track. I've yet to see any man receive the level of abuse that women get from trans activists. I don't remember any of them threatening even graham linehan with rape or murder like women get on a regular basis.

Teddy Daniels

ceadaoin. wrote: »

McKinnon's attitude towards Martina comes across as misogyny to me. Person who has identified as a woman and been involved in women's sports for a few short years, telling a legend like MN, a trailblazer for gay and lesbian athletes and who has been involved in womens sports for longer than they have been alive to sit down and shut up. Even pulling the "do you know who I am" card! Do you think they would dare to take on a legendary male athlete in this way? I don't.

McKinnon has also said on Twitter that lesbians should "get over their genital hang ups" (ie get used to dick). She pretty much acts like a person who enjoys bullying women, and not just on the cycling track. I've yet to see any man receive the level of abuse that women get from trans activists. I don't remember any of them threatening even graham linehan with rape or murder like women get on a regular basis.

I think if a male legendary athlete got into it with McKinnon she would be the same towards them.

El CabaIIo

I think a big thing now is that people actually don't want to debate issues anymore, it's so easy to just lob a tag out there ad hominem than to actually discuss the problems. It's a case of if you are not fully with me, I'm shutting you down.

Reasoned debate is lost the very minute these tags are thrown out there because the aim is shut someone up rather than address the points they are making or the context they are speaking from. It just easier to set up and attack an extreme strawman than address reasonable concerns that disagree.

kildare lad

I feel sorry for the women that came either second or fourth in the contest , as one should have a gold medal and the other would have a medal . I know some people might get offended but men are physically superior to women , bigger , stronger , more muscle mass, higher testosterone levels but thats the way evolution has made us over time. Im not trying to be sexist but its a fact.

I watch a good bit of basketball and nearly everyone in the NBA can dunk a ball but in the WNBA very few can , because they dont have the power in their legs to jump , its the same in womens boxing, theres very few clean knockouts as they dont have the same power in their punch as men . Womens tennis matchs are shorter are the play the best of 3 sets, compared to men who play 5 sets. John Mcenroe got in trouble a year ago when asked, was Serena Williams the best tennis player of all time ?? he replied that she was the best female tennis of all time, Then he had to explain the differnce in men vs women at tennis to the people who got offended . Thankfully he didint apologise .

If a man who was ranked top 100 to 200 seed at tennis in the world , decided to get a sex change. He would dominate womens tennis. Is that fair , no and it shouldnt be allowed. I couldnt care less if people want to get a sex change but if you've had the physical benefit of being a man for 20 years , you shouldnt be allowed play womens sport.

GreeBo

El CabaIIo wrote: »

Because Basketball isn't a protected sport whereas Womens is by definition, short basketballers aren't protected in sport, women are. I think a huge issue in understanding this that politics gets in the way of science. What if I told you that the top three women in the Rio Olympics 800m final were all on testosterone inhibitors at one point.
.

I think you misunderstood my point, for me people saying caster had an unfair advantage is equivalent to saying tall people have an advantage at basketball.
Its just how they naturally developed so people need to get over it.

Trans athletes clearly have an unfair advantage as they are not natural.
Forcing natural women to take inhibitors is just as unfair as allowing trans athletes or cutting the legs off tall people.

Are there any examples of female to male athletes being successful or is it all one way traffic? I suspect i know the answer.

Cuddlesworth

GreeBo wrote: »

Are there any examples of female to male athletes being successful or is it all one way traffic? I suspect i know the answer.

There are a couple. Of course they are pumped up with Steroids to compete.

klaaaz

GreeBo wrote: »

Trans athletes clearly have an unfair advantage as they are not natural.
Forcing natural women to take inhibitors is just as unfair as allowing trans athletes or cutting the legs off tall people.

What a lovely word "natural", every professional sportsperson is not natural, their bodies have been professionally enhanced and professionally repaired compared to the average person. If a player has a significant injury, they get top medication and surgery to repair it instead of retiring, that's not natural. Plenty of athletes have been caught doping and others got away with it winning their sports, not natural either.

GreeBo wrote: »

Are there any examples of female to male athletes being successful or is it all one way traffic? I suspect i know the answer.

There have been no transgender Olympic athletes of either persuasion ever since transgender athletes were first allowed in 2004. But do continue with the outrage!

benjamin d

klaaaz wrote: »

Plenty of athletes have been caught doping and others got away with it winning their sports, not natural either.

There's plenty of evidence emerging now that doping at any time in the past provides permanent advantages to athletes in terms of muscle memory and strength building capacity long after the doping has stopped. It won't be long before there's a strong call for permanent bans for any doping, and rightly so.
MTF transsexuals are in this exact position. There is a permanent, significant advantage over women to having been born a male. That anyone would argue against this is bizarre and is purely ideology trumping science.

El CabaIIo

benjamin d wrote: »

There's plenty of evidence emerging now that doping at any time in the past provides permanent advantages to athletes in terms of muscle memory and strength building capacity long after the doping has stopped. It won't be long before there's a strong call for permanent bans for any doping, and rightly so.
MTF transsexuals are in this exact position. There is a permanent, significant advantage over women to having been born a male. That anyone would argue against this is bizarre and is purely ideology trumping science.

There's already a huge call lifetime doping bans, ban lengths for non-trivial aids have been doubled in the last 3 years from 2 to 4 years and the only thing that has stopped has stopped athletics and cycling federatations from implementing them is CAS who deem them illegal. WADA was even pushing for it. There's the famous case with Dwain Chambers who filed a lawsuit against the UKA as they banned him from ever competing in the Olympics and World champs.

That was nearly a decade ago and it's bubbling up still after he decided to come back from retirement to try make the European indoors this year. The de facto UK trials were on in Birmingham last Saturday and the meet directors didn't invite him.

On the other point you were replying to . Doping and intersex are different though and I don't think it's a fair comparison. Dopers are under restriction from testing so have to keep thresholds within the normal range as much as possible but it still hard to catch those who are smart and keep their levels in line because they are monitored by a long term testing system called the biological passport which maps any change in biomarkers over years of data.

The system isn't perfect and people do dope and cheat but when you are talking about intersex and trans, everyone in the testing labs knows straight away that T levels are off the charts and can point to the advantage matter of factly whereas with someone who is doping, it can be a lot harder to detect.

Im not sure other people cheating or doping is a like for like comparison and should lead to a blind eye been turned on the issues of fairness with intersex and trans athletes.

GreeBo

klaaaz wrote: »

What a lovely word "natural", every professional sportsperson is not natural, their bodies have been professionally enhanced and professionally repaired compared to the average person. If a player has a significant injury, they get top medication and surgery to repair it instead of retiring, that's not natural. Plenty of athletes have been caught doping and others got away with it winning their sports, not natural either.

Perhaps they should all compete naked and without shoes?
Hmm should they be allowed to shave?
I have no idea why you would bring athletes who illegally dope into your argument about fairness or natural tbh.

klaaaz wrote: »

There have been no transgender Olympic athletes of either persuasion ever since transgender athletes were first allowed in 2004. But do continue with the outrage!

Weird point since I didn't mention the Olympics at all in my post.

Candamir

GreeBo wrote: »

I think you misunderstood my point, for me people saying caster had an unfair advantage is equivalent to saying tall people have an advantage at basketball.
Its just how they naturally developed so people need to get over it.

Trans athletes clearly have an unfair advantage as they are not natural.
Forcing natural women to take inhibitors is just as unfair as allowing trans athletes or cutting the legs off tall people.

Are there any examples of female to male athletes being successful or is it all one way traffic? I suspect i know the answer.

I think El Cab made the point very well.
There are 2 catagories - male and female.
It looks like Caster, like many other intersex athletes, has a male chromosome profile - XY. So then we have to ask, what makes her female*, (and I don’t mean to offend at all here - I’m talking from a purely biological stance) and is the fact that she is considered female, but with a male genotype, an unfair advantage given that she’s competing in the female catagory. It really is akin to allowing a tall basketball player play in a shorter division for some really not very clearly defined reason.

As El Cab said, when the gold, silver and bronze medal go to intersex athletes - a condition with a prevalence of about 1 in 60,000 (in males, so 1 in 120,000 in the population as a whole) you have to consider it as an advantage. And as I said earlier, when intersex athletes are over represented in women’s elite athletics by a factor of 140, you have to ask questions.

We don’t allow female athletes to dope with testosterone, because we know it confers an advantage and is unfair, so why should we allow intersex athletes to have an unnatural level of testosterone for a female, when they are competing in a female catagory.

*she is female, because someone made a decision to raise her female. She could also have been raised male (and that might have been the decision if her condition had been recognised at birth). So her competing in the female catagory, with XY chromosomes, testes, and high levels of testosterone and all the advantages that brings, is because of a sociological decision in her early childhood. That doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me.

klaaaz

benjamin d wrote: »

MTF transsexuals are in this exact position. There is a permanent, significant advantage over women to having been born a male. That anyone would argue against this is bizarre and is purely ideology trumping science.

All the major sports bodies in the world with their scientific input disagree with you. We are now awaiting their decision on Caster with her male puberty having a huge advantage.

GreeBo wrote: »

Perhaps they should all compete naked and without shoes?
Hmm should they be allowed to shave?
I have no idea why you would bring athletes who illegally dope into your argument about fairness or natural tbh.

You brought up natural which as you know is open to wide interpretation.

GreeBo wrote: »

Weird point since I didn't mention the Olympics at all in my post.

You had asked where there are trans athletes being successful, I answered that there has been none at the top level in the Olympics since trans athletes were first allowed to compete in 2004, that's 4 Olympic Games so far.

El CabaIIo

klaaaz wrote: »

All the major sports bodies in the world with their scientific input disagree with you. We are now awaiting their decision on Caster with her male puberty having a huge advantage..

They don't though, pretty much every science backed Sporting body from the IAAF to WADA will tell you there is long-term effect and advantage to doping. They are also the ones pushing the Semenya case which is why all this is happening.

Even though CAS lifted the threshold the last time a case like this went this way, they admitted themselves that testosterone was the major marker in the difference between male and female performance. Pretty much telling the IAAF that while they believed what was proposed was true, the science wasn't quite steady enough to completely justify imposed thresholds on intersex athletes. That's why the IAAF have been trying to sure up the science to a point where it was irrefutable to CAS and why the whole situation is back now years later.

Candamir

klaaaz wrote: »

All the major sports bodies in the world with their scientific input disagree with you. We are now awaiting their decision on Caster with her male puberty having a huge advantage.

I’m not sure the bodies who allow trans athletes (and not all do) have made their decision on a scientific basis, because the science is just not there to back up the claim that there is no advantage.

The decision to allow trans athletes compete is much more a political one.

klaaaz

El CabaIIo wrote: »

They don't though, pretty much every science backed Sporting body from the IAAF to WADA will tell you there is long-term effect and advantage to doping. They are also the ones pushing the Semenya case which is why all this is happening.

The poster was talking about transgender athletes and their alleged advantages.(my first sentence in the post). My second sentence refers to Caster which you responded to.

Candamir

klaaaz wrote: »

The poster was talking about transgender athletes and their alleged advantages.(my first sentence in the post). My second sentence refers to Caster which you responded to.

Do trans women with testes produce a different kind of testosterone to intersex women with testes? Is there a difference

klaaaz

Candamir wrote: »

Do trans women with testes produce a different kind of testosterone to intersex women with testes? Is there a difference

Do you really have to ask? As already discussed, trans women have lower testosterone levels than those of the likes of Caster Semenya and Dutee Chand.

benjamin d

klaaaz wrote: »

All the major sports bodies in the world with their scientific input disagree with you. We are now awaiting their decision on Caster with her male puberty having a huge advantage.

That's two replies to me in a row where you're conflating intersex and transsexual. You'll see not 10 posts ago I said that intersex and hyperandrogenism conditions are complex and on the whole I believe as it stands they should be allowed to compete.
It's unfair and disingenuous to mix intersex/hyperandrogenism cases with MTF transsexuals. IMO it's a concerted attempt to muddy the waters and paint sceptics of trans competitors in women's competitions as anti-science, when in reality it is the pro-trans athlete crowd who are blatantly denying science to suit their agenda.

Candamir

klaaaz wrote: »

Do you really have to ask? As already discussed, trans women have lower testosterone levels than those of the likes of Caster Semenya and Dutee Chand.

......and which are still many times higher than XX females!. (Side note: Chand has complete androgen insensitivity - it wouldn’t really make any difference how high her levels were)

My point, probably badly made, was that testosterone confers and advantage. It doesn’t really matter whether it comes from a trans testes, an intersex one, or a bottle.

klaaaz

benjamin d wrote: »

That's two replies to me in a row where you're conflating intersex and transsexual. You'll see not 10 posts ago I said that intersex and hyperandrogenism conditions are complex and on the whole I believe as it stands they should be allowed to compete.
It's unfair and disingenuous to mix intersex/hyperandrogenism cases with MTF transsexuals. IMO it's a concerted attempt to muddy the waters and paint sceptics of trans competitors in women's competitions as anti-science, when in reality it is the pro-trans athlete crowd who are blatantly denying science to suit their agenda.

You said

MTF transsexuals are in this exact position. There is a permanent, significant advantage over women to having been born a male. That anyone would argue against this is bizarre and is purely ideology trumping science.

As Greebo likes to highlight, one group have "natural" high levels of testosterone while the other group(transgender) has feck all testosterone due to hormone therapy. The first group are allowed to be Olympic champions without a fuss here while the 2nd group are condemned here despite both groups having those popular words of having the "male physique". Hypocritical.

Candamir wrote:

.....and which are still many times higher than XX females!. (Side note: Chand has complete androgen insensitivity - it wouldn’t really make any difference how high her levels were)

No they are not higher levels than women, hormone therapy literally nukes the previous testosterone level to that of a born female woman. The likes of Chand has higher levels of testosterone than both female born athletes and transgender athletes hence the powers that be suggested that athletes like Chand should compete as males but that was legally challenged.

Candamir wrote:

My point, probably badly made, was that testosterone confers and advantage. It doesn’t really matter whether it comes from a trans testes, an intersex one, or a bottle.

Well then, you disagree with the other posters who only tolerate intersex advantages.

GreeBo

Candamir wrote: »

I think El Cab made the point very well.
There are 2 catagories - male and female.
It looks like Caster, like many other intersex athletes, has a male chromosome profile - XY. So then we have to ask, what makes her female*, (and I don’t mean to offend at all here - I’m talking from a purely biological stance) and is the fact that she is considered female, but with a male genotype, an unfair advantage given that she’s competing in the female catagory. It really is akin to allowing a tall basketball player play in a shorter division for some really not very clearly defined reason.

She is intersex, so neither male nor female but raised as a female so I think we have to take her as a female. I honestly dont know what else we can do here? Its not like she has testicles and a penis that everyone just decided to ignore and call her female. She is clearly not just another male.

Being taller than other competitors is an unfair advantage though, if you are taller than the average female...in this case the "tallness" is actually benefits that she gets from having male

Candamir wrote: »

As El Cab said, when the gold, silver and bronze medal go to intersex athletes - a condition with a prevalence of about 1 in 60,000 (in males, so 1 in 120,000 in the population as a whole) you have to consider it as an advantage. And as I said earlier, when intersex athletes are over represented in women’s elite athletics by a factor of 140, you have to ask questions.

What questions do you have to ask though? When black athletes are over represented in athletics are there also questions we need to ask?

Candamir wrote: »

We don’t allow female athletes to dope with testosterone, because we know it confers an advantage and is unfair, so why should we allow intersex athletes to have an unnatural level of testosterone for a female, when they are competing in a female catagory.

They are only unnatural "for a female" if you dont include Caster and other intersex people who are raised as female as actually female.

GreeBo

Candamir wrote: »

......and which are still many times higher than XX females!. (Side note: Chand has complete androgen insensitivity - it wouldn’t really make any difference how high her levels were)

My point, probably badly made, was that testosterone confers and advantage. It doesn’t really matter whether it comes from a trans testes, an intersex one, or a bottle.

But everyone has some level of testosterone, so where do you draw the line on whats ok to be allowed to compete as female ?

Candamir

klaaaz wrote: »

No they are not higher levels than women, hormone therapy literally nukes the previous testosterone level to that of a born female woman. The likes of Chand has higher levels of testosterone than both female born athletes and transgender athletes hence the powers that be suggested that athletes like Chand should compete as males but that was legally challenged.

The allowed levels are much higher.
Again Chand is androgen insensitive. The debate about how to deal with men masquerading as women in sport (this is where the whole thing started!), and latterly how to deal with intersex athletes has been going on a while - long before trans athletes came on the scene. It’s a conundrum for the sporting bodies and that it why it’s continually evolving as science, and unfortunately politics intrude.

Well then, you disagree with the other posters who only tolerate intersex advantages.

I do. That’s fine. It’s a debate. I respect their opinion even if I don’t agree with it.

El CabaIIo

The angle we are coming at this on Gree bo is that height nor weight are protected in each sport but sex is divided and protected by the definition of calling it womens sport.

Say you take a sport like Boxing which has weight divisions, the lower weight classes are protected. 100kg men can't fight 60kg men as the weight divisions are divided to protect the smaller fighter. A sport like athletics is also divided so women can compete fairly against their own sex, there's no weight divisions or height requirements within any of the sports and any biological female can compete no matter how short, tall or strong they are within their own sex.

What the issue that we are talking about is that non-biological females don't meet the sex requirement to compete fairly on that field just like a 90kg boxer doesn't meet the rewuirements to fight in the 60kg division.

I'm not arguing this on a position of gender but am on a position of sex. To use an exageratted example to get my point across and don't take this for a like for like as we are talking about a much more complicated sceanario. Could the 90kg boxer identify as 60kg and fight in that weight class fairly?

Candamir

GreeBo wrote: »

She is intersex, so neither male nor female but raised as a female so I think we have to take her as a female. I honestly dont know what else we can do here? Its not like she has testicles and a penis that everyone just decided to ignore and call her female. She is clearly not just another male.

She absolutely should be ‘taken’ as female - that’s how she was raised, and that’s how she identifies. And that works in the everyday world.
But she does have testicles. And, not to get too indelicate here, a clitoris and a penis are the same organ, just exposed (or more correctly responded ) to different levels of testosterone in utero. Many intersex babies have a large clitoris. Some have a small penis - it’s essentially a continuum of the same thing.
So - and I’m stretching here to make a point - what’s the difference with a couple who have a boy but decide to raise him without referring to gender - let him decide when the time comes. And he decides he wants to identify as female. But continues to develop as a boy. Should s/be be allowed compete in women’s catagories because s/he’s ‘female’? What’s the difference, - same chromosomes, same gonads, same testosterone. Ok. I get that it’s a stretch.

What questions do you have to ask though? When black athletes are over represented in athletics are there also questions we need to ask?

The analogy there would be if we decided to have catagories based on race :eek: and black sprinters wanted to identify as white and compete in white catagories. (This is getting really messy here now!)

They are only unnatural "for a female" if you dont include Caster and other intersex people who are raised as female as actually female.

For an XX female they are off the charts. So it goes back to what your definition of female is. From a biological pov, XX is female, and XY (like Caster) is male. From a sociological pov, they can be whatever they want to be.