Transgender man wins women's 100 yd and 400 yd freestyle races.

Subject to the jurisdiction of the United States and its laws yes, which afford them the right to assemble with trans athletes and will, in some short order or another, outlaw discrimination on the basis of sex.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson says transgender women should not compete in women's sport - https://www.bbc.com/sport/61012030

"Intersex" is a misnomer: in much the same way as people with Downs Syndrome are not actually "Mongols", people with anomalies of sexual development are not actually "intersex".

FYI it's now usually called DSD. https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/differences-in-sex-development/#:~:text=Differences%20in%20sex%20development%20(DSD,different%20to%20most%20other%20people's.

And, as with "people with Downs Syndrome" (or people with Trisomy 21), "people with DSD" are not "intersex people". Because it's a medical condition, not an identity.

Hence people with DSD are not Intersex people, they're people with a DSD. They also do have a genetic sex, either male or female. It's just not always visible at birth. Caster Semenya, for instance is male, not female, with testes which remained in the abdomen. In fact if he'd been born in a place/family which could avail of modern medical facilities, that problem would have been identified rapidly and he would never have been wrongly told he was a girl.

It's funny though how it's perfectly ok to be horribly offensive to lots of people (not just women) when defending the extreme trans activist position. Earlier on we had race (only black people can be Haitian, it seems), and now this.

(Edited for clarity)

So, you did find it clever? :_:

I'm sure I should have as a plebe just shut my mouth then in the 1900s when Eugenics was all the rage and Nazis held rallies in New York and ****? Argumentum Ad Populum.

I can't stand him either, but I hate even more this fake equivalence style of argument that seems so widespread these days, that says that if I agree with someone on enough issues then I have to agree with them on everything, and the contrary.

I'm sure Johnson thinks the earth is more than 6000 years old - so does that mean I should become a Young Earther?

Partygate is a completely separate issue, and it's just whataboutery to bring it in here. Makes you look like you know you can't argue the actual issue, so you're flinging everything else you can think of at it instead.

"Boys with 47, XXY can excel in athletics. Boys with 47, XXY are playing college football, skiing, running cross-country, playing water polo, and are involved with lots of other sports!"

Right?

Sorry yes, I see I was unclear.

No that's not what I meant. I was saying that both terms are misnomers, from back in the day when the able bodied were quite dismissive of anyone with frailties and disabilities.

My point was that calling a person "intersex" is both technically wrong (they aren't "intersex", they simply have an anomaly of sexual development and is generally considered offensive by people with DSDs.

And that similarly - but without being the same congenital illness - someone with Down syndrome, ie someone with Trisomy 21, is not a Mongol, and that too is now considered offensive both to the person concerned and also to the genuine Mongols, ie people from Mongolia.

(Edit: yes I see now where my earlier post was unclear - comes from poor proofreading/editing. There's a line missing, so that there's a "they" that could apply to Trisomy 21 but in fact was meant to refer to people with DSDs.)

These are my kind of people...

They have Y chromosomes, so they are male. They may have been identified as one of these mysterious other sexes before, but it's not the case. They are clearly male.

There should be 4 classes of athletics. Men ,women, trans men , trans women. Let them all compete on a level field.

I don't think there are any transgender people who transitioned (medically) prior to puberty. That would be truly shocking, as it would mean that parents and doctors were treating 10 or 12 year olds with experimental drugs, and that the children went straight on from those to cross sex drugs, ie went through no puberty at all. I find it hard to believe that an adult who had never gone through puberty would be able to play sport at a high level.

Not to put the willies up you this early in the morning volchista, but you may need to go a bit younger than 10 or 12 for the age at which children are being prescribed puberty blockers. It's not based upon age, but rather the stages of their physical development - Tanner stages, and in the case of children who are transgender, in the US at least, this stage of development can begin as young as 8 -

In this dynamic and fast-moving field, real-world conditions are changing, along with scientific protocols and government regulation. As children in numerous countries appear to be hitting puberty at younger and younger ages — a separate phenomenon that is yet to be fully explained — the treatment regimen may need to be extended, increasing or altering the impact of potential side effects of medicines like puberty blockers, de Vries said. A 2019 paper, part of the NIH-funded U.S. study, states that the minimum age for the gender-affirming hormone cohort was decreased from 13 to 8 years “in order to ensure that potential participants who might be eligible for hormones based on their Tanner stage would not be excluded due to age alone.”

But this approach is not embraced by all U.S. practitioners. Ehrensaft, one of the study’s authors, wrote that prescribing testosterone or estrogen for 8-year-olds “is definitely not a practice that we engage in at our clinic.”

The Fractious Evolution of Pediatric Transgender Medicine (undark.org)

But I think it's worth pointing out, yet again, that there is no ban on transgender people playing any sport at all anyway. They can all play in the category in which they were born, on condition that any drug treatment they take doesn't eliminate them. But that's not unusual: women taking hormonal fertility or other treatments (PCOS in particular) have regularly found themselves on the wrong side of bans due to hormone-levels. It's never been presented as unfair before - affected women have always just had to suck it up.

Ehh, that's not quite the full story either. The idea of suggesting there is no ban on transgender people playing any sport being akin to the same sort of argument that was used to suggest that there is no ban on homosexuals entering into marriage. It's a specious argument which attempts to ignore the fact that what you're attempting to do is already unlawful - it's discrimination on the basis of gender. With regard to the issue of PCOS among female athletes and whether or not it's regarded as unfair, it IS regarded as unfair, and there are theraputic medical exemptions which mean female athletes with PCOS are not excluded from competition. Obviously PCOS comes with it's own inherent difficulties for athletes affected by it -

5.1. Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS)

Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is the most common endocrinopathy among women of reproductive age and is characterized by clinical or biochemical hyperandrogenism, ovulatory dysfunction and polycystic ovaries on ultrasonography. Some studies suggest that PCOS is the most common reproductive endocrine disorder among female Olympic athletes; its prevalence even higher than hypothalamic amenorrhea that often results from caloric deficiency (Hagmar et al., 2009). Indeed, 15–31% of elite athletes have either clinical or biochemical profile that is suggestive of PCOS (Dadgostar et al., 2009; Eliakim et al., 2010); this exceeds estimated prevalence of 4–12% in the general population (Knochenhauer et al., 1998). Limited evidence from smaller studies have suggested that hyperandrogenism in women with PCOS might have beneficial effects on body composition and physical performance; indeed, higher circulating serum testosterone levels in these women have been associated with greater muscle mass independent of height (Douchi et al., 1999). In a case-control study of 80 women (40 PCOS and 40 controls), women with PCOS demonstrated greater muscle strength (assessed by 1-RM bench press and isometric handgrip strength tests) compared to the control group, which was independent of body composition (Kogure et al., 2015); furthermore, serum concentrations of testosterone were positively associated with increased muscle strength in the PCOS group. In a small cross-sectional study of female athletes with oligomenorrhea or amenorrhea, athletes with hyperandrogenism demonstrated greater lean mass and a higher maximal oxygen uptake (V02 max) and performance compared to women with normal androgen concentrations (Rickenlund et al., 2003). Although data are limited, these studies at least suggest that hyperandrogenism in women with PCOS could potentially impart some advantage to women competing in sporting events.

So really the only question here is whether transgender women (biological males) should be allowed to play in a category different to the one they belong to biologically. Transgender men (biological females) tend to choose to continue in their original, women's category. Obviously.

Certainly that may be the only question as far as you're concerned, but for athletes who are transgender, there are a multitude of questions involved, from whether or not they will be able to have access to adequate healthcare, to whether or not they will be able to continue their education, to whether or not they will be able to participate in sports at all, let alone be able to participate at elite levels in sports. And those are just the few off the top of my head. They were the sorts of questions that Trans Identified Female athletes (in keeping with your 'Trans Identified Males' terminology) have had to ask of themselves, of legislators, of the medical profession, of health insurance companies, and of sports organisations which govern the sports and competitions they wish to participate in, in accordance with their gender. Among those athletes who have had to ask themselves and others these questions, are athletes like the athlete referred to in the opening post -

Iszac Henig - Henig's victory further enraged the already fuming parents of UPenn's female swimmers, one of whom told DailyMail, "I wasn't prepared for that. Everything is messed up. I can't wrap my head around this. The NCAA needs to do something about this. They need to put science into the decision and discussion." Another parent noted, "A man just crushed the women's team." 

Who is Iszac Henig? Female trans swimmer Lia Thomas DEFEATED by trans male competitor | MEAWW

Schuyler Bailar - Schuyler is the first trans athlete to compete in any sport on an NCAA D1 men’s team, and the only to have competed for all four years. He is an internationally-celebrated inspirational speaker and a respected advocate for inclusion, body acceptance, and mental health awareness.

Schuyler graduated from Harvard College in May 2019 with a degree in Cognitive Neuroscience and Evolutionary Psychology. His studies focused on social emotional learning, emotional intelligence, and education. He is a tireless advocate for inclusion through speaking engagements and social media. Schuyler also holds on-going advisory roles with Monte Nido & Affiliates (the leading eating disorder treatment provider), USA Swimming, the Harvard Medical School Primary Care Review – among others – and is a research assistant at Harvard University.

schuylerbailar – pinkmantaray – 1st trans athlete on a D1 men's team in NCAA

Mack Beggs - Mack Beggs will turn 22 in just a couple of weeks, but he confesses that he’s already endured enough obstacles to last him a lifetime.

The former high school Texas state wrestling champion, who gained national media attention throughout 2017 and 2018 for participating in the women’s competition as a transgender man, said that in the last couple of years he’s been recovering from mental health struggles related to the experience.

“I was in a very dark place,” Beggs said, speaking of his freshman year of college after leaving high school. “I had to seek out help, and I’m so glad I did that.”

While competing at high school, in the Dallas area, Beggs — who was born female and transitioned to male — was sued by a parent of one of the female wrestlers he was competing against. Beggs wanted to compete against men, but a state ban limited transgender athletes to teams conforming with the gender on their birth certificate. The fight intensified in 2017, when a bill was introduced in the Texas state Legislature that would have effectively banned him from competing altogether. The bill passed the state Senate, but the Texas House never brought it up for a vote. The lawsuit was dismissed.

Mack Beggs, transgender wrestler who rose to prominence for competing against women: ‘It took a toll on me’ (yahoo.com)

And Chris Mosier - Pedaling his way in traffic, Mosier is owning his moment. He goes into the race with a complete sense of the responsibility he carries as a trailblazer in sports -- and the unavoidable visibility that goes with it.

"I think there have definitely been moments in my athletic career where I just wanted to be another guy on a team -- and not always be the trans athlete. But I made a decision, very early in my transition and in my athletic career as a trans person, to be out, to be public about it," he says. "That's a one-ton decision now because once it's on the internet, it never goes away. There's no just being a regular guy for me.

"So when I made that decision, to be out, to be public, it was very much in the idea that I didn't see any other guys competing at a high level after a medical transition, competing with men. And I thought, people should see that. And by people seeing me, that will impact their ability or their confidence to continue to play sports. And it's up to them, whether or not they want to be out as a trans athlete.

"For many reasons, it's not safe or comfortable for people to be out, and that's a personal decision. It's not something that should be expected. We have plenty of trans athletes out there, playing, who are not out, and some who are out. There are a lot of people out there making history right now, and they just may not be as public as I am."

Chris Mosier is the first out trans athlete to compete in an IOC-regulated world championship event (espn.com)

This idea that transgender men tend to choose to continue in their original, women's category, isn't quite so obvious at all. They just don't come to the attention of the tabloid media is all, is the reason you might be given to thinking that Trans Identified Female athletes tend to choose to continue in their original, women's category.

Female children can start menstruation anywhere between the ages of 8-12, I have never heard of any child being prescribed puberty blockers because they are experiencing a completely natural part of growing up.

This bullshit on the other hand is knowingly disrupting that natural process cos “gender dysphoria”….in an 8 year old who probably doesn’t even know what either word of that means. And I make no apologies for the link I suggest - it’s not outside the realms of logic to say that when people start attempting to impose some sort of self understanding or self consent on 8 year olds about life changing decisions, that rabbit hole will eventually lead to other places.

Adults can **** themselves up however they want, but kids are a red line - under no circumstances should it ever become acceptable for this to occur. None.

As I said originally, you can spin and splutter about this whatever way you want - if, but, whatabout- it doesn’t matter. Point remains. And I have no qualms with the medical profession or their means and aims in treating standard illnesses and issues - however we are talking specifically regarding trans here and the deliberate interruption of puberty, not “natural” ailments so don’t think for a second you’ve made some sort of gotcha here.

British cycling showing some great backpedalling skills...

The distinction between sex and gender is irrelevant in the context of whether or not the rules constitute unlawful discrimination. Both sex and gender, or gender identity, or gender reassignment in UK legislation, are all protected characteristics in law, upon which it is unlawful to discriminate against individuals or groups in society based upon those protected characteristics. Weight, is not a protected characteristic, before I go any further.

Now, of course depending upon the jurisdiction and the context in which the rules are being applied, they may indeed be considered lawful, or, they may not - they may be considered as having a disproportionate impact on any group in society and therefore be considered to be in violation of equality legislation on that basis. The justification for the discrimination has a pretty high bar attached to it. It’s why for example Renee Richards won their case against the USTA over 40 years ago already -

https://www.nytimes.com/1977/08/17/archives/renee-richards-ruled-eligible-for-us-open-ruling-makes-renee.html

It’s why the girls in the Connecticut case argued that the CIAC policy of permitting transgender athletes to participate in girls competitions amounted to having an unfair impact on them, and the case was dismissed by a Federal Judge on the basis that there was no case to resolve; the two transgender athletes had graduated and the plaintiffs couldn’t identify other female transgender athletes -

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna758

The point you’re arguing about the idea that nobody is barred from sports, ignores the context in which the argument against discrimination is being made. That’s why it’s a specious argument. I’m not going to lie, it’s a sneery argument that has no validity in the context in which it is being used. That’s why the whole “they’re not barred from sports, they can compete in other categories” just doesn’t fly. Employing a full stop, doesn’t prohibit the unpacking or interpretation of that statement to determine whether it’s impact amounts to having a disproportionate impact upon any particular group of people in society, no more than the argument that “people aren’t barred from entering into marriage” could be used as a legitimate justification to uphold discrimination based upon sexual orientation, sex and gender, which had a disproportionate impact upon people who are either gay, lesbian, bisexual and/or transgender.

Now, having said all that, and again, depending upon the jurisdiction, there does exist in equality legislation, exemptions which permit discrimination in certain limited contexts, such as sports. In Ireland for example, it is permitted for organisations to have rules which are discriminatory, provided the discrimination is demonstrated as being necessary as the only reasonable and proportionate means by which the organisation can achieve a legitimate aim, or in individual cases, that the discrimination is also necessary for other reasons which are already recognised in Irish law -

https://www.ihrec.ie/guides-and-tools/human-rights-and-equality-in-the-provision-of-good-and-services/what-does-the-law-say/exceptions/

Simply pointing out that nobody is barred from participating in sports, is just irrelevant in the context of the point being made that the rules as they are, amount to unfair treatment which has a disproportionate impact upon people who are transgender. That’s to say nothing of the new rules which are being introduced in order to limit the participation of people who are transgender in sports.

Your faith is in the 18,000+ professionals in the field of endocrinology and metabolism is wildly misplaced. It's well known that any research that might contravene trans ideology is simply not done out of pure fear that the 'wrong result' will be career ending, to publish any data that runs counter to that cult is to be a Galileo telling the popes of that new religion that the earth is not the center of the universe. An endocrinologist is ill equipped to meddle in psychology anyway.

Are they? Have you actually never heard of behavioural endocrinology? It’s kinda useful in relation to examining the effects of hormones on behaviour, something which endocrinologists would spend a lot of their time on -

https://nobaproject.com/textbooks/wendy-king-introduction-to-psychology-the-full-noba-collection/modules/hormones-behavior

Certainly they would be in a far better position than a journalist who has no training whatsoever in science or medicine trying to offer a critique on a small-scale study where his main complaint is that he doesn’t have sufficient data to determine anything conclusive, but he’ll take a couple of wild guesses anyway interpreting the study in a way which suits his own preconceived narrative -

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_Singal

Pretending that ideology and fear rule research on gender and so on, and putting that forward as the reason why studies such as Lisa Littman’s effort were pilloried by her peers is what’s bullshìt. But you won’t see Mr. Singal singling out that particular effort as an example of how statistical data can be misrepresented, manipulated and used to promote a particular political agenda -

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-019-1453-2

In it’s proper context of course, the review that Singel refers to was the review by NICE which also made the point that it was difficult to draw conclusions from existing studies because of the way they are poorly designed, and there just isn’t sufficient data to determine the actual efficacy of hormone treatments. What data does exist however, shows insufficient evidence for their efficacy -

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-56601386.amp

That’s obviously not a commentary on the ethics of their use in the treatment of gender incongruence, which is a condition addressed by a multidisciplinary team of clinicians, psychologists, psychiatrists, endocrinologists, social workers, and the families of the patients themselves. It’s simply a recognition of the fact that more research is necessary in order that they have better data to work with which would improve the quality of their research, as opposed to your idea that anyone is trying to stifle research by pointing out that poorly conducted research just doesn’t meet established scientific standards.