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

Ahh there’s no need to be so dramatic - nobody is telling anyone, effectively or otherwise, to get rid of female sports. Competitions, associations and organisations which provide for and promote opportunities for women, men and children will always exist and aren’t going anywhere any time soon.

But in the spirit of funny stories about unfair advantages in sports, one of the better and more recent ones was the whole furore over running shoes which some athletes claimed gave their wearers an unfair advantage in competition -

Usain Bolt said that advances in spike technology that could help wipe out his world records are laughable and that the new shoes also give an unfair advantage over any athletes not wearing them.

After athletes ripped through the record books in distance running with carbon-plated, thick-soled shoes, the technology has now moved into sprint spikes, where – although there is less time in a race for the advantage to make an impact – it is still enough to make a difference.

…

Weighing in on developments in shoe technology, World Athletics said: “The current regulations [July 2020] were designed to give certainty to athletes preparing for the postponed Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, to preserve the integrity of elite competition and to limit technological development to the current level until after the Olympic Games in Tokyo, across all events.”

It said a working group on shoes aimed to set parameters to achieve a balance between innovation, competitive advantage and availability of the products.

Performing in the Nike Air Zoom Maxfly, Jamaican two-time Olympic gold medallist Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce clocked the fastest 100m time in 33 years on 5 June in Kingston with a career-best 10.63s.

Only American world record holder Florence Griffith-Joyner has gone faster – 10.49s in Indianapolis in 1988. But Fraser-Pryce was unwilling to discount the work she has done to become the fastest woman alive, even as she trains and competes in the spike.

“You can give the spikes to somebody else and they’ll probably not do the same things that I’ve done, so I’m not counting myself out of the hard work me and my coach has put in,” the four-time 100m world champion said.

https://amp.theguardian.com/sport/2021/jul/20/weird-and-unfair-usain-bolt-criticises-advances-in-spike-technology

There are no rules in nature plodder, but apart from that, all the rest of it sounds perfectly reasonable, as long as you’re prepared to ignore the fact that it changes nothing and still permits treating athletes unfairly on the basis of either gender or sex. That might fly in countries where they have a very different concept of human rights than we do here in the West, where it wouldn’t matter what the world sees as fair or unfair, but what matters is what is determined as fair or unfair by the courts in accordance with law.

Sports organisations have had nearly 100 years to acknowledge that they needed to change their rules to actually be fair to everyone and promote the sports and competitions and so on, but they chose instead to try and exclude people for as long as they could possibly get away with it, and worse - they chose to exclude people knowing what they knew long before it was generally known about chromosomes and gender identity and all that stuff, ensuring that people wouldn’t be given a fair opportunity. The whole sex verification testing is done in anything BUT good faith, it’s done on the presumption that it’s capable of confirming suspicions that athletes are cheating.

All your suggestions are doing is upholding that same presumption that athletes intention is to cheat, and innocent athletes must be punished by being excluded in order to maintain the impression at least, of fairness, integrity, competition etc in women’s sports. I’m not a woman, but I’m still capable of smelling BS off that one! 😂

And if everyone has the same opportunities to participate in the Olympics, then of course that applies to everyone, as that is everyone exercising their right to participate in sports, as opposed to the idea of some people having the opportunity to exercise a right, and other people being denied the opportunity to exercise the same right, because of claims of needing to maintain competition and fairness and all the rest of it, by regarding women as if though they are nothing more than congenitally defective men.

I completely understand that it would be infinitely more convenient for you if you could ignore the relationship between gender incongruence and intersex conditions as though people with these conditions actually should be regarded separately in terms of the discrimination and prejudice against them that they share in common… but that’s just not going to happen.

The discrimination faced by both groups is based upon all sorts of negative assumptions based upon innate characteristics which are part of their unique makeup as human beings.

Do I personally think genetic males should compete against genetic females? Not if they don’t actually want to. I’d apply the same standards to genetic females - they don’t have to compete against genetic males if they don’t want to either. To those cyclists and runners who thought to protest unless they could decide who should be permitted to compete against them, they’re more than welcome to exclude themselves from competition if they want to, there’s no shortage of women who will be eligible to participate in their place and will be only too happy to be given the opportunity to do so.

Do I think transwomen and athletes with DSD retain any advantages after puberty? No idea, I don’t know them all personally, I’m sure there are no shortage of disadvantages either in finding themselves in the position they do, but there are organisations like the International Federation of Sports Medicine are interested in collecting more data to determine whether the exclusion of transwomen and female athletes with DSD from women’s sports is actually justifiable based upon scientific evidence and data, or should these characteristics be regarded as advantages unique to each individual athlete.

There simply isn’t enough data or scientific evidence available to determine anything one way or the other about integrating transwomen and female athletes with DSD into Elite competition -

Conclusions

Ultimately, even the most evidence-based policies will not eliminate differences in sporting performance between athletes in the elite category of female sports. However, any advantage held by a person belonging to an athlete in this category could be considered part of the athlete’s unique individuality. Whatever the solution, there is an urgent need for a well-coordinated multidisciplinary international research program, backed by appropriate research grant funding and athlete participation, to generate the evidence to inform future objective policy decisions. Such decisions should be based on the best available scientific evidence from the best available scientific practice and the decisions made will also require a firm political resolve to fairly integrate transwomen and DSD women athletes into elite female sport.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40279-021-01451-8

Surely there's a stronger argument for athletes with DSDs to participate as disabled athletes than to change the whole definition of female sport on the basis that some athletes with congenital issues don't fit easily into the traditional system for able bodied athletes?

There’s plenty of scientific evidence to support the idea that gender identity is as legitimate as any other innate identity that contributes to an individuals sense of self, and people with intersex conditions are a pretty good example of the just how innate the concept of gender identity is in humans -

A 2005 study on the gender identity outcomes of female-raised 46,XY persons with penile agenesis, cloacal exstrophyof the bladder, or penile ablation, found that 78% of the study subjects were living as female, as opposed to 22% who decided to initiate a sex change to male in line with their genetic sex. The study concludes: "The findings clearly indicate an increased risk of later patient-initiated gender re-assignment to male after female assignment in infancy or early childhood, but are nevertheless incompatible with the notion of a full determination of core gender identity by prenatal androgens."

A 2012 clinical review paper found that between 8.5% and 20% of people with intersex variations experienced gender dysphoria. Sociological research in Australia, a country with a third 'X' sex classification, shows that 19% of people born with atypical sex characteristics selected an "X" or "other" option, while 52% are women, 23% men, and 6% unsure. At birth, 52% of persons in the study were assigned female, and 41% were assigned male.

A study by Reiner & Gearhart provides some insight into what can happen when genetically male children with cloacal exstrophy are sexually assigned female and raised as girls, according to an 'optimal gender policy' developed by John Money: in a sample of 14 children, follow-up between the ages of 5 to 12 showed that 8 of them identified as boys, and all of the subjects had at least moderately male-typical attitudes and interests, providing support for the argument that genetic variables affect gender identity and behavior independent of socialization.

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

Being honest with you, I don’t do a whole lot of reading around the topic, I’d say I was barely even scratching the surface as it’s such a vast area of study, but one thing I have no interest in whatsoever is the kind of nonsense that plays out on platforms like twitter, facebook and Snapchat and whatever the new and cool platform is. I mean, I’m aware that the people you’re referring to do exist alright, and I get the point you’re driving at, but between myself and yourself, I really don’t have any time for that sort of identity politics and attempting to police other people’s right to freedom of expression. That’s a rabbit hole I’d rather not go down -

https://www.reddit.com/r/asktransgender/comments/8nssii/can_someone_explain_the_truscumtucute_ideologies/

It’s not a denial of science, it’s the very opposite. Your point was that the exceptions don’t make the rule, something like that anyway, and I was pointing out the fact that in nature, there are no rules. Science is just the tool by which we observe natural phenomena, it doesn’t determine anything.

You make the point that cheating implies intent as if that isn’t the intent, and then ask what I have to assume is a rhetorical question about whether or not Russian athletes would cheat. Are Russians predisposed to cheating because they’re Russian or something? Are you confident enough in your assertion that you would argue that Russians should be banned from sports on the basis that they’re likely to cheat? I don’t need science to be fairly confident you can see the parallels with that idea and the same idea applied in a whole boatload of other contexts.

Fair enough if you don’t think the furore about the shoes giving their wearers an unfair advantage was funny, I thought it was hilarious that the fastest man on the planet was complaining about the wearer having an unfair advantage, while the fastest woman on the planet pointed out fairly IMO, that such arguments were an attempt to undermine the hard work she and her coach have put in. I dunno if you read the article, but both Bolt and Fraser-Price are Jamaican, as is the veteran sprint coach who made the point that there is no scientific evidence to support the claim that the shoes offer the wearer an unfair advantage -

Veteran Jamaican sprint coach Stephen Francis admitted faster times are being run in Nike’s new sprint spikes.

“Based on anecdotal evidence and based on the fact that you have people who never would have run as fast as they are running, I suspect that there may be a point, but there is no scientific basis to make that point,” Francis said. Whatever the advantage, he said, anyone can benefit from Nike’s technology based on the rules set by World Athletics.

https://amp.theguardian.com/sport/2021/jul/20/weird-and-unfair-usain-bolt-criticises-advances-in-spike-technology

If I were to speculate, I’d suggest the placebo effect is largely in play in those circumstances tbh.

I genuinely can’t tell if you’re actually being serious right now, or if you’re only messing 😂

It’s difficult to tell seeing as you couldn’t see the funny side of Usain Bolt complaining about the runners, and even in those circumstances I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt that his objections had nothing to do with the fact that he’s sponsored by Puma, one of Nike’s biggest rivals 🤔

about the only certainty is that the person who breaks them won't have been born female

So you’re telling me there’s a chance… 😬

Dear God if that goes over your head there’s no hope 😖

Ok you were serious then.

They’re rules in science, there are still no rules in nature.

Weird hill to want to die on, but have at it.

In order to reach the desired outcome of integrating transwomen and DSD women in women’s sports. That IS the goal of the research program.

It’s all bluster. And it’s failing very badly now.

So, something can be observed in something else, but not be in it. That doesn't seem right.

Right, but science is more than a tool to observe things. Tools are not the same as theories. Some rules do get superceded over time, but others don't. And, even when one rule or theory looks to be superceded, it is still valid in certain contexts. Like, you could argue that the centuries old branch of Physics, classical Mechanics, has been superceded by Einstein's theories of relativity, but in practice that's not the case at all. NASA was able to send the Apollo missions to the moon, while ignoring relativity. They didn't need the tiny bit of extra precision it provides.

That doesn't follow. Charles Darwin taught us that evolution progresses without a conscious agent in nature. Instead it happens through natural selection. So, whether we can determine anything about human development doesn't depend on a conscious (or divine) agent.

I think this is the nub of your point. Humans identified the rules and sometimes can be excessively rigid about them. But, that doesn't mean the rule doesn't exist and doesn't have predictive power. It is actually the case that a fetus with the SRY gene will turn out male 99.98% of the time. I think you are saying that unless a rule has no exceptions then it's not really a rule or it's effectively bad science, in some higher epistemic sense.

I found an interesting thread yesterday on Twitter discussing this exact point

There has been plenty of bad science all right. Even still you find scientists clinging to their theories long after they have been disproven. But, the scientific method is able to deal with that and produce theories that explain huge swathes of the natural world even if they don't explain everything 100% of the time.

Right

I found an interesting thread yesterday on Twitter discussing this exact point

Given you only found the thread yesterday, I think to be fair to you I’d have to assume you’re not familiar with Jesse Singal. He’s come up in the thread before, but basically if you were to look into his background, the idea that Jesse “doesn’t understand what the end-game is here”, while posting a screenshot from article, without even linking to the source, suggests that Jesse is engaging in his usual bad actor behaviour 🙄

The article he’s referring to, and I’m not gonna lie, I found it difficult to follow because it reads like two five-year olds having a conversation, but it’s here, if you haven’t already read it for yourself. I’m not sure whether you did or you didn’t as you didn’t say anything about the actual article -

https://www.scientificamerican.com/video/how-junk-science-is-being-used-against-trans-kids2/

Basically what they’re discussing is the influence of John Money on the fields of psychology and biology, and the way that had it not been for his attempts to prove his theories, and his theories gaining the influence they did in spite of the evidence contradicting his theories, precisely because of the prestige which was afforded Money because of who he was, the course of history could have been very different -

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

Edit: The rest of your post - yeah we’re more or less there or thereabouts on the same track.