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

But show us the proof that he is wrong instead of just asserting that he may be.

show me the proof that he’s right instead of merely asserting what he says may be true?

We could circle around this fallacy for weeks. Or we could just accept it was a fallacy and move on from trying to orbit the discussion around Richard Dawkins.

are all or most athletes within 12 to 36 months of treatment?

clearly. That wasn’t my question though.

Just putting this here (I accidentally posted it in the other thread).

To get back to the sporting arena, there were at least two transmen competing in women's sports in Paris '24 - runner Nikki Hiltz and a Philipino boxer, Hergie Bacyadan. I doubt anyone on here has any problem with that, so hopefully we can't be labelled as transphobic for not buying into the ideology 100%.

We after so many years of progress are going backwards.

Women fought hard for their rights and they are being taken back and calling that out makes you a phobe.

The funny thing is anyone iv met who thinks this is positive is a man.

We watched a man batter a women around the ring in the Olympics and this is supposed to be progressive.

Common sense has to come back at some stage.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/paralympic-sport/2024/09/02/valentina-petrillo-paralympic-sprinter-athletics-t12-male/

Several of Petrillo’s fellow competitors are bewildered at how this situation has been allowed to run all the way to Paralympic selection, but they feel powerless to bring about change. Germany’s Katrin Mueller-Rottgardt, who competes in the women’s long jump, said: “Basically, everyone should live in everyday life the way they feel comfortable, but I find it difficult in competitive sports.

Who could disagree with that?

Petrillo has lived and trained as a man for a long time, so there is a possibility that the physical requirements are different to those of someone who was born as a woman. This could give an advantage.”

Amazing how they have to couch their language in such timid terms. It's so hard for currently competing athletes to speak out.

There is no biological ambiguity about Petrillo. Here is a figure who, in a documentary aired this summer, announced to the interviewer: “You can see I’m a man.” Here is somebody who accepts that women are entitled to feel “astonishment, confusion and doubt” about this indefensible state of affairs, acknowledging: “These doubts and questions are legitimate.” But still Petrillo feels entitled to enter the female category for the sake of “happiness”. Quite where the happiness of the women forced out of the Paralympics as a consequence fit into this equation is anybody’s guess.

There's something so unmistakeably "male" about Petrillo's shameless attitude.

what’s the relevance? She’s competed in the women’s category for over 4 years. She meets the World Para Athletic testosterone requirements. Any wins she had before transition have no bearing on that at all.

Oh dear, a basic lack of understanding of biology and why it is very relevant that a male had gone through puberty. Lived and trained as a man…but has low testosterone, so nothing wrong with that, really?

Please tell us, you’re aware that once a male goes through puberty, they possess physical advantages for life over females. Low test won’t reverse the larger heart, lung capacity, limb length, joint strength.

You have to know that much, right?

There's been a fair bit of talk on the thread about discrimination and human rights. I stole the info below from the athletics thread (I've edited it to remove the comparitive standards that applied to Paris '24): it's the qualifying standards for the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo next year. Both sets of standards are aggressive, however there is an approx 10% difference between the standards for men and women. I believe that this is because World Athletics accepts that there is an inherent difference in performance potential between men and women. I wonder if anyone feels that it's discriminatory to hold men to a higher standard than women, or conversely that this is an example of the bigotry of low expectations by not expecting women to be as fast as men? Could a man take legal action if he is precluded from entering the championships if he has reached the women's standard, but not the mens? Should women be training harder, or perhaps be coached by their mothers?

Women's Events:

• 400m: 50.75
• 800m: 1:59.00
• 1500m/Mile: 4:01.50/4:19.90
• 5000m: 14:50.00
• 10,000m: 30:20.00
• Marathon: 2:23:30

Men's Events:

• 400m: 44.85
• 400m hurdles: 48.50
• 800m: 1:44:50
• 1500m/Mile: 3:33.00/3:50.00
• 5000m: 13:01.00
• Marathon: 2:06:30

A few comments on the testosterone thing:

Earlier in the thread, there was mention of Caster Semanya's CAS case, and the arguement that being forced to lower a naturally high testosterone level was an infringement of Semanya's human rights. Would the same not apply to Petrillo?

I watched a few short youtube documentaries on doping in sport recently. Some of them discussed how athletes can benefit from high levels of prohibited substances, including testosterone, during training, while competing with levels within the rules. The whereabouts rules and the biological passport were attempts to counteract this strategy, but there are ways round it. I'm not sure what the requirements are for assessing the levels for Petrillo and others where the same circumstances apply. Research indicating a permanent benefit from being born male and undergoing male puberty, regardless of later reducing testosterone, has been referenced on this thread.

This might be a more appropriate comment for the WPATH thread, but I've seen a Stella O'Malley discussion on the effects of gender reassigning medical treatment on women - very distressing. I haven't seen a similar one discussing the effects on men, but I've read a few references to the male skeleton and musculature requiring a male level of testosterone. I think it's dubious ethically to mess around with this stuff in an otherwise healthy person.

I don't think anyone has argued that Petrillo is breaking the rules, and in fact in the case of the Olympic boxers Enduro made a strong case that it was ethical for athletes to do whatever they were allowed to do within the rules. Rather, those posters who strongly believe in fairness in sport have argued that the eligibility rules for women's sports should be based on (biological) sex only. They've provided a fair amount of scientific data to support that argument. Also, a comparison of men's and womens results over 10-50 years informs.

The medals are relevant as they show that Petrillo was not just an average man (who might be beatable by an exceptional woman) but a fairly exceptional man (who wouldn't).