Transgender athletes

[iNow]

1 hour ago, J.C.MacSwell said:

Does everyone need to be on a side?

In the battle over personal liberties and societal acceptance, not choosing a side is equivalent to choosing the wrong one. 

8 hours ago, mistermack said:

that's why there is a women's category, not a "women's level" category. 

And while the name you’ve selected needs tweaking, we could instead simply decide to proceed with the latter category. I could be mistaken, but fairly sure the world wouldn’t come screeching to a halt. 

[mistermack]

5 minutes ago, iNow said:

fairly sure the world wouldn’t come screeching to a halt. 

So that's your criteria? The world didn't screech to a halt when Hitler started gassing Jews. Nor when the USA dropped the bomb on Hiroshima. it's going to be a weird world, if that's a valid standard.

Meanwhile, in the real world, I favour men competing against men, and women competing against women. Not because you can't level the field artificially, you can. But because it's what people will watch, what people will see a point in, and what people will enjoy taking part in. 

[iNow]

1 hour ago, mistermack said:

I favour men competing against men, and women competing against women. Not because you can't level the field artificially, you can. But because it's what people will watch

People will watch whatever you put in front of them, and specious forecasts about possible future ratings aren’t a valid reason for the blanket exclusion of trans individuals. 

[J.C.MacSwell]

2 hours ago, iNow said:

In the battle over personal liberties and societal acceptance, not choosing a side is equivalent to choosing the wrong one. 

 

So you've decided you're against cis-women? Your arguments are starting to make more sense knowing that.

[StringJunky]

6 hours ago, J.C.MacSwell said:

So you've decided you're against cis-women? Your arguments are starting to make more sense knowing that.

How did you work that out? You've got these archaic pigeon-holes that you keep clinging on to that are well passed their use-by date.... but science soldiers on.

From: Testosterone Levels in Athletes Data Point Educator

Caption: Blood testosterone levels for 676 Olympic-level elite athletes. Individual athletes, represented by blue dots, are grouped by their biological sex (“Men” or “Women”) and sport (1-Powerlifting, 2-Basketball, 3-Soccer, 4-Swimming, 5-Marathon, 6-Canoeing, 7-Rowing, 8-Cross-Country Skiing, 9-Alpine Skiing, 10-WeightLifting, 11-Judo, 12-Bandy, 13-Ice Hockey, 14-handball, and 15-Track and Field).

Blood samples were collected on a voluntary basis within two hours after the athletes had competed in their events. Sports missing from the plots did not have enough volunteers to be included in the study. None of the athletes were known to be intersex or to have used performance-enhancing drugs.

Quote

INTERPRETING THE GRAPH
In this figure, each dot represents the testosterone level (nmol/L of blood serum) of an individual Olympic-level
athlete. Athletes are grouped by sport (represented by the numbered categories on the x-axis) and biological sex
(“Men” in the top plot and “Women” in the bottom plot). In both plots, the reference line at 10 nmol/L
represents the testosterone threshold previously used by the IAAF and the IOC to determine eligibility for
competing in women’s events. From 2012 to 2015, these organizations had banned certain athletes with
testosterone levels above this threshold from competing in women’s sports events.
The original goal of the scientists’ study was to look for patterns in hormone levels that might correspond to an
individual’s performance in a particular sport. For example, the figure indicates that many male powerlifters (top
plot, category 1) had testosterone levels below the 10 nmol/L threshold, significantly lower than the average
testosterone levels of male athletes in other sports. It’s equally possible that lower testosterone levels result from
some aspect of powerlifting training or that men with lower testosterone levels have an advantage in
powerlifting.
The figure also reveals some surprising patterns between the biological sexes. Male athletes had an unexpectedly
broad range of testosterone levels. A high percentage (25.4%) of male athletes had testosterone levels below the
10 nmol/L threshold. A smaller percentage of the female athletes (4.8%) had testosterone levels above the 10
nmol/L threshold. Based solely on their testosterone levels, over a quarter of the male athletes in this study
would have qualified to compete in women’s events, and nearly 5% of the female athletes would have been
excluded from competing in women’s events. 

https://www.biointeractive.org/sites/default/files/TestosteroneAthletes-Educator-DP.pdf

The 10nm/L limit for female athletes would allow  a whole bunch of men to compete as women using that criterion. The assertion in  posts that you have made, that there is a definitive chasm between male and female athletes clearly doesn't reflect reality.

Part of the problem, I think, is comparing *gross average upper and lower ranges made by many subject-related articles and those don't reflect the true distribution, as more clearly described by these graphs.

We need science to help the policy-makers determine the solutions.

*Gross - adjective. lacking fine distinctions or detail · adjective. visible to the naked eye (especially of rocks and anatomical features) ·

Edited July 30, 2023 by StringJunky

[dimreepr]

15 hours ago, J.C.MacSwell said:

I'm going to go out on a limb here...and guess that you think it's you...

Can you think of a reason why I shouldn't think that???

[J.C.MacSwell]

6 hours ago, StringJunky said:

How did you work that out? You've got these archaic pigeon-holes that you keep clinging on to that are well passed their use-by date.... but science soldiers on.

From: Testosterone Levels in Athletes Data Point Educator

Caption: Blood testosterone levels for 676 Olympic-level elite athletes. Individual athletes, represented by blue dots, are grouped by their biological sex (“Men” or “Women”) and sport (1-Powerlifting, 2-Basketball, 3-Soccer, 4-Swimming, 5-Marathon, 6-Canoeing, 7-Rowing, 8-Cross-Country Skiing, 9-Alpine Skiing, 10-WeightLifting, 11-Judo, 12-Bandy, 13-Ice Hockey, 14-handball, and 15-Track and Field).

Blood samples were collected on a voluntary basis within two hours after the athletes had competed in their events. Sports missing from the plots did not have enough volunteers to be included in the study. None of the athletes were known to be intersex or to have used performance-enhancing drugs.

https://www.biointeractive.org/sites/default/files/TestosteroneAthletes-Educator-DP.pdf

The 10nm/L limit for female athletes would allow  a whole bunch of men to compete as women using that criterion. The assertion in  posts that you have made, that there is a definitive chasm between male and female athletes clearly doesn't reflect reality.

Part of the problem, I think, is comparing *gross average upper and lower ranges made by many subject-related articles and those don't reflect the true distribution, as more clearly described by these graphs.

We need science to help the policy-makers determine the solutions.

*Gross - adjective. lacking fine distinctions or detail · adjective. visible to the naked eye (especially of rocks and anatomical features)? ·

When exactly, in this 2+ year old thread, have I ever advocated for using testosterone levels as a division between men and women?

I've consistently spoken against testosterone targets and the use of target suppressive treatments for that purpose.

If you want to decide which "side" I'm on, it's the one against drug treatments for performance enhancement or suppression, but for clean sports., regardless of whether anyone is of either sex (discernable by science or not), and regardless of their choice of gender.

[dimreepr]

11 hours ago, J.C.MacSwell said:

So you've decided you're against cis-women? Your arguments are starting to make more sense knowing that.

Now that's irony... 🤓

3 minutes ago, J.C.MacSwell said:

If you want to decide which "side" I'm on, it's the one against drug treatments for performance enhancement or suppression, but for clean sports., regardless of whether anyone is of either sex (discernable by science or not), and regardless of their choice of gender.

But not them???

Ye, I get it; you're irony impaired... 😲

[StringJunky]

28 minutes ago, J.C.MacSwell said:

When exactly, in this 2+ year old thread, have I ever advocated for using testosterone levels as a division between men and women?

I've consistently spoken against testosterone targets and the use of target suppressive treatments for that purpose.

Stop using it to support your positions then.

Quote

Here is an article from over a year ago arguing that Lia Thompson was not at an advantage because  her hormone therapy treatments removed the advantage. (though NCAA allows twice the testosterone level of US swimming, which allows twice the normal female range)

I would have to look back, but you have put up a statistic whereby there was a very distinct delineation, with a clear gap between men and women's testosterone... like they they were so far apart they would never connect. This is what originally prompted me to look up the data I posted. 

Edited July 30, 2023 by StringJunky

[iNow]

J.C.MacSwell has shown willingness to allow participation among transgender people who went through their reassignment protocols years in the past.

He has confirmed he supports allowing transgender participation in all but the very top tier of elite female sports categories.

He has also been open to calculations using multiple criteria for qualification along the lines of those proposed last fall by the Cato Institute.

That is important and foundational in finding a path forward as allies here, so I urge restraint and caution in responding. It’s detrimental to that progress to act with vitriol and harshness toward him and others with similarly open minds since his more nuanced stance is FAR better than many of the purely ignorant and bigoted comments we so often encounter around this topic. 

[StringJunky]

28 minutes ago, iNow said:

J.C.MacSwell has shown willingness to allow participation among transgender people who went through their reassignment protocols years in the past.

He has confirmed he supports allowing transgender participation in all but the very top tier of elite female sports categories.

He has also been open to calculations using multiple criteria for qualification along the lines of those proposed last fall by the Cato Institute.

That is important and foundational in finding a path forward as allies here, so I urge restraint and caution in responding. It’s detrimental to that progress to act with vitriol and harshness toward him and others with similarly open minds since his more nuanced stance is FAR better than many of the purely ignorant and bigoted comments we so often encounter around this topic. 

I'm not a politician looking for allies. How you play it is up to you. I'm on nobody's team. As you know, start talking feminism, I will appear to a do a 180, where I am more in concordance with him and MigL, and will be just same with you on that subject in opposition. For me, what's important is that I am internally consistent with my own thoughts and are steered towards nature. If peoples thoughts align with mine, great, but nature is the boss when the evidence says so..

He's a thoughtful person... and we all like arguing.  

Edited July 30, 2023 by StringJunky

[mistermack]

Meanwhile, in American swimming, they have gone bonkers. A very average male swimmer has transitioned, and while his times as a man put him way out of the top 100, he's now the fastest "woman" and close to breaking all-time female records. 

And for a lot of the time, women have been forced to use the same changing room, with a 6ft4" male, with dick and balls hanging out, and if they complained, they were called prejudiced dinosaurs. 

Sport’s trans issue is here to stay. But at last, the debate is starting to change | International Olympic Committee | The Guardian  

I prefer Ricky Gervais's take on it, keeping it real : 

 

16 hours ago, iNow said:

People will watch whatever you put in front of them, and specious forecasts about possible future ratings aren’t a valid reason for the blanket exclusion of trans individuals.

This really is a bad faith argument, because you know perfectly well that men who go transgender are not excluded from sport. They are excluded from women's sport, just like they were from birth, and just like all other men. So it's a deliberate falsification to paint it as blanket exclusion. 

At least, I'm arguing that they should be excluded from women's competition. Men and women can choose to play each other as much as they like

 

[zapatos]

1 hour ago, mistermack said:

And for a lot of the time, women have been forced to use the same changing room, with a 6ft4" male, with dick and balls hanging out, and if they complained, they were called prejudiced dinosaurs. 

 

At the risk of earning your ire, are those two statement actually true, or is this...

1 hour ago, mistermack said:

a deliberate falsification to paint it...

...in the worst possible light?

1 hour ago, mistermack said:

A very average male swimmer has transitioned, and while his times as a man put him way out of the top 100, he's now the fastest "woman" and close to breaking all-time female records. 

Yes, it seems as if they have a lot of work to do before they come up with a system that is truly equitable.

[mistermack]

8 minutes ago, zapatos said:

At the risk of earning your ire, are those two statement actually true, or is this...

That was given in evidence to a house committee recently, by women who trained alongside him. The swimmer was Lia Thomas, who is 6ft 4". I would have linked the report but I can't find it. I think the evidence was given in the last week.

This is about the same topic, but it's not the original that I read. : Lia Thomas exposed 'male genitalia' in women's locker room after meet, Riley Gaines says: Dropped 'his pants' | Fox News 

25 minutes ago, zapatos said:

Yes, it seems as if they have a lot of work to do before they come up with a system that is truly equitable.

No work needed. Men compete with men. Women with women. That's equitable.  

[zapatos]

4 minutes ago, mistermack said:

That was given in evidence to a house committee recently, by women who trained alongside him. The swimmer was Lia Thomas, who is 6ft 4". I would have linked the report but I can't find it. I think the evidence was given in the last week.

This is about the same topic, but it's not the original that I read. : Lia Thomas exposed 'male genitalia' in women's locker room after meet, Riley Gaines says: Dropped 'his pants' | Fox News 

Surely the NCAA can do better than that. As can Lia.

Is anyone aware of sporting authorities considering a handicapping system? For events dedicated to competition between individuals, say, the 100m freestyle in swimming, this could help individuals compete more equitably.

[mistermack]

35 minutes ago, zapatos said:

Is anyone aware of sporting authorities considering a handicapping system? For events dedicated to competition between individuals, say, the 100m freestyle in swimming, this could help individuals compete more equitably.

That's not really the idea of competing though is it? The idea is to find out who's best, whereas the handicapper does his best to get a dead heat. 

Even when there is weight classes, the competition is still held to see who's the best flyweight, or middleweight. 

You could have women middleweights fighting male lightweights, they might be evenly matched, but nobody wants to see it. The spectacle of a male beating up a female would probably cause a riot. And the vice versa would be humiliating for the loser, even though it was a trained female boxer with a weight advantage. There is a woman who transed to male, and fights as a man. I don't know how they approached the hormone treatments. The drugs would be banned for male fighters. 

[StringJunky]

19 minutes ago, mistermack said:

That's not really the idea of competing though is it? The idea is to find out who's best, whereas the handicapper does his best to get a dead heat. 

Even when there is weight classes, the competition is still held to see who's the best flyweight, or middleweight. 

You could have women middleweights fighting male lightweights, they might be evenly matched, but nobody wants to see it. The spectacle of a male beating up a female would probably cause a riot. And the vice versa would be humiliating for the loser, even though it was a trained female boxer with a weight advantage. There is a woman who transed to male, and fights as a man. I don't know how they approached the hormone treatments. The drugs would be banned for male fighters. 

You are just making stuff up. 

[zapatos]

17 minutes ago, mistermack said:

That's not really the idea of competing though is it? The idea is to find out who's best, whereas the handicapper does his best to get a dead heat. 

But we're trying to address a specific problem. How can you let someone with a clear advantage compete equitably with someone who does not have that advantage. And that is what we are discussing; can trans women compete with cis women in a fair and equitable manner?

The only way to let them compete equitably is to either give one an advantage or give one a disadvantage. Having trans women reduce testosterone for example is giving trans women a disadvantage.

If you want a fair competition between mismatched opponents you can add a handicap. I can golf with Tiger Woods because of our relative handicaps. If a jockey is too small, they make the horse carry extra weights. Bowling uses handicaps, as do many sailing competitions. 

If we can find a way to make things equitable, then the competition will be fair. That doesn't mean we have to do it, but it does mean we can do it.

[StringJunky]

28 minutes ago, zapatos said:

But we're trying to address a specific problem. How can you let someone with a clear advantage compete equitably with someone who does not have that advantage. And that is what we are discussing; can trans women compete with cis women in a fair and equitable manner?

The only way to let them compete equitably is to either give one an advantage or give one a disadvantage. Having trans women reduce testosterone for example is giving trans women a disadvantage.

If you want a fair competition between mismatched opponents you can add a handicap. I can golf with Tiger Woods because of our relative handicaps. If a jockey is too small, they make the horse carry extra weights. Bowling uses handicaps, as do many sailing competitions. 

If we can find a way to make things equitable, then the competition will be fair. That doesn't mean we have to do it, but it does mean we can do it.

Good examples, zap.

[mistermack]

20 minutes ago, zapatos said:

If you want a fair competition between mismatched opponents you can add a handicap. I can golf with Tiger Woods because of our relative handicaps. If a jockey is too small, they make the horse carry extra weights. Bowling uses handicaps, as do many sailing competitions. 

You can do it if you want it. But your statement above contains it's own fatal flaw. Fair competition is a matter of opinion, not fact. If you found a way to level up the playing field with handicaps, then that's fine for a horse race held for the purpose of gambling. Without it, people might not enter the race, knowing that the other horses are better. And the same goes for sailing and bowling etc. 

But for human athletes, competing for elite status and prizes, it won't be long before the cry of "unfair" comes back. "Why should I be handicapped, surely this is discrimination" !!

And the human rights arguments would start all over again. So it's always going to be "unfair" to someone. 

I believe years ago, Serena and Venus Williams in their prime both took part in "show" matches, after Serena claimed that no man outside the top 500 could beat her. The challenger at the time was ranked about 600, and beat both of them easily, something like 6-1 and 6-2, ( approx from memory )

44 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

You are just making stuff up.

Specifically ?

[StringJunky]

8 minutes ago, mistermack said:

Specifically ?

 

Quote

You could have women middleweights fighting male lightweights, they might be evenly matched, but nobody wants to see it. 

 

Quote

The spectacle of a male beating up a female would probably cause a riot.

 

Quote

And the vice versa would be humiliating for the loser, even though it was a trained female boxer with a weight advantage.

These are all assumptions/obstacles you created in your head with no facts to support. Quite simply, you are expressing personal anxieties and projecting them onto female athletes.

[mistermack]

15 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

These are all assumptions/obstacles you created in your head

Opinions in other words? That's common to any opinion. When you posted I was making stuff up, it falsely reads like I'm inventing facts. 

You tell me of an opinion that wasn't created in a head !!   🙃

[TheVat]

13 hours ago, StringJunky said:

It’s equally possible that lower testosterone levels result from
some aspect of powerlifting training or that men with lower testosterone levels have an advantage in
powerlifting.

I am likely naive on this topic but I've heard that about powerlifting for a long time and wondered if this is simply an effect of significant increasing your body mass and blood volume while having the same size glands that produce androgens.  

[iNow]

4 hours ago, mistermack said:

This really is a bad faith argument, because you know perfectly well that men who go transgender are not excluded from sport. They are excluded from women's sport

Forgive me for assuming context was understood without being explicitly mentioned in that one post that one time 80 pages into the thread. 

[StringJunky]

12 minutes ago, TheVat said:

I am likely naive on this topic but I've heard that about powerlifting for a long time and wondered if this is simply an effect of significant increasing your body mass and blood volume while having the same size glands that produce androgens.  

I don't know. CharonY might.