Trans Women in Sport

I agree with everything Karl/Taf/Moggy have said but feel an overwhelming urge to argue with them anyway

Pancake wrote:I agree with everything Karl/Taf/Moggy have said but feel an overwhelming urge to argue with them anyway

Not quite. I disagree with the way everyone has dealt with Mommy. I disagree that it won’t be significant in the future. I disagree that a small problem in some sports is no problem really. I disagree with the current measures to curb the advantage actually do this. I disagree that this is a question of treating people equally vs. not. And I disagree that we really know the origins of trans to anything like the degree that is being claimed.

You may have noticed Karl, at the very least, has presented some views he hadn’t previously regarding categorisation, which came as a direct result of additional discussion.

So no. I would say nice try, but it wasn’t even that.

I was legitimately talking about my own urges, not trolling you.

Pancake wrote:I was legitimately talking about my own urges, not trolling you.

Damnit, I nearly pretended that too!

From an arms-length following of this thread it appears to me that a large part of the confusion around who should be able to compete in what category comes down to most sports not differentiating between gender and physical characteristics in their categorisations - instead using gender divided categories as analogous to a categorisation of physical differences which is generally well correlated but clearly fails in some situations, which can include some trans athletes.

If the categorisation is by gender (and sometimes this is the intention of categorisation, to encourage participation in a sport or game for example) then the answer is simply absolute and not up for debate - trans women are women and should compete in the women's category.

Where the intention of categorisation in sport is to provide competition for people with different physical characteristics, using gender to define some of those categories is incompatible with all instances and reform appears necessary, if only to avoid this confusion. We can look to categorisations like weight classes in combat sports as an example of some purely physical measure. The only difference in defining a male and female category (as opposed to men and women) is in the number of variables that measured together all contribute to what is generally understood as the difference between male and female, which makes such categorisation harder to understand for the layperson. Inevitably such a categorisation will never align perfectly with categorisation by gender.

Mommy wrote:That's all rather passive aggressive isnt it? Are you trying to help me understand all this or are you trying to push me further away?

I gave you a detailed, completely non-aggressive post that you could have replied to, and you didn't.

You chose instead to keep bleating that you were being excluded from the discussion.

I want to think this is a good faith attempt on your part to be part of a discussion, but when you dodge opportunities to do so, it's hard to think as such.

mic wrote:Also, YouTube ContraPoints!

Haven't heard of them before- I generally avoid watching too much MTF stuff because it feels like "hitting a little too close to home for comfort", hence why all my favourite trans* YouTubers are FTM, but will have a quick look in the morning.

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Mommy wrote:Im sorry for my ignorance, 100%. Im not trolling.
Ill have a look at the stuff that lightwanderer and mic have suggested.
There is no need for me to "Log off" to do that.
If its okay to ask genuine questions then maybe you guys with the strong pro positions could tell me why this is the case?
Lets start again, huh?
Ill get more informed and better my understanding.

Trust me, as someone who used to be a huge supporter of Donald Trump before GRcade knocked me down a load of pegs, when you're on the wrong side of an argument it's ALWAYS better to leave and do research instead of continuing to bicker on without having done the research. Otherwise you're just building a bigger hole for yourself.
Asking genuine questions in an effort to get educated is great but it's clear from your later posts that you're not interested in that.

Mommy wrote:

Karl_ wrote:you can tell by the way that they already answer his questions and he's ignored them).

In my defence, I was in work and didnt have a great deal of time to read the stuff posted by others.

Mommy wrote:I dont think my opinions (based on the things Im reading tonight) will be seen as genuine if I post them. I expect Ill get shouted down again.

If you want to learn, why not ask questions about the stuff you've been reading tonight? This sounds like BS to me. I'm sorry but a spade is a spade. You can't one minute say you want to get educated and then the next minute say you don't want to ask questions as you'll "get shouted down again". Can you tell us what stuff you have been reading?

If you have been reading up on this topic, then good man. If you haven't, please stop (a) hijacking this thread (b) posting offensive stuff. Posting in search of understanding is okay but posting just for the sake of letting your hateful opinion be heard is not cool bro. Chill.

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Moggy wrote:It’s not new. There are texts from thousands of years ago that talk about transgendered people. And it’s not arrogant to say we are correct, because treating other people equally is never the wrong thing to do.

(A) Gets confusing having someone on here called Moggy and someone on here called Mommy!
(B) Could you name some of these texts? I've never come across "thousands-years-old" texts on transgender people, unless you're referring to certain spiritual philosophies? Or is "thousands of years ago" hyperbole?
(C) Pet peeve but "transgendered" people sounds so harsh. The best alternative is "people who are transgender", the person should always come before the condition, but if you insist on shorthand, "transgender people" is better than "transgendered people". Not sure why the "ed" is so triggering but it's something I hate. You're not the only one to use that terminology in this thread so it isn't a criticism against you or anything, just this seems like the most natural time to mention it. Thanks.

The ancient Greeks were big on androgyny. Have a look at the deity Hermaphroditus.

The Roman emperor Elagabalus asked to be called "queen", would wear wigs and makeup and pluck body hair, and tried to pay surgeons to make a vagina.

Western cultures have mostly suppressed trans people, and until very recently have tried to pretend nonbinary people don't exist at all; but other cultures were more accepting and it's from them we have an account of trans people and enbies throughout history. In native American cultures, ancient and some contemporary Middle-Eastern cultures, South Asian cultures throughout history, both traditional and modern Thai culture, and in Japan since at least the Edo period, there are a wealth of historical accounts of trans and nonbinary people.

Wikipedia is often a bit conservative when it comes to respecting historical trans figures in other articles, but it has a good article here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgender_history

Pancake wrote:I agree with everything Karl/Taf/Moggy have said but feel an overwhelming urge to argue with them anyway

...and I'm not sure if I should be offended by this

The debate has returned

Rachel McKinnon: Transgender athlete defends world masters sprint title

https://www.bbc.com/sport/cycling/50111521

It will come up every time a trans woman wins anything, until it is properly addressed.

It looks like the US backlash has started in earnest, with 3 girls filing a federal civil rights complaint of unfair treatment in the athletics case -

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cbsnew ... iolations/

Having said that, US law seems to be all over the place, with one judge ruling that the legal term ‘mother’ no longer means ‘woman’, while Trump continues to roll back trans rights.

Here in the UK, a trans man who gave birth was refused the right to be registered as ‘father’ -

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.co ... index.html

And in other news, trans woman Jessica Yaniv lost her bikini-wax case:

https://triblive.com/news/world/transge ... genitalia/

Sorry the links suck but I’m on my phone...

Edit: auto shrinking those lengthy links is a very cool feature

The US federal lawsuit will be very interesting to keep an eye on - could end up being a bit of a landmark piece of case law depending on the result.

Study finds transwomen retain advantage even within current IOC guidelines

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2 ... 092111.htm

They consider possible solutions in their research however, some options value inclusion more than fairness and vice versa. The potential solutions include excluding transwomen from competing in the women's division, creating a third division for transwomen and intersex women and calculating a handicap for transwomen based on their testosterone levels -- similar to that used in golf.

Their preferred option is an extension of this with a proposed algorithm that could account for a range of parameters, both physical and social, including pyshiological parameters, gender identity and could include socioeconomic status.

Snowcannon wrote:Study finds transwomen retain advantage even within current IOC guidelines

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2 ... 092111.htm

They consider possible solutions in their research however, some options value inclusion more than fairness and vice versa. The potential solutions include excluding transwomen from competing in the women's division, creating a third division for transwomen and intersex women and calculating a handicap for transwomen based on their testosterone levels -- similar to that used in golf.

Their preferred option is an extension of this with a proposed algorithm that could account for a range of parameters, both physical and social, including pyshiological parameters, gender identity and could include socioeconomic status.

That's...an extremely odd way to spin an article headed "Gender binary in elite sports should be abandoned"

Tafdolphin wrote:

Snowcannon wrote:Study finds transwomen retain advantage even within current IOC guidelines

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2 ... 092111.htm

They consider possible solutions in their research however, some options value inclusion more than fairness and vice versa. The potential solutions include excluding transwomen from competing in the women's division, creating a third division for transwomen and intersex women and calculating a handicap for transwomen based on their testosterone levels -- similar to that used in golf.

Their preferred option is an extension of this with a proposed algorithm that could account for a range of parameters, both physical and social, including pyshiological parameters, gender identity and could include socioeconomic status.

That's...an extremely odd way to spin an article headed "Gender binary in elite sports should be abandoned"

Nope

https://jme.bmj.com/content/45/6/395.full

We conclude that the advantage to transwomen afforded by the IOC guidelines is an intolerable unfairness

I guess my point is...that's an article and report that suggests the idea of a gender binary is misleading and damaging. To skip over that to specifically highlight findings that echo anti-trans talking points seems...pre-meditated.

(i) The unfairness finding is a key one, and I highlighted it because it goes against the discussion in the last few pages of the thread
(ii) The quote in my first post even (solely) highlighted the gender binary issue in sport

I would give that study a mixed-to-poor review, to be honest.

The study - which presents no new scientific data, it is only an essay and the authors are philosophers, not medics - makes several admissions along these lines:

Knox, et al. wrote:[...] Given the absence of evidence directly related to
elite transwomen athletes, and as transwomen were previously
biologically male, we extrapolate from evidence based on male
physiology.

[...]

Extrapolating from this it is plausible that transwomen retain
some of that advantage. We acknowledge that these findings
rest on extrapolations from male physiology, and encourage
further specific scientific investigation regarding elite trans-
women athletes.

i.e. Their conclusions are predicated on the assumption that trans women retain the advantages of male physiology, they don't actually know. They later go on to say things like,

Knox, et al. wrote:Combined, these three factors (cis-women cannot attain the
advantage, all-purpose benefit and magnitude of the advantage)
provide a strong argument that transwomen have an intolerable
advantage over cis-women. [...]

But they haven't demonstrated an advantage, let alone the magnitude of said speculated advantage, so it's navel-gazing, isn't it?

This is enough to sink the premise of the essay in my view. Another issue I was found was the exclusion of cis intersex women from the study:

Knox, et al. wrote: The conflation of transgender and intersex people
leads to confusion around effective testosterone versus
testosterone levels. This article solely discusses trans-
women, and therefore our arguments are not compli-
cated by androgen insensitivities in which receptors
are not sensitive, or only partially sensitive to testos-
terone.

But this (perhaps wilfully?) ignores the point that some intersex cis women do have high effective testosterone, and that there are sports in which IOC guidelines aimed at trans women have only ever affected intersex cis women (e.g. Caster Semenya in middle distance running).

They also make a point about "intolerable unfairness",

Knox, et all. wrote:It is not entirely clear how to distinguish between a tolerable
and an intolerable unfairness. [...]

This suggests that an advantage is unfair if no member of the
category (eg, cis-women) can attain that advantage. [1] [...]

Another way to distinguish between tolerable and intolerable
advantages is to consider whether the property under consider-
ation provides an all-purpose benefit. [2]

Both points [1] and [2] are also true for variant ACTN3 genes, but no-one is considering subdividing sports categories into ACTN3-variant people (with an inherent, unattainable advantage) from the wider ACTN3-wildtype population. It becomes difficult to justify this concept of "intolerable unfairness" with such a glaring exception.

A minor point is that they use a misleading and contradictory definition of "trans woman", first restricting the scope of their argument to pre- or non-orchiectomy trans women, but later arguing all trans women are advantaged. I think if you restrict the scope of your study you should make that clear and stick to it in your arguments and conclusions.

Anyway, here is their proposed solution (I emphasise they have not fully justified or defined the problem it purports to solve):

Knox, et al. wrote:[...] there
would be multiple divisions rather than simply male and female.
Second, based on the results of the algorithm, athletes would be
placed into a division which best mitigates unfair physical and
social parameters.
The physiological parameters could include
► Size, for example, height and weight.
► Haemoglobin levels.
► Maximal oxygen uptake (VO2 max).
► Whether the athlete transitioned before, during or well after
puberty.
► Past and present testosterone levels, and the presence of
testes.
► Previous characteristics of physiology that are not changed
via hormone therapy, that is, bone strength or structure,
lung capacity and heart size.
The algorithm would need to be tailored to specific sports as
a physiological factor will be more advantageous in some sports
than others. For example, weight would need to be accounted
for in weightlifting, and perhaps wingspan for swimming.

So they want to end the "gender binary" division in sport by creating multiple categories that clusters entrants based on their overall physical characteristics. The spirit of this is probably the first thing I liked in the entire paper and is preventing me from panning it entirely.

I don't like, however, that their justification for the chosen parameters are "these are characteristics that might not be changed during transition". They would develop a much more holistic view of fairness and inclusion if they undertook a broader review of variance and advantage in sport. I believe better advice for the elite sporting community would simply be "figure out the parameters associated with performance in your sport, then cluster your competitors based on those (implicitly: regardless of their gender or intersex status)".

Karl_ wrote:The study - which presents no new scientific data, it is only an essay and the authors are philosophers, not medics

It sounds like being framed as a study is disingenuous from the start? Surely a study must present data, even if that data is a statistical analysis of previous data in a meta study.