Transgender women in women's sport - how it happened.

[andyoldlabour]

I have been looking back at all the (considerable) information I have collated over past four months or so, and I was trying to find the IOC regulations regarding transgender women and when the decision was made to allow them to compete in women's sport.
The meeting happened in Lausanne in November 2015, and as far as I can tell, most of the World's individual sporting organisations will be bound by these rules.

stillmed.olympic.org/Documents/Commissions_PDFfiles/Medical_commission/2015-11_ioc_consensus_meeting_on_sex_reassignment_and_hyperandrogenism-en.pdf

2.Those who transition from male to female are eligible to compete in the female category under the following conditions:2.1.The athlete has declared that her gender identity is female. The declaration cannot be changed, for sporting purposes, for a minimum of four years.2.2.The athlete must demonstrate that her total testosterone level in serum has been below 10 nmol/L for at least 12 months prior to her first competition (with the requirement for any longer period to be based on a confidential case-by-case evaluation, considering whether or not 12 months is a sufficient length of time to minimize any advantage in women’s competition).

www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/jan/25/ioc-rules-transgender-athletes-can-take-part-in-olympics-without-surgery

Former IOC medical commission chairman Arne Ljungqvist who was present at the meeting, said the consensus was driven by social and political changes.

So, forget the biology and physiology, simply let the touchy feely stuff rule.

[RiverTam]

there was a long thread on MN about that at the time and it's certainly what peak transed me and a lot of other women. The fact that a man could compete against women with 3 times the amount of testosterone in him, alongside all the other physical advantages of course, was too much.

[Ribosomes]

Women's testosterone levels vary from 0.7 to 2.8 nmol/l

Nmol being different to ng.

Levels being permitted are significantly higher than the top level of normal female levels.

[RiverTam]

thread from Jan 2016
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/a2555455-To-think-that-this-is-the-end-of-womens-athletics?msgid=58922563#58922563

[andyoldlabour]

I wondered if it may have been covered before, but there are so many people asking questions about this subject that I felt it may educate some folks who are not aware of the IOC policy which has allowed transgender women to freely compete against women.

[QuietContraryMary]

AIR women's levels do not typically exceed 2 nmol/l, above 2nmol/l is PCOS, and indicative of an underlying illness, associated with obesity and other things not consistent with athletic performance.

[2019StandingforWomen]

Interesting that thread from 2016 isn't accepting new messages - why is that?

[QuietContraryMary]

it's full. 1000 message limit

[BettyDuMonde]

It’s a full thread - they all max out at 1000 posts (40 pages).

If the discussion was ongoing there will be a part 2 somewhere.

[RiverTam]

Part 2
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/2558163-Continuation-thread-re-IOC-trans-policy-and-related-trans-issues

[RiverTam]

I think it's impossible to overstate the impact of these 2 threads.

[Melanippe]

It's not just at elite level, a quite remarkable number of trans athletes are taking over women's teams at student level and amateur. It's an especial problem in the USA where some girls are being denied a college education due to trans women stealing their bursaries and scholarships in sports.

[VickyEadie]

It's not just at elite level, a quite remarkable number of trans athletes are taking over women's teams at student level and amateur. It's an especial problem in the USA where some girls are being denied a college education due to trans women stealing their bursaries and scholarships in sports.

And whilst the scholarship issue is not so much of a thing here, the bigger issue for us is that allowing boys to compete with girls will seriously damage the participation of girls in sports.

Such boys will, for example, take girls' places in teams, in events where qualification is by time, etc and will effectively remove girls and young women from those events currently open to them.

[Melanippe]

Exactly Vicky, it's not hard to envisage a time where mediocre boys will entirely replace or at least deter talented girls from participating. And another forum for the participation of women and girls in public life is lost.

[Datun]

I think it's impossible to overstate the impact of these 2 threads.

It was certainly the very first thing that alerted me. And I read them both, one after the other, in the middle of the night, because I was so incredulous I couldn't sleep.

[Datun]

Former IOC medical commission chairman Arne Ljungqvist who was present at the meeting, said the consensus was driven by social and political changes.

Fucking fuck off. Women in sport need to be banned because politics???

Fucking hell. We barely got the chance, didn't we?

[ErrolTheDragon]

What proportion of the members of the group who reached that consensus were female?

[andyoldlabour]

ErrolTheDragon

"What proportion of the members of the group who reached that consensus were female?"

I am working my way through them.
Dr Stephane Bermon is male and is an expert in testosterone and has worked with Chris Froome and convicted doper Alexander Vinokourov.

forum.cyclingnews.com/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=29971

Ms Joanna Harper is a transgender woman runner and a chief medical physicist.

archive.org/details/NoHoldsBarredJoannaHarperOnNewIocTransgenderGuidelines

Maria Jose Martinez Patino - a former 100 meter hurdler who failed a gender test and was thrown off the Spanish team.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Jos%C3%A9_Mart%C3%ADnez-Pati%C3%B1o

Liz Riley barrister at Bird and Bird - specialises in sports and has advised both the IOC and IAAF on gender matters.

www.lawinsport.com/item/liz-riley

Rania Elwani - former Olympic swimmer from Egypt, and is now on the athlete committee of WADA (World Anti Doping)

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rania_Elwani

Vidya Mohamed-Ali - anti doping expert from Qatar.

www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=vidya+mohamed+ali

To sum up, there were 20 people present at the meeting, 4 women, 1 transgender woman, and 1 woman suffering from AIS (XY chromosones) and 14 men.

[anniehm]

I think people here are forgetting that nobody is going to go through gender reassignment purely to compete in sports! There's a very small number of male-female trans people who are even capable of competing at even a semi pro level, those hormones have a lot of side affects. There's also a good option they could put in place that transition has to occur before a certain age but I cannot see anybody faking it just to complete.

[QuietContraryMary]

"I think people here are forgetting that nobody is going to go through gender reassignment purely to compete in sports! "

How do you know? Laurel Hubbard was a male weightlifter who never made it, then an administrator in the sport, then World Championship female silver medallist after transitioning aged over 35. Or Tiffany Abreu, another washed up male for many years, now a likely female Olympian.

AIR Laurel Hubbard has never even claimed to be a woman.

[Datun]

I think people here are forgetting that nobody is going to go through gender reassignment purely to compete in sports!

So what?

Firstly, yes of course they will. People regularly subscribe to doping in order to win.

Rachel McKinnon is fully intact and has had no surgery at all. Yet they are legally a woman. Despite being a legal man up until the age of 29 and only training for the sport at which they have won the world championship, for less than two years.

But let's assume that no one does it deliberately, what difference does that make?

It's still cheating. They haven't changed sex.

I tell you what, let's just say any man can compete against women, as long as they take some drugs to lower their testosterone to limit a women can't hope to achieve.

Any men, all men.

[SlipperyLizard]

Given the existence of state sponsored doping, I have no doubt that state sponsored transing (if that’s a verb) would be used by some states in order to gain competitive advantage.

And it wouldn’t even be cheating! You’re wilfully blind if you think this won’t happen.

[sackrifice]

I think people here are forgetting that nobody is going to go through gender reassignment purely to compete in sports!

Define 'gender reassignment'.

How many of the people on this team do you consider female?

[VickyEadie]

Doesn't matter to me why a man tries to enter women's competition - allowing them to will destroy sports for women. Bit by bit, everything that we have is being denied us...

[Sicario]

Yep. 6'4" quarterback decides he's a woman. We all just look the other way, right?