Max testosterone level for trans athletes to be halved

Changing your body from female to male will not make you the same as a man in sport, just the outside is different, Hense no transgender should be allowed in the sport unless you are competing what you was born as, because it isn't fair.

crispbuttyfan I don't think an article by a trans woman in a journal that isn't listed on Pubmed assessing 8 amateur athletes in a low quality "study" qualifies as anything other than joke science really. Harper herself co-authored a commentary in another journal that points out the significant limitations of her original "study".

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/27841808/?i=4&from=transgender%20athletes

This article is notable for also being co-authored by Maria Patino, an intersex athlete. They summarise there are good biological models to explain that other mechanisms exist that will lead to ongoing advantage ("muscle memory", myonuclei) in athletics, whereas

"there are a number of sports where anatomical and biological features, such as size, muscle mass, and even lung capacity would be an obvious advantage with transition to female - a 7-ft basketball player, the above-average reach boxer, and the larger muscle fiber area of the track and field athlete".

If you can come up with some actual science I'd be interested to read it.

Wouldn't a male athlete transitioning to be female still have a physical advantage over female athletes? There's a reason why most athletic events have separate male and female categories.

I too have always loved to run. That does not entitle me to run in competitions. It certainly does not entitle me to run in the Special Olympics now that I can no longer achieve a qualifying time.

This is the bit that amazes me. People think displacing women with men who identify as women in women's sports is somehow a reasonable thing to do. It is not.

"To be able to experience it as me was really, really important," she said. "I've been a runner since as long as I can remember. I love running, but I just happen to be transgender."

I'm sure the woman whose place she took also had been a runner as long as she could remember and also loved running and also thought it was really really important to experience [the Boston Marathon].

But she couldn't because a biological male easily qualified for a spot that was reserved for women.

Even the public radio commentators here in Boston were having a bit of difficulty with the Boston marathon. On the one hand great to let people self-identify. On the other hand, women - not men - were going to lose much-coveted qualifier spots. And they even touched on the discussion of what if a trangender woman actually won the woman's race - then quickly retreated as it was too complex to think about.

I wonder how this will work for other organisations that adopted the IOC rules.
The one that comes to mind is Hannah Mouncey and Aussie rules, will they stop people playing if their levels haven't been under 5 for the last year or will it be going forward.

What about people who qualified for races or competitions under the old rule, are those still valid?

I've seen larry and ratrolypoly on these threads before - they seem to think that the only difference between men and women is testosterone level - nothing else matters at all (not size, weight, muscle mass, skeleton, heart, lungs etc etc).

So for anyone who believes that's the case, do you think that segregation should simply be by testosterone level rather than sex - and if so, why do you think that gender comes into it at all? Why not "any person with a testosterone level less than 5" in one category and "every other person" in the second category.

Why still call them women's and men's events if that's not how they are split up?

Agreed zero, especially since the population percentage of intersex incidence is so incredibly tiny.

Alternatively keep women's sports xx and everyone else compete at men's level.

I think that the simplest thing would be not to have trans competitors compete with women and intersex athletes' eligibility to be considered on a case-by-case basis, taking into account testosterone and the nature of their particular intersex disorder.

Perhaps there could be a separate category or special competition for trans athletes.

If it can be shown that trans athletes are not at any advantage for a particular sport then maybe the governing body can consider allowing them to compete with women in that event, but the evidence needs to come first.

Someone who matters finally noticed that setting the males maximum testosterone levels at three times higher than females normally have to compete in female sports is perhaps maybe a tiny bit unfair to women? Effing Brilliant.

Yes I know Caster Semenya is intersex, I’m not an idiot.

Okay, well it's just that the poster before you had named two individual athletes as examples of "not cheats". You posted next saying "they" were cheats. One of "them" was Caster - that's the only reason I ask.

No offence intended.

Yes I know Caster Semenya is intersex, I’m not an idiot. I think that intersex athletes are a particularly difficult and particularly sad case within this - they are clearly advantaged over women, but without intent (or in many cases full knowledge). Intersex people always seem to be coopted to support the transgender argument.

They aren’t choosing, like Hubbard, to benefit from male puberty and male hormones for many many years and then choose to compete with women. That isn’t fair or right. Sport requires fairness. A trans category seems sensible because without it women’s sport is entirely compromised.

The intent I assume is to compete not to have an unfair advantage. That is presuming something bad when the trans person may just want to compete.

It is up to the authorities to find the right balance to make competition fair and anyone taking part can only then comply.

From that list of how sports vary and apply things that are appropriate to each one they are clearly trying.

Do they need to go further to level the playing field? Possibly. Especially if we are talking professional sport the rules should be tighter.

They could take into account a broader range of parameters as I suggested because just hormone levels alone do not take account of other potential factors.

But sport is already inherently unfair - as in very muscle bound natal women are always going to bear scrawny men in certain competitions. And height is key to some events and so a tall woman has an advantage over a small man in that event.

I am not sure that the simplistic way of looking at this just using T levels is enough. And I see no reason why rules for intersex competitors cannot be less restrictive than for trans women who will probably have advantages that an intersex woman might not and so should be factored in, too.

It is a hard circle to square trying to be fair to all, but I do get the feeling there is more work to do and this is at least a start.

Sweary not Sweaty! Sorry about that.

You know Caster is intersex don't you Sweaty? Do you still think they're a cheat?

They absolutely are cheating. To suggest that they’re not is the same as saying an athlete who takes a performance enhancing drug that is not yet on the banned list isn’t cheating. The intent is to have an unfair advantage - to be one step ahead of the rules. It’s cheating.

We could just class athletes according to xx or xy, can't see that scientific fact changing any time soon, no confusion, no level setting

If only it were that simple. The IOC basically did that for many years and it caused a lot of problems for intersex athletes - many were forced to retire. Hence the move to testosterone levels as being the fairest way to allow intersex athletes to compete.

For transgender athletes, they have looked to loosen restrictions to make it easier for athletes to compete. The standard range of testosterone in women is roughly 0.3-4nmol or so. So I never understood why it was pushed up to 10nmol rather than 5nmol which matches a lot better.

I don't know which conditions should be in place to enable both intersex and transgender athletes to be able to compete fairly - I can only hope the sports governing bodies will take an evidence led approach.

But one final point - transgender athletes or intersex athletes who follow the rules are not cheating. A lot of the coverage around Caster Semenya and Laurel Hubbard has implied the opposite.

Perhaps I should say "sought" rather than "achieved" in my last sentence.

Here you go Jaycee, if you're interested; this is a (slightly out of date now) factual assessment of things as they stand for a good number of sports. The "rules" are different for each sport, which I guess makes sense as the type of physical activity will obviously make a difference as to how safety and fairness can be achieved.

www.twobirds.com/en/news/articles/2016/uk/the-participation-of-trans-athletes-in-sport-a-transformation-in-approach

But they used to insist on surgery at first, I think. Removing the main source of the testosterone permanently will clearly be the most effective way to bring numbers down.

I think the guidelines should be different for intersex and for transgender competitors. They are not the same thing so should have different rules.

I would think several things could be taken into account with trans competitors - whether surgery has or has not occurred, the T levels, a measure of height/weight/muscle mass scale which should also be within an accepted range and a time period of stability of levels within the accepted range.

Does rather beg the question why a level of 10 nmol was thought to be appropriate in the recent guidance... Seems very high.

As I understand it it was so as to not exclude genuinely intersex athletes; Caster Semenya for example had testosterone levels higher that 10nmol prior to the Rio Olympics.

That's interesting Jaycee, thank you. Does rather beg the question why a level of 10 nmol was thought to be appropriate in the recent guidance... Seems very high.

Just for context on levels, being 42 years post op my T level has never been above 2.5 nanomoles since it has been measured annually.

We could just class athletes according to xx or xy, can't see that scientific fact changing any time soon, no confusion, no level setting.