Nic Williams on Woman's Hour (Tuesday) talking about sport and gender identity

from Pencil's excellent transcript

BJ: I'm not sure that there is any scientific evidence that shows that, you know, oestrogen or testosterone has an impact in transgender people on their athletic performance. You know, certainly women report that once they've been on oestrogen therapy they feel weaker, they run slower than perhaps they did before, but there's no kind of robust scientific evidence to say that either testosterone or oestrogen impacts directly on athletic performance.

The effects on any person competing in sports who is taking testosterone are well-established.

THe side-effects of any male taking testosterone blocking medication are also well-known.

So too many other medical/surgical interventions.
If an individual male due to illness / injury has surgical /medical interventions their capacity to train, strength, stamina and or speed etc may well be affected.
The reduction in competative advantage is therefore only relative to their sporting performance before the intervention.

NHS website:
'Anabolic steroid misuse
Anabolic steroids are prescription-only medicines that are sometimes taken without medical advice to increase muscle mass and improve athletic performance.

If used in this way, they can cause serious side effects and addiction.

Anabolic steroids are manufactured drugs that mimic the effects of the male hormone testosterone. They have limited medical uses and aren't to be confused with corticosteroids, a different type of steroid drug that's commonly prescribed for a variety of conditions.

This page explains the dangers of misusing anabolic steroids, and aims to advise and support those who are addicted to the drugs.

Are anabolic steroids illegal?
Anabolic steroids are class C drugs, which can only be sold by pharmacists with a prescription.

It's legal to have anabolic steroids for personal use. They can also be imported or exported, as long as this is carried out in person. This means they can't be posted or delivered by a courier or freight service.

However, it's illegal to possess, import or export anabolic steroids if it's believed you're supplying or selling them. This includes giving them to friends. The penalty is an unlimited fine, or even a prison sentence of up to 14 years.

In professional sport, most organisations ban anabolic steroid use and test competitors for banned steroids.

Why people misuse anabolic steroids
Anabolic steroids can be used as performance-enhancing drugs that increase muscle mass and decrease fat, as well as causing many undesirable effects. Some athletes, weightlifters and bodybuilders take them regularly to improve their physical performance and build up their bodies.

However, people of all ages have been known to misuse these drugs, including adolescent boys who suffer from body dysmorphic disorder. This is a mental health condition where a person spends a lot of time worrying about flaws in their appearance. These flaws are often unnoticeable to others.

Boys and men who have body dysmorphic disorder may take anabolic steroids because they don't see themselves as being physically big enough or strong enough.

Some people believe taking anabolic steroids will help them become fit and healthy. This isn't true: taking anabolic steroids is a dangerous drug habit.

How anabolic steroids are taken
Anabolic steroids are usually injected into the muscle or taken by mouth as tablets, but they also come as creams or gels that are applied to the skin.

Many people who use anabolic steroids are aware of the dangers of taking them, and believe that by taking the drugs in certain ways they can avoid side effects.

Users might:

Take the drugs for a period of time and then stop for a rest period before starting again. This is known as "cycling".
Taking more than 1 type of anabolic steroid at a time, known as "stacking" – which they believe makes them work better.
Do a combination of both stacking and cycling known as "pyramiding" – where they start off taking a low dose of 1 or more anabolic steroids, and then increase the dose over time up to a maximum dose. They then stop taking them for a rest period to give the body a break before starting the cycle again.
But there is no evidence that any of these methods actually reduce side effects from taking anabolic steroids.

Users tend to exercise more when they're taking high doses to make the most of their improved performance during this time.

Side effects of anabolic steroids
Regularly taking anabolic steroids can lead to physical and psychological changes in both men and women, as well as potentially dangerous medical conditions.

Physical effects
Effects of anabolic steroids in men can include:

reduced sperm count
infertility
shrunken testicles
erectile dysfunction
baldness
breast development
increased risk of prostate cancer
severe acne
stomach pain
In women, anabolic steroids can cause:

facial hair growth and body hair
loss of breasts
swelling of the clitoris
a deepened voice
an increased sex drive
problems with periods
hair loss
severe acne
In addition, both men and women who take anabolic steroids can develop any of the following medical conditions:

heart attack or stroke
liver or kidney problems or failure
high blood pressure (hypertension)
blood clots
fluid retention
high cholesterol

Psychological effects
Misusing anabolic steroids can also cause the following psychological or emotional effects:

aggressive behaviour
mood swings
paranoia
manic behaviour
hallucinations and delusions
Stunted growth in adolescents
Anabolic steroids accelerate bone growth, so if they're misused by adolescents who haven't yet had the growth spurt associated with puberty, the drugs can cause premature ageing of the bones and restricted growth.

Addiction
Like many other substances, anabolic steroids are addictive. This means you can crave the drug, require more to get the same effect, and have withdrawal symptoms if you suddenly stop taking them.

A person who is addicted to anabolic steroids will want to keep using them despite experiencing unpleasant physical side effects.

When doctors prescribe steroid medication, they always advise coming off the medication slowly by gradually reducing the dose. Coming off anabolic steroids suddenly can result in withdrawal symptoms that include:

depression and apathy
feelings of anxiety
difficulty concentrating
insomnia
anorexia
decreased sex drive
extreme tiredness (fatigue)
headaches
muscle and joint pain'
www.nhs.uk/conditions/anabolic-steroid-misuse/

The use of testosterone as a performance enhancing drug in sport is well established. So too the side-effects of steroid abuse.

arranbubonicplague

Thanks for that. Fascinating.

The case of Schuyler raises some interesting points.
He enjoys competing with the men whilst knowing it is not realistic to expect to win. The men's ream have been very welcoming. (A cynic might say why not? It's not like he's beating them).
It seems the move to the men's team was made for reasons of preference rather than the fact that he now takes testosterone which may have given an unfair advantage against the women.
Also I'm interested about the issue of the sports scholarship - Presumably these are given out in the expectation of recruiting a winning team. So when a star athlete changes to the men's team, effectively renouncing they're chance of winning, well, it's nice he's been supported to do as he feels he must do but the women's team is one down.
Many academic scholarships (at school anyway) are conditional on continuing good performance and may be rescinded if the student stops working and doesn't maintain the grades.

I've never seen this very clear still shot of Fallon Fox and Tamikka Brents' fight before:

this punch left Tamikka Brents with a concussion, broken orbital and 7 staples in her head...But, hey, it was fair, after all, actual physical reality has no place in sport. Come on, men, lots of medals to be won in women's events.

twitter.com/JeanCross3/status/1052677673669935104

Keep tweeting Alex.

Agree, Alex is gold.

twitter.com/msmerrythought/status/1070265258097471488?s=21

Trans man competing with the men. Coming in around 16th.

“I know I made the right decision. But I think sometimes I’m like ‘Oh, I really wish I could compete as a girl. Because I want to win that race.’ It’s fun to win, and it’s something that I worked really hard for.

I've linked to Dr Fond of Beetles blog post a few times upthread: - now she has a very useful Twitter thread that discusses Testosterone etc. There's also a discussion of CAIS (Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome) as a notional group in which T might be observed in a relevant manner. I think BowlofBabelfish outlined this yesterday.

What if we could identify a group of people who had no T? Not female typical T, not lowered to below typical female levels, but no T at all. We’d predict, if T is the only factor that confers sporting advantage, such people would be pretty damn poor at running. 6/

This group of people exists. XY genetic males with Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (CAIS) can produce T, but use not a single molecule of it. They are functionally T-zero. 7/
...
The IOC logic (and that of invested parties) tells us that CAIS females are going to be the least competitive of all females. After all, non-CAIS females have at least some T that they can put to use. 9/

The frequency of CAIS in the general population is 1 in 20,000. The frequency of CAIS in female athlete cohorts is 1 in 420. CAIS is nearly 50 times more prevalent in female athletes than in female couch potatoes. This is a massive overrepresentation. 10/

CAIS females succeed as athletes way more often than non-CAIS females. How puzzling that the only thing the IOC asserts confers sporting advantage is functionally absent in these females with clear sporting advantage. 11/

Whatever underpins CAIS female sporting advantage, it is independent of functional T. Thus, the IOC position that T is the only factor influencing sporting advantage - and - the only action a male must take to “fairly” compete against females is to reduce T, is untenable. End/

threadreaderapp.com/thread/1070097483408248835.html

or the following original if you prefer to see comments and discussion:

twitter.com/FondOfBeetles/status/1070097483408248835

Sharpe’s tweet is not just laughable but sinister too

The mindset is also very sinister.
Alex is telling people that it's not just about sport, or smear tests, or violent crime, it's about women trying to stop us from doing those things.

Using the issues that women talk about, followed by notion that transwomen shouldn't be excluded, looks to me like an acknowledgement that exclusion addresses the problem, but isn't an acceptable solution.

Such arrogance.

Every time they open their mouths, they are unwittingly holding up a banner that says exclude me, exclude me.

Keep tweeting Alex.

I've just listened to it but thought it must be a spoof. Women just need to try harder and they can be as good as men at sport?! Thats just...mental. You don't need a study just eyes and a brain to see that is a daft (and frankly) dangerous idea. The only end result is there will be no womens sport whatsoever.

TimeLady

Thanks HumberElla I was genuinely baffled but guess that makes sense, as much as any of this does. So, requests to come for smears that would not be physically possible. Funny that in that context Sharpe doesn’t make any reference to the corresponding possibility of females who identify as men who do need smear tests not being called for them. It’s almost as if those people’s health doesn’t matter to Sharpe. Despite being part of the trans family.

Pencils another huge thank you from me for the transcripts. Amazing work. 💐

a desire to exclude TW from women-only spaces and, of course, from the category 'woman' altogether. It is all in plain view ppl.

Of course it is Alex, we've been telling you this for how long?

Some people believe TWAW. MANY women do not. It's completely reasonable to believe that TW are men. A large proportion of the group you are trying to enter the spaces and category of do not agree that men belong in it, and do not want them there. This isn't going to change.

Pencils - thanks for the transcripts

I haven't been able to listen to the programme, and had sort of assumed that pp were slightly exaggerating the "women should just try harder" stuff.... Seeing what was said written down is so insulting, so embarrassing for the good doctor

Because some women have penises.

I think Sharpe is responding to the fact that the NHS will no longer know which people require them and which don’t. So the NHS will have to send requests to everyone, some being unnecessary because not all women need smear tests.

I listened to the interview on the way in. Beth’s cupboard was totally bare of arguments. I wish Nic had referenced more of the obvious stuff like pelvic differences and lung capacity, where listeners could have googled the peak flow ranges etc to see the obvious biological disparity, but otherwise she did a great job.

Maybe in Transworld, women will compelled to give up those unnecessary transphobic and triggering smear tests and have enforced prostate exams instead? You know, in order to show solidarity.

Sharpe’s tweet is not just laughable but sinister too when you think it’s actually the transactivists who pushed a hidden agenda under the radar for so long, and have been continuing to try to hide it from the light of public knowledge with their #nodebate crap.

Transactivists trying to break down women’s boundaries and erode children’s safeguarding under the pretence of “civil rights” and “equality” for a supposedly dreadfully oppressed minority.

Just more of the usual DARVO with an extra twist of absurd.

And WTF did Sharpe mean by “unnecessary NHS smear tests”? Presumably Sharpe is referring to the male-bodied nurse being sent to do a smear when the woman had specifically requested a female; but what about that choice of vocabulary? “Unnecessary”. Women are only having smears for shits and giggles? Is Sharpe actually trying to imply that women don’t really need smear tests, and are just looking for areas in life to kick up a fuss about so we get to be hateful and exclude those born male?

Is that what Sharpe is saying? I mean, batshit, but then so is saying women could beat men at sport if we just tried harder, and whatserface was prepared to go on R4 and say that, so...

Or is Sharpe saying that women fear that male-bodied “transwomen” are trying to force “unnecessary” smear tests on us, as a form of assault? Also batshit, and not something I’ve heard any woman claim.

Just a really strange choice of word. Is it another deliberate attempt to muddy the waters? Laziness? A complete ignorance of and lack of interest in women’s health? All of the above?

Surely it's not possible for a Professor of Law? I'm assuming deliberately disingenuous. Alex can't be this clueless, especially as Alex said recently that Alex prefers to be underestimated...

Behind arguments about fairness in sport, skewing of violent offending stats, unnecessary NHS smear tests ... lies a desire to exclude TW from women-only spaces and, of course, from the category 'woman' altogether. It is all in plain view ppl.

Thick. As. Mince.

Just going back to the argument about segregating sports by height or weight instead of sex, I was thinking that some sports obviously already do this - boxing, weightlifting, wrestling (martial arts?). But those segregations are within a larger sex segregation. They still don't mix the sexes.

I just had a look at the boxing weights. The female heavyweight champion is 12st and 5ft 11in tall. She'd be a middleweight in men's boxing. I still don't fancy her chances.

That was the tweet? Well duh.

And in other news, the pope is catholic.

Ummmmm.., yes Alex. That’s the point. That’s actually what we are asking for, out loud and in public, with data to back it up. It’s not some kind of conspiracy, that’s actually what we want.

No men in women’s spaces. Or sports. Or the other stuff.

How very bizarre.

I can't stop laughing at that tweet.

But it's a bitter sort of laugh, because at the same time as I'm laughing, I'm also thinking about how it illustrates that the likes of Alex really don't listen to women. If they were listening, then they wouldn't be surprised. Duh.

Anyway, well done Alex. It took you a while, but you got there in the end. Shame you had to be so snide about it.