If research finds no significant differences for sport for male & female, where will that lead?

www.bbc.co.uk/sport/boxing/46521987
Seen this?

This is such bad research, I can't see how there can be any dignity in doing it. I also don't believe they'll get unbiased candidates applying. It seems ridiculous, as I work in medical research and by coincidence developed a condition related to the one I study. I have to prove this doesn't bias my work, repeatedly, for ethical approval etc. I don't understand how trans people are paid to study themselves this much, like Rachel McKinnon, it seems so far removed from the hoops I have to jump through and I have no agenda as my work is genetic so I can't actually change anything.

I think the right thing to do is to petition and argue for a category in the paralympics for people with endocrine disorders (including intersex and trans). Then these people can study how to level the playing field within that group. This also shuts down the argument that trans people are being prevented from taking part.

I do think sport would help people who have a disordered relationship with their body (my idea of help is prob different than the TRAs, however) so this is an area we should focus on suggesting solutions and not an area we should appear to be saying "keep out."

So the research findings will be ‘stop crying like a girl and try harder’?

Dammit if only I’d known...

So we have public money supporting research

Is it public money? I would be absolutely astounded were some fringe research group in a minor university to get five research council funded studentships for something as batshit crazy as this. That's just not the way that research funding works. I would suspect it's some rather more convoluted route to get funding.

The crazy thing is that there’s SO much data. Literally decades of club, county, national, international and Olympic times. Across countries, ages... really so so much data. And all of it shows men faster, stronger etc than women.

The data is there. How could any research prove the opposite? Since the brief is clearly to do so, how would that be done?

The world record for 100m is 9.58 seconds (Usain Bolt ) and female 10.49 seconds (Florence Griffith-Joyner).

Bolt is probably clean, and ran his record time in 2008, in an era of extensive in and out of competition testing. His record is only 0.11s faster than the next fastest runner, although it is worrying that Tyson Gay has been banned for doping later in his career. Bolt's records are not beyond all questioning, but no-one has made a serious case that Bolt is doping beyond the circumstantial observation that he has trained with, and beaten, a lot of people who most certainly were doping (for example, Tyson Gay). Even then, Gay certainly wasn't doping on the scale of the 1980s.

Griffith-Joyner was almost undoubtedly doping, her record is 0.25s faster than the next fastest runner and has stood since 1988. The 1980s, right? No-one takes records from that era seriously. Carmelita Jeter's 10.67 looks a lot more credible, so you're talking about a difference of 10.2%, which is entirely in keeping with the general "men's records are 10-15% faster/further/higher than women's records" theme of most track and field.

It's not a "bit" Stalinist: this is metaphorically but even to an extent literally Lysenkoism.

Yup.

I wonder if this breaks rules?

1, The result they want is stated in the brief - so its biased from the beginning. That will go against good research practice

1. The research is clearly to be used to inform legal policy
2. The proposed outcome would lead to significant damage to the sporting prospects of a protected group (sex, women.)
3. The knock on effects of it could be used to replace sex with gender.

So we have public money supporting research that’s biased, possibly fraudulent (because there IS a huge sex difference and many years of data to prove it) and intended to force a change in the law that would actively harm half the population.

And yes, meanwhile, people I know working on childhood cancer, blood cancers and rare developmental syndromes are fighting for research money. Utter madness.

Aspie
I don't get the problem at the recreational level.
It's a big deal for age groupers. And even things like parkrun, part of the incentive to get and stay active is to plot your progress and see how you fare against your peers.
Technically I did beat Haile Gebrselassie in the NYC half mara ... because he dropped out mid race. (This statistic is probably being misused at this very moment to prop up some batshit theory.)

Aspie

All they're going to conclude is: "sex-segregated schmex-segregated, those sporting records are irrelevant. Segregate by genderfeelz or you're all transphobes. The end."

Done it for them. Can I have the three years of stipend please now, mystery funding body?

All I can say about TWAW in relation to sport:

I'm sorry about the Australian Women's Handball team making the World Cup.

My emotions are equally split between completely mortified and fury. This is not who we are.
Some woman lost her place in our team. The other women on the team, their success has now been tainted. Maybe they would have won. Maybe? But that counts for nought now.

Don't even get me started on the boasting/trolling on HM twitter. 🤐

Anybody who thinks sex doesn’t make a difference in athletic performance should go take a running jump.

Fuck me sideways.

All these years! If only women had realised we just needed to try a bit harder.

It's not that complicated. Just have a look at all the current world records. The top men at their sport will always beat elite women in a physical sport

Completely agree. But the fact that a woman is simply an adult human female is not that complicated and yet look where we are.

Those pictures of hulking transwomen wiping the floor with female athletes will surely always drown out the message that comes across from this (disingenuously managed and selected) research?

Again, I agree and you'd think so, but we've seen men stealing medals off women all over the place already and nobody has stopped it. They've been successfully silenced by screams about transphobia which have this incredibly powerful effect on people.

I've just searched for sex-related differences in sports performance in an online academic library. There is a lot of research into this, unsurprisingly, with many different focuses re age, discipline, pre-existing illness, injuries, etc.

One of the first articles, about differences in adolescents, has this in its abstract:

"Using a cross-sectional design, adolescents were tested for speed, strength, power, and endurance.
No sex differences were found for most of the physical test results in the =13 years, males scored better than females in all physical tests, without exception (p > 0.05).
Further explorations comparing how many females in the same age grouping shared test results equal to or greater than the top third of males were fewer in the older than younger age group.
Equality of participation in mixed-sex sport becomes more difficult to guarantee for older adolescents when results from generic sport-related physical test performances are considered.

If you google-scholar sex differences in strength, height, lung capacity, etc.. you will find multiple papers which confirm that men are; taller, bigger, stronger, more muscular than women.

There are some outliers, some very small numbers of women who are physically stronger than men ( mostly cause they are athletes at the top of their game and they are being compared to a little weed of a guy) but when we compare men and women on average the facts are very clear.

The trans movement is like the anti-vac movement, its based on bad science, intentionally twisted for political/economic gain.

Yes it will destroy women's sport. Look at any world record timings to see the difference in male and female top times.
The world record for 100m is 9.58 seconds (Usain Bolt ) and female 10.49 seconds (Florence Griffith-Joyner). It's less than a second so could be classed as 'not a significant difference' but when you're competing at top level every fraction of a second counts.

I haven't looked but I'm willing to bet the differences are across the board in most sports. I think the only olympic sport where sex doesn't matter are certain equestrian events.

You don't need a PHD to realise this.

Is it not a bit Stalinist to start research with the conclusion?

It's not a "bit" Stalinist: this is metaphorically but even to an extent literally Lysenkoism.

A picture is worth a 1000 words

Those pictures of hulking transwomen wiping the floor with female athletes will surely always drown out the message that comes across from this (disingenuously managed and selected) research?

Is it not a bit Stalinist to start research with the conclusion?

Well, yeah, but these are the people who think the gulags were like holiday camps where they taught prisoners music and art, so.

How is psychology a relevant subject?

In that this nonsense isn't dealing with material reality, I suppose it's the most relevant one!

Is it not a bit Stalinist to start research with the conclusion?

Applicants should have (or be near completion of) a Master’s degree and have a First or 2:1 Honours degree (or equivalent) in a relevant subject (Psychology, Social Psychology, Sport and Exercise Science or other related disciplines).

How is psychology a relevant subject?

The antecedents for science being compelled to produce fake results that are compatible with political ideology are bad. I mean really really bad.

Yep.

The antecedents for science being compelled to produce fake results that are compatible with political ideology are bad. I mean really really bad.