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

TUE stinks across the board. It's being massively misused. (Certain very prominent and successful cyclists spring to mind... - no, not that one - the ones still competing as men.) And was also the rule which allowed that American transboy wrestler to continue to compete against girls even when taking amounts of testosterone which would clearly be against the rules in any other circumstances.

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.
I have no doubt it's already starting. As I recall, there was some research a few years ago apparently confirming what several women athletes were reporting - that their athletic performance improved after they'd had a baby. Some time after that, I was reading reports that Russian athletic officals were encouraging their women athletes to get pregnant and then have an abortion.
Now that it's come out that male bodies develop bigger muscles, bones and lungs because of the testosterone rush during puberty, it's highly likely that coaches in certain countries are now doping prepubescent girl athletes with testosterone. Once the girls have passed a certain stage of puberty and the testosterone is stopped, how will anybody be able to tell these athletes haven't developed their build naturally?

The Iranian women's football team was (is?) mostly men.

CallMe and in the US it's not just about sports, it's about disadvantaged girls getting further (higher? Can never remember which it is!) education as many will depend on sports scholarships to get to uni.

And the Chinese.

First they hired all teh disgraced East German coaches and doped their female (but not male) swimmers up to the eyeballs.

Then when they got caught, we had the record-breaking female distance runners who never competed before the Olympics, broke world records, then disappeared never to run again because, it transpired, the training regime they were put through destroyed their bodies for a single-event peak.

No one will want to rain on Japan's parade in 2020 more than China.

Olympics and pro sports aside, this comment (random twitter man I think) resonated with me as well:

"Plus there is no way to check T levels in grass root and low level sports. If women are pushed out in the lower levels, they will not reach the elite levels"

They're basically killing women's sports from the ground up.

well, quite - but my point is that it's a nonsense to assume b list sportsmen won't do this, and in some cases, such as Russia, it's backed at the highest levels (has any other nation ever had its entire team banned from a competition?). Only they wouldn't get banned for this.

That is true Errol

Except no 'gender reassignment' is needed. All men have to do is lower testosterone...

They don't necessarily have to lower testosterone. About 10% of men naturally have low enough testosterone to compete as women according to IOC rules.

AFAIK the transgirls competing in girls' events in the US don't have to undergo any transition (other than 'social') at all, with scholarships at stake.

Look at the Russian team, I bet they wouldn't think twice about this, they don't give a stuff about doping.

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

Except no 'gender reassignment' is needed. All men have to do is lower testosterone...which totally ignores the rest of the advantages a male body gives..and the T limits are way above those a woman would have too. And McKinnon is whinging that lower T is unfair also for fucks sake.

WTF that article. They're afraid to cheat because they might be exposed as cheaters! Everyone should feel very sorry for them.

Yes, only 2, and not one of them won anything as men, though they generally gloss over this as hard as possible.

Personal anecdote here just for the record.

I'm a former national standard track and field athlete at youth and junior level. The English School's Athletic competition is one of the most prestigious competitions in the world. Selection starts off at school level with a max 2/3 athletes of a particular sex (and age) being put forward for their event at district level. The districts then pick around 2/3 athletes to go to county, intercounty and then national. In order to qualify for the English School's you need selection by your county, plus attainment of a standard level. Attainment is often gained at these preceding selective events (some counties will only allow distances/times achieved at these events to count).

If a male bodied athlete is selected instead of a female one at any stage in this proceedings, they have effectively ruined her chances of selection or meeting the target standard if she hasn't had the chance to do so. Not only is it making current competition unfair it's quashing potential.

twitter.com/DonaldJTrumpJr/status/1097946006304550917

Donald Trump Jnr tweets in support of a debate about the issue.