Trans ppl in women's sport - what are your opinions?

The Karolinska study has 11 transwomen participants. That's a small study. However, the study that Dr Joanne Harper did that apparently allowed the IOC to include people with penises in female sport categories had 8 participants. So small studies seem to be quite acceptable when women are being pressed to open up and accommodate.

Found this on Redline.

Dr Helen Waite, sports sociologist and former elite athlete, on the invasion of women’s sport by men and the anti-scientific and misogynist ideology used to rationalise it.

Just click on the video to play.

rdln.wordpress.com/2019/10/19/22458/

This is the list of people deciding the IOC Transgender policy. Out of the few ?4 women on the list - one is a transwoman and another is an XY similar to Caster Semenya.

35-44 sprint title at the Masters Track Cycling World Championships

This is the title McKinnon is defending. It's a women's title. McKinnon shouldn't hold it, a woman has missed out because of McKinnon. It doesn't matter that it's not a world record, it's still a title that McKinnon should not hold.

Dancelike
The sample size is small and the participants are not athletes and selected because they showed up
This^

All they have to do in any sport is simply show up and they will break records and win.

A shortcut to success for RM and the others.
They are not athletes.

In answer to the question in the OP:
It pisses me right off. Bigger bodies, longer legs, more muscle mass, bigger lungs, even after taking oestrogen.

It's an unfair advantage and I'm sure they know it.

Male bodied people consistently win gold over the female bodied people they compete against. Rachel herself won something like 2 golds. "Won", that should be. It's a very, very bitter pill to swallow, to watch naturally stronger, faster, higher endurance male bodied people be allowed to compete against the literally weaker sex.
Female bodied people should really just step back, quit (because they will never beat the male bodied people), and give up sport. What's the point in training month after month after month, only for someone with a natural unfair disadvantage beat all of you, every single time?

BTW I don't buy the arguments that some women are 6ft and as big as men. Some men are 7ft I don't believe any woman is that height

Sport should be split on sex not gender!

End of the matter.

Saw this on the IOC transgender policy 2018:

“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.”

I can understand them not being allowed to switch between the two ( although obviously there is that cricketer who does) , but basically means that women are stuck with them for 4 years even if they do want to go back to the male Cat.

It confuses me that sport isn't a stereotypically feminine thing to do so why would Mckinnon be into it....

Does Mckinnon get involved in feminine pursuits at all?

Blah blah range of body types in sport.

Yes, Rachel, but every time you're on a podium you're twice the size of the women on it with you. That's not a coincidence.

That was so informative, everything - thank you. Learnt so much.

Dancelike apologies for misreading your tone and thank you too for the interesting input.

If men as a class were not stronger, faster, and bigger than women as a class, women would not have been forbidden education, the right to own property, or the right toseld-sufficiency, even the right to their own children for —

Most all of human history but the last 100 years and only in some parts of the globe.

Women didn’t submit because we were fools or because we liked it. We submitted because just about every man can kill a woman with his bare hands, and the reverse is not true at all.

To deny the truth of that on the playing field is to deny the very foundation of patriarchy: might makes right.

spectator.us/face-women-suck-sports/

*Trigger warning: satire.

Take into account that the study population is small, but also to be expected. They are comparing trans women (TW) and trans men (TM)

It is perfectly normal and legitimate to only have small numbers in this case, due to getting enough people with the right inclusion criteria into the study and also bearing in mind the expense, level of involvement and invasive ness of the study, and that this is a new thing to investigate really. but one just has to bear this small size in mind when interpreting the results.

I can’t comment on whether they are using the gold standard measurements for physiological changes and strength , when investigating athletic ability. They are certainly thorough though (mri and ct as well as other measures)

The one thing that jumps out so far is the control cohorts from another study. They call these “cis” women (CW) and “cis men (CM).

Nothing wrong with using controls from another study, but you have to tread very very carefully.

I think the controls were chosen under different criteria (they were “recreationally active). So just based on their weights, I can guess they might have more muscle mass than their trans counterparts. Or another way of putting it is that even before the start of the study, including any hormone treatment at all, the trans men and women are smaller than the “average” men and women.

Please can someone copy over the n, height and weights for the TW, TM, CW and CM? So people can see what I mean?
Can’t do it right now from my phone...

FedaFrogspawn I’ve got lots to say about this article for you, just don’t know if I’ll get time to finish this morning.

First thing, that anyone can do when assessing the quality of an article , is:

1. I look at the journal.
   In this case, it is biorxiv (pronounced bioarchive). This is not a peer reviewed journal. It must be viewed with caution but certainly not suspicion., as in one should be extra careful to look at the data for themselves.
   BiorXiv is a perfectly reputable, normal way for scientists to get their information out there quickly and to get comments before submitting to a journal.

2. I look at the authors. These are scientists from well-reknowned scientific institutions and from departments of biology, whom I would expect to have the right expertise to conduct the research they are describing.

3. I look at the year. This is extremely recent, so taking into account the latest data.

4. I look at the back of the paper, just before the references, to see any declared sources of funding or conflict of interest. In this case, I see no conflict of interest. The funders make sense to this group of researchers in general, I don’t see there is any agenda for this particular article.

Back with more on the article itself in a bit.

I wasn’t having a go at you, I’m sorry if it came out like that. II was just channeling how cross I am that we’re having to keep discussing something which we already know, and have known for a millenia, that men are stronger and faster than women. It’s an interesting study and it’s good that you found it - this won’t be the last time we have this discussion.

It seems a well-designed study, although the sample size is small and the participants are not athletes and selected because they showed up.

I’d expect that, for example, strength training, would increase the muscle mass of both TM and TW, but the ratio difference would remain the same. But testing athletes to see if that holds true would be the next step.

Although since men are winnining in women’s sports, we already know the answer to that question.

I know it’s in the title - I just wanted someone who knows something about this type of research to assess how well done the piece of research is I guess.

Anyway, thanks for having a look.

Conclusion: Cross-sex hormone treatment markedly affects muscle strength, size and composition in transgender individuals. Despite the robust increases in muscle mass and strength in TM, the TW were still stronger and had more muscle mass following 12 months of treatment. These findings add new knowledge that could be relevant when evaluating transwomen’s eligibility to compete in the women’s category of athletic competitions.*

So transmen (ie women), had an increase in strength and muscle mass after 12 months on testosterone, which is hardly news - it’s the reason steroid use is so prevalent in female powerlifting and body building competitions.

What’s more pertinent is that transwomen (men), showed around a 5% decrease in muscle mass, but not density. Since men are generally around 50% stronger than women, even with the volume decrease due to the influence of female hormones, they are still stronger than transmen, who are taking testosterone, and obviously still much stronger than biological women.

”The TM increased strength over the assessment period, while the TW generally maintained or slightly increased in strength. Baseline muscle volume correlated highly with strength (R>0.75), yet the relative change in muscle volume and strength correlated only moderately (R=0.65 in TW and R=0.32 in TM). The absolute levels of muscle volume and knee extension strength after the intervention still favored the TW.”*

“The TM increased strength over the assessment period, while the TW generally maintained or even slightly increased in strength. Despite the robust changes in lower-limb muscle mass and strength in TM, the TW still had an absolute advantage following 12 months of gender-affirming hormone treatment.”

So basically, even women taking testosterone are still not as strong as men taking oestrogen.

It’s there in the title:

“Muscle strength, size and composition following 12 months of gender-affirming treatment in transgender individuals: retained advantage for the transwomen”

www.biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2019/09/26/782557.full.pdf

See if this link works

www.biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/201[9/09/26/782557.full.pdf

An interesting new piece of research. Can anyone with research experience have a look and say how viable it is?

Haha, added some insulting comments of my own. Everyone thinks he's a pathetic joke

Also happy to see Zuby on that thread, defending his British women's deadlift record.

www.theguardian.com/science/2019/oct/15/testosterone-boosts-womens-athletic-performance-study-shows