The Sport Issue - will this encourage early transition?

The first ever male to receive puberty blockers went on to become a veterinarian, so it presumably didn't have any negative effects on his brain development.

That doesn’t necessarily follow. Maybe he had the potential to be super, super smart but ended up super smart. Which is good enough to be a vet. If the whole IQ bell curve shifts to the left from puberty blockers, there will still be people who are in the smartest percentiles on the right hand side of the curve.

It’s only 18 months ago that gender clinics published a consensus on how best to measure potential loss of IQ.

I thought that’s what the activists wanted?

Trans activists on Twitter have inevitably jumped on this part of the policy and are claiming it will lead to people transitioning children earlier (insert eye roll). Transitioning children is a whole separate issue which I think will be shut down sooner or later anyway.

But I don't think we should be entirely blasé about puberty-suppressed males not being fit enough to compete. A study of puberty suppressed (from age 13) Dutch male children showed they still reached average male height (which is much taller than females). While the negative effects of PBs are well documented, it doesn't seem to be universal. The first ever male to receive puberty blockers went on to become a veterinarian, so it presumably didn't have any negative effects on his brain development.

Males also have genetic advantages from conception - by 15 weeks in utero they are larger and stronger than females and remain so until girls hit puberty - slightly earlier - and then race ahead again once they reach puberty.

Male-born people should never be allowed in female sports. I think FINA tried to head off this potential objection to not including the puberty suppressed, but have just kicked the issue down the road.

Exact same thoughts crossed my mind.
I understand your worry though OP- I wouldn't be surprised if at least a few extreme voices proposed it.

I don’t think it’s a concern, although I can understand why there’s a concern: TRAs are batshit, super competitive sports parents are batshit, put the two together…But my reasons are this:

• I think involvement in a social sport like swimming at a young age is likely protective for early transition, like most sports.

• I see how there is now a debate over “degree” of male puberty. Well that’s easily solved, but with the one thing everyone hates the idea of: genital inspection. A doctor would need to Tanner stage a male, coupled with records of bloods.

• but what will that show? It will show that males who are puberty blocked as part of transition have their genitals frozen at Tanner 2. Which is exactly the sort of fact TRAs want to avoid getting stuck in the public consciousness.

• Anyone who does transition fully with puberty blockers and CSH will never, ever be competitive in sport. No male who does this will be fit enough, well enough, nor good enough to compete with, let alone beat women. No female will be well enough, nor have any hope in hell of beating males.

• So the main risk will be a male who has been through male puberty, and their sporting organisations help them pretend they haven’t and lie about their pubertal staging with false records of transition. It’s not beyond the scope of Russia, or China, who have lied about gymnasts’ ages.

So the best thing overall would be sex chromosome testing and independent verification of something like CAIS.

(I still think, and have argued this here in the past, that there are unanswered questions about CAIS with small preliminary evidence showing it’s a condition over represented at the Olympics, but it can only be solved by mandatory sex chromosome testing.)

Giving this person a very long slot to tell fibs.

Flipping Fallon Fox on BBC re the swimming????? No one asking them how they beat the living crap out of an opponent, put them into retirement and gloated??????

I thought the same. But then, is it the responsibility of FINA to - essentially - try and stop early transition? And the arguments against males in female sport have been built on puberty for very good reason. I don't think they need to consider the unintended consequences. That is the job of government and the medical profession.

My understanding of the policy is that it's based on chromosomal sex and swimmers must provide a legal test result.
All athletes must certify their chromosomal sex with their Member
Federation in order to be eligible for FINA competitions

They seem to have covered a lot of bases with this:

Male-to-female transgender athletes (transgender women) and athletes
with 46 XY DSD whose legal gender and/or gender identity is female are
eligible to compete in the women’s category in FINA competitions and to
set FINA World Records in the women’s category in FINA competitions and
in other events recognised by FINA if they can establish to FINA’s
comfortable satisfaction that they have not experienced any part of male
puberty beyond Tanner Stage 2 or before age 12, whichever is later.
Specifically, the athlete must produce evidence establishing that:
i. They have complete androgen insensitivity and therefore could not
experience male puberty; or
ii. They are androgen sensitive but had male puberty suppressed
beginning at Tanner Stage 2 or before age 12, whichever is later,
and they have since continuously maintained their testosterone
levels in serum (or plasma) below 2.5 nmol/L

iii. An unintentional deviation from the below 2.5 nmol/L requirement
may result in retrospective disqualification of results and/or a
prospective period of ineligibility.
iv. An intentional deviation from the below 2.5 nmol/L requirement
may result in retrospective disqualification of results

I

.

The number of XYs who have avoided male puberty potentially entering women's sport is so small it will be a non issue. Those that do will have extremely marginal advantages.

Unlike the number of XYs who transition later and can suddenly become exceptional athletes.

While a blanket decision would have been welcome, I think this one can be quite clearly backed up with science and can't be rejected on the basis of 'but he is a kind of woman, you bigot!'

A 'no men in women's sports' statement doesn't tackle the blind faith of TWAW.

It's a bit of verbal gymnastics. I think it will help the 'be kind' fence sitters.

That's a good point about DSDs. Perhaps they were trying to find a succinct way of managing the situation which covers everybody.

But since they are two distinct issues, I don't see why they couldn't have two rulings. One for trans exclusion, and one for DSDs. I love a bit of decluttering, but these issues can be complex if you are trying to cover them both with one rule.

There are some bonkers parents out there - like the stage mums who had their little girls front teeth killed out when Shirley Temple lost hers (I’m sure there are contemporary examples!). So nothing would surprise me (have you seen those lil beauty pageants??)

I wonder how this rule would apply to sports people with DSDs such as a number of athletes who have won the women’s 800 metres? I know it’s swimming not track / athletics but still, the FINA findings and judgement will surely be looked at by IOC. There are a number of athletes in elite women’s competitions who have had the benefit of a male puberty. If the FINA rules were applied to athletics, are they enough to prevent those athletes from competing in the women’s category?

I think it applies to any athlete who has gone through a male puberty so that would mean XY athletes like CS would not be eligible to compete in the female category (because they have benefited from testosterone during puberty).

But XY athletes with CAIS, who have not experienced male puberty, would be eligible.

Exactly @QuetzalTerfLus I think you have hit the nail on the head there. Those who have internal testes and are sensitive to androgens are currently dominating some parts of athletics. They will now be excluded from swimming. However women with complete androgen insensitivity genuinely have no advantage and wouldn’t be excluded. I wonder if this is part of the logic behind the decision.

Datum is absolutely right (as always).

The door is now open to absurd legal wranglings regarding 'how much' male puberty a particular individual has gone through.

And the point about DSD athletes is good too - a simple xx check would have answered. Now all sorts of xy will be trying to gain entry into the women's category, through the loophole big enough to drive a cart & horses through.

Apologies - awkwardly worded to comply (hopefully) with rules, and mentioning no specific athletes or individuals

I wonder how this rule would apply to sports people with DSDs such as a number of athletes who have won the women’s 800 metres? I know it’s swimming not track / athletics but still, the FINA findings and judgement will surely be looked at by IOC. There are a number of athletes in elite women’s competitions who have had the benefit of a male puberty. If the FINA rules were applied to athletics, are they enough to prevent those athletes from competing in the women’s category?

Although I agree that children on puberty blockers will not make elite athletes, why didn't they just say no. No males at all.

It's not as though they are going to escape accusations of transphobia. They've made the distinction between transwomen and women quite clear, why didn't they just go the extra 5 yards.

They would have had meeting after meeting to come up with the wording they've used. With the entire issue being gone over with a fine tooth comb, and evolving into the final statement. And that male puberty was the stumbling block from the very beginning. They just can't get past that as a means of providing advantage.

But they could've achieved everything they have by just saying no males, and closing that loophole. Because however unlikely it is that anyone could exploit that loophole, as we know, there is no accounting for the lengths some people will go to in this ideology.

Yes OP, it's obvious that this will be now used as a loophole, to get males into female sports.
It would have been SO simple to say xx is female, end of story.
But by including some males, the door is open. How can it be proved how much puberty a particular man went through? It can't.
This decision is bonkers, why did this committee come up with this nutty definition of woman, which still includes some males?

This is what crossed my mind too, OP. I’d have much preferred a clearer set of rules, biological males or females, or XX AND XY.

I did wonder if there will not be activists who try to use this as an argument to push earlier transition.

But in the UK at least, I think that may not work, there has been too much in print about the problems of transitioning children, and more is going to emerge. I don't think that genie will go back in the bottle.

This decision will neither encourage or discourage extreme gender ideologists, who are obsessed with transing children no matter what.

Any boy transitioned before the age of 12 will be a lifelong patient, drugs and repeat surgeries plus all the therapy they will need - terrible to contemplate.
Elite sport will never be on their agenda.

I don’t think we need to be too concerned as it is so difficult to predict who at that age will make it to elite level even if they are the best in their category at that age as there are so many factors involved in making it to elite level.

What does 'transition' actually mean? For a male does it mean removal of genitalia before 12 (on top of all hormone treatment)?

I do applaud FINA however I would have preferred a blanket ban ie. born XY, NEVER competes against XX.

No, you've misinterpreted. This is a sop to the trans advocates. In reality it means nothing.

Children aren't given puberty blockers before tanner stage 2 and if they are given them earlier (grim thought) they will be prepubescent. Tiny boy children aren't going to be elite athletes.