Female boxer withdraws from fight with transwoman

And it's not just the physical differences.

The fact that female people have the bodies that give birth means that we are the ones who uniquely have to cope with:

a menstrual cycle while training
hormonal contraception to avoid inconveniently timed pregnancy
a long absence from sport if pregnant
a longer absence if the chief caregiver for the baby
possible career-ending birth injuries

And on top of all that:
Sexist blokes
Fewer opportunities
Lower prizes
A culture that discourages girls from sport
Bloody evil sports bras
And now, more sexist blokes actually grabbing the opportunities set aside to try to compensate for some of that.

Grrr.

@Helleofabore also, I think DS is at the age where the sex differences start to become a real problem but it's interesting how many people are in denial. There's a girl in his basketball team. Traditionally, she's been one of the team's strongest players. She's fast, smart, accurate etc. Top scorer, good at defence and so on.

This season, she's barely scored. Why? Because as athletic and fit as she is, the boys have just got that much stronger. It takes almost nothing for them to cause her to miss her shots. But a lot of the other parents refuse to see this. It's weird.

I believe she'll shortly be moving to a girls only team where, I am sure, she will excel again.

@Helleofabore I didn't know that about the bat, ball or boundaries. But yes, that just compounds what seems instinctive to me.

It's insane.

The only plus side, is I think sport is where a lot of "normal" people get peaked. My theory is that it's because most of us think that trans people (let's be honest here, trans women) are the ones we've seen occasionally in movies and tv - you know, could absolutely pass, have spent years seeking mental health support, suffered shame and fear, wanted (and possibly received) surgery etc... So all the "TERFS" are just really mean. Then they see the prevalence of what's happening in sport and suddenly they go, "WTAF????" and bang, they're peaked.

<silver lining> <sigh>

Well, to compound your thoughts here, women’s cricket has a lighter bat, ball and shorter boundaries.

So, it is not even directly comparable on even footing. Hence why Blythin broke women’s cricket records while still playing cricket in the male team as well, it was clear it was an utter farce and cricket regulators allowed it. Clare Balding celebrated it, iirc.

A male cricketer using a lighter bat, hitting a slower paced ball into boundaries that were shorter as well. Yippee! now that is celebration worthy! How proud.

'Btw I thought “mums” would have more love and understating, but I notice more hatred.'

If one group of people are going to be aware of the true biological differences between males and females compared to any other group, I would suggest that a group of people who have given birth - which only females can do - are going to be that group.

There must be a notable difference in the speed of a fast ball bowled by a man vs a woman? I mean, I would assume that the top women fast bowlers have pretty impressive speeds, higher than the average man possibly, but nowhere near a male fast bowler at the top of their game?

Similarly, at the bat, surely it's just a no brainer that a top batsman will be able to bat harder and further than a top batswoman?

It's mind blowing to me that these physical differences are not just instinctively understood.

Having said that, I have a friend who is very much of the type of feminism that says, "girls must just be as rough as the boys". I love her, but she honestly couldn't understand why I wanted DD to play football in a girls team at school and not a mixed team.

Well then. Let's see how this plays out then for the UK. Because I wonder whether the UK cricket regulators will adopt this considering just how much they have lionised some of their male players in the female teams in recent years.

Will Blythin give back their awards? Indeed, did Blythin ever confirm that their medical condition was ever diagnosed by a doctor after denying they ever went through male puberty? I suspect not. Yet there they are still playing at county level. Wiltshire now. They have moved on from Kent.

https://www.womensrights.network/post/which-way-will-the-england-and-wales-cricket-board-fall

Or are trying to show the world that some people are so mindlessly supportive of the belief that someone is what they say they are that they have just as mindlessly repeated as many of the tropish and absurd argument points as they could think of.

Just to show those reading how absurd it all really is.

I mean, either they cannot see their raging hypocrisy hidden by their supreme righteousness, or they are not very clever despite believing they are (or that they people they have read and regurgitated here are). Either can, of course, be true at the same time.

Excellent news from the ICC. Could have gone further obviously, but it’s an important step forward in protecting women, both in terms of physical safety and position within the sport. Trans-identifying males need to be clear that their self-identify does not trump the rights of women.

The ICC (International governing body for Cricket) have announced this morning that those men that have been through male puberty will be banned from playing international women’s cricket.

It only impacts selection for international games, but you’d hope that the fact they’ve cited safety concerns will mean that domestic ruling bodies will adopt a similar approach… although I suspect Canada is too captured and will ignore it for their domestic leagues.

They took 9 months to review the available scientific and other evidence and concluded that safety (and fairness for women) meant men shouldn’t be permitted to play in the games they regulate.

I think there's a certain poster getting their kicks out of winding us up.

The issue is that the poster is doing that standard thing of claiming to be ‘evidence based’ but actually they operate on an affirming their own beliefs model of epistemology (and even ontology). Knowledge is ‘truth’ when it supports them and ‘transphobic bigotry’ otherwise.

The poster linked to a 2017 paper that isn’t even about the performance offences between the sexes. It’s a small review of 8 studies and some policy documents about the barriers that trans people face (and perceive) around participating in sport. Which is a completely different thing.

The point that you don’t review policy documents in the same ways as you might (systematically) review research studies is also worth surfacing.

It’s like marking one of those student essays where you have to keep commenting ‘the referenced resource is not about what you claim it is’. A paper about X doesn’t not become evidence for Y because someone wishes it was.

Ah. So you're on a wind up. Good to know

The safety of that biological female boxer is not a debate and your posts reek of misogyny

The first line of one of those papers...
'Males enjoy physical performance advantages over females within competitive sport.'

Some of them enjoy it altogether too much, I'd say.

He’s a man. And calling someone transphobic isn’t the insult you think it is.

I’d like to say I’m surprised that a man would be outraged at being told no by a bunch of women but I’d be a liar (an actual one, not a self-identified one).

Yup! Transwoman who has injured multiple women in matches, is OUTRAGED that other teams have chosen NOT to play matches that include this person in the opposing team.

Sorry, just realised that unremarkable posted Hilton and Lundberg.

Still, the Harper paper came to similar conclusions but I wonder in that poster paolo will return and tell us why Joanne Harper is wrong. But I doubt it. With the deletions, I expect that they will not be back to make us laugh some more.

In your opinion that is. It is YOUR choice to believe that a male person declaring they are a 'woman' is what they say they are. I am sure that you also extend that to the people who declare they are cats, lizards or snakes who also seek extreme body modifications to make their bodies resemble their identities, don't you?

But hilariously you continued to post your poorly informed takes on this thread.

"Lol right. Just by default. Forget science and the real world, it just comes down to “individual’s truth”. I thought we were done with this philosophy centuries ago"

ummm.... Has the hypocrisy alarm deafened you yet?

You are here scolding and shaming posters for using sex based facts, declaring that a male who declares they are a woman is a woman, while then delivering this little gem. Where you then attempt to shame a poster for their 'individual truth'.

Speaking of philosphical theories, I suggest any reader of this thread look up postmodernism. It seems that you, paelo are someone who is very much a follower of those theories as well as other pseudoscience. All while seeming to declare that you are the superior intellect following 'science and the real world'.

Thanks for providing us all with a laugh.

Why have you posted this old study from 2017? Are you so very out of date?

Here, this one from Dr Hilton and T Lundberg. This and the next link are reviews of 13 previous studies.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40279-020-01389-3

The second from Harper et al.

bjsm.bmj.com/content/early/2021/02/28/bjsports-2020-103106

Conclusions are in line with No. 1. For information (considering many people will seek to discredit based on alleged bias) Harper is the transwoman who has released some sports studies in the past that had some methodology issues.

PLUS

Adding the USAF study here for people to read.

bjsm.bmj.com/content/early/2020/11/06/bjsports-2020-102329

Timothy A Roberts, Joshua Smalley, Dale Ahrendt

Effect of gender affirming hormones on athletic performance in transwomen and transmen: implications for sporting organisations and legislators

Summary The 15–31% athletic advantage that transwomen displayed over their female counterparts prior to starting gender affirming hormones declined with feminising therapy. However, transwomen still had a 9% faster mean run speed after the 1 year period of testosterone suppression that is recommended by World Athletics for inclusion in women’s events.

It is interesting reading as it also leaves the suggestion that even after 3 years advantage still exists.

And Sean Ingle’s take on it.

www.theguardian.com/sport/2020/dec/07/study-suggests-ioc-adjustment-period-for-trans-women-may-be-too-short

AND

The Brazilian study.

bjsm.bmj.com/content/early/2022/09/01/bjsports-2021-105400.info

Cardiopulmonary capacity and muscle strength in transgender women on long-term gender-affirming hormone therapy: a cross-sectional study

Leonardo Azevedo Mobilia Alvares, Marcelo Rodrigues Santos, Francis Ribeiro Souza, Lívia Marcela Santos, Berenice Bilharinho de Mendonça, Elaine Maria Frade Costa, Maria Janieire Nazaré Nunes Alves, Sorahia Domenice

Conclusion
In this small cohort of non-athlete TW, who were previously exposed to male pubertal development and underwent long-term oestrogen therapy, we identified higher grip strength and VO2 peak levels than in non-athlete CW, but these same parameters were lower compared with non-athlete CM.

These findings add new insights to the sparse information available on a highly controversial topic about the participation of TW in physical activities. Future studies involving transgender athletes that account for and quantify variable exposure times to pubertal development and assess muscle cell metabolism are needed to elucidate the effects of long-term GAHT on TW sports performance.

And from Ross Tucker on this study

From Ross Tucker on this study above:

Over a decade (14.4 yrs average) of T-suppression, and TW have VO2max 20% higher, grip strength 19% higher & skeletal mass 40% than women. More evidence that male biology persists long after T is removed. Another piece of the same puzzle, albeit from a cross-sectional study.

The cross-sectional bit is important - the study hasn't (like over a dozen others) tracked people from Day zero onwards, so the differences are a 'snapshot' rather than a 'movie', if that makes sense? Means you don't know how those TW began, 14.4 yrs earlier, but the finding of quite large differences compared to women (20% or more) is striking, because a) they either began as typically representative of males, and lost some, but retained significant advantages vs women, or b) they began well below men, and lost hardly any advantages. In either case, the end point, over a decade later, is biological differences compared to women that will create performance implications. Of interest, the mass retention and VO2max advantage mean that relative VO2max (ml/kg/min) ends up similar, which means in some sports (weight-determined) the performance implication may differ - sometimes very large, sometimes smaller, as in some categories within endurance sports.

But zero? Unlikely, because cardio function, FFM & strength are greater. Important paper, showing striking biological 'persistence' 14 yrs on.
Two further thoughts on the study. First, the TW vs women differences in muscle mass and strength remain large (20%) after more than a decade of T suppression. One year vs ten, biology "persists". Second, add training to the mix and TW and women would obviously get stronger.

You could TRY to argue that women would get stronger relatively more than TW (you'd have a job on your hands to explain why this would be, but anyway). More likely is that the differences - TW vs women - would persist or even increase with the addition of training. What this study confirms is that non-trained TW retain biological differences with performance implications after 14 years of T suppression. You'd have to believe that W could make up these gaps with training to believe in fairness in sport. That is, trained W = non-trained TW = fair!

I have plenty more @Paola11 if you are actually interested in the science. I think though you seem more interested in trying to shame posters and silence the discussion with empty accusations of transphobia. You don't seem particularly well informed about the current findings yet you seem to think you do. You posted this: "Do your research properly. Not here to educate you.". You sound incredibly confident with that comment, I must say.

But of course.

yes. They are indeed.

Is that footballer a trans-identifying male?

I think I like the Thanks button, but on threads like this I really wish there was a "haha lol" button as well. Or a "FFS, maaate" one.