Brave reporter undergoes inhumane sex test for sports. Brace yourselves.

Ive said from the start i’m interested in the conversation about fairness in women’s sport because I am competitive.

I’m reminding you because youre implying I don’t care about female athletes and you’re acting like you speak on behalf of female athletes - well, you don’t speak for this one.

I’m reminding you that i do actually have skin in the game here. Do you?

Just for the record, we’re all free to believe or disbelieve when posters give us personal backgrounds or anecdotes, and draw our own conclusions.

I havent asked you to send me any articles. I’ve been grateful when people have but I haven’t asked!

Don’t you?

Well according to pip numbers lots of them can't.

I see.

We are at that point of the discussion are we?

It is irrelevant to the discussion

It’s a wonder these people can manage to leave the house.

Oh, don’t you have Google? I was led to believe everyone here is an advanced researcher and skilled critical reader.

Now please discuss each link with regard to the discussion about female sports categories.

Plopping down links that you think are relevant without discussion is just you using AI or someone else’s reference list thinking it is going to prove a point. it doesn’t show that you actually understand anything you just linked up.

Stop making demands. There’s two of us trying to keep up with you lot.

I am a female athlete. An internationally competitive one. Are you?

Stop making demands. There’s two of us trying to keep up with you lot.

Now please discuss each link with regard to the discussion about female sports categories.

Plopping down links that you think are relevant without discussion is just you using AI or someone else’s reference list thinking it is going to prove a point. it doesn’t show that you actually understand anything you just linked up.

Here’s some science and evidence:

Zhou et al, A sex difference in the human brain and its relation to transsexuality, Nature, 1995: doi.org/10.1038/378068a0

Kruijver et al, Male-to-Female Transsexuals Have Female Neuron Numbers in a Limbic Nucleus, Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, 2000: doi.org/10.1210/jcem.85.5.6564

Garcia-Falgueras and Swaab, A sex difference in the hypothalamic uncinate nucleus: relationship to gender identity, Brain, 2008: doi.org/10.1093/brain/awn276

Savic, Garcia-Falgueras and Swaab, Sexual Differentiation of the Human Brain in Relation to Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation, Progress in Brain Research, 2010: researchgate.net/publication/49685655

Hoekzema et al, Regional grey matter variation in transgender individuals, Biological Psychiatry, 2018: doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2018.01.017

McCarthy, Nugent and Lenz, Neuroimmunology and neuroepigenetics in the establishment of sex differences in the brain, Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 2017: doi.org/10.1038/nrn.2017.37

Perrot-Sinal et al, Sex differences in the chloride cotransporters NKCC1 and KCC2 in the developing hypothalamus, Journal of Neuroendocrinology, 2007: doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2826.2007.01530.x

Speert et al, Focal Adhesion Kinase and Paxillin: Novel Regulators of Brain Sexual Differentiation, Endocrinology, 2007: doi.org/10.1210/en.2006-0845

Wright et al, Cellular mechanisms of estradiol-mediated sexual differentiation of the brain, Trends in Endocrinology and Metabolism, 2010: doi.org/10.1016/j.tem.2010.06.004

Henningsson et al, Sex steroid-related genes and male-to-female transsexualism, Psychoneuroendocrinology, 2005: doi.org/10.1016/j.psyneuen.2005.02.006

Foreman et al, Genetic Link Between Gender Dysphoria and Sex Hormone Signaling, Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, 2019: doi.org/10.1210/jc.2018-01105

Theisen, Sundaram and Layman, The Use of Whole Exome Sequencing in a Cohort of Transgender Individuals to Identify Rare Genetic Variants, Nature Scientific Reports, 2019: doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-53500-y

F&S Science, Identification of rare genetic variants in the PCDH genetic family in a cohort of transgender women, 2024: doi.org/10.1016/j.xfss.2024.05.002

Hamilton, Guppy and Pitsiladis, Comment on Transgender Women in the Female Category of Sport, Sports Medicine, 2024: doi.org/10.1007/s40279-023-01928-8

Roberts et al, Effect of gender affirming hormones on athletic performance in transwomen and transmen, British Journal of Sports Medicine, 2020: doi.org/10.1136/bjsports-2020-102329

Wiik et al, Muscle strength size and composition following 12 months of gender-affirming treatment in transgender individuals, Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, 2020: doi.org/10.1210/clinem/dgz247

Scientific American, Is There Something Unique about the Transgender Brain, 2016: scientificamerican.com/article/is-there-something-unique-about-the-transgender-brain

Nature, US proposal for defining gender has no basis in science, 2018: doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-07238-8

Dr Dick Swaab on gender identity and the brain: youtu.be/mOK8fw4tsO8

Nope. I don’t believe I am smarter than anyone else.

and there is that emotional manipulation again.

Competitive sports is about performance and fairness. You can emote all you like but you won’t change that at the end of the day, if you are supporting female athletes being harmed through injury or loss of opportunity, you are not being ‘inclusive’ or kind.

If you have to resort to insults and emotional reasoning, then I don’t agree that you have been challenged as you say you have. You haven’t got answers for very common and very important questions.

And no, I don’t feel ‘ashamed’ about using accurate language and discussing facts. It is not kind to allow female people to be harmed in sport because someone else believes an emotional appeal over science. if you read the thread I posted, the papers are listed that convinced the OIC in the first place.

And it was purely emotional reasoning. All based on using emotionally acceptable language.

Nof one of them at the time actually stopped to consider female people’s needs. Apparently, they were celebrated as being ‘kind’.

You can link the objections you found especially convincing, no?

Here's a thread which says, look how straightforward and simple the cheek swab test is.

We know that will cover what, 99%+ of athletes who want to enter the female category.

For the rest, further specific tests will be available.

And one poster is intent, over dozens of posts, on insisting it's too complicated/unfair etc. When @Helleofabore says "Post the links to the science that disagrees . Let’s see what the arguments are" and that poster's response is "you’ve been the biggest disappointment of all on this thread" then I thinks it's pretty clear what is going on. Hopefully it wasn't a waste of everyone's time, for the lurkers, etc.

Posting anything NOT gender critical on mumsnet IS waste of time, I’ve learnt. My disagreements were fairly mild. I’m sorry if I didn’t have time to post loads of links in between trying to answer relentless questions from about ten people at a time.

@JanesLittleGirl - the problem is that some scientists don’t think the test IS scientific. Some leading geneticists argue that screening for the SRY gene oversimplifies biological sex and fails to account for natural genetic diversity and intersex variations. There are also concerns from some academics that the new policy risks colliding with well-established legal frameworks that were erected in response to historical injustices caused by genetic testing. All this is Google-able!

You could believe that it’s the right decision for her not to compete, but still refer to her using she / her pronouns if you genuinely wanted to be compassionate to a person who was told they were a girl from birth, has female genitalia etc. OR you could just cruelly keep typing HES A MAN for no reason. __You’re not showing compassion at all.

Ok. Its clear you always believed you were smarter than anyone who disagreed with you. You might think the most important thing is taking the emotions out of a debate, but you know what - I actually DO think being kind to people is important. Sue me! Tell me I’m an idiot for thinking compassion is something worth having!

I think you probably want to look at facts alone because if you actually let yourself think about people and how you speak about them and think about them, you’d be ashamed.

Here's a thread which says, look how straightforward and simple the cheek swab test is.

We know that will cover what, 99%+ of athletes who want to enter the female category.

For the rest, further specific tests will be available.

And one poster is intent, over dozens of posts, on insisting it's too complicated/unfair etc. When @Helleofabore says "Post the links to the science that disagrees . Let’s see what the arguments are" and that poster's response is "you’ve been the biggest disappointment of all on this thread" then I thinks it's pretty clear what is going on. Hopefully it wasn't a waste of everyone's time, for the lurkers, etc.

Here’s some science and evidence:

Zhou et al, A sex difference in the human brain and its relation to transsexuality, Nature, 1995: doi.org/10.1038/378068a0

Kruijver et al, Male-to-Female Transsexuals Have Female Neuron Numbers in a Limbic Nucleus, Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, 2000: doi.org/10.1210/jcem.85.5.6564

Garcia-Falgueras and Swaab, A sex difference in the hypothalamic uncinate nucleus: relationship to gender identity, Brain, 2008: doi.org/10.1093/brain/awn276

Savic, Garcia-Falgueras and Swaab, Sexual Differentiation of the Human Brain in Relation to Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation, Progress in Brain Research, 2010: researchgate.net/publication/49685655

Hoekzema et al, Regional grey matter variation in transgender individuals, Biological Psychiatry, 2018: doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2018.01.017

McCarthy, Nugent and Lenz, Neuroimmunology and neuroepigenetics in the establishment of sex differences in the brain, Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 2017: doi.org/10.1038/nrn.2017.37

Perrot-Sinal et al, Sex differences in the chloride cotransporters NKCC1 and KCC2 in the developing hypothalamus, Journal of Neuroendocrinology, 2007: doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2826.2007.01530.x

Speert et al, Focal Adhesion Kinase and Paxillin: Novel Regulators of Brain Sexual Differentiation, Endocrinology, 2007: doi.org/10.1210/en.2006-0845

Wright et al, Cellular mechanisms of estradiol-mediated sexual differentiation of the brain, Trends in Endocrinology and Metabolism, 2010: doi.org/10.1016/j.tem.2010.06.004

Henningsson et al, Sex steroid-related genes and male-to-female transsexualism, Psychoneuroendocrinology, 2005: doi.org/10.1016/j.psyneuen.2005.02.006

Foreman et al, Genetic Link Between Gender Dysphoria and Sex Hormone Signaling, Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, 2019: doi.org/10.1210/jc.2018-01105

Theisen, Sundaram and Layman, The Use of Whole Exome Sequencing in a Cohort of Transgender Individuals to Identify Rare Genetic Variants, Nature Scientific Reports, 2019: doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-53500-y

F&S Science, Identification of rare genetic variants in the PCDH genetic family in a cohort of transgender women, 2024: doi.org/10.1016/j.xfss.2024.05.002

Hamilton, Guppy and Pitsiladis, Comment on Transgender Women in the Female Category of Sport, Sports Medicine, 2024: doi.org/10.1007/s40279-023-01928-8

Roberts et al, Effect of gender affirming hormones on athletic performance in transwomen and transmen, British Journal of Sports Medicine, 2020: doi.org/10.1136/bjsports-2020-102329

Wiik et al, Muscle strength size and composition following 12 months of gender-affirming treatment in transgender individuals, Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, 2020: doi.org/10.1210/clinem/dgz247

Scientific American, Is There Something Unique about the Transgender Brain, 2016: scientificamerican.com/article/is-there-something-unique-about-the-transgender-brain

Nature, US proposal for defining gender has no basis in science, 2018: doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-07238-8

Dr Dick Swaab on gender identity and the brain: youtu.be/mOK8fw4tsO8