Views on androgen insensitivity and women’s sport participation

And even if people for some reason did think this was a suitable solution despite the potential for injuries etc, how on earth would it work practically?

Either you have unlimited numbers of men and women on the team, in which case, competitive teams are going to end up choosing the men, to be faster/stronger etc., so women still lose out.

Or you have quotas for how many men/women on the teams, and then you're back to exactly the same issue, of how you define 'women'. You're still going to get transwomen or people with DSDs or whatever wanting to take the women's spots, and teams/organisations kind of encouraging that if it makes the team more competitive in a backhanded way. And women again lose out.

Female hormones play a massive role in injury in women's sport. ACL injury in particular has increasingly strong evidence base. It has a huge impact on participation and retention, so anyone who doesn't have this has a massive advantage.

Menstrual Cycle Hormone Relaxin and ACL Injuries in Female Athletes: A Systematic Review - PMC share.google/4LrXK89YZmYUrAXhc

I'm not sure how it would make men and women equal by putting women at increased risk of injury.

Male bodies and female bodies are different. They have different bone density, different muscle structure, women's skulls are thinner and there are many other differences that mean a woman of the same height and strength as a man is at greater risk of physical damage if their bodies clash. It is dangerous for women to play contact sports against men.

Even if there wasn't a physical risk woman (as a class) are smaller, slower and weaker than men (as a class) if there was a mixed competitive football match it would be played out largely between the men on the teams as they could out sprint, out jump and out muscle the women, rather than being equals the women would become on field spectators.

That's not what I meant. It isn't fair in life that all sorts of people can't compete and have any chance of success in sports they're like to complete in.

Life is not fair.

I think ultimately, it comes down to the fact that women and girls (or females - "shut up Martin") have nowhere to "punch down".

If you get through the primary school (and early secondary) years of 'standing out' in a sport like I did - in terms of sprinting and extended sprinting - that's great.
I was what's known as a "pocket rocket" small and very fast.
Unfortunately for me, as puberty took hold of my cohort, some of the other girls (my competitors) started outclassing me. They were taller and had A MUCH greater stride than me.

I ended up being quite small at full height.
And before I get any protestations that lots of female sprinters are small - I know that.
I hoped I would be one of them.

It just happens that the the girls I was competing against at that time, when scouts were around, were taller AND as powerful as me.
So I didn't make the cut anymore.
LSS I wasn't good enough anymore and I bowed out. 💁‍♀️

Where was I to go from here?
There's nowhere to go if I want to compete and won.
If I couldn't compete with my sexed class, where could I go to compete and succeed? Fairly?
Surely not compete in another category where my obvious advantages would disadvantage another group? Para athletics?
No. That would be very wrong.

Any female athletes that aren't good enough to compete/catch up with other females have to accept it. It's tough, but that's life.
By the time I was 14 I was mediocre in comparison to my cohort.

That was all due to things I had zero control of. Oh well 💁‍♀️❤️‍🩹

By allowing men into women's sports, we give them a fundamentally unfair advantage.
Punching down.
Women don't get to do that.
It's fucking hard enough.

Why isn’t it fair for men who identify as trans to have to compete with other men? Or men with DSDs to compete with other men?

I don’t think you understand anything about sport. Nor anything about sex.

Just imagine how many women would be injured if half of rugby teams were made up of men?

You mean like rowing which allowed men who identified as trans to row on women’s teams but not take women’s places in mixed teams because that would be unfair.,,

If we go by strict restrictions on testosterone alone, some cis women will even be excluded.

Which women do you think would be excluded? Women, even those with PCOS, do not have testosterone levels in the male range

Male and female testosterone levels do not overlap so how would some women be excluded?

How would this work for individual sports?

Perhaps have a Google of the rules for sports where there are already mixed teams and ask yourself why they have criteria on how many men are allowed.

Nobody is excluded from sport based on their sex.

Are you joking?

You want every sport played with equal numbers of men and women and each team? Have you noticed that most team sports play with uneven number team sizes?

What is wrong with making male sport for males and female sport for females?

It isn't fair to trans males and DSD people who want to do competitive sport? No, it isn't fair to people born with one leg shorter than the other either.

I've always thought the real actual solution to this is to have mixed sports teams. I don't know how else this problem can be solved without excluding people. If we go by strict restrictions on testosterone alone, some cis women will even be excluded.
I think we have to make men and women ACTUALLY equal by having both on the same sports team.

Only problem is that the women with more testosterone would be favored because our entire world favors testosterone when it comes to sports or literally anything. Don't know how this would help with boxing either. But i don't pay much attention to sports.

The article isn't loading for me but limb strength is not the full picture and there are times when girls have the advantage over boys.

I think the benefits of there being greater access to sport, particularly competitive sport, if they are mixed at a young age outweighs minor differences.

Girls are not equal prepuberty:

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11971925/

Girls should not be expected to give up medals or chances of winning pre puberty or during puberty. Girls are not there to make boys feel better, even if the boy wants pretend he is a girl,

Girls have the advantage at some stages of childhood and are equal in the rest pre puberty.

Mixed sport is good in childhood because it increases opportunities for everyone.

The shame of this is that we are still actually teaching girls culturally that boys are both better and stronger than they are, hence your own post!

I've already stated above that imo no CAIS person should be in women's sport because it's a judgement call whether they are C or P, not a scientific categorisation.

People with CAIS are absolutely male, because only males can have CAIS.

The person in question was raised as a girl by their parents, and was diagnosed at 4 years old. To be even tested for a DSD there must have been something anatomically unusual - most likely a micro penis and no visible vaginal opening. The parents were most likely advised that Jackie was actually male but to continue to raise them as female, and surgery eventually ensued. That was a very common pathway for boys born with CAIS. He claims to have grown breasts, and that anyone with CAIS does. That’s not strictly true. He may have started to develop breasts as the testosterone produced by his testes would have caused aromatisation and breast development. But as he had his testes removed at 15 these would have not developed further - in order to keep his breasts he has to take female hormones.
Jackie has been socialised as a female. That doesn’t actually make him female.

It’s the potential for having periods, not the actual periods themselves. A male with CAIS has never had the potential for having periods. A female who doesn’t have periods almost always has the potential to have them. If they do not have them, that’s because something has happened to cause that cessation. A big clue is that it’s not because they’re male.

because being a woman means more than just not being a man.

This is the crux of it. Women’s sports is not for men, even men with hormone insensitivity.

Maybe, but I still don't think that someone who is male and has XY chromosomes should be included in the female category. It's tough for those few individuals but doesn't mean that the female category should have to accept exceptions such as this.

That could be because he is also performing a version of an 'american personality'; one that is associated with American young women, I guess.

don't think trans women should compete with women in the majority of single sex sports events past a childhood grassroots level. Where it really doesn't matter,

Why don’t you think fairness in girls’ sport matter? Why shouldn’t girls also have a fair chance of winning and not have their medals stolen by boys?

I can. It is the subtle contours of facial structure and the natural timbre of the voice. Also over-compensated by waving his manicured hands around in a manner associated with young american women. The consciously modulated intonation of the voice too.