To think that this is the end of women's athletics?

[fidel1ne]

And women's international sport generally?

Transgender competitors will be allowed to compete as the gender of their choosing pre-operatively and after just one year of hormone treatment.

Going back to 'could a mediocre male footballer compete with premier league women', I'd have thought not, as they'd still have greater physical capacity to be good at that sport, so an unfair advantage.

They just wouldn't have trained as much, or be as talented (if talent is some combination of mental and physical attributes).

That takes me down a path of wondering what attributes are measured and whether some come about as a result of training. Then, could you end with something like a Paralympic points system, based on physiological (and mental?) capacity.

Is it possible that for some sports, requiring a suitable blend of attributes, a governing body might decide that 'no unfair advantage' could be assessed that way?

That would be totally at odds with a system of grading, selection and winning based on performance. It also tramples on the idea of Olympians as exceptional - as sometimes going beyond what anyone thought was possible (look at women's marathon, so very recently). Athletes proving what they can become, re-writing the physiology books, not what they were judged as having capacity to become based on old knowledge.

Could exceptional women then be banned from women's sport for being too good, rather, too exceptionally capable? Probably not, much more that physically mediocre men would be allowed in. But my point is that any judgement of advantage based on capacity, changes the ethos of sport from 'any of you lot, go on, surprise us' to a rather deterministic equation of capacity plus effort (yup, I realise that's exactly what sports scientists, trainers etc already work with). Conceptually though, it's different.

Also, this will have a far, far greater impact at the lower levels of some sports than at Olympic levels - if and when governing bodies have to publish their 'advantage assessment criteria' rather than judge each individual case on its merits.

It very much sounds as though that's already happening - and without any proper assessment of advantage - if that marathon runner is already competing against women.

Club and county running championships for example would be changed massively, if any man with slightly below normal testosterone and a stated inclinitation towards femininity (this season anyway) was allowed to compete against women.

The 'unfair advantage' assessment is, as purple said, the failsafe of this policy. I'd like to know more about how it might be assessed - and at what levels of competition it's required.

I joined the FB Group.

The childhood transsexual point is interesting. I was just thinking - anecdote alert - that late teenage me was stronger and a better runner than my 11 yr old brother, he went sheepish and wouldn't compete at 12, than at 13 it was all over.

So you would have to stop boys going through puberty to avoid inbuilt advantage.

But, castrati were not women, or anything like them. Can you 'make a woman' with a male body and female hormones? I'd have thought there were still skeletal and other differences that would be significant.

A bit besides the issue of who is going to be making the political weather over this though.

Thinking just of goalies in football. Height, arm span, handsize. Women cant compete with that, and it is utterly relevant to the exact task.

Look at how many men - even those who actually watch and enjoy women's football - complain about how bad the goalies are - they are trying to defend more open goal than the male equivalent!!

I do feel we are, or should be, stuck in a paradox.

If you have to prove that your 'different equipment' does not give you an unfair advantage in a particular sport and, the male skeletal-muscular system is different from the female, advantaging men in most sports, then any sport in which being born male is not an advantage should be open competition between the sexes anyway.

Otherwise you're into defining parameters and points-based banding, which might be relevant to a Paralympic approach but not an Olympic - or everyday local sports club - one.

Pistorious surely had to prove that his blades were equivalent to his own legs, not the legs of somebody better. Thus he had to be a top class althlete lacking legs, not a really good but not quite good enough althlete with super-legs. Surely his assessment was based on the capacity provided by his equipment / attributes, not on whether, as a 'mediocre athlete with amazing add on' his results were equivalent to the best able bodied athletes.

Similarly, a male-bodied athlete would have to prove that their skeleto-muscular system was not better than that of their female athlete. They cannot use the skeletal-muscular equipment of somebody better.

Bah.

Maryz it is known that many of these children grow out of it. Hence the complete bizarreness of it being accepted that they are definitely trans

This page moves fast! every time I think I've caught up it says I have a new page to read!

Me too

For those worried about being on the facebook group - go onto your view your activity log and you'll see that joining the group is the only thing that appears publicly (or at least it is on mine ) but you can click to hide it from your timeline.

Yes this^. It's very easy to do discreetly, honestly.

Most feminine-presenting boys find that such feelings taper off around adolescence and they end up living as gay men.

Only around 5-10% wind up being transwomen.

The % depends a lot on cultural factors, though. In societies with rigid, binary ideas about genderi.e men "have" to be macho otherwise they are bullied and beaten upthere is a much higher chance that a feminine-presenting boy will make the decision to live as a woman instead.

This is why transgenderism is commoner in societies like Brazil with the machismo culture and homophobia. It is also why, in the States at least (I don't know about other countries) early-transitioning transwomen tend to be very disproportionately Black and Hispanic.

Hi all,

Just a quick post before this thread is full to say we have posted over here please do come and have a look.

Thanks Rebecca

Thanks rebecca

Can i just suggest that whoever starts thread two includes the bit about skeletal and musculature differences that cannot be affected by hormonal therapy in the op? Also the bit about usual hormone levels and maybe the fb link?

(I would just start it myself but have ishoos with being highlighted as op due to my asd)
(If i did start it myself, i'd probably put the basketball picture in the op too)

I couldn't sleep last night due to absolute rage from this. I'm a lazy feminist, I support women's rights 100% and have the occasional twitter war in order to defend them, don't really do much else except moan, but this just crosses an absolute line for me. I'm willing to join any marches, be part of any group. I don't care if I get called a TERF and rape threats for speaking out.

I also can't even see how this is a tans issue seeing as ANY MAN who qualifies can now compete as a woman simply by lowering the testosterone levels slightly for a few years. It's not like they have to prove in any way as far as I can tell, that they are living their lives as a female. How will a trans athlete feel when 'she' is beaten by a man who doesn't even pretend to be trans? Will they think that's fair too?

When Oscar Pistorius wanted to be allowed to run in the Olympics, he had years of court cases to prove that he would have no unfair advantage running against able bodied men. He was only allowed to compete against them on the understanding that his blades had to be a specific length dictated by how long his lower leg length would have been in comparison to his body, had he been born with 'normal' legs. Fine. Except these same standards are not held to when it comes to the Paralympics, where athletes can wear blades of varying lengths giving them extra height and stride length. It seems the comity didn't really give a shit about the Paralympics being fair, and they clearly don't care about women's sport being held to this level of fairness that able bodied men seem to be entitled to.

Sorry didn't see that in time Beyond but you go ahead;

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/2558163-Continuation-thread-re-IOC-trans-policy-and-related-trans-issues?watched=1

I've got about 100 posts to catch up on this one

Ta fid, no problem :)
once i'm done eating i'll get writing!

Fab post angels

I've done it :) bloody power went off as i posted and i thought i'd lost it!!

I did get your point, Annie :) I was trying to flesh it out and show the competition would still be unfair after Matt's transition to Janae. The weightlifters' website analysis is excellent and decisive.

Of course they have no stats yet on the difference reduced testosterone will make, but we're already looking at a greater than 100% gap between gold standard females & males.

The highly visible difference between Janae's body & Olga's goes a long way to show how transitioning doesn't suddenly feminise the lean, pumped-up, V-shaped physique of a male powerlifter.

Can you 'make a woman' with a male body and female hormones? I'd have thought there were still skeletal and other differences that would be significant.

Lottie - female children have one less rib, a wider pelvis and thinner bones than male children (on average). It's interesting, too, to see what Beyond says above: my 5yo ds does ballet and has a six pack. None of the girls look anywhere near the same. - I understood that boys' & girls' musculature is pretty much identical before early puberty, but this might not be the case. Perhaps it's not been deeply studied yet.

Garlic - might not be the musculature but the fat coverings?

Super quick google finds me this... www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12147825

(And a warning about child sex abuse, i guess because i searched "child" and "sex" )

both males and females have 12 pairs of ribs!! (Usually)

Beyond, I'm an idiot. I think the primary-school Garlic must have typed that post

I only have a boy but I think pre pubescent boys and girls are quite similar. Mine is slim and lightly muscled, he has a friend the same age who is always wearing her gym leotard and I reckon my ds would look the same if he was wearing it!
I Think it's puberty that creates the deepest difference between boys and girls. Although there are boys in ds year who are stocky and muscular, I don't tend to see stocky and muscular girls as much. That could also be because boys are given more exercise activities to do? Not sure.

This is much better :) From a basic sports anatomy course.