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.

Who cares? These silly athletic achievements are nonsense. It's not like they are finding a cure for cancer, if the only way they can win is by changing gender,..then surely that puts the emphasis on clever and strength Rather than male vs female

Whatever you say Need

Out of morbid curiosity - I got this from a text on PCOS.

"An excess of testosterone, above the normal range signals a potential problem. Most doctors would consider a level above 50 ng/dl to be somewhat elevated. Above 100 ng/dl of testosterone in women is symptomatic of some kind of hyperandrogenism. If the testosterone is over 200 ng/dl an ovarian ultrasound is used to look for any ovarian tumors."

Using this convertor,
50 ng/dl = 1.735 nmol/L
100 ng/dl = 3.47 nmol/L
200 ng/dl = 6.94 nmol/L

So a woman with one-third of the Olympic limit is "symptomatic of some kind of hyperandrogenism".
And a woman with two-thirds the Olympic limit is expected to have ovarian tumours.
But a woman at the top of that limit is a healthy female athlete

It is so wrong, building muscle is generally harder than maintaining, the higher testosterone will enable the muscle growth that when reduced leaves the athlete only needing to maintain the muscle. Feminism and liberalism really don't go together you just get silence or deflection.

Oh it's fine then Need put like that. Silly women shouldn't be performing in sports anyway

How long till other sporting bodies follow suit? Wimbledon? Some female athletes (e.g. Serena Williams) already have to fend off rumours that they're male. Soon they'll be playing against men who've had a short programme of hormone therapy and have stated that they identify as female

Not exactly an elite man but certainly better than 99% of women before hormone treatment:

www.runnersworld.com/runners-stories/running-after-transition-janet-furman-bowmans-story

Turned out much slower, without the testosterone the cost of all that skeleton and muscle to drag around is a significant penalty.

Sure, if you're just trying to play the limits then you can probably do more to keep most of the gains from being male - but then if you're going to cheat, doping is a helluva lot easier.

But doesn't this work for male sport also? Don't see the issue

DS (22) has just declared he will identify as a woman to take his last chance at football World Cup glory. To be fair, no way would he get anywhere near making the team anyway.

I am appalled by this and I really do hope that women Olympians will do something about this if it's possible,in fact I think that the male Olympians should also protest about this.We all know that most females just do not have the strength and muscle of a male, so it would just not be fair at all. Even after taking hormones for a year, that person will still have his body strength, and a Penis ! The world has gone mad.

Do the "transgender" M to F athletes even have to prove any "societal" changes to qualify for the women's competition IYKWIM? Or is it just as easy as keeping your testosterone under 10 for a year?

Fucking disgrace.

So need you don't think the para Olympians achieved anything much ? I thought they were all marvellous and did so well.

But doesn't this work for male sport also?

I'm not sure what you mean?

Wahh, no it doesn't work the se way becuase a F to M doesn't have the skeletal or muscle mass of a born male. No matter how hard she tries you can't change the shape of your pelvis, bones, tendons etc.

The advantage only works in one way M to F

It's not even about performance though. The transgender athlete could be shite. It's the principle. Further evidence of male privilege encroaching on women's hard fought and won liberties and spaces.

I don't even know if that makes sense. I'm being fuelled by gin and rage.

Does anyone know what testosterone level a M to F transperson could hope to achieve after surgery? Before surgery?

What is the lowest they could get before nature outs and they can't go any lower?

If they can achieve levels the same as a woman surely that is the common sense starting point

According to one study (not uncontested though), 16.5% of the male elite athletes tested had testosterone levels below the normal range for men. Therefore presumably within the allowed female limit. 4.7% of the women tested had levels in the normal male range.

"Testosterone: Used by athletes to improve muscle mass, muscle recovery and endurance, testosterone occurs naturally in the body. Baseline levels of the hormone vary widely among different people, and one person's levels can vary widely from day to day. So positive tests for synthetic testosterone are based on a weight of evidence, not any surefire marker, and considerable leeway has to be given to ensure that no innocent athletes are punished for natural variations. (Athletes in the 2012 Olympics were allowed four times the normal levels of testosterone before they tripped a drug test.) This testing strategy, though logical, is highly vulnerable to passing over athletes who abuse testosterone in small doses, enough to give them an edge but not a positive test. The USADA alleges Armstrong and his team used just such a low-dose testosterone regimen. The report also claims that a doctor associated with Armstrong created a unique method of testosterone delivery, via an olive oil formulation that riders dribbled under their tongues, specifically designed to narrow the window of detection. [How Steroids Work]

About Testosterone and other LEGAL performance enhancing methods:
www.livescience.com/23932-lance-armstrong-doping-tests.html

Yes Wahh, trans men can compete in male events. Doubt they would be able qualify for most things and if they did they would still be at a disadvantage due to their female bone structure and muscle mass. Women lose out both ways.

www.livescience.com/50938-female-athletes-testosterone-olympics.html

Please don't flame me, because I have a genuine question and I don't know much about this issue.

I'm just wondering if any of you have a solution where both women, and transgender people (genuine ones, obviously, rather than just taking the treatment for this reason) could take part in an event such as this without either feeling marginalised and stomped on?

Because as far as I'm aware, both are fighting their own battles. Genuine question.

This introduces a whole new way of discriminating against women by forcing them to accept sex-disregarding conditions which are a disadvantage to women, whilst simultaneously enforcing sex-dependent conditions which also create a disadvantage to women.

I might start placing bets on new ways for women and women's rights to be eroded in the most ridiculous manner. Probably best to keep quiet about my fears about the closure of women's hospitals/gynaecological departments/maternity services which exclude TW in case it gives anyone any ideas.

I used to work with elite athletes. They'd do anything to win.

Personally, I struggle with wanting people to have a quiet life, limited only by bonne chance. I worry about the suicide rate of trans folk, the assaults, the discrimination - AND, I don't understand why M-F need to tramp all over me as a woman in order to demonstrate that they themselves feel female.

TBH, the more I read about this, the more I'm with Germaine.

Of course, I was never an elite athlete - just the bottle washer. But, seriously, those blokes were injecting anything they could get hold of cycling.

shamelesslyunladylike.tumblr.com/post/97837364323/fallon-fox-why-hormones-dont-make-a-woman

I linked to this on another thread. It's got several examples of trans women competing in women's sport