To be worried about the future of WOMEN'S athletics

[TeamCersei]

Just that really.

I've been avidly following the athletics and have noticed that at least two countries where the competitors are, how can I say this tactfully,? Are of dubious gender.
and guess what. They win the races. Every time.

How can women compete against this?
How is it fair?

I'm prepared to get my arse handed on a plate but I don't care.
I think this needs to be discussed.
God only knows how it feels from a competitor's point of view.
No matter how hard you train, the best woman can't hope to win against'men'

Also, trans individuals undergoing hormone treatment...are we not considering the implications that has on their body! It's not like they keep everything about their prior gender. A MTF is not going to have the strength she had as a man. She still has a bigger frame though, of course, but the effects of HRT must have some impact

But in certain sports the bigger frame DOES result in advantage. It also doesn't change bone density etc

Yanbu op and it really is only a matter of time before the ones who have their head in the sand are directly affected by this slow eeeking away of actual women's rights and services in general and wake up. Hopefully it won't be too late, people are becoming more aware though I find, thankfully, I'm not ridiculed anymore when I raise this issue with friends and family. I used to get "don't be daft men will never be able to compete against women/use their toilets/gym sessions/women can ask for a female doctor and actually get a biological woman" so people are starting to "get" it.

Yeah, the Yearwood thing sounds very very unfair. If she has had no hormone treatment, that is just like a teenage boy running against the girls. I in no way support a 'self-identification' rule and I very much doubt that will ever become the rule in international athletics.

It's really unfair to the thousands of female professional athletes to say that women's athletics are 'dead in the water'.

Papafran

The IOC guidelines already state that Female-to-male athletes can compete ‘without restriction’, while male-to-female athletes must undergo hormone therapy.

it also states

"transgender women are required to demonstrate that their testosterone levels have been below a certain threshold for at least a year."

and its T levels that are being put forward as the concern for intersex.

In ten years time, when countless women's medals are being won by transgender women, there will probably be a backlash, a panic by the sponsors, and things will be reverted to how they used to be.

I just feel sorry for the generation of female athletes who will miss out.

And I do feel sorry about trans athletes who should not be allowed to compete with women. But you know, that's life. People don't get to be top athletes for all sorts of physical reasons.

transgender women are required to demonstrate that their testosterone levels have been below a certain threshold for at least a year.

But it's.not just testosterone that is the issue. It's that the physiological make up of a male is different from a female (eg you can tell what sex a skeleton is). Very few of these differences will be changed in adulthood by restricting or increasing testosterone.

I think this thread very clearly identifies the difficulty with a move to a fluid, non binary approach to gender. This topic has been debated on here many times in relation to MtF transgender. The majority view always comes out as the issue should be determined by sex not gender - that you should only compete in women's sports if you were born with a vagina.

But Semenya does have a vagina. She had to prove it when questions started to be asked. So if you take her birth sex as your criterion there are no questions to be asked about whether she should be competing. The focus of this thread is about her (and others') hormone levels, not about her genitalia.

I'm not in favour of MtF trans people competing in women's sport. I've said on another thread that if someone born in a male body really felt like a woman, she would understand what women have been through in history and bow out of sports in respect for her sisters. If they continue to compete in sports but in women's events, then they don't feel like a woman, they still feel like a man.

But what this thread and others do is demonstrate that it isn't as simple as penis/vagina.

I agree that it needs debating.

I also feel very sorry for the intersex athletes who discovered a talent in their teens and worked hard - not knowing they were intersex having to endure all this questioning.

This is why a clear decision needs making.

I have read lots on how testosterone may not increase the advantage to the athletes because their body can't use it.
However that leave me with one question - why do athletes receive drugs bans for taking these hormones synthetically then if it bears no advantage?

The op is dnbu - the 'womens' 800 last night being a case in point

The op is dnbu - the 'womens' 800 last night being a case in point
It'll be a repeat of the Rio Olympics.

Being female sex isn't about having a vagina, it's about not having a Y chromosome. Semenya and the other intersex athletes in the 800m final almost certainly have a Y chromosome.
I don't want athletes in women's elite sport to have to show their genitals but if there is concern about their sex they should have a chromosome test. If you have a Y chromosome you shouldn't be racing with the women.

I would like to hear one good reason for segregating sport according to 'gender identity' because I can't think of any

I would like to hear one good reason for segregating sport according to 'gender identity' because I can't think of any

Because gender is innate and sex is a social construct?

2rebecca

But what about women with Swyer syndrome, who are XY but in every other regard are female (so no physical advantages etc)?

Very funny IAGTBF. I lose track after the three hundredth thread too.

I have actually seen people argue that...

I'm glad someone has mentioned Andraya Yearwood. The implications of her case are hugely significant, both for girls who should be winning but have no chance against her, but also for the girl who is likely to miss out on a college scholarship and therefore higher education. It's all very well for the coach to say that he welcomes her with open arms (his employment depends on him winning stuff, and with Yearwood his job jsut got a lot easier....) but it's not him who will be directly disadvantaged by allowing a boy who says that he feels like a girl to compete in the women's events

Elite athletics (in any event) involves an element of unfairness for everyone. It's unfair that some people have the physical and mental make-up that makes them faster / stronger / better coordinated than the rest of us. It's unfair that some people are born in countries that have strong development programmes and some are born in countries that don't even have an Olympic team. It's unfair when an athlete falls over in training, or gets norovirus, or has a family tragedy just before competition that means that they are unable to participate.

But there is no inalienable right to compete. Intersex athletes have the option of competing in the men's events. If they choose not to, then it doesn't automatically mean that they have the right to compete in the women's events.

Someone can correct me if this isn't right, but measuring testosterone levels doesn't eliminate the advantage conferred by having testosterone in the first place, do they?

Isn't there a recent study into steroids generally saying that even when the steroids had left person's body, the effects of them were still ongoing?

Sorry, not a scientist.

It's unfair that some people have the physical and mental make-up that makes them faster / stronger / better coordinated than the rest of us

Right. But if women are competing against women you're all starting (on the whole) from the same starting point.

If you add a male into the mix there's no way you, as a female, can ever aspire to attain their level as it's physiologically impossible.

I play rugby. Training 24 hours a day wouldn't change my pelvis shape/bone density etc

I agree Jacques. I'm just saying that life and elite competition is already riddled with unfairness, and I have no problem with saying to intersex athletes that their option is the men's competition or not to compete at all - which is obviously unfair to them as individuals (who have done nothing to bring this on themselves, and it must be horrific to have the speculation about one's genitalia, nevermind the invasive "tests")

I'm not really sure what or where I am going with this but these are some armchair stats for you from power of 10 website and a county athletics website.

Under 11 cross-country results (2150m) in 2017
Boys range from 7:00 - 10:08 (77 competitors)
50th= 8:20
25th = 7:48
Girls range from 7:30 - 10:22 (59 competitors)
50th = 9:50
25th = 8:42
In 2016 they ran 2350m in atrocious conditions (I was there)
Boys range from 9:08 - 16:53 (57 competitors)
50th = 12:19
25th = 10:58
Girls range from 9:59 - 14:44 (46 competitors)
25th = 12:07

Under 11 athletes finish xc at the end of the season in year 6 but will also include athletes in year 4 (and because these results are my local ones I know that some of the kids that did really well were quite young.) I think that this shows that perhaps testosterone is not the only reason why males are faster, stronger etc there is something else going on that virilisation may help with.

With under 13 athletes (school years 6 -7) where girls are often taller than their male counterparts the boys still do better.
So far this 2017 season:
800m top 50 girls faster than 2:28.7
800m top 50 boys faster than 2:21.3
100m top 50 girls faster than 13.50
100m top 50 boys faster than 13.00
Long jump top 50 girls further than 4.53m
LJ top 50 boys further than 4.72m

As I say I don't really know where I am going with this. Certainly I feel sorry for CS and everything she has been through but sports bodies really need to look into intersex and trans within women's competitions to make sure it is fair. I don't think the answer only lies in testosterone levels but the underlying different physiologies between girls and boys that are evident even at a young age, perhaps even before puberty.

Yanbu

2 girls in my daughters netball league have been thru male puberty and are taller and more muscular than any other team members. They feel they are girls so they play with the girls, no therapy, surgery or hormone therapy requirement.

Why do you keep putting trans and intersex people together?
They are not the same.
So intersex people just...shouldn't compete?
They absolutely should compete.
But why do they choose to compete in Women's Athletics?
You never hear of intersex people competing in the Men's

Why would a person who has been bought up as a woman all her life then go and compete in the mens athletics?
They haven't changed their sex, it's how they were born. Some only find out when they compete.
Certainly not because they think they have an edge

YANBU

It's Bullshit.