AIBU - Transgender 'athletes'

[HappyHippo1234]

To start off - I have no issue with trans people at all. The only issue I have is transgender females (male to female) competing in women sports.

Yes, they may have been taking hormones and they have lost some muscle and gained some fat. But, they have stronger bones and bigger spines, hands, feet, lungs and hearts. Basically trans females have an advantage over biological females.

What I absolutely HATE about the situation, it the trans athletes attitude, it honestly disgusts me. Did they never take biology as teenagers or learn about puberty?
For them to sit there with their wins and say that they have no advantage just p*sses me off. Are they stupid or ignorant? There's no way they don't know they have an advantage. Do they not realise they are taking wins away from girls and woman who have spent their whole lives training for a sport only for it to be taken away from someone who was a mediocre male.

Look at Lia Thomas, she was somewhere in the 400-500th best college male swimmer or something like that. She is now trans and BAM she is number 1 and winning everything.

It just annoys me to no end. Especially the trans woman who you can tell that they KNOW they have a major advantage and are cheating the system and then sit there with a SMUG GRIN on their faces. I mean every Caitlyn Jenner said it's wrong.

Sorry for the rant. My DD15 has been upset all week as on the weekend another girl beat all the girls by a huge stretch in her cross country meet (her team is usually 1st but were bumped to 2nd). At first everyone thought this girl was great, until one mom heard the group the girl was with discussing the results and how it was great for the team that this girl came out as trans and was boosting their results etc! Fair to say that news travelled quickly and there were MANY parents complaining to officials. But surprise surprise nothing was done about it. So at the award giving ceremony everyone waited as everything up to 1st place was given out and as soon as they got to the 1st team, I would say 95% of people walked away. It felt harsh but necessary!
(Also the girl was 16 and had only recently transitioned from what we could gather and when you actually looked at her you could tell she had gone through at least some portion of male puberty). Again nothing against the girl just don't think she could compete.

And to get around all these discrimination lawsuits, I think they should change the categories! Have an XX category and an XY category, that why there is no debate and no 'discrimination' as you can't identify as XY if you are XX! (And then also have an open category where trans, non-binary etc. can compete).

SORRY THAT WAS SO LONG. NOW FOR THE VOTE:

YABU - Trans (XX) women are woman and should be allowed to compete with XY women, even though they scientifically have an advantage.

YANBU - They will always have an advantage and so should not compete with XY women.

Never mind the fact that female athletes deal with periods and pregnancy

Yeah you're probably right to be fair @SoupDragon, because she did say once they knew it was fairly obvious.

It's funny that's it's rarely women transitioning to men who compete in high level sports...

Of course they know, they’re just pretending they don’t.

Lia Thomas chose the new name “Lia[r]”for a reason…

This session from SBS Australia might be interesting for some readers. In particular, that person in the thumbnail below is Mianne Baggar. Who successfully had the women's golf tournaments opened to males like Baggar. They now understand the damage to women's golf they have done (not necessarily said here, but I have watched quite a few of their panel appearances and they now fully understand the issues that they did not understand before).

There is also a great segment with Dr David Handelsman who is one of Australia's testosterone experts.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33289906/

This above is the review of 13 studies from Dr Emma Hilton and Tommy Lundberg.

bjsm.bmj.com/content/early/2021/02/28/bjsports-2020-103106

And Harper's study that reached similar conclusions to Hilton and Lundberg.

https://idrottsforum.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/devineetal221129.pdf

"When Ideology Trumps Science: A response to the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport’s Review on Transwomen Athletes in the Female Category"

Cathy Devine, Emma Hilton, Leslie Howe, Miroslav Imbrišević, Tommy Lundberg, Jon Pike

Independent Scholar; University of Manchester; University of Saskatchewan; Open University (UK); Karolinska Institutet

29 November 2022

This response was put together to address a published document about the 'ethical' considerations for males with trans identities to compete in female sports categories.

https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/early/2022/09/01/bjsports-2021-105400.info

New study from Brazil

Cardiopulmonary capacity and muscle strength in transgender women on long-term gender-affirming hormone therapy: a cross-sectional study

Leonardo Azevedo Mobilia Alvares, Marcelo Rodrigues Santos, Francis Ribeiro Souza, Lívia Marcela Santos, Berenice Bilharinho de Mendonça, Elaine Maria Frade Costa, Maria Janieire Nazaré Nunes Alves, Sorahia Domenice

Conclusion
In this small cohort of non-athlete TW, who were previously exposed to male pubertal development and underwent long-term oestrogen therapy, we identified higher grip strength and VO2 peak levels than in non-athlete CW, but these same parameters were lower compared with non-athlete CM.

These findings add new insights to the sparse information available on a highly controversial topic about the participation of TW in physical activities. Future studies involving transgender athletes that account for and quantify variable exposure times to pubertal development and assess muscle cell metabolism are needed to elucidate the effects of long-term GAHT on TW sports performance.

From Ross Tucker on this study above:

Over a decade (14.4 yrs average) of T-suppression, and TW have VO2max 20% higher, grip strength 19% higher & skeletal mass 40% than women. More evidence that male biology persists long after T is removed. Another piece of the same puzzle, albeit from a cross-sectional study.

The cross-sectional bit is important - the study hasn't (like over a dozen others) tracked people from Day zero onwards, so the differences are a 'snapshot' rather than a 'movie', if that makes sense? Means you don't know how those TW began, 14.4 yrs earlier, but the finding of quite large differences compared to women (20% or more) is striking, because a) they either began as typically representative of males, and lost some, but retained significant advantages vs women, or b) they began well below men, and lost hardly any advantages. In either case, the end point, over a decade later, is biological differences compared to women that will create performance implications. Of interest, the mass retention and VO2max advantage mean that relative VO2max (ml/kg/min) ends up similar, which means in some sports (weight-determined) the performance implication may differ - sometimes very large, sometimes smaller, as in some categories within endurance sports.

But zero? Unlikely, because cardio function, FFM & strength are greater. Important paper, showing striking biological 'persistence' 14 yrs on.
Two further thoughts on the study. First, the TW vs women differences in muscle mass and strength remain large (20%) after more than a decade of T suppression. One year vs ten, biology "persists". Second, add training to the mix and TW and women would obviously get stronger.

You could TRY to argue that women would get stronger relatively more than TW (you'd have a job on your hands to explain why this would be, but anyway). More likely is that the differences - TW vs women - would persist or even increase with the addition of training. What this study confirms is that non-trained TW retain biological differences with performance implications after 14 years of T suppression. You'd have to believe that W could make up these gaps with training to believe in fairness in sport. That is, trained W = non-trained TW = fair!

https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/early/2020/11/06/bjsports-2020-102329

Timothy A Roberts, Joshua Smalley, Dale Ahrendt

Effect of gender affirming hormones on athletic performance in transwomen and transmen: implications for sporting organisations and legislators

Summary The 15–31% athletic advantage that transwomen displayed over their female counterparts prior to starting gender affirming hormones declined with feminising therapy. However, transwomen still had a 9% faster mean run speed after the 1 year period of testosterone suppression that is recommended by World Athletics for inclusion in women’s events.

It is interesting reading as it also leaves the suggestion that even after 3 years advantage still exists.

And Sean Ingle’s take on it.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2020/dec/07/study-suggests-ioc-adjustment-period-for-trans-women-may-be-too-short

Society today prioritises inclusion. When it's SEND kids and kids with ADHD in mainstream classrooms, the MN massive takes a very different view on what 'fairness' is.

If societal rule number one is that every individual should be able to compete in their chosen sport somewhere (the inclusion principle).
And societal and environmental factors mean that there are currently only two divisions within which an adult can compete - men's or women's.
Then the judgment should really be, in which division is it most fair for that individual to compete in?
I don't see why it should be so outrageous for the medical and sporting experts who make these assessments to decide that sometimes that means people born in one sex should compete alongside people born in the other.
In fact, there's a strong case to say that some sports should have classes by testosterone levels, measured before each event (like weigh-ins at boxing).
That'd see men and women competing together in many divisions, but also it would be more nuanced, and more fair - right?

If you want perfect fairness, then sure, let's have 7 billion categories and we can all have a gold medal. That's the illogical end point of intersectionality. But every single point before that absurd outcome requires some choice or judgment of how you define fairness - and that definition will result in some people not getting 'their' gold.

If you take a hard line, ultra competitive, winner-takes-all approach, then there should just be one category - an open one. But the people justifying women's sports as a separate division are loathe to acknowledge that it is having a very limited and specific definition of 'fairness' that creates this issue in the first place.

And the hypocrisy is rank. The same people will also argue that women should be paid the same for winning a best of three sets tennis match (watched by about a million people) than a man winning a best of five sets tennis match (watched by 3 million people). I guess fairness means something different when you're looking to smash the glass ceiling than it does when you are punching down to someone who is mentally ill and struggling to find their place in the world.

Here is the hip diagram. If the share token doesn't work look it up on the archive site (that I cannot link to but you can find it)

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/3081c8c0-af7c-11ec-8b8c-0207c0fd6104?shareToken=dfc4c5b36b407a8e0ccc2133e718b121

Alternatively archive today/u4oSa

The article is titled: If you believe in fair competition, Emily Bridges should not be racing Laura Kenny

Oh dear.

And the hypocrisy is rank. The same people will also argue that women should be paid the same for winning a best of three sets tennis match (watched by about a million people) than a man winning a best of five sets tennis match (watched by 3 million people).

Are you a mens right's activist then?

Do you actually understand why female's have their own sports ? Do you understand equity?

Has anyone tested the female tennis players to see if they have the capability to perform at the same level for five sets without injuring themselves?

Have you understood how hard female tennis players have had to work to get recognised as being as high a performing players as male players and that they still encounter negative sexist discrimination?

Do you understand female athletics at all?

In fact, there's a strong case to say that some sports should have classes by testosterone levels, measured before each event (like weigh-ins at boxing).

Ah yes, because it just comes down to testosterone levels doesn't it. Nothing else 🙄.

Can you tell me a male tennis player that had to make the decision about whether to carry their pregnancy or not?

"In fact, there's a strong case to say that some sports should have classes by testosterone levels, measured before each event (like weigh-ins at boxing).
That'd see men and women competing together in many divisions, but also it would be more nuanced, and more fair - right?"

Your rhetoric here is intent on allowing harm to female athletes based on your own lack of information.

The punch power difference is one of those advantages that is very clear to remain very high after testosterone suppression. It is about leverage. It is about muscle type. It is about bone density. It is also about female brains and how they are prone to damage because of fragile brain fibres.

You are ludicrously repeated unsubstantiated trope from somewhere else on the internet. And you are spreading misinformation that is harmful to all females.

Do you want males in female sports

Why?

But they will never accept those boundaries.

I think being happy to cheat and trample on female boundaries is a much worse character trait than refusal to use pronouns.

Also to same poster are you male?

Here you go @Mark19735.

Read these. I have even included Harper's for you. Harper is, of course, trans themselves. And even Harper disagrees that males should be boxing against females....

It's blindingly obvious why it's "rarely" trans men competing in high level sport... I've tried in the past to think of an example of a sport where a woman has a physical advantage over a man and I can't. Are there any trans men competing in high level sport?

(maybe a woman might have an advantage in diving due to a smaller frame...?)

Is a biological boy in sport one of those things that should never even happen in the first place? Of course it is. But Op didn't even know it was a boy until their parent bragged.

//

So sneaky as well as cheaty

Gaslighting women and girls is ok because sometimes life isn't fair.

Can someone tell me why girls should suck this up but the "unfairness " of telling a trans person they must compete in their birth sex category is an unacceptable injustice?

Shut up, there's no gaslighting. Stop misusing the term.

She also uses accessible toilets as she says she understand why woman would feel uncomfortable with someone of male sex in woman's only spaces.

Well I am afraid I don't applaud this. It's just asking a different group to be pushed aside (disabled) instead of women.

Men who dress as women have two options.

1. Remain in their own sex category and expand the bandwidth of what it means to be male. Ditto changing rooms, toilets and prisons.

2. If they can't accept that they belong in male spaces or feel 'scared' they can campaign for third spaces and in the meantime self exclude and get the true experience of what it's like to be a woman, urinary leash, missing out on sports, government not listening to them or providing for them. How affirming.

Everything else is unfair to woman and girls at best and a gift to sexual predators and men who want to humiliate women at worst.

This is from the Hilton & Lundberg study.

"Recently, sexual dimorphism in arm force and power was investigated in a punch motion in moderately-trained individuals 50]. The power produced during a punch was 162% greater in males than in females, and the least powerful man produced more power than the most powerful woman. This highlights that sex differences in parameters such as mass, strength and speed may combine to produce even larger sex differences in sport-specific actions, which often are a product of how various physical capacities combine. For example, power production is the product of force and velocity, and momentum is defined as mass multiplied by velocity."

This might be interesting to some who are discussing mixed sex sports too.

" Indeed, already at 17 years of age, the average male throws a ball further than 99% of 17-year-old females 51], despite no single variable (arm length, muscle mass etc.) reaching this numerical advantage."

As it has been said by some excellently researched women sport's advocates, 'you cannot unboil an egg'. Once puberty has started, there is no way to wind back on the advantages it gives to male bodies over female bodies.

If mixed sex sports are wanted, then rules need to be adapted to protect the female bodies players. It is dangerous in many contact or even low contact sports to have males playing with female players without protecting the female players.

Shut up?

Women stop speaking. Why?

He is fully in favour of sea lions competing in sports...