Trans people being allowed to compete against women in the Olympics

[OhShutUpThomas]

The Olympics are now allowing men who have taken hormones for 12 months compete against women.

It is NOT transphobic to say that this is grossly unfair and a huge violation of women's rights.

Women who have trained all their lives cannot be expected to compete against people with male bodies and who will be allowed roughly 4 times the normal female testosterone levels.

It's not on. We can't stand for it.

Please get behind this mumsnet. Someone needs to take a stand.

It's NOT transphobic to state that this is unfair. It really isn't.

bit late to this discussion but someone who has been exposed to male blood testosterone levels will always have a higher potential for muscularity (compared to a similar sized woman) even if they later have a female hormone profile

to level the playing field the women would need to be allowed to use steroids/testosterone and EPO

the muscle mass reduces over time and whilst any skeletal changes are still present, the result is that you are in effect just a tall woman

the muscle mass would reduce absent male androgen levels but strength training would bring some of it back...because exposure to androgens has long term effects, people who once used steroids will always have greater potential for muscle growth than those who havent ever used them

merrymouse
fascicle why would you trust the ioc? Looking at all the recent fiascos with drugs, Fifa, match fixing, and questionable sponsorship deals, why would it be assumed that any sports governing body know what they are doing?

I have no reason to distrust that particular committee. Why would its members jeopardise professional reputations? Not sure what you are saying - that the guidelines were voted in for ulterior motives? Just to reiterate a point made on another thread - the guidelines are not mandatory. Individual federations draw up their own rules. So what reason could there be to distrust the IOC on this matter?

There is no explanation on your link. The suggestion that a decision was made behind closed doors that is too complicated for lay people to understand is just dodging the question. If the reasoning is too complicated for a 'lay person' to understand, frankly it will also be over the heads of many (most? All?) of the members of the ioc. (There are a lot of minor royals).

The IOC offers some reasoning for its recommendations (points A-E). I'm not sure what level of detail you're after - are you talking about scientific papers, documents etc that their decision might have been based on? Out of interest, where did you hear that every member of the IOC had a vote on this?

yoy have basically argued that you support the change, but you don't know why and it is probably too complicated to understand.

No, not accurate at all. I haven't said I support the change. I've said I'm happy for transwomen to compete and it'll be easier to judge fairness once any changes have been put into practice. To have an idea at this stage would require very specific knowledge (e.g likely effects of a hormone programme resulting in a testosterone level below 10 nmol/L for a year; comparison of eligible, hormone treated transwomen to female athletes in a similar event).

fascicle would you answer what I asked about my lay person's understanding of this?

What you seem to be saying is to just wait and see what will happen, and that you're fairly certain that women's competitions won't be unfair and that individual sporting federations can ignore the ruling anyway. Is that fair or am I misrepresenting?

It's a totally mad idea. So does that mean team sports as well. Haven't read the thread but I expect it does. Women should just boycott the sport. I would in their position.

This is an interesting research article about the previous IOC decision to use testosterone levels as the decider re sex class rules for individuals with intersex conditions.

You can see how once you have decided to use testosterone levels to decide 'when is a woman a woman' you can also use it to decide 'when is a man a woman' too.

And how crude a measure it is as well.

The next article is really interesting as well, and perhaps gives some more reasoning as to why some people think that there isn't really binary sexual dimorphism. It's more social than scientific research, so it doesn't refer to any of the known differences between men and women, more the difficulty with tests for sex differences (annoyingly it muddles up gender and sex a fair bit).

I think this is a bad move by the IOC. I will boycott future games and sponsors.

I feel sick to be a mother of dds and a bleeder and birther. What next?

Fascicle, those points don't provide an explanation.

The reasoning is that people should have autonomy of gender and therefore shouldn't be excluded from competition by the fact that they don't want to identify as male or female.

"Since the 2003 Stockholm Consensus on Sex Reassignment in Sports, there has been a growing recognition of the importance of autonomy of gender identity in society, as reflected in the laws of many jurisdictions worldwide."

However, women and men compete separately because their bodies are different as a consequence of their biological sex which can't be chosen.

Logically, either biological sex is sufficiently defining for there to be a point to men's and women's classes, or it makes no difference and we should all compete together.

Decisions like this have a wider influence that goes beyond the olympics and beyond sport. It's not a case of wait and see - this creates a precedent for how things should be done and places the onus on the individusl sport to prove that it is unfair for a trans person to take part - how on earth would you do that? If a trans woman beat Paula Radcliff's record, how would you differentiate between a trans woman, a man and a woman with a unique ability? You seem to assume that somebody would have the expertise to do this, but why?

The IOC's own reasoning is that this change is necessary because of a change in society's perspective on gender - except it isn't clear what gender is.

I don't know who had a vote on this, but the reasoning and logic of a well thought out policy should be understandable to the 'lay' person.

Not sure what you are saying - that the guidelines were voted in for ulterior motives?

I have no idea why they have made this decision, but would be more inclined to think that they just haven't thought it through and want to be on trend with the latest equality issue. That might seem odd, but Miller seems unable to understand opposition to her report, so why would the IOC be more enlightened?

My point was that there is no particular reason to believe that they know what they are doing just because they are on an international sports committee.

*Maria Miller.

merrymouse truly excellent post there!

The one point of contention I have is with this:

Logically, either biological sex is sufficiently defining for there to be a point to men's and women's classes, or it makes no difference and we should all compete together.

There is a third option (which is the one I believe to be actually true), which is that biological sex DOES make a difference but it is also INSUFFICIENTLY defining for there to be a point to men's and women's classes.

There are women who are further out of the average range for women, than the average transwoman will be. So it is hard to justify exclusion if the average transwoman lies inside the range of XX women. The fact that the exceptional transwomen will lie outside the range of the exceptional XX women is what will cause problems with who gets gold medals...

The extent of overlap of the bell curve of physical ability between women and transwomen would have to overlap to a greater extent in order for competition between women and transwomen to be fair. Nowhere in the IOC report or anywhere else have I seen anything to suggest that this would be the case. Essentially the IOC want to perform an experiment to see what happens, potentially at the expense of women in sport. I don't see why there's a justification for this.

I think for me the crux of the matter is that someone has taken hormones for 1 year .. it's madness that this person can compete as a woman.

Yes culture -especially since (nerd hat on) in the very nature of elite sport, we're looking at extreme value theory, rather than just the mean and standard deviations of the distributions.

Wow Ice, you really think there's no reason for women's sport, and men and women should just compete together?
I'd have to disagree with you on that!

Like your post though Culture - very scientifically and reasonably put

CultureSucksDownWords
Maybe I'm too much of lay person to understand this, but how is it reasonable for a man who has made no medical transition and who could have a normal-for-a-male level of testosterone, to compete with a biological woman? I just don't get how that's reasonable. That summary doesn't explain it either it just outlines their decisions.

Do you mean somebody who is trans, but naturally has a testosterone level of below 10 nmol/L? Or do you mean a male athlete who wishes to take advantage of a naturally low testosterone level that would qualify him for women's competition? I would think the chances of the first option are very small, and the second option would be a cheating issue.

What you seem to be saying is to just wait and see what will happen, and that you're fairly certain that women's competitions won't be unfair and that individual sporting federations can ignore the ruling anyway. Is that fair or am I misrepresenting?

That's not accurate, no. I'm not certain of the outcome of the rules at all. What I'm saying is: I think it's very difficult to assess this without seeing the guidelines in operation, at which point, I would expect issues and discrepancies to become apparent. Unless there is data out there from federations which already use similar guidelines and can put forward evidence – I've not come across any and I suspect the current numbers of competing elite trans athletes with the required testosterone levels might be small. It's up to each sporting federation to apply their own rules, so it would seem that they could ignore the guidelines (any maybe their appropriateness might vary in different disciplines). Whether there is any pressure to follow the guidelines, I don't know.

The extent of overlap of the bell curve of physical ability between women and transwomen would have to overlap to a greater extent in order for competition between women and transwomen to be fair.

What is the current overlap between women and transwomen (who satisfy the testosterone conditions)?

Yes androgens are important in distinguishing men from women but focusing on the blood levels of a trans woman is missing the point

What matters more is exposure to androgens in utero, in puberty and throughout adulthood
This is what gives rise to the greater potential for sporting prowess, the more powerful male body
A trans woman still has that male body.

Just to repeat Nooka's excellent links:

history.msu.edu/hst484-f15/files/2015/10/Sullivan-2011-JSSI.pdf

press.endocrine.org/doi/full/10.1210/jc.2012-2792

Comprehensive history of the background, and difficulties, of making fair elibility rules, particularly for women's competition.

And some of IceBeing's points, questioning how we categorise competition according to sex, are in the second article .

I would expect issues and discrepancies to become apparent.

Why?

Who would judge when the discrepancies were enough for rules to be changed?

How long would that take? 5 years? 10? 20?

How would you compare one trans woman with another, if gender or sex (and The IOC seem to be confusing the two) is a matter of self determination?

Whether there is any pressure to follow the guidelines, I don't know.

If there were no pressure to make these changes the IOC would not have made them.

merrymouse
I'm sure people will be observing, with interest, the effect of any changes in practice as a result of the guidelines. If Iran fields a women's football team with 8 transgender members, it won't go without comment - people will be looking for any signs of unfair advantage. I would expect not just the public, but female athletes, to be up in arms if the new conditions prove to be unfair. I would assume changes would be made before another Olympics took place.

I'm unsure why you're asking about comparing one transwoman with another.

Is it the IOC's use of the term 'gender identity' you're referring to? What would you change it to?

If there were no pressure to make these changes the IOC would not have made them.

Pressure from the IOC? I doubt it would be the only reason. It could be their idea of communicating what they consider to be best practice, which might be more/less relevant depending on individual sporting disciplines. There are other considerations for making it easier for transgender athletes to compete, but the IOC's overriding objective still has to be fair competition.

I'm unsure why you're asking about comparing one transwoman with another

Because the fact that a particular trans athlete does not have an advantage in one sport could not lead to the conclusion that no trans athlete has any advantage in any sport. Men may be generally stronger and faster than women, but within that there is a huge range of ability.

I would expect not just the public, but female athletes, to be up in arms if the new conditions prove to be unfair.

How can anybody say the new guidelines are unfair if the new orthodoxy is that anybody who self identifies as a woman is a woman? People might be upset, but the logical conclusion to trans woman = woman is that some women are better at sports than others, and they just happen to be trans (if it's even acceptable to refer to them as trans)

It could be their idea of communicating what they consider to be best practice, which might be more/less relevant depending on individual sporting disciplines.

Then they should be able to explain why it is best practice.