Today's Guardian (G2) on testosterone and transwomen in sport

[Tartyflette]

There's an interesting article in the G2 section of the Guardian today which among other things asserts that in 2016 the IOC "ruled that transgender women could compete (in women's events) without having had surgery as long as their testosterone levels were no higher than cisgender (sic) women's. "
I am happy to be corrected but I thought this ruling said a much higher testosterone level was permitted for transwomen than for women. That's what I have read on other threads on here, certainly.
The piece also talks about Caster Semenya but I am not sure it's relevant to the point I want to make.
If the line about levels for transwomen being the same as for women is factually incorrect I am going to comment on the website.

IOC ruled that testosterone levels had to be

Thank you badger -- can I use what you've written?
I won't say blatant lie even though I'd like to!

link: www.theguardian.com/science/2018/mar/20/testosterone-myth-male-hormone-behaviour-risk-taking

Certainly - this was an article I saved from the initial change which might be useful too: fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-olympics-are-still-struggling-to-define-gender/

Doh! Thanks for link jelly.
No comments available online for that piece, I have tweeted the journo.

From the Guardian article....

Ann Mallen recently told how she accidentally rubbed testosterone cream into her skin every day for a month due to a mixup at the pharmacy

Yet when you read the link, it was no such thing - kinda like the journalist just had a faulty recollection of the story and couldn't be bothered to re-read her own link.

Interesting article by Ann Mallen too - one for the 'nature not nurture' camp it seems.

Agree completely with feminist badger. If they made the maximum testosterone for women 6 or 7 it would be much better for women as hardly any XX women have testosterones above 4. Few female athletes have PCOS any way because of its link to obesity.
I think they should go back to not allowing anyone with a Y chromosome in women's sport as muscle physiology and pelvic structure are also different if you are male.

Also VOMax is massively different for men and women. Someone posted a graph on here - basically the average man of 65 will still have more lung capacity than a woman of 30.

Absolute nonsense. Can't find the article now, but even the TIM who researched this admitted that while because of some muscle loss and adverse effects of lower testosterone (since they don't lose their height, but have less testosterone), that in endurance TIMs do lose advantages (although there is no evidence whatsoever that they are on a level had they not had male puberty), even that person admitted that in terms of strength and power (think Laurel Hubbard) they retain clear advantages.

He then said, in reference to the Brazilian TIM setting records in women's volleyball, "how about we limit 1 trans women per team". It's a complete ludicrous farce, and the IOC ruling is not based on science at all, but purely on political lobbying.

Yes, MrG - and that's what's so frightening.
It was the issue of women's sport and the utter unfairness of transwomen being allowed to compete as women against women that first terfed me.
Quite a few years ago now I came across a strange, um, (hate to say statistic when I can't remember the basis of the info) finding that men who changed sex/transexuals (as they were then referred to - it was probably in the 90s) were generally taller than average for males, while female to male transexuals were shorter than the average woman. Probably only done on the basis of a small sample but may be germane in the field of sport, if it still pertains.