The Times:The looming Olympic controversy: who can compete as a woman?

[TimeLady]

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-looming-olympic-controversy-who-can-compete-as-a-woman-mwvr97cqx?shareToken=45c69647a787b88d05fbe3fb4d55c7f2

A number of leading sporting organisations are reviewing their policy on transgender athletes amid concerns that men who transition to become women could receive an unfair advantage in female sport.
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The IOC has a “consensus group” working on the issue and aims to provide updated guidelines this year. The issue is separate to the debate on intersex athletes such as the South African runner Caster Semenya, who is legally challenging the IAAF’s rules that they should have chemically-lowered testosterone.

Not before time.

I think that either of 2 things will happen - both of which will end up being a positive outcome for women - 1) Various sports allow a range of Transwomen to compete against women - Result the world peak - trans 2) Sports start to create a set of stringent rules or block Transwomen from competing - result lots of anger from TW - lots of debate - world peak trans - At the last olympics if the TW weight lifter (ex pro male weightblifter) had won a medal - the debate would have started then

Nothing illustrates more vividly the subordination of women than men deciding who can be one.

Hear, hear, EJennings! I want a tshirt with this on it...

They ought to drop the free testosterone level thing. Lowering testosterone doesn’t make a man a woman and having high testosterone doesn’t make a woman a man.

Free testosterone levels are a proxy for sex; they are not sex.

Nothing illustrates more vividly the subordination of women than men deciding who can be one.

Fuck..... This!

I might get this tattooed on my forehead!

Our favorite women's cycling champion wants to compete:

It was sport that peak transed me.

Nothing illustrates more vividly the subordination of women than men deciding who can be one.

Hear, hear, EJennings! I want a tshirt with this on it...

Me too please

The rare cases of people who have never had a molecule of testosterone act one them (people with total androgen insensitivity) show conclusively that testosterone alone is not enough to create the Male advantage. People with CaIS are still bigger and have better athletic ability than females.

So testosterone alone cannot be used.

Cases like Semenya’s cannot be used to set the rules for transgender athletes. Intersex is not transgender.

Biological sex HAS to be the absolute and only qualifier. Testosterone is, as aspie says, a proxy only.

Pelvis is similar up to puberty. However, remember that up to a few years back the very idea of stopping a child’s puberty entirely would have been seen as grossly unethical. Really beyond the pale. So there’s no answer to ‘how does it develop in the absence of puberty’, only to ‘how does it develop through normal puberty.’

Interestingly I’m sure I’ve read that post menopause the pelvis narrows v v slightly. There’s a real difference in biomechanical efficiency from the leg/pelvis angle

Not sure about the font, what does everyone think?

I don't know if it works graphically but I would want the line breaks to be:

Nothing illustrates more vividly
the subordination of women
than men deciding
who can be one.

Nothing illustrates more vividly the subordination of women than men deciding who can be one.

This ⬆️⬆️ exactly this!

sexual dimorphism starts at the foetal stage - there are differences even in v young babies. Note the growth curves for example differ. Puberty is a time of amplification of many of these differences but I suspect that differences would exist without puberty.

And again the reminder that the idea of stopping the puberty of a healthy child would have been seen as a disturbing and unethical, almost nightmarish experiment up until very recently.

And not sure how useful a different leg/pelvis angle will be to children who have had their puberty blocked for years by drugs that will make their bones crumble...

I say: let trans women compete with natal women in the next olympics.

The whole word will peak trans instantly, stopping the rest of this madness.

Nothing illustrates more vividly the subordination of women than men deciding who can be one

This. Definitely this.

Can you also do a tote bag please.

Not EJennings version; placing the lines thusly makes it a rectangle and less t-shirt/tote bag frindly IMO.

I say: let trans women compete with natal women in the next olympics.

The whole word will peak trans instantly, stopping the rest of this madness.

I'm inclined to agree. Sport will be a deciding factor in the end.

I also agree. It'll take TW winning women's gold medals at the Olympics for things to change. It'll take worldwide booing for the authorities to realise they've made a massive mistake. And then we'll see a ripple effect as all the organisations such as the Girl Guides etc hastily rewrite their polices.

I've said all along that sport will be the issue that peak trans-es many men

They will simply see mediocre men trying to cheat and the beach volleyball players will be less ogle-able