Science of sports issue to be discussed on radio 4 now

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www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/live:bbc_radio_fourfm

Out of interest does anyone know if Seb Coe has ever spoken about any of this?

The real question is, if the IOC adviser thinks that more needs to be done to make it fairer for women, what are the IOC actually doing about it?

If you read this article, there is a suggestion that the IOC had decided from a policy perspective to include TW in Olympic sports and then looked to see how they could make. It quotes the professor of human genetics who helped the IOC draw up their policies. It seems clear from his statements that the IOC were not looking to create a level playing field but were looking for ways to include trans athletes in women's sports and therefore how to measure that a trans athlete had diminished their male advantage in some way.

www.velonews.com/2018/10/news/commentary-the-complicated-case-of-transgender-cyclist-dr-rachel-mckinnon_480285

This is consistent with RMcK's view that TW should be able to compete because TWAW and everything else flows from that. The IOC seem to have taken that view too.

Yep. It was all about creating a pathway, not about establishing whether or not a pathway of this sort made any sense.

The message seems to be that any disadvantage caused to women is, to them, an acceptable impact of the policy of trans inclusion.

I thought the science explaining that foetuses become male due to a huge testosterone surge in the womb pretty much rules out any argument that TWAW?

Fairplay my arse

Mcfibber will be sputtering TWAW forever. Poor saugage. Still, could get a job with deliveroo to make money from cycling?

Foetuses are female or male from conception depending on whether a Y or an X chromosome is donated by the sperm. The testosterone surge for male foetuses causes the cells to differentiate into male or female sex organs. That doesn't mean the foetus started out female or neither then became male.

Why is it different for average sports people? Why isn't it relative, all the way down to any sports person post puberty?

Yes I wondered this too, I wish his point could have been expanded upon if there was more time.

I think his point is - don't compare an elite female athlete to an average male athlete (or even just an average male). The two aren't comparable. Compare a male who is in the top 1% of athletic ability as a male in sport X, who then transitions to a facsimilie of a female and compare that with a female in the top 1% of female athletic ability in sport X.

Similarly, compare someone male who is "decent" with a "decent" female.

Otherwise we will end up with a "decent" male athlete, like McKinnon (is she* even decent???) challenging a top 1% female athlete, which is not fair. We want our elite level sports to be people who are the top 1% in their category, with all the hard work and years/decades of training that requires. Not people who breeze into the sport in their late 20s and train 14 hours a week, and are technically shite (eg McKinnon).

Foetuses are female or male from conception depending on whether a Y or an X chromosome is donated by the sperm. The testosterone surge for male foetuses causes the cells to differentiate into male or female sex organs. That doesn't mean the foetus started out female or neither then became male.

Exactly, the reason there is a testosterone surge in male foetuses is because they are male XY in the first place, from conception, due to the successful sperm. There isn't just an "oh, it could be either" and then the woman's body randomly decides to flush a load of testosterone into the womb, precipitated by nothing at all.

There are overlaps between age bands - some 50 year olds will be better than some 20 year olds.

Why aren’t people wanting to get rid of those? McKinnon, for example, races in age categories yet doesn’t appear to want to “stop the segregation”.

Thank you for sharing. This is very good news but I too am annoyed that any of this is even a debate when it’s basic facts. Also annoyed the female athletes who have spoken recently have been abused and called names for stating the same fact based opinions as these two male scientists.

I wasn’t up for acknowledging IWD since so many women’s orgs are including males, but this might boost my spirits!

One thing did concern me though and needed a follow up question from Robinson. One of the profs said that after the initial foetal testosterone surge, boys and girls are similar until puberty. One inference might be that you should defo give boys puberty blockers very early if they're wanting to transition. If they do that does that mean the transing boy will not have any advantages and could compete as a trans woman? or does the foetal surge give them an advantage either which way? Or did I mishear?

But it comes to something when reporting proper science on The BBC's flagship news programme is a surprise.

Not really. As a scientist I regularly shout at John Humpfreys the Today programme. Journalism likes a 'debate' more than they like scientific consensus. So they present an idiot talking out of their arse vs a scientific expert representing the majority view based on current research and pretend it's a balanced debate.

See the comment above about climate change. Or any vaccination scare (Andrew Wakefield being given far too much airspace resulting in children dying of measles). Or, well anything that involves facts rather than opinions.

Wonder if anyone is going to fact check RMs claim she's received death threats?

Missed this as I was on the school run, but glad it happened. Mentally exhausted by it, but glad all the same.

Scared the DC with my cheering in the kitchen this mornung. Proper evidence. At last,

One of the profs said that after the initial foetal testosterone surge, boys and girls are similar until puberty

I think he was answering in the context of their sporting performance. He also said 'similar' which is not 'the same'.

Professor Alison Heather talks about how the differences are already present pre puberty here:

m.youtube.com/watch?v=B0pfueKxhVI

It’s an excellent talk. I’m going to rewatch it. It deserves a bigger audience.

The professor on today - Euan Hughes - definitely wasn't involved in the IOC committee in 2015, when the current rules were put in place. One of their main advisors (and probably the most vocal) was transwoman, ex runner Joanna Harper who was responsible for that report (referred to today on the programme) which took eight average athletes, and compared their performance pre and post transition, at vastly different ages.

stillmed.olympic.org/Documents/Commissions_PDFfiles/Medical_commission/2015-11_ioc_consensus_meeting_on_sex_reassignment_and_hyperandrogenism-en.pdf

What first alerted you to the fact that transwomen runners have no competitive advantage? We asked Joanna Harper, a transwoman competitive runner.

It's like "What first attracted you to the multimillionaire Paul Daniels?"....

If boys and girls are physically the same until puberty then why this?

www.rcpch.ac.uk/resources/uk-who-growth-charts-0-4-years

At the end of 2017 Joanna Harper was on Fox News saying Joanna Harper believed the new limits for testosterone for trans athletes was TOO HIGH!

m.youtube.com/watch?v=i6-FJoZm53Y

So if even the advising self-interested trans athlete supported lower limits how the fuck did the IOC settle on 10?

I too wanted to know more about the different effects of the same levels of testosterone on men and women - I think that was about to be touched on? Ie are men more androgen sensitive on a cellular level than women?

Also made me wonder, I’ve not seen anyone talk about this -in theory if a woman was to transition, take male hormones, bulk up etc etc and then detransition, come off hormones for the requisite time period, would they be at an advantage in women’s sports?

I think the point is that, prior to puberty, the overlap in physical ability bw boys and girls is huge. The differences in performance that we see are far more down to gender/ societal norms until puberty.

Puberty however is a game changer.

adultFemaleElf I agree, I have a boy child and a girl child. Long before I gave the issue of trans & sport any though I was struck by how different physically they were as young as 3 & 5. We were on the beach and they both had the same make of wetsuits on - I have a photo of the both standing just at the waters edge looking out to the sea and you can tell from their shape that one was male and one was female, even at such a young age.

I can’t imagibe too much has been researched on this - I mean who’s going to fund a study into the physical differences between pre pubescent boys and girls when it’s so bloody obvious!!