Female athletes and testosterone

[Queuingroundtheblock]

Just musing with a friend and we wondered - is the 10 nanomole testosterone limit for Olympic trans women athletes only for tw? Could women take testosterone to boost performance? I mean, obviously it's a really bad idea but just wondered if it's now allowed?

And the fact they are essentially saying that men with lower testosterone around the world are.. women?

That's really insulting to both men and women.

[quote PennineSpring]Oh York has a view. The last time it was posted about on a different thread, all the posts were deleted. Let’s try again.

road.cc/content/news/269035-idea-transgender-people-are-going-take-over-womens-sport-absolutely-ridiculous[/quote]
How delusional.

'She believes that being from a country that can afford to sponsor your training is “way more advantageous than your gender.”'

Pretty much every quote of Millar in that article is complete nonsense.

It's such s shame.

RM was amazing. Our family always watched the tour. Seeing RM in action was incredible.

I feel quite upset tbh. A legend of my childhood. Transitioning- fair enough. Saying that stuff. Upsetting TBH.

I am sure it is NOT going to be Harper’s 8 person self reported study

Indeed, Harper's review own published this year corroborates Hilton's and basically obsoletes that - there is a mass of evidence that lowering testosterone does not eliminate the benefits of a male puberty.

Which is why Harper was reduced to arguing on the radio the other day that men with lowered testosterone don't have "too much" of an advantage.

The argument that was mustered was that after lowering testosterone, their average performance may be closer to female average than to male average, so they should compete in the female category. (Except maybe weightlifting, was conceded.) Eliminating half the advantage should be the goal was now the claim.

Although it's far from clear that half the advantage is eliminated for most sports, and having half the male advantage is still HUGE at competitive level.

(And note that we're only talking average performance reductions here - for a lot of individuals there is hardly any performance loss, according to the studies! Basically you'd be in a situation of selecting for males who respond best to testosterone suppression.)

Harper is somewhat out-of-depth here, being a scientist. You're going to need a philosopher of bullshit to make these arguments. Not sure if there are any currently available - our most well-known seems to have gone into hiding.

@Cyclingmum50

Thank you. Yes I'm fully aware of the "evidence"that you choose to follow and refer to.

Hi @Cyclingmum50.

Would you mind sharing with us the evidence that you’re using to support the claim that male bodied people can fairly compete in women’s sport? I am very interested in this topic, and if there’s evidence out there that I’ve missed, I’d like to see it. Particularly the piece about transwomen’s T levels usually being under 2, which is certainly news to me, as from my understanding, the origin of these IoC rules was to enable male bodied trans athletes not to have to completely obliterate their T levels, as that makes them quite unwell and certainly not able to maintain the necessary training volume.

This evidence you’re referring to does exist, doesn’t it?

British Cycling’s policy is that the athlete’s total testosterone level in serum must remain below 5 nmol/L throughout the period of desired eligibility to compete in the female category.

Since you have to comply with BC regulations to be eligible to gain a place on Team GB, then cyclists (same as track and field athletes) would need to comply with this limit rather than the higher IOC limit?

I should be grateful for some help understanding how we arrive at the rules around testosterone levels in women.

My understanding is that it is males with DSDs (who want to compete in the women’s competition) who have to have low testosterone levels but that women (whether or not they have DSDs) can have any any testosterone level. However, from this thread there seems to be some suggestion that in fact the testosterone limits for women are the same as for males wanting to compete as women, it is just that women’s levels never go above 5 (except in in some possible cases where the high level would be a symptom of serious illness and therefore would not be an elite athlete). I want to begin challenging reporting on this (saw it on the BBC today) but want to be crystal clear on what the rules are for women’s testosterone levels and how we can arrive at the statement that women (no functioning Y chromosome) can compete with testosterone at any levels, therefore if an athlete is deemed to have too high levels of testosterone to compete then they must necessarily be male (if that is true).

From the IAAF briefing paper, females normally have a circulating testosterone level of 0.12 to 1.79 nmol/L, although women with PCOS could have circulating testosterone as high as 4.8 nmol/L. Therefore, the only female athletes competing with levels above 5 nmol/L would be intersex/DSD athletes, doped athletes, and athletes with adrenal or ovarian tumours.

I read that as: if a female athlete records a high level of testosterone, and a DSD or tumours are ruled out as causes, then doping would be suspected (testosterone being a banned substance).

www.worldathletics.org/download/download?filename=b6f96abb-91fb-40c1-8fbb-82375efa75f7.pdf&urlslug=Explanatory%20Notes%3A%20IAAF%20Eligibility%20Regulations%20for%20the%20Female%20Classification

@Ekofisk

British Cycling’s policy is that the athlete’s total testosterone level in serum must remain below 5 nmol/L throughout the period of desired eligibility to compete in the female category.

Since you have to comply with BC regulations to be eligible to gain a place on Team GB, then cyclists (same as track and field athletes) would need to comply with this limit rather than the higher IOC limit?

That’s BC policy at the moment. The have yet to report on the consultation of that policy.

Let’s hope the public outcry over Laurel Hubbard has cleared some of the gender woo at BC. An organisation tainted with charges of sexism, bullying and doping doesn’t want another public scandal and more charges of sexism from female athletes.

It is the current BC policy, but still a red herring when undergoing male puberty creates physiological advantages that aren’t lost by lowering testosterone levels.

Oh absolutely! Anyone with eyes knows the biological difference between men and women.

@PaleBlueMoonlight

I should be grateful for some help understanding how we arrive at the rules around testosterone levels in women.

My understanding is that it is males with DSDs (who want to compete in the women’s competition) who have to have low testosterone levels but that women (whether or not they have DSDs) can have any any testosterone level. However, from this thread there seems to be some suggestion that in fact the testosterone limits for women are the same as for males wanting to compete as women, it is just that women’s levels never go above 5 (except in in some possible cases where the high level would be a symptom of serious illness and therefore would not be an elite athlete). I want to begin challenging reporting on this (saw it on the BBC today) but want to be crystal clear on what the rules are for women’s testosterone levels and how we can arrive at the statement that women (no functioning Y chromosome) can compete with testosterone at any levels, therefore if an athlete is deemed to have too high levels of testosterone to compete then they must necessarily be male (if that is true).

These are the regs.

Thanks Pear - think will need to go away and actually read them. Are all those DSDs only ones that males can have?

Sorry, should re-word: ones that only males can have

'Since you have to comply with BC regulations to be eligible to gain a place on Team GB, then cyclists (same as track and field athletes) would need to comply with this limit rather than the higher IOC limit?'

Who the fuck knows!

I can't imagine any country handing over an advantage like that to other countries tbh.

The pertinent one is weightlifting re Olympics.

IF they are doing testosterone event by event (a complicated time consuming and peculiar way to go about it) then I'd have thought weightlifting, and things like shot putt would be first on the list for different levels...

I'll maybe look at the
...
Global weightlifting site.

It’s the UCI policy as well.

www.uci.org/inside-uci/press-releases/the-uci-updates-and-clarifies-its-regulations-on-transgender-athlete-participation

The IWF site I can't find any info.

British weightlifting currently you need to have testosterone within the normal range for your identity. Or had testicles removed.

MUCH harsher than IOC.

It says they are adopting IOC approach and think say IWF are as well.

Lack of info on IWF site is odd but it's a poor site I may have missed it.

It might be that the IWF just deferred to the IOC policy?

www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1050420/iwf-medical-committee-member-gives-presentation-on-transgender-inclusion

It should be on their website though their other policies are and handbook which I had a quick look through.

@PaleBlueMoonlight

Sorry, should re-word: ones that only males can have

It's a bit more complicated than that, I think, though INAE. That is, while 5α-reductase deficiency and complete and partial Androgen insensitivity syndrome affect only genetic males, 17β-Hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase deficiency is 'a condition characterized by impaired androgen and estrogen synthesis in males and females, respectively. Results in pseudohermaphroditism/undervirilization in males and in excessive virilization of adult females' (from Wikipedia). Ovotesticular disorder (also called true hermaphroditism) is 'a condition where an individual has both testicular and ovary tissue', so presumably can affect both genetic males and genetic females.

See the complete list on Wikipedia's page about DSDs.

@PaleBlueMoonlight

Sorry, should re-word: ones that only males can have

The only one I'm not sure about is the fifth one (v), will do some more reading), but the others all are yes, because they need to be combined with the criteria in b) and c), which would require the person to be SRY+ and have an androgen response (so the 17β-Hydroxysteroid one can only apply to those with the male version of the condition, not the estrogen version females can have).

So the b) and c) pays mean that none of these regulations could apply to anyone who was biologically female.

Not pays, means. Autocorrect.

Thanks pear and aparallaxia

The rules are that transgender women only need to reduce their testosterone levels to 10 nanomoles per liter, and get checked once a month for a year beforehand. It is a self reporting system, so they can basically keep their hormone levels as high as they want most of the month and reduce them at reporting time. It is actually very difficult for them to get down to a guaranteed 10 nanomoles per liter, contrary to what cycling mom said, and even if they got down to 2 nanomoles, that is still on the high side for women.
Athletes with DSDs like Caster Semenya and the Namibian athletes have to keep their levels down to 5 nanomoles per liter. This of course is unfair, too.
But neither of these categories of athletes has any business being in a race with women.