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?

Something I'm struggling with is people claiming the science is wrong and that the researchers (or at least the female ones, for some reason) have an agenda that they're pushing via the science, and then not actually engaging with the science to show why they think it's wrong.

If you work in science then it won't be long before you come up against results of your own you don't like, that don't support your hypothesis, that contradict something you thought was true, or work by others that flat out seems to disagree with your own last few years hard work and results. You can't just decide your fellow scientists are lying or that your results are rubbish. You have to engage with those results and how you or others came by them to try to understand what's going on. Sometimes you have to change your views based on the evidence. You can't go in there trying to prove a result you want to be true and then refuse to accept the result if it's not what you want..

Cyclingmum50, if you want to say you think the scientists are all wrong just because you don't like their results then that's up to you, it doesn't change the reality or validity of those results, but don't try to claim the science is wrong and then not back that up with substance.

If you work in science then it won't be long before you come up against results of your own you don't like, that don't support your hypothesis, that contradict something you thought was true, or work by others that flat out seems to disagree with your own last few years hard work and results. You can't just decide your fellow scientists are lying or that your results are rubbish. You have to engage with those results and how you or others came by them to try to understand what's going on. Sometimes you have to change your views based on the evidence. You can't go in there trying to prove a result you want to be true and then refuse to accept the result if it's not what you want..

And to Joanna Harper's credit, they've done that. They're honest about what the science is saying, and have put out a review concurring with Hilton + Lundberg's.

It does mean that Harper is now reduced to making philosophical arguments about what level of performance difference can be accepted as "fair", because Harper is very committed to trans inclusion, but that is at least not denying the scientific evidence and insisting black is white.

And to Joanna Harper's credit, they've done that. They're honest about what the science is saying, and have put out a review concurring with Hilton + Lundberg's.

It does mean that Harper is now reduced to making philosophical arguments about what level of performance difference can be accepted as "fair", because Harper is very committed to trans inclusion, but that is at least not denying the scientific evidence and insisting black is white.

Completely agree.

Yes Joanna Harper does agree with their findings. However, in their Woman's Hour interview they spent the time trying to minimise their own findings. It would be a lot more honest if they had held up their hands and admitted that their original study was total nonsense.

PennineSpring

"The pushback is building. How do you negotiate a way out whilst saving face?"

I believe that the IOC/WA, by reducing the T levels to 5 from 10 and then barring some athletes from competing in a range of athletics events (400m to 1 mile) would be a compromise which would be accepted.
How wrong they were, they are still woefully missing the point (deliberately?), that males have innate advantages over females when it comes to physical sport,advantages which do not change simply by lowering T levels.
Our line in the sand is - no XY athletes in women's XX sport.
Their line in the sand is unclear and smudged and basically amounts to - why can't you be nicer and more accomodating?

Hellofabore--the link to the BJSM was broken. Is this it?

bjsm.bmj.com/content/54/10/599

Aparallaxia

That is it. Thank you.

Hellofabore--No, thank you, for the amount of time and energy you've put into this thread.

Reducing testosterone to 5 nanomoles is no compromise at all. There is no pill that makes a man a woman just as there is no pill that turns night into day.

There’s a relevant paragraph in the Helen Joyce article in the MoS in another thread. The advancement of gay rights in the 1980/90s demanded nothing from the wider public other than acceptance, trans ideology demands something else.

“But I believe trans ideology will only encourage hostility.
For example, the more males who compete in women’s sports, the more obvious the unfairness. Silencing objectors will not change their minds – it will, I’m convinced, make them angrier, because something they genuinely value is being taken away.”

Just popping this on. It need to be read far and wide.

thecritic.co.uk/every-sport-is-male-sport/

All these mediocre males becoming elite female athletes. I expect an ex-junior male cycling champion who no longer qualified into the male GB cycling team will be joining this list next year.

So, a male didn’t reach the cut for the male team but will no doubt make the female GB cycling team and there will go a GB female’s chances of representing her country. Despite that male having benefited not only from male puberty and all the skeletal, muscular, cardiovascular, etc benefits, but maybe even better coaching opportunities since starting cycling. Oh… and never having to cope with menstrual issues in training or competing, nor ever worry about pregnancy.

But … there you go.

So, a male didn’t reach the cut for the male team but will no doubt make the female GB cycling team and there will go a GB female’s chances of representing her country.

And that woman (female, for those who struggle with the definition of “woman”) will miss out on the funding that would enable her to access all the support available to elite athletes.

The ex junior champ's first serious race, the Commonwealth games next year I bet.

Wow. That is quite a list!

@Cyclingmum50

10nmls/litre is a myth. Every sport governing body has their own policy so, for example, World governing bodies of Athletics & Cycling policy set the requirement to lower levels, ie 5nmls/l. Because of medication, most trans women T levels are usually below 2.

Just a thought. If T levels have no impact and it's all a myth, why is there such outrage on teenagers accessing medication ? The outrage, disgust, the papers you state on the "devastation" it causes ? So how can the medication have so much of an impact (for teenagers) and then be a "red herring" "a myth" for trans women in Sport. Sounds like just looking for a narrative that fits and suits

So. No evidence to support this then Cyclingmum?

No studies to refute those posters?

I am a bit disappointed because I did think that there must have been a new study released that disproved the other studies - ie. the two reviews of the 11 studies and the USAF study.

I did think also you might have something to prove the peer reviewed studied included in those 11 studies were in fact falsely stating they were studies including transwomen that you were so adamant were not studied when you said:

"Interesting studies" that do not include trans women, usually compare customers men with CIS woman. And usually by a particular biologist who isn't even able to fill in a conflict of interest statement correctly.

A bit of science drama of falsification or something. If I saw proof that they were falsified, I would indeed start to question the foundation of those studies.

I guess the intention of your posts were not to provide us with facts to discuss with us after all.

There is no evidence. I had a look at some of the organisations promoting transwomen in women’s sports because I thought they might have evidence to back that up, but they don’t. They talk a lot about the benefits of sport and how sport and exercise might specifically benefit transgender people, but they have nothing to justify including anyone in a sex category that isn’t theirs, nothing to show that the performance advantages conferred by male puberty can be removed and nothing to show that competition can be either safe or fair for female athletes if transwomen are included. Athlete Ally admit in their own statement that their position is ideological and not scientific, presumably because they’ve realised that although they claim the science is wrong they cannot back up that statement with evidence because there isn’t any.

It’s just about deciding that biologically male people should be let into female sports because of an ideology, with no basis in science or reality, as far as I can tell. The fact that some posters turn up here with claims they can’t substantiate is no longer a surprise to me, as there is no substance.

GonadTheGaul

Yes. I know. Even people like McKinnon (a cyclist and was a university academic also) have admitted that the evidence is clear so far. I wonder if cyclingmum read that opinion also. McKinnon pointed out the inclusion was ‘vital’ for other reasons such as mental health and that women should effectively suck up the injustice.

However, cyclingmum did sound so very confident and was so certain that the studies were to be ignored because…. Well, they indicated a lack of credibility based on a supposed belief of one of the researchers.

It is also important to note that they did not comment AT ALL about Tommy Lundberg. That is usual too. Perhaps because he is a man who has the same beliefs that Dr Hilton has. No men get the same treatment it seems, I wonder if cyclingmum realises the misogyny there too.

So, I did think maybe, maybe I had missed something or it had just been released. I am genuinely keen to keep up with topic and hoped they might have their hands on something of interest.

Sadly though, it seems that we are still left with the most recent twist being some of the prominent males who compete with the females acknowledge the biological advantages they have. However, they look to ‘psychology and the philosophy’ disciplines to prove the validity of their inclusion.

But we see the same old trope wrung out here as usual.

Just going to add this here.

news.sky.com/story/laurel-hubbard-transgender-weightlifter-is-set-to-make-history-at-tokyo-olympics-but-does-she-have-unfair-advantage-12359559

Harper, who provided the now largely discredited research for inclusion into the olympics, is clear that they acknowledge the male physical advantage. However, they are still trying to justify their support by downplaying it as just like having left handed tennis players.

Of course, one day soon they will have to simply admit that they were wrong and that there is simply no way to prove the false premise for this inclusion and that there never was.

it will be too late for many girls and women by then though. And those refusing to believe what they call 'bigoted' science, will be entirely complicit by trying to silence others through shaming tactics. They too will have to admit that science when it gives such clear results that a trans researcher has to admit the same conclusions is just science, and it is not bigoted except for those choosing to call it thus.

I have just seen this on Twitter. I imagine there will be a female athlete somewhere willing to take this to court. If not one bumped out of the Olympics, there may be a female cyclist who may lose a place at next years Commonwealth Games when certain athletes hit the lower T thresholds and move into the female arena due to the shonky unfair rules.
I don’t know about you but I’d be very happy to give financial support to such a case.

www.womensdeclaration.com/en/resources/press-releases/23-july-2021/

This is the WHRC twitter feed.

twitter.com/whrcuk?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

Olympics weightlifting 2 Aug. Date for your diary and up against a Brit!

Hubbard's bio, which strangely lists his dad as a sporting relative! It talks about his transition but claims he gave up weightlifting as a man at aged 23.
olympics.com/tokyo-2020/olympic-games/en/results/weightlifting/athlete-profile-n1465026-hubbard-laurel.htm
Emily's bio
olympics.com/tokyo-2020/olympic-games/en/results/weightlifting/athlete-profile-n1440043-campbell-emily-jade.htm

The age difference is stark!

Helleofabore

I've come across some of McKinnon's work when I read this open letter to British Cycling: www.velociposse.cc/open-letter-to-british-cycling when their transgender policy consultation was open. It claims there is an overlap between average testosterone levels in males and females, referencing this paper by McKinnon: www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Including-Trans-Women-Athletes-in-Competitive-the-McKinnon/ffc49cb067ccc681f59fe6ec569414bf6bc7ab76#extracted

McKinnon doesn't actually claim the average testosterone levels overlap, but claims that because there is some overlap between the low end of the male and high end of the 'female' ranges shown in some research papers cited, that testosterone levels 'completely overlap'. This overlap relies on a small number of abnormally high levels in the 'female' study participants, as well as a few abnormally low levels in male participants. McKinnon produces three figures in the paper which clearly show far higher average levels in males, and tries to suggest that because there is some overlap among the outliers ('complete overlap'), that testosterone levels are irrelevant. There's no questioning in McKinnon's paper as to why some of the 'female' athletes in the studies cited had abnormally high levels of testosterone, high enough that they must have been male, doping or had a serious medical problem in several cases. The fact that these results are clear outliers in the data is ignored. The glaring omission is that McKinnon doesn't even mention male puberty being the driver for the physiological and anatomical changes that confer the advantage, they seem to suggest that current testosterone levels ought to be the only factor, while simultaneously saying they are irrelevant.

McKinnon's basic argument at the end of the paper is that transwomen are women and that's why it's fair for them to be in women's sport, presumably recognising that trying to claim testosterone is irrelevant still doesn't actually justify including males in female categories.

However, cyclingmum did sound so very confident and was so certain that the studies were to be ignored because…. Well, they indicated a lack of credibility based on a supposed belief of one of the researchers.

It is also important to note that they did not comment AT ALL about Tommy Lundberg. That is usual too. Perhaps because he is a man who has the same beliefs that Dr Hilton has. No men get the same treatment it seems, I wonder if cyclingmum realises the misogyny there too.

It's interesting that cyclingmum would rather insult some female researchers instead of producing any critique of their work, or even citing work that tries to support the claim that transwomen should compete in female sport. It seems to be about some personal beef and nothing to do with the science. Having a valid criticism of somebody's research is fine but attempting to discredit their work simply because you don't like them (and maybe because they are female) is pretty low. The research should be approached on its own merits, not on one's personal opinion of one author.

Thanks for that Gonad. I had not seen that link before.

Sadly, I think cyclingmum came, dumped and pedaled off again. But as usual, never had anything useful to contribute.

Still, there does seem to be much discussion happening so I will keep on updating this thread to keep the information together.

The propagation of factually wrong information is interesting. McKinnon, a philosopher, writes a paper that contains some apparent misunderstandings of human biology in relation to testosterone levels. That paper is then taken by a cycling club and seems to have been further misunderstood to produce what looks like a referenced authoritative statement that male and female testosterone levels, on average, overlap. That statement goes into a letter which is then signed by several other clubs and organisations. I wonder how many of those clubs/organisations and their members, or readers of the open letter, now believe this statement? Was there anyone in any of those clubs or organisations who knew this statement was wrong, or who checked it and found it was wrong? Did anyone say anything about it and what happened? It just raises more questions for me.