It's now on MSM - Laurel Hubbard

[highame]

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/transgender-weightlifter-laurel-hubbard-in-eye-of-the-storm-at-toyko-olympics-zstnnk729

I saw last night that Al Jazeera had Laurel Hubbard in the strapline but didn't wait to see the news item. This now means it's worldwide and in countries where there would be very strong objections. I wonder how this will pan out

@Naunet

It only gets complicated if you’re trying to justify it.

This!!

Yes, I get internal rage when I head people saying how 'complicated' the issues are. No! They are not complicated, you just want to pretend you give a shit. As Naunet says they are only trying to justify it.

The amount of handwringing and tying themselves in knots that has to be done when the possibility of not giving men what they want comes into play. But women? Sure they are just collateral damage.

Also, all I've heard over the past year regarding Coronavirus and vaccines is 'trust the science, listen to the science, believe the science'. But when it comes to TWAW, science is inconvenient, science suddenly doesn't matter? Bullshit!

I wonder how this debate will pan out over the next few weeks. I will be tuning in because a lot of countries around the world will have this on their agendas. Where the Beeb, Sky et al might underplay, Al Jazeera wont

Hasn't she had a 'special invitation' which allows her to participate?
Yes, but as, presumably, there is a limit on tripartite invitations then another woman has still missed out as they would have got the tripartite invite if Nini had qualified outright - as she clearly should have done.

I also imagine the TRA/MRA cheerleaders of men in women’s sport are tied up in knots over Hubbard. They’re salivating that Hubbard is in the team, but probably hoping that they don’t actually win, cos then it really will explode and not in a good way.

It can't be that complicated if us silly little women with our ladybrains can see the problem. Perhaps all the male brains who find it all so perplexing aren't half as clever and logical as they think they are.

@FloralBunting

It can't be that complicated if us silly little women with our ladybrains can see the problem. Perhaps all the male brains who find it all so perplexing aren't half as clever and logical as they think they are.

They are experts in gaslighting, only this time it is international

@ArtemesiaK

"Her supporters believe she is paving the way for an inclusive future in sport and is an inspiration to young people from the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community across the world." Transgender, perhaps, but probably not the others?....

Yep, I'm sure the lesbians will be thrilled to have to compete against men.

The transmen in sport are really interesting.

Chris Mosier was the figurehead for the 2015 change of IOC policy to remove the surgery requirement. Chris Mosier is female. That wasn't accidental.

The Wikipedia page for 'transgender people in sport' has a list of athletes. IIRC males and females are mixed in the list. If you go through the list one by one and identify which ones are male, which ones female, you can mostly then track their actual sporting careers (what?? It was lockdown, I had time on my hands). You end up with less than a handful of female athletes who have ever competed in a male competition. Where it's happened, it will usually be a single event or season. So, Patricio Manuel won a single fight against a male. Schuyler Bailar and Jay Pulitano swam single college seasons in the men's team: Bailar, who as a woman swam with the national elite such as Katie Ledecky, in the men's team had 'third fastest time of the season' at his university. In some cases you can work out whether they might be on testosterone or not: Pulitano was, I believe. Chris Mosier won an age group category at a national level, once; there were no other competitors in the race.

There are a few others, and of course there will be more. But the information is designed to be as obscure and misleading as possible. I hate it.

Obfuscation has been the name of the game, but it will not be so easy to argue once images are circulating on a worldwide basis. Interesting times

Images are a really bad idea though.

It isn't possible to tell someone's sex for sure from a still photo, or even from a single clip. Look at to photo of Mack Beggs (female) wrestling another female; many allegedly GC accounts post his picture because he looks like a man wrestling a woman. Even in cases where I'm pretty sure, if nobody will say anything, you can't be sure, eg the Chinese relay team members.

That's because the male typical level of testosterone does a fucking number on whomever has it in their body.

It doesn't matter if it's a male who has it by virtue of being a male and going through a male puberty, or a female who has essentially doped and drastically chsnfed her physique (and often looks far older than her years). Pictures make it evident that none of this is fair to women who genuinely just want to compete without being unfairly disadvantaged, whether it's by cheating males, or cheating females.

Are female athletes allowed to take testosterone that pushes their levels up to the allowed level for trans athletes?

As far as I can tell, yes @MarianneUnfaithful. There's a standard WADA Therapeutic Use Exemption for testosterone for females identifying as male. I find it almost incredible that it exists. Possibly not coincidentally, American male athletes have for the first time recently been able to get TUEs for testosterone in recreational and non elite competitive sport.

bio-psycho-social-cultural issues

Just when did everything start becoming political instead of merely practical? It seems you can barely breathe now without being told you're doing it wrong because of some political significance or other.

@Naunet

It only gets complicated if you’re trying to justify it.

This is encompasses the issue brilliantly. In fact, it encompasses the entire thing.

None of it is complicated until you start to pretend sex doesn't exist.

Very insightful comment.

I am struggling to understand how men competing in women’s events will inspire more gay kids to try sports

Exactly. Trans has nothing to do with homosexuality This is the problem with forcing T in with LGB. It’s worse than irrelevant — the problems it causes actively disadvantage LGB people.

Much as I hate to say it, there are some technical complications in the world of elite women's sports, because women with androgenic DSDs are disproportionately overrepresented in elite women's sports. As you would expect, because the presence of androgens makes them faster / stronger etc. This has created a lot of problems for individual people in the past, Caster Semenya being the obvious example, but there have been others. This is why the IOC doesn't just go by XY chromosomes when deciding who goes in what category - they go by testosterone levels.

Where the IOC is wrong is in making the allowed testosterone level way higher than a natal woman would typically have. Laurel Hubbard managed to suppress Laurel's testosterone to a level where Laurel's levels were just within the 'allowed' category. Hence we have this farce.

Should go without saying that Laurel being in the women's category is grossly unfair - but I'm actually quite pleased about it as I believe it will cause a worldwide peakening.

As for the rules, I believe the IOC needs to step away from using testosterone levels as the test for sex categories and agree on some other measure that creates sex category fairness whilst not disadvantaging natal women with DSDs.

Or create a third, unisex category where trans people can compete, alongside anyone else who wishes.

Should also go without saying that elite sport is only one tiny part of the sports world. For most other areas, simple chromosomes / phenotype should be enough and it should not be complicated. The idea of having self ID in contact sports such as rugby and MMA is disgusting and will lead to a fatality or life changing injury at some point.

women with androgenic DSDs

It needs to recognises that these are ‘males’ with differences of sex development. They have testes and have produced male hormones. They are not females. Apart from a very few rare cases, people with DSDs are either male or female, just like the rest of us.

Caster Semenya has a DSD that only affects males. Caster has normal levels of testosterone for a male, not abnormally high testosterone levels for a female.

Caster Semenya saying they are female would appear to be confined to their sporting career, not something that happens in their private life.

@Datun

Caster Semenya has a DSD that only affects males. Caster has normal levels of testosterone for a male, not abnormally high testosterone levels for a female.

Caster Semenya saying they are female would appear to be confined to their sporting career, not something that happens in their private life.

Yes I appreciate that. In fact my understanding is that Caster has fathered a child with Caster's wife.

I just thought it was worth posting because I recently read a book which explained why the IOC moved away from a chromosome test via a mouth swab and to testosterone blood levels. I don't think it's fair, because the blood test doesn't take into account the benefits of male puberty, which are especially strong in Laurel's chosen sport - greater upper body strength, hip position better suited to lifting large weight, etc. Some well known ex athletes such as Sharron Davies are calling for a return to the mouth swab test. But this book was saying it's not that simple for DSD athletes. Clearly the IOC needs to come up with a better policy and not hide away from the issue.

@DentonsFringeArnottsWaistcoat

I also imagine the TRA/MRA cheerleaders of men in women’s sport are tied up in knots over Hubbard. They’re salivating that Hubbard is in the team, but probably hoping that they don’t actually win, cos then it really will explode and not in a good way.

It's all very well going on about MRAs but do you acknowledge that the vast majority of women in the last five years that have been through the sausage factories that pass for Western universities are Uber woke and fully twaw? My daughter who went off to uni on a teaching course fully GC is now in her second year and called me a fucking bigot at dinner yesterday because I said if a person still has a cock they are a man. A subject she insisted on bringing up and I had deliberately held my tongue on.

Neither Caster Semenya nor Laurel Hubbard should be eligible for women’s sport. It doesn’t matter what their testosterone levels are because women’s sport is for women and they are both male.

‘Weird and unfair’: Usain Bolt criticises advances in spike technology

www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/jul/20/weird-and-unfair-usain-bolt-criticises-advances-in-spike-technology

Silly Usain! Doesn't he know that sport is naturally unfair and that he should just train harder? And anyway, the athletic advantage conferred by spikes is equivocal. Sometimes spikes slow people down.

Discriminating against spike wearers is actual violence. Spike wearers suffer higher rates of bullying and depression, so they should be allowed to do what they want really.

Isn't it time that so-called bio athletes acknowledged their privilege and stepped aside for less genetically fortunate sports people, people who identify as winners, to be given the opportunity to enjoy success?

Haven't you won enough, Usain?

www.scientificamerican.com/article/trans-girls-belong-on-girls-sports-teams/