Intergender MMA fight

[Genderbread]

I have just seen this link anout an “intergender” mma fight - labelled barbaric and brutal in the comments.
Is there any difference between this fight and a fight between a woman and a self identified woman?

www.sportbible.com/mma/controversial-intergender-mma-bout-in-poland-ends-in-brutal-tko-20211030

I grew up with the likes of Buffy but I always understood that it's not normal for someone to get kicked, punched but get back up again whether that was Buffy or Batman.

As a pp said if you play or even watch sport it's pretty obvious men are stronger & faster than women.

Both my sons play rugby and both of them were taller and stronger than me by the age of 13.5. I am an average height women. There is no way I would ever agree to my sons playing rugby against females. DS1 is bigger than most of the women in the England rugby squad and almost certainly stronger.

I think there is a determined attempt to downplay the advantages of the male body by some activists.

It would be quite funny to see it in action if the repercussions weren’t serious.

In our family, our daughter is by far the strongest, stronger than dad or her (taller) brother

I'd see a doctor. For the males I mean. That's a medical oddity.

Or it's a convenient thing to tell the internet.

Whichever.

It's quite stunning, often literally. The strength of a male, past puberty, is phenomenal. Even small, weedy men.

Yup. I haven't been hit, but I HAVE been blocked from leaving a house - me and average woman, him a very average man, not a gym-goer or anything. It was a narrow corridor to the exit, he was stood in it, and I couldn't get past no matter how much I tried. I tried to push and pull him out of the way and he barely moved. Then when he got sick of that, he grabbed my arms and pinned me against the wall. I might as well have been in shackles, he felt that impossible to get away from. It really is something you have to experience to believe. Again, I'm not especially weak, and he wasn't especially strong - just both average in height and weight.

In TV and film, I've heard it described (maybe on TV Tropes) as waif fu - five-foot-nothing Buffy beating the crap out of huge men being a prime example, and River Song in Firefly another. I love both those programmes, and even though it's explained in-universe - Buffy has super-strength and River has been enhanced somehow - there remains the fact that what we see is tiny women obliterating men with fists and feet.

Actually, there's that season 3 episode of Buffy where Giles gives her the potion that depowers her to the level of a normal girl, and she's shown as shocked and frightened by how vulnerable this makes her. Good episode.

@Kendodd

This idea the women are as physically strong and fast as men is not just wrong, its dangerous. If we are the physical equal of men how can they rape us? We could just fight them off. I wonder if this idea plays any part in low conviction rates.

I suggest you have a school (secondary school) arm wrestling competition.

When I was 18 I was an inpatient after breaking my leg. Amongst all the old ladies on the ward with fractured hip was me and another 18yo. She had done exactly what you suggested and had an arm wrestle against a male classmates, resulting in a spiral fracture to the humerus.

Women are not physically stronger than men. Anyone who believes that has forgotten (or never learned) basic human biology.

..... I think that there is a silver lining to this, I guess....

If you have been hit, restrained, or even accidentally injured by a man you will know. If you have competed or trained against a man, bthen you will know.

But unless you have ever been in one of those situations, you just cannot comprehend. And I know men - gentle kind men - who would never hurt or restrain or try to take anything off a woman so they also have no idea how much stronger they would be.

In our family, our daughter is by far the strongest, stronger than dad or her (taller) brother

Even if she is an outlier as a biological female, it's not how it is for the majority of women. Men are stronger than women. That's biology. A fact. Denying it does women a disservice and putting them in an impossible situation of believing that they should just try a little harder. It won't work. It could increase the risk to them. Men know that they are stronger than women. It's a shame that some women don't or won't understand / believe this. Pure Disney world belief.

A fight between a toned, fit and highly trained woman vs a weedy weakling male (like the guy in the mr muscle ads) with significantly less training & fitness might be fair. The fight in that video was ridiculous and should never have been allowed - that man had twice as much muscle mass as the woman.

The distributions of male and female strength and speed both approximately follow a bell curve. But the distribution of that curve is different for men and women. A top 1% woman could probably win against a lot of men but probably not against any man in the top 10%. Even a man in the lowest quartile of physical ability would probably be able to overpower an average woman.

@ChazsBrilliantAttitude

Both my sons play rugby and both of them were taller and stronger than me by the age of 13.5. I am an average height women. There is no way I would ever agree to my sons playing rugby against females. DS1 is bigger than most of the women in the England rugby squad and almost certainly stronger.

Similar position here - my DS plays rugby and is nearly 15. He is taller than I am and much, much stronger. Watching him going through puberty is fascinating. His speed and strength have increased so quickly and he is far stronger than I am. He hadn’t really thought about this debate and that ‘Mum’ was just going off on one until I asked him how would he feel if he was playing rugby against a woman. Even a 15 year old saw the difference.

The teams are usually school year mixed but with COVID the governing body have allowed age groups to mix (I think one year up or down) to keep the sport going as lots of children can be isolating at a time. A team they were up against asked to bring in 5/6 players from the year above to make a team. A lot of parents were concerned about the risks from playing with children a year older due to differences in size, speed and power. Many of these parents are ex-players so understand the sport well. It’s a shame the England Rugby have put inclusion above safety and fairness for female players.

I remember reading an article and the daughter of the writer had said to her that we only have male and female splits in sport because of misogyny. 🙈 The mother agreed. 🙈

How have young females been failed so badly that they think equality means to be treated exactly the same as males as if there is no difference between the sexes.

I mean, the effects of hormones are quite striking if you're talking about trans women fighting cis women. There isn't a significant decrease in bone density but there is a significant atrophy of muscle mass which is generally agreed (along with technique) to be the deciders of fights like this. The article seems to paint this as some kind of performative "freak show" like they were wearing makeup and stuff so it seems more like a WWE kind of fake fight than a real one. And to contend with the earlier point made; you'll absolutely know if you're a cis woman about to fight a trans woman in the ring because (I can only speak for myself as a trans woman and not all trans women) but if I was about to go into an MMA fight against a cis woman, I'd want her to know and consent to that. I wouldn't go so far as to say it's literally assault if you beat someone in an MMA fight and you didn't tell them you were trans but I just think it'd be bad etiquette etc.

@SinoohXaenaHide

A fight between a toned, fit and highly trained woman vs a weedy weakling male (like the guy in the mr muscle ads) with significantly less training & fitness might be fair. The fight in that video was ridiculous and should never have been allowed - that man had twice as much muscle mass as the woman.

The distributions of male and female strength and speed both approximately follow a bell curve. But the distribution of that curve is different for men and women. A top 1% woman could probably win against a lot of men but probably not against any man in the top 10%. Even a man in the lowest quartile of physical ability would probably be able to overpower an average woman.

You're not taking into a count that a trans fighter would have to have been on HRT for a certain period, which would decrease muscle mass significantly.

there is a significant atrophy of muscle mass which is generally agreed

Is it around a loss on average of 5% ?

You're not taking into a count that a trans fighter would have to have been on HRT for a certain period, which would decrease muscle mass significantly.

Isn’t it true that in some cases this loss can be reversed with training (obviously not when the athlete is already training at their peak). But in the case of an average person, this loss has been shown in some cases to be reversed or to be minimized.

However, the type of muscle, leverage, and skeletal proportions do not change. There are also the issues of females having more delicate skulls more prone to damage and brain damage due to more delicate brain fibres.

This is certainly not just about power.

I wouldn't go so far as to say it's literally assault if you beat someone in an MMA fight and you didn't tell them you were trans but I just think it'd be bad etiquette etc.

I would suggest it is negligent to not disclose this. And that any female who has not received complete information including the detail of what part of male puberty not effected at all that can still result in harm would have a cause to sue whoever allowed that bout.

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/782557v1

"Thigh muscle volume increased (15%) in TM, which was paralleled by increased quadriceps CSA (15%) and radiological density (6%). In TW, the corresponding parameters decreased by −5% (muscle volume) and −4% (CSA), while density remained unaltered. The TM increased strength over the assessment period, while the TW generally maintained or slightly increased in strength. Baseline muscle volume correlated highly with strength (R>0.75), yet the relative change in muscle volume and strength correlated only moderately (R=0.65 in TW and R=0.32 in TM). The absolute levels of muscle volume and knee extension strength after the intervention still favored the TW."

resources.world.rugby/worldrugby/document/2020/10/09/a67e3cc3-7dea-4f1e-b523-2cba1073729d/Transgender-Research_Summary-of-data_ENGLISH-09.10.2020.pdf

Even if a TW has lost some strength the gap between people who have been through male puberty and female puberty is so large to begin with that hormone therapy doesn't undo it.

IgnesFauti

Is there research that you have seen about how much muscle mass is lost over time with hormones?

And how much is it hormones and deliberate body shaping (as discussed around the USAF research)? Has that been proved at all?

And other factors important for MMA bouts would also be grip strength, hand size, pelvis alignment, certainly bone density.

I think the only bodies who will ever step in and stop these type of ‘freak’ fights are the insurance companies. Be that personal or of the sporting bodies.

For instance I’d love to know what professional boxers’ personal and sporting body insurance clauses look like. I’d show my arse if different weight classes were allowed to professionally compete.

Professional personal insurance will cover you for specific sports but with massive caveats. I can’t imagine any underwriters covering out of guidance fights.
Which brings me to the guidance;

• why are sporting bodies allowing this?
• where is the evidence that says ‘this is safe’?

No good having insurance that won’t pay, after you’re smashed up and can’t fight / work? Can you imagine your personal insurance not paying out and then having to try and go after your sporting body?

Jeremy Morris, then a doctoral student and now an assistant professor at Wofford College, designed an experiment with Carrier, doctoral student Jenna Link and associate professor James C. Martin to explore thesexual dimorphism, or physical differences between men and women, of punching strength. It's already known that males' upper bodies, on average, have 75% more muscle mass and 90% more strength than females'. But it's not known why.

Continues phys.org/news/2020-02-males-powerful.html

@Helleofabore

there is a significant atrophy of muscle mass which is generally agreed

Is it around a loss on average of 5% ?

I'd have to look into it more since I don't have the evidence to hand but in my experience and from what I've heard it's pretty drastic. Obviously you don't lose 100% of your muscle mass that'd be utterly absurd you'd literally be skin bones and fat if that were the case but from what I know HRT for two years brings muscle mass down to a more typically female shape and mass etc. Hormones control statins and if you don't use it, you lose it, so as a result muscle mass isn't a deciding factor for sports between trans women and cis women

[quote PurgatoryOfPotholes]Jeremy Morris, then a doctoral student and now an assistant professor at Wofford College, designed an experiment with Carrier, doctoral student Jenna Link and associate professor James C. Martin to explore thesexual dimorphism, or physical differences between men and women, of punching strength. It's already known that males' upper bodies, on average, have 75% more muscle mass and 90% more strength than females'. But it's not known why.

Continues phys.org/news/2020-02-males-powerful.html[/quote]
again, this is talking about AMAB individuals BEFORE hormone therapy

@littlbrowndog

Most men are stronger than most women

That’s really it

true, but trans women who compete in sports have to go on HRT which makes it fair in that circumstance