Sebastian Coe “gender cannot trump biology”

[Theeyeballsinthefuckingsky]

www.theguardian.com/sport/2022/mar/21/coe-warns-transgender-athletes-pose-risk-to-integrity-of-womens-sport

Also says they can’t keep farming off the decisions to member states

About bloody time

Thank goodness. Let's hope it has some influence

Seb Coe! That's a big name. Fingers crossed for significant influence.

That's great. He just needs to move his focus off testosterone now, but this is progress!

Yeah he’s basically saying the only difference is testosterone. Which it isn’t!

Hmm, what he says sounds good, but then it says that "under his watch", World Athletics has introduced "strict" testosterone limits for males wanting to compete as female... But we KNOW that just reducing current testosterone levels doesn't come close to cancelling the effects of male puberty. So how does that fit with his respect for biology then? Or is he hoping to get those rules changed further?

X-posted 😂

Whilst testosterone only plays one part of the performance issue. With the runners who are required to reduce their testosterone levels, their performances have fallen off the cliff and resort to longer distances where testosterone isn't limited, but such bulky size and muscles is detrimental to long distance running.

@eurochick

That's great. He just needs to move his focus off testosterone now, but this is progress!

Genuinely read that as toblerone and wondered what i was missing for a second then!

Anyway, yes. About bloody time Seb.

Good progress

Finally
But women are not bloody men with lower testosterone

I don’t think it is positive. He states that the peer reviewed work they’ve done looking at testosterone is the right approach. The last paragraph implies that a transwomen can race, no matter the public sentiment, if they have reduced their testosterone in line with the regulations.

Hmm if he thinks that world athletics has got it right I think he's still not quite got it yet

“Gender doesn’t trump biology” is a powerful line (and statement of the obvious m, isn’t it strange thet this is apparently controversial).

But women aren’t just men with low testosterone. We are a lot more complicated than that! They need to step back from obsessing about hormones and drugs and go back to the perfectly simple natal male sports vs natal female sports.

I think Sharron Davies needs to talk to him to enlighten him.

This is a strange article.

The headline and subheadings imply that Coe is urging the IOC and other sporting bodies to take firm action to stop Thomas and other male athletes from ruining women's sport.

But if you read the whole article, he actually agrees with the rules that allow Thomas to compete against women, and is proud that he has implemented similar ones in athletics. He also, as Brides noted, essentially says the public will have to get over it, because 'science' says the only significant difference between male and female bodies is current testosterone levels.

I think World Athletics and Coe have ended up with testosterone suppression being an idée fixe due to the Semenya case.

There they'd started with the rules saying testosterone suppression was necessary for Semenya to compete. And I think they got there by following the (flawed) logic of the trans rules. They (correctly) believed that they should be consistent.

That was challenged, so they had to come up with science to justify that.

BUT.

I wonder if he is starting to see the light and change his stance. I think I read an article ages ago and he has been a big advocate of TWAW and testosterone is the only dividing factor, but now we’re seeing the reality shining through I hope he is willing to admit he was wrong. I can’t read the DT article mentioned to see if it was a recent quote or not as it’s behind a paywall.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/8f658262-a934-11ec-b5dd-c16e85f55725?shareToken=e4a8f7d842023f0db9a950dbe4f25fc7

The Times as well.

Another man who's desperately trying to shoehorn men into women's sport.

What about if we do it like this? How about if we say they have to do that? Be that? Say that?

All this brain power spent on deciding exactly which men women have to accept. And why. And tying up the lose ends to make it watertight.

Women's opinion just doesn't enter into it.

Such a show up.

Was it Jane Clare Jones who said something like this issue has precipitated the biggest sexist unmasking in history.

Too right. Shameful stuff.

Exactly. Before you even start to determine how it could possibly made fair (spoiler: it can’t) it needs to be explained how these males - trans or DSDs - are even eligible to be in the female category in the first place. Demonstrate how they are women/females first.

But they can’t. So this step is skipped and it’s straight onto the performance discussion. Because to demonstrate that they have to acknowledge that these males’ feelings are all there is to go on and that should be prioritised over everything else, and a solution found to make it work.

Just no.

Exactly. Before you even start to determine how it could possibly made fair (spoiler: it can’t) it needs to be explained how these males - trans or DSDs - are even eligible to be in the female category in the first place. Demonstrate how they are women/females first.

I don't think it's quite that straightforward. You do need to consider why the category delimiter is "female" in the first place, and whether that is the correct dividing line.

Fortunately the easy answer to that is it IS correct, because there ARE two human phenotypes, male and female, each with their own clear performance distributions.

Picking up on something from Emma Hilton yesterday, the highest-athletically-performing humans are basically able-bodied 25-year-old males.

To give other humans a chance you need to have categories. The absolute first category you pick would be sex, to give access to that 50% of the population.

After that, you can look at age, disability, weight, height categories, but those categories are less productive than sex in that either they open to far fewer people or open to people who have a chance earlier or later in life. Sex categorisation immediately opens up competition to 4 billion people who would otherwise never have a chance at any point in their life.

Science is far more important than public sentiment, but Lord Coe does not seem to be following 'the science'. He's got this very wrong and it sounds like he may be starting to realise?

Also, for me it's important that the hormonal interventions being used to 'make' male transgender athletes 'eligible' for female competition are artificial. The result is not a participant taking their sporting chances like everyone else, based on natural talent and hard work.

It is - unfortunately - a person who has reduced their levels of testosterone just enough to be eligible to compete 'as a female' (they are not), which means they have reduced their levels to where some of the most naturally advantaged females might hold their levels.

In other words, they are limiting their own disadvantage in their transition. Even if that brings them into line with the most powerful females, it is still turning them (as in the case of LT) from an averagely powerful male into an exceptionally powerful 'female' (they are not) and is the equivalent of doping in the female competition.

And that's before we contend with the fact that changing testosterone levels doesn't change the effects of male puberty.