The T levels opinion piece is really irritating, riddled with slippery half-truths and misleading implications.
e.g.
"The IOC originally picked 10 nmol/l because that’s the highest naturally occurring levels of testosterone in women. Some women with PolyCystic Ovarian Syndrome will have higher levels of testosterone than other women. "
The second sentence here strongly implies, without directly saying so, that worldwide there are millions of otherwise healthy women with PCOS unknowingly sauntering round with T levels of 10 + nmol/l.
This plainly isn't true:
"Serum testosterone levels in patients with PCOS seldom exceed 4.8 nmol/l. If testosterone levels are greater than 4.8 nmol/l then further endocrinological investigation to exclude other causes of androgen hypersecretion (e.g. Cushing's syndrome, adrenal gland or ovarian tumours)." primarycarenotebook.com/simplepage.cfm?ID=-516620222
"Most testosterone values in PCOS will be ≤150 ng/dL (≤5.2 nmol/L). Testosterone values of ≥200 ng/dL (≥6.9 nmol/L) warrant consideration of an ovarian or adrenal tumor."
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1069067/
"Total testosterone levels greater than 200 ng/dL [5 nmol/L] are suggestive of a virilizing tumor and should prompt pelvic ultrasonography."
www.acog.org/clinical/clinical-guidance/committee-opinion/articles/2019/10/screening-and-management-of-the-hyperandrogenic-adolescent
Then there's the claim that there's "a complete overlap between the sexes" without anywhere definining what's meant here by "complete overlap". The actual numbers show a difference that's more or less night and day (picture below). By a laughably huge distance, the likeliest explanation for those few women in the study whose numbers were in the male range is plainly that they were doping. The following caveat just doesn't cut it when being used to draw strong, counter-intuitive conclusions: "...although we cannot rule out the possibility that any of our volunteers were doping, we consider it unlikely as each volunteer had to sign a consent form that asked them to state that they were ‘clean’..."
www.researchgate.net/publication/260522903_Endocrine_Profiles_in_693_Elite_Athletes_in_the_Post-Competition_Setting
The real mistake was ever letting anyone who'd ever had functioning testicles into women's sport. The fact that there's no single clear bright line between male & female T levels means that, even though both the 10 nmol/l