Trans athletes research - Brighton

[onlypans]

Does anyone know anything about this? The university are apparently conducting research into the effects of hormone therapy on athletic ability in trans athletes.

The person I spoke to about this said that indications were that the data suggests hormone consumption completely negates any advantages that come from being male. I'm thinking, surely not? Participants in the study were doing activities last week, how can the researchers have run all the data already?

Also, I don't know who is funding the research and whether or not they have an agenda one way or another. The trans person who was telling me about it (I am a secret terf because I'm not brave enough to potentially lose my job) was very happy with what they'd been told and it made me question if the research could be biased towards gender ideology/denial of sex.

I'm worried that a university study will publish the conclusion that trans women are not advantaged

Ridiculous. That can never be published. And if it is, nobody will believe it.

I wonder who funds this 'study'

Blair Hamilton who plays for that fine women's sporting organisation, Hastings United Women's Football Club and also the England Universities Women's football team. Shame about the women who were denied a place in these teams and those women who have to play against Blair.
www.express.co.uk/celebrity-news/1592372/Piers-Morgan-Blair-Hamilton-transgender-goalkeeper-England-women-s-squad-football-news

Its just stealing, lying, and cheating. Other teams should all refuse to play against him. Fans should boycott the matches he plays in. If there was a collective protest the FA would have to get involved.

Just when women's football was making progress and being taken seriously, and women could actually make a living as professional footballers, some 6 foot bloke comes along, with his male sized body and entitlement, and steals a womans place on the team and gives the team that he plays for an unfair advantage.

Its a farce and a lie to call it women's football when men are playing, this is obviously now a mixed team playing in a women's league.

In the US 1% of women are 6' tall or more. A similar proportion of men are 6' 4".

The average height of an NBA player is over 6' 6". The WNBA average is around 6'.

What do post-puberty hormones do to that?

Who is this person telling you these things? It's a straight up lie. Even Dr. Harper has admitted performance is still elevated even after 3+ years of hormone therapy and now instead focuses on mental aspects, claiming that being trans puts you at other disadvantages that negate the remaining physical advantages post hormone therapy. Still nonsense of course, but it shows how strong the evidence is that physical advantages can not be gotten rid off.

Is this a "friend"?

This must be a wind up

Someone I know who took part in the testing. I don't know much about it because I'm not a scientist and don't work in academia. Im asking here because I can't talk about this in real life

Sort of a friend, yes. But they just assume, because we get on ok superficially, that I'm totally into gender ideology and talk to me freely about it. I'm not, but I can't say that for fear of backlash

Was the person who took part male or female? trans?

Trans woman

There is zero incentive for a transwoman involved in sport to try their best in a study like this. I can't see anyway that it would be scientifically viable, unless you could prove that they are not interested in competing against women. There is no test that could prove that.

Transwoman. The word trans is not an adjective to describe women.

Transwoman, sorry. Auto correct separated it

I get the point people are making about transwomen participants performing in a way to skew results, i never considered that actually.

In real life, I properly know one transwoman to my knowledge and sometimes encounter others briefly. I have very strong worries about sport, schools etc but cannot speak to anyone about it. This board has been helpful to me to organise and articulate my thoughts to myself and my husband but he is the only person I can converse with about the issues. I feel like a coward but I'm not ready to lose friends or be in trouble at work

I have very strong worries about sport, schools etc but cannot speak to anyone about it.

Why not?

Well I can't say anything because colleagues and a good few friends are very "be kind", "most marginalised" about it all and I don't have the energy to get into it. I am all but burnt out with several issues in my life. I have young daughters and I play a sport where trans inclusion is promoted. So I'm interested and concerned but I can't face losing my job, friends or the one thing I do for myself (sport). Weak, yes, I know

As I understand it there's some modestly useful evidence out there from US soldiers who've transitioned. There's a required annual fitness test (running, sit ups, pull ups, etc) which participants have a very strong incentive to pass strongly, since failure can see you lose your job. My recollection of the evidence is that it shows that some advantages are significantly eroded over time whilst others seem to be mostly permanent.

Expecting to get useful evidence from male athletes who are going to compete in women's sport is beyond stupid. Expecting Emily Bridges to try her best in the trials isn't expecting her 'not to cheat', it's expecting her to do the equivalent of a would-be lightweight boxer to step onto the weigh-in scales wearing a 10kg diver's belt, to deliberately do herself out of a job.

There's a required annual fitness test (running, sit ups, pull ups, etc) which participants have a very strong incentive to pass strongly, since failure can see you lose your job. My recollection of the evidence is that it shows that some advantages are significantly eroded over time whilst others seem to be mostly permanent.

I vaguely recall this - some comment from Emma Hilton on this thread:

twitter.com/FondOfBeetles/status/1555566362625548290

One particular bit on "strong incentive to pass strongly"

I spoke with military people about these tests. They are not, for the typically fit officer, massively onerous. I couldn’t do them, of course, I’m not saying they are easy! But the people I spoke to - officers and testers - say most finish with time to spare.

And there's an outstanding uncertainty about whether the "transwomen" were being asked to hit male or female targets. If the latter, then clearly their performance would drop...

These studies massively miss the point anyway.

A person who doesn't go through male puberty through choice will never be disadvantaged by female puberty which is something that female athletes have to endure and still train.

A transwoman will never have to choose between having a baby or sport. A transwoman will never have to have time off to gestate and have a baby and then get back on track.

The only purpose of these studies is to destroy sport for women.

Makes me sick.

Are there any transwomen athletes that haven't gone through male puberty? I don't know of any, but I'm not involved in any sports.

No I don't think there have been but what I meant was that even if in the future there are TW athletes who have not been through male puberty they have not been through female puberty and all of the disadvantages that gives to women and girls who have to endure periods and train.

I'm sorry I wasn't really clear in what I meant.

The whole thing just annoys me, the point isn't just that males have an advantage it is that they also don't have the disadvantages that being female brings.

My daughter is quite serious at her sport, periods do affect training and I think this is overlooked as is women having babies.

there's that cricketer, Maxine whatshername, whose batting average is over 100 in women's county cricket, has also played for a men's club second xi with a batting average of about 10. she has what looks like fairly typical male height (maybe about three standard deviations above the female average, so rare but far from unheard of) but is slim, plausibly female in her build, and claims to in effect have a DSD which meant she never went through male puberty. I wouldn't pretend to know the truth of it, e.g. I've never heard her speak or anything.

Researchers should, and typically do, spend a great deal of time and effort trying to see what confounding variables affect tests. The cold pressor test for example (how long can you stand your hand in a bucket of ice water) is affected by lots of things.

Money and sex and how pretty the researcher is (straight male participants) and whether there's an audience. Whether women and men feel it's useful or they are being compared to others and on and on. Money motivates people differently, so does prestige, or an audience. So you have to try multiple motivators to get a 'clean' result. And preferably it should be double blind.

You cannot expect people to behave as they would in a study where they know the results will affect their lives adversely depending on performance. Even subconsciously that would skew your results terribly.

I didn't say anything for a long time, then something came up in my sport that I couldn't ignore. There have been good and bad consequences to speaking up, but it got a lot of people talking about the issue in an informed way for the first time. I also stumbled across someone at work who feels the same way I do and we've been starting to challenge some things in our workplace (so far unsuccessfully, but it's early days!)

I don't judge anyone for not being ready to stick their head above the parapet, when there are likely to be real world consequences, but you may eventually find a way to challenge this ideology in small or big ways.

I have certain, very close friends I would be likely to lose over this issue if they ever knew how I felt. It may come to that one day, but I'm not rushing into it.