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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

The "science"

28 replies

ZeldaFighter · 22/05/2023 08:17

In sports, people keep saying "the science isn't clear" but I don't understand why not. Someone like Lia Thomas must have a perfect dataset of figures for their performance, before and after transition - they're in a semi-professional, well-financed sports team. It must be easy to determine if, how and where their performance has changed. Same for Emily Bridges. Same for loads of transgender cyclists.

I know Emma Hilton and Ross Tucker are mentioned on these pages but surely the data must be so clear, that anyone could crunch the numbers? So why aren't they?

OP posts:
BinturongsSmellOfPopcorn · 22/05/2023 08:34

The science is perfectly clear. It just gives an inconvenient answer.

Hagosaurus · 22/05/2023 08:51

What I completely don’t understand is that sport was specifically segregated by sex because of biological realities (which is, in my unscientifically proven opinion, completely fucking obvious)

Surely if someone wanted to change it, the burden of proof should have been on them?

I heard Harper (trans sports scientist, also transwoman at Loughborough) say on the radio that it could take 20 years or more to establish whether transwomen had an unfair advantage and therefore they should have unfettered access to women;s sports until there was a conclusion

Can you imagine what state women’s sport will be in in 20 years time if that happens!

SinnerBoy · 22/05/2023 08:52

What women's sports?

PuttingDownRoots · 22/05/2023 08:59

For it to be a proper scientific study, they would need hundreds of participants, with a control group, not knowing whether they were taking hormones or not (to remove confirmation bias)...
The only study has been a few people.

They don't seem to want to do a proper study. I sort of understand why as they consider the hormone treatments to be vital.

But there is no proof currently they could lose all their advantage.... the advantage that becomes clear in childhood let alone puberty and adulthood.

MagpiePi · 22/05/2023 09:01

BinturongsSmellOfPopcorn · 22/05/2023 08:34

The science is perfectly clear. It just gives an inconvenient answer.

This

Helleofabore · 22/05/2023 09:02

The science has been denied because if apparently is impossible to extrapolate the science and the advantages to individual sports level. So instead, extreme activists demand each sport does their own studies with verified transitioned males.

Because the studies with transitioned males or with other males having lowered testosterone for the purposes other than being trans are not sports specific enough, apparently.

Because there is obviously a special essence that only males who have declared trans identities and lower their testosterone according to those declaring the science inconclusive.

And because the original ‘science’ that convinced the IOC was Harper study on themself and their mates using dodgy data. Some of the data was Harper comparing running times from decades previously to after transition. Apparently with an algorithm to adjust for age, but of course, not an algorithm to adjust for lifestyle choices and deliberate decisions to modify training to get the desired look these male people wanted.

Harper received a very large grant from the IOC to do further study at Loughborough. The study lost participants and now has just Bridges, the cyclist, who is determined to cycle for GB as a female cyclist. Despite still holding a junior male record. No ulterior motive there, sure.

Helleofabore · 22/05/2023 09:08

PuttingDownRoots · 22/05/2023 08:59

For it to be a proper scientific study, they would need hundreds of participants, with a control group, not knowing whether they were taking hormones or not (to remove confirmation bias)...
The only study has been a few people.

They don't seem to want to do a proper study. I sort of understand why as they consider the hormone treatments to be vital.

But there is no proof currently they could lose all their advantage.... the advantage that becomes clear in childhood let alone puberty and adulthood.

There are studies in that pack of 13 that both Hilton and Lundberg AND Harper reviewed that did have transitioned males. Harper changed Harper’s view after their own review was published. Harper now focuses on ‘inclusion’ aspects from social ‘science’.

The inclusion ‘science’ that comes from the social science aspect is also leveraged in now as ‘science’ when extreme trans activists say the ‘science is not clear’.

Because they have included social science at the same priority level as the biological science needed for this.

RoyalCorgi · 22/05/2023 09:13

What is utterly exasperating is that we know that it's not possible to change sex. Even if taking female hormones did reduce men's performance, why on earth would it entitle them to take part in women's sports? They made the choice to take the hormones - if it means they can no longer participate in men's sports, that's their own lookout. What logic entitles men to take a woman's place in a football team just because they have been taking hormones? Women aren't simply an inferior version of men - we have completely different bodies.

Floisme · 22/05/2023 09:18

If the science really isn't clear then we shouldn't be changing anything until it is.
As Hagosaurus says, the onus should be on the people who want new rules to prove that they would be fair and safe.

Pinesinthedunes · 22/05/2023 09:20

The science has been undermined by lobbyists is one of the most deeply disturbing facets of this mess - I find myself questioning any scientific claim now. Particularly those that are said to be 'settled'. It's not easy to navigate with a deep distrust like this.

NancyDrawed · 22/05/2023 09:55

Harper received a very large grant from the IOC to do further study at Loughborough. The study lost participants and now has just Bridges, the cyclist, who is determined to cycle for GB as a female cyclist. Despite still holding a junior male record. No ulterior motive there, sure.

And in a now edited article from a few years back, Bridges said he was going to be part of a study that showed how performance dropped with transitioning.

Now I might be being a teeny bit cynical here, but if Bridges knows that the results are meant to show a drop in performance, it wouldn't be too difficult to just not try very hard at whatever challenge given to 'prove' it, would it?

And a sample size of one does not a study make.

NotBadConsidering · 22/05/2023 10:11

Exactly, it’s very easy to demonstrate a drop in cycling power over certain periods of time, particularly if the power being produced is in front of a person while they’re doing it. All they have to do is…not pedal as hard.

PosiePerkinPootleFlump · 22/05/2023 10:18

RoyalCorgi · 22/05/2023 09:13

What is utterly exasperating is that we know that it's not possible to change sex. Even if taking female hormones did reduce men's performance, why on earth would it entitle them to take part in women's sports? They made the choice to take the hormones - if it means they can no longer participate in men's sports, that's their own lookout. What logic entitles men to take a woman's place in a football team just because they have been taking hormones? Women aren't simply an inferior version of men - we have completely different bodies.

This!

DreamItDoIt · 22/05/2023 10:20

Where in life is the general approach to 'do it anyway and ask after'? The problem here is that it should have been 'no' to trans identifying males in womens sports until it showed there was no advantage.

Given what we know already, the general assumption and view would be that men have a big advantage in sport nit just because if testosterone . Stars prove this, common sense tells us this. So on the balance or probability it would be a 'no' until proven otherwise. Instead we have this farcical situation. I am just gobsmacked that anyone thinks this is in anyway the way sport should be run.

zibzibara · 22/05/2023 10:42

It's so frustrating and backwards, they're starting off with this completely unsupported premise of TWAW and then trying to find any scientific research to support this.

OldCrone · 22/05/2023 10:46

RoyalCorgi · 22/05/2023 09:13

What is utterly exasperating is that we know that it's not possible to change sex. Even if taking female hormones did reduce men's performance, why on earth would it entitle them to take part in women's sports? They made the choice to take the hormones - if it means they can no longer participate in men's sports, that's their own lookout. What logic entitles men to take a woman's place in a football team just because they have been taking hormones? Women aren't simply an inferior version of men - we have completely different bodies.

It's ridiculous, isn't it? Men who have deliberately taken steps to reduce their performance think that makes them eligible to compete in the women's category. And many of the sports bodies are encouraging this.

Women's sport is not an inferior category for mediocre males. It's not an open category. It's a category for women.

MissLucyEyelesbarrow · 22/05/2023 10:52

You actually don't need any scientific data, other than the outcomes of the sports in which TW participate. Just comparing their ranking when they competed against men vs their ranking when competing against women makes the advantage crystal clear. Anyone suggesting otherwise, or demanding additional data, is being wilfully obtuse.

zibzibara · 22/05/2023 10:54

It just shows that yet again the demands of men override anything that is beneficial for women.

MissLucyEyelesbarrow · 22/05/2023 10:57

Pinesinthedunes · 22/05/2023 09:20

The science has been undermined by lobbyists is one of the most deeply disturbing facets of this mess - I find myself questioning any scientific claim now. Particularly those that are said to be 'settled'. It's not easy to navigate with a deep distrust like this.

Indeed. We fucked over 200 years of post-Enlightenment science and rationality to appease a bunch of blue-haired loons. The implications are frightening.

See also the Law: the GRA was the first time that UK law knowingly mandated a lie being treated as the truth (other so-called legal fictions are not treated as literally true, e.g. adoption - the adoptive parents acquire the legal rights of biological parents, but no one is expected to pretend that they are the biological parents).

CreateaUsername27 · 22/05/2023 11:03

It might be because they don't care if the performance of a transwoman changes before or after transition. If Lea Thomas wins a women's race- that's OK because they are a woman and therefore it's irrelevant because if Lea is a woman then they won fair and square.
Lea Thomas still has a lot more testosterone in their body than a participating female athlete and this has nothing to do with fairness to women.
It's just to limit the number of male participants as not many men would want to reduce their testosterone and so that they can normalise male participation.

nilsmousehammer · 22/05/2023 11:03

BinturongsSmellOfPopcorn · 22/05/2023 08:34

The science is perfectly clear. It just gives an inconvenient answer.

Nailed in one.

It's like someone saying 'it's complicated' when asked what a woman is.

They know. They just can't say that they know because currently they know it will make some people very upset, and the social contract is to enact a belief that it is not binary.

Helleofabore · 22/05/2023 11:15

I have never yet had an answer to what other categories people from outside the protected group accessing the category would be acceptable.

Never has any poster come back and said they are comfortable for a :

26 year old competing with under 12 year olds, or with 85 year olds in their protected age groups.

Or a fully sighted person competing with people with partial or no sight.

Or a professional coming back and competing in the novice category.

Or an electric assisted bike competing in the Tour de France.

Yet, miraculously, they want males with in performance limiting drugs and making cosmetic decisions about their body shape to compete with women. Like women are just chemically performance restrained males!

Forgetting that if a woman took drugs to limit performance and to train only in ways to enhance their body’s shape and not to peak performance, that those women have no where to ‘play down’ to, unless the under 12s accept them!

These are males who because of a decision to adopt a gender that is ‘woman’ get to compete. No other male athletes who have testosterone suppressed for other health issues or take other performance limiting drugs, yet are fully able athletes, get to compete and win against women in the female category.

Why are these male people different from other male athletes who have to make life saving medical decisions about taking medication that removes them from sport. Either because their performance is limited OR because the drugs they need are banned for performance enhancing capabilities.

It never made sense except when you understand this is only about validation. Because ‘equality’ would have these male trans people compared with all other males with performance limiting medication. NOT with female athletes.

It has always been arse about, but it was allowed because of pseudoscience (before the raft of studies done) and now it is based on the modern interpretation of ‘inclusion’. It should never have been allowed.

Clymene · 22/05/2023 11:27

Spectators said that Thomas deliberately threw one race so he didn't sweep the board. There is nothing to stop any man who transitions slowing down enough so that he looks like he's not a massive outlier.

The stats on boysvswomen.com/#/ show it very clearly - good high school boys beat elite women athletes in every single Olympic track and field and swimming event. There is no way that cycling is any different or indeed any other sport.

The difference between men and women's bodies is not just about testosterone.

Talking of outliers, this is the performance of Halba Diouf who has complained about not being allowed to compete in the Olympics for France

twitter.com/rob_thabuilder/status/1657156208568958977?s=61&t=gd6tu0Iz6JpyKXGLWMLGjg

If you can't read the tweet, I've attached the chart. Guess which one is male? Has been on female hormones for several years and T levels below 2.5

The "science"
QueenHippolyta · 22/05/2023 11:30

I'm still dumbfounded by the acquiescence of scientists to this ridiculous ideology and their abandonment of all principles...

Apollo441 · 22/05/2023 11:35

QueenHippolyta · 22/05/2023 11:30

I'm still dumbfounded by the acquiescence of scientists to this ridiculous ideology and their abandonment of all principles...

It's as if the Age of Enlightenment didn't happen.

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