If a poor boy has his puberty blocked ....

[Chamomileteaplease]

then what happens when he grows up?

Rather than saying no men in the women's sports etc, sometimes people say, no one who has gone through male puberty.

But these poor boys who have had their puberty blocked by mad doctors, will they argue that they should be allowed to compete with women?

I fear they will need to stop going on about male puberty and switch to just saying no natal males. What do you think?

With all the medical complications and implications of not going through puberty means they won’t be competitive.

I don’t think boys who have had puberty blocked are going to be very sporty, sadly.

Any child that has his puberty blocked will not be competing in any elite sporting events of any sex. They'll be more worried about brittle bones.

I agree - saying no males who have been through puberty encourages vulnerable people to take medications that wouldn't otherwise be in their best interests.

It's highly unlikely that someone who spends their childhood worrying about gender will be able to keep up with kids who spend their time doing sports, but even if it's a non issue it should be legislated now before there's one and it gets personal.

I think it's intended to mean that primary school kids don't need to be so strict, but it would be kinder to manage expectations as soon as they start to transition. I saw an ice skater who will likely have these issues - set up to hate puberty, great parenting, who should have instead fought to wear a sparkly dress in the boy category.

Yes you are right, his health probably wouldn't allow for prowess at sports.

Also, some boys are given the blockers halfway through puberty so it's not black and white.

These poor kids sold such a huge lie about their futures. So if they aren't great at sports, will they still think they can come into women's spaces as they aren't so "manly"? It's horribly murky.

I hope we all stand firm re no natal males and that these poor kids are told this. That they will not have a magical pass to the other sex.

Boys actually have an advantage over girls in most sports, even pre-puberty, although it's small. But, as PPs say, it's unlikely to be relevant because boys will be so damaged by blockers, sadly.

I know 2 boys who have had puberty blockers from about 12. Now mid 20s, short, skinny, look like old men.

Unbelievable that in this day and age we let toxic adults & medics near such young children to medicate away their bodies, fertility and future health.

I often imagine the outrage if it were Marjorie Taylor-Greene or Suella Braverman (both of whom I despise, incidentally) advocating that non gender-conforming, predominantly gay kids, should be sterilised.

And obesity.

Thank you for saying this, I think so too and the phrasing of thise words still point towards puberty being a choice.

Gender ideology begins where Margaret Thatcher & Section 28 left off.

There is at least one example of a puberty blocked male playing on women’s sports teams who clearly has an advantage. I just managed to hunt down the link:
https://twitter.com/coachblade/status/1545069826955026432?s=20&t=Z8_KXLownqP7xBL0xqbEiQ

So i don’t think it can safely be ignored and it is something sporting bodies are going to have to deal with - obviously this problem is going to get worse as more transed boys grow up.

I tend to think that the “no male puberty” rule is a temporary compromise between sanity and insanity, and eventually sanity will win out and the rule will become “no males.” But probably not without a fight.

It would be so much better if the sports governing bodies bit the bullet and dealt with all the flak now. No males in women's sport, no puberty-blocked males, no males with DSDs - not even CAIS. It's the only fair solution and it draws a line in a stable place. No need for reviews, working groups, etc. Nothing is going to change which will make that rule obsolete. Everyone knows where they stand.

This issue, and the chess case, both show the downside of focusing on male puberty, even though that can be the easiest thing to do. What we really want to be saying is "sex is immutable you wazzock". There are various reasons for segregating by sex - there are no reasons for segregating by an uncheckable internal sense of gender. Sometimes you have to use the (true!) argument that works, though.

I agree with @BellaAmorosa, it would be a straightforward rule.amd then boys might not bother with the puberty blockers if they no for certain there will be no chance of competing as a female anyway.

You should definitely read this article by Abigail Shrier: Top Trans Doctors Blow the Whistle on the effects of interfering with puberty.

@NeighbourhoodWatchPotholeDivision

I get the feeling that the Jazz Jennings doctor sees the writing on the wall and is trying to get ahead of it.

Actually - not get ahead of it - trying to get the get-out -of-jail -free card.

In my little football club, our A grade Under 13 girls got beaten by our B Grade Under 11 boys in a friendly. While puberty of course provides an unbeatable advantage for males, it is also the skeletal system- the narrower hips give huge advantage.

Slipped capital femoral epiphyses might put paid to the sportiness in some cases.

Check out Jazz Jennings to see what happens when you do that.
Sport is highly unlikely to be an issue.

I’m not sure there’s a huge overlap in the Venn diagram of little boys (with deluded/dangerous parents) who think they can become girls, and grown-ass men with a sexual fetish and/or desire to be winners in someone else’s class.

Lia Thomas et al make me angry for women; the thought of these boys makes me angry for the boys.

Unlikely or not, sod's law dictates that the worst possible version of the scenario outlined in that Twitter example will crop up. And more than once.

There don't have to be many young men like this to make a big detrimental difference to women's sport. This is because if the men have any talent, they will be at or near the top of the rankings in women's sports.
Pubertal testosterone is the superserum, but two previous little bursts bake in the male performance advantage. The infrastructure of superior strength etc is always there. This study shows the performance difference between prepubertal boys and girls. Boys outperform girls on every measure except balance and flexibility.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/224914505_Physical_Fitness_Differences_Between_Prepubescent_Boys_and_Girls

The kids on the study were 10 or 11 years old - so the boys would have been before Tanner stage 2 which is the cutoff point in the policies of some sports bodies.

The muscle cells, the heart and lungs, the oxygen delivery system, the ligaments of a boy are different to those of a girl.
CAIS males, who don't even get the benefit of the two mini-puberties because they are completely insensitive to the androgens their bodies produce, are nonetheless overrepresented on podiums for women's individual sport, compared to the incidence of this condition in individuals in the general population.

The Castrati lived long lives and, given the state of the science of medicine in the Renaissance era, they must have been pretty healthy. They travelled, they sang for a living. Bel canto singing demands stamina and basic good health. They fought duels, had affairs. They were taller than the average man. They were definitely not invalids.

Duelling ref here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caffarelli_(castrato)

A policy which excludes males from the female category based on male pubertal development still accepts a degree of unfairness to women athletes.
And it doesn't make sense. It's still attempting to establish eligibility for the Women's category by irrelevant factors like appearance, or identity, rather than the factor which is significant, ie sex.

I thought castrati were so tall because their bones never really stop growing @BellaAmorosa ? Weren't they often portly , even obese too?

I remember my friend's little girl winning a mixed 60 mtr race. Mind you they were all 7 year olds! Inclined to agree with pp - hard to see sporty boys going for puberty blockers.

But it’s already happened and it’s going to keep happening more. It doesn’t matter if it’s only ever going to be small numbers (that is the same argument always made for letting males into women’s sports) - small numbers of male competitors with an unfair advantage can ruin things for a large number of women and girls.