Quote from: Ruchi on August 10, 2024, 12:23:52 AMFormer athlete here. (Mtf)
Biological men should never compete against women, regardless of hormone levels. They've experienced male puberty, and even if they haven't, their cells are still male which gives them a competitive edge. It's just like how we ban people for doping.
Khelil is a biological woman according to Algeria, however being xy is still an unfair advantage. Intersex people should not be allowed to compete against women, either, cause they can still have male characteristics.
This is not a hill anyone should want to die on. Allowing people to compete against women based on how they identify will only turn the world against trans issues, and it'll affect trans resources because it can be used as an excuse to limit access to hormones/surgeries for people who desperately need it.
This is not a trans rights issue. The Olympics is not about rights, it's about privilege for a select few with the ability to compete under fair rules and regulations.
Ahh, if it were only this simple!
Alas, we are early into research about competitive advantage of the various sex and gender identities, but we already know there are some activities where there could be advantages, and some activities where there are disadvantages. Elite sports celebrate biological advantage, Phelps with his limited lactic production is well known, but many other top athletes have similar biological advantage. As the French say "Viva La Difference!"
We know that there are variations in sexual development, and genetics are way more complicated than most of us understand. Intersex people can have a wide range of attributes, and that trans people on hormones develop differently depending on genetics, age, and even the skill of the doctors. They have identified MTF people who retain more muscle after hormone therapy, but this can become a disadvantage due to their haemoglobin levels falling to female range, which denies the larger muscles oxygen to be efficient. This is more pronounced on endurance activities, so may have no effect on short duration activities.
All this points to possible disadvantages, and possible advantages. On the surface, it seems we are chasing fairness, but it gets more complicated when there are countries reputations, sponsors profits, and all forms of media involved. I would hate to be charged with finding solutions for all this. One of the first lessons we were taught at school was the fable of 'trying to please everyone', lesson being, it simply can't be done.
I live in a country which has a great (not perfect) legislation in our Discrimination Act. It protects the assets of race, religion, disability, sexual orientation and gender identity from discrimination, but added a clause for sporting bodies, allowing them to make case by case decisions to preserve fairness. This means that if an individual had advantages which threatened the viability of competition, the body could impose restrictions. The problem for the IOC and other such bodies is to make rules to make competition even for a species which has significant diversity. We are learning that this might just not be possible. It may be that all abilities grading might need to be adopted, or that dominant individuals would need to be restricted.
Part of what we want from elite sport, is to find heroes and heroines (not sure of the non binary term) like Michael Phelps, so would we, in the interest of fairness, have tolerated seeing him somehow restricted so his dominance was negated. Ahh, if it were only this simple.....
Hugs,
Allie