Transgender woman Rachel McKinnon wins cycling world championship
https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2018/10/15/trans-woman-rachel-mckinnon-cycling-world-championship/?utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=Buffer&utm_campaign=PN
This poses and interesting dilemma. Do transgender women have an advantage in sporting contests that have been traditionally reserved for cisgender women?
Pink News/Josh Jackman
15th October 2018, 1:40 PM
I have written about this in the past. Under the IOC and Worlds Championship a post op tg who has been on HRT for 2 years can compete as a female. However, from personal experience and from reports if other sporty TG, we have a distinct advantage of residual muscle from being male, which makes it unfair in my view to compete. I initially competed in golf and 10k runs as a female in my age group and have never been beaten. I have withdrawn from competing since I realized it is NOT FAIR.
Thank you for your sense of fairness in an unfair world. Your post made me happy beyond words! again THANK YOU!
Quote from: warlockmaker on December 21, 2018, 09:13:01 PM
I have written about this in the past. Under the IOC and Worlds Championship a post op tg who has been on HRT for 2 years can compete as a female. However, from personal experience and from reports if other sporty TG, we have a distinct advantage of residual muscle from being male, which makes it unfair in my view to compete. I initially competed in golf and 10k runs as a female in my age group and have never been beaten. I have withdrawn from competing since I realized it is NOT FAIR.
At the highest levels of competition, it's more about training, which overrides any perceived potential advantage. Dr. McKinnon earned that victory with a lot of hard work. She did not just one day decide to try cycling to see how it goes.
You can follow her Twitter feed for more on this
Check out Dr. Rachel McKinnon (@rachelvmckinnon): https://twitter.com/rachelvmckinnon?s=09
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Okay. Let's try a scenario:
A cisgender woman trains from puberty taking high doses of steroids daily for many years, perhaps a decade even. Then she stops taking steroids and medically returns her body to hormonal levels that are within the range of other cisgender females. And this is proven and the fact are not in dispute. She then enters athletic contests with other cisgender women.
How would the anti-doping agencies overseeing athletic competitions view this?
Aren't we as a community often complaining of the vestigial effects that can never be removed of undergoing a male puberty?
You can follow a law or follow the spirit of the law. As a former professional sportsman its about being fair. Competing against cis women on an equal basis is being a sportsperson. Where you compete knowing you have an advantage either drug enhanced or being TG, as a sportsperson, this is ethically wrong. Consideration, respect and understanding needs to be our motto.
Quote from: warlockmaker on December 22, 2018, 09:56:14 PM
You can follow a law or follow the spirit of the law. As a former professional sportsman its about being fair. Competing against cis women on an equal basis is being a sportsperson. Where you compete knowing you have an advantage either drug enhanced or being TG, as a sportsperson, this is ethically wrong. Consideration, respect and understanding needs to be our motto.
How would you see it, if an intersex trans woman would compete? We intersex people have never had the muscle advantages of cis men. Muscle wise we are in between a cis woman and a cis man. Now, if we become a trans woman, estrogen reduces our muscles the same as it is doing with "normal" trans women. How would you see this in the competitive sports world? Where would we fit in?
The podium photograph speaks volumes
Not only do xy women have proportionally larger heart and lungs- the skeleton, joints and ligaments let alone muscle are all optimised for greater physical performance than xx women.
I think xx women should compete with xx women. If an xx woman wants to compete with the men though, then-yes- best of luck!
Kirsten x.
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Dietlind.
What makes sports special is sportsmanship. Fairness is the soul of sportsmanship. The sports world continually battles drug enhancement, winning has become the goal but sports is about competing fairly. Each sportsperson knows right from wrong, if you are intersexed and legaly qualify to compete, then let your concious be your guide.
Quote from: warlockmaker on December 23, 2018, 12:04:02 AM
Dietlind.
What makes sports special is sportsmanship. Fairness is the soul of sportsmanship. The sports world continually battles drug enhancement, winning has become the goal but sports is about competing fairly. Each sportsperson knows right from wrong, if you are intersexed and legaly qualify to compete, then let your concious be your guide.
Tank you warlockmaker. As with a lot of things in life, this is also subject to personal ethics. I am way to old to want to compete, but it was more like an academic question, which just interested me.
Happy holidays to the other side of the world!
Linde
Quote from: warlockmaker on December 23, 2018, 12:04:02 AM
Dietlind.
What makes sports special is sportsmanship. Fairness is the soul of sportsmanship. The sports world continually battles drug enhancement, winning has become the goal but sports is about competing fairly. Each sportsperson knows right from wrong, if you are intersexed and legaly qualify to compete, then let your concious be your guide.
Agree with this.
I've completed a couple of triathlons, and honestly got beat by every female competitor, but regardless of the British Triathlon Association saying I can compete professionally (HRT levels), I doubt I would, being physically taller and stronger than almost every other female competitor.
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It's a difficult question for sure, but taller and stronger doesn't mean better, especially when you get to world class athletes.
World class athletes are a different breed and play different games than we do. Any advantage that a trans woman might possibly have had by going through male puberty is greatly diminished, to the point of non existent by HRT. To compete at elite levels you need way more than just the possible advantage of having started with a larger body.
A simple example would be basketball. You can arguably state that Michael Jordan is the best basketball player ever and he was not the tallest or strongest player on the court at any time from college on for certain.
In most amateur and recreational sport, it can surely be enough of an advantage, but not one that a cis woman of the same size wouldn't enjoy. Also possibly unfair and certainly perceived so in these settings, so is something that would keep me from competing in women's sports if I had the desire to. I don't play the game for competition, but when my gender marker changed, my golf handicap dropped from 8 or 9 to around a 2. Which took me from better than your average Joe vs men to close to a a top amateur vs women.
I did read something about Dr McKinnon that if accurate, I certainly don't agree with. It appeared that she is saying that endogenous testosterone levels don't matter and it's not necessary for trans women athletes to take testosterone blockers (which the sports require). I believe it has to do with estrogen being enough to void effects of the testosterone.
I would imagine she is following whatever rules are in place for her competition or they'd take her victory away. She may be correct and possibly help to prove that to be true, but at the moment I don't think it has been. There are links to her research on her web page if anyone wants to give it read. It is academic research and can be a tough read, especially if you're not familiar with that style.
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Yep the podium photos speaks volumes.
It's not fair end of.
Testosterone is one hell of a drug. And its effects we all know to well, do not fully disappear
Given how much strength I lost in 18 months HRT, I would say no advantage. It took me significant effort to get at least a little of it back.
My hormone levels are now in line with most sports organizations allowing me to compete in the female category...