Quote from: sarahc on March 07, 2019, 09:57:06 PM
Fundamentally, I think the question here is: are women's competitions (especially those at the highest and professional levels) for AFABs only or all people who have female hormone profiles?

I think that there are many women in women's competitions who want the competitions to be for AFABs only, excluding those who at once had the advantage of testosterone to give them additional height and who had testosterone eliminated through medical procedures.

On the opposite side are those who think civil rights and access for all to competitive sport for all trumps that desire to limit competition. In other words, civil rights are s more important than some women's opinions of competitive fairness.

I myself have very mixed feelings on these arguments...I see merit on both sides of this issue.

In the coming years, I expect there to be more world-class trans women athletes, especially since there are so many more young transitioners than there used to be. And because of that, I think there is going to be more pushback by other women athletes, especially at the professional level.

Of course, competitors would like to eliminate any potentially strong competition. However, the governing bodies seem to be changing their minds from a fairness model based on exclusivity to a more inclusive model and that is the right path.

Competitive fairness is relative anyway and it depends on the prevailing views at the time. I remember having read an article published in the late 19th century where they were discussing if eating lots of proteins in form of a large amount of steaks would give an unfair competitive advantage.

So I think that things will calm down and we will hopefully see successful trans athletes at the upcoming Olympic Games in Tokyo.

Quote from: Michelle_P on March 07, 2019, 08:13:55 PM
There is a tremendous range of different parameters constituting athletic capability in cisgender women.  Transgender women who have been on Hormone Replacement Therapy for one year, in compliance with IOC and NCAA guidelines, will have parameters for their body that lie within the domain of those found in cisgender women, in particular muscle mass in ratio to body mass and various skeletal measurements.  No IOC/NCAA limitations apply to transgender men.

As Brynn Tannehill has noted, if there were am athletic advantage that lay outside the range for cisgender women we would see transgender Olympians.  We do not.

I'm seeing this argument "If trans people had an advantage they'd already be at the Olympics. They do not ergo trans people have no advantages".

Ss above correlation does not equal causation and there are many reasons why this is likely the case (the statistics for incidence of trans people including those who transition later in life, the large number of trans people who live stealth and would not want to risk being outed etc).

I'm just wondering though do we know it to be right? I've never seen any IOC announcement on it and when I read about Tiffany Abreu https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/17/world/americas/brazil-transgender-volleyball-tifanny-abreu.html it says this

"Ms. Abreu, 33, is the first transgender volleyball player to make it to Brazil's top ranks. If she qualifies for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo — which experts say is probable — she would be making history as one of the first openly transgender athletes to participate in the Games."

It does occur to me that trans athletes might have competed and we wouldn't even have known as they weren't open about it. I remember reading prior to Rio about 4 trans athletes who were possibly selected (Daily Mail here talking about 2 of them https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3671937/Transgender-British-athletes-born-men-set-make-Olympic-history-competing-games-women.html). It also includes this suggestion:

"But worryingly for British sports fans, they have revealed they are so fearful of being exposed and ridiculed under the Olympic spotlight, they would 'probably drop back' if they found themselves in a medal-winning position" I actually recall Caster Semenya seeming to do a similar thing in the 2012 Olympics (although she won the Gold anyway after the Russian athlete was subsequently disqualified). Is it not possible that trans athletes have not allowed themselves to the Olympics for that fear.

Certainly in the last 16 years since the introduction of the rules by the IOC the world has changed and Rio 2020 may well be the first Olympics where a trans athlete could hold her head high. But I cannot see that participation in previous Olympics is at all an indicator, one way or the other, and nor will any future competition be an indicator one way or the other.

My view, for what its worth, is that the IOC have it right with their guidelines, and any retained "male" advantage is not anti-competitive (subject potentially to the sport involved). The suggestion that a man would cheat to win is a complete nonsense and frankly insulting to women athletes.

Quote from: Iztaccihuatl on March 07, 2019, 05:10:51 PMTherefore I don't think that the trans player's height gives her an unfair advantage (yes, she has an advantage in one area like a cis women of that stature would have, but it is not unfair).

There is a reason why the top basketball teams in America sign on tall players.

If not the trans-only category then trans people could be permitted to compete with non-trans sportspersons provided they meet certain hormonal regulations and provided they are not excessively bigger or stronger. The same reason we classify boxers by weight.

Otherwise you are asking for our group to be mocked and for the inclusion to be derided. I am already seeing in many social media spots on the internet that pictures such as the one above are being roundly considered some kind of joke or an attempt to destroy women's sports. There have been collections of images showing transwomen in first place with their cis counterparts in second or third with the idea behind it that this will lead to cis women being put off competing, the TERFs are obviously weighing in it, etc.

Frankly this is not a simple issue, and there will be problems to come of it.

It's all going to backfire in the end. Nuff said.

What I've seen is basically the anti trans competition sides arguement has been  that trans women are really men and that if surgery is not required, a cis man could transition to compete in women's sports, make their money and then de transition. They also imply that any man could transition and not just be competitive but dominate.

First, trans women are women, surgery or not.

Scond, there's not enough money in women's sports for that to be an actual thing.

Third , a cis man wouldn't last six months on the HRT needed to get testosterone levels to the acceptable range.

Fourth, average Joe beats average Jane. World class Joe beats world class Jane.
Average Joe does not beat world class Jane and would not become world class merely by transitioning. That assumption actually demeans all women athletes and their hard work getting to where they are. 

Any advantage that trans women athletes might have would be due to opportunities for training and exposure to athletics while growing up. While that's getting better, society still place more emphasis on athletics for boys than for girls.

He two main advocates for trans women athletes I've seen in the middle of this, Brynn Tannehill ( Michelle linked to her above) and Rachel McKinnon , present science based peer reviewed published evidence and data. I've not seen anyone arguing with them do the same.



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Quote from: Kylo on March 08, 2019, 06:54:59 AM
If not the trans-only category then trans people could be permitted to compete with non-trans sportspersons provided they meet certain hormonal regulations and provided they are not excessively bigger or stronger.

That is exactly what the current IOC guidelines do. A trans female athlete has to be on T-blockers for at least one year before she is permitted to compete and a trans male athlete has to compete in the men's division as soon as he starts on HRT.

I think the rules should be (independent of what sex you were assigned at birth, what your chromosomes or genitalia indicate, what gender you are socially living as, etc.):

If you currently, or within the past requisite amount of time, have been under the influence of unblocked testosterone at normal male levels (whether naturally or artificially), then you are considered male for competitive athletic purposes.

If not, then you participate as the gender you identify with.

The IOC has had rules in place for 15 years regarding transgender athletes competing at the international level.

None of this became "controversial" until quite recently.

I found it "interesting" how this has become a relatively hot topic in the past few weeks.  There turns out to be a reason for that...

First they^[1] "attacked transgender kids." Then they found out there's too many people that support and love them.

They needed a new angle.

"Oh what about transgender people in bathrooms?"

No...? Still need a new angle.

"Transgender in sports, that's where we will get them."

AND that failed, with the realization that the Olympics have allowed this for 15 years.

We won't stop proving our legitimacy and our right to exist. ✊🏻


1. Ben Shapiro and the Daily Wire, Family Research Council, and allied gender critical feminists.

Quote from: Zumbagirl on March 08, 2019, 06:57:04 AM
It's all going to backfire in the end. Nuff said.

I'm inclined to agree. I can see it kicking off in one of the combative sports like MMA or boxing for... evident reasons. 

Quote from: Michelle_P on March 08, 2019, 06:41:48 PM
The IOC has had rules in place for 15 years regarding transgender athletes competing at the international level.

None of this became "controversial" until quite recently.

I found it "interesting" how this has become a relatively hot topic in the past few weeks.  There turns out to be a reason for that...

First they^[1] "attacked transgender kids." Then they found out there's too many people that support and love them.

They needed a new angle.

"Oh what about transgender people in bathrooms?"

No...? Still need a new angle.

"Transgender in sports, that's where we will get them."

AND that failed, with the realization that the Olympics have allowed this for 15 years.

We won't stop proving our legitimacy and our right to exist. ✊🏻


1. Ben Shapiro and the Daily Wire, Family Research Council, and allied gender critical feminists.

I do agree that the place where this all comes from is one of challenging legitimacy. It all seems to have started with that group who I refuse to name spreading leaflets in opposition to the GRA changes, spreading lies about what self ID actually means. There is no doubt that it started from transphobia and yes some of the people who have followed on from that have said very transphobic things (Sharron Davies, for example, I heard on the radio yesterday making up a story about a UK trans weightlifter who was beating her competitors by 100%, and referred to the trans athlete as he throughout).

However, others, like Paula Radcliffe for example, do not appear to be coming from that position of threatening legitimacy. Many people involved now in the debate are I believe genuinely simply wanting a level playing field and in no way challenge our existence.

Quote from: Kylo on March 08, 2019, 09:19:36 PM
I'm inclined to agree. I can see it kicking off in one of the combative sports like MMA or boxing for... evident reasons.

Whether it does kick off I'm not sure, but if something like that happens (and I don't think it can be discounted as merely fanciful) that would be nothing short of disastrous

They call it concern for a level playing field but when shown evidence that the field is in fact level, they don't accept it and quite often double down without any evidence to the contrary.  There really isn't a debate because the anti trans competition people have no evidence to support their position.
Its been 15 years since the IOC has allowed trans women to compete and in that time no new evidence has been presented to show any advantage. Why is this happening now then? 

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I've kept my thoughts on this subject largely to myself, because it's so incendiary. However, I realized something last night that makes it impossible to remain silent.

As transgender people, we know that sex and gender are not the same thing. In most people, they are confluent; in us, they are divergent. Gender is who we are; sex is what we're burdened with. Neither ever changes. Transitioning is not about changing sex; it's about changing presentation, to minimize the downsides of being trans and maximize our quality of life.

Sport is divided by sex, not by gender.

When genetic males go through puberty, our bodies change irreversibly in size, muscle mass, etc., in ways that give us an inherent advantage over cis women in many contexts. If we belong to that most privileged subgroup of trans women, who, like Jazz Jennings and Nicole Maines, never go through male puberty, then no such advantage exists and there seems to be no good reason to bar us from competition; but most of us have not been so blessed.

There is at least one sport where it isn't even enough to divide people by sex: boxing. In boxing, contestants are further divided by weight class; and the reason is the same: fairness. If a heavyweight wanted to fight featherweights, he would be told to get lost. It would never be considered. Yet, for political reasons, in the case of trans women, it is.

There are other trans women who also believe it's unfair for us to compete. Twitter users @FreyjaKat and @TamaraZawada have spoken similarly.

This is not about prejudice. I'm sure there are horrible people who don't want us competing because they hate us. That's not important. The issue is fairness. Not being eligible to compete is just another downside to being trans. I'm sorry, it's disappointing; it may even be dysphoria-inducing. But facts are facts, and we need to face them rather than run from them. We don't do ourselves or our community any favors in the long run by politicizing this issue the way it is being politicized.

This is one of those things that seems like it makes sense, but evidence suggests otherwise.

Quoting the article posted by Stephanie (I think its the same info Michelle linked to earlier)


"But for now, there is no data-based evidence that the system is broken," she wrote.
"Athletic leagues do this all the time: if something is giving people a competitive advantage, they ban it."
Tannehill continued: "I'm frustrated as hell that we're still fighting this battle. The empirical evidence all points one way.
"We have years of data and huge sample set. The alternative is hurting a minority group for no measurable gain (you can't have less than zero trans Olympic athletes)."
She added: "We have thoroughly field tested the hypothesis that transgender athletes will dominate if they are allowed to compete, and statistically we can reject this hypothesis with a high degree of certainty."

Quote from: stephaniec on March 06, 2019, 11:21:49 AM
Brynn Tannehill

https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2019/03/06/transgender-navy-pilot-destroys-arguments-trans-athletes/

Pink News/03/06//2019      by Josh Jackman

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Quote from: Ann W on March 09, 2019, 08:02:57 PM
Sport is divided by sex, not by gender.

You are totally right. As soon as a trans person takes medical actions to align their sex with their gender, they have to be able to compete in the sex division that the medical measures put them. Therefore it is not unfair if a person with low t-levels competes in the women's division.

I also like to add that in sports that are not segregated by weight, any weight or other body dimensions are considered to be fair.

Quote from: TonyaW on March 09, 2019, 09:17:02 PM
This is one of those things that seems like it makes sense, but evidence suggests otherwise.

Thanks for reposting the link to the article.

If fairness is not an issue, then, of course, I'm thrilled. However, the article does not address all my concerns.

First, the issue isn't simply dominance of the sport altogether. It's also any high school where a cis girl doesn't make the team because a trans girl with a genetic advantage displaces her. It's local or regional events, here and there, where a trans girl with an unfair advantage displaces a cis girl for second place. In short, it's any and all instances where a cis girl loses out because the genetic deck was stacked in someone else's favor.

Second, because this issue has been so politicized, I am extremely cautious about taking alleged "studies" for granted. Let's face it: transphobes aren't the only ones with a tendency to color things in favor of desired conclusions. We -- no one -- should measure the advisability of a policy based on whose feelings will be hurt as a result.

Finally, suppose that, despite changes in bone density, muscle mass, etc., it is true that trans girls who have been on HRT for a year no longer have a competitive advantage due to male puberty. In that event, it is not enough for us to simply sit quietly and let these studies do our talking for us, because the perception among many in the non-trans portion of the sportsfan public is otherwise -- and their failure to understand can lead to the ruin of sports for everyone, through lack of participation and interest. I read a post just a day or two ago by a father who had already pulled his daughter out of sports at her school over this issue; and this wasn't simply transphobic pique on his part, because he had gone to some trouble to create alternative experiences for his daughter to take the place of her previous participation -- physical activities like kayaking, etc. Right or wrong, people are concerned; and I think that, if it isn't unfair for us to compete, we have an obligation to not merely say so, but be active in courting fearful people into coming back to the table.

EDIT: A while after writing this, I came across a recent segment of "Good Morning, Britain" which involved a panel discussion of this issue with a cis female athlete, a trans woman and a male sociologist. Both women thought it was unfair for trans women to compete with cis women; the sociologist took the opposite view. I must say, he did not advance his position very convincingly. In addition, Piers Morgan had a relevant comment about a recent competition in Connecticut. Here's the link:



I also just learned that Renee Richards, who successfully sued the USTA for the right to play in the US Open as a woman, has since changed her position on this subject.

High school sports is a non issue for the most part.  Trans girls would either have been on puberty blockers and not gone through male puberty or due to the age limitations on starting HRT, would not have been on it long enough to have had testosterone in the female range for over a year and fall into the range of no advantage.

At every level there is no inherent advantage if testosterone is suppressed for the requisite time, which consensus has at one year in the female range.

Trans athletes should not just bow out because some people falsely believe that they have some kind of advantage, just we should not all stay out of women's bathrooms because some people don't think we belong there.

Why exactly did that father pull his daughter of of sports? Afraid she'd have contact with a trans girl?  Tall people have advantage in basketball but we don't say they can't play because a short person might not make the team then. 

I play golf and my testosterone level has been in the female range for 18 months now.  Any advantage I would have against other women golfers would be due to my having taken up the game in my early teens and played and practiced fairly regularly since then, same as any cis women could have done.  The advantage I have was from being raised as a male and being encouraged to play sports more than girls my age. Girls are not excluded from sports, but yes there has historically been less opportunity for them.  That doesn't mean we exclude the girls (cis or trans) that have had those opportunities. Society is getting better in regards to sports for girls, but it's still got a ways to go.  Banning trans athletes does nothing to help that.

Side note, I have not and do not plan to compete in any women's golf events, just as I did not compete in men's events.


This has only become an issue now because the TERF movement in the UK has fueled it. A good chunk of the UK press has given them a platform, including the clip that was posted.  Piers Morgan is no friend  of trans people and Sharron Davies has been essentially just repeating the talking points of a TERF group.

There has been no new evidence that would warrant a reevaluation of policies currently in place allowing trans women to compete.  There has not even been one trans woman make an Olympic team since being allowed to compete.

This is about treating trans women as women and nothing else.

The relevant points to this from the Brynn Tannehill article.

Tannehill added that if in the future, we see "a disproportionate number of transgender women" winning at the highest level of sport, then it would make sense to reevaluate.
"But for now, there is no data-based evidence that the system is broken," she wrote.

"Athletic leagues do this all the time: if something is giving people a competitive advantage, they ban it."
Tannehill continued: "I'm frustrated as hell that we're still fighting this battle. The empirical evidence all points one way.
"We have years of data and huge sample set. The alternative is hurting a minority group for no measurable gain (you can't have less than zero trans Olympic athletes)."




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Quote from: TonyaW on March 10, 2019, 08:11:50 AM

This has only become an issue now because the TERF movement in the UK has fueled it. A good chunk of the UK press has given them a platform, including the clip that was posted.  Piers Morgan is no friend  of trans people and Sharron Davies has been essentially just repeating the talking points of a TERF group.

There has been no new evidence that would warrant a reevaluation of policies currently in place allowing trans women to compete.  There has not even been one trans woman make an Olympic team since being allowed to compete.

This is about treating trans women as women and nothing else.

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I agree that one of the reasons why this is becoming an issue now is the aforesaid group who I refuse to mention but its not the only reason.

In CAS recently there has been litigation in respect of Caster Semenya, which is the culmination of around five years of arguments which started in Chand v IAAF in 2015. In that case CAS found that there was insufficient evidence before it to prove that increased testosterone was in fact an advantage, and therefore the IAAF's proposed policy of requiring female athletes to reduce their testosterone below 5nmol/l was unfair. In 2018 the IAAF considered that they had sufficient evidence to prove that increased testosterone did give an athletic advantage and therefore required female athletes with increased testosterone to take medication to reduce their testosterone or be refused to compete. Semenya and South African Athletics have challenged that. The extent to which CAS do draw a link, or otherwise, between testosterone and athletic ability must impact on the approach to trans women on sports as well. Lets assume that they find that there is insufficient evidence to link testosterone and increased athletic ability, or that this is of a fairly minor level, that must impact on our argument that merely reducing testosterone levels the playing field sufficiently for full inclusion.

Also I disagree with Ms Tannehill not only on the relevance of the lack of trans women at the Olympics for reasons set out above, but also that we should deal with this if there are suddenly a disproportionate number of women at the highest level of sport in the future. My view is this needs to be fully dealt with. I wouldn't want any woman (CIS or Trans) to be put through what Semenya has, or Martinez-Patino in the 80s.

What we could do with, ideally, is CAS to deal with this (perhaps as a test case, or even a hypothetical scenario if they would be willing to deal with it) simply so that a line could be drawn under it. The issue is becoming toxic. There's lots of misinformation out there even in the traditionally reliable media.

I was discussing this with a few lawyers the other day. These are liberal people who are in no way anti-trans. When I came out I said I would use the disabled toilets so as not to make anyone feel awkward, these are people who said that no, I should use the ladies, thats where I belong. However, they are concerned about the future of female sport and ensuring that cis-women aren't disadvantaged. They agreed that in many sports depression of testosterone might (subject to any contrary evidence on the point) be sufficient, but in some sports they were concerned that the inherent physical advantages of being born male could never be offset merely by testosterone depression, giving rowing as an example. In this sport height is a huge advantage and the male rowers are often closer to 7 foot rather than 6 foot, heights which very few ciswomen will reach and would give the trans woman a huge advantage over the ciswoman rowers.

Whilst brainstorming with them I wondered whether a system not unlike that used at the Paralympics might be the answer, that being an assessment of whether an individual competitor carried an unfair advantage by virtue of their trans status. Whilst I anticipate that there might be some objection as such an assessment "feels" unfair, the reality now is that ciswomen appear to be subject to a similar assessment of whether they carry any unfair hormonal advantage in any event.

Quote from: TonyaW on March 10, 2019, 08:11:50 AM
Trans athletes should not just bow out because some people falsely believe that they have some kind of advantage, just we should not all stay out of women's bathrooms because some people don't think we belong there.

I anticipated this connection when the association of sport with sex, as opposed to gender, first occurred to me. The two are clearly distinguishable. For one thing, sports participation is not a necessity, while being able to relieve oneself is.

QuoteWhy exactly did that father pull his daughter of of sports? Afraid she'd have contact with a trans girl?  Tall people have advantage in basketball but we don't say they can't play because a short person might not make the team then.

I don't recall. For some reason, I think it was the fairness issue, but it could have been fear of injury. I think both aspects of the situation were under discussion at the time.

QuoteThis has only become an issue now because the TERF movement in the UK has fueled it. A good chunk of the UK press has given them a platform, including the clip that was posted.  Piers Morgan is no friend  of trans people and Sharron Davies has been essentially just repeating the talking points of a TERF group.

I know little of Piers Morgan, and he may be everything you say; but I saw nothing in the clip but valid concern – nothing based in prejudice. In fact, I saw nothing in the clip that suggested prejudice to me.

QuoteThis is about treating trans women as women and nothing else.

This is myopic. We are women. We aren't cis.

This is why I don't speak up more often in the trans community. We can't even seem to discuss certain subjects objectively. I'm going to withdraw from this thread after this post, before things get out of hand.

Quote"Athletic leagues do this all the time: if something is giving people a competitive advantage, they ban it."

If only that were true. Politics pollutes everything nowadays.

Quote from: emma-f on March 10, 2019, 09:22:40 AM
I was discussing this with a few lawyers the other day. These are liberal people who are in no way anti-trans. When I came out I said I would use the disabled toilets so as not to make anyone feel awkward, these are people who said that no, I should use the ladies, thats where I belong. However, they are concerned about the future of female sport and ensuring that cis-women aren't disadvantaged.

Exactly so. Fairness cuts both ways. Some people seem willing to sacrifice the integrity of women's sports for the sake of hurt feelings. I think that's a moral outrage.

I'm done.