- cross-posted to:
- worldnews@lemmit.online
- cross-posted to:
- worldnews@lemmit.online
The International Cricket Council has become the latest sports body to ban transgender players from the elite women’s game if they have gone through male puberty.
The ICC said it had taken the decision, following an extensive scientific review and nine-month consultation, to “protect the integrity of the international women’s game and the safety of players”.
It joins rugby union, swimming, cycling, athletics and rugby league, who have all gone down a similar path in recent years after citing concerns over fairness or safety.
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For those who don’t follow cricket closely, there are a few significant rule variations for women’s cricket - namely a smaller/lighter cricket ball and reduced field\boundary dimensions.
There are also implicit limits in the upper end of cricket performance- Elyse Perry holds the record for the fastest womens cricket ball bowled ag 130.5 kph, while Shoaib Akhtar holds the overall record at 161.3 kph. There’s an interesting article here that goes into more detail on the precise physical characteristics that influence bowling, where they define male fasf bowling at >122.9kph and female fast bowling at >97.8, a 30% ish difference: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35259727/
This is all to say that there are very clear and established differences between men and women’s cricket in the interest of safety and fairness already baked into the laws of the game. If you accept that male puberty leads to a disproportionate advantage in bone density/muscle mass vs cis women, then this decision is sensible. The exact numbers are hard to quantify, skill and natural technique plays a huge part in cricket, but on the bell curve of something like pace bowling the risk of a trans woman significantly outperforming cis women is undeniable.
Recently in the uk didn’t a football player have thier knee broken by a transgender woman and then all the women refused to play that team again ?
Sport is the most boring show on TV by far, and yet the actors are paid insane amounts. The fandom is the most toxic bullshit out there and the show runners encourage it.
Cancel sport already, it’s really dumb.
As one of the characters in (the book) Jurassic Park says, “the two most boring things in the world are sports and fashion.” I couldn’t have said it better myself. But I do have a lot of family members who are athletic, and some have gone as far as olympic competitions. So, I can’t really say they have no valid right to enjoy their sport. And those family members are the most kind and welcoming people, they are absolutely appalled by all this bigoted negativity toward trans athletes, and are smart enough to see if for the fascist malarky it truly is.
The ultimate reason it’s wrong to ban transgender people from competing in athletics competitions is that the implication is that testosterone can be considered a performance enhancing drug – even if the athlete in question is well within hormonal levels of any other cisgender athlete in the same sport.
If that’s the case, then it opens the door to banning other athletes for exceeding the testosterone limit, and guess what? Cisgender women with African heritage naturally produce more testosterone than the average woman world-wide. So banning transgender athletes leads to potentially banning African women which is obviously racist and wrong to do.
Also, poly cystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) is a condition that affects about 1 in 10 women and a very common side effect of PCOS is elevated testosterone levels. So 1 in 10 women would be banned for medical reasons outside of their control. And banning people for a medical condition is ableist and obviously wrong to do.
And, ultimately, sports aren’t fair. We try to make them equitable by making the rules universal, but biological advantages are just part of sports. If we start banning athletes for hormones, why not ban athletes for being taller than average? Why not ban athletes for having better vision than average? Or better peripheral vision? Or faster reflexes? If only the absolute average, or below average people were allowed to compete then nearly half of all people would be unable to compete.
Plus, the vast majority of athletes say that they don’t want transgender people to be banned from their respective sports.
And not to mention that it’s just rude to exclude transgender athletes, and if it were truly such an advantage to be transgender then why aren’t transgender people winning tournaments left and right? About 1% of people are transgender, so if transgender people are winning 1% of all tournaments then that would mean that they’re exactly on exactly equal footing with their competitors. But I suspect that less than 1% of tournament winners are transgender which means that transgender people are actually at a disadvantage, which again, is fine because sports are inherently unfair as I outlined above.
At the end of the day, transgender athlete bans hurt everyone, and anti-transgender jerks are just making a big stink about it because it sounds reasonable on it’s face to uninformed people and so it’s a good wedge issue to bring up. Anti-transgender people don’t care about the sports they’re “trying to save”, they just hate transgender people and want to see them suffer, and anyone who entertains their non-sense is complicit (probably unknowingly) in that suffering.
So please, those of you who are reasonable, shut down any discussion of transgender sports bans.
IMHO, if fairness is the goal, then categories should be based on performance history alone. People should be competing with others of their class in the sport being played.
If I’m the best at tennis, I want to compete against the other best players, not the other best players with (or without) a peen or some other stupid grouping.
Your argument is “there is natural variation therefore we can’t set limits” could be missing the nuance that there can be a much larger impact from puberty changes than current hormone levels
Another commenter below shared this study that describes the effect of make puberty as being much more impactful on explosive strengthb than current testosterone levels.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33289906/
What are your thoughts on this?
That study is irrelevant and their findings don’t change anything about my answer. That study could say “African women have more lean muscle mass and are taller than the average athlete” and you wouldn’t be sharing that study around saying that African women shouldn’t be allowed to compete with other athletes because that’s racist and stupid.
And besides, taking an extreme example and comparing it to the average is dishonest. The best way to determine if transgender athletes are actually dominating in sports is their top level tournament wins. As I said, about 1% of people are transgender, so about 1% of tournament winners should be transgender if everything is even. Anything above, means an advantage and anything below means a disadvantage.
So where are all the transgender people absolutely dominating tournaments above the average of transgender prevalence?
You can’t show me that because it doesn’t happen, and even if it did happen, that’s just sports! You simply can’t ban people for a biological advantage in a hobby where biological advantages are literally everywhere. Height, vision, reflexes, agility, intelligence, etc.
Take a note on how the other user responded to my question. You instead responded with hostility, good luck convincing anyone if that’s how you engage with a genuine attempt to discuss the topic
I apologize if you’re not a transphobe, but you reposted a singular study whose findings are trash at best and outright bigotry at worst. I think it’s natural for me to assume you’re a transphobe trying to troll considering I specifically said:
…anti-transgender jerks are just making a big stink about it because it sounds reasonable on it’s face to uninformed people and so it’s a good wedge issue to bring up. Anti-transgender people don’t care about the sports they’re “trying to save”, they just hate transgender people and want to see them suffer, and anyone who entertains their non-sense is complicit (probably unknowingly) in that suffering.
So please, those of you who are reasonable, shut down any discussion of transgender sports bans.
Of course trying to continue the discourse would make me assume that you’re transphobic. You should have been more clear if that’s not the case. Regardless, it shouldn’t take away from my point. Again though, I apologize if you posted it from a perspective of honest discussion, but I hope you understand that this topic is often a target of trolls who seek to muddy the water by “just asking questions” in bad faith.
You don’t get to decide what people can and cannot discuss. And if someone replying was transphobic then maybe responding calmly and rationally would help change their mind. Just calling people transphobes does more to turn people away from your cause than just not replying
You’re just some person on the Internet arguing for the sake of arguing. For trans people these arguments are used to slowly erase our rights. Don’t demand civility from people you help oppres because you were board.
Removed by mod
In theory trans women are superwomen and then in reality they’re weaker and derpier than the top female athletes and all of this is just a scare tactic because these theories havent played out in the real world at all.
On the sports angle, esports looked like it would finally be the place for me to be a fan because the athletes are relatable to me. But no, they got bought up by the Saudis, so all I get for relatable media is drag queens and furries or whatever.
My fist thought was “why does the International Criminal Court care”
The whole uproar about banning transgender athletes from competing in women’s divisions is weird.
We’ve banned athletes from taking performance enhancing hormones for decades because of unfair advantage. Allowing someone who is scientifically a male to compete in a women’s division raises the same hormonal-related concerns of unfair advantage. It’s irrelevant whether or not that male is choosing to socially identify as a man or woman.
It’s worth noting that “scientifically a male” is genuinely a more complicated phrase than it might initially seem at first, because trans people generally do more than just socially transition, changing their name and clothes. Sex differences are primarily mediated through sex hormones, and radically changing one’s hormonal profile, as happens with hormone therapies, causes very real biological effects. A trans woman, while being stronger than your average cis woman, will lose a meaningful amount of muscle due to the lack of testosterone (and will also generally develop better cardiovascular health, again due to the lack of testosterone). Depending on the sport and the individuals in question, it’s not unreasonable to suggest that there are cases where some amount of residual muscle doesn’t necessarily confer a particularly large benefit such that a blanket ban is warranted.
Depending on the sport and the individuals in question, it’s not unreasonable to suggest that there are cases where some amount of residual muscle doesn’t necessarily confer a particularly large benefit such that a blanket ban is warranted.
Agreed. That said, I’ve yet to see a major sport league that bans transgenders in women’s divisions without at least some empirical research existing that demonstrates an unfair advantage.
I mean both chess and pool have recently banned transgender women from competition.
So the push is not purely an evidence-driven one. In fact there is a very loud political faction trying to remove transgender women from all events, from the highest levels all the way down to park fun-runs.
Isn’t that ridiculous, given that women have empirically proven to be better swimmers in most cases that most men. And I’m certain the reason for banning transgender women from chess is because they realize these people are smarter than the average bear. And more likely to outclass their opponents every time. And you know what? They’re right about that.
Can’t pretend I’m particularly familiar with the specifics, but to be clear, I do think it is absolutely possible, and indeed likely, that there are situations where a genuine advantage is present, and I think the line really needs to be drawn by each individual sports body.
I understand the idealism of wanting there to be no real restrictions, but you need some regulations, if only to prevent the bad-faith asshole who decides to identify as a woman for the day of a competition. As time passes and more studies are done, we’ll be able to draw more evidence-based lines that more accurately balance accessibility and fairness.
My only real point here is just to say that this phrase “biological/scientific male” is way way messier than a simple binary category like that might suggest. A huge amount of tissues in the body of some level of sex differentiation, and that differentiation also varies a lot based on the stage of development that their exposed to hormones. A trans person isn’t going to change their skeleton with hormones, but there are other things that do meaningfully change to get closer to the other sex. A trans woman’s breasts, for instance, are genuinely just as “biologically female” as any cis woman’s.
Hej, I‘ve seen quite a few comments using weird expressions to refer to trans women here, so to clarify, a trans woman is not:
- a scientific male (trans women are scientifically women)
- a biologically born male (Biologically born? Yes. Male? No.)
- a biological male (as, usually, biological markers such as anatomy, hormone levels, chromosomes and behavior in trans women are ambiguous)
A trans woman is:
- a woman (female) who was assigned male at birth
- often, but not always, a person who has gone through testosterone puberty, but identifies as female
Just use the words trans woman and cis woman, it‘s concise, correct and respectful. I‘m not saying that there are no differences between trans women and cis women, but simply that trans women are women. If you disagree with that, go watch ContraPoints or PhilosophyTube.
Consequently, the international cricket council should call it the elite cis women‘s game from now on, that would just be consistent.
I am still confused. My understanding was that trans people change their gender. This is something I am able to wrap my head around because gender (man/woman) is a human construct anyway and people should have the freedom to choose where they are on that spectrum.
But isn’t sex a genetic thing that can’t be changed? If it’s the case that a person can choose whether they are male or female then science is going to need new terminology to replace male/female for XY and XX because the words science used to use have been commandeered to mean something more like gender?
In particular when referring to humans, the definition of sex is ambiguous, as is the term “biological male”. And I think this problem is intrinsic: Gender and sex are complicated (with many different markers which may be congruent for many people, but are not for trans and intersex people), and the usefulness of categories depends on context. For example, in a dating context, gender might be a useful category. In a medical context, sex is not a useful category for trans and intersex people: It’s not sufficient information, and sometimes ambiguous.
I agree that it would be nice to have other words than for XY/XX chromosomes (or small vs large gametes), this would make the language more exact and inclusive. However, I (and others) dislike the term “biological male”, because I think it exists only to create a category that equates cis men with trans women. Even if we agree on defining “biological male” as a person having XY chromosomes, in a sports context this is an unhelpful category because there are large differences between XY cis men and XY trans women. When there is apparently so much concern for fairness and safety, why not ask the big questions: How can we make sports inclusive, safe and fun for everyone (including trans people!), regardless of genetics? Are sex or gender useful categories to separate competition — or are there other, more useful markers? (And maybe even: Are international competitions as we have them now a desirable system?)
Nobody is excluding trans woman from the sport. They are excluding trans woman from the tier of physically less strong participants.
Note that cis men who are born with non sex related disadvantages are also excluded from this tier. If a man has a hunchback, he still has to compete with the men, despite having a serious disadvantage. From my point of view, such a disadvantage is no different from the disadvantage that XY trans woman have.
However, I (and others) dislike the term “biological male”
I dislike the lack of an enclosing comma. Would you, pretty please, fix that?
Uh oh, someone is conflating gender and sex again, despite claiming to be a trans ally.
I agree with much of what you said but have to nit-pick a part that I found confusing.
trans women are women
And cis women are cis women?
Comes off as if an afab person, who has always referred to herself as simply “woman” now has to refer to herself as “cis woman” to be exact, whereas trans women have now adopted “woman”
I’m a guy, and I’d be pretty irritated if people suddenly started insisting that I not refer to myself as “guy” anymore, because trans guys are now “guys” so they get my old title but now I have to specifically state that I’m a “cis guy” everywhere…
Like why would I have to give up my title? It’s one thing for them to adopt it as well, not like I mind, more the merrier! But why am I having to change my title when I’ve been the same all along?
It’s like if people began changing cats into dogs, and claiming the name “cat” for the former dogs. Cool, do what you will, but then they tell me that my “cats” aren’t “cats” anymore, they’re cis-cats and I must refer to them as such. Why? They’ve always been cats to everyone? How you gonna tell me that you get the name “cats” but my lifelong “cats” are now something else?
Trans women are women, and cis women are women. Simple. No one is “taking” someone else’s name.
Last comment stated international women’s cricket should be renamed international cis women’s cricket 🤔 because women who experienced testosterone puberty are excluded
Whereas a group of TW playing football can 100% use “Women’s football league” Even if the league is 100 trans women and cis women are excluded
That’s all I’m saying, how’s that not taking a title? Not saying this with any malice, hope that’s clear I’ve no dog in this race other than supporting everyone but that’s weird to me
… But where is that women’s football league that excludes cis women while still calling itself “[just] women’s football”?
Whereas we already have many women’s leagues in sports that exclude trans women.
So if it’s actually happening, then sure I’ll agree to calling it “taking a title” and honestly be against it; imo it sets the fight for trans rights back if we use “woman” exclusively for trans women and cis women only ever get called “cis women”. But again, where is that happening? Who is calling for that?
I only ever see people claiming that cis women should have exclusive use of the word “women”, not the other way around. Which is just another way of arguing that trans women “aren’t really women”…
Don’t use cis. Woman is a woman.
Safety of the players? How do trans women playing cricket endanger cis women?
Cricket balls are hard dude. Like really hard.
100%, but the hardness of a cricket ball doesn’t change with who’s using it. A really really hard ball moving really really fast is still a really really hard ball moving really really fast, so it’s not like there’s some significant difference in danger posed. And even if there was such a big danger posed by someone assigned-male-at-birth playing cricket, why would it still be perfectly fine for men’s cricket?
Because scientific males have significant anatomical differences than scientific females, which results in the former having dramatically increased strength and endurance. It doesn’t take that much explanation to understand why it might be bad to have an athlete hurling what are essentially rocks at 80+ mph towards batters who are lacking sufficient muscle fibers to respond effectively and, especially towards the end of a match, are far more likely to be exhausted.
Again, we’re talking about throwing “essentially rocks” at speeds that are insanely fast no matter who’s doing the throwing. When you’re talking hard objects being thrown at such high speeds towards people in protective gear, the difference in danger (even if that danger is significant) is going to be minimal. If women “are far more likely to be exhausted” at the end of a match, they’re more susceptible to really bad injuries from any cricket ball moving at such a high speed. A trans woman throwing the ball isn’t going to pose much more risk, definitely not enough for safety to be a factor in banning trans women from women’s cricket.
I think there’s definitely a discussion to be had in regards to what’s fair and how we approach fairness and sports in a world that’s accepting of trans people. However, the moment you go out and pretend that there’s some safety risk posed by trans women in sports, you unjustifiably paint them as threats to cis women, and that’s completely unacceptable.
I think you’re conflating the severity of being hit with a thrown ball with the frequency of being hit with it. I agree that getting smacked with a rock going 80 mph vs. 60 mph both carry a significant risk of harm, even in protective gear. My point is that women are more likely to be unable to effectively respond to those faster pitches, particularly towards the end of a match, and thus are exposed to a greater frequency of being hit by the ball and injured.
If you have ever been in a batting cage, you should understand how much more difficult it becomes to read a ball with even a 5-10 mph increase in speed. Not only do biological women lack the same muscle and skeletal composition that allows men to respond quickly in dodging or turning into a misguided pitch, but they also exhaust quicker and thus are more likely to be suffer from a delayed neurological response in doing the initial mental read of the ball’s path. If you suddenly turn the speed of those pitches up by a third, you’re increasing the likelihood that those women batters will be hit, regardless of whether the injury is likely to be the same.
Hmm, fair point. I can see how increased ball velocity and decreased reaction speed could make an injury more likely. Nevertheless, I still have these doubts:
- How much of a difference actually is there in reaction speed? I have a hard time believing that there’s enough of a difference for a biological female be unable to dodge a throw where a biological male would.
- Going with the previous question, is this alleged difference in exhaustion actually observed to a great extent among professional cricket players?
- Are these safety factors really significant as to be part of a reason to ban transgender players? If a cis woman came around that bowled significantly faster than other cis women in the sport, would it be reasonable to want them banned from the sport or to portray them as a threat to other players?
Unless there really is some big safety concern, still seems absurd to ban people on these metrics and tell people that you’re protecting the other players by doing it. With the evidence I’m aware of, it still seems minimal to me, and we’ve seen BS reasoning for banning trans women in other women’s competitions (e.g., chess). While I can’t say with confidence that there’s no decent argument in support of a ban, I still don’t think safety is part of it.
I think you’re right the most of the argument for the ban relates to fairness, and I frankly doubt that there have been any sort of safety studies done in cricket that would speak to my point.
You’re replying to a comment chain saying that it’s for their safety and you’re not actually discussing that claims by saying they’re likely to be exhausted. The damage a ball traveling that fast can do is similar to men and women, I would imagine, and in the men’s league that risk is obviously not something that prevents the game from being played.
Get that terf garbage out of here.
I’d be mad except… it’s fucking cricket.
Cricket is the second-most popular sport in the world.
I’ve literally never seen a game of it, and know nothing about it, but this affects a lot of people.
Like baseball but slower.
And so another so-called sport franchise flushes itself down the sewer for its ingrained bigotry and body shaming depravity.
There is absolutely not one shred of evidence whatsoever that going through male puberty automatically makes you a superhuman athelete. There is no evidence at all that trans players are more intrinsically athletic than any other player on the field.
THESE IGNORAMUSES ARE NOT PROTECTING ANYONE’S INTEGRITY. They are simply demonizing and hating on a very easy to target group because they themselves are so ashamed of their own nonatheltic abilities.
The whole notion and meaning of the term “sports” is “inclusion of anybody willing to participate.” There is no other criteria. Sports is supposed to be a fair game for all. Obviously the international cricket council is not just anti-sport, but anti-humanity in every conceivable way.
I hope all the sports enthusiasts of the world unite to work against hateful sport councils such as the ICC. Hate and bigotry and sheer ignorance have no home in sports franchises.
Sorry dude, but you’re objectively wrong. There is a wealth of academic studies demonstrating that transgender players have an advantage in women’s divisions, and that gender-affirming treatment fails to rectify that.
Testosterone drives much of the enhanced athletic performance of males through in utero, early life, and adult exposure. Many anatomical sex differences driven by testosterone are not reversible. Hemoglobin levels and muscle mass are sensitive to adult life testosterone levels, with hemoglobin being the most responsive. Studies in transgender women, and androgen-deprivation treated cancer patients, show muscle mass is retained for many months, even years, and that co-comittant exercise mitigates muscle loss. Given that sports are currently segregated into male and female divisions because of superior male athletic performance, and that estrogen therapy will not reverse most athletic performance parameters, it follows that transgender women will enter the female division with an inherent advantage because of their prior male physiology.
Heather AK. Transwoman Elite Athletes: Their Extra Percentage Relative to Female Physiology. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022 Jul 26;19(15):9103. doi: 10.3390/ijerph19159103. PMID: 35897465; PMCID: PMC9331831.
Transwomen retain an advantage in upper body strength (push-ups) over female controls for 1–2 years after starting gender affirming hormones. Transwomen retain an advantage in endurance (1.5 mile run) over female controls for over 2 years after starting gender affirming hormones.
Roberts TA, Smalley J, Ahrendt DEffect of gender affirming hormones on athletic performance in transwomen and transmen: implications for sporting organisations and legislatorsBritish Journal of Sports Medicine 2021;55:577-583.
[T]he transgender woman swimmer experienced improvements in performance for each freestyle event (100 to 1,650 yards) relative to sex-specific NCAA rankings, including producing the best swimming time in the NCAA for the 500-yard distance (65th in the men’s category in 2018–2019 to 1st in the women’s, 2022). Similarly, NCAA-ranked male swimmers had no improvements in rank in the men’s category during the same time frame. Our findings suggest that the performance times of the transgender woman swimmer in the women’s NCAA category were outliers for each event distance and suggest that the transgender woman swimmer had superior performances relative to rank-matched swimmers.
Case Studies in Physiology: Male to female transgender swimmer in college athletics Jonathon W. Senefeld, Sandra K. Hunter, Doriane Coleman, and Michael J. Joyner Journal of Applied Physiology 2023 134:4, 1032-1037
honestly his use of the term superhuman athlete makes the whole thing just silly. men are not automatically superhuman athletes either but in many physical sports they might as well be compared to women. Mens sports generally allow both sexes so are open to all, womens are basically so that women athletes have an outlet where they can reasonably succeed. Otherwise its like chess tournaments always allowing computers.
Women are not in any way less athletically abled than men are. I’ve seen men gymnasts that could outdo women and women football players than could outdo men. It’s not about who is better abled to do something - sports is about having inclusion for everyone no matter their level of talent or ability.
yes the best female athlete can beat some male athletes but the best male will always outperform females where physical strength is an issue. Just look at any olympic events male/female side to side or that one male tennis pro while a pro was ranked something like 100 and smoke serena who was ranked 1 among women. Look at all the olympic races, weight lifting, etc male/female side by side.
I disagree with that idea - that the best male will always outperform females where physical strength is concerned. And even if this is true, sports should not favor those with the greatest physical strength, to me the best athletes are those with the drive and determination to participate. Trans, straight, bi, gay - those things are only relevant off the field, not on.
this is not an idea, its just facts plain and simple https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Olympic_records_in_athletics# your physical strength idea only works if you put forth the idea that pretty much every competition is reliant on it. strength speed endurance. its all men. its not about willingness to be an athlete its just about having a doable categorization. This is why combat competitions besides having seperate mens and womens also have weight classes.
No it’s not “facts.” It’s your acceptance of bigoted and chauvinistic ideas about women and men based on outdated stereotypes. Men are NOT inherently stronger than women are, and I’ve even go so far as to suggest that women are many times stronger in the realms of emotional stability and reliability than men could ever be. You can have whatever bigoted ideas you want - but dont try and pass them off as “facts” just because you were never taught any other way to see the world.
[1] If this issue is so clear cut, then I wonder why like any guidance by medical organizations for transitioning people state clearly “expect muscle and strength loss at the level that it might affect your grocery carrying experience” (like this https://www.wpath.org/publications/soc ). [2] Don’t forget junk science has targeted women of color, intersex women, and even normal women with high testosterone levels https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2021/07/sport/athletics-testosterone-rules-negesa-imali-running-as-equals-dsd-spt-intl-cmd/ for exclusion from female sports. [3] Now to your “academic” points. Your first reference is written by an inarticulate person reciting long debunked gender stereotypes in some third-world journal, without even backing it up. Low quality article all around, appears like a targeted attempt to give academic substance to age-old stereotypes. In contrast Scientific American has published that “trans girls belong to women’s sport” https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/trans-girls-belong-on-girls-sports-teams/ since “there is no scientific case for excluding them” and “a visualization of sex as a spectrum” https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/sa-visual/visualizing-sex-as-a-spectrum/ which I guess debunks all certainties of the said article. [4] Your second reference is a cherry pick from an article that states exactly the opposite “The 15-31% athletic advantage that transwomen displayed over their female counterparts prior to starting gender affirming hormones declined with feminising therapy.” (from the abstract), so what you have written might be just a little bid …dishonest? [5] And the third is a N=1 case study of one champion? It compares a single person before and after hormones to the “established sex differences”? Come on! I could even bring in articles on your side of the argument that could be more hard to debunk. The Karolinska Institute study is one for example http://biorxiv.org/lookup/doi/10.1101/782557, who went to great lengths to skew the sample to make a seemingly neutral contribution. [6] Look for systematic studies, cherry picking is cheating: Here is a systematic review https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5357259/ It is inconclusive whether testosterone drives athletic performance, and studies are inconclusive about trans women having unfair advantages. But they do point out that prejudice stigma and violence is a factor for transgender athletes. If anyone wants to be fair has to factor in the shit trans women will take in male sports, plus that some male athletes may find it unfair to compete them in case they recognize them as women. Also some athletes and commentators have switched sides about their prior strong rhetoric on the matter https://www.thedailybeast.com/mma-fighter-rosi-sexton-apologizes-to-fallon-fox-for-transphobic-comments and I think Joe Rogan himself apologized to.
[1] Because while strength decreases, empirical research shows that it does not decrease to the level of removing the competitive advantage in women’s sports.
[2] This article contains utterly no discussion about transgender athletes that have already undergone male puberty.
[3] You’re relying on ad hominem attacks instead of actually addressing any of the substantive findings. Moreover, your articles do not contain a single empirical study.
[4] If you read the full article, you would see that it doesn’t decline to the point of removing the advantage, as my quoted sections show. In fact, the very next sentence after the one you quote reads “However, transwomen still had a 9% faster mean run speed after the 1 year period of testosterone suppression that is recommended by World Athletics for inclusion in women’s events.” Your claim of cherry picking is ironic.
[5] Yes, the meaning of a case study is that it studies a single case. Notably, there are only five known transgender swimmers in the NCAA’s Division I, which was the subject of the study. I’m not sure what you’re trying to do by citing another study (ultimately finding that transwomen “were still stronger and had more muscle mass following 12 months of treatment”) in support of my point, but go off I guess.
[6] Your “systematic review” is close to a decade old and, unsurprisingly, doesn’t address any of the studies I cited. Moreover, the study you’re citing consistently admits that it doesn’t have enough information to really make any judgments - and its conclusion is based on the importance of sports for the physical and mental health of transgender people. To the extent it discusses competitive advantage, it does so entirely within the context of androgenic hormones, and contains no discusses of anatomical differences (e.g., larger bodies, longer legs, bigger bones, larger lungs). In addition to citing an outdated study in a rapidly evolving field of research, you then you cite a Daily Beast article – lmfao.
fairness or safety
my ass…
(edit to clarify: the only concern in making these decisions are the fragile egos of cis people)
