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Myths about Testosterone
- amelius 7y agoSince it becomes increasing clear that gender isn't a binary property, shouldn't we do away with gender difference in sports altogether?
- dlivingston 7y agoIt may not be binary, but gender certainly follows a bimodal distribution.
- layoutIfNeeded 7y agoCould you please cite some sources for your claim? Edit: wow, I didn’t expect so much hate by simply asking for sources.
- dlivingston 7y agoLess than 3% of Minnesota teens did not identify with traditional gender labels such as "boy" or "girl." That's bimodal. https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/141/3/e20171683 https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/141/3/e201716...
- layoutIfNeeded 7y agoThank you!
- barrkel 7y agoDo you understand "bimodal"?
- layoutIfNeeded 7y agoYes? Bimodal = the probability density function has two local maxima. Still I don’t see how that’s necessarily true for the gender spectrum. Is it really established that the gender spectrum only has two local maxima?
- ralfd 7y agoIt is simply obvious? Ask the next twenty people you meet on the street what gender (or sex) they are and if it isn’t a bimodal Distribution you would be at a very curious place.
- amelius 7y agoI guess so, but what you call bimodal is just a definition, not an absolute truth.
- whiddershins 7y agoTo my knowledge we have that. The “men’s” division in most sports is actually the “open” division. I believe the idea for a women’s division was to give a whole bunch of individuals a chance to champions who otherwise wouldn’t be competitive. To my knowledge there is no rule whatsoever preventing involvement in the NBA or NFL on the basis of gender.
- creaghpatr 7y agoWomen compete in NASCAR and very occasionally the PGA.
- davidw 7y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfonsina_Strada https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfonsina_Strada
- cco 7y agoJust a note, you're advocating for the end of women in professional sports. Only a tiny handful of women could continue to compete at the professional level.
- amelius 7y agoNot really, it was just a question. I think that perhaps we could shift to different sports where "men" don't have a clear advantage.
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- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- JamesBarney 7y agoHow would we switch sports? Get together and sign a global treaty that bans any sports where men show an advantage? Sports are incredibly ingrained in culture, traditions, and institutions around the world.
- whiddershins 7y agoWell, as pointed out, some trans women might still be competitive in the open division.
- sterkekoffie 7y agoThis is rather silly. The existence of heavyweight boxing doesn't stop people from watching (and enjoying) lightweight boxing.
- microcolonel 7y agoMost men's leagues are open to women†. Women's leagues exist to make it possible for (biological) women to compete at high levels of a sport. Serena Williams is an amazing tennis player, but she is no match for a #200 men's tennis player. The consequence of dissolving women's leagues is that, in most sports, no women compete at the top of any sport, except for the most extreme outliers. † One famous beneficiary of this being Manon Rhéaume
- amelius 7y ago> The consequence of dissolving women's leagues is that, in most sports, no women compete at the top of any sport, except for the most extreme outliers. But when we watch any big sports event, we're already looking at extreme outliers.
- microcolonel 7y ago> But when we watch any big sports event, we're already looking at extreme outliers. It's already the case that genes determine one's fitness for a particular sport. People already don't have as much interest (in most cases) in women's leagues; do we really just have to accept that there will be no biological female human champions in any top pro league in some sports? Maybe genes have a big effect, but surely there's room for people with whole different chromosomes. Nobody has a right to glory, but is it right to deny such a huge group of people any chance at some form of ultimate glory? Again saying this as somebody who does not watch professional sports in any capacity.
- happytoexplain 7y agoWhy does having more than two choices mean we must abolish all categorization?
- sp332 7y agoIt's not impossible, but it does get unwieldy. The Paralympics, for example, has lots of categories. https://www.paralympic.org/classification https://www.paralympic.org/classification There's a bunch of arguing about the categories and sometimes athletes will intentionally injure themselves to move into a lower category (like a boxer starving down to a lower weight class, but usually more damaging). Seems like they face another binary choice: abolish categories, or argue about the categories forever.
- elil17 7y agoOr categorize based on something besides sex or gender, like height or weight.
- microcolonel 7y agoNon-myth: People with higher testosterone tend to have higher bone density and muscle mass and a whole host of other things, and people who have had higher testosterone for most of their life retain all of these advantages to some degree. It's all fine and good that you want a space for trans athletes, but the experiment is going poorly; many women's leagues are being dominated by biological males, to absolutely nobody's surprise.
- Raphmedia 7y ago> and people who have had higher testosterone for most of their life retain all of these advantages. Transgender woman here. The lack of testosterone in my blood resulted in my muscle mass reducing to the point that I cannot do regular push-ups anymore. Granted, I could have trained if I wanted to retain this muscle mass but didn't. I also have to take supplements as prescribed my by healthcare provider to retain bone density. Both of those facts are well documented. IMO athletes should be weighted & tested and then put in devisions as is done in boxing. A heavyweight will never fight a light flyweight. The same concept should be applied independently of gender.
- microcolonel 7y ago> IMO athletes should be weighted & tested and then put in devisions as is done in boxing. A heavyweight will never fight a light flyweight. That's certainly an option, but if that's it, then that's the end of women's and girls' leagues. I don't particularly enjoy watching sports, and I can't name more than a couple athletes of any league, but it seems to me like a lot of people will be very disappointed by that. > The lack of testosterone in my blood resulted in my muscle mass reducing to the point that I cannot do regular push-ups anymore. Granted, I could have trained if I wanted to retain this muscle mass but didn't. This takes time, is more what I was getting at. I didn't write it all that well in my original comment so I guess it's going to get ripped to shreds. ;- )
- Raphmedia 7y ago> then that's the end of women's and girls' leagues So what? Why should we have "women's hockey" and not "lightweight hockey"? This would insure that everyone can compete in their division independently of gender. This is pretty much already what's happening but with a naming system based on gender. The ability to carry children or lactate is pretty much useless as a differentiator of skills. Some athletes would probably also push themselves to reach the division above their current one as if often done in boxing and this would results in interesting sportsmanship. Again, this is my merely my opinion and I'm sure that this would require more thought than the few minutes I've spent pondering the question. > This takes time This happened in a few months. Granted, I'm a programmer and my only exercise is hiking.
- mcguire 7y ago"The IAAF’s enforcement of gender normativity is also evident in its rebuttal of concerns raised by the World Medical Association and the United Nations, among others, about mandating that healthy athletes undergo medically unnecessary interventions in order to compete. Rather than viewing the serious and long-term consequences of lowering testosterone as “side effects,” the IAAF proposes that they are “the desired effects.” These changes—including reduced muscle and increased fat—are supposed to produce the kind of body that Stéphane Bermon, Director of the IAAF Health and Science Department, has presented as the “ideal female phenotype” at scientific conferences. "Disregarding women athletes who have resisted these interventions, even to the point of bringing legal challenges against the regulation, the IAAF insists that these “medications are gender-affirming” and “change their body to better reflect their chosen gender.” The latter statement insinuates that women athletes who do not willingly modify their bodies to fit IAAF standards actively “choose” their gender, which deliberately encourages confusion with transgender athletes." What the heck?
- pjc50 7y agoThis is about Caster Semenya and attempts to mandate that she take testosterone-reducing medication in order to compete.
- mcguire 7y agoAnd apparently to be closer to the "ideal female phenotype."
- charliesharding 7y agoIt's because she has a condition where she has XY chromosomes (typically signifying a male)
- mcguire 7y ago"In April 2018, the IAAF announced new "differences of sex development" rules that required athletes with specific disorders of sex development, testosterone levels of 5 nmol/L and above, and certain androgen sensitivity to take medication to lower their testosterone levels, effective beginning 8 May 2019. Due to the narrow scope of the changes, which also apply to only those athletes competing in the 400m, 800m, and 1500m, many people thought the rule change was designed specifically to target Semenya." -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caster_Semenya#2018_testosterone_rule_change https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caster_Semenya#2018_testostero...
- barrkel 7y agoThis is a topic upon which it is impolitic to express an honest opinion, so I flagged.
- almostdeadguy 7y agolol and then left this useless comment just to make sure everyone knew your opinion anyways.
- alwaysanagenda 7y agoA little research on the author shows she is: > an "American sociomedical scientist whose research focuses on sex, gender and sexuality, as well as the epidemiology of HIV/AIDS" and her own profile says: https://womensstudies.barnard.edu/profiles/rebecca-jordan-young https://womensstudies.barnard.edu/profiles/rebecca-jordan-yo... > "I am an interdisciplinary feminist scientist and science studies scholar whose work explores the reciprocal relations between science and the social hierarchies of gender, sexuality, class, and race." This author is less of a scientist and more of a sociologist that is using data points to leverage an agenda about gender, sexuality and sports. Putting 'feminist' before 'scientist' implies a host of biases. This is politically expedient propaganda that can be used to leverage the idea that trans-women (biological men) should continue to compete in women's sports because "it's not all about testosterone." And then there's this lovely disclaimer by SA, as if to say 'we know...': >"The views expressed are those of the author(s) and are not necessarily those of Scientific American." Are there ANY medical doctors, chemists or biologists who want to weigh in on this, not just "feminist scientists" who have made a career in "science studies" via identity politics?
- elil17 7y agoPeople need to reframe the problem. It’s not an issue of men vs. women. It’s an issue of segmenting the population into groups that can fairly compete with each other. As I can see it, those groups should be split up such that the number of men/women who win is proportional to the number of men/women who compete (i.e. if the group is split up based on height and there are 10% men in that group, men should win about 10% of the time). Wrestling does it via weight, and different sports might have different metrics.
- twiceaday 7y agoI think the proper framing here is that there is no ambiguity when competition attempts to select the best human. The ambiguity is introduced by people adding rules in order to select the best human fitting some criteria. And usually this means excluding 'men.' This is usually the only reason to introduce the notion of sex into the rules and is the source of all of the ambiguity. Such leagues used to be about selecting women who are the best at competing but are now increasingly becoming about selecting women who are the most man.
- sdinsn 7y agoThis article cherry picks research, ignoring mounds of research that shows the opposite.
- lazylizard 7y agoGenders equal right? Why not just have 1 category? Do all athletes fall into male/female only?