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Non-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 test

Non-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.
    - JamesBarney 7y ago
      Because the lightweight hockey would still be dominated by men. In most sports that require power/speed men still maintain a significant advantage even for size. Also many sports require people of varying body sizes for different positions. In football for instance a wide receiver will look very different from a lineman.
      - Raphmedia 7y ago
        When I said "weighted & tested", I meant it as some magical way that would ensure that individuals of similar body type and physical characteristics are grouped together independently of gender. Taking boxing as an example again, sure if you put a female heavyweight (179 pounds / 81 kg) against a male heavyweight (201 pounds / 91 kg) the male will dominate. But if you standardize the divisions and have her compete against an equal the situation might be different. The again, you would have to take into account things like bone density, etc. In a sport like boxing, that's not very straightforward to do because of the fact that individuals with testosterone usually have greater upper body strength and that's a big advantage. In a team sport, this might be different since they allow for the team to be balanced depending on their members. For example, some individuals might have greater endurance but lower strength, etc. I'm sure that we would also see a more diverse cast of males as opposed to only "peak athletes" (7 ft+ basketball players, super heavyweight hockey players, etc.) and that would be great. I do agree that's it's a complicated question that should be deeply analysed and that we won't come to a solution in this comment section. However, a statement such at that one from the article is simply anachronistic and wrong in 2019. This isn't the right way to tackle the problem. "mandating that healthy athletes undergo medically unnecessary interventions in order to compete [...] 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."
sp332 7y ago
Caster Semenya isn't trans.
- charliesharding 7y ago
  Right, but she does have XY chromosomes - which is what sparked this whole debate
  - Gibbon1 7y ago
    She has XY chromosomes and broken androgen receptors. Which is why her body didn't develop along masculine lines. I'm not sure anyone to say what testosterone levels mean in that context. Flit it around and say someone has a gene that makes their muscles hyper sensitive to testosterone, we gonna ferret them out and ban them[1]? I only have two points. One: Is I'd be really interested in seeing the rate of XY women in sports vs the general population. I'd put $5 that the difference isn't particularly significant. If it isn't than all these argument are superfluous. Two: If you drilled down in to elite athletes DNA you'll certainly find that a whole bunch of them have rare genetic alleles or combinations of such. What are we going to do ban them too? Three: (off by one error) Also sure the international Court of Arbitration for Sports ruled on this the same way the Warren Court ruled about what was erotica vs what was porn; whatever gives Justice Warren a guilty boner is porn. Same deal, the CAS judges think Caster Semenya is icky so they don't want her to compete. [1] Likely Ans: No if they are 'men' yes if they are 'women'
mcguire 7y ago
The article in question covers "women with naturally high testosterone." "[The IAAF's] initial analysis of data from two world championship competitions showed that women with higher T had significantly better performances in only five of 21 events. [In a corrected version, in] three of 11 running events, the lowest T group did better, and the strongest association across all events was the negative association between T and performance in the 100 meters, where lower T athletes ran 5.4 percent faster than the highest T athletes. In none of the events where high T athletes performed better was the gap greater than 2.9 percent." "Consider a recent analysis of teenage Olympic weightlifters, in which the best predictor of strength was lean body mass, which has a complicated relationship to T. Among girls, body mass was initially the only significant predictor of weightlifting performance, and T was a predictor of body mass. But, counterintuitively, once the investigators controlled for the girls’ size, they unmasked a strong negative relationship between T levels and performance: girls with lower T lifted more weight. Controlling for body mass, there were no relationships between any hormones and performance in boys, even though their T levels ranged from 0.5 to 30.2 nanomoles per liter. In short, T (and other steroids) affect multiple body systems, and the relationships sometimes work in a positive synergy to improve performance, but they sometimes detract from performance."

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.
  - JamesBarney 7y ago
    Because the lightweight hockey would still be dominated by men. In most sports that require power/speed men still maintain a significant advantage even for size. Also many sports require people of varying body sizes for different positions. In football for instance a wide receiver will look very different from a lineman.
    - Raphmedia 7y ago
      When I said "weighted & tested", I meant it as some magical way that would ensure that individuals of similar body type and physical characteristics are grouped together independently of gender. Taking boxing as an example again, sure if you put a female heavyweight (179 pounds / 81 kg) against a male heavyweight (201 pounds / 91 kg) the male will dominate. But if you standardize the divisions and have her compete against an equal the situation might be different. The again, you would have to take into account things like bone density, etc. In a sport like boxing, that's not very straightforward to do because of the fact that individuals with testosterone usually have greater upper body strength and that's a big advantage. In a team sport, this might be different since they allow for the team to be balanced depending on their members. For example, some individuals might have greater endurance but lower strength, etc. I'm sure that we would also see a more diverse cast of males as opposed to only "peak athletes" (7 ft+ basketball players, super heavyweight hockey players, etc.) and that would be great. I do agree that's it's a complicated question that should be deeply analysed and that we won't come to a solution in this comment section. However, a statement such at that one from the article is simply anachronistic and wrong in 2019. This isn't the right way to tackle the problem. "mandating that healthy athletes undergo medically unnecessary interventions in order to compete [...] 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."

sp332 7y ago

Caster Semenya isn't trans.

charliesharding 7y ago
Right, but she does have XY chromosomes - which is what sparked this whole debate
- Gibbon1 7y ago
  She has XY chromosomes and broken androgen receptors. Which is why her body didn't develop along masculine lines. I'm not sure anyone to say what testosterone levels mean in that context. Flit it around and say someone has a gene that makes their muscles hyper sensitive to testosterone, we gonna ferret them out and ban them[1]? I only have two points. One: Is I'd be really interested in seeing the rate of XY women in sports vs the general population. I'd put $5 that the difference isn't particularly significant. If it isn't than all these argument are superfluous. Two: If you drilled down in to elite athletes DNA you'll certainly find that a whole bunch of them have rare genetic alleles or combinations of such. What are we going to do ban them too? Three: (off by one error) Also sure the international Court of Arbitration for Sports ruled on this the same way the Warren Court ruled about what was erotica vs what was porn; whatever gives Justice Warren a guilty boner is porn. Same deal, the CAS judges think Caster Semenya is icky so they don't want her to compete. [1] Likely Ans: No if they are 'men' yes if they are 'women'

mcguire 7y ago

The article in question covers "women with naturally high testosterone." "[The IAAF's] initial analysis of data from two world championship competitions showed that women with higher T had significantly better performances in only five of 21 events. [In a corrected version, in] three of 11 running events, the lowest T group did better, and the strongest association across all events was the negative association between T and performance in the 100 meters, where lower T athletes ran 5.4 percent faster than the highest T athletes. In none of the events where high T athletes performed better was the gap greater than 2.9 percent." "Consider a recent analysis of teenage Olympic weightlifters, in which the best predictor of strength was lean body mass, which has a complicated relationship to T. Among girls, body mass was initially the only significant predictor of weightlifting performance, and T was a predictor of body mass. But, counterintuitively, once the investigators controlled for the girls’ size, they unmasked a strong negative relationship between T levels and performance: girls with lower T lifted more weight. Controlling for body mass, there were no relationships between any hormones and performance in boys, even though their T levels ranged from 0.5 to 30.2 nanomoles per liter. In short, T (and other steroids) affect multiple body systems, and the relationships sometimes work in a positive synergy to improve performance, but they sometimes detract from performance."