5 ms·

This shouldn’t have been necessary, but it at least represents a little progress back to sanity in this area. Without a ruling like this, eventually there would

This shouldn’t have been necessary, but it at least represents a little progress back to sanity in this area. Without a ruling like this, eventually there would be no more Olympic medals going to women swimmers. Let’s hope the other sporting bodies follow suit.

necovek 4y ago
In one of the older threads, I proposed doing away with gender-based competitions and instead choosing a biological marker (say total testosterone, though that's probably overly simplistic) to derive competition classes. Like we do for martial arts by competitor weight. Or even for car racing where classes are by engine performance... Of course, we can keep one class called "women" and another called "men", but that would quickly run foul of language and feelings (are you saying I am not a man/woman?).
- leephillips 4y ago
  The ruling explicitly recognizes that the athletic advantage of men over women persists even if their current testosterone levels are equalized, because of the man’s developmental history. There is no problem in having separate competitions for men and women, as we’ve had for so long, unless people decide to create contrived issues around it. Along with this ruling is a decision to examine the creation of an open (third) category for everyone, which I think makes sense.
  - bloak 4y ago
    But how do you think "men" and "open" categories would work together in a sport in which men have a significant advantage? If you let people enter both then they could end up being boringly similar to each other, while neither of them generates the excitement of being the main competition, and if you force people to choose one or the other then you might end up with a weird situation in which the best two players agree to avoid each other and other players choose ... how exactly? So I would guess that having two categories, "open" and "bona fide female", would make more sense. Also, in tennis, do you call the "open" category "open" or is that too confusing as the word "open" is already used in a different sense?
    - leephillips 4y ago
      I guess these are some of the issues that the committee examining the possibility of an open category are considering. I would think it makes most sense to require people to choose, and not compete in both the open and one of the sex categories. Whether people get excited about the “open” competition is up to them. I think it’s pretty easy to predict that it will be populated by men like Lia Thomas who don’t want to compete in the men’s competition, and there won’t be many people who care about it.
  - necovek 4y ago
    Gender divide in sports is there to increase participation by giving a chance to women to win as well. There are smaller classes of people who naturally don't fit in either male or female category (eg someone mentioned chromosomes, so people with XXY are usually almost male but not quite): there is nothing contrived about it. Similarly, people converting have their own sporting characteristics, and we should work to find ways to include them as well. As such, we need classes that distinguish between different levels of de facto biological advantage: a completely open category would still be dominated by males. I don't understand why would people find different martial arts weight classes normal, and not even entertain the thought that this might apply to other sports as it pertains to other genetic and acquired traits.
    - Elhana 4y ago
      Martial arts also have male/female separation first, only then weight classes, so your argument doesn't apply.
      - major505 4y ago
        Specially because people could die in a mix gender martial arts tournament.
      - necovek 4y ago
        Uhm, it's an example how we recognize more than just gender as biological predisposition in sports to allow "inferior" sportspeople to compete, so I don't see how it doesn't. The fact that those are orthogonal today matters exactly how (when talking about introducing more granularity at the first, gender level)?
  - blippage 4y ago
    > Along with this ruling is a decision to examine the creation of an open (third) category for everyone, which I think makes sense. The general public are unlikely to take this seriously. Who is going to compete in this third category? Women are unlikely to compete in it because they stand to be outclassed by any men entering the category. Men will be similarly unlikely to compete because there is likely to be higher prestige in men-only competitions. The whole thing will revolve around game theory, where every potential participant will weigh up the likelihood of winning, personal pride, and monetary or publicity rewards. What you'll end up with is a bunch of transgenders participating with a minute niche following. Then they'll start complaining about "cis privilege", or whatever, because nobody (and hence lucrative sponsorship deals) will take them seriously.
- petri_shish 4y ago
- blindmute 4y ago
  I see this misconception a lot so I'd like to correct it. Hormone levels at a given moment have very little to do with physical performance in sports. Testosterone is important during childhood, puberty, and while training. Not at the point of competition. A large, athletic adult male, put on estrogen for a few years will still be incredibly, incomparably stronger than an elite woman. His bones are bigger, his muscles are bigger, his connective tissue is bigger, his leverages are better, he recruits more muscle fibers at max effort, his vertical leap is higher, his power production is higher. All of these things are innate physical characteristics of a body bathed in testosterone throughout childhood development, and they will not go away until he begins age related decline. The biological difference is insurmountable once puberty takes place. This is why even elite female athletes, even with high testosterone, even when taking testosterone, even on steroids, even in the olympics, are physically competing on the level of high school boys. It is impossible to overstate the physical advantage that being a male provides. It is not about the current hormone levels. I think few untrained men today, and even fewer women, truly understand the magnitude of natural strength difference between the sexes. They don't experience it in daily life. They think, oh, a man can just take estrogen and he'll be pretty much on the same level as the elite women. Let me put it in context: - The US women's olympic soccer team lost a training match to an under 15 boys team, and it wasn't close - The world record for 100m sprint by a woman is regularly beaten at state competitions by high school boys - The world record for female deadlifting, 606lbs, set by a woman weighing over 200lbs, was beaten by a man weighing under 123 pounds (the lowest male weight class) - This record of 606lbs is considered "pretty good" for a powerlifting male, nothing special at all - It takes most fit, active women months of training to even be able to press a 20kg barbell above their head 5 times. A sedentary male can always do this. - It takes years of serious training for a woman to bench press 60kg. Most men can do this innately, or within a couple of months of the same training. - The world record for female standing vertical jump is 30 inches, which is below the average of a college football player (vertical standing jump is considered a proxy for power) - A man can train to lift 100lbs over his head relatively easily. A woman will basically never be able to do this even after years of training. Any random gymgoer can grab a woman and lift her overhead like Rafiki lifting Simba. Most women cannot lift a 25lb box over their head. I can go on. Why does this happen? Is it because the men currently have higher testosterone? No! It's because their tissues were bathed in testosterone in the womb, during childhood, during puberty, and into adulthood. It made their bones thicker and stronger. It made their muscles develop to contract more efficiently. It made their joints develop with more advantageous moment arms. It made their lung capacity greater. None of this has to do with muscle size, training, or muscular development! It also made their muscles bigger, but that's not the issue. None of this goes away when you reduce your adult testosterone levels.
- bergenty 4y ago
  How about the glaring biological “marker” of the XX and XY chromosomes?
  - necovek 4y ago
    What about XXY people? They usually present as males with lower testosterone levels. Or XYY (these are usually outright males). There's also XXX. We are at a point where we have a deeper understanding of human body development than before (not at all complete knowledge though). I don't see a reason not to account for that deeper knowledge in sports. And doing that for natural differences presents an opportunity to not exclude people willingly converting as well, so why not make the most of the opportunity? Sure, all the classes might not be fair as we construct them today, but you know, let's iterate. Gender split in sports comes from a desire to be inclusive in sports: without it, women would be largely excluded from sporting competitions. But the goal is inclusiveness, and gender split is such simply because that was the historical extent of medical knowledge about what influences performance. So whatever we come up with should serve the goal of inclusiveness, strictly increasing it! Otherwise, we'd only get super heavyweight boxing class: too bad those guys never grew past 170cm.
  - TheCoelacanth 4y ago
    So someone with XX male syndrome[1] competes in the female league despite being phenotypically male? And everyone has to get DNA tested before they can compete? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XX_male_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XX_male_syndrome
    - bergenty 4y ago
      Sure. The condition is so rare it wouldn’t significantly affect any outcomes. Better still if you have rare chromosomal aberrations a committee can decide especially with something like this that affects 0.005% of the population.
- major505 4y ago
  Fair, but even if you do for rank, you still would be people complaining because the top ranking and the ones that would receive money from sponsorship would be only the top ones, and most of them would be men.
devwastaken 4y ago
Hossenfelder disagrees, https://youtu.be/cZ9YAFYIBOU https://youtu.be/cZ9YAFYIBOU Pro athletics have never been fair. Born women pro athletes are the top of the top and have higher testosterone and muscle development. For a MTF athlete to compete they have to actually be tested for hormone levels over years of time. Yes, they will still have physical superiority over the average women. However, this is pro sports. There are very few trans athletes, and the stories of MTF competitors being unfair are either 1. Fabricated, 2. The sports org did not implement proper rules. Or 3. People are looking to hate on something.
- djohnston 4y ago
  Or it's just unfair?
- major505 4y ago
  Theres not that many trans athletes because still is a new thing. In a few years manybe we have athletes transitioning just to win competitions. If you think this is bullshit, just remember that in the past people would Take strychnine to have better performance in marathons.
  - wizofaus 4y ago
    And worse, being pressured to do so before turning 12...
    - devwastaken 4y ago
      While bad things happen everywhere, that is not an accurate representation of the issue in a wider scope. It would be like saying water is bad because some water harms people. The "community" does not agree with forcing anyone to transition.
      - wizofaus 4y ago
        I'd like to think there won't be cases of pre-pubescent boys with talent and ambitions in a particular sport who are also going through a phase of gender identity questioning being pressured in such a way (and specifically I mean gender-reassignment treatment/surgery), but it seems a bit naive to assume it won't happen at all. I can only hope it was taken into consideration when handing down the ruling.

necovek 4y ago

In one of the older threads, I proposed doing away with gender-based competitions and instead choosing a biological marker (say total testosterone, though that's probably overly simplistic) to derive competition classes. Like we do for martial arts by competitor weight. Or even for car racing where classes are by engine performance... Of course, we can keep one class called "women" and another called "men", but that would quickly run foul of language and feelings (are you saying I am not a man/woman?).

leephillips 4y ago
The ruling explicitly recognizes that the athletic advantage of men over women persists even if their current testosterone levels are equalized, because of the man’s developmental history. There is no problem in having separate competitions for men and women, as we’ve had for so long, unless people decide to create contrived issues around it. Along with this ruling is a decision to examine the creation of an open (third) category for everyone, which I think makes sense.
- bloak 4y ago
  But how do you think "men" and "open" categories would work together in a sport in which men have a significant advantage? If you let people enter both then they could end up being boringly similar to each other, while neither of them generates the excitement of being the main competition, and if you force people to choose one or the other then you might end up with a weird situation in which the best two players agree to avoid each other and other players choose ... how exactly? So I would guess that having two categories, "open" and "bona fide female", would make more sense. Also, in tennis, do you call the "open" category "open" or is that too confusing as the word "open" is already used in a different sense?
  - leephillips 4y ago
    I guess these are some of the issues that the committee examining the possibility of an open category are considering. I would think it makes most sense to require people to choose, and not compete in both the open and one of the sex categories. Whether people get excited about the “open” competition is up to them. I think it’s pretty easy to predict that it will be populated by men like Lia Thomas who don’t want to compete in the men’s competition, and there won’t be many people who care about it.
- necovek 4y ago
  Gender divide in sports is there to increase participation by giving a chance to women to win as well. There are smaller classes of people who naturally don't fit in either male or female category (eg someone mentioned chromosomes, so people with XXY are usually almost male but not quite): there is nothing contrived about it. Similarly, people converting have their own sporting characteristics, and we should work to find ways to include them as well. As such, we need classes that distinguish between different levels of de facto biological advantage: a completely open category would still be dominated by males. I don't understand why would people find different martial arts weight classes normal, and not even entertain the thought that this might apply to other sports as it pertains to other genetic and acquired traits.
  - Elhana 4y ago
    Martial arts also have male/female separation first, only then weight classes, so your argument doesn't apply.
    - major505 4y ago
      Specially because people could die in a mix gender martial arts tournament.
    - necovek 4y ago
      Uhm, it's an example how we recognize more than just gender as biological predisposition in sports to allow "inferior" sportspeople to compete, so I don't see how it doesn't. The fact that those are orthogonal today matters exactly how (when talking about introducing more granularity at the first, gender level)?
- blippage 4y ago
  > Along with this ruling is a decision to examine the creation of an open (third) category for everyone, which I think makes sense. The general public are unlikely to take this seriously. Who is going to compete in this third category? Women are unlikely to compete in it because they stand to be outclassed by any men entering the category. Men will be similarly unlikely to compete because there is likely to be higher prestige in men-only competitions. The whole thing will revolve around game theory, where every potential participant will weigh up the likelihood of winning, personal pride, and monetary or publicity rewards. What you'll end up with is a bunch of transgenders participating with a minute niche following. Then they'll start complaining about "cis privilege", or whatever, because nobody (and hence lucrative sponsorship deals) will take them seriously.
petri_shish 4y ago
blindmute 4y ago
I see this misconception a lot so I'd like to correct it. Hormone levels at a given moment have very little to do with physical performance in sports. Testosterone is important during childhood, puberty, and while training. Not at the point of competition. A large, athletic adult male, put on estrogen for a few years will still be incredibly, incomparably stronger than an elite woman. His bones are bigger, his muscles are bigger, his connective tissue is bigger, his leverages are better, he recruits more muscle fibers at max effort, his vertical leap is higher, his power production is higher. All of these things are innate physical characteristics of a body bathed in testosterone throughout childhood development, and they will not go away until he begins age related decline. The biological difference is insurmountable once puberty takes place. This is why even elite female athletes, even with high testosterone, even when taking testosterone, even on steroids, even in the olympics, are physically competing on the level of high school boys. It is impossible to overstate the physical advantage that being a male provides. It is not about the current hormone levels. I think few untrained men today, and even fewer women, truly understand the magnitude of natural strength difference between the sexes. They don't experience it in daily life. They think, oh, a man can just take estrogen and he'll be pretty much on the same level as the elite women. Let me put it in context: - The US women's olympic soccer team lost a training match to an under 15 boys team, and it wasn't close - The world record for 100m sprint by a woman is regularly beaten at state competitions by high school boys - The world record for female deadlifting, 606lbs, set by a woman weighing over 200lbs, was beaten by a man weighing under 123 pounds (the lowest male weight class) - This record of 606lbs is considered "pretty good" for a powerlifting male, nothing special at all - It takes most fit, active women months of training to even be able to press a 20kg barbell above their head 5 times. A sedentary male can always do this. - It takes years of serious training for a woman to bench press 60kg. Most men can do this innately, or within a couple of months of the same training. - The world record for female standing vertical jump is 30 inches, which is below the average of a college football player (vertical standing jump is considered a proxy for power) - A man can train to lift 100lbs over his head relatively easily. A woman will basically never be able to do this even after years of training. Any random gymgoer can grab a woman and lift her overhead like Rafiki lifting Simba. Most women cannot lift a 25lb box over their head. I can go on. Why does this happen? Is it because the men currently have higher testosterone? No! It's because their tissues were bathed in testosterone in the womb, during childhood, during puberty, and into adulthood. It made their bones thicker and stronger. It made their muscles develop to contract more efficiently. It made their joints develop with more advantageous moment arms. It made their lung capacity greater. None of this has to do with muscle size, training, or muscular development! It also made their muscles bigger, but that's not the issue. None of this goes away when you reduce your adult testosterone levels.
bergenty 4y ago
How about the glaring biological “marker” of the XX and XY chromosomes?
- necovek 4y ago
  What about XXY people? They usually present as males with lower testosterone levels. Or XYY (these are usually outright males). There's also XXX. We are at a point where we have a deeper understanding of human body development than before (not at all complete knowledge though). I don't see a reason not to account for that deeper knowledge in sports. And doing that for natural differences presents an opportunity to not exclude people willingly converting as well, so why not make the most of the opportunity? Sure, all the classes might not be fair as we construct them today, but you know, let's iterate. Gender split in sports comes from a desire to be inclusive in sports: without it, women would be largely excluded from sporting competitions. But the goal is inclusiveness, and gender split is such simply because that was the historical extent of medical knowledge about what influences performance. So whatever we come up with should serve the goal of inclusiveness, strictly increasing it! Otherwise, we'd only get super heavyweight boxing class: too bad those guys never grew past 170cm.
- TheCoelacanth 4y ago
  So someone with XX male syndrome[1] competes in the female league despite being phenotypically male? And everyone has to get DNA tested before they can compete? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XX_male_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XX_male_syndrome
  - bergenty 4y ago
    Sure. The condition is so rare it wouldn’t significantly affect any outcomes. Better still if you have rare chromosomal aberrations a committee can decide especially with something like this that affects 0.005% of the population.
major505 4y ago
Fair, but even if you do for rank, you still would be people complaining because the top ranking and the ones that would receive money from sponsorship would be only the top ones, and most of them would be men.

devwastaken 4y ago

Hossenfelder disagrees, https://youtu.be/cZ9YAFYIBOU https://youtu.be/cZ9YAFYIBOU Pro athletics have never been fair. Born women pro athletes are the top of the top and have higher testosterone and muscle development. For a MTF athlete to compete they have to actually be tested for hormone levels over years of time. Yes, they will still have physical superiority over the average women. However, this is pro sports. There are very few trans athletes, and the stories of MTF competitors being unfair are either 1. Fabricated, 2. The sports org did not implement proper rules. Or 3. People are looking to hate on something.

djohnston 4y ago
Or it's just unfair?
major505 4y ago
Theres not that many trans athletes because still is a new thing. In a few years manybe we have athletes transitioning just to win competitions. If you think this is bullshit, just remember that in the past people would Take strychnine to have better performance in marathons.
- wizofaus 4y ago
  And worse, being pressured to do so before turning 12...
  - devwastaken 4y ago
    While bad things happen everywhere, that is not an accurate representation of the issue in a wider scope. It would be like saying water is bad because some water harms people. The "community" does not agree with forcing anyone to transition.
    - wizofaus 4y ago
      I'd like to think there won't be cases of pre-pubescent boys with talent and ambitions in a particular sport who are also going through a phase of gender identity questioning being pressured in such a way (and specifically I mean gender-reassignment treatment/surgery), but it seems a bit naive to assume it won't happen at all. I can only hope it was taken into consideration when handing down the ruling.