Speaking of Oscar Pistorius, a lot of people have suggested that his prosthetics gave him an advantage over the other runners, and it seems to me that there’s some merit in that argument. Nonetheless, as far as I’m aware there are no cases of athletes sawing off their own legs to give them a better chance at winning a race.
[hijack]I think that’s BS. As long as his prostheses were not powered by some king of battery or other outside power source, but just his muscles, he was working harder than anyone else, because he was using his own muscles, and he had fewer muscles to work with. The only possible advantage was that the prostheses don’t feel fatigue, but his other muscles might feel greater fatigue-- except he was well trained, so who knows? But they didn’t give him an advantage. That’s silly. And I have that on the word of a couple of different prosthetists.[/hijack]
The Olympic committee has previously barred women with androgen insensitivity syndrome, who are considered women by any doctor you’d ask, and are born with female genitalia, and usually don’t find out about their condition until they don’t begin menstruating, and still are not by age 16 or so, which is when they have extensive testing done, including chromosomal testing, and that’s when they find out they are XY, not XX. So if someone who is to all intents and purposes a woman, but may be a little taller and slimmer-hipped than average (AIS women have more male-like pelves on average), and more importantly, is insensitive to the androgens that give men larger muscles, can be disqualified, then someone who has grown up male, and has a male skeleton, something that can’t be changed even if the hormones do reduce musculature a little, certainly ought to be disqualified as well.
There’s another factor: training isn’t always equitable. It’s close in the US, but men still get better training, and in countries where men are more valued, men get much better training. MTF transgendered people are going to have the advantage of having been trained as a man.
Now, I will add one thing. Some very brave parents are letting prepubescent children transition. I’m not sure what the implications for that are, but someone who began transitioning at age 11, and taking hormones at 12 or 13 might be in a very different position. That’ll be a question that can be answered only when these people are grown, but they may be in an entirely different situation.
For the same reason that men should not compete with girls in other sports: there would be precious few women left that could compete (and almost no succesful female sports role models/chess players for young girls).
The female and male brain are not equal, nor are they wired the same, and especially when it comes to chess girls are simply generally inferior to men.
btw. UK Grandmaster Nigel Short had something on this, just the other week:
From your article: “One irony of the situation is that discrimination against transgender athletes is actually somewhat discriminatory against women, in that it assumes that all men will be better than all women at any sport, regardless of the body morphology, training, skill, competitiveness, etc. of the woman. It’s also somewhat discriminatory towards men, because it assumes that all men are so desperate to win against women that they will feign a serious, social and legal-altering medical condition over years or decades just to win a few ribbons and medals, perhaps a little money.”
I disagree. No one has said that “all men will be better than all women at any sport”. Rather many are saying that the average man exceeds the average woman in height, weight, speed, and other physical characteristics. This is a physical fact, and stating it is not sexist. There are separate sports teams and leagues for the two genders in part because of this. As a former high school basketball coach, I can testify that if girls had to compete against boys for a spot on a team, few would ever qualify, and fewer still would be starters. Moreover, it could be physically dangerous to have physical contacts between boys and girls, given the average differences in their bodies.
When we’re talking about sportspeople, though, we’re not talking about the average man or the average woman.
I have to congratulate you on the article; it’s fantastically well-researched and written, full of the “sciencey” stuff that it needed. Not preachy, not aggressive, not defensive. Kudos.
Two points
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I don’t like the term “cisgender”. It’s not a term that I will ever use or will ever like someone to use regarding my sex/gender. I know it’s an ideal match for “transgender” and no insult is intended. I simply don’t like it. No biggie, though.
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What’s your opinion on the existance of women sports? On a division by sex/gender/genitalia? The article seems to accept the reality (maybe covinience) of separate-but-equal.
I interpreted the OP as asking about people who “self identify” as a given sex, not necessarily people who have undergone sex reassignment surgery. I think we can all agree that Jordan Spieth cannot declare tomorrow that he is a woman and earn a spot on the LPGA. No?
Maybe “tomorrow” no, but there has to be a momento between tomorrow and never where he could.
The springiness of the prosthetics allowed muscular energy to be stored and then accessed again, in a way ordinary legs and feet can’t do. The prosthetics offered a huge advantage, even with the loss of some musculature. It’s sort of like a built-in pogo stick.
Well, we’re talking about the average male and female Olympic athlete, so the argument is valid. No one has claimed that every male Olympic athlete will outperform every female Olympic athlete. There could be some overlap. But the two bell curves are significantly distinct, most certainly at the upper ends where the records are set.
Allowing transgender athletes tilts the playing field very significantly.
Why? If he is simply a transexual and not a transgendered* person, then he should never be allowed to represent himself as a woman in sports.
*If I’m using those two terms correctly. “Transexual” means the person identifies as the opposite biological sex but has not had gender reasignment surgery whereas a “transgendered” person has.
Even if you had written a 500,000 page research article I don’t think that makes you God of Transgender, with power to declare how it works. There are people who are transgender that live happy, complete lives without a need to do anything but alter their dress and superficial appearance. If they take no hormones and engage in no body modification, and we’re talking about a male identifying as female, that person would have an insurmountable advantage over females in many sports.
I don’t need to read your research paper (also if you want to present your opinions you can do so in this thread, not by obnoxiously linking to an article that is too long to read when it is of no scientific value) to know that such a person would break every record in the world when it comes to Olympic Weightlifting. The second lowest male weight class for Olly lifting is 62kg, and the current North Korean record holder in that class has combined total of 327kg. The heaviest female weight class of 75kg+ has a record holder (a massive genetic freak who weighs almost 300 lb) whose total is 333kg. So a woman more than twice Kim Un-guk’s (North Korea’s record holding lifter) weight is barely stronger than him. The discrepancy of course grows as you move up to the higher men’s weights. The super-heavyweight male (the guys the 300 lb Chinese woman would have to compete against if they were transgendered) record total is 472kg. I seriously doubt any woman (or human with a female’s strength weaknesses vs males, however you want to label them) will ever live that can lift that, period.
With the range of human genetics and the variations in gender identity and even biological gender it’s an arbitrary line that has been established, dividing athletes by gender.
Not to long ago we had a similar thread concerning a women who was born with a vagina and identified as a women who was geneticly male. Her unique biology certainly gave her an advantage over other females.
Personally I’m willing to set the line at possessing the correct genitalia. It prevents someone from claiming to be another gender for the purpose of advantage. Sexual reassignment surgery to me represents commitment well beyond a passing interest. If there comes a time where an athlete could be provably going through surgery to gain advantage I’d reconsider where I draw the line.
I think the crossover between people who physically change sees and have the ability to dominate in the other genders field is small enough or non-existent enough that it’s not going to affect Olympic competition.
Well said!
Transgender is as transgender does. People are different and no amount of research gives one the authority to shoehorn people into rigid molds because “that’s how transgender works.”
Is there such a thing?
Interesting example, but chess is of the mind, not the body, and I’m not sure how men’s and womens mind’s vary.
True, but the differences are even more skewed when it comes to outliers like professional athletes.
I get the sentiment, but I think drawing a hard line in cases like this is more problematic than it is helpful. Plenty of transpeople don’t want to get surgery, and others don’t have the “correct” genitalia for either gender. Ultimately, I think the current blanket prohibition that exists is probably fine as long as it coupled with an appeal process that any individual could apply for.
While agree that dwelling on this issue is kinda dumb given the infrequency of people in these situations, I do think that many sports have gender skill imbalances that would make men playing with women problematic despite the fact that all of them are exceptional for their specific gender. For example, the USWNT for soccer has lost to U-15 boys club teams when the former was the best female soccer team in the world. Women’s basketball is the same. Virtually any male college player in either sport would be likely be an all-time great player in the woman’s game, so the pool of people who could dominate is not really that small.
A single gifted athlete could blow away dozens of world records. It would only take one. Bruce Jenner set a world record in the decathlon, if we’re looking for a non-remote hypothetical. What would he have done competing against women?
Wow. You decided without reading it that it had no scientific value. That’s pretty amazing of you. Of course you could always, oh, look at the cites within the article, about 40 or so of them in all, and dispute their conclusions.
You’d think someone with such powers would understand why I wouldn’t want to re-type from scratch and re-research something which has already been done and vetted. Furthermore, you’d think that person would know that as a copyright holder of the work, I have certain reasons why I wouldn’t want to block copy and paste the entire text.
So your contribution to this topic is to say “I refuse to read your cites.” Who are you trying to fool here, anyhow?
You disagree with my opinion in that one part. OK, fair enough. How about the other 99% of the article?
I’m pretty sure I agree with that, even state that, in the article.
My point about “that’s not how transgender works” refers to the fact that this issue has already been addressed by the IOC and other bodies. Something which people who read cites have discovered by now.
Should someone who just says “I’m transgender but I’m taking no hormone treatment” be allowed to compete evenly? No! And I never say that anywhere in the article you and others refuse to read. At most I say that given the evidence of blood and fat and muscle changes, the qualification should be reduced to 1 year of HT.
The OP explicitly did not mention hormone treatment, but it’s implied given the history of this (which I wrote about, you know, the stuff people are too lazy to read) and the recent Bruce Jenner/sports link.
If you want to bring up a person who purely just says “I’m a girl” and takes no anti-androgens, no estradiol, has had no surgery, and no intersex condition, then don’t look to me to defend the indefensible.
I read your piece (well, about 1/7 of it–I read the stuff on actual physiology, and skipped the vignettes and political posturing), which is probably more than most anyone else here. I got the pervasive feeling that it was written by someone who desperately wanted reality to conform to their ideological beliefs and was willing to downplay and gloss over any evidence to the contrary. Probably most notably, it blindly assumes that anyone who is transgender will take whatever the standard dose of hormones is, not even considering that someone may artificially increase or decrease their hormone load to improve their competitive advantage. In terms of preaching to the choir, it seems pretty effective. But it won’t influence anyone who doesn’t already support the cause.