Should a man who self-identifies as a woman be allowed to compete in Female Olympic categories?

The citations are in the article.

No. But it does contain my argument, my opinion, with about 40 citations. It’s stunning you can’t understand the difference here.

As opposed to your argument, for which…have you even posted a single citation? And when you do, can I just handwave it away as “biased” like you do?

You haven’t even looked at the cites but concluded they were biased. Again, amazing powers of observation there. Not.

Until you’re ready to even put forth an opinion with any citations, I don’t see why you feel you can throw shit at an opinion of mine which has 40 or so citations.

In other words, you have nothing interesting to say as usual on this subject, only your thinly-veiled insults and pokes at transgender people. I think our conversation has ended for good.

Please accept my apologies. I was quoting two people and misspoke.

This site has it all vis a vis Olympic transgender shenanigans:

TransGriot- News, opinions, commentary, history and a little creative writing from a proud African-American transwoman about the world around her.

It would seem that the Press sisters of the USSR were the 1960s suspects mentioned by another member. Tamara and Irina Press had set 26 track and field world records between them and were still under 30 years of age when in 1966 sex testing was instituted. The Presses promptly retired. To take care of their sick and aged mother. Yeah.

FWIW -

  1. Neroli is a true blue Kiwi Hero
  2. She won a Commonwealth medal
  3. There was controversy at the time as she was “allowed” to shoot from a seating position

Right, sorry. She competed in the 1984 Olympics, but didn’t medal.

I disagree. While there is a history, there’s no reason to believe that the history of transgender athletics is going to remain static. It’s also no reason to ignore the possibility that a man who is unable to compete at a high level in Men’s Tennis wouldn’t jump at the chance to compete in Women’s Tennis, where he would dominate, and win large prize monies.

You’re in agreement than a person born a man, who is not undergoing any treatment whatsoever, should not be allowed to compete in women’s sports.

So, the question is, how do we successfully, and fairly, separate out those who have undergone “enough” treatment to be allowed the opportunity to compete in the Women’s category? Is it possible to do without being insultingly detailed about a very personal transition process? What is enough?

The difference is that the edge provided by a Y chromosome is the underlying reason for creating a Women’s division. It’s created to allow people without that genetic advantage to compete and have a chance to win.

I agree. The alternative would be to only have a single division where anyone could compete – men, women, trans, disabled (maybe – depends on the prosthetics). I think that men would dominate most sports if there were only a single division.

I think there was a woman who tried competing in the men’s golf tournament circuit a few years ago. I don’t think she got very far though.

No one is arguing (from what I’ve seen) that transmen be barred from men’s sports. It’s just in the other direction, where natural height and build differences could be too much of an advantage.

Three have in recent years including Annika Sorenstam, the best female golfer of all time - none made the cut.

http://golftips.golfsmith.com/lpga-women-played-pga-tour-20647.html

The IOC determined two years of hormone therapy combined with removal of the male or female goands was sufficient, based upon a consensus of the medical staff who they consulted. However, there is evidence that merely 1 year may be sufficient for some sports (running, for one example). There is also evidence that in some sports, 2 years may not be sufficient (basketball, for one example).

There is also the question of whether removal of the gonads is needed so long as sufficient antiandrogens are taken. A typical transsexual woman who is pre-op but taking a full course of antiandrogens can expect hormone levels of 20 ng/dl to 0. A typical male range would be 280-800; the female range from 15-70.

At the top levels of the sport, a person who “cheated” and was only on antiandrogens part of the time would not benefit much from it. And being on the antiandrogens for any length of time can and often does permanently destroy your natural ability to make testosterone.

But I’ve not seen any of those who would consign transwomen to a minuscule “league of their own” speak out to say transmen should compete against other XX persons. In fact, those who say “if you are XX you go here; XY you go here” would create a more unequal field - because transmen would be forced to compete against cisgender women, and that really wouldn’t go very well… Their next move would be to ban testosterone treatment for transmen in sports, thus denying sports to transmen.

In short, there is a double-standard, of the argument - some are ready to acknowledge that hormones can create significant and powerful changes in the body caused by testosterone, and deny transmen from competing with XX women. While at the same time failing to properly acknowledge just how significant and powerful changes in the body can be caused by estrogen, and deny transwomen from competing with XX women.

Therein lies the problem.

Allowing transgendered to compete in the Olympics is fraught with issues. Just where are the lines drawn? What will it mean for the sports? Is it ultimately fair to everyone involved?

It is akin to allowing blade runners (think amputee Oscar Pistorius) to compete in the Olympics. Are they faster? Maybe and maybe not but again it introduces unnecessary complexity and questions to the equation and some will always doubt if it is ultimately fair and a level playing field.

If you are an amputee who loves sports does it suck to be denied competing in the Olympics? Sure. If you are transgendered does it also suck to be denied that? Sure.

But how far does accommodation have to go? While there are not good numbers to be had best guess is the population is 0.3% transgendered. How far should the IOC go to accommodate 0.3% when it can cause serious questions for the other 99.7%

A fair question, but I would argue that equal treatment trumps practicality when the issue is as trivial as “who can compete in a sporting event.” If lives were at stake, practicality would be a concern.

Why is it unequal treatment to say all people born as males must compete with men and all people born as women must compete with women?

The question might also be framed as “what is the actual measurable harm in accommodation?”

It’s not like there haven’t been changes in the IOC rules in the past which were controversial, like allowing professional athletes to compete with amateur teams. I’d opine that allowing “dream teams” of multi-millionaire basketball players harmed the Olympics significantly more than any alleged “trans menace” has.

How many top women athletes have been denied medals by transgender persons since the IOC regulations were spelled out? How many have even lost positions on a team? I cannot find a single one.

But I’ll make your argument for you - the real issue is collegiate and high school sports, not the higher levels. Here there is more potential for a real problem, for many reasons which have already been stated or talked around.

Who are you quoting when you say “trans menace”? I can’t find that post in the thread.

I’m using quotes to indicate that I’m not stating it literally as myself.

IIRC the reason was Eastern Bloc countries and China had state sponsored teams. Effectively people who were paid to be nothing but Olympic athletes. That is definitionally a professional but were allowed to compete.

That statistic (which, btw, your linked article about Oscar Pistorius seems to have no direct relevance to) cuts both ways. I.e., if transgender people are such a very small percentage of the population, then they’re not really causing any “serious questions” whatsoever for anybody in the vast, vast majority of athletic competitions.

Transgender is a normal though very rare human condition, and it doesn’t make sense to treat transgender athletes as though they’re somehow “cheating” their way into the “wrong” competition category. Would we eliminate cisgender people from competition if they had some kind of hormonal advantage? For instance, if an older female athlete happened to have very late onset menopause and thus avoided the decline in muscle strength that usually follows it, would we bar her from competing in the same master’s category as her postmenopausal age-mates? Or would we just treat it as part of the normal variability in human genetics and physical characteristics?

IMO, if somebody officially and habitually identifies as a person of a particular gender, they’re entitled to compete in sporting events for that gender. If a very occasional transwoman athlete outperforms her competition specifically because of physical advantages due to her genetics, that’s just part of the happenstance of sport.

If top-quality transwomen athletes somehow become so numerous that they’re significantly shutting out ciswomen athletes from sports victories, then it will be feasible and justifiable to create a separate competition category for them, and the problem will solve itself. But I seriously doubt that’s ever going to happen, due to the very low incidence of transgender in the population. And unless and until it does, the natural place for transwomen to compete is in the same category as other women.

Just as heterosexual men need to learn to deal with the fact that a woman they’re attracted to might possibly turn out to have (or to have formerly had) a penis, ciswomen athletes need to learn to deal with the fact that a woman they’re competing against might possibly turn out to have unusually high muscle mass or aerobic capacity or whatever, due to having been born with a penis.

If you personally don’t want to date, or compete against, a transwoman, you’re free to withdraw from that situation. But you don’t get to tell her that she can’t or shouldn’t do the same things that other women are allowed to do, just because you personally would rather encounter only ciswomen in your pool of potential dates or competitors.

Comparable to the question I asked, earlier. I think the answer would depend on how commonplace it was. If it were quite rare, I think no one would object too strongly, but if it occurred in large swaths of the population – say, 45% of all people – and if it conferred a very significant advantage, I think that there might be an effort to segregate the games.

Well, this is what’s under debate. Some here agree with this…but others do not. (Regarding sports, not dating. I have heard of no one wanting to deny TG people the right to go to singles bars and trawl for dates.)

If TG competitors really do have a very significant advantage in competition, there will be more and more pressure to ban or segregate them. If “Women’s Olympics” becomes the “Transwomen’s Olympics,” then the games could not survive. Sponsors would not wish to be associated with the controversy.