Transgender Athletes

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Meglet Aug 2019 10:30pm, 16 Aug 2019 20,465 posts	0 Meglet And more unbiased research. Hopefully science will be able to give us a balanced view to be able to make informed decisions. At the moment we have opinions and beliefs, and assumptions based only on cis-male v cis-female, which may not necessarily translate. It doesn’t help those caught up in the current issues but I hope it will help us be fair to everyone later on. I’m sure that Martina Navratilova’s documentary has been mentioned, I found it very interesting but a clear demonstration that we don’t know the answers yet.
Velociraptor Aug 2019 11:09am, 17 Aug 2019 42,792 posts	0 Velociraptor Megster, I've been thinking about what you posted on the last page about combat sports. I also recoil instinctively from the idea of women who have gone through a male puberty and still retain aspects of male anatomy and physiology fighting women who haven't, but on reflection I'm thinking, "Don't underestimate the strength and skill of women who fight, they're strong and brave and they're not scared to inflict and absorb pain." It's possible that, again, the real injustice is the lack of opportunity for women to do combat sports into adulthood, both recreationally and professionally. I wonder (and I don't know) whether women who do combat sports believe there's a problem with the acceptance of transgender women. Fallon Fox made headlines, but that needs to be interpreted in the context of the risk of severe head injury in her chosen sport in general. FWIW, I believe golf is more dangerous in that regard.
Grast_girl Aug 2019 1:06pm, 17 Aug 2019 734 posts	0 Grast_girl Thanks for posting that Meglet. The video seems to make sensible scientific points that need to be addressed before athletes with DSDs are banned from competing without artificially reducing their testosterone levels. There might be an ethical issue as well, although I suspect the athletes sign a waiver saying that their samples can be used for scientific research. It's interesting that those running the 100 m might theoretically benefit from reducing their testosterone levels. If athletes with DSDs are allowed/compelled to do this to compete, presumably it would be allowable for those without DSDs?
katypie Aug 2019 6:10pm, 17 Aug 2019 5,792 posts	0 katypie I’ve just started listening to the real science podcast episode which discusses dsd athletes. It has only briefly touched on trans athletes but it’s opening statement stated how contentious an issue this is. I think this thread concurs with that
The_Saint Aug 2019 12:43pm, 23 Aug 2019 6,431 posts	0 The_Saint Here is another case hot off the press "Editor's note: The athlete in question appears to be Montana athlete June Eastwood. She competed on the men's track team for 3 years as Jonathan Eastwood, amassing PBs 1:55.23 [800M], 3:50.19 [1500M] and 14:38.80 [5000M]" letsrun.com
larkim Aug 2019 1:10pm, 23 Aug 2019 8,381 posts	0 larkim That's NCAA, they have very specific (and liberal) rules for handling these situations because it is college competition. The issues presented with their transition wouldn't be handled the same if it was an IAAF or USATF competition.
paul the builder Aug 2019 1:53pm, 23 Aug 2019 6,595 posts	0 paul the builder lark - so are you saying it's wrong, but that it's not an important competition? Or are you saying something else that I'm missing?
larkim Aug 2019 2:11pm, 23 Aug 2019 8,383 posts	0 larkim Just that NCAA is a bit of an unusal case as it predominantly relates to students and I believe endeavours to be fairly flexible for young adults across all sports and at all performance levels, so they are drafted more in a spirit of maximising participation without excluding individuals whilst not imposing intrustive testing or medication etc. i.e. it's emphasis on safeguarding the wellbeing of students appears to take a higher priority than might be considered necessary by sports governing bodies where they are more concerned with protecting the integrity of the sport. It presents some issues of course, because in the US NCAA championships and College sports generally are of a high standard and get some national prominence, higher than say English Schools / BUCS etc would do over here. But I suppose my main point is, it is likely that a NCAA athlete competing in a female category in an NCAA event could be ineligible for female competition in that same sport outside of the NCAA framework. I'm not saying it doesn't raise the same issues about taking away opportunities for victory or present similar challenges in body size in physical team events, just that there's a danger in extrapolating NCAA cases too widely. (The other feature of course is that much of the NCAA high level competition is televised, so it provides a deep mine of video "evidence" to be used by those who have strong opinions on the issues of transgender athletes).
paul the builder Aug 2019 2:21pm, 23 Aug 2019 6,597 posts	0 paul the builder "Maximising Participation". I can see the positive intention in that. How will we determine whether women are put off competing by this though? If so, what loss would be acceptable? Also in today's news: bbc.co.uk
larkim Aug 2019 2:22pm, 23 Aug 2019 8,386 posts	0 larkim I should correct myself a little there, because of course NCAA is athletics only, not wider team sports, which I for some reason had in my mind as I was writing it. Here's the NCAA guidance (2011 so quite old now) that is in application for transgender athletes. ncaa.org