Yes, I think that's the bottom line. Broadly sample 75 people, of which half were trans gender, means that the samples of all cohorts were unrepresentative. I think the criteria was for "active" people, but they self selected responding to a social media call out, so I think that's the biggest criticism. The report itself basically says as much, though clearly the headline of what they actually found from the individuals they actually worked with gives a picture which has some results of interest.
Logically I do find it hard to believe that an average male who transitions will not perform better than an average female due to some elements of retained advantage (though equally they may lose some of that natural advantage too), no matter what the therapeutic interventions. But it's all about data, and gathering enough of it will be very challenging indeed to satisfy everyone interested in the discussion.
We have a lady at work who’s transitioned and says since going on the hormones she’s lost all her strength and cannot move the equipment she works with as easily as before, so there is something to it
People often mention bone density and size, and claim that someone who experienced a 'male' puberty will have an advantage because they'll have bigger, denser bones.
But, of course, this ignores the fact that binge density isn't a fixed attribute and will change with hormone therapy, diet, activity, etc. Also having bigger bones if you then lose the muscle mass to move them around with is the opposite of an advantage.
It also ignores the fact that the innate differences between cis men and cis women aren't usually as stark as we've been conditioned to believe, or as our social and physical conditioning has made us.
I'm not for a moment trying to dispute that therapeutic intervention of various sorts does not impact the physical capabilities of a trans woman compared to earlier in their lives.
But on average, an average cis man will have 10-12% better running "performance" than an average cis woman. And an average cis man will have 41% stronger grip than an average cis woman.
The question the science needs to firm up is how much, if any, of those "average" advantages are retained and whether they are retained in equal measures through all different therapeutic interventions.
Ultimately it's an absence of data.
From the millions of data points about men running 100m vs women running 100m, we know what the general gap is on average. A similarly "valid" set of data is needed to validate the assumptions from all perspectives about retained advantage (or lack of it), whereas at the moment most of the data points are single cases or anecdote.
I know it's not a position that everyone will agree with me on, but I have been won over to the argument that the default position, unless science proves otherwise, is that male advantage is most likely sufficiently well retained in trans women such that it impairs fairness in women's sport. If I start from that perspective, and want to maintain fair sport for women and men, then I have to accept that that excludes trans women from being judged to be in the same competitive category as cis women, as much as that runs counter to my broad instincts about inclusion of trans people. There are then arguments which I may have with myself about how far down the competitive world that extends to; from Olympics, to national comp, to club competition, to mass participation events, to parkrun. I don't have a single view across all of those sorts of levels and remain open to compelling arguments!
If that were true, though, trans women would be doing much better than they have been for the last 20+ years, surely?
So far we've only seen one trans female Olympian, who didn't get a medal, and no world records broken and retained (I think maybe there was a trans woman who held a record for a day or two before a cis woman took it back, but I forget the details). Cis women still dominate women's sport.
It's also somewhat a myth that separate categories for women were created for 'fairness', in many cases it was actually because the women were getting too good and the men didn't want to lose to them.
The problem with that "no medals" analysis is that the population of trans women is so small that we're not seeing the 0.001% of athletes / sportspeople that are the very, very best.
We simply don't know if those trans women are just "average" in their previous lives, or if they were truly exceptional athletes.
I can't comment about your observation about fairness and women's sporting categories as that's well before my time, but given women in all sports don't appear to beat male performances I do doubt the premise. Like-for-like, the best men beat the best women in all sports that I can think of.
Cis women dominate women's sport because they outnumber trans women by a significant factor. The UK 2021 census had 0.1% of the population of the UK identifying as a trans woman, so on that basis you'd expect perhaps 1 in 1000 Olympic medallists to be a trans woman?
And with all of the other barriers that are put in place that restrict the rights etc of trans people, I would suggest that that number would be suppressed even more in the same way that, for example, some ethnic groups are poorly represented in medal outcomes because of social factors rather than their physiological aptitude for sport.
Just as a point of interest, as Mara Yamauchi has identified at least one participant in the London Marathon who (in her view) has competed in the wrong category. She notes that the race is held under UKA rules, but she has overlooked this:
To me that seems like it draws a distinction between the way the GFA / Elite / Champs races are regulated and the "rest".
As someone who has drunk the koolaid of World Athletics in terms of their current approach (which UKA / England Athletics etc have followed), I find that interesting and confusing. No other specifics of the rules have attention drawn to them like this section.
London (and the rest of the Big 6 I think) has a non-binary category, which I prefer to enter myself in. I still won't win as you only need someone assigned male at birth (AMAB) entered and they'll most likely win. Binary Trans men and women will always want to enter those respective categories, which is fair enough, but I do feel that when the science and research comes out and exact markers can be drawn from it, then it will need to be checked and adhered to.
There's a group I'm in on FB which occasionally drives me mad as some people are transitioning and complaining about how they are losing strength and speed etc, and I can understand it is a big change but surely you had to be aware that that would happen???
A thread about how we can encourage and include people in whatever exercise they are interested in and removing barriers to participation.
Glossary -------------------- Amendments/Corrections/Requests just ask for a sidebar edit. This is NOT comprehensive, just some helpful shorthand. ---------------------
Gender Identity ≠ Gender Expression ≠ Anatomical Sex ≠ Sexual Orientation
Anatomical sex = The physical aspects that make you fit into a category based on genitals, chromosomes etc i.e. Intersex, Female, Male... Gender identity = The internal view of gender, the way you see yourself. Gender expression = The way you present to others externally through clothing, behaviours, language and other social signals.
Sexual orientation = Who you are attracted to.
None of the above are dependent on any of the others, individuals may relate one to another in their specific case, but assuming what one might be based on observation of another is not a sound basis for determination.
Transgender (Trans) = When your gender identity does not match your identity assigned at birth based on anatomical sex. Cisgender (Cis) = When your gender identity matches your identity assigned at birth based on anatomical sex. Non Binary (Enby) = When your gender identity doesn't fall into either of the female/male choice. It may exist somewhere on the spectrum between woman and man, either stable of fluctuating between woman-ness and man-ness. This may encapsulate those that may use terms such as genderfluid, agender, demigender et al.
Pronouns = she/her, him/his, them/they etc... How to refer best to someone else. Really simply, follow their lead. Ask if unsure, be polite. If corrected, it's not a problem unless you repeatedly ignore correction.
Transition = The process somebody goes through to alter their physical attributes to better match their gender identity and expression.
Dysphoria = The distress a person feels due to a mismatch between their gender identity and their sex assigned at birth. Can fluctuate and be experienced at varying degrees. Dysmorphia = Discomfort with the shape/form of the body. Present in eating disorders and the like, but can often effect transgender people, with triggers such as body hair presence/absence, chest/genital presentation etc. Deadname - The name a person is assigned at birth, that they no longer use.
Triggers = Things that are known to cause an effect. Typically, X causes a person to experience dysphoria/dysmorphia. Sometimes these can be managed/avoided, other times they are inevitable.
Acronyms: amab = assigned male at birth (originally born anatomically male)
afab = assigned female at birth (originally born anatomically female)
ftm = female to male transitioner mtf = male to female transitioner egg = state of somebody before becoming aware they were transgender i.e. "their egg cracked when they realised and began to emerge" GIC/GIS = Gender Identity Clinic/Service, providing transition services GRS = Gender Reassignment Surgery
General notes: * Not everyone will be comfortable talking about their situation, depending on where they are. * Not everyone has the language to articulate how they feel, what they want to say. Be patient. * These things are NOT static, what you encounter in a person today may evolve into something else later. * Am I trans/cis/enby etc... Frankly, you tell us. Whatever YOU are comfortable with at the time is what we will adopt. It is YOUR identity. * This language is weird. Yup, and we (CreatureOfTheHill) as a plural system talk strange too, it's OK. We (CreatureOfTheHill) are not "normal", never have been. * Am I weird/abnormal? Possibly, but it has NOTHING to do with being here or being trans/enby or whatever. People just are in general, and that is OK, we love you for your quirkiness.
Free training & racing tools for runners, cyclists, swimmers & walkers.
Fetcheveryone lets you analyse your training, find races, plot routes, chat in our forum, get advice, play games - and more!
Nothing is behind a paywall, and it'll stay that way thanks to our awesome community!
Gender identity, please help change
Jun 2021
