FINA votes to restrict transgender women from elite swimming competition
espn.com
espn.com
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?).
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?
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.
The fact that those are orthogonal today matters exactly how (when talking about introducing more granularity at the first, gender level)?
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.
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.
While you are right that there is a developmental advantage (which is why men are tested out of competition too), I am sure you don't have the experience of being without natural testosterone for a prolonged period either (I do due to testicular tumours: 6 months until I started TRT): you might not lose muscles outright, but even for those that remain, they put too much stress on your joints and the rest of your body (a couple of tennis sessions, and I had plantar fasciitis, only recovering shortly after starting TRT). I don't think I'd ever be able to fairly compete with men regardless of being a pretty strong, sporty male beforehand. (Without TRT ofc: testosterone replacement therapy mostly covers that, though it could also be used to my advantage if I train hard 1-3 weeks after administration when it's at peak levels which are above the normal range until it goes down to the low end at 10-11 weeks, but that also means that I've got 4 weeks when training wouldn't be very effective)
Transsexuals, I understand you want very much to compete in the womens' section, but you are not women, and so you cannot fairly compete with them for the same reasons that men cannot compete with them. I understand this is an upsetting problem for you, but your desires do not overrule the entirety of female competitive integrity. If you went through puberty as a male, tough luck, you cannot compete against women anymore. Just as I cannot compete in the Special Olympics intellectual disability sports because I went through full normal brain development, you cannot compete against women, because you went through male hormonal development.
a) handicaps? might not work for all sports, but worth looking into surely.
b) instead of a hard "male at age 12" rule, allow the athlete to undergo a series of tests to demonstrate their physiology is in line with that of a female rather than a male.
But...realistically these decisions should be left to the experts.
(BTW I'm pretty sure your statement "They just feel like women. Sorry, but physical development doesn't care about your feelings." isn't really accurate for many such transsexuals - the reasons they decided to transition are just as much biochemical as anything else. And if it weren't true, then there's no issue - they just compete in the "men's" category).
I don't see anyone arguing that transsexual women should be allowed to compete with women, so I am not sure who are you directing your comment at.
Next, I would say it's undisputed that even if someone has gone through body development as male, after prolonged period of lacking testosterone, their advantages diminish and they are not really competitive with males (it seems like you might be disputing this, but not in so many words).
If we agree on the above, the question is simple: do we want to include them in sporting competitions, and if so, how would we do that?
I think we all agree on including them, and for the same reasons we've got a gender split in sports at all (to allow women to win and thus encourage them to play sports), an obvious way is to introduce another (or few) categories. It's easy to say what shouldn't happen (they should not compete against women), but the question is what should happen without outright banning some athletes or putting them in a losing proposition against men.
Btw, your premise about Special Olympics is also untrue. If you get brain impaired at a later date (or become a paraplegic), you will be admitted to competition. I am sure there are strict rules to reduce cheating.
Again, the goal should at all times be to support anyone and everyone to compete in sports, while maintaining fairness to all participants. That's sometimes not clear cut or simple, or maybe not economical, but those should be the goals we strive for.
Many people are arguing it, successfully; that's why TFA is notable. My comment was rhetorically directed at readers who may agree with them.
> Next, I would say it's undisputed that even if someone has gone through body development as male, after prolonged period of lacking testosterone, their advantages diminish and they are not really competitive with males
Their advantages diminish to the extent that they cannot maintain as much muscle mass as a man. The structural advantages remain, such that they are always at an advantage against women. I would say they become like weak men.
I have no problem with a transgender section of sports. I just don't foresee that happening. The pool is so small, and nobody would watch it.
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.
Better still if you have rare chromosomal aberrations a committee can decide especially with something like this that affects 0.005% of the population.
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.
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.
Trans isn't new, you can find plenty of references to it in movies from the 80's even. You just didn't see it until the internet brought information to everyone everywhere.