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Comment by cmiles8 | Hacker News Reader

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Exactly. It's impossible to have both inclusion and fair play. We have to pick one, and as a parent of daughters who compete at fairly high levels it's more important to preserve the integrity of women's sports.

Is there not an option to have inclusion at grassroots level and fair play as the level of competition gets higher?

Sure, I guess that's an option for youth sports in the prepubescent age groups. As a practical matter most youth sports leagues and schools aren't going to hassle with sex screening tests for little kids.

But once puberty hits everything changes. My teenage daughter played travel club volleyball on a pretty good team, and during practice they would occasionally run drills with the boys team. Even at that age the difference in hitting power and vertical was enormous, and those differences only grow larger with age. Men and women are literally playing different games. Beyond just fairness, forcing girls to compete against biological males becomes a safety risk due to concussions from taking a ball to the head.

males competing against males are also at risk by taking a ball to the head :).

I think male female trans etc . can compete if analysed by sports branch basis. Male x female in contact sports like karate boxing taekwondo is not fair. However i think the difference is negligible in shooting, archerty, curling etc.

Men play volleyball with a higher net to ameliorate this problem.

You believe that women are genetically more susceptible to concussions than men are?

https://healthcare.utah.edu/healthfeed/2024/09/uneven-playin...

“Women tend to have thinner skulls than men, along with smaller neck muscles, which can predispose female athletes to getting a concussion,” says Sarah Menacho, MD, a neurosurgeon and neurocritical care specialist at University of Utah Health. “Data shows that women are also more likely than men to report concussion-related symptoms, and these symptoms can persist for a longer time period prior to recovery than in male athletes.”

Huh, didn't know that.

Don't let that prevent you from posting more dismissive posts about topics you don't know in the future.

Aye aye sir.

Yes. It's not a matter of belief, sex differences in concussion risk have been extensively studied.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-sports-concus...

In my experience competing in different things, that's typical: Local organizations are free to set their own local rules, but once you cross over into events that make you eligible for higher level competition they have to strictly abide by the national level rules. I couldn't use my results from grassroots competitions to qualify for national level events, generally.

It’s not even a level thing[0]. I think the physical advantages that come with male puberty are significant even at 14-15.

https://www.cbssports.com/soccer/news/a-dallas-fc-under-15-b...

Many people like to focus on the purely physical attributes, but there's a clear distinction even in realms like chess.

The highest ranked female chess player is right around #55 globally, wherein the top 50 all are dominated by men.

Some of this may have to do with men having more interest/higher propensity of starting young which is where most grandmasters begin their journey, but still an interesting thing to consider nonetheless.

It's largely because chess has historically been a boys-club type activity. Women were actively discouraged, if not barred, from playing on grounds of misogyny. So, even today, there's very little women taking it seriously.

Of course, we all know there's no difference in the level of intellect or strategy between men and women.

> Of course, we all know there's no difference in the level of intellect or strategy between men and women.

Do we?

I thought it was commonly accepted that the average and median are the same but that men have more outliers on both sides.

That’s the greater variability theory. The male median is also higher so when you combine the two the long tail to the right will be dominated by males, so will the long tail on the left but to a lesser extent.

Many IQ tests have been designed to minimize the difference between males and females, primarily by reducing g-loading. Males pull ahead after puberty, prior to this they have an IQ disadvantage. So you have to take these factors into account when trying to make a fair and proper assessment.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judit_Polgár

But has she ever passed a test to prove she doesn't have the SRY gene?

What would do about someone like this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santhi_Soundarajan

That athlete was excluded from the women's competition on the basis of having male physiological advantage. Exactly what the Olympics are now doing.

Androgen insensitivity syndrome means that her cells do not react to testosterone. What male advantage is there if her cells don't react to testosterone?

Soundarajan's androgen insensitivity was reported as being partial (i.e. PAIS, and not CAIS), which implies some degree of testosterone-driven masculinization.

I know of one person who was born physically a woman, but has XY chromosomes. It is only due to modern medicine that we know that there is anything "unusual" with her gender. Otherwise, she is physically a woman with no observable clues to her condition.

(IE, in the past, she would have been infertile, and probably died young due to her situation.)

I'm not comfortable with saying that people like her need to compete with men.

Complete androgen insensitivity syndrome, I imagine? That's probably the one category of XY people who have undergone no hormonal masculinization throughout their lives, and the one case where I'd agree with them competing with women. Wikipedia says it's estimated to be "1 in 20,400 to 1 in 99,000".

Probably, it's a friend of a friend situation, so I don't know the name of the condition.

If you segregate by sex alone then trans men get a big advantage.

The rulings do not mean they now segregate by sex alone. Someone who was AFAB and does not have an SRY gene would was taking HRT would not qualify for the female division due to the HRT.

A trans man who was not taking HRT could compete, though.

The key distinction is that gender identity is not what's being tested.

Because they're taking testosterone?

Wouldn't they be barred based on using banned substances?

They're not all taking banned substances. Case in point, Hergie Bacyadan and Elis Lundholm competed in the last Summer and Winter Olympics respectively.

Both Hergie Bacyadan and Elis Lundholm has not undergone any hormone replacement therapy or surgery, and competes in the women's divisions. Their status as trans men has nothing to do with their eligibility to participate.

This would be like if two trans women, who has not undergone any hormone replacement therapy or surgery, would compete in men's divisions.

I thought exactly the same thing until I had a politically agnostic fencing judge sit down and explain over the course of an hour and a half all of the steps national and international regulating organizations for that sport had taken to avoid issues with unfair competition. Whether similar field-leveling safeguards could be baked into the rules for other sports is left as an exercise, but this particular instance suggests there's more nuance here than your comment suggests.

You're assuming that people arguing for bans on trans athletes are making good faith arguments about competition in sports. You shouldn't.

Here in the US a significant part of antipathy towards trans people is the deeply held belief that being trans in public is a kind of sex abuse to the public. If you listen to what much of the debate has turned into here, it has little to do with competition, and far more with the obsession over what genitals people have in locker rooms and bathrooms.

At the end of the day the number of trans athletes is so vanishingly small it's not worth caring about the impacts on competition, when the debate itself is another framing of the conservative desire to make being trans illegal.

Depends on the time of the transition. So those who transitioned before puberty are disadvantaged

Walk me through how you think this is going to be enforced? Athletes will need to start dropping their pants? Disgusting invasion of privacy.

The article addresses that. Given all the testing already, this is a trivial addition:

“Under the new policy eligibility will be determined by a one-time gene test, according to the I.O.C. The test, which is already being used in track and field, requires screening via saliva, a cheek swab or a blood sample.“

You think Olympic athletes have any expectation of privacy around drug testing already? They have to register their every move and piss while being visible on demand.

You think the only way to medically test for male vs female is to visually id genitals?

Well the article says a cheek swab or blood test.

The article already covered it: It's minimally invasive (cheek swab) testing typically for the SRY gene - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex-determining_region_Y_prote...

This is less invasive than all of the other doping tests that athletes already go through, which require blood draws.

Doesn’t really work though - and given athletes are on the edge of performance there’s probably more people that fall in between than you might expect

From the Wikipedia article:

While the presence or absence of SRY has generally determined whether or not testis development occurs, it has been suggested that there are other factors that affect the functionality of SRY.[25] Therefore, there are individuals who have the SRY gene, but still develop as females, either because the gene itself is defective or mutated, or because one of the contributing factors is defective.[26] This can happen in individuals exhibiting a XY, XXY, or XX SRY-positive[27] karyotype[better source needed] Additionally, other sex determining systems that rely on SRY beyond XY are the processes that come after SRY is present or absent in the development of an embryo. In a normal system, if SRY is present for XY, SRY will activate the medulla to develop gonads into testes. Testosterone will then be produced and initiate the development of other male sexual characteristics. Comparably, if SRY is not present for XX, there will be a lack of the SRY based on no Y chromosome. The lack of SRY will allow the cortex of embryonic gonads to develop into ovaries, which will then produce estrogen, and lead to the development of other female sexual characteristics.[28]

The test is used for initial screening only.

Presence of SRY in an athlete registered as female means further tests must be undertaken, with permission of the athlete, to determine eligibility.

Absence of SRY means the screening is passed and the athlete is eligible to compete.

The IOC included exceptions for certain DSDs.

Please read the linked articles first before jumping to Wikipedia to try to counter them. The decision is more nuanced than you assume

The Yahoo article linked says that exceptions will be made for people with conditions like that:

“Athletes diagnosed with Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (CAIS) ‘or other rare differences/disorders in sex development (DSDs), who do not benefit from the anabolic and/or performance-enhancing effects of testosterone’ may still be allowed to participate in the women’s category.”

In a word: so? Intersex people exist, you have to draw the line somewhere, the presence of SRY seems as good as any.

Transition changes biology. We don't yet have the technology to fully reverse the effects of male puberty, so there can be reasonable debate about trans women who transitioned after puberty, but early transitioners have no meaningful advantage. Their bodies, in an athletic context, are female.

This is also true for many cisgender intersex women with XY chromosomes. Someone with androgen insensitivity can have XY chromosomes, yet be capable of giving birth. Drawing the line at having a Y chromosome makes no sense.

> Someone with androgen insensitivity can have XY chromosomes, yet be capable of giving birth

People with androgen insensitivity syndrom (AIS) have XY chromosomes but no uterus. So, no, they cannot give birth.

There are athletic sex differences even amongst prepubescent children, mostly caused by the testosterone surge in utero.

See https://womenssportspolicy.org/pre-puberty-male-female-child....

Quite a biased source, no? This doesn't provide evidence that these differences are biological. Boys are much more likely to exercise than girls due to social norms: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10478357/.

People with a diagnosis for that syndrome are specifically allowed by the new rules

> Their bodies, in an athletic context, are female.

I'm sorry, but this is not true. "Puberty blockers" do not complete suppress the effects of male genetics. They only attempt to block certain hormonal effects.

It is not possible to completely block the effects of having male genes by simple hormone modulation.

> Someone with androgen insensitivity can have XY chromosomes, yet be capable of giving birth

We do not determine eligibility for sports classes based on ability to give birth for good reason. It's not a proxy for the genetic athletic differences being addressed by these classes.

Individuals with androgen insensitivity typically cannot give birth. This an extremely rare possibility, not a typical feature of the condition.

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