UCI tightens rules on transgender female cyclists by extending transition period to 24 months

The language is shifting:
The chief executive of Equality Australia, Anna Brown, said in a statement: “Blanket bans on women who are trans playing against other women ...
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2022/jun/21/international-rugby-league...

The creation of an open category should hopefully give us some hard data on the effect of testosterone suppression on performance so that the debate can be better informed in future.

This is just beating about the bush. So long as there remains a women's category then that is the category that trans-women will want to be in. The new phraseology, "women who are trans" makes that abundantly clear. I'm sure they won't object to any other categories the authorities dream up, but the category they see themselves in already exists.

Think this is absolutely the correct way forward. Inclusive and also fair. 

moonfruit wrote:

The average T levels for women of Emily's age is reported to be in the range 1.5 to 7.0.

Sorry but that is very wrong. It even says in this article, the one you are commenting on, that the maximum T level for 99.99% of women is 2.5 nmol/dl. 

Personally I still think it's unfair that the maximum level be allowed for trans females when a vast majority of her competitors will have way below that. It should be set at the average. 

But, this is a step in the right direction to protect the integrity and fairness of womens sports. 

sparrowlegs wrote:

moonfruit wrote:

The average T levels for women of Emily's age is reported to be in the range 1.5 to 7.0.

Sorry but that is very wrong. It even says in this article, the one you are commenting on, that the maximum T level for 99.99% of women is 2.5 nmol/dl. 

Personally I still think it's unfair that the maximum level be allowed for trans females when a vast majority of her competitors will have way below that. It should be set at the average. 

But, this is a step in the right direction to protect the integrity and fairness of womens sports. 

Your opinion is your opinion, and mine is mine.  Regarding T levels they vary with health and age.  I took the trouble to look up the T levels of healthy women of Emily's age.

I watch the Matt Stevens cafe rides videos on Youtube.  I watched his interview with Pippa York which was very interesting.  She has the experience of transitioning on giving up professional cycling.  The point she makes about postride recovery sticks in my mind.  She says that her reduced T level meant that where she suffered was in post-ride recovery which took much longer with reduced testosterone,  meaning that more recovery time meant less training time.  Accordingly her performance rapidly dropped.

But anyway as I made a point of saying, introducing revised rules for any athlete who intends to transition in future is one thing, but invoking new rules on an athlete who has done much more than to simply meet the requirement is especially unfair.

So I'm unpersuaded by you, sticking to my guns and will continue supporting Emily Bridges.

Can you provide the link to where you found the T level For a woman of Emily's age please?

I agree pulling the carpet from under Emily's feet at the 11th hour wasn't a good look for BC but as we now know, it was needed because the lack of evidence and peer reviewed studies at the time meant her inclusion would have been unfair for her competitors. 

sparrowlegs wrote:

Can you provide the link to where you found the T level For a woman of Emily's age please?

I agree pulling the carpet from under Emily's feet at the 11th hour wasn't a good look for BC but as we now know, it was needed because the lack of evidence and peer reviewed studies at the time meant her inclusion would have been unfair for her competitors. 

I compared data from three sites; there were small differences in the reporting, so I averaged them.  I didn't bookmark them, but looking again at just one site randomly picked from a new search, I see this ...

''For women ages 19 and up, normal testosterone levels range from 8 to 60 ng/dL, according to Mayo Clinic Laboratories.''

https://www.healthline.com/health/low-testosterone/testosterone-levels-b...

My objection isn't about what is a good look for BC; it's the question of what is a fair outcome for Emily Bridges who better than met the set requirements and did her best to help the advancement of the scientific understanding of making sport fair for all.

You do understand the difference between grams and moles, right? 60ng/dL equates to 2.08nmol/L.

Further source:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Testosterone_levels_in_males_and_...

Flâneur wrote:

You do understand the difference between grams and moles, right? 60ng/dL equates to 2.08nmol/L.

Further source:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Testosterone_levels_in_males_and_...

I started very cautiously by saying that I have no training or expertise. 

The numbers expressed in my first post are neither nmol/ or ng/dl.  They are averaged from the reported numbers I read expressed in ng/l.  I ensured that I was averaging like for like units at that time.

I do appreciate that they are not the same units  as expressed in the article.  Converting the numbers from the range 1.5 to 7, gives a range of approx half those values when expressed in nmol/l. making the upper limit 3.5.  

It changes little to my main point about the fairness of the treatment of Emily Bridges as BC and UCI accept that her monitoring showed that she was beneath the threshold of 5.  

I had made it clear that the thrust of my argument was not technical but from concern of moving the goalposts for Emily Bridges at the point where she had successfully met the prevailing UCI / BC terms.  

She should have been allowed to compete in my opinion.

Using this calculator-

http://www.endmemo.com/medical/unitconvert/Testosterone.php

60ng/dL equates to 2.08nmol/L

So that basically backs up the numbers I and the UCI quoted. Nowhere near those you did.

Also, what about what's a fair outcome for the masses, the women Emily was going to unfairly compete against? Nothing for them? Yes, Emily might have met some arbitrarily derived limits that were garnered via worthless "evidence", but new evidence has come to light. It can't be ignored and so, for the integrity and fairness of the sport it was deemed best that Emily didn't compete.

In fact, wasn't the real reason she didn't compete because she was still registered as male with the UCI?

sparrowlegs wrote:

Using this calculator-

http://www.endmemo.com/medical/unitconvert/Testosterone.php

60ng/dL equates to 2.08nmol/L

So that basically backs up the numbers I and the UCI quoted. Nowhere near those you did.

Also, what about what's a fair outcome for the masses, the women Emily was going to unfairly compete against? Nothing for them? Yes, Emily might have met some arbitrarily derived limits that were garnered via worthless "evidence", but new evidence has come to light. It can't be ignored and so, for the integrity and fairness of the sport it was deemed best that Emily didn't compete.

In fact, wasn't the real reason she didn't compete because she was still registered as male with the UCI?

Agh ... we are  now going down that rabbit hole where the hypothetical trumps the reality. 

The rules were real, they were neither set by Emily Bridges or broken by Emily Bridges.  She even contributed to the body of science to aid understanding.

The argument rests on the hypothetical - is it possible that she would have an advantage?

My opinion is this, in making a judgement, that which is knowable trumps that which is not.

No, what you are trying to do is the usual distraction method of playing in the nuance and completely disregarding fact. Read the report linked in the article above, if it was a work of fiction or theory I doubt it would be being acted on. 

sparrowlegs wrote:

No, what you are trying to do is the usual distraction method of playing in the nuance and completely disregarding fact. Read the report linked in the article above, if it was a work of fiction or theory I doubt it would be being acted on. 

And you are playing the game of changing what I have been saying from the outset.

 I have not disregarded facts.  Nor have I called the article a work of fiction.   

The facts are that I have a non-expert opinion.  I have read that Emily Bridges met the requirements of the prevailing rules.  That being the case, it is my opinion that she be allowed to race.   

It is a fact that she is being disadvantaged; it is not knowable if she has such residual advantage to disadvantage others.    I will always prefer to follow what is knowable to that which is not. 

If it can be shown that Emily Bridges intends to beat the system by her transition, then I will change my view. 

You are free to hold other opinions, but you are not free to discredit my opinion with non facts or hypotheticals just because your opinion is different to mine.

moonfruit wrote:

I watch the Matt Stevens cafe rides videos on Youtube.  I watched his interview with Pippa York which was very interesting.  She has the experience of transitioning on giving up professional cycling.  The point she makes about postride recovery sticks in my mind.  She says that her reduced T level meant that where she suffered was in post-ride recovery which took much longer with reduced testosterone,  meaning that more recovery time meant less training time.  Accordingly her performance rapidly dropped.

Respectfully (and I speak as (I know this sounds like "as a cyclist myself" but it's true) a great fan of Pippa both when she was a rider and now as an insightful commentator), did she have any figures to back that up or was it just her impression? If the latter then surely there's a danger of confirmation bias; additionally, she did start her transition quite a while (five years or more I believe?) after she quit professional cycling aged 31, so how much of her reduced performance/recovery time was due to her no longer working and training as a pro cyclist and how much to her reduced testosterone level?

Genuine questions with no agenda, just interested.

Rendel Harris wrote:

moonfruit wrote:

I watch the Matt Stevens cafe rides videos on Youtube.  I watched his interview with Pippa York which was very interesting.  She has the experience of transitioning on giving up professional cycling.  The point she makes about postride recovery sticks in my mind.  She says that her reduced T level meant that where she suffered was in post-ride recovery which took much longer with reduced testosterone,  meaning that more recovery time meant less training time.  Accordingly her performance rapidly dropped.

Respectfully (and I speak as (I know this sounds like "as a cyclist myself" but it's true) a great fan of Pippa both when she was a rider and now as an insightful commentator), did she have any figures to back that up or was it just her impression? If the latter then surely there's a danger of confirmation bias; additionally, she did start her transition quite a while (five years or more I believe?) after she quit professional cycling aged 31, so how much of her reduced performance/recovery time was due to her no longer working and training as a pro cyclist and how much to her reduced testosterone level?

Genuine questions with no agenda, just interested.

I don't know Pippa, have never met her, I just valued  her insights in the interview.  She mentions numbers, but I will guess that she is just using knowledge and experience of training at elite level to make informed estimates.

I think the best thing is for you to watch the interview to form your  own view rather than me asking you to accept mine ...

https://youtu.be/5abgXEWQPlI

What's the average for her competitors? 
what's the s.d.? And so on. 

I'd say it's somewhere between 0.7 - 2.5 nmol/dl. If it's not, it will show up in the competitors drug test and they'll be asked to explain the reasons behind it. Simple. 

Ah, so you don't know, and so don't know if the stated value is actually fair m

in fact, you stated categorically it would have been unfair for her to compete, despite, as you point out, having zero evidence to back up your claim

it MAY have disadvantaged the other genetic outliers she would have competed again, but we dint know. And neither do you. You're guessing, and assuming based on your stated prejudices against trans women even being women, that all trans women competing will have an advantage. Despite, by your own admission, having no evidence of such. Just yiur gut feeling. 

Whoa! Nos, take a breath mate.

You're rapidly becoming the parody of woke outrage.

Actual science has been used here, not "feelings". At last, governing bodies are looking past the crowds of screaming blue-haired gender studies students and taking the fairest path by gathering evidence and acting upon it as more studies and their results come to light.

You should be celebrating because if there's no advantage to being born a biological male and having gone through puberty, this will prove it. 

Whoa! Nos, take a breath mate.

You're rapidly becoming the parody of woke outrage.

Actual science has been used here, not "feelings". At last, governing bodies are looking past the crowds of screaming blue-haired gender studies students and taking the fairest path by gathering evidence and acting upon it as more studies and their results come to light.

You should be celebrating because if there's no advantage to being born a biological male and having gone through puberty, this will prove it. 

[/quote

I see you've been recruited to the culture war where your victims are not entitled to their feelings because you pretend to understand science, a science where the actual scientists caution that the science is so young that much more research is required.

Was the ranty bigotry really necessary?

Sparrow stated that the greatest achievement a woman can ever do is to bear children, so yeah. This isn't even the half of it with them.  
 

sparrow is just an o those TERFs who doesn't realise they're not radical pr feminist. Just sad. 

I'm wondering what colour your hair is Nos and if you've gone for the nose ring too. 

Little known but rumour has it he's actually Mario Cipollini's bigger cousin.  And dresses like Buster Keaton.

Does that change your viewpoint there?

Of course they are entitled to their feelings. What they aren't entitled to is for their feelings to outweighs science, biology and evidence. 

Don't worry,  you've made clear to me where you are coming from: and we're done here.