Women’s cycling team sacks former pro and director who urged riders to “take a knee” in protest against trans cyclists

Caster Semenya is XY and, by some accounts, had (undescended) testes. She certainly had male levels of testosterone, including through puberty, until after the rules setting limits came in. Caster is a different case to MtF trans-gender athletes note.

As for Austin Philips, even if she was 165cm and 50 kg, she would *still* have an advantage over women of similar stature. Indeed, at that size, she'd probably have an even greater advantage in climbing over _all_ the other women (160 to 165cm and ~50kg to 55kg describes some of the best male climbs - they tend to be tiny! And the best women climbers tend to be tiny too, e.g. Pooley).

The simple truth is that it extremely unlikely Austin Philips would ever have had this level of success competing in male classes, pre-transition. Because she simply does not have elite level physiology.

She's benefiting from a good, but not great, residual male physiology in terms of performance, and beating women who _really are_ talented.

Austin Philips has every right to participate in sport. However, there is simply no human right to using the residual advantage of testosterone during puberty (and, in many cases, a chunk of adulthood too) to beat women in elite, competitive, sport.

It's the same as doping.

Lance Armstrong can go do various gran fondos and unsanctioned semi-competitive MTB events - he can participate. However he can not enter UCI sanctioned competitive events. This is not an infringement of his human rights.

As for Williams, she is clearly a woman. Strong, but clearly a woman. And her serve is much slower than a man, and she is easily beaten by much lower ranked men.

She'd have 0 chance of success in the men's category. Cause she's (obviously) a woman.

And frankly, some of the reasons for Williams having been brought in as a comparison, have origins in racism.

MissyChrissy wrote:

you lot would happily take every single trans person out and machine-gun them because the very thought of someone 'different' to you disturbs the smooth surface of your tiny little minds

Absolutely horrible take.

Many (most?) people who oppose trans participation in female sports bear no particular ill will* toward trans people. They are our friends and family and coworkers and fellow community members, and we love them and wish them success and happiness in their lives. The very thought of someone different doesn't disturb us, and we certainly don't want to "take every single trans person out and machine-gun them". (Did I mention that was a fucking horrible take?)

I suggest that you grow up, accept that some people simply disagree on this issue, and recognize that taking an extreme, emotionally-fueled position on the cause du jour doesn't actually make you a good person. You have to work much harder for it than that.

*I'm not saying they all have ultra-enlightened views on the topic, but are there any topics at all on which most people have ultra-enlightened views? Why is it that on a few select topics a failure to have ultra-enlightened views makes one not merely human but rather a vile bigot?

It's a ridiculous argument that trans-women must be allowed to compete at _elite_ level against women, cause... transgender have higher suicide rates^1.

People who compete in sport are a small percentage of the population. The people who get to compete at elite level are a tiny tiny sliver of that percentage. There is simply no way that this can have a bearing on the mental health of transgender people at a population level.

Further, competition at elite sport level tends to come with mental health issues itself. It's tough to operate at that level. So if the worry is mental health, then if anything you're saying trans-gender people should not enter elite competion?

Further, you ignore the impact on the mental health of the (few) natal-women who were gifted with outstanding physiology AND who spent years and years and years on training that, to then be beaten by someone who was borne with _average_ physiology, but went through male puberty.

What you are arguing is that CIS-women should just suck it up and accept they are inferior to males (inc. trans-women with retained male physiological benefits), and screw their chance to compete against others of similar physiological development.

That's just an incredibly misogynistic position to take.

1. People with gender-dysphoria / trans-gender also have high rates of psychiatric co-morbidities compared to the general population. It is unclear if suicide rates are higher in people with those psychiatric co-morbidities AND gender dysphoria as compared to those who have those psychiatric co-morbidities /without/ gender dysphoria. Further, there is no good evidence at this point that gender-transition is an effective treatment, in terms of reducing those high suicide rates (unfortunately, many of the clinics have been very poor at keeping records and/or doing follow-ups - so the data really sucks).

This is basically what is going to happen.

Probably the process will a self-declaration, rather than a test. Except when there is some dispute or query.

Note that inter-sex is different from trans-gender. The cases in the news of MtF transgender athletes entering women's sport and suddenly performing at much higher levels than they did as males, are not inter-sex.

Cases of inter-sex women and cases of women with /other/ developmental issues giving them high levels of testosterone certainly have existed. Caster Semenya is a recent example - she is inter-sex (but not transgender), but she *is* XY and (surprise) had male testosterone levels.

And yes it is difficult and unfortunate for such women. E.g., hormone treatment was apparently not very nice for Caster - never mind all the controversy and undignified examinations. Her career in (women's) athletics is effectively over.

Self-declaration won't stand up. For every person who says they're X, there'll be a few who say they're really Y, then there'll have to be 'an investigation' which won't solve anything. Look at how people (almost all women) who don't fit the stereotypes of appearance, get called transgender - Jamie Lee Curtis, Serena Williams, Caster Semenya and many others, all misgendered and slandered because of their physical attributes.

It'll have to be, when a person registers as an athlete in any sport, that they have a compulsory karyotype test along with their blood type and whatever else they're tested for. And it'll have to be performed by the sport's global governing body.

And there's going to be some disappointments, some shock results, and some people are going to feel humiliated, but this is what it'll come to because some people couldn't control their transphobia.

I agree it'll come down to biological sex. That's sort of the point.

I don't think this is to do with transphobia though. It's about preserving a category for people who can reasonably be inferred to have developed without male sex hormones - be that cause of genetics, or other development reasons, or simply doping.

Maybe there are some transphobes who delight in that too, but that's not why the majority of society supports preserving said category for developmental-female athletes.

MissyChrissy wrote:

If you don't want this you'll have to start making categories based not on gender, but on biological SEX

For most competitive sports, that seems sensible. It does leave the question of the c1% who aren't XX or XY but that's a different issue to transgender ID (and the two don't seem very closely correlated).

Dnnnnnn wrote:

MissyChrissy wrote:

If you don't want this you'll have to start making categories based not on gender, but on biological SEX

For most competitive sports, that seems sensible. It does leave the question of the c1% who aren't XX or YY but that's a different issue to transgender ID (and the two don't seem very closely correlated).

No one is YY, because males don't reproduce with males. (or females with females)

wycombewheeler wrote:

No one is YY, because males don't reproduce with males. (or females with females)

Typo, sorry - corrected in the original post (but not above, for clarity (?)).

MissyChrissy wrote:

If you don't want this you'll have to start making categories based not on gender, but on biological SEX

I thought that's how it always used to be. It was never about how you dressed.

Sriracha wrote:

MissyChrissy wrote:

If you don't want this you'll have to start making categories based not on gender, but on biological SEX

I thought that's how it always used to be. It was never about how you dressed.

The conflation of sex and gender seems a big part of the issue and differences of view.

Do we even need much of the gender stuff nowadays? I realise that would be undoing millenia of social constructions - but would be a bad thing to avoid categorising people unless there's a very specific need based on very good distinctions? We have done in some spheres already but why do the first two letters on every utility bill indicate my gender? What purpose does that serve now that Mrs Dnnnnn is an equal being and not my property (it being not so long ago that women were addressed as "Mrs [their husband's name]" and probably not meant to open bills since they weren't meant to deal with such  important men's matters).

You say simple, but why do we have a women's category at all? My understanding is to provide females, who are biologically disadvantaged (purely in a sporting context) a level playing field to compete amongst their peers. Simply that. 

Now in sport nothing is truly fair, or level, but within the confines of biology it is a simple and fair way to categorise. 

What you have then outlined is pretty much exactly what is in place already, but rather than needing chromosomal testing, we rely on the sex assigned by medical professionals at birth. This has worked pretty effectively up until now, but suddenly we have all this talk of intersex traits and genetic variations.

The gravitas afforded to these variations seems excessive to me as we are only talking about 0.5% of the population, 1.7% if we include all and every variation (although having a little more body hair is unlikely to win you a UCI race). Rather than 'lots' these variations really are the outliers. I do agree however, that you may indeed find examples residing within the top tiers of women's sport. 

Jimmy Ray Will wrote:

You say simple, but why do we have a women's category at all? My understanding is to provide females, who are biologically disadvantaged (purely in a sporting context) a level playing field to compete amongst their peers. Simply that. 

Now in sport nothing is truly fair, or level, but within the confines of biology it is a simple and fair way to categorise. 

What you have then outlined is pretty much exactly what is in place already, but rather than needing chromosomal testing, we rely on the sex assigned by medical professionals at birth. This has worked pretty effectively up until now, but suddenly we have all this talk of intersex traits and genetic variations.

The gravitas afforded to these variations seems excessive to me as we are only talking about 0.5% of the population, 1.7% if we include all and every variation (although having a little more body hair is unlikely to win you a UCI race). Rather than 'lots' these variations really are the outliers. I do agree however, that you may indeed find examples residing within the top tiers of women's sport. 

I'd expect that elite sports people are more likely to be genetically unusual, so that 0.5% of the population is likely to be over-represented in sports. It'd be interesting to test the male competitors as well and maybe start disqualifying people who don't have typical XY chromosomes as they may well have an advantage against the "biological males".

I would be happy to test that theory and you could well be right... but neither male or female genetic variations are the cause of the discussions we are having. 
My point is that genetic variations are being used to muddy conversations around the fairness of transathlete participation in female sport. The level of genetic variation is so small for it to be an irrelevant discussion point, but more importantly, it has little to nothing to do with Male to female trans people potentially holding on to physical advantages post transition and what this means for female sport. 

Jimmy Ray Will wrote:

My point is that genetic variations are being used to muddy conversations around the fairness of transathlete participation in female sport. The level of genetic variation is so small for it to be an irrelevant discussion point, 

I'm not sure you're wrong per se, but if the level of genetic variations is so small as to be insignificant, then aren't the number of trans people so small as to be insignificant.

I don't know the figures but people are bandying around 0.5% for the genetic variations, surely the number of trans women is lower than 0.5%?

This is a very reasonable point and the position I tend to default to. We are getting our knickers in a twist about nothing. 

I think the challenge for many (including myself at times), is the seeming prevalance of transathletes at the sharp end of the results sheet. 

For such a tiny minority group, should a -seemingly- significant majority just happen to be hugely athletically gifted to return the results that they do? Does this suggest there are indeed unfair physical advantages?

Maybe, but equally, it may simply be that the transathletes determined enough to put up with the bullshit they have to, are more than likely to be the one's performing the best. If you were crap at something, and everyone hounded you, you simply wouldn't bother.

Similarly why are there so few gay men in top level sport but a comparatively high number of gay women? Its all social constructs... competiting trans athletes could arguably be more focused, committed whatever due to their lived experiences.. maybe its not physical advantages making the difference, but mental and societal ones?

It is an incredibly complex issue that both sides of the argument seem hell bent on over-simplifying, which just gets everyone's backs up.

There's no need to test the males. They are the advantaged sex. Male is effectively the open category.

For more than 99.9% of people, the simple question of "Did you have a penis as a child?" will accurately sort out the developmental males from developmental females.

Hell "have you got a penis?" is also likely to work for 99%+, given most MtF's do not have bottom surgery, cause it's a pretty risky procedure (unsure exactly how many, but it's a substantial portion - circa half or more).

Miss Chrissy is making this far more complicated than it needs to be.

I'm not making it complicated. There's a half dozen trans athletes making headlines by winning their competitions, and you think it's some sort of invasion by the Transsexual Menace™ coming soon to every pool, track, sports ground and podium near you. You're all losing your damned minds.

MissyChrissy wrote:

I'm not making it complicated. There's a half dozen trans athletes making headlines by winning their competitions, and you think it's some sort of invasion by the Transsexual Menace™ coming soon to every pool, track, sports ground and podium near you. You're all losing your damned minds.

They shouldn't be entering or winning women only events. Enter as a trans in the male categories.

They won't because they are failed male athletes

MissyChrissy wrote:

I'm not making it complicated. There's a half dozen trans athletes making headlines by winning their competitions, and you think it's some sort of invasion by the Transsexual Menace™ coming soon to every pool, track, sports ground and podium near you. You're all losing your damned minds.

Right, and neither those trans-gender athletes nor the 99.9% of other women athletes require any complex tests or investigations.

"Were you assigned female from birth till now?" yes/no. Job done for 99.9+ of cases.

Yes? -> You may compete in sanctioned women's sport.
No?
-> You may participate in non-competitive women's events,
-> You may compete in men's sport.

Simple.

Intersex humans have existed as long as there have been humans. It's just that it didn't actually matter until recently. Nobody knew, nobody cared.

Caster Semenya was assigned female at birth and was raised entirely normally as a girl, but strictly speaking she's not female; she has XY chromosomes. This was only found out when people complained about her successes and the IAAF had her karyotype tested.

Many intersex traits are entirely undetectable at birth, so you can't rely on your birth certificate - the midwife glances at a baby's genitals and makes a decision that defines that child's whole life. Usually it doesn't matter but just  sometimes it does. And that 'sometimes' is what makes some particular people argue about 'women's rights in sport' and the alleged trans takeover. It's utterly ridiculous.

MissyChrissy wrote:

It's actually very simple. Women's racing should be open to all women, cis or trans.

It's only that simple if you deny the reality that having been male for the first 20 years of life confers a lifelong physical advantage over cis females, and no amount of surgey or hormone treatment can remove that.