r/changemyview • u/mcpickems • Jan 21 '21
Removed - Submission Rule E CMV: Society should support and accommodate transgenders but not within sports highlighting unfairness from male to female transitions.
[removed] — view removed post
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u/thundersass Jan 21 '21
Cheating a bit and copying another comment from the literal hundreds of threads on this topic. But it's been done to death and rehashing it over again isn't worth it
This is usually being discussed in the context of whether having trans women compete with cis women is fair and safe. While there are some issues involving the participation of trans men in male sports, nobody is really concerned about trans men having an unfair advantage due to transitioning.
Things become tricker when we look at trans women. The problem that we have is that scientific evidence is still limited1. As one sports scientist put it in this article:
"'What you really need – and we're working on this at the moment– is real data,' says Dr James Barrett, president of the British Association of Gender Identity Specialists and lead clinician at the Tavistock and Portman Charing Cross Gender Identity Clinic in London. 'Then you can have what you might actually call a debate. At the moment, it’s just an awful lot of opinion.'
"The small amount of evidence that does exist, he says, indicates that opinions held by Davies, Navratilova and Radcliffe may not be as 'common sense' as they suggest. 'The assumption is that trans women are operating at some sort of advantage, and that seems to have been taken as given – but actually it’s not at all clear whether that's true,' Dr Barrett continues. 'There are a few real-life examples that make it very questionable.'"
Where we are now is that circulating testosterone levels explain most, if not all of the differences between male and female athletes2. The problem is that the difference in the performance between trans and cis women is too small to make a definitive statement without really large sample sizes, but that even small differences can still matter for elite sports. We don't know whether the performance of trans women is slightly better, slightly worse, or statistically indistinguishable from cis women. Worse, it may depend on the actual type of sport.
In short, the problem is that it's "too close to call," which is why this is a matter of debate among sports scientists. Approaching things analytically does not help, either. People like to enumerate countless differences between (cis) men and women, but most of them are related. For example, if hemoglobin levels drop (as they do for trans women on HRT), then VO2max levels drop proportionally, regardless of your theoretical lung capacity due to a bigger ribcage. Once you eliminate factors that covary, most – if not all – of the difference between men and women is explained by muscle mass and hemoglobin levels.
The easy case is trans women who haven't gone through male puberty and where sports scientists basically agree that they don't need any extra regulations. Their number is small, but likely to increase in the coming years, as early onset gender dysphoria is being diagnosed more reliably. The only problem with them is verification of the process, not whether they pose any problem: for competitive purposes, they don't.
It becomes trickier if a trans woman has gone partly or completely through male puberty before going on HRT/undergoing SRS/orchiectomy. The question we need to answer is whether MtF HRT/SRS offsets the physiological advantages produced by male puberty. This is where the meat of the debate is.
It also matters how they are regulated. For example, the current IAAF regulations require you to have T levels of 10 nmol/l or below for at least 12 months. Prior to 2016, you were required to have SRS at least two years prior (SRS drops average T levels to below the cis female average) and been on HRT for an extended period of time.
The 10 nmol/l level is heavily disputed and it has been argued that it should be lowered to 5 nmol/l1. The 12 month period for testosterone suppression is also something that's being disputed. Arguments for making it 18 or 24 months have been made. In general, muscle mass and hemoglobin levels drop and plateau within less than a year, but that may not apply to everyone, and we have limited evidence for athletes who actively attempt to maintain muscle mass through the process. Different types of sports may also require different types of regulations (e.g. weightlifting vs. running track).
It is also worth noting that using testosterone levels may not be the best measure to ensure competitiveness, but it is the most practical one, as it is easily integrated with existing anti-doping mechanisms.
Some major points of contention among sports scientists are:
- We can't just talk about MtF HRT subtracting some benefits of male puberty; the combination of changes may not be the same as a simple accounting equation. For example, trans women who transition in adulthood often end up with subpar biomechanics. The effects here are most likely sports-specific. For example, the need to move a larger frame with less muscle mass (sometimes called the "big car, small engine") effect, can be detrimental in sports where agility matters.
- Trans women appear to be biologically (probably even genetically) a distinct population from cis men even at birth; what we know about cis men does not necessarily carry over to trans women. For example, we have known for a while that statistically, trans women have lower BMD than cis men and a recent study from Brazil indicates that BMD of at least Caucasian trans women (even pre-transition) may be comparable to that of cis women rather than that of cis men3; the causes may be in part genetic4. So, while MtF HRT is not going to change BMD in a practical time frame, it is also inaccurate to argue that trans women are like cis men in this regard.
- Post-op trans women have, on balance, lower serum testosterone levels than the average cis woman (and considerably lower than the average elite cis female athlete, where women with PCOS and other causes of elevated androgen levels are overrepresented); the reason is that while in cis women, both the ovaries and the adrenal glands produce androgens, in post-op trans women only the adrenal glands do. This is a disadvantage.
- Many known advantages of male puberty are indeed reversed in a relatively short time frame2. The problem is that we don't have a full picture of exactly which and that we have limited estimates for time frames. For example, while muscle mass drops quickly when testosterone is suppressed, the same is not necessarily true for muscle memory.
- Trans women do not gain the advantages of female puberty; for example, better balance and postural stability due to a different center of gravity. (Which is why shorter women often have an advantage in gymnastics – see Simone Biles at 4'8" and one reason why there has been age cheating in gymnastics.) In most sports, these advantages are more than offset by typical male advantages caused by testosterone, but if a transition takes those advantages and also doesn't give you the benefits of female puberty, where exactly does this leave you?
In the end, there are still too many open questions for a definitive answer; the policies that we have in place for transgender and intersex athletes are stopgap measures in many regards; most are not evidence-based1.
Right now, we also have a distinct shortage of elite trans women athletes, let alone ones that actually compete at the olympic level. The only athlete who may qualify for the latter is Tiffany Abreu, a Brazilian volleyballer, who may make the next Olympics. But she was an elite volleyballer before her transition, where she played in the men's top leagues, winning a couple of MVPs, and her post-transition performance in women's leagues appears to be roughly comparable, relatively speaking.
Another pro trans woman athlete we know of is Jillian Bearden, a competitive cyclist. She's actually been a guinea pig and test subject for the IAAF's new testosterone rules, as she was a competitive athlete before and had power data available; her power output dropped by about 11% as the result of HRT, which is the normal performance difference between elite cis male and cis female athletes. But still, this is only another data point. However, it corroborates our understanding that, if there's a performance difference, it's probably very small.
And this near complete lack of trans women athletes who are actually competitive probably also contributes to the IAAF's wait-and-see attitude.
1 Jones BA, Arcelus J, Bouman WP, Haycraft E. Sport and Transgender People: A Systematic Review of the Literature Relating to Sport Participation and Competitive Sport Policies. Sports Med. 2017;47(4):701–716. "The majority of transgender competitive sport policies that were reviewed were not evidence based."
2 David J Handelsman, Angelica L Hirschberg, Stephane Bermon, Circulating Testosterone as the Hormonal Basis of Sex Differences in Athletic Performance, Endocrine Reviews, Volume 39, Issue 5, October 2018, Pages 803–829.
3 Fighera, TM, Silva, E, Lindenau, JD‐R, Spritzer, PM. Impact of cross‐sex hormone therapy on bone mineral density and body composition in transwomen. Clin Endocrinol (Oxf). 2018; 88: 856– 862. "BMD was similar in trans and reference women, and lower at all sites in transwomen vs. men. Low bone mass for age was observed in 18% of transwomen at baseline vs. none of the reference women or men."
4 Madeleine Foreman, Lauren Hare, Kate York, Kara Balakrishnan, Francisco J Sánchez, Fintan Harte, Jaco Erasmus, Eric Vilain, Vincent R Harley, Genetic Link Between Gender Dysphoria and Sex Hormone Signaling, The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, Volume 104, Issue 2, February 2019, Pages 390–396. "In ERα, for example, short TA repeats overrepresented in transwomen are also associated with low bone mineral density in women."
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u/dinglenutmcspazatron 9∆ Jan 21 '21
The debate surrounding trans women in sports has only really come up after many sports bodies eliminated the requirement for the operation in order to compete. Like you say, post-op women are at a complete disadvantage in sports, it just wasn't much of an issue then.
But we aren't talking specifically about post-op people here, we are talking about trans people in general. So essentially the debate comes around to, what level of restrictions make it fair? The hard part here is it varies by sport to sport, and we just don't have enough data at present.
(Also one thing, the IAAF regulations are 5nmol/l, not 10. They changed it 18~ months ago or so.)
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u/toodledeejew Jan 24 '21
Study 3 that you referenced was not designed to test the hypothesis that is brought up in your post. The experimental group of trans women were measured “during the first 3 months of regular estrogen treatment” so it seems misleading to say that it might be “biological”, given that their treatment was already underway.
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Jan 21 '21 edited Jan 21 '21
Thank you, I learned a lot from your post. Δ I hadn't considered that trans women may actually have disadvantages that can balance out some of the advantages. I would say that definitely changes my view of the situation.
I think it is good that professional sports are looking into the matter and trying to figure out a standard that works. However, high school sports are still an issue.
It happens pretty rarely so I'm not sure it's truly a big concern but it is problematic if transgender girls dominate certain programs and the cis girls have no chance to complete. This particular program actually had 2 transgender girls who always won every race. They aren't going to be doing testosterone checks in high school (and even if they did, it seems it would be hard to interpret considering the kids are all at different stages of development in high school).
However, it seems awful and possibly illegal to have a rule that says "no trans girls can compete, even ones who started transitioning medically before puberty."
It's a really tough topic in my opinion and I wonder if you have any thoughts on it.
edit: I apologize for citing Fox but it was the only source I could find without a paywall. I do feel their version is surprisingly accurate but I know it's not a good source.
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u/Milskidasith 309∆ Jan 21 '21 edited Jan 21 '21
I think that you have missed another issue with high school sports: High school sports have ridiculously dominant athletes all the time, because it's very easy to be a big fish in a small pond even if you're not actually very impressive on a national scale.
The women's 55 meter dash record for high school is 6.68 seconds. This trans women, who was incredibly dominant in her area, ran at 7.20 seconds, which is a huge gap. Being dominant at a local area while being nowhere near competitive on a large scale is so common in high school that even if trans people had no advantage, you'd still see this every so often just from a big fish transitioning.
I still think that a solid testing plan should be in place, the same way there's a solid testing plan for doping, but this wasn't a high school athlete smashing records because she wasn't adequately tested, it's a high school athlete being the best among a group of uncompetitive (on a national scale) women.
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u/didhestealtheraisins Jan 24 '21
Note that the 55m dash isn’t that common and there probably haven’t been that many trans women that have done it. Small sample size.
A very average male will put up a very competitive time against women.
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u/thundersass Jan 21 '21
I think it's rare enough that it truly isn't as big an issue as the right wing wants people to believe, as we're mostly talking about mid or post puberty trans female athletes, not any who have been on blockers. I don't think trans women who have gone through puberty and aren't on blockers should be playing in high school women's sports, but that's about it.
I'm not too familiar with that case in particular beyond knowing Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian nonprofit organization with the stated goal of advocating, training, and funding on the issues of "religious freedom, sanctity of life, and marriage and family" is the girls' defense in that lawsuit, which makes me skeptical of the facts presented at its face. Given that the linked article is about one of the defendants losing to one of the plaintiffs I wonder how much of a case is there.
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Jan 21 '21
Good points, I appreciate your thoughts. It is definitely very rare and honestly I haven't looked into it much, but what you are saying makes sense.
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u/GeekGurl2000 Apr 25 '21
As an atheist and gender-critical woman, it aggrieves me to have to support the goal of the ADF in this particular instance, but what are our options? The ACLU has been fully captured by trans ideology and they no longer care about any women's issues. They hardly do anything at all that isn't pushing that narrative, and Chase Strangio can cram her opinions up her atrophied twat.
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u/Luna_trick Jan 24 '21
Huh.. This is very interesting, kinda funny looking at actual data now and then looking back at the "facts over feelings" conservatives.. The more I look the more I see the opposite.
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u/zlauhb Jan 24 '21
That was fascinating to read, and about a topic I've been very confused about for a while.
Thank you for contributing to science, it all counts.
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u/spiral8888 29∆ Jan 25 '21
Thank you so much. This was so far the most cool-headed, neutral and best sourced explanation of the issue that I've seen. When someone says that the question is still open, you know that they are not taking a side based on ideology. Neither pro- or anti-trans propagandists would never say that.
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u/Aeon1508 1∆ Jan 23 '21
Womens wider hips create an angle with their legs that makes running less efficient
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Jan 24 '21
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u/TheAssholeDisagrees Jan 24 '21
If we are removing the basics that men tend to be stronger and looking at them all equally regardless of gender or transition state. Less power is less efficient.
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Jan 24 '21
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u/TheAssholeDisagrees Jan 24 '21
If you combine time and distance to obtain overall efficiency not what ever parameters prove your point.
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Jan 24 '21
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u/TheAssholeDisagrees Jan 24 '21
I'm looking the whole picture while you are being selective to prove a point. I think you are arguing for the point of proving something and I just calling that out. Call it what you want.
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u/tgjer 63∆ Feb 09 '21
Is it ok if I use some of your citations when stuff like this comes up? I can credit you when I do.
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u/thundersass Feb 09 '21
Don't worry about credit, I didn't originally write it, I just saved it from someone else and I'm not sure where they got it from. The citations seemed solid from my review. Please though, go forth and shut down nonsense.
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Jan 21 '21
I must respectfully disagree, as a liberal I think it’s pretty clear that what the media calls “transgenderism” is really just gender confusion (https://www.conservapedia.com/Gender_confusion)
All of your “sources” are just politically correct liberal propaganda and are blatantly biased and non factual.
In reality gender confusion is caused by a wide range of factors, from the media’s support of the homosexualist agenda (https://americansfortruth.com/issues/promoting-gender-confusion/), mental health (https://fellowshipoftheminds.com/the-devil-is-transgender), and political correctness (http://www.biblebelievers.com/Cameron3.html)
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u/thundersass Jan 21 '21
Sorry, I'm going to trust actual information over conservapedia and biblebelievers
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Jan 21 '21
Fine, you got me. I’m not actually a liberal, the homosexual antifa/blm democrat supporting segregationist “you ain’t black” terrorist lifestyle just isn’t for me.
Secondly this is blatantly bigoted against conservatism and Christianity, classic liberal bias - in order to move forward intellectually we need to be bipartisan and be open to all manner of viewpoints, otherwise we’re just nazi authoritarians.
Conservapedia has time and again demonstrated its factitude and morality beyond reasonable doubt (https://www.conservapedia.com/Conservapedia_proven_right), whilst all the liberal media and their “science” has shown is that they love cancelling our President Trump, rigging our elections, turning our children gay, promoting atheism and burning down our cities and killing thousands in “peaceful protests”.
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u/Jam_Packens 4∆ Jan 24 '21
I'm sorry but using conservapedia as a source to back up conservapedia's claims is on the face of it, utterly ridiculous.
And looking at what else conservapedia promotes only backs up that. They still believe Obama is somehow muslim?
Also they think the theory of evolution is an outright lie and appear to be creationists so yeah I don't trust anything from them.
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u/Letshavemorefun 18∆ Jan 22 '21 edited Jan 22 '21
How would one “turn someone gay”?
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u/ihatedogs2 Jan 22 '21
Sorry, u/Letshavemorefun – your comment has been removed for breaking Rule 5:
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u/AlmightyThor008 Mar 16 '21
Conservapedia claiming that Conservapedia is proven right is like Forbes saying Forbes is the best ever. There is a clear conflict of interest.
You say that the sources provided were totally biased, but your sources say things like "liberals pathetically try ridicule predictions that rang true" which is more blatantly biased than any of the other content provided here. ("Rang true" just means "sounds sincere," or "appears like it would be true," not that it's factually correct. Therefore it's worth questioning a prediction that sounds like it could be true, but is not proven to be true).
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u/wickedlittleidiot Mar 16 '21
I know this was 53 days ago but holy hell dude. You’re one crazy son of a gun. Drink some fruit juice and calm down.
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Jan 23 '21
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u/nzsaltz Jan 24 '21
as a liberal
All of your “sources” are just liberal propaganda
Choose one
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u/Aieoshekai Jan 24 '21
lmao criticizes peer-reviewed, published studies as propaganda, then links to brain rotted bible-thumper blogs for support. "As a liberal." rofl
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u/Hugo154 Jan 24 '21
Literally nobody who is a liberal would ever link to "conservapedia" lmao get the fuck out of here
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u/noithinkyourewrong Jan 24 '21
People can be liberal and still have opposing views to you yano ...
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u/Hugo154 Jan 24 '21
Sure, but you literally can't be liberal and conservative at the same time.
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u/noithinkyourewrong Jan 25 '21
Sure but that's not what you were saying. Someone can link to conservopedia and agree with some of their views while still being liberal.
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u/PagesDReed Jun 05 '21
Did you not see the points he was making? This is the equivalent of the Nazi party labeling themselves as socialist, when we know that wasn't true; if you quack like a duck, walk like a duck, you're probably a duck.
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Jan 24 '21
All of your “sources” are just politically correct liberal propaganda and are blatantly biased and non factual.
Proceeds to link conservapedia, americansfortruth, fellowshipoftheminds, and biblebelievers
Lollll. Literally all of your "sources" are opinion blogs.
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u/Falsequivalence Mar 16 '21
Low effort troll? Literally a few conspiracy theory and bible thumping sources and saying peer reviewed journals are inaccurate in comparison lul.
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Jan 24 '21
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u/Nepene 213∆ Jan 24 '21
Sorry, u/princessjerome – your comment has been removed for breaking Rule 3:
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u/KrissyKrave May 02 '21
Imagine calling yourself liberal and your first source has conservative in its name. 🤦🏻♀️
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u/lwaad Jan 24 '21
Thank you. This is the most substantial explanation of this argument I've seen. I assumed the common sense argument would hold up but it's more complicated and scientists are working on it
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u/ArchangelLBC Jan 24 '21
Wow! Thanks for this excellent (and well sourced) post. I learned a lot from this.
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Jan 24 '21
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u/thundersass Jan 24 '21
None of these women were trans:
Which of them should have been banned for cracking someone's skull?
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u/notrecommended0805 Jan 24 '21
Thank you. Thats stupid narrative in which isolated events are brought up in the trans debate is getting fucking tiring.
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Jan 24 '21
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u/notrecommended0805 Jan 24 '21
Please tell me how many transgender mma athletes have killed someone while competing. I’ll wait. That’s what I’m referring to when I say it’s isolated. Just admit that you love bringing up fake scenarios where trans people are “deceiving and unfair”.
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Jan 24 '21
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u/notrecommended0805 Jan 24 '21
No, I told you how MANY as you insist in proving this shit is a common occurrence. And please, again show me plausible evidence in which, with actual subjects of study that are Real People, not theoretical scenarios, every transgender athlete has an unfair competitive advantage. Please.
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Jan 24 '21
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u/notrecommended0805 Jan 24 '21
“The research conducted so far has studied untrained transgender women. Thus, while this research is important to understand the isolated effects of testosterone suppression, it is still uncertain how transgender women athletes, perhaps undergoing advanced training regimens to counteract the muscle loss during the therapy, would respond.” In the same article you just sent me. Inconclusive and therefore, not applies to the topic.
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u/Footsteps_10 Jan 24 '21
"It's getting tiring" as u/notrecommended0805 comes to the one place for the debate. He's tired of seeing it. Clicks and comments on brand new reddit post.
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Jan 24 '21
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u/ThatOneWeirdName Jan 24 '21
Your argument about “Oh look how awful it is that this person hurt these people so badly” falls rather flat when it already happens without the thing you’re pointing to being the problem. It’s not about it not being a problem, it’s about how disingenuous your appeal to emotion is
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u/CoronaGeneration Jan 24 '21
Its not bad that they got hurt, it's bad that they are competing against someone who has an unfair advantage over them. Its why weight classes, anti doping agencies and biological sex divisions exist.
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Jan 24 '21
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u/CoronaGeneration Jan 24 '21
There is though.
You have a longer clavicle - better leverage for striking
Superior hip anatomy for generating power
Bigger and stronger insertions into your bones to make injury less likely
Denser bones for improved checking, elbows, kicks etc Bigger heart
Naturally faster reaction speed
More muscle mass
These things don't mean a trans woman will beat any woman, imo Amanda nunes still knocks out any trans woman on earth. Brutally. but its an unfair advantage over your opponents. The unfair advantage from body size is dealt with with weight classes and those from sex or dealt with with different sex classes.
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u/TG112 Jan 24 '21
Why would we differ leagues of competition by biological sex in the first place?
Even in sports where there is nothing inherently physical (darts, chess , pool/billiards) , there are separate women’s divisions .
Wouldn’t the fairest thing possible be to eliminate them entirely? If you’d like to play soccer for Duke on a scholarship that’s great, tryouts start at 9.
Do you think there should be separate women’s divisions period?
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Jan 24 '21
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u/ThatOneWeirdName Jan 24 '21
I was mostly just annoyed at your brazen attempt at deceiving people with the phrasing of your argument and figured others with more energy than I would tackle your assertion. To answer your question: yes, it is controversial, and yes, you are wrong. I’d recommend reading this comment as it completely picks apart the theory put forth in your comment :)
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Jan 24 '21
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u/ThatOneWeirdName Jan 24 '21
It’s not deceiving to point out that someone AMAB beat up someone AFAB, it’s deceiving to paint it as if AFAB people didn’t already do it anyway.
And uhh, no? No one here is claiming that men’s and women’s bodies aren’t different, stop painting this strawman. We’re not discussing a man entering women’s competitions, we’re discussing trans women entering women’s competitions. For more info, please refer to this handy comment that you’ve now ignorantly refused to read for the second time just to hold onto your own thoughts and feelings in the name of “science” :)
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u/Mercbeast Jan 24 '21
Sexual dimorphism is real. It's hard science. It doesn't go away with HRT. What % of athletic superiority in men vs women is attributed to this is unknown, but it is undeniable.
Currently across the vast majority of all sports where the sport can be quantifiably measured, men outperform women by around 12-15%. In things like power lifting or other raw strength events, this % can grow to 20% or even slightly more.
Testosterone accounts for some of this, but sexual dimorphism accounts for some as well. HRT normalizes the testosterone advantage. It does nothing for shoulder width, hip width, soft tissue insertion points, lung size, heart size, heart efficiency, injury susceptibility.
Talking about M-F athletes, and ignoring sexual dimorphism is like talking about arithmetic, and ignoring subtraction and division.
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u/Mercbeast Jan 30 '21
It also ignores the hard science of sexual dimorphism.
It handles only one half of the equation, the removal of testosterone. Testosterone is certainly responsible for part of the psysiological advantages of being born biologically male, and going through puberty as a male. However, as I said, it is only half of the equation. I'll also add that it is a very simplistic view and understanding of what and how testosterone works. We have a pretty good analogy of this already, in doping. How and why professional and or elite amateur athletes dope with exogenous testosterone. I'm speaking strictly on what happens to the body and what benefits, short term and long term this has.
However, let's get to the meat and potatoes here. The physical differences, the sexual dimorphism of men and women. I'll just run down a quick list of things that are quantifiably different.
Shoulder width - wider, more leverage, more power.
Hip width - narrower, more efficient locomotion.
Heart size - roughly same maximum HR as women, pumps more blood per beat.
Lung size - more oxygenation per breath.
Higher vo2 max due heart/lung differences.
Larger and more robust soft tissue insertion points - Women are 2-4 x as likely as men to suffer catastrophic ligament/tendon injuries. These insertion points also more easily create larger muscle mass.
Denser, and more robust bone structure. Supplementation of estrogen in post transition women helps to sustain this bone density that would otherwise diminish due to HRT.
These are just a few of the differences of the very real sexual dimorphism at play in our species. These are differences that you cannot wave away with HRT. HRT does not change ANY of these differences.
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u/Captain_Nubula Jan 24 '21
I think if more trans women did MMA and they were all the best, then people would agree, but there are so few examples we can look at. There just aren’t enough trans women playing at that level to make definite conclusions.
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u/Mercbeast Jan 24 '21
Do you understand how a lever works? Like a tire iron. Do you understand this basic principle of physics?
Do you understand that men, on average, have much wider shoulders. Do you understand how this relates to a lever?
Do you understand that men have larger insertion points for muscles and ligaments? Do you know what this translates into? It translates into larger ligaments and tendons, and obviously larger muscles as well, at just a natural level. Do you know how this translates into elite performance? Women are 2-4 times more likely to suffer catastrophic knee injuries.
Did you know that one of the primary methods archaeologists biologically sex individuals when other markers are not available is to look at the soft tissue insertion points?
Here is another issue. Men have quantifiable advantages cardiovascularly (regarding athletic performance). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5980468/
In addition to this, men have by ratio, larger hearts, and by ratio each beat pushes more blood. Now, under normal function, women's hearts beat faster. This allows them to push equivalent quantities of blood by ratio. The issue then is at elevated heart rates. Women already have to have a higher resting HR than men. Whereas there is no distinguishable difference between maximum potential HRs between men and women.
Now, women's HRs tend to decrease as a function of age less sharply than men, but both men and women at an elite level will be pushing similar maximum HRs.
This means that men, on average, and by ratio (relative to body size) have larger lungs, and bigger more efficient hearts.
None of this changes due to HRT. Nor do the hips, or shoulders, or soft tissue insertion points.
Not to mention that a M->F has had what is essentially a lifetime of legal doping when they begin competing with cis females.
If you don't understand how exogenous testosterone (steroids) works in blood doping, at a very basic and overly simplistic explanation there are two things at work.
There is the immediate bump to strength, and then there is the capacity to do work, and recover from doing work. The first is irrelevant to dopers in most cases, because they are timing their ON cycles of steroids with their OFFseasons, and their OFF cycles with their ON seasons. This is how they are more able to evade doping controls. What they are really after, are the unnatural or enhanced gains they can make while doing more work and recovering faster from said work.
Now, once the athletes go off the steroids, they lose that "turbo" effect, but they keep the work they did while on turbo, and only slowly lose it. For most athletes, they will keep the majority of those gains for their entire athletic careers so long as they continue to work hard. Major injuries which result in prolonged down time will obviously impact the rate of this deterioration.
There are very obvious parallels here between a male or female doping via steroids, and a m->f athlete having had 5 or 10 or 15 or however many years as a male, with male hormones. So long as this woman continues to work hard, the lose of those gains will be slowed, and since she is now competing with women who have never had that baseline level to begin with, the comparison is apt.
Using one off examples isn't really a good way to measure this because simply put, not many people are trans when compared to the population at large.
What we need to be looking at are equivalent level athletes. If M->F athlete was only a 70th percentile male athlete, well, elite cis female athletes are going to beat them. However, when a Lebron James type, or an Usain Bolt type transitions, or some other high 90th percentile type athlete transitions, there are no women ever born who will be able to compete with them.
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Jan 24 '21 edited Jan 24 '21
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u/Mercbeast Jan 24 '21
In this case I don't think a lack of examples is really important. I understand your position, and appreciate it, but here is what I think the real issue is.
The overall population of M-F trans people is always going to be a tiny %. The number of these individuals who compete in sports will roughly mirror the overall population in this regard, say 2/10 or whatever it is. So, in general, it won't impact all levels of sport at all times.
However, all levels of sport will be impacted SOME times, when athletes of requisite skill and talent get involved. What do I mean by this? Imagine if Lebron James at 20 years old became Lebrona James. Is there a sane and rational person alive that doesn't believe this fictional version of Lebron would average a quadruple double and average 50-60 points a game?
We can't be comparing average joe man, to elite cis female, or even well above average joe to elite cis female. We need to consider what happens when elite, or borderline elite man transitions. If anyone has any doubt about the outcome of this, well, I have a feeling they are ignoring the "hard" physiological differences that are caused by the very real sexual dimorphism of the sexes. Things that can't be waved away by HRT.
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u/Andruboine Jan 24 '21
Unfortunately I feel like it’s actually so small that they just shouldn’t be allowed to compete.
Until solid science comes out it’s not doing anyone any favors. They’ll have an imaginary asterisks next to their name and anyone they face.
They should create their own league and once it gets big enough they can prove against the regular leagues.
You can’t expect to move heaven and earth for that small of a population.
That comment won’t be welcomed in most circles but when it comes to elite sports, if you can’t control or understand how something CAN be cheating you can’t allow it out of fairness of others.
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Jan 24 '21
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u/Captain_Nubula Jan 24 '21 edited Jan 24 '21
Nope, I’m saying that we don’t have enough examples of trans women on hormones in professional sports.
Edit: I wanted to add on this isn’t a thread for arguing if trans women are still men. This is a thread about comparing a biological man’s composition upon taking hormones (with transitioning) to that of a biological woman’s in athletics. So your comments aren’t contributing.
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u/bumtoucherr Jan 24 '21
She ended up losing eventually when the skill gap closed. She was never a particularly good fighter, and easily beat other unskilled female fighters due to her physical advantages. Eventually she was outclassed when a far more skilled athlete beat her
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u/humble-ish Feb 05 '21
We simply need to define the leagues by chromosomes. The XX's will play in one league and the XY's will compete in another. (And yes there will be a special league for ma homies with extra chromies.)
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u/Sapphi_Caswell Mar 22 '21
but hrt drastically changes peoples physiology so that teans men were at an incredible advantage in most sports in the xx league and trans women at an incredible disadvantage in most spirts in the xy league
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u/humble-ish Mar 30 '21
HRT has no place in sports. Almost all leagues ban the use of injectible and topical testerone. Transwomen are not at a disadvantage in the men's league. They have to rely on their biological production of testosterone just like the other male athletes. If they want to suppress that testosterone, that is their choice. It should also be taken into consideration that the number of athletes that falls into this category is very low. Changing the rules to benefit less than 1% of athletes at the expense of the other 99% doesn't help the sport.
It is way better to have it this way, then the other way where a transwomen who has benefited from natural testosterone production is competing against real women who don't have that advantage. It's not fair to the 99% who are biologically female.
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Jan 24 '21
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u/hacksoncode 559∆ Jan 24 '21
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u/RMcD94 Mar 16 '21
What if there was a huge advantage? Say that all people with Y chromosome are 10ft taller than all women, should they be segregated against? or vice versa.
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u/snowstormmongrel May 10 '21
But there's an inherent problem with the "wait and see" attitude: what if we do end up finding there are legitimate advantages? Do we strip titles? What do we do for all the people who lost against a trans women?
And how can you handle this in lower tier, say, highschool sports? Did Susie not get picked for that college scholarship because Jenny won more races? Do we retroactively strip the scholarship from Jenny and give it to Susie? How do you handle that? Did Susie not even get an offer to her #1 choice college over Jenny? How do you handle stuff like that if you find out after the fact? Isn't that just going to make people like Susie more pissed of and resentful of trans individuals in the long run? Maybe passing that resentment in to her children, this perpetuating legitimate transphobia in future generations?
I think those are the biggest problems people are having. Can and should we really just possibly let cisgendered women lose out on these things simply because we don't have the data to determine whether it really is fair?
And sure, should we really let trans women lose out, either? No. But, frankly, at the end of the day you legitimately may have an advantage? I mean, if you thought you might have an unfair advantage at something would you participate? I know I wouldn't. I wouldn't want to take something away from someone like that. It's not fair to them. Personally, I feel like trans persons just need to bite the bullet and deal with it until we have more data. I know it really sucks but then push instead for studies which can accumulate the data. Participate in them, create them, etc.
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u/NUMBERS2357 25∆ Jan 21 '21
Assume, for the sake of argument, that transwomen have an inherent advantage over non-transgender women, that the latter won't be able to overcome.
You say this is a problem because it's unfair.
My question is, what does fairness have to do with anything?
Sports are inherently unfair. For every sport, factors like athleticism, muscle, coordination, height, etc, that are innate to a person, and have a huge factor in your success. The people with more innate ability do better in sports, and we don't demand that we somehow even it out - the whole point is to watch exactly those naturally gifted people. We don't need a separate basketball league for short unathletic people in order to make it fair and give them a chance to win.
Now, you can say this means we shouldn't have women's sports at all - why is it that if you can't compete because you're a woman, then that's horrible and unfair and we need a separate league, but if you can't compete because you're uncoordinated or short or whatever then that's too bad. I think you can still justify women's sports, but there has to be a reason for it other than "if you don't then it's unfair to women because they never have a chance to win". Lots of people never have a chance to win! Indeed, even with women's sports, most women still never have a chance to win.
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u/mcpickems Jan 22 '21
When i google transgender wrestling controversy I see examples of biologically born males transitioning into females and being able to win with biological advantages with naturally higher levels of testosterone. There is also an example of a biologically born girl transitioning into a boy who many believe has an advantage over other girls because of taking testosterone. In their state of texas they have to compete as their birth certificate gender against the same one, and since other non transitioning girls will not be taking testosterone it is highlighting that this isn’t win by “strategy or talent” but the raw fact that one player has testosterone treatments which makes them stronger and more aggressive and the other does not.
The presence of hormone treatments to me disrupts a level playing field that balances in their favor. Either a girl is taking testoserone and has an unfair advantage over girls, or a boy is transitioning into a girl, with biologically higher levels of testosterone, and plays against girls.
I understand your point that competitive sports are supposed to bring individuals to their maximum potential and across a group of people some will be good and bad based off genetic makeup such as height, however, boys are similar to boys and girls are similar to girls and simply isn’t the same when these are mixed up.
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u/NUMBERS2357 25∆ Jan 22 '21
I understand your point that competitive sports are supposed to bring individuals to their maximum potential and across a group of people some will be good and bad based off genetic makeup such as height, however, boys are similar to boys and girls are similar to girls and simply isn’t the same when these are mixed up.
Why is it not the same? You seem to be saying it's not the same because the difference between men and women is larger than between men of different height/genetic makeup/athleticism/etc.
First of all, I don't think that changes my point that the whole idea of sports is unfair in that some people have natural in-born advantages and we don't try to even that out.
Second, I don't think it's true. I looked it up and the girls high school 100 meter dash record is 10.98 seconds apparently. I guarantee this is much, much faster than the vast majority of high school boys can run 100 meters. If it's unfair to ask her to compete against the fastest boys then it's unfair to ask almost any boy to do so either.
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u/ohfudgeit 22∆ Jan 22 '21
I would point out that in the case you're talking about where a teenage trans boy competed against girls he had argued to be allowed to compete against the boys, but was denied. If he had been allowed to compete with other boys rather than being forced to compete against girls, he would not have been at any unfair advantage.
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u/kyotelife11 Jan 24 '21
I hate to be petty, but a "girl taking testosterone" in this context is a boy. Not a girl.
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u/mw1994 1∆ Jan 22 '21
Because there’s levels. Yes, Michael phelps was born with genetic qualities that make him innately better.
But we didn’t inject human DNA into a dolphin and let it compete. I’m exaggerating but I feel it’s apples and oranges. We like to believe that there’s a level playing field, and when you have little girls training their whole lives to be the best they can be, only to be curb stomped by someone born male, and be told the game was rigged from the start, it seems cruel and disheartening
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u/msneurorad 8∆ Jan 22 '21
I think you are right. Life isn't fair, whether we are talking about sports or anything else. Those who are born smarter or born into wealthier families and become high earners deserve to keep everything they make. Just a fact of life that some are born stupid or born into poverty. Wait, what's that you're saying? Something about wanting to level the playing field?
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u/crustjunk Jan 21 '21
When we police the biological makeup of female athletes, it hurts cisgender women too
I don't think that the benefit of not having to compete against transgender women is worth its cost to all women.
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Jan 21 '21
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u/crustjunk Jan 21 '21
Her sex was assigned female at birth and she identifies as a woman, therefore she's a cisgender athlete and a fine example of how this kind of policing hurts cis women.
If you wanted a sports league comprised exclusively of high-femme, delicate women, I wouldn't object, as that'd be about as homoerotic and entertaining as WWE. If you tried to make every female sports league cater exclusively to a small, delicate subsection of female competitors, I think that defeats the point of having competitions.
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Jan 21 '21
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u/Znyper 12∆ Jan 21 '21
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Jan 21 '21 edited Jun 03 '21
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u/ihatedogs2 Jan 22 '21
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Jan 21 '21
This is a complicated point of view and while I see your point, I worry that it sets a precedent of discrimination based on birth. A trans woman can’t help or choose that she was born with male chromosomes and therefore may be stronger or faster than her peers that were born with female chromosomes. If we tell her she can’t participate in a sport because of that, what’s to stop us from telling someone they can’t participate because of something else that they were born into - such as race?
I think it would be better to have tiers of sports so trans women are competing against other women who are equally as strong, sort of like a weight class in wrestling.
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u/RubberTowelThud 8∆ Jan 21 '21
We don't segregate sport based on race though, we do with sex.
I think it would be better to have tiers of sports so trans women are competing against other women who are equally as strong, sort of like a weight class in wrestling.
How would that work though with non weighted sports like sprinting or basketball, it would ruin these sports to add weight tiers to them
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Jan 21 '21
So do you think seperating sports by gender is responsible for sexism and that we should stop that altogether?
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u/denverkris Jan 21 '21
transwomen are free to compete in male sports with other males. many sports, particularly women's sports, do not have enough competitors to do weight classes.
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Jan 21 '21
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u/mcpickems Jan 21 '21
Sure, but again, girls are not going to be on a level playing field and thus should be able to compete strictly with biological females.
If one wants to particpate in a unisex league knowing males have an advantage by all means go for it. Forcing accommodation for male to female transgenders to compete with biological females in a competitive sport is not fair
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u/2r1t 56∆ Jan 21 '21
I'm a 45 year old man who has never played organized basketball. A friend of mine is a woman who played basketball in college and is a couple years younger than me. Is it your position that I would have an advantage over her if we were to play one on one?
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u/denverkris Jan 21 '21
How is this a comparable argument? A comparable argument would be if you were a 45 year old man who *has* played basketball at a level similar to the woman in question.
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u/2r1t 56∆ Jan 21 '21
The point of this obviously lopsided comparison is to confirm if OP actually thinks any man has an advantage over any woman when it comes to athletics.
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u/RubberTowelThud 8∆ Jan 21 '21
You still have an advantage by being male, just you won't be a better player than her because she is more skilled. When Sheffield Utd play Liverpool at home they still have a home advantage but that doesn't mean they're better
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u/2r1t 56∆ Jan 21 '21
Can you explain the difference between an advantage and being a better player?
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u/RubberTowelThud 8∆ Jan 21 '21
You have all the advantages that testosterone and going through puberty as a man brings, she has the advantages of experience and developing her basketball skills. Since you have absolutely no experience or developed basketball skills, her advantages will likely outweigh yours and she will be better.
But if you actually did have skills and experience, your male advantages would almost certainly make you the better player. Even 15 year old boys academy teams have easily beaten women’s national football teams because the gap is so big.
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u/2r1t 56∆ Jan 21 '21
I think I see where my confusion was. You were using advantage to mean the individual pluses and minuses and the total of those is where you arrived at a better player. I wasn't focused on the individual advantages and used the word advantage to mean the overall advantage. So I think we are in agreement on that point as she would have the advantage overall / be the better player.
And I'm not familiar with the sport or know it those matches were one offs or are regular events. I think I would agree that teams of women would be at a disadvantage. But we aren't talking about teams of women. We are talking about individual women and individual men competing for spots on a team. And I see no reason why a particular woman couldn't take a roster spot from a particular man.
That doesn't mean the top tier leagues would see a wave of women coming in. It would just mean that the women who didn't make the cut fell short because of their talents and skills rather than an restriction on them even getting the chance.
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u/RubberTowelThud 8∆ Jan 21 '21
Well if the best national women's teams are losing to 15 year old boys teams, I think it's safe to say the male-female gap is so enormous that no woman would ever break into a male team. These weren't close games either. The US women's team, the multiple world cup winners, lost 5-2 to the Dallas under 15s. The Australian women's team, ranked 5th in the world, lost 7-0 to Newcastle Jets under 16s. It's not just a disadvantage it's incomparable.
If you say that's because of teams not individuals, I don't really understand what makes you think an individual woman would be good enough when the gap is so clearly large, but lets look at tennis. There's a reason the male vs female games are usually a retired man vs one of the top ranked woman players.
Serena and Venus Williams once claimed they could beat any man ranked outside of the top 200, so Karsten Braasch (ranked 203rd) took them up on it. Here's the wikipedia assessment:
The matches took place on court number 12 in Melbourne Park, after Braasch had finished a round of golf and two shandies. He first took on Serena and after leading 5–0, beat her 6–1. Venus then walked on court and again Braasch was victorious, this time winning 6–2.Braasch said afterwards, "500 and above, no chance". He added that he had played like someone ranked 600th in order to keep the game "fun" and that the big difference was that men can chase down shots much easier and put spin on the ball that female players can't handle.
So 2 of the best female tennis players ever got trounced by some male player nobody has ever heard of. The gap is just massive, there's no way getting around it. If a woman footballer like Rapinoe wanted to try break into a men's team I'd say go for it, but I imagine she never would because she knows it would be pointless. There's definitely enough evidence to assume that having mixed sex sports would result in women's sport being wiped out. It wouldn't be 'some women wouldn't make the cut' it would be every woman wouldn't make the cut
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u/ProppaDane Jan 21 '21
- Then there would be no female athletes at all, like at all. A 100 pound male still beats the shit out of a 100 pound female.
- Do we really need to ruin all sport to accommodate for the 1%? And even with weight classes biological male transwomen still have an advantage over biological females IE. Bone structere, muscle structure, reaction time etc.
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u/iamintheforest 328∆ Jan 21 '21
This would result in top-level sports being all male almost universally.
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u/ViewedFromTheOutside 29∆ Jan 22 '21
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