Author Topic: Transgender Track Athletes (Read 826 times)

spottedcowgirl · « **on:** June 14, 2018, 03:40:48 pm »

Well, it seems like the various political discussions that have happened so far have been civil, so I thought I'd see where people stood on this very current topic.

Two transgendered (but as far as I know, not yet altered in any way) men were allowed to compete in a women's track and field competition. They not only won their events, they broke the existing records. Thoughts?

Lynn2000 · « **Reply #1 on:** June 14, 2018, 04:00:39 pm »

It kind of makes you think about the whole point of athletic events, separating contestants by "gender," having records at all, doesn't it? I mean they are running with men's muscles, men's metabolism, men's hormones, all the other things that go into differentiating male athletic performance from female, all the things we say are important such that normally we separate them into two groups. Yet I would not have wanted to say, no, you must compete with the men, even though you feel like women. I think these kinds of discussions are good, because they really make people stop and question their assumptions and dig down into what makes this issue or that issue different, what the point of an activity actually is--is it social, so that what people feel about themselves matters, or something purely physical?

Slight tangent, but I have read some about biological sex differentiation and it's way more complex than most people assume it to be. People in high-level athletic competitions have to do tests, of course, to make sure athletes aren't masquerading to gain an advantage, but between hormone levels, variations on XX vs. XY, and variations in physical characteristics, it is not very easy. If you think about it in terms of reproduction--which is what sex differences are for--anyone who has struggled with infertility is "not normal" in terms of their biological sex, because something isn't working correctly to reproduce. If that was lumped in with more famous things like "hermaphrodites" and XXY (Klinefelter syndrome) I think people would take more notice of how complicated an issue it is. And that's before adding in situations where someone is more or less "normal" for one sex but feels it doesn't match their mental gender. It almost makes you want to stop dividing people up at all.

Airelenaren · « **Reply #2 on:** June 14, 2018, 04:55:54 pm »

I don't know about this specific case, but have heard about one where the transgender athlete wanted to compete against the gender they were transitioning to, yet were forced to compete against the gender they had been assigned at birth.

Personally, I think it'd be best to separate athletes by physical featues, not gender.
(Also, just for clarity, a trans man is female-to-male, not the other way around.)

Thrabalen · « **Reply #3 on:** June 14, 2018, 05:41:09 pm »

I think that divvying people up by ~~gender~~ sex makes as much sense as divvying them up by race. It's not their genitals that gives one or the other the edge, it's the meat (or lack thereof) that is connected to it.

gramma dishes · « **Reply #4 on:** June 14, 2018, 05:52:23 pm »

This is one of those rare times when I do think the transitioning people had a most definite advantage over their fully female competitors. It's tricky in these kinds of situations. I don't think they should have been allowed to compete as girls until they are fully girls.

guest121 · « **Reply #5 on:** June 14, 2018, 06:06:06 pm »

Well, it's tricky, because when athletes take male hormones to be stronger and faster, that's doping, which is clearly cheating. It seems unfair if some competitors have a clear and unusual advantage that is not available to the others.

It's rather like the issue of Pistorious competing on blade protheses, which are mechanically superior to natural legs. Yes, those are his legs. But it's also a performance enhancement that would disqualify any other competitor.

Perhaps track & field needs "tiers" based on body mass, like wrestling and boxing have.

yourdadjustcallsmekatya · « **Reply #6 on:** June 14, 2018, 06:08:40 pm »

Here is a really good article about trans women competing in women’s comps, and the issues around ‘biology’ etc from the perspective of a trans woman.

http://junkee.com/hannah-mouncey-trans-aflw/131369

guest121 · « **Reply #7 on:** June 14, 2018, 07:58:19 pm »

That's a really interesting article, but it was my understanding that the original question under discussion was about athletes who had not yet taken any physical steps toward transition. I assumed that included hormone therapy.

Obviously someone who's been on hormone therapy for several years is in a different state than someone who has not.

Allyson · « **Reply #8 on:** June 14, 2018, 08:10:36 pm »

I am extremely torn about this issue. Part of the reason I'm so torn is that you can find articles that seem to have evidence behind them on either side of this issue, and people seem to choose whatever fits their political beliefs and run with that, so it makes it hard for me to actually know what to think.

The problem with not dividing athletes up by gender is that in many many activities, men will win the majority of the time (talking about cis people here). It's even more pronounced here because of physical differences, but even in things like "best actor" - if you take away the different categories, men will win more. There are a lot of reasons why - people are ingrained to see men as more competent, also there are just *more* men in high level events of any type (athletic or artistic) due to less support for women in sports, and other systemic stuff. So I don't think, at least right now, that not dividing athletes by gender is the solution.

So with that said, what to do? It's not right to make transgender women compete against men, but is it right to make cisgendered women compete if the trans woman has an advantage? Can't really say, but I know that this topic gets so heated that even saying "I'm not sure" in some spaces of the internet will get me screamed at so I'm being as cautious as I can here. I do think that if trans women start showing up and winning all kinds of women's events, it'll become obvious fairly quickly that it's not an even footing - for now it is a fairly rare thing I think. I know there's a fear for a man to show up and say "oh, I'm actually trans!" and get to compete against women and then win and I find that situation pretty unlikely.

SO I guess I fall on "will wait for more evidence, glad I don't have to make these decisions at a higher level."

yourdadjustcallsmekatya · « **Reply #9 on:** June 14, 2018, 10:30:20 pm »

Quote from: CautiouslyOptimistic on June 14, 2018, 07:58:19 pm

That's a really interesting article, but it was my understanding that the original question under discussion was about athletes who had not yet taken any physical steps toward transition. I assumed that included hormone therapy.

Obviously someone who's been on hormone therapy for several years is in a different state than someone who has not.

Well, a large part of the issue is that you absolutely can’t tell how far along someone is in their transition by looking at them. So short of intimate knowledge of someone’s blood work, you can’t actually have any sense of what someone’s hormonal profile is (and you can’t know that with cisgender women either).

guest121 · « **Reply #10 on:** June 14, 2018, 11:27:06 pm »

Quote from: yourdadjustcallsmekatya on June 14, 2018, 10:30:20 pm

Quote from: CautiouslyOptimistic on June 14, 2018, 07:58:19 pm
That's a really interesting article, but it was my understanding that the original question under discussion was about athletes who had not yet taken any physical steps toward transition. I assumed that included hormone therapy.

Obviously someone who's been on hormone therapy for several years is in a different state than someone who has not.

Well, a large part of the issue is that you absolutely can’t tell how far along someone is in their transition by looking at them. So short of intimate knowledge of someone’s blood work, you can’t actually have any sense of what someone’s hormonal profile is (and you can’t know that with cisgender women either).

Yes, I know that. But it's normal for elite athletes to do blood testing for a variety of substances, and there is a clear rule by the IOC about testosterone levels. I suppose one could debate the appropriateness of the rule, but at least there is one.

The article you linked to was based on blood work and specific people who had disclosed that they were on ht.

From the wording of the original question, I presumed that it was known about those specific athletes that they had not done h.t. or that their blood work did not meet Olympic Committee standards.

Perhaps it would be more useful if the OP would provide some information about the actual situation referred to in the original question.

Athersgeo · « **Reply #11 on:** June 15, 2018, 06:38:07 am »

My understanding from vaguely following the Caster Semenya saga is that they're bringing in rules about precisely this situation. However they're not framing it in the sense of transgender so much as any women (any women) who have high levels of testosterone.

See this article here:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/athletics/43890575

Given the extremely complex situation, this seems to be at least an attempt at a fair solution - and doesn't require anyone to undergo gender testing, or the sort of humiliation that Caster was put through.

spottedcowgirl · « **Reply #12 on:** June 15, 2018, 08:41:48 am »

Quote from: CautiouslyOptimistic on June 14, 2018, 11:27:06 pm

Quote from: yourdadjustcallsmekatya on June 14, 2018, 10:30:20 pm
Quote from: CautiouslyOptimistic on June 14, 2018, 07:58:19 pm

Perhaps it would be more useful if the OP would provide some information about the actual situation referred to in the original question.

I read a number of articles on this, from several different points of view. The two athletes involved are Terry Miller and Andraya Yearwood, and the event took place in Connecticut. I found a couple of references to the fact that neither was in a transition process (meaning either surgery or hormones/drugs) which would mean that physically they are both teenaged boys. I also have read some articles that seem to clearly show that the male athletes have a very clear advantage over the females solely based on the physical differences inherent between males and females. I don't know what the answer is here, but this certainly seems unfair to the female athletes who trained so hard and will perhaps miss out on future opportunities (scholarships, etc.) because they weren't able to beat competitors who have the advantage of male strength, testosterone, etc.

Athersgeo · « **Reply #13 on:** June 15, 2018, 11:30:19 am »

Quote from: spottedcowgirl on June 15, 2018, 08:41:48 am

Quote from: CautiouslyOptimistic on June 14, 2018, 07:58:19 pm

Perhaps it would be more useful if the OP would provide some information about the actual situation referred to in the original question.

I read a number of articles on this, from several different points of view. The two athletes involved are Terry Miller and Andraya Yearwood, and the event took place in Connecticut. I found a couple of references to the fact that neither was in a transition process (meaning either surgery or hormones/drugs) which would mean that physically they are both teenaged boys. I also have read some articles that seem to clearly show that the male athletes have a very clear advantage over the females solely based on the physical differences inherent between males and females. I don't know what the answer is here, but this certainly seems unfair to the female athletes who trained so hard and will perhaps miss out on future opportunities (scholarships, etc.) because they weren't able to beat competitors who have the advantage of male strength, testosterone, etc.

(hopefully fixed the quote tree!)

Yeah. That isn't right.

My knee jerk reaction is that if they haven't started the medical process of transition (or have no plans to medically transition - which is their absolute right, of course!) they should - for the purposes of competition - be classed under their birth gender and that should be done for two reasons:
1) The practical: it is clearly and manifestly unfair to the rest of the field if they compete as the gender they're transitioning to
2) The athletic: how on earth are they going to have their skills actually tested if they are competing in such an obvious mismatch? (In other words not only is it not fair to the rest of the athletes, it's not fair to them.)

Having said that, I'm well aware that this whole situation is an absolute minefield, not helped by the fact that I don't know at what point teenagers are actually allowed to start hormone therapy (if that's what they want to do).

At the end of the day, I suspect the situation will end up being unfair to someone because I can't see how it can't be. This isn't professional athletics where you have drug testing and the framework and guidance that provides, this is high school kids (or freshmen college).

Lynn2000 · « **Reply #14 on:** June 15, 2018, 11:48:00 am »

Yeah, with more information, I would say that in this particular situation they should compete with the men. If you could examine them in every possible way--except by speaking to them--and they appear to be biologically male, then to me it makes sense that they participate with other males in what is primarily a physical challenge. I think other cases, where someone has begun to make medical changes to their body, are more ambiguous.

But, as I said before, I do think it's good to have the discussions. It reminds me of a few years ago, when there was that golfer who needed to use the golf cart instead of walking, and people got up in arms about how that would give him an unfair advantage... because golf is so much about... walking? I don't remember how that shook out, but it made people really think about the point of the sport and what was important and what wasn't. Like, why couldn't everyone use a golf cart if they felt like it?

As someone who isn't a sports person at all, a lot of the "treasured" things about it just don't make sense to me. Like breaking records--most older records are eventually broken because of newer technology. Better nutrition and training, lighter materials that are more aerodynamic, etc.. Of course authorities make an attempt to be sure no one has an "unfair" advantage in medical supplements or technology, but that standard is always sliding forward to allow new things. It's not like the human species has evolved to be stronger or faster over the last fifty years, it's just better technology being used that breaks all these records. Which doesn't seem to me quite so awesome as sports-lovers insist.

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Author Topic: Transgender Track Athletes (Read 826 times)

spottedcowgirl

Transgender Track Athletes

Lynn2000

Re: Transgender Track Athletes

Airelenaren

Re: Transgender Track Athletes

Thrabalen

Re: Transgender Track Athletes

gramma dishes

Re: Transgender Track Athletes

guest121

Re: Transgender Track Athletes

yourdadjustcallsmekatya

Re: Transgender Track Athletes

guest121

Re: Transgender Track Athletes

Allyson

Re: Transgender Track Athletes

yourdadjustcallsmekatya

Re: Transgender Track Athletes

guest121

Re: Transgender Track Athletes

Athersgeo

Re: Transgender Track Athletes

spottedcowgirl

Re: Transgender Track Athletes

Athersgeo

Re: Transgender Track Athletes

Lynn2000

Re: Transgender Track Athletes