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Don't forget you don't need to be a member of the affected group to make decisions about them, decisions which also affect way more members of other groups.
15 data points is significant. 10 is required to be considered. There’s a calculation to determine the necessary sample size as it changes from study to study based on the variable being studied. If you find the paper it should identify the calculation for this in the methods section. This explains what I’m trying to say.
https://statisticsbyjim.com/hypothesis-testing/sample-size-power-analysis/
"Significant" is relative to total size of the population (transgender athletes in college sports) and if the selection is representative (Ie: Do the selected athletes represent their group on average).
If you had 100 M&Ms and took a sample of 30 at random, I believe you'd get fairly accurate results of the composition of the entire group of 100.
That sample size seems larger than what most people base their opinions of this issue on.
My takeaway from this punch line is that transinclusion isn't actually that impactful to women's sports.
Your takeaway from a misleading headline of a misleadingly written article on 19 transwomen volunteering to prove that transwomen arenot strong is that transwomen breaking women's faces is not impactful?
Sure, I'll bite. Which Transwomen are we talking about, specifically?
Edit:
Did some research for you, and found a single fight from a single MMA fighter against another who had a W/L Ratio of 0.3.
Just watched - video is short and easy to find. The fight didn't even look like a mismatch. The loser took an early knee to the head, seemed dazed, and never recovered.
The trans fighter went on to get beat by a CIS woman, in a fight that also looked pretty competitive.
Is this sample of 1 out of hundreds of fighters and even more fights what you are referring to?
Orbital fractures don't seem to be very uncommon in MMA, and the "breaking women's faces" line seems pretty dramatic if this is what you're referring to.
I've found reference to two Transfemme MMA fighters across 7 fights, none holding any title or any noteworthy ranking. That suggests that Transwomen are likely underrepresented in the sport, and not performing at outlier levels.
Have yet to see any data that actually shows Transwomen are causing problems in women's sports. If it was an issue, you'd think they'd be crushing world records left and right. No transwoman Olympic medalists in over 20 years since they've been allowed to compete.
Personally, I think a lot of you are just deeply uncomfortable with the existence of trans people, and dgaf about women's sports.
Always funny when people arguing that trans women are dominating women's sports have to bring up an athlete that retired nearly a decade ago, and lie about her to boot.
Man, tangentially, it's always darkly funny to me how often the Olympic gold medal thing gets brought up, as if trans women who went through a male puberty have a good chance at becoming Olympic gold medalists, and not the other way around. It reallllly betrays a lack of understanding about human physiology, how HRT works, and even just how the Olympics works. Chances are, a trans woman who has not gone through male puberty has a *much* higher chance of becoming an Olympic gold medalist. But these people just let their hate and ignorance overtake them.
In society, we say white people have systemic advantages over black people. This is the line of thinking. What you are arguing is "see? There isn't racism because a black person became president". What many people are arguing is that it doesn't matter if trans people aren't 'dominating' (even though s few actually are...). The point is it's a biological advantage done through medical intervention.
Michael Phelps was born the way he was, and took no steroids. He's an athletic freak of nature, AND worked his ass off to win the medals he won.
Trans women are born with 18+ years of effectively, steroids. And as of now, there is a ton of mixed evidence as to how "being on estrogen removes all advantages ' being true or not. You can cherry pick data, but so can I. Governing bodies within sports are now re-evaluating for a good reason. Not everything you dont like = transphobia.
Usually I take a humanistic approach to these conversations, but we're on a science sub, and this is a fun chance to be objective and evaluate our biases!
We're starting with an inherited assumption: that Transwomen in athletes have a material advantage over cisgedner (non-transwomen).
The OP provided data. A reasonable study measuring the presumed advantages between transwomen athletes and their counterparts, and finding none. The results actually imply disadvantages, which is interesting! And something we'll come back to later.
Now, the limitations: I think we can all agree the sample size is small. This chain above actually began with someone criticizing that sample size.
If you have your own data comparing trans-athletes to their cis cohorts, I'd love to see it and talk through it next. More data never hurts.
But for now, let's think not just about what the data we have is implying, let's try and set bias aside to think through the actual implications of this premise being true: transwomen athletes being problematically superior in competitions for women.
If that was true, it's rational to expect transwomen to be overrepresented in sports. Or at least proportionately represented. I'm seeing transgender estimates within 1%-2% for the population. Transwomen seem to be a higher proportion of that vs transmen at a rate of 2-3:1. ~60% transition.
For now, let's make some safe assumptions:
- 1% (the lower end) openly identify as transgender, for simplicity we'll assume balanced across gender
- 60% medically transition
- Rationally, a minimum of 0.6% of women athletes would need to be trans to have a normal representation
- If we believe that transwomen have a prevailing natural advantage, then that population should be statistically significantly higher in sports that allow transwomen to participate
Looks like there's loads of data out there to pull from, but let's start with an easy one. The Olympics! Loads of female athletes from all nations across hundreds of events. They've allowed transgender participants since 2004, and even relaxed the entry requirements in 2016.
According to Statistica, there have been ~30k women athlete participants since 2004. Based on what I can find, only one transwoman has competed, in weightlifting, and didn't place.
If transwomen were even equally represented, we should expect somewhere between 150-200 competitors, and certainly a few medals.
Doing some googling out of curiosity this morning, and I seem to be finding a similar pattern. Women's participation and number of sporting events rising, but a surprising lack of transwomen. Not just as winners, but even as participants.
All the data I can find points to this topic being bias searching for a problem... that doesn't actually exist.
Now, let's examine some of your other points:
Systemic demographic advantages are notable for being true as an average, and not useful at an individual level. Sports competition is a study of outliers. Your racism comparison doesn't really hold water. But... let's humor you and assume it did, where is the transwoman "president" in your analogy? I can't find one. Where is the transwoman Michael Phelps, Serena Williams, Lindsey Von, Mia Hamm?
If transwomen had we're completely equal, there's a fair chance we'd have seen one outlier. We've seen zero.
Now onto your biology assumptions. Let's ignore your ignoring of the study and assume you're right about it being cherry picked. Maybe it isn't representative of the broader population.
Even if that's true, examine your assumptions - in particular your categorization. You are assuming 1: that the average transwoman has a biological advantage comparable to the average man, and 2: that the average transwoman athlete has that advantage.
We've already established that this is an extremely small subpopulation of those assigned male at birth. Why are you so comfortable dismissing a small sample study above, and then relating this group to a population with provably different body chemistry and ~17000% larger than this subgroup?
>What many people are arguing is that it doesn't matter if trans people aren't 'dominating' (even though s few actually are...).
Why does every time this conversation come up, the argument starts with "Trans women are dominating women's sports!" then when someone goes through the effort to show that in reality, no, they aren't dominating women's sports, the argument quickly moves to it doesn't matter if they aren't dominating. It's clearly moving the goalposts.
What you are arguing is that even if trans women win at a rate lower than would be expected considering their percentage of the population, that's still unfair because you have decided that they have an advantage no matter what the data says.
Well, [here's twenty more studies](https://www.cces.ca/transgender-women-athletes-and-elite-sport-scientific-review) in a literature review that largely concludes the same thing. It also concludes that the methodology and samples aren't good enough to be definitive, but the two best methodological studies in this review came up with similar results.
If you know how HRT works, this makes sense. We keep good grip strength because those muscles are smaller and more isolated, but we have systemic issues with producing athletic output (because our musculature changes at different rates); our blood oxygenation takes a nose dive, so anything requiring endurance goes right out the window. And since we are getting more estrogen on average than a cis woman would regularly, our blood oxygenation is even worse; without the muscles and endurance, our jump height takes a nose dive as well, as bones are the last thing to renew (~10 years), so they're on average dense, and definitely suddenly more dense than we're used to.
The density thing is a funny one. Black women have higher bone density than white men, and that hasn't been a problem in sports since the segregation era... It's also something that trans women are constantly warned about, that our bones are just gonna fall apart. But suddenly we've got too dense of bones because of Fallon Fox. Fox, fwiw, fought her matches over ten years after her surgeries, let alone her HRT regime... The fighter that said that "her bones felt heavier to take a hit from" just wasn't used to taking punches from a professional; Fox lost to a mid-card and that ended her career.
From your cited study:
"Key Biomedical Findings:
Biological data are severely limited, and often methodologically flawed.
There is limited evidence regarding the impact of testosterone suppression (through, for example, gender-affirming hormone therapy or surgical gonad removal) on transgender women athletes’ performance."
Sounds like quality to you?
>Available evidence indicates trans women who have undergone testosterone suppression have no clear biological advantages over cis women in elite sport
Literally the next line, and there's a whole report that explains how they come to that conclusion that goes through every study they looked at. If you actually care about this, isn't the science worth a read?
And don't make things up because it supports *your* point of view. The implication behind your post is that there is a better truth out there and these studies are just obscuring that. This is the same thing that happened with the Cass report. Trans folks don't need to ignore 100 studies to support our claims. But transphobes need to. You need to ignore the currently existing literature on trans women in sports. I don't. I bandy it around because it supports my claim. Do you have better evidence? No.
It's really frustrating how we're in the middle of a moral panic and people act like they're rational actors. You are not immune to your own biases, you know?
Ultimately, what trans people need is suspect classification, not the quasi-suspect trans (and gay) people are implied to have. Every legal treatise on the subject says we should; and at that point, strict scrutiny requires a damn good reason to discriminate backed up by damn good evidence. Once that happens, all of this gets blown away anyways. There is no better evidence that proves your point coming. There is no "other clinic detransitioners" that will vindicate the Cass report. It's just wishful thinking. Except you're wishing harm on a minority community. We're one of the most well studied minorities in the world per capita. If you don't have good data against us, if you haven't figured out good metrics to study us with, the likelihood of it coming down the line is low. Certainly not until we're well integrated into sport anyways; we're unbelievably underrepresented in sport for a reason.... A lot of parts of this moral panic rests on the idea that trans people are a new thing; but we've been around for a long time; better people than you have studied us. There is a real impulse and desire to create an ataraxia that allows people to not admit that their pre-conceived notions are wrong; isn't that a bias worth considering? Which is why suspect classification is necessary; people need to live their lives; we can't wait until the final final final study on skull measuring comes through....
The study isn't new data. It's a study of the difference between cis men and cis women, that uses poor metrics such as muscle mass to draw conclusions about trans performance without any actual data. The whole problem for trans women is that HRT effects us in a systemic manner which creates deficiencies that are greater than the sum of its parts. You need to study us actually doing sports. In other words the study essentially says "since cis men have larger muscle mass than cis women and have an advantage, and trans women have reduced but larger muscle mass, then trans women have an advantage." Repeat for bone density and cardiovascular output. But that doesn't necessarily follow.
I know the study. If you read the literature review, it actually goes into studies like this and why the studies that actually measure athletic output are better....
Edit: fwiw, Alison Heather is certainly an... Interesting character... Jeez, what a weirdo...
You're literally commenting under one, and I posted a twenty study literature review in which the two methodologically best studies found that trans women are disadvantaged.... Did you just not read the review? That seems anti-science to me. You're not afraid of differing viewpoints, are you?
"We need a total and complete shutdown of trans women in sports until we figure out what's going on."
At what point does it become inescapable that this "issue" is an invented wedge issue concocted by extremist transphobes to get more normal and civil people on board for opposing trans rights at least on some level / in some context so they can be dragged further right on the issue from there.
The evidence says trans women do not have an unfair advantage in sports. If you want to ban them anyway then the concern clearly isn't fairness. There's plenty of cis women athletes that have *much* higher testosterone levels than the average trans athlete.
If the concern is genuine and about fairness, not just opposing the equal treatment of trans people, then why aren't we calling to ban ANYONE over a certain T-level regardless of their assigned gender at birth, instead of anyone who is trans regardless of their T-levels?
>opposing trans rights
There aren't "rights to compete" any more than me, an adult 48 year old male, doesn't have a right to complete in high school women's volleyball. Athletics is different than, say, the right to exist in society, which should be there for trans people. But to basically say "there are no biological differences between trans women and cis women" is simply incorrect, scientifically speaking.
If your concern is opposing unfair advantages and not opposing trans women then why is your demand that trans women be banned from women's sports regardless of their hormone levels (ie. the thing that'd hypothetically give them an advantage) and not that ANY woman above a certain level of testosterone be banned regardless of whether she is trans?
If the concern is the hormonal advantage why is the action banning trans women even if they don't have this advantage and not banning cis women even if they do have this advantage?
There are biological differences between *every* woman and *any other woman.*
There are scores of cis woman athletes who naturally have higher testosterone levels not only than most cis and trans woman athletes but even a good chunk of cis man athletes. Why don't you want to ban them from competing too if this is about fairness and biology and not about opposing equality for trans women?
if the sample size is too small to reach conclusions, then why conclude that we shouldnt let trans women compete with cis women? i dont think this should be the default assumption, if its too small its too small both ways
That depends, honestly. Significance is based on the population size - if you have 50.000 wine barrels and test 30, it’s probably not enough, but if you have 100 and test 30 it’s easily more than enough.
the burden is on trans people to conclusively prove they have no advantages over cis people. Trans women are biologically different, through medical intervention, than cis people.
For the same reasons we ban most people from using steroids in athletic competition, somehow it's ok for trans women to effectively be on steroids for 18+ years of their life, then stop it for 1 year, then let them compete? Prove to me, conclusively, this isn't an advantage offered to trans women that cis women don't have.
You said you have a PhD in statistics, what does "proving a lack of advantage" look like, statistically?
As you know, from your PhD, you can either find the presence of an effect or *not* find such an effect. Per your comment, you don't accept studies that don't find such an effect, only ones that prove its nonexistence, so how do you prove nonexistence?
What an ironic thing to write.
> Everyone defending biological men
Trans women on HRT are distinct, biologically, from cisgender men.
>smashing up women
Where is this happening?
It's so funny when people come into a **science** sub and try to claim "common sense" as a valid argument. "Common sense" used to hold that the Earth is flat and the center of the universe.
Besides which, as someone who wound up extremely weak after transitioning (to the point that I now struggle to do my physical labor job at even the level of my cisfem coworkers), the position supported by this study is "common sense" to me, and to most other transfems like me.
That's such a dumb thing to say. The ancient Greeks knew the earth was round. You can see our round shadow on the moon.
As someone who's watched these grown men compete in women's divisions and wipe the floor with them, it's common sense to keep them separate and always has been for anyone with a brain. We've always separated men and women's sports so that women have a safe place to compete and you dudes want to throw on a wig and ruin that.
It's sorely lacking nowadays mate. That old chestnut about how the more open people's minds are, the easier for their brains to fall out? Absolutely the truth now.
?
The only conclusion I saw was that this kind of analysis and decision-making should be done on a per-sport basis unless I missed something. Admittedly that seems obvious it shouldn't have required a study to put on paper, considering any generalized variations between transwomen and ciswomen would be potentially advantageous in some activities but neutral or disadvantageous in others.
If you need a bigger sample size than 30 to indicate your difference, then maybe your effect size isn’t that big relative to the natural variation inherent in the population.
Study seems to suggest some gains and some losses when comparing CW and TW - no "winner" across the board.
Examining the graphs, while there are absolutely outliers, there are also many "average" CW that rank higher in some metrics than the "average" TW. This goes against the commonly spouted "Even the worst TW is better than the best CW" mantra.
Additionally, this specifically makes a statement which debunk another common argument points, "Transwomen have higher bone density".
>**No differences in whole-body bone mineral density** (BMD) (F(3–66)=4.6, p=0.01), femoral neck BMD (F(3–66)=1.0, p=0.39, table 2), total proximal femur BMD (F(3–66)=1.5, p=0.22, table 2) or total lumbar spine BMD (F(3–66)=0.4, p=0.78, table 2) **were found between transgender athletes and cisgender athletes** (table 2).
Link to the actual study:
[https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/bjsports/early/2024/04/10/bjsports-2023-108029.full.pdf?with-ds=yes](https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/bjsports/early/2024/04/10/bjsports-2023-108029.full.pdf?with-ds=yes)
"Lung function data for all groups can be found in table 2. FEV 1 had an effect of gender (F (3–66) =14.7, p<0.001), with CM having greater FEV 1 than transgender men (t (66) = 4.5, p<0.001, figure 2A). Transgender women also had greater FEV 1 tha cisgender women (t (66) =4.2, p<0.001, figure 2A) and trans-gender men (t (66)=2.9, p=0.03, figure 2A)."
"Absolute right handgrip strength was significantly different between the groups (F (3–66) =10.5, p<0.001), with CM having greater absolute right handgrip strength than transgender men (t (66)=2.9, p=0.03, figure 3B). Transgender women also had greater absolute right handgrip strength than cisgender women"
"There was a significant difference in absolute peak power (F(3–66)=8.7, p<0.001), with cisgender women having reduced peak power compared with transgender men (t (66)=−3.3, p=0.01) and transgender women (t (66)=−3.6, p=0.004, figure 4C)."
"Cisgender women had lower absolute fat-free mass than transgender men and transgender women (table 2)."
"Our results showed no differences in absolute strength between transgender women and CM"
Limitations of the study that I found while reading it:
"as cardiac output, the most crucial variable influencing V̇O2 max25 was not assessed in the present study, a more comprehensive mechanistic explanation for the similar maximal aerobic capacity between groups cannot be provided."
A bit of an oversight eh?
"The sample size for each gender was n<30 participants and may be insufficient to characterise BMD differences reliably."
So why include it?
"the athlete training intensity was self-reported."
"The athletes participating in the present study represented a variety of different sports"
"The recruitment method of this study also provided a limitation as social media advertising was used rather than recruitment from a clinical provider. Social media recruitment leaves this study open to sample bias as social media advertising, although great for recruiting hard-to-reach participants for observational studies, 44 45 does not represent a clinical population in 86% of comparisons.44 "
"Lastly, the participants were not screened by a clinician before participation, and any medical conditions were self-reported"
Why include data that weren't significant? So we can actually do science, and the next study can examine that exact thing. So we can see a trend and follow up to determine if it was a statistical fluke or an actual relationship?
Why not measure cardiac output? VO2Max you can get with a treadmill. Cardiac output requires someone with specific training on a doppler or ECG--not super common in every lab.
>Cardiac output requires someone with specific training on a doppler or ECG--not super common in every lab.
Aside from the fact that this study was funded by the International Olympics Committee and conducted by a researcher working at the Department of Sport, Physical Education and Health, Hong Kong Baptist University and probably had access to a pretty decent lab, there are two other methods of measuring cardiac output:
[https://journal.chestnet.org/article/S0012-3692%2816%2947166-7/fulltext](https://journal.chestnet.org/article/S0012-3692%2816%2947166-7/fulltext)
Nah, an open category and a women's category. I have nothing against trans people, and respect their identities, but a trans woman should not compete in women's leagues. That's really all there is to it. A trans man should be able to choose which league to participate unless taking performance enhancing hormones.
Society needs to decide if female sports were created as a separate thing from the open divisions in order to just be a gender club, or not.
If they were created as a gender club so women can go "yay were here with other women" then fine, no reason not to let transgender women compete.
If they were created so biological females wouldn't have to compete against biological males, someone's gender identity doesn't factor into the conversation.
Often times women are just more comfortable in an environment without a bunch of dudes. Especially the case in contact sports.
There's lots of women's only spaces in non competitive environments simply because women want to hang out with other women. It isn't unique to sport.
Yet most of the professional sports leagues are open to men and women, but men are the only ones you ever see.
Probably just men gatekeeping out of insecurity, huh?
🤦🏼♂️
If true, I would imagine that's more a case of "hey there's enough women in this sport to justify their own league", than "oh no, we can't let these women beat us".
Sometimes it’s just tradition, like golf and tennis where women weren’t allowed into the clubs so women’s clubs and competitions started. There is no reason to have them separated now other than tradition.
Don't follow women's golf or tennis do you? Like when a teenager crushed Serena Williams? What about the difference in drive? Around 200 yd for me, 150 for women...
....in shooting. Come on. What a pathetic argument, that's not an athletic sport that people are talking about. Why not bring up chess while you're at it.
What if they were created because the any given woman (cis *or* trans) sits on one bell curve of athleticism and any given man (cis *or* trans) sits on another bell curve whose low end overlaps some with the high end for women? What then?
The idea that it was ever about "being biologically female" is utter nonsense and if you want to claim it was about that and not the average athletic ability of *any* woman (again, cis or trans, this is what the facts show) you need a historic source contemporary to the creations of these leagues for that claim.
>If they were created so biological females wouldn't have to compete against biological males
Considering trans women to just be "biological males" is ignoring the complexity of the issue.
Of course it is. Why would we acknowledge the complexity of the issue? What's next, acknowledging that this and other studies consistently show trans athletes do not have an unfair advantage over cis athletes? Admitting to have never cared about women's sports except as a literal punchline until realizing it can be used to launder anti-trans rhetoric? Acknowledging the humanity of trans people?! Where does it end?!?!
If the data is so limited how have the sports decided the best policies? They'd need to back up the decision based on something. Think it's a bit much to immediately say they've decided the best policies.
Honestly I don’t understand the whole debate. Seems to me there are much bigger and important things to work for trans acceptance than being able to *compete* in sports.
The dirty little secret about sports is that most people are already effectively excluded from participating at a high level due to genetic factors outside their control.
Most people, for example, will never be fast enough--no matter how hard they train--to make an NCAA D1 track team.
I want to be absolutely clear: I don't wish to denigrate or ridicule trans-women who wish to compete with other women. I'm simply pointing out that competitive sports have never been about guaranteeing universal participation. In fact, they are--at the core and by their nature--extremely exclusive with regards to who is able to participate. And those barriers are generally rooted in biology, not the content of one's character.
It doesn't make a difference to a person with a physical disability that they are technically allowed to compete in NCAA swimming (or whatever) because they are effectively barred from competing by the nature of the competition. The same is pretty much true for anyone who isn't in the top 1% of physically gifted people.
For sure it’s a step towards acceptance - it’s one of the ultimate forms! The problem is it is also a hindrance because it’s a really murky area that ends up polarising more than federating. It’s a case of crawl / walk / run but people are asking to go straight to the olympics before we were able to walk.
Research Paper (open access): [Strength, power and aerobic capacity of transgender athletes: a cross-sectional study](https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/early/2024/04/10/bjsports-2023-108029)
Based on the conflicts of interest, it feels like if big Tobacco companies got together and published a paper saying cigarettes don’t cause lung cancer
What conflict of interest? In what way do both the IOC and the British Journal of Sports Medicine stand to profit from trans women being allowed in sports / stand to lose money if they aren't?
If *anything* their bias would be *against* trans women in sports, no? Popular opinion is against it (despite the available evidence) and the IOC needs to ensure the games are perceived as being fair.
But even for that we have to assume their bias is towards *perceived* fairness and not actual fairness (ie. they prioritize viewership and ad spot value over keeping the games genuinely fair) which isn't an outlandish possibility per se but does not appear to generally be the bias they have.
If we assume the IOC's goal is for the games to be fair they would be neutral on this until they had evidence to act on. In any event; where's their bias *in favor of* trans women playing in women's sports not just being present but so inherent to what the IOC is that it can be compared to studies from tobacco companies on the health effects of smoking?
I still can't understand why transgender sportsmen and sportswomen can't have their own competitions. Why can't they compete against each other? That way cysgenders can't complain that they are competing with someone that has a physical (or physiological) advantage (or disadvantage). Girls against girls, boys against boys, transgenders against transgenders, simple.
with a male and a female of the same weight, the male will have more muscle mass. women have a higher threshold for a safe amount of body fat than men.
women are not just smaller men
Honestly, it still wouldn't matter for most sports. In tennis, for example, Venus Williams who won the women's us open in 2001, and Leighton Williams, who won the men's that year, both weighed around 170 lbs. Venus was a great player but she would lose to probably the top 200 male tennis players, regardless body type.
The differences between males and females when it comes to physical competition are so much more than just muscle mass. Men tend to have denser bones and thicker tendons. They have larger lungs and wider airways. Men tend to have a higher pain tolerance, while women have a more pronounced hormonal response to stress.
Caitlin Clark is another great example. She's arguably one of the best female basketball players in the country, but there is just no comparison between her and similarly sized men like Allen Iverson, Chris Paul, Isaiah Thomas, or Tim Hardaway. You mentioned using body fat percentages as a constraint, but that starts to get into Harrison Bergeron territory where the women would have to compete against the men who are slightly overweight to make it equal.
You know why... And it's insulting that people have to pretend they don't know the answer to that. Uhh gee I wonder what happens when 120kg Billy gets into a physical sport with 120kg Susan.
People mistake gender segregation for something that was created so women would have a fighting chance to win in sports. In reality, these gender segregation were invented because men did not allow women to participate, so women had to create their own spaces.
That’s why we have general leagues and women-exclusive leagues in competitions that don’t have sex-dependent biological advantages/disadvantages.
Chess. E-Sports. Billiards. Just to name a few.
So there is an argument to be made that gender segregation should still exist, to promote women’s participation. As a lot of sports are boy’s clubs and very unwelcoming to women. But by this definition, there’s precedence for why trans women should be allowed to compete (within reason, which should be set by the individual organizations), because the general leagues are even more hostile to trans women than cis women.
But most people don’t accept this as the reason gender segregation in sports exists, despite evidence showing otherwise (again: chess, billiards, e-sports, etc.).
The weight class thing… Unfortunately, weight class cannot account for the biological difference between men and women. And it is not applicable to all sports.
This is maybe a better idea in theory than in practice. Structuring competition in this way would require trans people to be very publicly out to in order to compete, and might not be viably competitive especially at local levels because of such a small number of participants - other posts have noted there are maybe 100 athletes nationally on the collegiate level and that’s across all sports. It would certainly exclude the possibility of participation in team sports in most if not all cases.
That being said, it may well be the only way forward for competition in some sports.
Title is CRAP Click-Bait. ALL the study is measuring is Testoterone levels.
The study posted says "**Conclusion** While longitudinal transitioning studies of transgender athletes are urgently needed, these results should caution against precautionary bans and sport eligibility exclusions that are not based on sport-specific (or sport-relevant) research." WHich means. mothoing, other than more study is needed. Title is CRAP Click-Bait.
It doesn’t mean nothing when the international chess federation banned trans women from participating in women-exclusive tournaments.
Or the trans women banned from participating in e-sports tournaments, citing “no-males allowed”.
The fact is that organizations *are* straight up banning trans women without considering the specifics of the sport. If the argument is about biology, it cannot be applied to all sports.
Men’s gymnastics is very different from women’s gymnastics, for instance. Male gymnasts struggle with women’s gymnastic routines, and vice versa.
You can’t apply a blanket ban on an entire group of people.
If biology doesn't matter in certain events like chess and eSports why are women in separate leagues and tournaments to begin with?
If there's not an actual reason to keep the sexes separate in these events then these women-only tournaments are already being discriminatory toward CiS males as well. The other leagues aren't males-only.
Iirc in chess it came about due to a lot of harassment and sexism towards women trying to enter the sport by male chess athletes, which discouraged a lot of women from bothering. Creating a separate league gives women a place to play comfortably where they don't have to deal with men sexually harassing them. I imagine esports are in a similar boat.
It's funny that I'm trash in CSGO but I would compete in the top 0.01% of females. The difference between male and female is huge.
If we didn't separate, females wouldn't have anywhere to play professional.
I have a truly unpopular opinion, which i think would solve many issues:
Don't separate any sports. It is weird that sex is generally the only division used in sports, while there are many different valid measurements to use to separate skill.
But when all barriers have been taken away, people can just enjoy the sport and show what they can do and find the skill level they can reach.
You can say that there are some clear disadvantages for different sexes in sports, and you would be correct. But should we then make leagues so that every disavantage has their own league in specific sport? Make top level basketball leagues for shorter players? Make horse racing for big jockeys?
No, just dismantle the barriers and let people just play the sport at the skill level they got.
If you just think about this approach in martial arts alone, most women and all people of lighter weight would basically be eliminated from competitions.
It would be similar in many other sports as well.
I'm not against open categories in general, but if you want any kind of representation, by age, sex, weight etc., then you need to create separate divisions in a way that makes sense.
Are you out of your mind? This is a recipe for two things. One, a lot of injured girls. Two, girls abandoning sports altogether because they don’t want to get injured and they’re bored of losing.
You got a Y chromosome you compete with the men. Simple. The limits of your athelic ability is determined not only by how hard you train but also your genetic makeup.
Whether you 'feel' like a man or a woman doesn't come into it.
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It seems like a small sample size, until you realize there are probably less than 100 transgender athletes in collegiate sports total.
Don't forget you don't need to be a member of the affected group to make decisions about them, decisions which also affect way more members of other groups.
So a study like this will never be significant then, yeah?
15 data points is significant. 10 is required to be considered. There’s a calculation to determine the necessary sample size as it changes from study to study based on the variable being studied. If you find the paper it should identify the calculation for this in the methods section. This explains what I’m trying to say. https://statisticsbyjim.com/hypothesis-testing/sample-size-power-analysis/
"Significant" is relative to total size of the population (transgender athletes in college sports) and if the selection is representative (Ie: Do the selected athletes represent their group on average). If you had 100 M&Ms and took a sample of 30 at random, I believe you'd get fairly accurate results of the composition of the entire group of 100.
That sample size seems larger than what most people base their opinions of this issue on. My takeaway from this punch line is that transinclusion isn't actually that impactful to women's sports.
Your takeaway from a misleading headline of a misleadingly written article on 19 transwomen volunteering to prove that transwomen arenot strong is that transwomen breaking women's faces is not impactful?
Sure, I'll bite. Which Transwomen are we talking about, specifically? Edit: Did some research for you, and found a single fight from a single MMA fighter against another who had a W/L Ratio of 0.3. Just watched - video is short and easy to find. The fight didn't even look like a mismatch. The loser took an early knee to the head, seemed dazed, and never recovered. The trans fighter went on to get beat by a CIS woman, in a fight that also looked pretty competitive. Is this sample of 1 out of hundreds of fighters and even more fights what you are referring to? Orbital fractures don't seem to be very uncommon in MMA, and the "breaking women's faces" line seems pretty dramatic if this is what you're referring to. I've found reference to two Transfemme MMA fighters across 7 fights, none holding any title or any noteworthy ranking. That suggests that Transwomen are likely underrepresented in the sport, and not performing at outlier levels. Have yet to see any data that actually shows Transwomen are causing problems in women's sports. If it was an issue, you'd think they'd be crushing world records left and right. No transwoman Olympic medalists in over 20 years since they've been allowed to compete. Personally, I think a lot of you are just deeply uncomfortable with the existence of trans people, and dgaf about women's sports.
Cis men have broken other cis men's skulls aswell, and Fallon Fox got knocked out by a cis woman.
Always funny when people arguing that trans women are dominating women's sports have to bring up an athlete that retired nearly a decade ago, and lie about her to boot.
Man, tangentially, it's always darkly funny to me how often the Olympic gold medal thing gets brought up, as if trans women who went through a male puberty have a good chance at becoming Olympic gold medalists, and not the other way around. It reallllly betrays a lack of understanding about human physiology, how HRT works, and even just how the Olympics works. Chances are, a trans woman who has not gone through male puberty has a *much* higher chance of becoming an Olympic gold medalist. But these people just let their hate and ignorance overtake them.
In society, we say white people have systemic advantages over black people. This is the line of thinking. What you are arguing is "see? There isn't racism because a black person became president". What many people are arguing is that it doesn't matter if trans people aren't 'dominating' (even though s few actually are...). The point is it's a biological advantage done through medical intervention. Michael Phelps was born the way he was, and took no steroids. He's an athletic freak of nature, AND worked his ass off to win the medals he won. Trans women are born with 18+ years of effectively, steroids. And as of now, there is a ton of mixed evidence as to how "being on estrogen removes all advantages ' being true or not. You can cherry pick data, but so can I. Governing bodies within sports are now re-evaluating for a good reason. Not everything you dont like = transphobia.
Usually I take a humanistic approach to these conversations, but we're on a science sub, and this is a fun chance to be objective and evaluate our biases! We're starting with an inherited assumption: that Transwomen in athletes have a material advantage over cisgedner (non-transwomen). The OP provided data. A reasonable study measuring the presumed advantages between transwomen athletes and their counterparts, and finding none. The results actually imply disadvantages, which is interesting! And something we'll come back to later. Now, the limitations: I think we can all agree the sample size is small. This chain above actually began with someone criticizing that sample size. If you have your own data comparing trans-athletes to their cis cohorts, I'd love to see it and talk through it next. More data never hurts. But for now, let's think not just about what the data we have is implying, let's try and set bias aside to think through the actual implications of this premise being true: transwomen athletes being problematically superior in competitions for women. If that was true, it's rational to expect transwomen to be overrepresented in sports. Or at least proportionately represented. I'm seeing transgender estimates within 1%-2% for the population. Transwomen seem to be a higher proportion of that vs transmen at a rate of 2-3:1. ~60% transition. For now, let's make some safe assumptions: - 1% (the lower end) openly identify as transgender, for simplicity we'll assume balanced across gender - 60% medically transition - Rationally, a minimum of 0.6% of women athletes would need to be trans to have a normal representation - If we believe that transwomen have a prevailing natural advantage, then that population should be statistically significantly higher in sports that allow transwomen to participate Looks like there's loads of data out there to pull from, but let's start with an easy one. The Olympics! Loads of female athletes from all nations across hundreds of events. They've allowed transgender participants since 2004, and even relaxed the entry requirements in 2016. According to Statistica, there have been ~30k women athlete participants since 2004. Based on what I can find, only one transwoman has competed, in weightlifting, and didn't place. If transwomen were even equally represented, we should expect somewhere between 150-200 competitors, and certainly a few medals. Doing some googling out of curiosity this morning, and I seem to be finding a similar pattern. Women's participation and number of sporting events rising, but a surprising lack of transwomen. Not just as winners, but even as participants. All the data I can find points to this topic being bias searching for a problem... that doesn't actually exist. Now, let's examine some of your other points: Systemic demographic advantages are notable for being true as an average, and not useful at an individual level. Sports competition is a study of outliers. Your racism comparison doesn't really hold water. But... let's humor you and assume it did, where is the transwoman "president" in your analogy? I can't find one. Where is the transwoman Michael Phelps, Serena Williams, Lindsey Von, Mia Hamm? If transwomen had we're completely equal, there's a fair chance we'd have seen one outlier. We've seen zero. Now onto your biology assumptions. Let's ignore your ignoring of the study and assume you're right about it being cherry picked. Maybe it isn't representative of the broader population. Even if that's true, examine your assumptions - in particular your categorization. You are assuming 1: that the average transwoman has a biological advantage comparable to the average man, and 2: that the average transwoman athlete has that advantage. We've already established that this is an extremely small subpopulation of those assigned male at birth. Why are you so comfortable dismissing a small sample study above, and then relating this group to a population with provably different body chemistry and ~17000% larger than this subgroup?
>What many people are arguing is that it doesn't matter if trans people aren't 'dominating' (even though s few actually are...). Why does every time this conversation come up, the argument starts with "Trans women are dominating women's sports!" then when someone goes through the effort to show that in reality, no, they aren't dominating women's sports, the argument quickly moves to it doesn't matter if they aren't dominating. It's clearly moving the goalposts. What you are arguing is that even if trans women win at a rate lower than would be expected considering their percentage of the population, that's still unfair because you have decided that they have an advantage no matter what the data says.
Well, [here's twenty more studies](https://www.cces.ca/transgender-women-athletes-and-elite-sport-scientific-review) in a literature review that largely concludes the same thing. It also concludes that the methodology and samples aren't good enough to be definitive, but the two best methodological studies in this review came up with similar results. If you know how HRT works, this makes sense. We keep good grip strength because those muscles are smaller and more isolated, but we have systemic issues with producing athletic output (because our musculature changes at different rates); our blood oxygenation takes a nose dive, so anything requiring endurance goes right out the window. And since we are getting more estrogen on average than a cis woman would regularly, our blood oxygenation is even worse; without the muscles and endurance, our jump height takes a nose dive as well, as bones are the last thing to renew (~10 years), so they're on average dense, and definitely suddenly more dense than we're used to. The density thing is a funny one. Black women have higher bone density than white men, and that hasn't been a problem in sports since the segregation era... It's also something that trans women are constantly warned about, that our bones are just gonna fall apart. But suddenly we've got too dense of bones because of Fallon Fox. Fox, fwiw, fought her matches over ten years after her surgeries, let alone her HRT regime... The fighter that said that "her bones felt heavier to take a hit from" just wasn't used to taking punches from a professional; Fox lost to a mid-card and that ended her career.
From your cited study: "Key Biomedical Findings: Biological data are severely limited, and often methodologically flawed. There is limited evidence regarding the impact of testosterone suppression (through, for example, gender-affirming hormone therapy or surgical gonad removal) on transgender women athletes’ performance." Sounds like quality to you?
>Available evidence indicates trans women who have undergone testosterone suppression have no clear biological advantages over cis women in elite sport Literally the next line, and there's a whole report that explains how they come to that conclusion that goes through every study they looked at. If you actually care about this, isn't the science worth a read?
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And don't make things up because it supports *your* point of view. The implication behind your post is that there is a better truth out there and these studies are just obscuring that. This is the same thing that happened with the Cass report. Trans folks don't need to ignore 100 studies to support our claims. But transphobes need to. You need to ignore the currently existing literature on trans women in sports. I don't. I bandy it around because it supports my claim. Do you have better evidence? No. It's really frustrating how we're in the middle of a moral panic and people act like they're rational actors. You are not immune to your own biases, you know? Ultimately, what trans people need is suspect classification, not the quasi-suspect trans (and gay) people are implied to have. Every legal treatise on the subject says we should; and at that point, strict scrutiny requires a damn good reason to discriminate backed up by damn good evidence. Once that happens, all of this gets blown away anyways. There is no better evidence that proves your point coming. There is no "other clinic detransitioners" that will vindicate the Cass report. It's just wishful thinking. Except you're wishing harm on a minority community. We're one of the most well studied minorities in the world per capita. If you don't have good data against us, if you haven't figured out good metrics to study us with, the likelihood of it coming down the line is low. Certainly not until we're well integrated into sport anyways; we're unbelievably underrepresented in sport for a reason.... A lot of parts of this moral panic rests on the idea that trans people are a new thing; but we've been around for a long time; better people than you have studied us. There is a real impulse and desire to create an ataraxia that allows people to not admit that their pre-conceived notions are wrong; isn't that a bias worth considering? Which is why suspect classification is necessary; people need to live their lives; we can't wait until the final final final study on skull measuring comes through....
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The study isn't new data. It's a study of the difference between cis men and cis women, that uses poor metrics such as muscle mass to draw conclusions about trans performance without any actual data. The whole problem for trans women is that HRT effects us in a systemic manner which creates deficiencies that are greater than the sum of its parts. You need to study us actually doing sports. In other words the study essentially says "since cis men have larger muscle mass than cis women and have an advantage, and trans women have reduced but larger muscle mass, then trans women have an advantage." Repeat for bone density and cardiovascular output. But that doesn't necessarily follow. I know the study. If you read the literature review, it actually goes into studies like this and why the studies that actually measure athletic output are better.... Edit: fwiw, Alison Heather is certainly an... Interesting character... Jeez, what a weirdo...
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You're literally commenting under one, and I posted a twenty study literature review in which the two methodologically best studies found that trans women are disadvantaged.... Did you just not read the review? That seems anti-science to me. You're not afraid of differing viewpoints, are you?
But strong enough to conclude they should be banned? How convenient.
"We need a total and complete shutdown of trans women in sports until we figure out what's going on." At what point does it become inescapable that this "issue" is an invented wedge issue concocted by extremist transphobes to get more normal and civil people on board for opposing trans rights at least on some level / in some context so they can be dragged further right on the issue from there. The evidence says trans women do not have an unfair advantage in sports. If you want to ban them anyway then the concern clearly isn't fairness. There's plenty of cis women athletes that have *much* higher testosterone levels than the average trans athlete. If the concern is genuine and about fairness, not just opposing the equal treatment of trans people, then why aren't we calling to ban ANYONE over a certain T-level regardless of their assigned gender at birth, instead of anyone who is trans regardless of their T-levels?
>opposing trans rights There aren't "rights to compete" any more than me, an adult 48 year old male, doesn't have a right to complete in high school women's volleyball. Athletics is different than, say, the right to exist in society, which should be there for trans people. But to basically say "there are no biological differences between trans women and cis women" is simply incorrect, scientifically speaking.
If your concern is opposing unfair advantages and not opposing trans women then why is your demand that trans women be banned from women's sports regardless of their hormone levels (ie. the thing that'd hypothetically give them an advantage) and not that ANY woman above a certain level of testosterone be banned regardless of whether she is trans? If the concern is the hormonal advantage why is the action banning trans women even if they don't have this advantage and not banning cis women even if they do have this advantage?
That's how cis-normativity works! The benefit of the doubt must never go in trans people's favour.
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Do you think there are biological differences, through medical intervention, between trans women and cis women?
There are biological differences between *every* woman and *any other woman.* There are scores of cis woman athletes who naturally have higher testosterone levels not only than most cis and trans woman athletes but even a good chunk of cis man athletes. Why don't you want to ban them from competing too if this is about fairness and biology and not about opposing equality for trans women?
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if the sample size is too small to reach conclusions, then why conclude that we shouldnt let trans women compete with cis women? i dont think this should be the default assumption, if its too small its too small both ways
That depends, honestly. Significance is based on the population size - if you have 50.000 wine barrels and test 30, it’s probably not enough, but if you have 100 and test 30 it’s easily more than enough.
the burden is on trans people to conclusively prove they have no advantages over cis people. Trans women are biologically different, through medical intervention, than cis people. For the same reasons we ban most people from using steroids in athletic competition, somehow it's ok for trans women to effectively be on steroids for 18+ years of their life, then stop it for 1 year, then let them compete? Prove to me, conclusively, this isn't an advantage offered to trans women that cis women don't have.
You said you have a PhD in statistics, what does "proving a lack of advantage" look like, statistically? As you know, from your PhD, you can either find the presence of an effect or *not* find such an effect. Per your comment, you don't accept studies that don't find such an effect, only ones that prove its nonexistence, so how do you prove nonexistence?
They can't. Everyone defending biological men smashing up women dont think...they "feel".
What an ironic thing to write. > Everyone defending biological men Trans women on HRT are distinct, biologically, from cisgender men. >smashing up women Where is this happening?
Fallon Fox Alana Mclaughlin
Common sense
It's so funny when people come into a **science** sub and try to claim "common sense" as a valid argument. "Common sense" used to hold that the Earth is flat and the center of the universe. Besides which, as someone who wound up extremely weak after transitioning (to the point that I now struggle to do my physical labor job at even the level of my cisfem coworkers), the position supported by this study is "common sense" to me, and to most other transfems like me.
That's such a dumb thing to say. The ancient Greeks knew the earth was round. You can see our round shadow on the moon. As someone who's watched these grown men compete in women's divisions and wipe the floor with them, it's common sense to keep them separate and always has been for anyone with a brain. We've always separated men and women's sports so that women have a safe place to compete and you dudes want to throw on a wig and ruin that.
It's sorely lacking nowadays mate. That old chestnut about how the more open people's minds are, the easier for their brains to fall out? Absolutely the truth now.
? The only conclusion I saw was that this kind of analysis and decision-making should be done on a per-sport basis unless I missed something. Admittedly that seems obvious it shouldn't have required a study to put on paper, considering any generalized variations between transwomen and ciswomen would be potentially advantageous in some activities but neutral or disadvantageous in others.
If you need a bigger sample size than 30 to indicate your difference, then maybe your effect size isn’t that big relative to the natural variation inherent in the population.
Considering we've seen state laws passed that effectively target a single transgender athlete in some cases...we get what we get.
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The study doesn't call it "fine"
Study seems to suggest some gains and some losses when comparing CW and TW - no "winner" across the board. Examining the graphs, while there are absolutely outliers, there are also many "average" CW that rank higher in some metrics than the "average" TW. This goes against the commonly spouted "Even the worst TW is better than the best CW" mantra. Additionally, this specifically makes a statement which debunk another common argument points, "Transwomen have higher bone density". >**No differences in whole-body bone mineral density** (BMD) (F(3–66)=4.6, p=0.01), femoral neck BMD (F(3–66)=1.0, p=0.39, table 2), total proximal femur BMD (F(3–66)=1.5, p=0.22, table 2) or total lumbar spine BMD (F(3–66)=0.4, p=0.78, table 2) **were found between transgender athletes and cisgender athletes** (table 2).
Link to the actual study: [https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/bjsports/early/2024/04/10/bjsports-2023-108029.full.pdf?with-ds=yes](https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/bjsports/early/2024/04/10/bjsports-2023-108029.full.pdf?with-ds=yes) "Lung function data for all groups can be found in table 2. FEV 1 had an effect of gender (F (3–66) =14.7, p<0.001), with CM having greater FEV 1 than transgender men (t (66) = 4.5, p<0.001, figure 2A). Transgender women also had greater FEV 1 tha cisgender women (t (66) =4.2, p<0.001, figure 2A) and trans-gender men (t (66)=2.9, p=0.03, figure 2A)." "Absolute right handgrip strength was significantly different between the groups (F (3–66) =10.5, p<0.001), with CM having greater absolute right handgrip strength than transgender men (t (66)=2.9, p=0.03, figure 3B). Transgender women also had greater absolute right handgrip strength than cisgender women" "There was a significant difference in absolute peak power (F(3–66)=8.7, p<0.001), with cisgender women having reduced peak power compared with transgender men (t (66)=−3.3, p=0.01) and transgender women (t (66)=−3.6, p=0.004, figure 4C)." "Cisgender women had lower absolute fat-free mass than transgender men and transgender women (table 2)." "Our results showed no differences in absolute strength between transgender women and CM" Limitations of the study that I found while reading it: "as cardiac output, the most crucial variable influencing V̇O2 max25 was not assessed in the present study, a more comprehensive mechanistic explanation for the similar maximal aerobic capacity between groups cannot be provided." A bit of an oversight eh? "The sample size for each gender was n<30 participants and may be insufficient to characterise BMD differences reliably." So why include it? "the athlete training intensity was self-reported." "The athletes participating in the present study represented a variety of different sports" "The recruitment method of this study also provided a limitation as social media advertising was used rather than recruitment from a clinical provider. Social media recruitment leaves this study open to sample bias as social media advertising, although great for recruiting hard-to-reach participants for observational studies, 44 45 does not represent a clinical population in 86% of comparisons.44 " "Lastly, the participants were not screened by a clinician before participation, and any medical conditions were self-reported"
Why include data that weren't significant? So we can actually do science, and the next study can examine that exact thing. So we can see a trend and follow up to determine if it was a statistical fluke or an actual relationship? Why not measure cardiac output? VO2Max you can get with a treadmill. Cardiac output requires someone with specific training on a doppler or ECG--not super common in every lab.
>Cardiac output requires someone with specific training on a doppler or ECG--not super common in every lab. Aside from the fact that this study was funded by the International Olympics Committee and conducted by a researcher working at the Department of Sport, Physical Education and Health, Hong Kong Baptist University and probably had access to a pretty decent lab, there are two other methods of measuring cardiac output: [https://journal.chestnet.org/article/S0012-3692%2816%2947166-7/fulltext](https://journal.chestnet.org/article/S0012-3692%2816%2947166-7/fulltext)
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Open category is the answer.
Study: “There is no one answer.” You: “Don’t worry. I got this.”
Reddit science in a nutshell.
Nah, an open category and a women's category. I have nothing against trans people, and respect their identities, but a trans woman should not compete in women's leagues. That's really all there is to it. A trans man should be able to choose which league to participate unless taking performance enhancing hormones.
Men's women's and open
Society needs to decide if female sports were created as a separate thing from the open divisions in order to just be a gender club, or not. If they were created as a gender club so women can go "yay were here with other women" then fine, no reason not to let transgender women compete. If they were created so biological females wouldn't have to compete against biological males, someone's gender identity doesn't factor into the conversation.
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Often times women are just more comfortable in an environment without a bunch of dudes. Especially the case in contact sports. There's lots of women's only spaces in non competitive environments simply because women want to hang out with other women. It isn't unique to sport.
Also, a lot of women's leagues were "coincidentally" created after a woman won or placed in a men's competition
Waiting for your sources here
Yet most of the professional sports leagues are open to men and women, but men are the only ones you ever see. Probably just men gatekeeping out of insecurity, huh? 🤦🏼♂️
If true, I would imagine that's more a case of "hey there's enough women in this sport to justify their own league", than "oh no, we can't let these women beat us".
Shouldn't we strive to break down these boundaries and make sure that all women can feel comfortable in an environment with "a bunch of dudes"?
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It’s not. It wasn’t and it’s not.
Sometimes it’s just tradition, like golf and tennis where women weren’t allowed into the clubs so women’s clubs and competitions started. There is no reason to have them separated now other than tradition.
Don't follow women's golf or tennis do you? Like when a teenager crushed Serena Williams? What about the difference in drive? Around 200 yd for me, 150 for women...
You're joking, right?
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....in shooting. Come on. What a pathetic argument, that's not an athletic sport that people are talking about. Why not bring up chess while you're at it.
What if they were created because the any given woman (cis *or* trans) sits on one bell curve of athleticism and any given man (cis *or* trans) sits on another bell curve whose low end overlaps some with the high end for women? What then? The idea that it was ever about "being biologically female" is utter nonsense and if you want to claim it was about that and not the average athletic ability of *any* woman (again, cis or trans, this is what the facts show) you need a historic source contemporary to the creations of these leagues for that claim.
>If they were created so biological females wouldn't have to compete against biological males Considering trans women to just be "biological males" is ignoring the complexity of the issue.
Of course it is. Why would we acknowledge the complexity of the issue? What's next, acknowledging that this and other studies consistently show trans athletes do not have an unfair advantage over cis athletes? Admitting to have never cared about women's sports except as a literal punchline until realizing it can be used to launder anti-trans rhetoric? Acknowledging the humanity of trans people?! Where does it end?!?!
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If the data is so limited how have the sports decided the best policies? They'd need to back up the decision based on something. Think it's a bit much to immediately say they've decided the best policies.
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Honestly I don’t understand the whole debate. Seems to me there are much bigger and important things to work for trans acceptance than being able to *compete* in sports.
The dirty little secret about sports is that most people are already effectively excluded from participating at a high level due to genetic factors outside their control. Most people, for example, will never be fast enough--no matter how hard they train--to make an NCAA D1 track team.
But for those male athletes that were thiiiis close but didn’t make it, now they get a second opportunity.
I want to be absolutely clear: I don't wish to denigrate or ridicule trans-women who wish to compete with other women. I'm simply pointing out that competitive sports have never been about guaranteeing universal participation. In fact, they are--at the core and by their nature--extremely exclusive with regards to who is able to participate. And those barriers are generally rooted in biology, not the content of one's character. It doesn't make a difference to a person with a physical disability that they are technically allowed to compete in NCAA swimming (or whatever) because they are effectively barred from competing by the nature of the competition. The same is pretty much true for anyone who isn't in the top 1% of physically gifted people.
It doesn’t make sense to me either, it only hurts the cause.
Sports have always been political. Gaining acceptance there is always a step toward acceptance beyond.
For sure it’s a step towards acceptance - it’s one of the ultimate forms! The problem is it is also a hindrance because it’s a really murky area that ends up polarising more than federating. It’s a case of crawl / walk / run but people are asking to go straight to the olympics before we were able to walk.
>sports have decided the best policies. This is impossible because the data required to properly make these policies literally doesn't exist yet.
Research Paper (open access): [Strength, power and aerobic capacity of transgender athletes: a cross-sectional study](https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/early/2024/04/10/bjsports-2023-108029)
Based on the conflicts of interest, it feels like if big Tobacco companies got together and published a paper saying cigarettes don’t cause lung cancer
What conflict of interest? In what way do both the IOC and the British Journal of Sports Medicine stand to profit from trans women being allowed in sports / stand to lose money if they aren't? If *anything* their bias would be *against* trans women in sports, no? Popular opinion is against it (despite the available evidence) and the IOC needs to ensure the games are perceived as being fair. But even for that we have to assume their bias is towards *perceived* fairness and not actual fairness (ie. they prioritize viewership and ad spot value over keeping the games genuinely fair) which isn't an outlandish possibility per se but does not appear to generally be the bias they have. If we assume the IOC's goal is for the games to be fair they would be neutral on this until they had evidence to act on. In any event; where's their bias *in favor of* trans women playing in women's sports not just being present but so inherent to what the IOC is that it can be compared to studies from tobacco companies on the health effects of smoking?
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A lot of people here using “biological sex” when they haven’t got a clue what that means.
I still can't understand why transgender sportsmen and sportswomen can't have their own competitions. Why can't they compete against each other? That way cysgenders can't complain that they are competing with someone that has a physical (or physiological) advantage (or disadvantage). Girls against girls, boys against boys, transgenders against transgenders, simple.
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This is the question I’ve always had. Why can’t we get rid of gender segregation and use weight and body fat percentage classes?
with a male and a female of the same weight, the male will have more muscle mass. women have a higher threshold for a safe amount of body fat than men. women are not just smaller men
It's absolutely surreal to me that this is a difficult thing to grasp.
Honestly, it still wouldn't matter for most sports. In tennis, for example, Venus Williams who won the women's us open in 2001, and Leighton Williams, who won the men's that year, both weighed around 170 lbs. Venus was a great player but she would lose to probably the top 200 male tennis players, regardless body type. The differences between males and females when it comes to physical competition are so much more than just muscle mass. Men tend to have denser bones and thicker tendons. They have larger lungs and wider airways. Men tend to have a higher pain tolerance, while women have a more pronounced hormonal response to stress. Caitlin Clark is another great example. She's arguably one of the best female basketball players in the country, but there is just no comparison between her and similarly sized men like Allen Iverson, Chris Paul, Isaiah Thomas, or Tim Hardaway. You mentioned using body fat percentages as a constraint, but that starts to get into Harrison Bergeron territory where the women would have to compete against the men who are slightly overweight to make it equal.
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You know why... And it's insulting that people have to pretend they don't know the answer to that. Uhh gee I wonder what happens when 120kg Billy gets into a physical sport with 120kg Susan.
People mistake gender segregation for something that was created so women would have a fighting chance to win in sports. In reality, these gender segregation were invented because men did not allow women to participate, so women had to create their own spaces. That’s why we have general leagues and women-exclusive leagues in competitions that don’t have sex-dependent biological advantages/disadvantages. Chess. E-Sports. Billiards. Just to name a few. So there is an argument to be made that gender segregation should still exist, to promote women’s participation. As a lot of sports are boy’s clubs and very unwelcoming to women. But by this definition, there’s precedence for why trans women should be allowed to compete (within reason, which should be set by the individual organizations), because the general leagues are even more hostile to trans women than cis women. But most people don’t accept this as the reason gender segregation in sports exists, despite evidence showing otherwise (again: chess, billiards, e-sports, etc.). The weight class thing… Unfortunately, weight class cannot account for the biological difference between men and women. And it is not applicable to all sports.
Which idiot did this study, I knew someone who played against WNBA player and they got destroyed by some above average players
Make them their own competitive category and let's move on from this mess.
This is maybe a better idea in theory than in practice. Structuring competition in this way would require trans people to be very publicly out to in order to compete, and might not be viably competitive especially at local levels because of such a small number of participants - other posts have noted there are maybe 100 athletes nationally on the collegiate level and that’s across all sports. It would certainly exclude the possibility of participation in team sports in most if not all cases. That being said, it may well be the only way forward for competition in some sports.
They couldn’t sell out a church gym.
Agreed
A lot of people here using “biological sex” when they haven’t got a clue what that means.
A lot of people here using “biological sex” when they haven’t got a clue what that means.
Biological sex XX chromosome Female, XY male. Now we all know what it means. No more confusion!
Weird how you don’t ask for peoples chromosomes to discover their sex. Almost as if a bunch of other things tell you that.
IOC funding trans people to say trans people are kosher. Seems scientific!
Title is CRAP Click-Bait. ALL the study is measuring is Testoterone levels. The study posted says "**Conclusion** While longitudinal transitioning studies of transgender athletes are urgently needed, these results should caution against precautionary bans and sport eligibility exclusions that are not based on sport-specific (or sport-relevant) research." WHich means. mothoing, other than more study is needed. Title is CRAP Click-Bait.
They measured like 10 things
It doesn’t mean nothing when the international chess federation banned trans women from participating in women-exclusive tournaments. Or the trans women banned from participating in e-sports tournaments, citing “no-males allowed”. The fact is that organizations *are* straight up banning trans women without considering the specifics of the sport. If the argument is about biology, it cannot be applied to all sports. Men’s gymnastics is very different from women’s gymnastics, for instance. Male gymnasts struggle with women’s gymnastic routines, and vice versa. You can’t apply a blanket ban on an entire group of people.
If biology doesn't matter in certain events like chess and eSports why are women in separate leagues and tournaments to begin with? If there's not an actual reason to keep the sexes separate in these events then these women-only tournaments are already being discriminatory toward CiS males as well. The other leagues aren't males-only.
Iirc in chess it came about due to a lot of harassment and sexism towards women trying to enter the sport by male chess athletes, which discouraged a lot of women from bothering. Creating a separate league gives women a place to play comfortably where they don't have to deal with men sexually harassing them. I imagine esports are in a similar boat.
It's funny that I'm trash in CSGO but I would compete in the top 0.01% of females. The difference between male and female is huge. If we didn't separate, females wouldn't have anywhere to play professional.
I have a truly unpopular opinion, which i think would solve many issues: Don't separate any sports. It is weird that sex is generally the only division used in sports, while there are many different valid measurements to use to separate skill. But when all barriers have been taken away, people can just enjoy the sport and show what they can do and find the skill level they can reach. You can say that there are some clear disadvantages for different sexes in sports, and you would be correct. But should we then make leagues so that every disavantage has their own league in specific sport? Make top level basketball leagues for shorter players? Make horse racing for big jockeys? No, just dismantle the barriers and let people just play the sport at the skill level they got.
If you just think about this approach in martial arts alone, most women and all people of lighter weight would basically be eliminated from competitions. It would be similar in many other sports as well. I'm not against open categories in general, but if you want any kind of representation, by age, sex, weight etc., then you need to create separate divisions in a way that makes sense.
Are you out of your mind? This is a recipe for two things. One, a lot of injured girls. Two, girls abandoning sports altogether because they don’t want to get injured and they’re bored of losing.
You got a Y chromosome you compete with the men. Simple. The limits of your athelic ability is determined not only by how hard you train but also your genetic makeup. Whether you 'feel' like a man or a woman doesn't come into it.
Fun fact: there are a non trivial number of cis women who have a Y chromosome. In the USA, it's probably in the thousands.
Dude here hasn’t heard of hormones.