Fairness and transgender athletes

[lewisnotmiller]

Why do you think competing by muscle mass is "ludicrous"? I haven't read much about the details of that suggestion, but on the surface, it sounds potentially viable in some individual sports.

Potentially, if they agreed on measurement standards, open to gaming (ensuring measurements are just slightly under whatever the arbitrary levels are), fragmenting to many sports (dividing a competition into many disparate tiers works better for individual sports than team ones)....

Lots of issues. But in very specific situations and sports it might be possible.

 

[Revoltingest]

Hmmmm...I can't really agree with this. Of course it could go unnoticed (blood doping can also go unnoticed) but that doesn't mean it's not impactful. And for basketball the combination of height, strength and co-ordination would matter, regardless of it being a skilled sport. And Rugby...eeesh...it could be dangerous.

I think you actually could agree with the "could go
unnoticed" scenario being overwhelmingly common.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

That isn't a problem yet, since dominant trans athletes
are uncommon. If ever it becomes one, it could be
addressed then.

Fair call. But it's coming. Assume for a moment that trans athletes have exactly no advantage over a cisgender female. Sooner or later, then, we will see a dominant trans athlete. And right now she'll basically be treated as a cheat, which strikes me as harmful and unfair.

Combine that with the average ages of people transitioning and the number of people transitioning...
Simple maths suggests it's coming.

 

[Revoltingest]

Fair call. But it's coming. Assume for a moment that trans athletes have exactly no advantage over a cisgender female. Sooner or later, then, we will see a dominant trans athlete. And right now she'll basically be treated as a cheat, which strikes me as harmful and unfair.

Combine that with the average ages of people transitioning and the number of people transitioning...
Simple maths suggests it's coming.

I've nothing to add...just wait'n see.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

No. Race is a social construct. Humans share approximately 99.9% of their genetic code with one another.

Somewhat reluctantly, there is a thread of truth in what was said, amongst the...political diatribe I guess.

Using basketball as the example, because it's the sports I know best, things like arm length and hand span are impactful. And broad genetic groupings align with the social construct you're referring to.

Whilst not quite right, a simple example is that the 'average' South-East Asian has a smaller handspan and shorter arms expressed as a ratio of their height than an 'average' African American.

These are things actively measured at the professional level of basketball.

It says nothing about whether an individual is better at basketball than another, and there was a bunch of other bollocks in the post. But I just wanted to be accurate.

All-age relationship between arm span and height in different ethnic groups

 

[lewisnotmiller]

I've nothing to add...just wait'n see.

Completely fair, and thanks for the contribution. Selfishly I've been pleasantly surprised at the good faith discussion that's been had.

Answers are tricky and not coming from an RF thread.

 

[Stevicus]

Not quite like them, I think. But sports is a major thing in the part of Australia I live in (Melbourne) and it's not uncommon to hear people here referring to Melbourne as the sporting capital of the world (hyperbollically, but with an element of pride/truth).

That no doubt seems strange to those unfamiliar with Melbourne.
Australian Open tennis - Melbourne.
Formula One Grand Prix - Melbourne.
Boxing Day Cricket Test - Melbourne.
Moto Gp - Melbourne.
AFL Grand Final - Melbourne (I know...not international. But a 100,000 attendee showcase of our sport)

The largest junior basketball tournament in the world (as mentioned) - Melbourne.

Majority of the Aussie NBA players over the years have been Victorians.
Meh...there's lots more. Suffice to say, sports is huge here.

I suppose the Super Bowl is pretty much the primary sporting event in America, although the New Year's Day college bowl games are also a big deal. Same for the Final Four or the World Series.

I live in a college town but a relatively minor league city, so we don't have much in terms of big sporting events. Our college basketball team has contended well, usually making the NCAA playoffs and one year winning the Final Four. Phoenix has some major league teams - although it's gotten a lot more expensive than I recall it being when I was a kid.

That behaviour is anti-social, ridiculous, and somehow excused or expected.
Our grand final has 100,000 people at it, with supporters all mixed in together, and is VERY passionately followed. We don't have these issues, or the hooliganism soccer has suffered from sometimes.

(Of course there is bad behaviour on occassion with any crowd that large...I'm talking about accepted or systemic bad behaviour)

11 of the 18 AFL teams are based in Melbourne or nearby Geelong. So going to the game with mates who followed the other team was completely normal, as was going to games where you didn't follow either team. We are parochial, but what you're describing is anti-social.

Most people tend to be well-behaved, but we do have our share of anti-social maniacs.

But I can understand the jubilation that can occur.

I do recall a time when I was a kid, living in upstate NY at the time and rooting for our local minor league hockey team. (If you've ever seen the movie Slap Shot, it was the league upon which the movie was loosely based.) There was a playoff game and a lot of people were pessimistic and thought they were going to be eliminated. So, half of the arena was empty, so there weren't as many fans there as there usually would be. It was almost kind of surreal, since it was a playoff game after all. Anyway, not only did the hometown team win, but it was a shutout - completely unexpected, yet the fans (including myself) went wild. No one was violent or anything; no real damage to speak of, but the whole place was complete bedlam - and probably the loudest anyone ever remembered it being - and still only half full of fans. It was just a minor league game that no one else in the world even cared about - and it probably didn't mean that much in the grand scheme of things (worse still, they ended up losing in the semifinals anyway). But that particular moment, being there with all those fans and feeling all the energy and excitement, it still remains quite a memory for me.

But sometimes it wasn't always that peaceful. Sometimes when fans get rowdy, they do some pretty uncool things, like throw things on the ice (or court or playing field, whichever the case may be).

 

[lewisnotmiller]

I think the proposal in the article would work for most cases. It's not perfect but life is not perfect.

But I've read somewhere that flexibility-based sports are different. Women are inherently more flexible and I've read that advantage persists over trans women. So the situation might be different for gymnastics. Trans women would retain strength but perhaps cis women have the edge on flexibility so that might be an exception.

Does anyone know if my thought about gymnastics has been tested?

I think your broad point is interesting. Gymnastics is a tricky example because of the difference in elements that the two genders competes in. But in theory (and probably practise, just struggling to think of an example) this could work in either direction in terms of being problematic.

And even the 'solution' loosely discussed in the OP doesn't help female to male transgender people, who are oft-forgotten in all this.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

Who has placed 6th, but was 1st in the "non-trans" classification?
I don't believe that your scenario or anything similar exists.

Not 6th, but third multiple times..

Behind the national battle over who's considered a woman in sports

 

[lewisnotmiller]

As I tell people, based on my own observations, it would be unfair for me to compete against women but there is absolutely no way in hell I could compete in the men's league.

Yup...and this is an inherent flaw is this whole discussion. I'm at a loss how we can fairly allow competition for transgender athletes who want to do more than 'just' play.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

I think you actually could agree with the "could go
unnoticed" scenario being overwhelmingly common.

Yes, I do agree.
I have a non-binary player in the basketball team I coach. They're moderately tall too, stands around 5'7" at 13/14 years old.

There is no way for other teams to know whether they were born male or female. They're a good player, but not great. Whilst tall, they're not very physical. To be honest they're a little too nice to ever be a great player...lol

Have had some minor things pop up I had never dealt with before (including a mid season name change, etc) and it's not even a minor issue to most kids that age. (Teammates didn't even blink)

So...long story short ..you're correct in many cases, and I'd hate for kids like this to be lost to the sport regardless of their birth gender.

 

[Revoltingest]

Not 6th, but third multiple times..

Behind the national battle over who's considered a woman in sports

From the link...
Connecticut is one of 18 states, along with the District of Columbia, to allow high school transgender athletes to compete in accordance with their gender identity rather than their sex assigned at birth, and without requiring medical or legal intervention in the form of hormone replacement therapy (HRT), surgery and/or birth certificate amendments.

It appears that they might not have transitioned.
Identification as female, with the intent of transitioning,
but not yet having done so appears unreasonable.

 

[Augustus]

As I tell people, based on my own observations, it would be unfair for me to compete against women but there is absolutely no way in hell I could compete in the men's league.

There are many levels of the sport though, so it is likely that someone who was quite good pre-transition could still play the sport at a lower level.

It's not ideal, but, ethically there is a big difference between taking on a risk yourself, and subjecting others to increased risk, and this is what the organisers had to account for.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

There are many levels of the sport though, so it is likely that someone who was quite good pre-transition could still play the sport at a lower level.

That itself would just depend on the contest. In more conventional sports the biology of males gives them an advantage in may areas. But in ren fair/larp combat, where different skills help I found with a long sword I was on par with a guy who was a Marine and he trained with a guild or whatever the SCA has. Amd we were both same age, both in our 30s but far better than those in their teens and 20s. For me it's very much about speed and years of whacking people and getting whacked with sticks, pvc pipes, toy swords or whatever else of the right approximate shape and size that became reflex.
Strength though, I used to have lots of it but I'm in pretty much a middle ground where cis-men can easily lift more than me but I can still lift more than most cis-women.

 

[Augustus]

Is there statistical evidence that trans women who were within a specific percentile of performers pre-transition necessarily become elite athletes upon transitioning?

It's very difficult to study give almost no elite male athletes transition, let alone are studied, and even if they did, they would have the incentive to underperform in any tests.

Lia Thomas went from being a top 600 US male swimmer, to possibly the greatest young female swimmer of all time.

That is someone whose sporting potential was probably to be a good regional amateur, with a new potential of being one of the best of all time, possibly even the best.

That's not an incremental change, but sub-elite to uber-elite.

A US Air Force study on transgender servicewomen found transwomen were on average about 9% faster than other women which would is a massive difference in high level sport

I think the notion that trans women must perform within the same brackets in men's and women's sports in order to be considered to have no unfair advantage may be unrealistic. A trans woman who was, say, within the top 200 in a men's competition and then jumped to the top 100 in a women's competition wouldn't be ruining the latter any more than, say, Kenyan runners or Egyptian squash players "ruin" the competition by being consistently better than most of their peers at their respective sports.

The jump is not so small.

Sometimes a picture can be worth a thousand words though: Laurel Hubbard's, who was a very good, but not elite, weightlifter pre-transition, performance versus other women in her age class.

This goes back to my above points, but beyond that, the subject is still being researched as we speak. We don't have enough conclusive evidence to rule out all trans women in women's sports as having an unfair advantage.

My personal opinions:

1. We do not start assuming both outcomes are equally likely. The default assumption is that undergoing male puberty will give advantages to transwomen unless demonstrated otherwise.
2. Scientific studies consistently show significant advantage remains
3. There are real-world competition examples of non-elite male athletes becoming elite female athletes after transitioning further illustrating that this advantage remains. These are far more important than any scientific study as these are often severely limited (see next 2 points)
4. While there is no data to show this afaik, with PEDs certain people respond far more strongly than others to the same drugs. It is likely that people will therefore respond differently to performance limiting drugs with them having a much stronger effect on some than others. For elite sport the average may be unimportant, just those who lose the least after transitioning
5. Studies on non-elite athletes are often not even reliable for elite athletes. I'm reminded of a peer-reviewed study that suggested EPO doesn't give any performance advantages leading to some idiot scientist claiming Lance Armstrong lost his TDFs for nothing. EPO obviously worked and we have unequivocal real world data to show this (not to mention the anecdotal evidence from dozens of people who took it while measuring their performance in the most minute detail).

I think @Revoltingest's posts here have largely been pretty reasonable because they seem to me focused on data and evidence rather than mere intuition or personal views from watching sports. A person could be a lifelong sport enthusiast and still not know enough about the medical and scientific studies based on which a sporting body could make robust policies for competitions--and at the end of the day, said studies matter the most in this case.

The reasons it's a bad idea don't really relate to the data though, they relate to the spectacle and sporting factors. This is why I say the bad ideas always come from people who don't watch sports.

They are the kind of thing that might be a good idea "in theory", but not in practice as they impact the competition, devalue women's sport and damage the spectacle (and thus funding model) and aren't even remotely workable in team sports or knockout format sports.

 

[Augustus]

That itself would just depend on the contest. In more conventional sports the biology of males gives them an advantage in may areas. But in ren fair/larp combat, where different skills help I found with a long sword I was on par with a guy who was a Marine and he trained with a guild or whatever the SCA has. Amd we were both same age, both in our 30s but far better than those in their teens and 20s. For me it's very much about speed and years of whacking people and getting whacked with sticks, pvc pipes, toy swords or whatever else of the right approximate shape and size that became reflex.
Strength though, I used to have lots of it but I'm in pretty much a middle ground where cis-men can easily lift more than me but I can still lift more than most cis-women.

A point I heard recently which I found quite interesting, but have no idea what the answer is, was to do with the reasons for performance decline. It was 'something that could be studied' rather than something backed with evidence either way.

It is assumed that the longer someone receives hormonal treatment the greater the decline, but it is possible that (an unknown) part of the initial decline is caused by side-effects of the treatment reducing the ability of people to maintain a very rigorous training regime. As such, some percentage of the decline may be recoverable later when side-effects decrease.

Do you have any views on how plausible that is?

 

[Secret Chief]

Somewhat reluctantly, there is a thread of truth in what was said, amongst the...political diatribe I guess.

Using basketball as the example, because it's the sports I know best, things like arm length and hand span are impactful. And broad genetic groupings align with the social construct you're referring to.

Whilst not quite right, a simple example is that the 'average' South-East Asian has a smaller handspan and shorter arms expressed as a ratio of their height than an 'average' African American.

These are things actively measured at the professional level of basketball.

It says nothing about whether an individual is better at basketball than another, and there was a bunch of other bollocks in the post. But I just wanted to be accurate.

All-age relationship between arm span and height in different ethnic groups

Clines.
The DNA stat equates to "genetic" (the term used by the poster).

"there was a bunch of other bollocks in the post" -
That's the kind of good faith discussion I aspire to.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

It's very difficult to study give almost no elite male athletes transition, let alone are studied, and even if they did, they would have the incentive to underperform in any tests.

Lia Thomas went from being a top 600 US male swimmer, to possibly the greatest young female swimmer of all time.

That is someone whose sporting potential was probably to be a good regional amateur, with a new potential of being one of the best of all time, possibly even the best.

That's not an incremental change, but sub-elite to uber-elite.

A US Air Force study on transgender servicewomen found transwomen were on average about 9% faster than other women which would is a massive difference in high level sport



The jump is not so small.

Sometimes a picture can be worth a thousand words though: Laurel Hubbard's, who was a very good, but not elite, weightlifter pre-transition, performance versus other women in her age class.

My personal opinions:

1. We do not start assuming both outcomes are equally likely. The default assumption is that undergoing male puberty will give advantages to transwomen unless demonstrated otherwise.
2. Scientific studies consistently show significant advantage remains
3. There are real-world competition examples of non-elite male athletes becoming elite female athletes after transitioning further illustrating that this advantage remains. These are far more important than any scientific study as these are often severely limited (see next 2 points)
4. While there is no data to show this afaik, with PEDs certain people respond far more strongly than others to the same drugs. It is likely that people will therefore respond differently to performance limiting drugs with them having a much stronger effect on some than others. For elite sport the average may be unimportant, just those who lose the least after transitioning
5. Studies on non-elite athletes are often not even reliable for elite athletes. I'm reminded of a peer-reviewed study that suggested EPO doesn't give any performance advantages leading to some idiot scientist claiming Lance Armstrong lost his TDFs for nothing. EPO obviously worked and we have unequivocal real world data to show this (not to mention the anecdotal evidence from dozens of people who took it while measuring their performance in the most minute detail).




The reasons it's a bad idea don't really relate to the data though, they relate to the spectacle and sporting factors. This is why I say the bad ideas always come from people who don't watch sports.

They are the kind of thing that might be a good idea "in theory", but not in practice as they impact the competition, devalue women's sport and damage the spectacle (and thus funding model) and aren't even remotely workable in team sports or knockout format sports.

Not that I'm surprised, but thankyou for disagreeing with people in a calm fashion and by explaining your position. I haven't responded to your posts because I've largely agreed with them.

On this issue, at least, I also agree with some of the counterpoints raised, because I think there is no perfect answer.

 

[Fool]

I think the point here is to make it 'open' rather than 'mens', and let anyone compete regardless of anything.

But still have reserved female competitions where entrance is limited where sports-appropriate by criteria set for that sport.

the problem, in my opinion, is the body type and it isn't that unusual for female athletes to play in male sports. men transitioning to women, or trans women have a larger musculoskeletal frame than their bio female counterparts. women transitioning to trans male would build more muscle because of the testosterone as part of their therapy

 

[lewisnotmiller]

the problem, in my opinion, is the body type and it isn't that unusual for female athletes to play in male sports. men transitioning to women, or trans women have a larger musculoskeletal frame than their bio female counterparts. women transitioning to trans male would build more muscle because of the testosterone as part of their therapy

Well...I think it's much more situational than that. For example, I'm a basketball coach...the advantages inherent to a male are around explosive leaping, sure, but height is a major factor.

Athletically fluid 6'6" men are much more common than fluid 6'6" women.

So even assuming a guy lost the explosive leaping,after transitioning you get a fluid 6'6" women who has grown up playing on a wing....

The whole 'muscle mass' argument, or other similar ones, are still quite situationally specific even discounting some of their issues around measurement, or the impact on existing (female) players, etc.