People would be "calling her a man" – Transgender cycling champ in online row with Olympic swimmer Sharron Davies

Since Rachel McKinnon is 'technically' in a different category, how about awarding two golds, one to the winning female born a female and one to the winning transgender athlete?....with silver and bronze awarded accordingly....in the record books Rachel's gold could have a little 'T' to denote the difference. It circumvents what many would see as an unresolvable issue.

Think how handy it would be if you were a mediocre male athlete, of any discipline, if you were to suddenly decide you were really a 'woman'! You don't have to have actual gender dysphoria to 'identify as a woman' these days. all you have to do is make the statement. Yes, you will have to undergo some 'treatment' to reduce testosterone levels to compete, but as someone who had hormone therapy associated with radiotherapy for prostate cancer to do just that, I can safely say  that it didn't completely eradicate all my hard earned strangth & muscles. And this despite having had surgery for a fractured hip at the same time!

Underlying it all - are we at risk of killing-off women's sport because they can't compete against transgender athletes?

Maybe there should be a third category ...

I'm sorry some of you, but to have a guy compete on womens sports should be outlawed, it's unfair for the women to have a man always beating them.  What some of this boils down to is that the man can't beat a man in men sports, so he decides he could win if claims to be a transgender person and beat women.  All of those pictures that other comments showed they all show a man not a woman standing next to other women, the size difference is readily apparent.  I don't care about the blah blah science, a man, or a woman, needs to compete in the proper gender sport based on what male or female parts they were born with unenhanced by drugs, thus if they were born with male parts then they compete against men.  Nothing else needs to be added into the equation.

And the poster that said "The IOC decided in 2003 that trans people did not have an unfair advantage", is not true, this is all fake science and fake news to appease the transgender crowd.  Read this:  https://www.wnd.com/2017/03/female-athletes-crushed-by-women-who-were-on...

I have a trans friend - transitioned male to female in her 20s. Competes in female sport. She's around 5 foot 3 and probably 10st - in terms of height and weight she's no different to how she was before she transitioned. Male born to female transitioned athletes don't all benefit from a physical advantage - she certainly doesn't there are "bigger" women in her chosen sport - not least because in some cases such as hers there is a wide degree in variation of "maleness".

smaryka wrote:

Rachel McKinnon argues elsewhere that there should be no limit on testosterone for transgender women, as it harms her health to have to take testosterone-reducing drugs and isn't fair on her to have to do that to compete.

And if this is true then feeling like a lady is the only requirement for competing in Womens sport then there is still hope for David Walliams to win an olympic gold.

Some facts to help form opinions:

Prior to 2015, the IOC only allowed transgendered athletes who had had full sex reassignment surgery take part.  Now all that's required is keeping testosterone below 10nmol/L for one year (women). 

Men have no restrictions except for not going higher than allowable testosterone levels which are not specifically laid out in the WADA document but presumably are monitored on an individual basis.  How they decide what amount is right or too much is unclear, except to say that "FtM athletes require hormonal treatment with testosterone, for which there is no non-prohibited alternative."

https://www.wada-ama.org/sites/default/files/resources/files/wada-tpg-me...

Chris Mosier (successful triathlete, born female, transitioned post-puberty to become a man) takes exogenous testosterone.  This is a banned substance in biological male athletes, of course. 

Rachel McKinnon argues elsewhere that there should be no limit on testosterone for transgender women, as it harms her health to have to take testosterone-reducing drugs and isn't fair on her to have to do that to compete.

I think there is a ridiculous entitlement in believing you should be allowed to compete after transitioning. I think male athletes who take testosterone illegally should be banned for life. It's just one of those things, but women who used to be men fall unfortunately fall into that same category of having the advantage of loads of male hormones. They cannot compete fairly, and to insist that they should under threat of the "transphobic" label is preposterous. The argument that some women naturally are outliers, bigger and stronger than a lot of transgender women is just stupid. And Rachel McKinnon's "ooh, aren't I more feminine than big manly Sharon Davies?" strikes me as just plain spiteful and nasty.

You don't have to be transphobic to believe trans women shouldn't compete in a women's category.

I'm amazed no one has used this yet.

STAN: I want to be a woman. From now on, I want you all to call me 'Loretta'.

REG: What?!

LORETTA: It's my right as a man.

JUDITH: Well, why do you want to be Loretta, Stan?

LORETTA: I want to have babies.

REG: You want to have babies?!

LORETTA: It's every man's right to have babies if he wants them.

REG: But... you can't have babies.

LORETTA: Don't you oppress me.

REG: I'm not oppressing you, Stan. You haven't got a womb! Where's the foetus going to gestate?! You going to keep it in a box?!

LORETTA: crying

JUDITH: Here! I-- I've got an idea. Suppose you agree that he can't actually have babies, not having a womb, which is nobody's fault, not even the Romans', but that he can have the right to have babies.

FRANCIS: Good idea, Judith. We shall fight the oppressors for your right to have babies, brother. Sister. Sorry.

REG: What's the point?

FRANCIS: What?

REG: What's the point of fighting for his right to have babies when he can't have babies?!

FRANCIS: It is symbolic of our struggle against oppression.

REG: Symbolic of his struggle against reality.

Bmblbzzz wrote:

Shades wrote:

In this equality, diversity and fairness world if you apply something to a particular situation, in this case transgender equality in sport, eventually you run headlong into another policy; in this case transgender equality runs straight into clean-sport/cheating.  Could you put a transgender category into the Para-Olympics?  Labelling transgender as a disability?  Can you imagine the 'sh#t-storm'?

It's not specific to gender issues or even to an "equality, diversity and fairness world". It's simply that justice and equality occasionally conflict. 

I'd go further.  In my opinion this row, and the similar rows that crop up over who competes with who in the paraolympics, are symptoms of the fact that there's a contradiction at the centre of the whole issue.  Sport is intrisically 'unfair'.  It's never a level playing field.

Inventing sub-categories of competition doesn't go very far to solving that, as there are vast numbers of disadvantages and advantages that don't get covered by those categories (the paraolympics only covers a very narrow range of disabilities that can be easily defined and claimed to be able to compete with each other within those defined categories, you can easily have a disability, or chronic illness, that is not severe enough for the paraolympics but will still ensure you are unlikelly to ever be a high-level competitor in mainstream sport)

Now you could argue that _nothing_ is ever strictly 'fair', that no activity is really a level-playing field.  Which is perfectly true, but things other than sport don't really pretend to be entirely about 'fair competition'.

  Other areas in which people compete on unequal terms (e.g. the job market or the arts) are different because the competition isn't the sole point of the activity.  Everyone can recognise it's not a level playing field, but the competition that there is, is unavoidable, it's not artificially-created.

  Sport runs into the biggest problems because it has no other purpose than determining 'the winner'. 

That's why I find arguments like this, or about doping, or about how male and female tennis champions should be paid, to be kind-of irritating, because it's an argument about a problem that is inherent to the nature of the activity.  You can't resolve it without throwing out the whole business of serious competitive sport and admitting that it's based on a bit of a lie - that the winner is somehow 'the best' in some objective sense, that who wins is down solely to their efforts and intrinsic virtues.

  Yet those who engage in the argument usually will never countenance doing that, so the argument can never ever be resolved.  It just goes on, back-and-forth, forever.

Almost nobody ever agrees with me, admittedly, but I maintain that 'sport' should just be for fun and exercise, and should never involve money and status and glory or any sort of serious stakes.

Take the time to read through this: https://medium.com/@transphilosophr/why-its-fair-for-trans-athletes-to-c...

Hot take:

...And besides, trans women have been technically allowed to compete in the Olympics since 2003 and no trans woman has won a medal of any kind (that we know of). Why is that? If you buy into the right-wing narrative, trans women would be jumping at the chance to insert ourselves into woman-only spaces so why hasn’t a trans woman won a gold medal yet?

Maybe because it takes incredible work and dedication to be a world champion athlete. It’s not just something anyone can do. Dr. McKinnon is the first trans world champion but don’t expect that trans women are suddenly going to start dominating all elite sports all of a sudden.

They had the science bit on the Today programme this morning, two experts in the subject discussed it, both professors. Anyway, science says that  if an elite athlete has gone through puberty as a man then they have many advantages that cannot be removed, as Sharon Davies said. Lowering testosterone makes little or no difference, especially as the current required level  for transgender athletes is 10 units whereas women's testosterone level has an upper range of 3. 

(https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0002zzl)  2hours 33 mins in.

First up, this is a complicated subject that won't be fixed on an internet forum. 

Without wanting to dismiss the rights and needs of transgender people, my concern here is the seeming willingness to discredit the concerns, rights and needs, of the vast majority (biological women athletes in this case), to placate the tiny minority.

Women have every right to question the fairness of the situation of letting transgender athletes into regular competition.

Its easy to recite reports saying there is no advantage, however it appears real life experiences may beg to differ. The performances of the woman in question arguably demonstrate just that. 

I don't want to be rude, but I accept this is, but in the podium photo, our champion does not look very athletic. I'm not talking about a bit of extra bark, but more of a fundamental lack of any signs of athletic conditioning. The fact that without this, she still managed to beat her competition, suggests that there may be an advantage somewhere. 

Mitigated by testosterone depletion maybe, but its still there. As she says herself, she is hardly the best rider. 

I believe women athletes have every right to question this, and our sporting bodies have every need to take this situation seriously and establish a way forward that meets both the needs of the majority without excluding the minority... good luck with that. 

First up, this is a complicated subject that won't be fixed on an internet forum. 

Without wanting to dismiss the rights and needs of transgender people, my concern here is the seeming willingness to discredit the concerns, rights and needs, of the vast majority (biological women athletes in this case), to placate the tiny minority.

Women have every right to question the fairness of the situation of letting transgender athletes into regular competition.

Its easy to recite reports saying there is no advantage, however it appears real life experiences may beg to differ. The performances of the woman in question arguably demonstrate just that. 

I don't want to be rude, but I accept this is, but in the podium photo, our champion does not look very athletic. I'm not talking about a bit of extra bark, but more of a fundamental lack of any signs of athletic conditioning. The fact that without this, she still managed to beat her competition, suggests that there may be an advantage somewhere. 

Mitigated by testosterone depletion maybe, but its still there. As she says herself, she is hardly the best rider. 

I believe women athletes have every right to question this, and our sporting bodies have every need to take this situation seriously and establish a way forward that meets both the needs of the majority without excluding the minority... good luck with that. 

Edit. Decided to save my 2p on this tricky issue...

How about we all agree that if you aren't a trans athlete yourself, or a genetics + sport science expert in this particular field, maybe you don't get to comment?

I like to think of cyclists as mostly not being bigoted, and mostly open/inclusive folks. Maybe this is a topic I simply shouldn't read the comments on. 

There was a successful transgender runner not that long ago : 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lauren_Jeska

I've no problem with people changing gender but I do think we need to look further into whether an unfair advantage is given if they choose to compete in sport. 

In everyday life this really is, or at least should be a non issue. How you dress, how you identify, whether you go the whole hog with gender reassignment surgery and hormone therapy, whether you live as male, female, or non specific. It really should not matter and you should not suffer from discrimination for your circumstances.

However, I think it is fair to have the discussion within the confines of elite competitive sport. At least those sports where there are currently specific male and female categories for athletes. At the top level the difference between first and also ran can be ridiculously small. If I were an elite female athlete and made a living from my sport then I'd be pretty pissed if my ability to question the fairness of having transgender competitors was shouted down as being transphobia. I think it is a legitimate concern.

There is no solution to this where everyone will be happy.

1) Everyone has to compete according to their sex at birth, with trans men and women feeling like they have no means to compete at a high level without denying who they feel they are and not really reflective of modern society's movement to culturally accept trans men and women as their identifying gender.

2) Everyone competes as their identifying gender, with high performing trans men likely to come nowhere in atheltic (rather than skill-based) sports, and trans women who went through male puberty handed an unfair advantage, even to the detriment of safety in overtly physical and combat sports (rugby, boxing, judo), over women born as women.

3) Get the scientists involved to measure hormones, determine chromosomal characteristics, treatment history (hormone suppresants or full male puberty etc.), and whatever smorgasbord of characteristics constitutes where we appear on the male-female spectrum for all competitors before lumping each of them into a category a la the paralympics. Way too complicated to trickle down to beginner and intermediate level sports.

This will get worse before it gets better.

In this equality, diversity and fairness world if you apply something to a particular situation, in this case transgender equality in sport, eventually you run headlong into another policy; in this case transgender equality runs straight into clean-sport/cheating.  Could you put a transgender category into the Para-Olympics?  Labelling transgender as a disability?  Can you imagine the 'sh#t-storm'?