UCI bans transgender female cyclists who have transitioned after puberty from competing in international women’s races

Rich_cb wrote:

Does that mean we should scrap the two categories?

Yes

That would certainly be the purest solution but the effect on female participation in sport would probably be quite disastrous.

Step 1 in arguing, from the Left is to accuse anyone who has a different opinion as "trash human" etc.

Step 2 is to claim they are a racist, bully, etc. 

Women were finally getting some decent advances in cycling, with better coverage, prize money, and I'd argue, overall respect.

How do you think they feel now with men dressed as women who come and take all that? 

There are countless examples of trans men crushing women in cycling already. Look up Na Hwa-rin, Austin Killips, Tiffany Thomas, Rachel McKinnon. Surely you know of William Thomas in US college sport, was ranked 462 nd in the world, now calls himself Lia and is now ranked 1 st. 

Hannah Arensman (ironically a real woman) recently quit as s result of a 47 year old Trans man cheating racing in cyclocross against her. 

It's beyond me why anyone would hate women so much, just to signal their own virtue. 

I call transphobes what they are, trash human. That's not really arguing any point. Look at the people Rowling associates with. If you want garbage like Tim Pool and his acolytes speaking for you, I consider you trash.

"William Thomas in US college sport, was ranked 462 nd in the world, now calls himself Lia and is now ranked 1 st. " If you are going to be giving examples then check your facts. Thomas is ranked 46th nationally. Yeah really dominating the sport. Considering that 1% of people are transgender (could be higher, if the world wasn't as transphobic and people didn't come out, the same as homosexuality/bisexuality is "growing"), you'd expect around 1 transgender athlete in the top 100.

Step 1 in arguing, from the Right is to accuse anyone who has a different opinion as "hating women" etc.

Step 2 is to claim they are a racist, bully, etc.

It's beyond me why anyone would hate trans people so much, just to signal their own virtue.

"I guess complete trash humans can be found everywhere"

That's one way of describing men who so hate the idea of women having something of their own that they will literally go to court to try and ruin it, yes. 

Generally, where transwomen competing in actual women's events aren't "steamrollering" the opposition it's because they're not very good or dedicated male athletes. Austen Killop, only took up cycling 3-4 years ago. Laurel Hubbard, 40-odd. Veronica Ivy, a great big lump. They beat women simply by virtue of their male physiology. 

Where you get actual trained athletes, such as the US high school training programmes, male sprinters have declared themselves trans and do steamroller the opposition. 

You talk of discrimination, but transwomen are biologically indistinguishable from all the other men. If they're allowed in women's events, it is discriminatory not to let other men compete too. And then women would never win: female world records in most sports are beatable by good amateur men. 

But I can't help but feel that, deep down, that's really exactly what you want to see. It's just old-fashioned misogyny, gussied up in an ill-fitting new frock. Trash, you might say. 

No. Right wing online transphobes like Tim Pool, Matt Walsh, Steve Crowder, Fox News, and so on, are mouth pieces for right wing politics and the Republican party especially. The same party that just overturned Roe vs Wade (via their partisan judges). Who is the real misogynist? Someone who doesn't want distraction politics by scapegoating all of society's problems on a discriminated minority or someone who is championing the removal of women's rights?

"Right wing online transphobes like Tim Pool, Matt Walsh, Steve Crowder, Fox News, and so on, are mouth pieces for right wing politics and the Republican party especially. The same party that just overturned Roe vs Wade (via their partisan judges). Who is the real misogynist?"

Both. People trying to deny women basic rights over their own bodies, and refusing to allow them meaningful and fair sporting competition just so some men can join in, are both behaving misogynistically. The repeal of Roe is a bigger deal, and I argue against that elsewhere. But, this is a UK-based cycling website and otherwise-sensible people I know seem keen to insist that some men should be allowed to compete in women-only cycling events, so I'm arguing against that here. 

That I have some common ground here with some genuinely awful people (I don't especially know the ones you cite) naturally makes me pause: I don't like it. But, being awful doesn't make everything you believe wrong. At the risk of going full-Godwin, I imagine that most Nazis believed the earth to be round. It remains round nonetheless, and likewise a man is not a woman however much he might wish he was. In most fields, your sex is (or should be) completely irrelevant. In sport, it is directly relevant and important. 

And yet curiously transphobia is much more prevelant on the right. Curious. It's almost as if you are in the wrong here. An "are we the baddies?" moment is required.

"Where you get actual trained athletes, such as the US high school training programmes, male sprinters have declared themselves trans and do steamroller the opposition. " Everyone who defends trans athletes is fine with hormone therapy being required that to diminish the advantage men have. Even the research UCI showed that after 2 years trans women approach cis women in their abilities and they said it is inconclusive whether there is an advantage at all.

"Generally, where transwomen competing in actual women's events aren't "steamrollering" the opposition it's because they're not very good or dedicated male athletes. Austen Killop, only took up cycling 3-4 years ago. Laurel Hubbard, 40-odd. Veronica Ivy, a great big lump. They beat women simply by virtue of their male physiology." I can guarantee that I couldn't beat any of these women even without hormone therapy that would reduce my abilities, so clearly it isn't by sole virtue of that at all.
 

It's preposterous to believe that people would undergo expensive, time consuming, body altering therapy for years just to go up a notch in women's sports when they would probably end up being paid less anyway. Anyone who believes that is ridiculous.

Lycra Lout wrote:

Even the research UCI showed that after 2 years trans women approach cis women in their abilities and they said it is inconclusive whether there is an advantage at all

They lose some of their performance, but not all. Trans-ID MAB end up in an "in-between" place. Lower performing than they'd be without the medication, but still with strength and aerobic advantages.

I have seen no credible research indicating all performance gains from male puberty are lost, and frankly it is physiologically impossible. E.g., they still have higher lean-muscle mass.

And note the one paper that claimed there was little performance difference any more, did so by /normalising/ certain metrics to lean-muscle mass. I.e. by *factoring out* and excluding the benefit there is to trans-MAB of having more muscle, per unit of body mass! (Also, it analysed only some attributes - ignoring others).

Lycra Lout wrote:

It's preposterous to believe that people would undergo expensive, time consuming, body altering therapy for years just to go up a notch in women's sports when they would probably end up being paid less anyway. Anyone who believes that is ridiculous.

We don't need to try divine their motivations. It matters not. What matters is the result. "But someone would never be /motivated/ to change gender to get an advantage!" is yet another diversionary argument - irrelevant. Regardless of motivation, they have an advantage.

But why is this advantage the be-all and end-all? Some women will have higher lean-muscle mass normally. It just makes no sense to specifically single out transwomen when just looking at results from competitions shows their advantage is really not that great. You make it sound like the difference is as wide as an ocean when it really isn't. If it were wide, the UCI could say it exists for definite. This is just some kind of mental block against trans women really, nothing more. The situation does not bear out the reaction.

And their motivations matter when a large number of people use the ridiculous argument that a bunch of men will suddenly claim to be transgender, undergo years of hormone therapy, just because they want to win in a women's event. Stupid scenarios like this rely on the idiotic motivation argument.

Lycra Lout wrote:

But why is this advantage the be-all and end-all? Some women will have higher lean-muscle mass normally.

I've explained why before, because male puberty is very very strongly correlated with a huge increase in strength and aerobic capacity (note that males already have an advantage pre-puberty over females). Because of that correlation AND because sex is very easy to reliably determine for 99.98% of people (inc. trans), we create a category for it.

Same thing for age and, in some sports, weight as categories.

Lycra Lout wrote:

It just makes no sense to specifically single out transwomen when just looking at results from competitions shows their advantage is really not that great.

Testosterone suppression and HRT does indeed reduce their performance. But they still retain an advantage, as you acknowledge: "their advantage is really not that great", i.e. they still have an advantage.

And this is what the better data we have shows: Trans-MAB with treatment have reduced performance to other men, but retain an advantage over women. They are in their own group as a category really.

Because of that advantage, trans-MAB are heavily over-represented on podiums. They are a tiny fraction of the population, yet an unusual number of women's sports podiums have trans-MAB standing on them. (to my anecdotal observations anyway). 1 trans-MAB on a podium is pushing down hundreds or (if at top elite sports level) many thousands of women, and it's just not fair.

I have every sympathy for people living their lives trying to cope with GD. I support them in living their best life in day-to-day things.

But there is simply no human right for someone who was conferred with the performance benefits of male puberty, to use that to push women off podiums in sports categories intended for those without that benefit. It is _unfair_. And frankly it is highly _selfish_ for trans-MABs to do this. It is further ridiculous for people in the trans community to then turn around and call the general population who generally support trans-rights but disagree with that unfairness "terrorists" or "murderers" - and you are losing the room by doing that.

I said looking at the data the benefit can't be that great, but this is at most. It may be nothing. The UCI don't know. A slight potential benefit is not a reason to exclude them from competiting when people unfairly have slight potential benefits (or massive benefits) all the time. It does not justify the increased marginalisation and discrimination that trans people experience, which this is just another example of. And it won't stop at the most elite sports either, let's be real.

The challenge here is that certain people don't seem to be pushing for inclusion and equality, but simply to demonstrate that everyone hates trans people really...

Anyone not wholly / blindly trans supportive is branded as a TERF (or worse), actively participating in a 'genocide against trans people'. 

And the thing is, no matter how supportive people are, there are elements (vocal minority) who just keep moving the goalposts. The moment anyone raises a question, they are then instantly 'terfed'. 

So what's happening now is that normal, generally reasonable people are waking up to the idea that they can't 'win' this one, and rather than keep challenging their own thinking, opening their minds to more inclusive ideas, they are accepting their 'anti-trans' label and accordingly, any further discussion abruptly stops.

Throwing insults doesn't work basically... if everyone is a terf, where's the problem in being a terf?

Fignon's ghost wrote:

Common sense prevails. About bloody time. K What is intersex?

¿Qué  What is "K"?

brooksby wrote:

Fignon's ghost wrote:

Common sense prevails. About bloody time. K What is intersex?

¿Qué  What is "K"?

The letter K usually represents the voiceless velar plosive, or so says Wikipedia. It could've been a slip of the finger, K being "the finger" if you're a touch typist...

I've started a forum thread, if anyone's interested.

Oops, it's gone (but not forgotten).

Don't the Spanish use "k" as an abbreviation of "que" or "qué" in their wasaps and texts?

YEEES! Erm... Sí

Ahem. I know nOOOthing.

I remember having a conversation with Sara Trevelyan about this (look her up if you don't recognise the name). She told me the theory about men with that extra Y chromosome was just that, a theory, and one that psychiatrists don't agree on and that many have discounted. I'll go with her expertise on the topic. 

And another thing. Why do people always defer to acknowledged experts in their field rather than people like me who just look things up on t'internet. Actually I was referring to the XYY man, a TV series from way back starring Stephen Yardley as a cat burglar trying to go straight but is unable to because of this extra chromosome. Quite far fetched really but quite entertaining at the time. So that's that then

I remember that series vaguely.

Car Delenda Est wrote:

Have the gender Nazis said what they'll do about intersex people?

‘Intersex’ people are still male or female. (Same with Nazis, I guess.) Don’t believe me though – look up an actual developmental biologist like Emma Hilton. I bet she’d be happy to give you a proper explanation.

People with DSDs are still otherwise usually physiologically consistent with the phenotypes of the sex they present as.

An interesting exception there would be Caster Semenya, who is physiologically male, but with a DSD, and whose birth cert is female and who identifies as a woman. Though, according to her headmaster, she presented as a boy in school - wore the boys uniform, played sports with boys, and was on the local boys football team ("as the only girl").

You'd argue that Caster is still presenting as a male outside of competition. 

To me Caster looks very much like I'd expect for someone with XY chromosones, yes.

Also, to this day, my understanding is - outside of sport - Caster generally wears more (traditionally) masculine clothes. https://cdn.dnaindia.com/sites/default/files/styles/full/public/2019/05/...