FINA Bans Lia Thomas and Trans Women Who Did not Transition Before Age 12 from Competing Against Women

You're not all of a sudden going to have an equal amount of open heats.

Two things may happen instead - one is that the open category is dominated by a few higher level athletes and the rest of it is filler and it slowly builds over time to become more competitive with more heats per meet, etc. (this will take years), or having a seperate open category is the death knell for this. Like if it truly was as suspect as people screaming about it think it is, then the male to female that were getting the physical advantage competing against women become less interested in pursuing this now they lose their advantage and it peters out.

I'm concerned over a quarter of them think it should be any other way.

An open category carveout for trans athletes isn't the way I would have done it.

I would have kept two divisions, and just did a bit of a rename. Open (for what is currently the male division, plus a few extras), and Restricted (for the female division, plus a few extras).

Open for cis men, trans females with fully functional male hormones (or who had a male puberty even if they're now on hormone replacement), etc. Maaaaybe allow a certain subset of trans males that have had male hormone replacement, up to sensible limits of testosterone levels. Though it's tough to imagine them being able to compete with cis males.

Restricted for cis women and trans men with fully functional female hormone levels and no significant amount of male hormone replacement in their history. Maaaybe allow some trans females if they've had a verifiably complete hormone replacment dating from before and all the way through puberty, though I'm not certain about this last group.

Also, maybe there's some room in the restricted division for some of the really rare cases, like XY with angrogen insensitivity. I believe there's one of these competing in track and field on the women's side, from India.

No, you don’t need a full slate of swimming events for the “Trans / DSD / Others” division,
at least to start. One event in each stroke should do it. Swimming is already
overloaded with far too many events. Imagine if track had the 100 meters running,
the 100 running backwards, the 100 hopping, and the 100 skipping. And so on, up
through 200, 400, 800 and 1500 distances.
FINA’s ruling is a step in the right direction. Will Athletics / T&F have the guts to follow? And we need a firm decision on DSD athletes. Not just “we’ll keep you out of certain events if you don’t lower your testosterone.”

You bring up a good point about PAIS.

https:/

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome

Androgen insensitivity syndrome (AIS) is a common etiology of sexual developmental disorders resulting in varying phenotypes. These disorders of androgen action present as 46 XY disorders or differences of sex development (DS...

Link:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK5...

FINA's argument is that male puberty confers an advantage that cannot be mitigated.

It can't ban trans women who transitioned before age 12 with the same argument, because they never experienced male puberty.

They're not going to undermine their own policy.

I don’t believe that this is an Olympic event

I'm a 300lb 1m 95cm bodybuilder. I hereby challenge Bartholomew Maxwell to a boxing match.
I identify as a flyweight, so it's a fair match up, no excuses. Now man up and accept my challenge.

This argument actually supports transathletes competing with their identifying gender.

A 300lbs boxer can literally transition to a lighter weight boxer by losing weight and become a flyweight. They are not banned from competing based on what they USED to be.

Likewise, a male should be able to transition to female, which is something that happens every day in society, and compete as a female. They should not be banned from competing based on what they USED to be.

My understanding is that athletes with PAIS and intact testes can be distinguished from athletes with CAIS and intact testes in at least two ways: 1) through assays that ascertain whether their bodies evince male-typical response to the large amounts of testosterone their testes produce; and 2) through genetic testing.

From what I have read and been told by experts in the field, CAIS is caused by any one of a number of different mutations of the gene on the X chromosome that controls the androgen receptors, aka "the AR gene." But in PAIS, these same or similar kinds of AR gene mutations are usually not involved.

In PAIS, the diminishment of the normal male androgen response appears to be caused by more indirect, less straightforward mechanisms and means - many of them complex and at this date obscure and poorly understood. In PAIS, the reason the normal male androgen response is reduced might be because the male ARs (or some of them) are themselves faulty, but not for the same exact genetic reasons seen in CAIS. Or all their ARs themselves might appear to be normal, but other unusual events/processes occur that cause some of their ARs to behave atypically as though the ARs were inherently impaired or defective. Or there might be other complicated processes that end up causing normal male androgen response to be muted/partially shut off without involving the ARs themselves.

Because CAIS can be definitely diagnosed through both hormone assays and genetic testing, the existing diagnostic procedures make it possible to clearly separate out those with CAIS from those with PAIS. Thus, thorough medical evaluation of athletes, and/or examination of their medical records, enables medical experts working with/for sports governing bodies like FINA and the IAAF easily to distinguish athletes with PAIS from athletes with CAIS. Significantly, in the legal proceedings brought against Indian sports authorities and the IAAF, Indian athlete Dutee Chand Chand did not dispute the diagnosis given by the physicians in India who determined that Chand has an XY DSD that is widely presumed to be PAIS. (The specific medical information about Chand was redacted from the court decision, hence the "presumed" part there.)

BTW, if the case of former Spanish hurdler Maria Jose Martinez Patino is any indication, quite a few people with CAIS would bridle at being lumped in with, and in any way likened to, those with PAIS. Martinez Patino, who supposedly has CAIS, testified against Chand in Chand's legal case challenging rules of the Indian sports federation that aimed to exclude XY athletes with PAIS and other disorders of male sex development from women's sport altogether and also the rules of the IAAF allowing XY DSD athletes to compete in women's events but only if they lower their natural T levels.

But the new FINA rules make the amount of male-typical androgen response of XY athletes with PAIS like Chand totally beside the point by requiring that all athletes in elite swimming undergo mandatory sex chromosome testing, and by stating very clearly that the only XY DSD athletes allowed to participate in women's competition are those proven to have CAIS.

Athletes with all other disorders of male sex development, including PAIS, would have to convince FINA that they'd never undergone male puberty of adolescence at all, not even partially or for a short amount time. As part of making their case, XY DSD athletes with disorders of male sex development other than CAIS would also have to provide proof that since turning 12, none of them have ever had testosterone levels of 2.5 nmol/L or up and also that none of them have the physical ability to respond to the natural testosterone their testes make as males typically do.

This is a standard that can't be met by anyone XY with a disorder of male sex development other than CAIS who grew up with their testes intact. The only non-CAIS XY DSD persons who could meet this standard would be those who had their testes surgically removed in childhood prior to puberty of adolescence. All XY DSD adults and older teens with testes intact will have had T levels higher than 2.5 nmol/L since starting adolescence; and all the XY DSD competing in women's athletics today and in recent decades are known to have T levels considerably higher than that. Moreover, except for those with CAIS, all XY DSD persons with their testes intact will have grown up physically responding to the testosterone their testes make in ways that have "androgenized" their bodies and given them the kinds of physical advantages in sports that males without DSDs possess. Which is why it's grossly unfair for them to compete against female people in sport.

Rather begging the point. Those arguing against trans athletes in women's sport aren't evil meanies who just can't accept that trans athletes are women. It's the fact that trans athletes clearly do retain physical advantages after transitioning. If heavyweights moving down to fly weight somehow retained advantages, then there would have to be another form of weight class system to redress it. And it wouldn't be 'prejudice' against heavyweights or former heavys identifying as flyweights.

can we stop with the cis rubbish now then please?

we have perfectly good terms; male, female, trans.

Gender is anything. Biology is the issue, not gender.

You are commenting on gender. Which makes sense. This is an issue of biology, which is why we have a womens category in the first place. So your analogy doesnt apply. Its a protected class. It wasnt meant for gender.

Absolutely wrong. They didn't used to be "male." They are still male biologically. The fact that we engage in a bit of legal fiction, doesn't change what every cell in their body is. They were born male, and if their graves are dug up a hundred years from now, they'll still be male.

They are men identifying as women, whether because of dysphoria or fetishes. It doesn't matter. They are free to live how they want to live, but they will never be biological women.

How is any of this going to be confirmed? Who is administering chromosome tests to 12-year-olds?

There will be fall out from this if the rules are applied consistently. Sport is full of androgenous women and many will find out they are XY with an androgen insensitivity syndrome and will be barred because their parents didn't record their T levels when they were in middle school.

When an 11.5 year transitions everyone will whine that it is too early. When they win an Olympic medal, people will still complain...

You should really read the whole thread. I posted the relevant passages from the new FINA policy yesterday. Another poster and I both provided links to the FINA policy document.

To repeat, the new FINA policy says:

a.All athletes must certify their chromosomal sex with their Member Federation in order to be eligible for FINA competitions. Failure to do so, or provision of a false certification, will render the athlete ineligible.
b. Member Federations must confirm their athletes’ certifications of chromosomal sex when registering their athletes to compete in FINA competitions.
c. FINA reserves the right to include a chromosomal sex screen in its antidoping protocol to confirm such certification.

I dunno for certain if this means swimming sports federations and FINA are going to be "administering chromosome tests to 12-year-olds," because I am not sure what age brackets the FINA rules apply to. But FINA does holds junior world championships where the competitors are teenagers at least as young as 14. So presumably national swimming federations will be testing the sex chromosomes of kids with elite potential as they come up the ranks.

Why does the prospect of this bother you? Sex chromosome testing and other forms of DNA testing are done all the time both in utero and long after birth for many, many legitimate purposes. Such as forensics, to establish paternity and other familial connections, for medical diagnosis, to counsel and prepare prospective parents, to trace ancestry and determine ethnicity. It's not a big deal.

I've personally had testing of my own DNA done several times - lots of people have. Because of my family history and my own genetics, early on in my pregnancies with my own children I had CVS so their fetal DNA could be screened too - and that was decades ago. Nowadays, the widely-available NIPT means sex chromosome and other genetic testing of human fetuses is commonly done from 9 weeks of pregnancy on using blood drawn from pregnant women's arms or fingers in standard ways.

Also, I think if you women generally, and female athletes with a good understanding of why the female category of sport was established in the first place, you'd find that very few are squeamish about the idea of sex chromosome testing - and this holds true for androgynous and butch women as much as for women who are stereotypically feminine in appearance and affect.

If you polled female athletes, I suspect you'd find that many support returning to use of mandatory sex chromosome and SRY gene testing as a way of insuring that athletes with male anatomy and physiology and male physical advantage be kept out of female sports. FINA polled its own athletes before deciding on its new policy, and other sports orgs are doing the same.

Earlier this year, the Cyclistes Professionnels Associés (CPA), which represents athletes in men’s and women’s professional cycling, sought the opinions of its female members before making representations to cycling’s governing body, the UCI, about trans inclusions policies. More than 92 percent of female cyclists in the CPA said they are against allowing trans athletes who are male to compete in women’s events.

thetimes.co.uk

Nine-tenths of female cyclists don’t want to race against trans women, according to survey

Ellie McDonald

More than 90 per cent of professional female cyclists are against the inclusion of transgender athletes in women’s races, according to a survey by a riders’ uni

Link:www.thetimes.co.uk/article/nine-tenths...

Significantly, the last time the IOC required mandatory sex testing for all athletes seeking eligibility in female competition - at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta - the overwhelming majority (88%) of athletes tested said they had no problem with the testing, and 82% said they thought such testing should continue.

As to your contention that "There will be fall out from this if the rules are applied consistently" - what's wrong with the rules governing eligibility for female sports being applied consistently?

The whole reason women's and girls' sports have ended up with so many athletes with male sports advantage like Caster Semenya and Lia Thomas making a mockery of fair competition is because sports policy makers decided to stop applying rules consistently. It's because sports policy makers - almost all of whom were men - held backroom meetings under the radar in which they decided to open up female sports competition to two groups of males who in the past few decades began to demand very loudly and insistently that they be granted special privileges that no other males get - namely male athletes born with a wide variety of disorders of male sex development, and normally-developed male athletes who claim to have an opposite-sex gender identity.

Not good.

They are encouraging pre pubescent kids to mess with their natural development