Tulsi Gabbard Introduces Bill to Ban Biological Men From Women’s Sports

If by "intrasex" you mean "intersex," the main issue in sports over the last 25 or so years is that persons with specifically male disorders of sex development (DSDs) have been allowed to be eligible to compete in the female category. Coz in the eyes of male-run sporting bodies and male journalists, any male born with an absent, deformed or micro-penis and/or hidden or internal testes must be female.

You ask "why would a (male) champion runner transition?" Then you say "nobody (male) is transitioning to improve their running career. "

Seems to me, you're asking the wrong question and coming to an erroneous concluslion.

The males who are using "gender identity claims" to horn in on and excel in female sports were not "champions" in the male category of their sports when they decided to claim an opposite-sex identity.

They were either mediocre males who could not cut it - or even make the team - in the male category of their sports, or they were once-excellent male athletes who previously showed great promise but due to injuries and the other vagaries of life failed to deliver once they started competing at higher levels.

HS runners Andraya Yearwood and Terry Miller of CT are the first type of athlete; if competing against their own sex, they would not make the cut.

Cece Telfer and June Eastwood are the second type of athlete. In college/uni, they both failed to live up to the promise they showed as young males in HS. After several disappointing years competing as males in college/uni track, both decided to "transition" - and funny dat, it just so happened this was timed so they could compete in the female category their senior year.

Recently, an 18 year-old male who has been in the UK national cycling program since childhood but earlier this year was dropped from the the roster due to injuries and sub-par performances announced he is "trans" and will now be competing as a female. His times will guarantee him a place on the women's Olympic team. He has been very open his whole life that his only goal in life is to compete in the Olympics. But apparently it's untoward and "transphobic" to think that there might be something suspect about this athlete's motivations.

You say men "who think they are women" are only "transitioning" "because that is how they want to live their life." What on earth does this mean? Why should society - and girls and women - roll over to accommodate guys "who think they are women"? What exactly does "transitioning" mean? Are you acquainted with the principal reasons males claim to be the opposite sex as set out by the experts in this field such as Blanchard, Bailey, Lawrence and Cantor?

It is entirely speculative to suggest that only mediocre male athletes will compete as trans athletes. It is quite possible that trans athletes could include gifted male athletes. Renee Richards, the '70's tennis player, is a case in point. She took tennis up quite late and competed - successfully as a professional - against women in her 30's. She now says that if she had competed a decade earlier no woman would have stood a chance against her.

Intrasex runners were considered to be women so there was no transition was involved; they were not giving a world class career as a guy to run as woman. I believe that they will no longer be able to run without testosterone suppression?

The problem is that for a world class male runner doing so is not practical. They're going to have to sit out for a year and there is no guarantee how competitive they will run as a woman. Yeah, only transphobes will hate them but being booed at meets having high profile people and politicians taking shots at you on Twitter is going to be unpleasant. Waiting until my competitive career was over to transgender would be an easy decision for me. Running 3:55 is a fantastic time and it must be a rush to run that fast. There's no way I would trade that for a 4:25.

They're is no example of your average guy becoming a champion as a female. Eastwood was at almost exactly the same competitive level as a male and as a female. I believe her HS times were consistent with what she did in college. We can't read her mind so we don't know if she expected to become a 1500 NCAA champion as a woman.

The Connecticut sprinters could run without treatment so an average male could be a champion as a female in that scenario but they won't be able to do that as a NCAA or professional athlete. They also weren't eligible for scholarships.

What would be the path for a transgender female to be a champion at the NCAA level? It would probably require a HS boy with 8:50 talent. There are no drug treatments so does he run that time as a male and then risk his scholarship by transgendering in college or as a girl and not receive a scholarship out of HS. Considering that the person has about 60+ years remaining in his/her life, waiting a few years to transition is the easy decision.

In your cyclist example, you say "he" already has the Olympic qualifying. Were those times achieved after testosterone suppression treatments? If not, she hasn't qualified.

You're last paragraph moves away from the discussion of transgender competing against women. I'm not a proponent of MTF athletes competing but it's been settled in court. I'm confident the rules in place will prevent there ever being one competing at a high level of any sport that I care about. It's unlikely a professional female distance runner will ever compete against a transgender female so none will have to rollover to accommodate guys.

SDSU Aztec wrote:

They're is no example of your average guy becoming a champion as a female. Eastwood was at almost exactly the same competitive level as a male and as a female. I believe her HS times were consistent with what she did in college. We can't read her mind so we don't know if she expected to become a 1500 NCAA champion as a woman.

Laurel Hubbard was a mediocre weightlifter as a man (and over the hill as well), and then became a world silver medalist as a woman. No trans athlete was a serious podium threat until Hubbard. But now that we have one, it is clear the current system is not leveling the playing field.

I know you don't care about weightlifting. But IOC does. And if it doesn't work for weightlifting, it may not work for shot put either. A mediocre male shot putter (18-19m guy) could become a world class shot putter as a woman. You may not care about shot put, but World Athletics does. Just because it is not a serious problem in distance running, it does not mean nothing needs to be changed.

And here is another thought. An FTM athlete is not likely to perform at the comparable level after transition. If an All American female transitions to a male, he won't become an All American male athlete. This is essentially a one-way street. So it reduces the opportunity for women at every level. Another runner would have won the Big Sky indoor title if Eastwood had not been there. You may not care about the Big Sky conference championships. but there are people who do.

Your view is not only hurtful to trans people, it's unconstitutional under Bostock v. Clayton County (2020 SCOTUS case) which found that trans people are protected by the 1964 civil rights act. How could a woman displace another woman? A trans woman is no different than what you call a "female" under the law.

Testing for the presence/absence of the Y chromosome is extremely easy and inexpensive.

The basic "23 and me" and Ancestry dna test kits include this.

It's so easy, clear, and incontrovertible:

"If you have a Y Chromosome, you cannot participate in Women's sports."

Although most people have XX or XY, this approach covers any combination of Chromosomes.

Y Chromosome wrote:

Testing for the presence/absence of the Y chromosome is extremely easy and inexpensive.

The basic "23 and me" and Ancestry dna test kits include this.

It's so easy, clear, and incontrovertible:

"If you have a Y Chromosome, you cannot participate in Women's sports."

Although most people have XX or XY, this approach covers any combination of Chromosomes.

Great then we can have all the same debates that lead to dropping chromosome testing in the first place:)

Just Another Hobby Jogger wrote:

Laurel Hubbard was a mediocre weightlifter as a man (and over the hill as well), and then became a world silver medalist as a woman. No trans athlete was a serious podium threat until Hubbard. But now that we have one, it is clear the current system is not leveling the playing field.

.

She is lifting less now than she did as a junior after 20 more years of training. She did 285 (from wikipedia feel free to add in others) while the records is up at 348 so it isn't like she is better than the best woman. The snatch record is up at 148 while she won a medal with 124. I am not convinced she is much better than when she was a national record holder as a junior. But I am guessing that the 90kg+ woman's olympic weightlifting is a pretty shallow talent pool.

Go away.

The whole world doesn't stop to fit the 'different' into the dance.

Live with your stuff. If you are a wallflower, sit in the corner.

Too much thought and resource is going into trying to make .002% of the population feel comfortable. Focus on leaving them to live their lives. If they want to race, race. If you have the man parts or had them, un in men's races. Who cares where you finish? The number of real winners are so few. Just enjoy the race.

And the rest of you mind your own business.

You are right about the lack of depth in women's weightlifting. But the male advantage in performance is much bigger in weightlifting than in running. See figure 1 in the article below. The authors claims that "...given the plausible disadvantages with testosterone suppression mentioned in this section, together with the more marginal male advantage in endurance-based sports, the balance between inclusion and fairness is likely closer to equilibrium in weight-bearing endurance-based sports compared with strength-based sports where the male advantage is still substantial."

They suggest that the current policy is not adequate for strength based sports.

Refresh my memory:

What were the debates about using the presence/absence of the Y Chromosome as the determining factor?

Y Chromosome wrote:

Refresh my memory:

What were the debates about using the presence/absence of the Y Chromosome as the determining factor?

There were no debates, at least not public ones. Buccal swab DNA sex testing of elite athletes in the female category was routine from 1967 through the mid-1990s. But it was dropped by the IAAF and IOC after a number of athletes competing as women were found to have XY sex chromosomes, and many of them said the testing was an invasion of their privacy, a violation of their human rights, and mounted lengthy and costly legal challenges.

So far as I know, no complaints nor legal challenges to sex chromosome testing were lodged by any athletes found to be XX. Nor were athletes in the women's category with XX chromosomes consulted about whether they thought sex chromosome testing should be dropped. The testing was dropped by the male-run sports governing bodies to mollify athletes found to be XY. Which is how the door got opened to allow males with male-only DSDs like Semenya, Wambui and Niyonsaba and males with opposite sex "gender identity" claims to horn in on female sports.

All the female athletes I've spoken to - as well as prominent former elite-level female champions like British Olympic swimmer Sharron Davies - have said they had no problem with mandatory chromosome testing when it was in place - and would not at all object to it returning. After all, the testing is hardly invasive (especially compared to other testing athletes go through for things like doping, and to the standard kinds of internal pelvic exams & other procedures all women experience in routine gynecological care). What's more, getting a DNA sample takes a few seconds, is typically painless, and it only has to be done once in an athlete's lifetime.

Regarding the Y chromosome: accurate sex testing would have to test for the presence of the SRY gene that is key in determining sex. Almost always, the SRY gene is on the Y chromosome, but every once in a while it gets mislocated to an X chromosome in a person with XX chromosomes. But fortunately, with today's technologies, it's very easy to test for the SRY gene using the same sampling methods that other commonly-used DNA tests employ: buccal swab, saliva, or blood.

One of the authors of that paper has done a Cliff's Notes version of it:

No, sports classifications should be based on sex, easy enough. If a few people with developmental defects that lead to gender disphoria (yes, the latest research shows that gender disphoria/transgenderism happens because of sexual mismatch of hormones and phenotypic traits that occurs during development) or intersex traits don't get to participate with others of their gender identity (but still participate, so nobody's being excluded from sports) - tough sh!t, life isn't fair and college sports are not a right. If not, then remove the SEX classifications, because it's not fair for men to steal opportunities from women because people want to be woke and PC. If you remove the sex classifications and unify male/female teams, say goodbye to females participating in college sports, because odds are 99% of female athletes won't be able to make a college team.

So there are your choices - let the SEXES compete with one another, or not have female sports at all.

The IOC, IAAF and NCAA didn't take one of your two choices so there must be a third.

Armstronglivs wrote:

It is entirely speculative to suggest that only mediocre male athletes will compete as trans athletes. It is quite possible that trans athletes could include gifted male athletes. Renee Richards, the '70's tennis player, is a case in point. She took tennis up quite late and competed - successfully as a professional - against women in her 30's. She now says that if she had competed a decade earlier no woman would have stood a chance against her.

I don't think I said only mediocre male athletes will decide to use opposite-sex "gender identity" claims to compete in female sports. I think I said that these athletes tend to fall into two main categories: males who were too mediocre to make it competing against their own sex at all (the two HS runners Miller & Yearwood wouldn't even have qualified to compete as male varsity track athletes in HS); and excellent male athletes in their youth who due to injuries or the vagaries of life failed to live up to their earlier promise in male athletics (Telfer, Eastwood and Hubbard, for example). At least that's why I meant and attempted to say.

However, I was remiss in not mentioning that there are now a number of "trans" athletes who only started competing athletically in various sports after they claimed to be "trans" and saw they had a chance at doing well competing against females.

Megan Youngren, who competed in the US marathon trials earlier this year at age 28, only started running after coming out as "trans" five years earlier. World champion masters track cyclist Rachel McKinnon/Veronica Ivy only took up competitive cycling after becoming "trans" after age 30 - and now at nearly 40 has decided to start competing in women's rugby, a sport McKinnon/Ivy has never previously played. Jaycee Cooper - who competed as a male youth in curling, winning the world juniors and making it to the world (adult) championships - only took up powerlifting more than a decade later at 32, after coming out as "trans" and deciding to compete - and clean up - in the women's category.

Trans activist, unemployed London squatter and anarchist Tara Flik Wolf of the UK only started studying Muay Thai in Thailand and competing against males there after being convicted in British court at age 26 of beating up a 61-year-old woman in an unprovoked, pre-planned 2017 assault in which Wolf set out to "fxxk up some Terfs" - women's rights campaigners - who were meeting to discuss proposed changes to UK legislation that would allow any male to become "legally female" by simply filling out an online form. Wolf enjoyed giving the beat-down to the petite grandmother so much that after the court case, Wolf went to Asia to learn to fight men there with the end goal, Wolf explained to the press, of having "an amateur career fighting women in the UK." Wolf's hero is Fallon Fox, the MMA fighter who broke the skull of Tamika Brents after not revealing to MMA authorities or his female opponent that Fox is a father who came out as trans in his 30s after serving in the US military.

There are many more guys like this out there.

BTW, you are mistaken when you say that Renee Richards "took tennis up quite late and competed - successfully as a professional - against women in her 30's. "

Richards - as Richard Raskin - played tennis competitively in the early 1950s at the prestigious all-boys HS Horace Mann in NYC, where Raskin/Richards was also a star wide receiver on the football team, the pitcher for the baseball team, and a member of the swim team. After Horace Mann, Raskin/Richards attended Yale at a time when Yale only admitted males as undergrads. While there he served as captain of the Yale tennis team & was a top-ranked collegiate tennis player nationally. After medical school, internship and residency, Raskin/Richards joined the US Navy and won both the singles and doubles All Navy Championships. After the Navy, Raskin/Richards continued to play competitive male tennis and was ranked 6th in the US for males over 35.

None of this is top-secret information. The history of Raskin/Richard's stellar male tennis career is all available online.

After marrying a woman and fathering a child, Raskin/Richards "transtioned" in 1975 at age 41. Soon afterwards, Richards began competing in women's tennis under the pseudonym Renee Clark. But other male players and tennis observers who had watched Richard Raskin play as a stand-out male on various circuits in earlier years recognized the new "female" player as having the same distinctive moves and left-hand serve that Richard Raskin had once had. BTW, Richards crushed all amateur female competitors from the start, and when Richards started entering women's professional events, both female competitors and sponsors withdrew in protest.

At the time Richards began playing women's professional tennis, Richards was 43/44 - not "in her 30s" as you say.

wawaweewa wrote:

No, sports classifications should be based on sex, easy enough.

+1

We've been lectured for years about how sex and gender are different. And I get it now! So sports are always separated by sex, not gender. Be whatever gender you want (silly as that concept may be, but whatever), but sex is where the division lies.

Simple. Not sure why we are overthinking this.

Thank You!

I'm not sure what the IOC/IAAF policies are, but the NCAA allows for transgender athletes to compete outside of their assigned-sex, therefore eliminating actual female-only sports and creating two co-ed divisions labeled Male and Female. Maybe the IAAF and IOC haven't succumbed to the lunacy yet. Luckily, high school sporting leagues have people like Tulsi Gabbard protecting the integrity of female sports and the opportunities of young girls.