For what it’s worth those states don’t totally ban trans from sports. Just from competing in their chosen gender identity. Show me proof of a state that allows trans girls to compete only by HRT mandate.
People must stop saying there is no scientific evidence that trans woman have an advantage.
(BTW, it's usually people without a scientific background who say that)
Ross Tucker, a sport scientist with a special interest in this topic, says there are at least 13 studies that show that male advantage is retained even after testosteron suppression. Some posters have posted some of those studies.
There are no, I repeat NO studies that show that the male advantage is obliterated by testosteron suppression.
How many of those 13 studies involve trans females who started medical transition at or before the onset of puberty?
People must stop saying there is no scientific evidence that trans woman have an advantage.
(BTW, it's usually people without a scientific background who say that)
Ross Tucker, a sport scientist with a special interest in this topic, says there are at least 13 studies that show that male advantage is retained even after testosteron suppression. Some posters have posted some of those studies.
There are no, I repeat NO studies that show that the male advantage is obliterated by testosteron suppression.
How many of those 13 studies involve trans females who started medical transition at or before the onset of puberty?
All of them involve MTF transitioning after puberty.
For what it’s worth those states don’t totally ban trans from sports. Just from competing in their chosen gender identity. Show me proof of a state that allows trans girls to compete only by HRT mandate.
You shouldn't believe me, or him, or any individual. You should research a subject (not by watching cat videos on youtube) by reading from a spectrum of sources and use the information that you find to develop an informed viewpoint. Even articles like the OP can illuminate parts of the debate. Sometimes that viewpoint can be 'there's not enough evidence to decide'. Sometimes you can find things that challenge your viewpoint. Sometimes you can find things that solidify it.
Right. We should not trust NIH, CDC or FDA on the safety of covid vaccine. We should do our own research to determine its safety. But I didn't have the expertise in epidemiology or the budget to conduct my own research. So I only read the results of other people's research before taking my shots.
It's the same here. I don't have the expertise to conduct my own research. And I don't have resources to do that, either. The only thing I can do is to read other people's research. And when I read them, I pay attention to the author's expertise as well as where it was published.
The NIH, CDC, and FDA are not individuals. They are collections of individuals who ostensibly are tasked with presenting the most correct interpretation of the research. By delocalizing this from an individual to a group you can reduce bias. Secondly, if NIH/CDC/FDA/the preponderance of research and experts show that the vaccine is safe and effective then it takes remarkable evidence to counter that.
There is value to reading the actual study, even if you can't interpret everything perfectly. Especially for something like retained advantage, it's not that complicated to read what the study protocol was and what the results are.
Solid journalism, in my opinion. More research is needed.
Of course men are faster and stronger than women. However, they are talking about trans women, not men, competing against cisgender women. There is a huge difference between the physical capabilities of men versus trans women. (I'm referring to trans women who have been on HRT for at least 1 or 2 years--not trans women who simply "identify" as women--which, imo, is nonsense.) The limited research out there--on middle distance/distance running, at least, seems to indicate that if you were a B+ male runner, then you'll be a B+ trans women runner.
The science is unabiguous and the research is not limited, especially for how small of a population there is to sample. Anytime a study has been performed it has shown a retained advantage for males on HRT for any length of time, and the only viable way to exclude that advantage is pre-pubescent HRT.
You're kind of arguing a 'God-of-the-gaps' thing here.
Like sure, MTF has a retained advantage in strength, but what about running?
Ok, MTF are faster runners, but what about endurance running specifically?
Ok, they're faster endurace runners, but what about middle distance?
Ok, they're faster middle distance, but what about steeplechase?
Did you read study #3? The results are kind of amazing. Check out Figure 2.
"Results Participants were 26.2 years old (SD 5.5). Prior to gender affirming hormones, transwomen performed 31% more push-ups and 15% more sit-ups in 1 min and ran 1.5 miles 21% faster than their female counterparts. After 2 years of taking feminising hormones, the push-up and sit-up differences disappeared but transwomen were still 12% faster. Prior to gender affirming hormones, transmen performed 43% fewer push-ups and ran 1.5 miles 15% slower than their male counterparts. After 1 year of taking masculinising hormones, there was no longer a difference in push-ups or run times, and the number of sit-ups performed in 1 min by transmen exceeded the average performance of their male counterparts."
After a couple of years of hormone therapy, transmen OUTPERFORM males! Who would have expected that result?
As for the transwomen, there is a clear and marked decline in performance, with pushups and situps falling to or below the female baseline, but running staying above the female baseline. The caveats would be these are all adults well post puberty when they started hormones and the degree of testosterone suppression is not documented, but unlikely be close to the new WA standard for most of the participants. So to argue NO differences remain after hormones is not realistic, but to argue the magnitude of the difference, depending on the timing of the suppression and the degree of suppression, is not well established. Right?
The professor from UW was not arguing that there is no difference, just that the magnitude of the difference is not known depending on these factors and the data are scant and also there is a SEPARATE social justice argument, one that could be argued either way depending on your position. Even in the face of acknowledged physiological difference, some will decide that the social justice argument is more important and takes precedence, while others do not, or think the social justice argument goes against inclusion. These are the prevailing arguments on these LRC threads.
Bottom line, I do not think there are many on these threads are having their minds changed by anything anybody else has to say on the topic on LRC. I'd be interested in hearing from somebody who has changed their minds, and why.
There’s no trick. Scientists generally speak carefully with integrity, not to intentionally mislead. What he said is little different from what the reporter said. The rest is personal bias.
Ok, sure. So since he said that then it's true? That's a logical fallacy called 'appeal to authority". Do you believe that men have an athletic advantage over women? Because both this and his statement can be true. But clearly the intention of his statement is to mislead.
It’s more nuanced than a binary true/false claim, but what he as well as the reporter said is defensible is all. Of course it’s an appeal to authority as I already made clear earlier (though that’s not an example of a “logical fallacy”). We disagree on his intent.
The NIH, CDC, and FDA are not individuals. They are collections of individuals who ostensibly are tasked with presenting the most correct interpretation of the research. By delocalizing this from an individual to a group you can reduce bias. Secondly, if NIH/CDC/FDA/the preponderance of research and experts show that the vaccine is safe and effective then it takes remarkable evidence to counter that.
There is value to reading the actual study, even if you can't interpret everything perfectly. Especially for something like retained advantage, it's not that complicated to read what the study protocol was and what the results are.
I can agree with pretty much everything above, but there is much more to interpretation than the nuanced part. I have no trouble scrutinizing scientific studies, but it still takes time and is not comparable to the depth at which someone conducting research on the topic can absorb it. Even doctoral students or early-career researchers don’t typically absorb papers at the same level of scrutiny as more experienced researchers.
The point is, there are very few studies on the relative performance decline of taking T blockers because there are so few athletes taking T blockers.
It's not about if they have an advantage, it's about how can we accurately quantify the advantage so to make good policy decisions.
ding ding ding! This. Skip the articles provocitive title. We still know very little about the effect of XX athletes taking T and XY athletes taking T blockers. We know that performance declines in XY athletes after taking years of T blockers and performance improves in XX athletes when they take T, but by how much.
Intuitively it seems unlikey that the drugs would make up for, entirely, going through puberty with or without T, but there may be other sideaffects of these drugs that have confounding affects.
Wrong! They aren’t great male athletes (except maybe Caitlin Jenner). But most are exceptional as female athletes Lia Thomas, Renee Richards, Connecticut kids, Cece Telfer, etc. One can instantly be transformed from middle of the road to a national title contender overnight.
You have heard about those people because they won something important. You don't hear about trans athletes who are totally unremarkable after transition.
For example, look at the mediocre statistics of this Juco volleyball player. .175 hitting percentage and 0.45 blocks per set as a middle blocker.
There are other athletes like that in both college and HS. You would never hear about most of them.
Hmmm, crap male volleyball player puts on a bra and panties and is now a crap trans female volleyball player. Still a cheat and likely taking some female's spot.
All of them involve MTF transitioning after puberty.
So is there any study on MTF who started transition at or before the onset of puberty?
You know the answer already: it's no. Which raises the question: why not?
As I've said on other threads, given that the kids put on "puberty blockers" and cross-sex hormones to effect "gender transition" starting when they are 9, 10, 11, 12 are undergoing still-experimental medical interventions for which they all have to see medical doctors regularly, it seems strange that no protocols are in place requiring that on a regular basis these kids get comprehensive physical checkups including full lab and metabolic workups; imaging to track their bone, heart and lung development; and tests like spirometry in order to
1) make sure they are in good physical health in all respects;
2) find out and record in real time exactly and in detail how the still-experimental drug regimens these children and adolescents are on actually affect their growth and development;
3) identify and document any unintended, unanticipated negative effects that the "puberty blockers" and cross-sex hormones they're on might be having on their health and development;
4) take action ASAP to stop, mitigate, remedy or at least provide counseling for, the unintended, unanticipated negative effects of the drugs these kids are on - if, that is, it turns out there are any;
5) gather incontrovertible, dispassionate scientific evidence which proves or at least substantiates that "early medical transition" really does, in fact, change these young people's bodies in all the extraordinary ways that advocates of early "medical transition" like Just Another Hobby Jogger constantly claim.
But AFAICT, none of the kids now on or previously on these novel, still experimental drug regimens undergo or have undergone regularly-scheduled, rigourous medical monitoring, testing and follow-up to document the full range of what these drugs actually do - and don't do - to developing young bodies.
Until there is actual scientific evidence showing beyond a doubt that young males put on puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to effect "early transition" are physically just like females in all the ways that are relevant to sport, I am going to remain skeptical.
I had an amazing conversation with Chatgpt about it. While I couldn't get it to admit that trans had an advantage over females, I could get it to admit that if there was an ingredient in food that caused illness or death as often as trans win races or break records, that ingredient could be considered a dangerous ingredient. Absolutely 100% true story...
List all the things that Chat GPT believes
Men can have babies
There is a gender pay gap and it is not linked to numbers of hours worked, danger associated with job, level of obsession to increase salary…
We live in a patriarchal society with systemic oppression
A woman could run faster than the winner of the men 100m at the Olympics…
In terms of terrible media coverage, I really loved this article in Bicycling about how British Cycling has banned M2F transgender athletes from women's cycling.
It's hard to imagine how it could be more biased. Start with the subtitle: " THE NEW RULING HAS ALREADY BEEN CALLED A “VIOLENT ACT” BY SOME"
Most of the article focuses on a M2F athlete who must now race bikes in the open category: "She added that, “a lot of people will think I’m being dramatic, or overplaying how scary things are…it terrifies me to exist at the moment, I have friends getting hate crimed all the time…it is literally a fight for survival for me and my family.”"
Cycling is one of the most sexist sports out there, and the intrusion of transathletes has been further diminishing the limited opportunities out there for women. I'm really happy the Brits made a good choice and disgusted by the US coverage.
Did you read study #3? The results are kind of amazing. Check out Figure 2.
"Results Participants were 26.2 years old (SD 5.5).
Prior to gender affirming hormones, transmen performed 43% fewer push-ups and ran 1.5 miles 15% slower than their male counterparts. After 1 year of taking masculinising hormones, there was no longer a difference in push-ups or run times, and the number of sit-ups performed in 1 min by transmen exceeded the average performance of their male counterparts."
After a couple of years of hormone therapy, transmen OUTPERFORM males! Who would have expected that result?
To be accurate: The females on T in that Air Force study outperformed their male counterparts in only one measure: the number of sit-ups performed in 1 minute.
As to the question - "Who would have expected that result?" - my answer is: Anyone who knows about female and male core strength and capacity.
Although males have much more upper body muscle mass and strength overall, situps are one area where the two sexes perform in pretty close range to one another, and where many fit women can outdo men. This is true even for fit women not on T.
IIRC, records for the US President's Physical Fitness Test/Challenge going back to the the 1950s show that in tasks that require abdominal/core strength and flexibility - such as situps and cross-body reaches - girls perform as well as or slightly better than boys. But from the earliest ages, boys outperform girls in all other tasks in the POTUS program and other standard kinds of fitness testing - running, jumping, kicking, throwing, pushups, pull-ups, hanging from a bar by one arm, climbing a rope, using the arms to help hoist the whole body up to clear a fence or get out of a pool.
It is incredible how people whose only expertise appears to be in "gender studies" seem to utterly humiliate themselves by opining on sport. The most common one I have seen is failing to understand when comparing male/female performances is not knowing that in the power events such as shot, javelin and hammer, the weights of the equipment is very different between the male and female competition.
So is there any study on MTF who started transition at or before the onset of puberty?
You know the answer already: it's no. Which raises the question: why not?
As I've said on other threads, given that the kids put on "puberty blockers" and cross-sex hormones to effect "gender transition" starting when they are 9, 10, 11, 12 are undergoing still-experimental medical interventions for which they all have to see medical doctors regularly, it seems strange that no protocols are in place requiring that on a regular basis these kids get comprehensive physical checkups including full lab and metabolic workups; imaging to track their bone, heart and lung development; and tests like spirometry in order to
1) make sure they are in good physical health in all respects;
2) find out and record in real time exactly and in detail how the still-experimental drug regimens these children and adolescents are on actually affect their growth and development;
3) identify and document any unintended, unanticipated negative effects that the "puberty blockers" and cross-sex hormones they're on might be having on their health and development;
4) take action ASAP to stop, mitigate, remedy or at least provide counseling for, the unintended, unanticipated negative effects of the drugs these kids are on - if, that is, it turns out there are any;
5) gather incontrovertible, dispassionate scientific evidence which proves or at least substantiates that "early medical transition" really does, in fact, change these young people's bodies in all the extraordinary ways that advocates of early "medical transition" like Just Another Hobby Jogger constantly claim.
But AFAICT, none of the kids now on or previously on these novel, still experimental drug regimens undergo or have undergone regularly-scheduled, rigourous medical monitoring, testing and follow-up to document the full range of what these drugs actually do - and don't do - to developing young bodies.
Until there is actual scientific evidence showing beyond a doubt that young males put on puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to effect "early transition" are physically just like females in all the ways that are relevant to sport, I am going to remain skeptical.
I hope this pdf loads, but if not, I'll try to link to it another way. Yes, guidelines are published how to monitor these patients, and of course the treating providers are carefully monitoring these patients or they would be committing malpractice. You are asking for aggregate outcome data, and it would be nice to see more of this published, but saying that "none of the kids are receiving rigorous medical monitoring" is not based in reality. Are you reading their individual medical records? As for the other study, are you not surprised that the trans men at least equal men in terms of push ups and running with hormone therapy, if not exceed them?
No, the pdf did not load. Here is the citation to the guideline anyway. I think the full text is available for free.
Hembree WC, Cohen-Kettenis PT, Gooren L, Hannema SE, Meyer WJ, Murad MH, Rosenthal SM, Safer JD, Tangpricha V, T'Sjoen GG. Endocrine Treatment of Gender-Dysphoric/Gender-Incongruent Persons: An Endocrine Society Clinical Practice Guideline. J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2017 Nov 1;102(11):3869-3903. doi: 10.1210/jc.2017-01658. Erratum in: J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2018 Feb 1;103(2):699. Erratum in: J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2018 Jul 1;103(7):2758-2759. PMID: 28945902.
This post was edited 6 minutes after it was posted.
I don't know much about this topic, except that trans women were authorized to compete internationally in track from 2003 until Coe banned them in 2023. 20 years and I guess people thought they would be dominating. But not one trans woman has even become world class in those 20 years, none have ever won a track medal in world champs, Diamond leagues or Olympics. None have even been good enough to even make it on any teams at the world class level. And in 20 years only 1 trans women has even made it to the running Olympic trials and in 2020 they ran in the marathon trials in the US and was she close to making am Olympic Team, nope she finished 230th in almost a 3 hr marathon (
I've been saying this had never been about trans women because there are no world class trans women runners on earth and never have been. There is a 20 year time period to prove that. That has been a smoke screen and Seb Coe knows it. This has always been about DSD women (
The presence of Namibian teenagers Beatrice Masilingi and Christine Mboma in the Olympic women's 200 metres final weeks after they were banned from the 400m due to excess levels of testosterone has reopened the debate about D...
); they have been the ones who have been competing at the world class level and winning gold medals and breaking world distance records.
Trans women have been the scapegoat because there is a lot of hate about them now so that Coe can stop DSD women like Christine Mboma, Caster Semenya, Francine Niyonsaba and others from winning gold medals. It is interesting that all of these DSD women are black and all from Africa............... Just saying!
Did you read study #3? The results are kind of amazing. Check out Figure 2.
"Results Participants were 26.2 years old (SD 5.5).
Prior to gender affirming hormones, transmen performed 43% fewer push-ups and ran 1.5 miles 15% slower than their male counterparts. After 1 year of taking masculinising hormones, there was no longer a difference in push-ups or run times, and the number of sit-ups performed in 1 min by transmen exceeded the average performance of their male counterparts."
After a couple of years of hormone therapy, transmen OUTPERFORM males! Who would have expected that result?
To be accurate: The females on T in that Air Force study outperformed their male counterparts in only one measure: the number of sit-ups performed in 1 minute.
As to the question - "Who would have expected that result?" - my answer is: Anyone who knows about female and male core strength and capacity.
Although males have much more upper body muscle mass and strength overall, situps are one area where the two sexes perform in pretty close range to one another, and where many fit women can outdo men. This is true even for fit women not on T.
IIRC, records for the US President's Physical Fitness Test/Challenge going back to the the 1950s show that in tasks that require abdominal/core strength and flexibility - such as situps and cross-body reaches - girls perform as well as or slightly better than boys. But from the earliest ages, boys outperform girls in all other tasks in the POTUS program and other standard kinds of fitness testing - running, jumping, kicking, throwing, pushups, pull-ups, hanging from a bar by one arm, climbing a rope, using the arms to help hoist the whole body up to clear a fence or get out of a pool.
This explains why the best female climber is likely as good as your average elite male climber, which is untrue in most sports (flexibility and core strength is very important in climbing, eventhough it is such a strength based sport) thanks for sharing.
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