First transgender athlete June Eastwood to compete in women’s DI XC this fall, has pbs of 1:55/3:50/14:38

Your grammar lesson aside: touché on your other points. :)

RunRagged wrote:

Concentric Hero - Eccentric Zero wrote:

It’s not unprecedented in nature for sex to change.

https://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/animals/photos/animals-can-change-their-gender/frogs

But it is totally unprecedented - and impossible - for mammals to change sex.

And no matter what might be true for the fish, eels, slugs, lizards, frogs, turtles, birds, butterflies and the other non-mammals discussed in that totally irrelevant article, it doesn't apply to humans.

Amongst humans, males start developing huge advantages over females that matter athletically even before birth - and those advantages are not undone when a guy takes cross-sex hormones, grows his hair, changes his name, paints his nails or declares himself female:

https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/other-sports/114327152/even-before-birth-genetic-building-blocks-are-giving-athletes-born-male-a-massive-advantage-over-females

I read the article you posted. It's written in a way to say that if you take the population of males as a whole they have advantages over females as a whole population, which is not groundbreaking, of course.

Let me quote a few things from the article.

"YvD: Do we have enough data on trans athletes to judge whether they compete at an advantage or disadvantage?

AH: No. What we can do however is extrapolate from what we know about male versus female physiology."

So this is a general extrapolation of male versus female physiology, rather than a study of actual real-life people in their respective sports. Meanwhile there was a study of real-life runners posted previously that shows age-graded performances stayed the same among mtf transgenders who transitioned with hormones.

"The sex difference in athletic performance (eg. Running, swimming, jumping) all emerge during puberty associated with the increase in testosterone levels in males. Higher levels of circulating levels of testosterone in a transfemale versus a cis-female will impact on muscle mass and haemoglobin levels, two important physiological parameters influencing athletic performance, because research shows testosterone increases muscle mass and haemoglobin levels in males.

Another consideration is the length of time for lowered testosterone levels before competition. Research shows that hemoglobin levels stabilise after six to 12 months, with individual variation shown. For muscle mass, however, changes can still be occurring up to three years, and again individual variation is evident. Therefore, having a one size fits all rule, set at 12 months, needs further consideration."

I found these two paragraphs interesting. The difference in athletic performance all emerge during puberty with the increase in testosterone levels in males. Then it states higher levels of circulating testosterone in a transfemale would be an advantage, but the whole point here is June would be taking hormones that make her have average testosterone to that of a woman, right? That's my understanding. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Further, it says that hemoglobin levels stabilize after 6-12 months, which is about how long June has been transitioning right? Maybe she still has more muscle mass, but is that really an advantage in distance running? It may well be in some other sports where more mass is helpful, but I see that as an initial disadvantage when it comes to XC if hemoglobin levels have fallen as now she would have to lug more muscle around than her body can really use. It's possible June could be at her slowest within the first year of transitioning and then gain a little endurance back as more muscle atrophied.

Ultimately, we'll find out how much slower June has gotten pretty soon. She may still be the fastest on her team, but she was also the fastest one on her team before transitioning so that wouldn't be unexpected if the two programs performances are relatively similar.

Ultra Runner Chick wrote:

Kevin Hadsell wrote:

Why do you care what other people chose to identify as? How does it impact your personal life in the slightest?

For those of us female athletes here, it certainly does impact our personal lives to allow men to identify and compete as a woman.

And it impacts our own personal lives - and those of our daughters, nieces, grand-daughters, sisters, friends and colleagues - not just in sports practice and competition and on the podium. It's also directly impacting girls and women's personal lives in the most intimate ways in all the locker rooms, showers and overnight sleeping accommodations for "away" events that female athletes now are being forced to share - often against our will and protests - with people with penises and balls who say they "feel female" inside.

And the incursion - some would say invasion and colonization - of males who claim to be females into previously female-only spaces is directly impacting girls and women in many other spheres in life, too. But that's another story...

Kevin Hadsell wrote:

She also does not engage in hormone suppression or estrogen supplement. She was born with outward female Genitalia and it was unbeknownst to her until well into her adult life that she had internal gonads as opposed to ovaries.

Taking a very narrow view of the situation then yes, you are correct, it is an XY male competing against women. But this is more about transgender and someone transitioning from male to female Through the use of hormones.

It will all sort itself out and it won’t be the end of the world. This will all be a faded memory pretty quickly.

That is the part that is left out of all these discussions. I am willing to bet that the CT sprinters (among others) have done very little transitioning (i.e. gender reassignment surgery, hormone suppression). Not supressing they dominate. Compare that to someone who has had their testes removed and have been taking estogen for 12 months, you are going to get some performance changes.

The limited data we have seen is that if you suppress test, performance plummets over time. Caster was a 1:55 runner but a couple years after taking the drugs she was struggling to break 2. Some one actually transitioning is likely to be even slower.

The problem we have right now we have no clue (and to some extent it is a private medical issue) where anyone is when they compete as a transitioning athlete. If you required 1 year of hormone therapy, this would never be an issue.

Please, everyone, we've got to stand up for female athletes, all of us. It doesn't matter if this issue affects us personally or not. Standing up for female athletes is the right thing to do. There is no such thing as a male woman. It doesn't matter how cute or feminine the male looks, what his pronouns are, how long his hair is, if he wears makeup and perfume or takes hormones, or if the male is athletically talented and will dominate or is hopelessly physically inept and will come in last every time. Female sports must be reserved for females only, to ensure the best shot at keeping sports for women and girls fair and safe, and for the dignity of women and girl athletes.

There are far fewer athletic opportunities for females than males. These figures are from a couple of years ago but are fairly recent: In the NCAA, women receive 63,000 fewer athletic opportunities than men, and $183 million less in scholarships. Any male taking any female athletic opportunity away from a female is one too many.

Female sports are for females. The simple fact that a person is male is all it should take to disqualify them from female sports. Bringing hormone levels into the debate is a non-issue; hormones do not make a male into a female. Nothing does. Barring males from participating in female sports is not being disrespectful toward transgender male athletes. It is simply recognizing reality. Female sports are by definition exclusive of males. Again, recognizing the many, many differences between male and females is recognizing reality, not being hateful, cruel or closed-minded.

Just because transgender male-to-female people are mentally fragile, at risk of suicide, or are facing difficult personal situations doesn't mean women should be expected to step aside and give up their athletic dreams so that transgender males might feel better, whether females are giving to males their places on a sports team, on the sports field, on the podium or even just on the bench. Transgender males can try out for male teams or work to form open divisions, change men's divisions to open divisions, or start trans divisions. Working to create female sports divisions is what women did when women were told there was no need for female sports or room in sports for them. A person's sad story or risk of suicide should never influence whether or not they deserve a spot on a sports team. There is no circumstance in which a male is owed a spot in female sports. Because of the physical disadvantage females have compared to males, and the much lower number of opportunities, and because there is no such thing as a male woman, female sports must be reserved for females only.

Expecting female athletes to boycott is a wonderful fantasy and would make a great scene in a movie, but the reality is that female athletes are being told by coaches and sporting institutions that any sign of being a "bad sport" will result in them being benched or removed from the team. This is why all of us, male and female, current and former athletes, coaches, parents, fans, spectators, sponsors -- everyone -- must stand up for female athletes and speak out about how unfair and wrong the male colonization of female sports is.

Ok.

A few points.

1) People who compare her to CeCe are making a bad comparsion. CeCe was a minimally committed athlete before the transition. Unless June was the same, you'd expect a bigger dropoff in performance assuming they are on the same meds.

2) I watched the local tv / news preview.

So many things to say about it. I actually enjoyed it as a human interest story. It must be very hard to be June or her mom. But to those who say she gets only criticism from her decision, this is proof she gets much more than just that. She's now being featured regularly on the local TV news. She has 200+ posts on LRC. In the year 2019, publicity is a thing and she has it.

I didn't like it when the coach said something along the lines of "If she's works hard, she'll do great things this year."

That's not necessarily true. It depends on how much she lowers her T. If she flushes the pills down the toilet in the month before NCAAs, I'll almost guarantee she'd win it.

3) A transgender expert said in running the pros and cons of transitioning about even themselves out.

That may be true but so what?. I mean I was talking to a female friend of mine about MTF athletes as she was outraged by it. I told her about the T rules for pros and she went off about all the areas that aren't in T. I pointed out that it really varies by sport. I mean being bigger in running (without the T) isn't helpful as you are so much heavier but being 7 feet tall in basketball sure helps. That's why the rules are impossible. There is no way to perfectly hit all the factors. It would vary so much by sport, it would be impossible to get it right. Yes, it "may" be about even if they lower their levels per Joanna Harpers recommendations but we will never know for sure. And why if you were 2nd in the world for men should you have a corresponding right to be as good for women? I'd say no.

There is no human right to play college or pro or HS sports. Tons of HSers get cut every year.

The reality is the NCAA's drug testing is so lax it would be impossible to enforce a really well designed rule anyway. I mean Semenya won TWO olympic titles as an intersex athlete on treatment and the IAAF has implied she cycled off her meds.

Lol so many negatives, way too drunk too follow

NCAA is a bunch of cowards. They are allowing what is called "legalized cheating". A male who competes as a female.

Do not call June a female. He is a male and no amount of surgery or drugs can change that.

What do all the parents say about this? I would be outraged.

This thread has gotten a lot of responses.

I like the title.

A storm is coming.

When's it really going to come?

I think women will begin to boycott races. That would make the NCAA re-evaluate transgendered athletes.

So does this fella shower with the women or does he use the men's locker room?

“Tolerance” is only extended to those who share the same worldview as the person or group. It’s actually extremely intolerant to tell all non-trans women that they just need to chill out and accept that their entire athletic careers and the work involved is basically meaningless.

Do the trans thing, whatever, but being tolerant to June means being intolerant of all biological females. June made a choice to become female while the others had no choice in the matter. June is imposing his/her worldview and decision upon every single other female runner out there whether they like it or not - how is that tolerant?

magggie wrote:

Female sports are for females. The simple fact that a person is male is all it should take to disqualify them from female sports.

So if she is female legally, it is ok to compete? Or does it also have to follow whatever rules you make up for what the definition of "female" is.

A female/male is defined by your chromosomes XX/XY. Now there are some exceptional cases.

And as for Mr. June. He will always be male since it is not scientifically possible to change your chromosomes.

Comprende?

Thank you for posting some articles by the wonderful Antonia Lee! I'm going to post the Fair Play talk given last month in London by Emma Hilton - aka "Dr FondOfBeetles" from Twitter - momentarily.

Your stats about athletic opportunities are misleading. There are 81,000 football players with no comparable sport on the women's side. Football generates most of the sports revenue for colleges so it's hard to argue that it's existence is unfair to women.

Concentric Hero - Eccentric Zero wrote:

the whole point here is June would be taking hormones that make her have average testosterone to that of a woman, right? That's my understanding. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Turns out, in a male with healthy testicles it's actually quite hard to suppress testosterone to "make her have average testosterone to that of a woman" on a reliable, consistent basis - or at all. Even on both estrogen and a potent androgen blocker.

In an article in Endocrine Practice published last year, trans-medicine specialists at Boston University School of Medicine reported that over the course of 3.5 years, they tracked and regularly tested the T levels of 98 regular MtF clinic patients who were on a combination of estrogen and the powerful androgen-blocker spironolactone. The results:

"Only a quarter of transgender women taking a regimen of spironolactone and estrogens were able to lower testosterone levels within the usual female physiologic range. Another quarter could not achieve female levels but remained below the male range virtually all of the time, while one quarter was unable to achieve any significant suppression."

A 2014 study from SUNY-Albany found that of 82 MtF patients taking high dose estrogen (4-6 mg daily), only 46% were able to "reach sufficient testosterone suppression.' (What 'sufficient" means is not defined.)

Concentric Hero - Eccentric Zero wrote:

So this is a general extrapolation of male versus female physiology, rather than a study of actual real-life people in their respective sports. Meanwhile there was a study of real-life runners posted previously that shows age-graded performances stayed the same among mtf transgenders who transitioned with hormones.

From what I've read and heard from others and looked into myself, the IOC and other sports bodies decided to open up women's sports to males who identify as the opposite sex based solely on a handful of studies comparing the physiology (and to a lesser extent, performance) of MtFs prior to their "transitions" to the same individuals' physiology and performance at some point after their "transitions."

All of these studies focused exclusively on how the bodies and athletic abilities of males changed after they were on cross-sex hormones (CSH). None of the studies included actual females, not even for the sake of having real female bodies to which the MtFs' post-CSH physiology and/or performances could be compared.

So all these studies really tell us is that males taking CSH got slower and fatter than they were before CSH - not how the bodies and athleticism of males on CSH stacked up when compared to real women.

Since this is the case - and since girls and women are being told we must "shut up, buck up, budge up" in order to accommodate the feelings and demands of males with sex/gender identity issues - it seems that high time we finally got around to a discussion - consideration, extrapolation - of male versus female physiology instead of just focusing on the male!

Speaking of which: how weak and puny do MtFs on T suppression get anyway - and how quickly?

It's always presumed and insistently asserted that males lose an appreciable, indeed dramatic, amount of muscle and lean body mass on CSH. But so far, no definitive studies have proven exactly how much muscle mass is lost, which muscles are most and least affected, and so on.

Similarly, none of the studies used by the IOC, NCAA, etc. have shed any light whatsoever onto the topic of precisely how low testosterone must get and exactly for how long in order to have a significant impact on athletic performance and the myriad factors that determine it (if these factors are indeed markedly affected at all).

However, new research suggests the presumed decrease in muscle mass and strength that occurs when males take CSH has been grossly over-estimated. As Ross Tucker said in Saturday's edition of The Times (London), “There is evidence now that when males transition to female and undergo testosterone suppression, they do not lose that much strength.”

Tucker's comments are in "Sport Notebook" by Martyn Ziegler, 23 August, 5:00 pm. My hunch is, he's referring to preliminary findings of a huge research project ongoing at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden that were made public in the spring at EPATH (the European division of WPATH, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health).

The Karolinska researchers are doing what no scientists have done before: actually measuring the changes in muscle strength and mass experienced by both MtFs and FtMs as they begin and continue on with CSH over time. Although the study is small - 12 people, six Mtf and six FtM - the findings so far are dramatic. In the first year on CSH, the researchers report,

Muscle area increased 17% in trans men with an 8% increase in radiology density...No change was seen in trans women... Trans women retain their strength levels as well as cross-sectional area and radiological density throughout the treatment period.

Sorry, Karolinska hasn't emailed their results, preliminary or otherwise yet, so for now all I can share is a screenshot of a brief description of their EPATH presentation from book of abstracts of papers presented at the conference in April:

My intent was not to compare apples to apples. What I'm saying is that overall males have far more opportunities in sports than females; females have far fewer athletic opportunities than males. Taking from what little females have and giving it to males is so wrong, especially when males have so much more opportunity over all.

Males can never become female, and for the sporting world to allow males to falsely redefine themselves as female in order to compete as females (whether fair or not performance-wise) -- it's simply shameful for these men to take valuable spots away from women in athletics.

Males in female athletics is becoming more and more common. We could begin to see girls at the middle school or high school level who might have gotten involved in sports but decide not to bother because they feel it's no use even trying out when they are have to compete for a spot against boys, or maybe girls make it onto an all-girls team, but the teams they go up against have male players and the girls find it incredibly demoralizing to play against these mixed-sex teams when the outcome of the event is known well in advance. It could also happen that really talented girls who could compete against boys and win might drop out of sports because they feel sexually harassed or violated when they have to undress and shower in front of male players. With more and more males being allowed to join female sports, these things might be happening already.

There is no such thing as a male female, a male girl or a male woman. Sports are separated by sex for a reason. If sports institutions added open divisions, or made men's/boys divisions open divisions in which anyone who wanted to could participate, and kept girls/women's divisions for females only, this would be a more fair option than pitting males against females in what is supposed to be female-only sports.

Record-keeping could also start recording MTF and FTM times and statistics rather than allowing males to knock out female records. Since males Yearwood and Miller started competing as females in Connecticut high school girls' track, the two of them have collectively won 15 women’s state championship titles which were previously held by ten different

Connecticut girls. This is only the beginning. Hormone treatment or not, it's simply not right.