Veronica Ivy on The Daily Show on natural testosterone level having no competitive advantage

testy wrote:

1) I’m not sure which study or sample “those cis women” refers to, but the Sonksen et al study I was referring to is not about high fT in cis women but rather that some of the low fT men dip into women’s average ranges.

2) For androgen resistant women, yes. Otherwise I believe the correlative truth of the claim depends both on sex and the sport, eg see Bermon-Garnier 2017 as well as Sonksen et al 2018. Which is why IAAF weirdly has different rules for 400, 800 from sprints and distance events. Bermon thinks it matters for 400/800 and some other sports for women. For men as well, some of the data is counterintuitive, while some is as expected.

3) I agree. Ivy happens to argue against fT restrictions for trans women. I think that peer reviewed data driven evidence in each sport should determine whether the restriction is warranted to maintain fairness for cis as well as trans women.

Just Another Hobby Jogger wrote:

testy wrote:

1) I’m not sure which study or sample “those cis women” refers to, but the Sonksen et al study I was referring to is not about high fT in cis women but rather that some of the low fT men dip into women’s average ranges.

2) For androgen resistant women, yes. Otherwise I believe the correlative truth of the claim depends both on sex and the sport, eg see Bermon-Garnier 2017 as well as Sonksen et al 2018. Which is why IAAF weirdly has different rules for 400, 800 from sprints and distance events. Bermon thinks it matters for 400/800 and some other sports for women. For men as well, some of the data is counterintuitive, while some is as expected.

3) I agree. Ivy happens to argue against fT restrictions for trans women. I think that peer reviewed data driven evidence in each sport should determine whether the restriction is warranted to maintain fairness for cis as well as trans women.

By "women with high natural t-level" I was referring to those with PCOS. They don't have any advantage in athletic competitions. So the fact that they have high t-level cannot be used as evidence that higher t-level does not give transwomen advantage over cis women. But the same argument can be made about people with AIS. Unless a transwoman also had androgen insensitivity, the fact that some people with AIS are eligible in women's competition is irrelevant.

And I also think men with low testosterone level is irrelevant in this discussion. The question is whether people with higher t-level than in the normal women's range have advantage over those women (with normal range). It is not whether some people with t-level lower than normal male range can compete with men.

RunRagged wrote:

testy wrote:

More pointless lecture blathering on things most people know from high school biology. Natal means at time of birth. You inspect a child’s gonads or sex organs at the time of birth to assign sex. There is no implication that testes or ovaries magically got created at the instant of birth. That’s silly. Pages of text on that is unnecessary.

Some people go through surgeries or hormonal therapy to change what they were born with, so “natal” refers to your (not mine) seeming obsession with what one was born as.

Nobody "assigns" sex though. When a baby is born, the people present examine her or him and if the birth happens in a medical setting or with medical personnel present, the sex is recorded in medical records. But most of the time if the mother has had standard prenatal care, the sex will have been noted much earlier based on a prenatal sonogram done in the 2nd trimester - and increasingly by genetic testing through means such as the NIPT and CVS.

Also, it's not like the only time kids' genitals are closely examined by parents and HCPs. Between diapering and bathing, and then toilet training, parents and caregivers see and touch the the genitals of babies, toddlers and little kids all the time. We become very aware of changes and anomalies in the genitals and urinary anatomy of our children.

At some point after a child is born - the timing depends on the country and jurisdiction - the mother or parents will also register the child's birth with the appropriate government office and apply for a birth certificate - and at that time the DOB, parentage and sex of the child will become part of official records.

However, birth registration is not yet a universal norm. Lots of places in Africa still have very low rates of birth registration during childhood. When Caster Semenya was born, it was the longstanding custom for blacks in South Africa not to register their kids births with the government, so pretty much all black kids grew up without BCs. When Francine Niyonsaba was born and grew up, nobody in Burundi got BCs for their kids because Niyonsaba was born as Burundi began a bloody 13-year long civil war that left it without any functioning govt administrative offices. Also, in Burundi during Niyonsaba's childhood, lots of people pretended their sons were daughters to keep them from being forced to become boy soldiers.

Some people go through surgeries orhormonal therapy to change what they were born with, so “natal” refers to your (not mine) seeming obsession with what one was born as.

Yeah, so? Getting surgeries and taking hormones doesn't change anyone's sex - nor does it undo or turn the clock back on all the development and life experiences that went before. If Caitlyn Jenner were to get Jenner's testes removed, it wouldn't change the fact that as Bruce, Jenner won the 1976 Olympic decathlon, starred in Wheaties TV commercials and sired a bunch of kids with at least three different women.

If you were aware of health care norms and customs amongst the adult female population, you'd know that a huge proportion of women will end up having our uterus and/or ovaries and Fallopian tubes surgically removed - and many women have HRT for this reason and due to natural menopause. An average of 600,000 women in the US have hysterectomies each year; by the time we reach 65, more than one-third of us will. At least 20 million women over 45 have had hysterectomy - almost all after having children.

But no one claims that women who developed gynecological issues and thus no longer have the repro organs we were born with have changed sex - or that removal of women's ovaries, F tubes and uteruses somehow negates and erases all the periods, pregnancies, miscarriages, labors, childbirths, sexual harassment, sex discrimination, maternity discrimination etc or any of the other distinctly female experiences that came over the course of their lives as girls and women before.

Joe Jackson wrote:

testy wrote:

My definition of a clear gap is no overlap in empirical distribution of performance-predictive physiological metrics, as also in Sonksen et al paper. Please state your mathematical definition if you have one crisply enough defined to be discussion worthy.

When high school boys regularly run faster than women’s world records I consider that to be a clear gap in performance between the sexes.

No overlap at all is a bogus definition. The top elites amongst the same sex are separated by fractions of a percentage point. The top female and top male are separated by >10% for a given event. That’s two orders of magnitude difference. That’s way more than enough, mathematically, for me to consider them separated significantly.

I guess that’s two definitions.

Question: how ‘unfair’ will it be for you when you start getting beat by high school boys whilst competing against elite females all of are assigned to your ‘current performance’ category?

testy wrote:

Joe Jackson wrote:

When high school boys regularly run faster than women’s world records I consider that to be a clear gap in performance between the sexes.

No overlap at all is a bogus definition. The top elites amongst the same sex are separated by fractions of a percentage point. The top female and top male are separated by >10% for a given event. That’s two orders of magnitude difference. That’s way more than enough, mathematically, for me to consider them separated significantly.

I guess that’s two definitions.

Question: how ‘unfair’ will it be for you when you start getting beat by high school boys whilst competing against elite females all of are assigned to your ‘current performance’ category?

You keep going back to the “sky is blue”argument of the ~10% performance difference between elite cis men and women that is universally acknowledged. We don’t disagree on that. So you might as well not keep saying that to make whatever point you are trying to make.

testy wrote:

RunRagged wrote:

Nobody "assigns" sex though. When a baby is born, the people present examine her or him and if the birth happens in a medical setting or with medical personnel present, the sex is recorded in medical records. But most of the time if the mother has had standard prenatal care, the sex will have been noted much earlier based on a prenatal sonogram done in the 2nd trimester - and increasingly by genetic testing through means such as the NIPT and CVS.

Also, it's not like the only time kids' genitals are closely examined by parents and HCPs. Between diapering and bathing, and then toilet training, parents and caregivers see and touch the the genitals of babies, toddlers and little kids all the time. We become very aware of changes and anomalies in the genitals and urinary anatomy of our children.

At some point after a child is born - the timing depends on the country and jurisdiction - the mother or parents will also register the child's birth with the appropriate government office and apply for a birth certificate - and at that time the DOB, parentage and sex of the child will become part of official records.

However, birth registration is not yet a universal norm. Lots of places in Africa still have very low rates of birth registration during childhood. When Caster Semenya was born, it was the longstanding custom for blacks in South Africa not to register their kids births with the government, so pretty much all black kids grew up without BCs. When Francine Niyonsaba was born and grew up, nobody in Burundi got BCs for their kids because Niyonsaba was born as Burundi began a bloody 13-year long civil war that left it without any functioning govt administrative offices. Also, in Burundi during Niyonsaba's childhood, lots of people pretended their sons were daughters to keep them from being forced to become boy soldiers.

Some people go through surgeries orhormonal therapy to change what they were born with, so “natal” refers to your (not mine) seeming obsession with what one was born as.

Yeah, so? Getting surgeries and taking hormones doesn't change anyone's sex - nor does it undo or turn the clock back on all the development and life experiences that went before. If Caitlyn Jenner were to get Jenner's testes removed, it wouldn't change the fact that as Bruce, Jenner won the 1976 Olympic decathlon, starred in Wheaties TV commercials and sired a bunch of kids with at least three different women.

If you were aware of health care norms and customs amongst the adult female population, you'd know that a huge proportion of women will end up having our uterus and/or ovaries and Fallopian tubes surgically removed - and many women have HRT for this reason and due to natural menopause. An average of 600,000 women in the US have hysterectomies each year; by the time we reach 65, more than one-third of us will. At least 20 million women over 45 have had hysterectomy - almost all after having children.

But no one claims that women who developed gynecological issues and thus no longer have the repro organs we were born with have changed sex - or that removal of women's ovaries, F tubes and uteruses somehow negates and erases all the periods, pregnancies, miscarriages, labors, childbirths, sexual harassment, sex discrimination, maternity discrimination etc or any of the other distinctly female experiences that came over the course of their lives as girls and women before.

Does not meet explicit discussion guidelines provided. Subject seems to lack commonsensical natural language interpretation ability and ability to control impulse to launch into grade school knowledge mongering substantively irrelevant to issues.

testy wrote:

Just Another Hobby Jogger wrote:

By "women with high natural t-level" I was referring to those with PCOS. They don't have any advantage in athletic competitions. So the fact that they have high t-level cannot be used as evidence that higher t-level does not give transwomen advantage over cis women. But the same argument can be made about people with AIS. Unless a transwoman also had androgen insensitivity, the fact that some people with AIS are eligible in women's competition is irrelevant.

And I also think men with low testosterone level is irrelevant in this discussion. The question is whether people with higher t-level than in the normal women's range have advantage over those women (with normal range). It is not whether some people with t-level lower than normal male range can compete with men.

Agree with both of the above and didn’t say anything to the contrary.

RunRagged wrote:

Adding to my post above about the CAS's paradoxical decision in the Semenya case:

The underlying, unstated reason for the CAS's seemingly-contradictory decision in the Semenya case appears to be a longstanding belief amongst sports policy makers, sports law experts and jurists is that when it comes to XY DSD athletes like Chand and Semenya, it's better to err on the side of caution out of kindness and respect for XY DSD athletes.

Ever since the Maria Jose Patino Martinez case in the late 1980s, the IAAF and other male-run sports governing bodies including the IOC - and the CAS - have bent over backwards not to make the lives of XY DSD athletes any more difficult than they've already been. For good and admirable reason, they've not wanted to be in any way unfair to a group of people who constitute a teeny-tiny minority of the world's population and who historically have been horribly mistreated simply because they were born with physical conditions that set them apart from the norm.

In recent years, mostly male sports policy-makers have extended the same kinds of sympathy and respect they've shown to XY DSD athletes like Martinez Patino, Chand and Semenya to another group who used to be very small in number: adult males who wish they were female. Seeing transwomen as another teeny- tiny minority group who've historically often been treated unkindly and sometimes unfairly, especially by other males, policy-makers as well as many others eagerly adopted the position summed up by Joe Biden when in 2012 he began publicly saying, "trans rights are the civil rights issue of our time." Reflecting this view, sports policy makes decided to take a super-accommodating and placating stance to males like Joanna Harper, Veronica Ivy, Laurel Hubbard, CeCe Telfer, Lia Thomas et al by deciding in recent years to put in place rules that made it very easy for a large number of males who say they "identify as" women to start muscling in on women's sports.

Unfortunately, the solicitous stance that sports policy-makers have adopted regarding XY DSD athletes and normally-developed male athletes with opposite-sex gender identities has caused them to come up with policies and practices that have been blatantly unfair to female athletes. Those proclaiming that "trans rights are the civil rights issue of our time" didn't notice - or didn't care - that in many areas, there are clear conflicts between what's being demanded in the name of "trans rights" and the rights of female people, and the rights of other marginalized groups (such as people with language processing difficulties, memory problems, dementia, and Muslims and orthodox Jews).

Moreover, the blatantly unfair policies put in place to accommodate males who want in on female sports have been dispiriting, demoralizing and rage-inducing for girls and women looking on. Large numbers of women and girls have been crushed and outraged to see how officials, journalists, activists and others who claim they "progressive" and "on the right side of history" have bent over backwards to be kind to male athletes like Lia Thomas, Telfer and Ivy and to "respect their pronouns" whilst at the same time saying the female athletes forced to compete against athletes like Thomas, Telfer and Ivy - and to share their locker rooms with them - should suck it up and shut up, or else be derided as transphobes and subject to abuse and sanctions.

But with the Semenya decision in 2019 - and more recently with the revised policies announced by orgs like World Rugby, FINA, UCI and British Triathlon, and the position of UK Sports Councils and the UK government officials - the pendulum in some circles is starting to swing the other way. Fairness for female athletes is finally beginning to be restored in some sports at least at the elite levels.

I know this is not what you and people like Veronica Ivy want to hear, testy - but too bad and tough noogies.

Like Boris Johnson recently said when announcing his resignation as PM of the UK, "them's the breaks." Or as us mums tell toddlers when they keep throwing their toys out of their prams or making a din by banging their spoons against their highchairs and wailing at the top of their lungs, "that's how the teething cookie crumbles."