Western States transgender policy seems to be a good one

not likely wrote:

Doesn't pass the smell test.

If the main performance difference between men and women really was just hormone therapy then the world records wouldn't still be 10-12% apart as they are now. Even doped to the gills the eastern block and Chinese women were not knocking on the door of the men's records.

Exactly. They keep on measuring that facet X is 10-15% different, etc., but it's the total MOSAIC of them all that matters, in the final time.

As a USA example, FloJo couldn't beat Bo in a 100m dash, even when doped up.

rojo wrote:

death of female sports wrote:

... There are skeletal differences that are not changed by hormones ...

I never understand this outcry specifically relating to running

There is no advantage to having extra weight in distance running unless maybe it is muscle weight which you won't find in runners who transitioned but rather the opposite, large loss of muscle from a huge drop in testosterone and other hormones. The fastest distance runners are typically the thinnest and lightest with longest and leanest leg structure.

Male skeleton is 4-8 pounds heavier than female skeleton at the same height/weight (14% vs 10% in studies).

How much slower do you think your marathon time is going to be dragging around 4-8 extra pounds having lost 10-12% of performance?

This whole thing is a non-issue like every other invented "crisis" by people's gut-reaction instead of thinking something out. You just want a minority to abuse.

There is no such thing as an elite transitioned runner. And I am pretty sure we'd also know about sub-elite runners. So there aren't any. None. This is a non-issue. Don't throw in unregulated high school sports to confuse the issue, simply call them out for being unregulated while ever other level of the sport has clear regulations that apparently work.

sub sub elite local hobby jogger wrote:

broken arrow wrote:

You are either a male or female at birth, regardless of what crazy plastic surgery or hormonal therapy you have had.

This is not true at all for a not insignificant percentage of the population and you can easily find information that disproves your claim if you actually were interested in knowing the details.

Too bad for those people. Life's not fair. We don't need to blow up the whole system, any system, to appease extreme minority opinions. Not to mention throwing out common sense, pragmatism, etc.

I've read the policy. It's similar to cycling body policies, such as USA Cycling which is more than a year old and working fine on paper and in the real world. It's the only thing that makes sense from both a human standpoint and a competitive one. If athletes are being tested it will work.

People may jump to conclusions about people whose sex assigned at birth was male and who now are women. Dissecting that, many don't understand trans women are real women. That fact will be argued with incessantly because BEING trans is so far from the cisgender experience. Empathy's been described as "seeing with the eyes of another, listening with the ears of another, and feeling with the heart of another." Most of the world cannot empathize with transgender people, so they're misunderstood and easily judged. The reality is we ALL have two genders -- the one we were assigned with a quick glance from a doctor at birth and the each of us feels inside. For nearly all people those genders are aligned. For some of us, it is not. Gender is not about genitals. Period. You can call that biological sex or sex assigned at birth or whatever, but you can't call that gender.

The other part of what's behind that statement regarding trans women being real women is that HRT (Hormone Replacement Therapy), is incredibly effective. That men are not eager to see their athletic superiority over women as a function of a few chemicals floating around in one's body is a natural reaction, given the sexism sown so deeply into the fabric of our world. It's hard to believe it until you either empirically test it or you feel it in your own body. I have felt it. I know what it means. The last time I raced, a half iron distance triathlon this summer, my estrogen levels where too high (I don't get tested as often as I should, and my body responds exceedingly well to testosterone blockers and estrogen supplements). My result? I was the last woman in my age group out of the water. I nearly DNFed right then and there, but I got on the bike anyway. Getting off the bike I crumpled to the ground and again nearly DNFed. But as endurance athletes we're wired to keep going. During the "run" (which more resembled a death march), I got dizzy and had to lie down on the side of the road. I'd probably still be there except it was easier to get up and keep going than to have to answer everyone's questions as they passed by. I finished that race more than two hours slower than the last half iron I did before I started HRT. Volunteers were packing up the course as I made my way through the last mile. No one can ever tell me I'm anywhere near the same athlete I was before my transition. I have bounced back since getting my estrogen into the proper range. Thankfully.

For decades the medical and mental health establishment pathologized us. That's finally turned around. Mainstream media continues to paint their misogynistic portraits, and so much of America sees but a sexualized version of us. If you don't know a transgender person, go find one as a friend. If you haven't read anything beyond the sensationalist garbage out there, find something worthy of your time to read that doesn't insult your intelligence AND mine.

There's a lot of privilege for folks who don't have to be third class citizens because of their gender identity. But the greatest privilege of all is one I now enjoy fully -- simply being me. Running has always been a big part of who I am, and I know many other trans people who feel the same. We deserve the same damn rights as any other human being. There is no advantage in being trans; there are only disadvantages. A really really long list of them. It will take decades for society to let go of the tired old tropes and misunderstandings around who we are. I get that. You can't possibly feel what I feel. In the meantime, we just want to run and be ourselves. That's not a hell of a lot to ask.

If an athlete is transitioning from male to female, that has benefits provided to them by developing as a male athlete for a number of years. That person will always have an advantage over a female born athlete in any event involving speed, power, endurance, etc. ( I can understand the argument some will make for endurance due to some incredibly impressive performances by female athletes, however most sports aren't shifted toward endurance enough to remove the speed and power components or even the potential hormonal benefits that may exist to aid training for a number of years as a male).

When someone faces such a clear benefit, they should be competing with the gender that provided that benefit.

When so many 15 year old males could be world class as a woman in track an field it is hard to argue that spending time as a female is fair to any competitor. There isn't enough information right now to say if a certain number of years can allow a detraining effect to occur that bring them in line with female born athletes. A 1:58 in the 800m as a 15 year old male is very good, but also very achievable, that same time is world caliber for women of any age.

If an athlete is transitioning from female to male, again, they are assuming the benefits of males that females don't have access to; it makes little difference if this happened for the first dozen years of their lives or their most recent few years.

Both groups have spent time developing as male athletes.

Both groups have massive benefits over females.

Both groups need to compete with the gender where this benefit doesn't catapult them far past what their competitors are capable of.

Both groups should have to compete against males.

Trans-people have been competing as their preferred gender in local events for decades (elite levels is entirely different). You all have likely raced them. You all never cared until it became a hot topic and you realized it could be leveraged as a possible excuse for your under-performance. Grow up and train - it's sad.

broken arrow wrote:

You are either a male or female at birth, regardless of what crazy plastic surgery or hormonal therapy you have had.

How do you explain hermaphrodites?

Transwomen don't have any advantage over ciswomen, because in their pants they have very heavy penis and testicles. These parts weigh much more than you may think. And that is a disadvantage for them. So this is why it is totally 100% fair for them to compete against ciswomen. Actually ciswomen should also put something in their pants, for example rocks.

LGBTQIA* wrote:

Supposedly the Gay Games has a Transgender division, why not Western States do this too?

But what if you are Transgender but Nongay? Wouldn't you be left out of Gay Games by that?

Liberals are ruining running

My experience is similar to Jaime. I was too big, 6-2 180#, to be any better than an age group level guy. But for years I ran races age graded in the low 80%s.

I’ve been on Spiro and Estradiol for 14 months and I’m still 6’2”, but I’m like a box truck with a little 4 cylinder engine. Yes, my bones are bigger and heavier, but they don’t help at all for distance runners. I ran a marathon at 6:34 pace when I was 48 yo. Now I’m lucky to break 9 mpm if I work hard on a 6 mile run.

The drop off didn’t happen immediately. I was still running decently up to about six months after starting HRT. But by the time I met the one year IOC guideline, I had cratered.

Most trans women runners I know have improved after an orchi or GCS - being able to stop Spironolactone is much better for distance running than having testicles or a penis. Spiro screws up your hydration and accumulated potassium - it’s a pain to train for distance running while on HRT level doses.

Jaime wrote:

The reality is we ALL have two genders -- the one we were assigned with a quick glance from a doctor at birth and the each of us feels inside.

Hell NO! Just because you "feel" like being a woman does in no way mean you are and certainly gives you no right to abuse the advantages of male genetics over real women.

By your logic, just because I feel like I'm 65 years old that everyone has to treat me as that age and give me a senior's discount and age group awards. Your illogical is assinine.

As a transgender woman, please let me explain what happened to me after starting HRT. Within a month my chest started hurting. Within two months it was too painful to run without a sports bra. My breasts went through the Tanner stages of puberty. At 14 months my breasts are about a cup size smaller than other women in my family. Running even a few feet is very uncomfortable without a sports bra.

My red blood cell count and hemoglobin are lower than the minimum for males. My estrogen level is about at the midrange for females. My testosterone is extremely low, near bottom range for females.

If you learn the biology of human development, you’ll find that the difference between male and female is more hormonal based than genetic based. There are cisgender women who have XY chromosomes but androgen insensitivity.

messi wrote:

Isn't "trannie" just an abbreviation of transgender?

Following your logic "Aussie" should be offensive to Aussies.

There's a conflation with "transvestite", which has a historically negative connotation (though not in ancient Greece/Rome necessarily).

If I take enough anti-aging hormones to be as slow as a 10 year old, can I then participate in youth events?

show your work wrote:

plan to monitor roughly 20 men and 20 women as they transition.

It's simply hard to believe that Joanna Harper is an "unbiassed" person here (particularly as a perception). The scope of the study is not clear, and maybe it's all just measuring oxygen content, but if there's a subjective element too, then no one is going to take such advocatory science seriously. (As was pointed out, the related Science puff-piece in its News regime already doesn't exactly exude strictness)

Also, the proposed study has all kinds of human-subject issues, but I'm guessing the underlying "Ethics Committee" people (at funding and also local recipient levels) will rubber-stamp it all if they perceive it will give the "right" SJW result.

Over and seen, whether to till, or not? wrote:

If the Russians were exploiting the Western "trannie" concept, you know LRC would be against it.

But it favors their winds, so to whom is a complaint?

Thx Ivan, where would LRC discussion be w/o Putin-Russia to blame?

You Are Unreal wrote:

Jaime wrote:

The reality is we ALL have two genders -- the one we were assigned with a quick glance from a doctor at birth and the each of us feels inside.

Hell NO! Just because you "feel" like being a woman does in no way mean you are and certainly gives you no right to abuse the advantages of male genetics over real women.

By your logic, just because I feel like I'm 65 years old that everyone has to treat me as that age and give me a senior's discount and age group awards. Your illogical is assinine.

I find it interesting that men seem much more threatened by the idea of women competing as transgenders than women do.

The reality is we ALL have two genders -- the one we were assigned with a quick glance from a doctor at birth and the each of us feels inside. For nearly all people those genders are aligned. For some of us, it is not. Gender is not about genitals. Period. You can call that biological sex or sex assigned at birth or whatever, but you can't call that gender.

Actually, sex is usually determined these days by the doctor (much) BEFORE birth. This can be done by a variety of methods, for instance: hormonally (which has some overlap with other methods), via optically looking at a scan (sometimes males are misjudged if they develop late), chromosomally (when checking for genetic diseases), or even by monitoring brainwaves (the sex distinction here is not perfect, but neither are some of the others).