Armstronglivs wrote:
Dijon Gebremustard wrote:
Armstronglivs wrote:
Gebremustard, still getting your facts wrong. XX women who are hyperandrogenous cannot produce male levels of testosterone (and male levels are on average 15 times higher than for females). Most women have a testosterone level between 0.7-2nmls; hyperandrogenous females may teach 3-4nml, which is nowhere near typical male levels. The reason is starkly simple - DSDXX do not have testes. Hyperandrogenism is also the reason why the IAAF set its permissible level for testosterone of 5nml - above normal female levels - to allow for possible XX outliers while being less than what males will have.
actually i have yet to get a single fact wrong, including this one, while you have gotten many wrong. thank you for pointing out the dimorphism of testosterone, though, because that's been a central point of my argument that goes against everything you've said previously about T not being a fair dividing line between sport categories. the fact that T tends to extremes, as i pointed out earlier, is strong evidence that it's a much better dividing line than chromosomal testing, which can't be altered by humans and isn't the causal factor for increased performance, only a correlatory factor.
Armstronglivs wrote:
You also keep trying to depict male physiological characteristics (height, size, etc) as disadvantageous, when the stark fact is that most male distance runners (quite apart from other sports) are bigger than their female counterparts. And yet also faster.
Armstronglivs, i'll say again, have you ever seen Bekele run? or any pro distance runner for that matter? these people are not tall and any accredited coach will tell you that being large is a huge disadvantage in distance running. this is basic, elementary-school level physiology and it's astounding you can't accept this scientific reality. men are taller than women on average, and this generality extends to distance running -- but in this case the men are faster in spite of the tallness disadvantage due to, as you say, having increased testosterone -- a disadvantage that becomes evident when trans women transition and decrease their T to female levels, as we've already seen with June in her recent performances. perhaps the fact that you said "yet" in your comment above was a Freudian slip on your part. tell me, how does a 14:38 person go to 18:40 5K shape within a year despite consistent training? do you honestly think June is benefiting from her height when she runs 24 minute 4 miles?
Armstronglivs wrote:
Reducing testosterone doesn't remove the physical advantages most males have because female athletes and sportswomen who are androgynous or "masculine" (but have female levels of testosterone) are often more successful than those women who have a typically feminine physiology (less muscle mass, more body fat, shorter legs, wider hips etc). There could be no more glaring example of "masculinised" advantage than an athlete like Kratochvilova (who many suspect achieved this through steroids). Being "male" - even for a female - is an in-built advantage in sports.
again, name one "physical advantage" that you think men have over women that doesn't decrease to zero or negative on HRT -- remember the last time you did that, when i individually debunked each of the crack science points you parroted to no response from you? i'd gladly do it again. the relevant differences between men and women athletically in distance running are purely hormonal, not musculoskeletal, and this is shown both in science and in practice. indeed, the female body is the ideal form for distance running -- the only reason women are slower is because they don't have the testosterone, they don't have the big engine required for their small bodies.
by the way, again you mention the strongest evidence against your point of view and present it as if it somehow helps you. guess what -- Kratochvilova was good because she had more T than her female competitors, naturally or otherwise. an equitable women's playing field like the line I propose (and I should add, the line already accepted and legislated by today's IAAF) would mandate that Kratochvilova keep her T levels at female dimorhpic amounts. the physical changes you mention in Kratochvilova aren't "masculine" per se -- they are "testosterone-like", which we associate with masculinity but it's important to note that the root cause for these physical changes is the testosterone. the muscles she has are landmark indicators of increased testosterone, and these would grow on any born-female who was on increased testosterone and training for a year or longer (as they already have on Chris Mosier).
Armstronglivs wrote:
You are also wrong about the degree that reducing an athlete's testosterone affects performance. Semenya is XY and it has been estimated she would lose 5-7 seconds off her current 1.55 for 800m. A 1.47 elite male would therefore be still likely to be able to run in the low 1.50's if they also reduced their levels of testosterone.
Semenya might lose less time because her testosterone levels may be "in between". it's not as much of a drop as someone like June who may have been born with higher levels of T. funny that T levels give us an actual measurable scale for this stuff while chromosomes only tell one part of the story, like looking at the correlation without the causal variable for increased performance, right? your total lie about 1:47 to 1:50s instead of 1:47 to 2:00 is also not based at all on science, and in fact totally contradicts the Harper study linked above. you continue to ignore basic scientific truths in pursuit of a biased vision.
Armstronglivs wrote:
However, your fundamental misunderstanding is that "inclusivity" is what is necessary in sports (and hence you try to somehow "squeeze" biological males into women's sport by playing with their testosterone levels). But sports are not "inclusive" - they are generally exclusionary. Categories for competition that are based on weight, age and performance standards all demonstrate this: unless an athlete or competitor can satisfy the criteria for a category of competition they don't qualify.
now this is where your argument really starts to unravel. i understand using the word "biological male" to refer to people born male, but it's important for this conversation to note that by most biological markers, she is female on account of having female levels of T+E, and the resultant muscular changes (decreased pelvic size, decreased lung size) from maintaining such levels -- the only male biological markers left for her would be things like her height and her chromosomes, which have been proven to either be a hindrance or make no difference in distance running. and by the way, your idea about sports being exclusionary is a total falsehood -- black people, white people, gay people, have always been allowed to participate in sport (well not *always*, but please, i dare you use racial segregation to your advantage, i would love to see this coming from you). people born in East Africa are allowed to participate in sport despite having an abundance of slow-twitch muscle fibers compared to people born in the USA. but again, they can compete equitably because these differences are not substantial enough to necessitate separate categories.
Armstronglivs wrote:
It is only in the category of female sports ("girls" and "women", if you prefer) that we see the artifice of allowing the participation of competitors who clearly don't fit the accepted biological criteria for that category. We allow some males to pretend they are the same as the women they are competing against. They are not - and reducing their levels of testosterone doesn't change he that fact.
again, totally wrong. June isn't "pretending" to be a female, her biological characteristics especially as they relate to long distance running are effectively female as i've outlined above. the reason for that, and as all evidence shows without a single point of evidence from you, is that reducing testosterone causes a domino effect in the body that actually shrinks pelvic size and decreases lung size and VO2max to levels at least equal to, if not far below female levels (more "feminine" if you will).
Armstronglivs wrote:
If the guiding principle to "inclusivity" is that males competing against women don't have a competitive advantage then logic requires that any males of a comparable standard to women - but no clear advantage (i.e. mediocre male competitors) - should be able to compete in women's sport, and not just those males who identify as women. There is then no longer any point to having a distinct and separate category for women sports, because it has effectively become standards-based and not biologically determined, as it long has been. That is where the "identity" argument that advocates the participation of transgender and DSD males in women's sports is leading us.
no, what you fail to understand is that this difference is based on skill ceiling, not baseline. so a mediocre male runner could not compete equitably with women because, theoretically, if he trained more and ran high mileage, due to his increased testosterone, he would then develop an unfair advantage on account of his increased ceiling. all the available literature points to T being the appropriate marker for this. the point of having a female category is, as Joanna Harper put it, "so women can win things", and this certainly holds true once June enters the mix as a woman -- one who deserves to win things just as much as, but not more or less than, other women. put differently, we separate into two based on an inherent biological dimorphism in testosterone level distribution, and June still conforms to that dimorphism as much as any other, just on the opposite end of it as she was born.
Of course, nothing you say is correctly either factually or logically but it does reflect perfectly your religious point of view on this subject. I am not interested in conversion, thank you.
there it is, friends - - the ultimate concession of defeat. note that there was never a single person in this thread who i refused to debate, no matter how abhorrent their views and their attacks- - even going to far as to systematically break down each of your points piecemeal style dozens of times. this isn't over, and i'll continue to take on your further flawed arguments in your response above. but let it be known that on this occasion, rather than take on my views, you said as plainly as possible that you couldn't. it speaks volumes to the indefensibility of your positions.
june finished her opener today, in 7th place 14:33 for 4K, second on her team to Frissell:
https://goeags.com/documents/2019/8/22/19wxClashINWResults.pdf?ismobile=true
i predicted 14:20ish for 6th place above - - looks like i was pretty spot on, while all those who claimed that she would set records out the gate have been proven wrong again. i'll break it down a little more later, and i look forward to seeing if Eastwood improves throughout the season.
