MikeMach1977 wrote:
Semenya is not a transgender. Why hasn't your fake transgender appeared in women's tennis? The opportunity has been there for over 40 years. In addition to growing long hair and shaving, hormone treatment is required which would be a dealbreaker for any sane person. People are predicting the end of women's sports, but your examples amount to a drop in an ocean.
Yes, Semenya and other intersex people are not transgender. Bringing Semenya up here is not a perfectly analogous situation in terms of specifics, but the inherent biological differences she has due to being xx is certainly valid.
As to whether June is doing things entirely for notoriety or sanity seems to be a moot point. As noted, going through this entire situation for some trivial amount of attention seems to be so counter intuitive that it seems like an absurd statement. She is already getting scrutinized and is getting no real gain from it.
In terms of these situations being a drop in the bucket/ocean or being the downfall of women's sports, simply looking at the number of people doing this does not coincide with the affect they are having on the system. It will always be the case that biologically female women will be the dominant group in women's sports by numbers given they are the larger group in the population. What should be worrisome is with the fact that we see situations where trans women, in proportions that are not random (or by chance), seem to end up at the top of heap in competitive environments. It literally is a statistical question as to whether it is random, and it can be easily shown to not be. A semi-rigorous explanation with probability would demonstrate that or a quick simulation (use a hypergeometric in both) would also show this. So assuming that all other factors (ie training, health, etc) are relatively equal, it would be unlikely to see so many trans women achieve the successes they given their small proportions in the population.
When women take drugs they have been shown to dominate women's sports. China, Russia, East Germany, etc. are all clear examples that when institutional doping was going on, that performances were raised. Now, without the need of drugs, we have the same potential. It seems clear that to protect the vast majority of biological women, something should be done to entirely eliminate the competitive advantage someone may have due to either innate or extraneous sources of a hormone that gives them an unfair advantage.
Here is a thought for trans people: If you were deemed in college/international competition to have to compete in your birth gender, what is the issue? If people say, then they would never win or be competitive, then it illustrates that it is not about being able to compete, but the outcome (ie rank). It is also antithetical to the argument of fairness. If biological men who aren't on hormones have an advantage over trans women who would be induced to compete with them if this policy were used, then using that logic, it is unfair for women who were never men to compete with trans women as they never had the full advantage of testosterone. It would simply be unfair as it would create a tiered system where it was clear that one group was given an unfair advantage.
Any person should have the right to compete. However, that doesn't mean they should have the right to compete in their chosen category. A 24 y/o can't decide to go back to junior sports and compete there. However, what is always acceptable is for those who may have a disadvantage, to compete in higher levels. We do allow juniors to compete in senior events if they are good enough. That situation seems to be more analogous to what is deemed fair play. So, yes, trans women might be at a disadvantage to compete against men, but that is more like allowing a junior to compete in senior events. Allowing trans women to compete against women is more analogous to allowing a senior athlete to compete against juniors. That we don't allow.[/quote]
Whether TGmtf's should be allowed to compete was litigated over 40 years ago and has not been challenged since. The remaining point of contention is whether the NCAA should strictly enforce maximum T-levels.
June is the first transgender whose PRs as a male would be world class for a woman. If she sets a WR, AR or CR in the 1500, her T-levels will be checked and if it turns out she wasn't taking the treatments, the NCAA will be forced to ensure compliance with hormonal treatment requirements. If she has acceptable T-levels and it turns out a mediocre male runner can become a world-class female athlete, a compelling argument can be made for not allowing any TG's to compete.
If she runs 16:30 then it will be evidence that, in her case, the treatments leveled the playing field.
After over 40 years of predicting the end of women's sports, we will finally have a data point.