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Should a Male to Female transgender be able to fight women in MMA, etc...

Reasonable take on the topic. Any more of a detailed stance about it without hard facts is likely to be from an ideological stance of the left or right wing.
 
The same question came up when Renee Richards became a tennis player.

The United States Tennis Association thought she had an unfair advantage, having spent most of her training years as a man. The fact she was 6 foot 2 inches tall was also a factor. She sued to be allowed to play as a woman.
 
I do agree that the fact that she used to be a man, and has all the physical advantages that entails, probably means she shouldn't be fighting women.

I do wonder though, what the long term effects of the transition will do to those advantages. Are the physical advantages acquired from growing up with a male physiology eventually "degrade" due to changes in hormone levels? Perhaps after some years as a woman, her physiology will be more amenable to getting in the ring against another woman?

On the other hand, my presumption that the women in MMA are that much behind the men may be wrong. While on average women are much weaker than men in terms of musculature and bone strength, women in the MMA have gotta be near the top of the curve, just how much actual difference is there between them and their male counterparts?

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I also found this on Wikipedia:

Time also noted that, as she has neither testicles nor ovaries, Fox probably has lower testosterone levels than most of her competitors. Fox says that she has less strength and endurance than her cisgender female training partner, and that she has to make up for it by perfecting her technique
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Do male->female trangendered individuals get testosterone replacement? Without either testes or ovaries she is in fact now has about half the testosterone of a comparable woman (half of the testosterone women get comes from their ovaries). I'd imagine that is in fact a significant problem, but am unsure how it would effect the prior developmental advantages accrued from the much higher testosterone levels she had while growing up.
 
She has female-level testosterone these days but she has a body structure that developed male. I don't think it's a fair competition. There's no solution that isn't harsh on somebody, I think excluding them is the lesser evil in this case.
 
Loren Pechtel said:
She has female-level testosterone these days but she has a body structure that developed male. I don't think it's a fair competition. There's no solution that isn't harsh on somebody, I think excluding them is the lesser evil in this case.
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This is what it seems that people don't want to admit anymore, that this is the case with many things in life. Also that cases that are on the leading edge of unusual circumstances may have negative as well as positive effects on case law and policy for the more mundane situations.
 
repoman said:
Loren Pechtel said:
She has female-level testosterone these days but she has a body structure that developed male. I don't think it's a fair competition. There's no solution that isn't harsh on somebody, I think excluding them is the lesser evil in this case.
Click to expand...

This is what it seems that people don't want to admit anymore, that this is the case with many things in life. Also that cases that are on the leading edge of unusual circumstances may have negative as well as positive effects on case law and policy for the more mundane situations.
Click to expand...

Don't over commit there.
 
These days I don't think you even need to go as far as becoming transgender. We've gone so far down the LBGTQ rabbithole that all you have to do is just declare that you feel like a man (or a woman) and everyone accepts that that is what you are, no matter the genetalia. Bradley Manning is now referred to as Chelsea Manning, even though there's been no M-F transformation! As the left likes to say, Gender is a social construct.
 
thebeave said:
These days I don't think you even need to go as far as becoming transgender. We've gone so far down the LBGTQ rabbithole that all you have to do is just declare that you feel like a man (or a woman) and everyone accepts that that is what you are, no matter the genetalia. Bradley Manning is now referred to as Chelsea Manning, even though there's been no M-F transformation! As the left likes to say, Gender is a social construct.
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Gender roles are a social construct. The gender one feels most comfortable with or going through life as is more of a biological/psychological fact about their brain. "Transgender" refers to this state of the brain being different than the sex as determined by the DNA/genitalia from birth, and has nothing to do with whether the individual has had a sex change operation.
 
My guess is that most cases of transgenderism is from some genetic/epigenetic cause +/or gestational hormone environment. I think there might be one or a few specific brain centers that have the opposite gender's wiring - this is because transgendered people don't seem to be unusual otherwise.

This doesn't preclude that some people with standard brain centers of sexual identity becoming transgender for more complicated reasons. Those people probably are fairly strange in the rest of their personality - similar to an Otherkin.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otherkin...
meaning that there is no detectable brain center variation that can lead someone to be an other kin. And if a transgender person has the gender brain centers of a cisgender person (assuming this can be proven) something weird happened like with Otherkin.
 
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thebeave said:
These days I don't think you even need to go as far as becoming transgender.
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Physical transition into the GI experienced by the person is not a necessity for a MTF or FTM transsexual individual to assume the Gender Role of their choice. By physical transition into, it implies surgical modification and hormonal therapy.


We've gone so far down the LBGTQ rabbithole that all you have to do is just declare that you feel like a man (or a woman) and everyone accepts that that is what you are, no matter the genetalia.
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Considering that target research has demonstrated the morphological differences between female and male brain (specifically the size of the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis or BSTc) and the variations in utero regarding androgen exposure I am not sure why anyone would pursue to conclude that gender identification must solely rely on the presence of male or female genitalia at birth.


Bradley Manning is now referred to as Chelsea Manning, even though there's been no M-F transformation! As the left likes to say, Gender is a social construct.
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Gender role is a social construct. Gender identity is not. Further, I am not sure why anyone would think there is any political motivation (such as "the left") behind the recognition of transgenderism being a gender variant.

Going back to the OP, a MTF transgender person who underwent physical transition (such transition including a lifelong hormonal therapy to enhance female hormones while suppressing their original endocrine production) is bound to also experience a progressive modification of their muscular and bone strength. Whether it reaches a level of reducing the original male strength to being more compatible with the expected level of female anatomical strength ought to determine whether a MTF person should be allowed to compete in an exclusively female athletic capacity.
 
Most female roller derby leagues require the MTF transgender to be undergoing hormonal therapy.
Men's roller derby doesn't care about gender status. Females who identify with males are welcome to join.
 
Nice Squirrel said:
Most female roller derby leagues require the MTF transgender to be undergoing hormonal therapy.
Men's roller derby doesn't care about gender status. Females who identify with males are welcome to join.
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There's no reason for male teams to reject the transgendered. They're going to be inferior, not superior.
 
Loren Pechtel said:
Nice Squirrel said:
Most female roller derby leagues require the MTF transgender to be undergoing hormonal therapy.
Men's roller derby doesn't care about gender status. Females who identify with males are welcome to join.
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There's no reason for male teams to reject the transgendered. They're going to be inferior, not superior.
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Your comment underscores your lack of knowledge of the sport. (Why would you want inferior players on your team?) The men who founded the league chose to make the question a non-issue by ignoring gender as a criteria for participation/membership. Also women have the equalizing advantage of a lower center of gravity applying more force with their hips and arse and not accepting shoulder hits which men instinctively block with.
 
Nice Squirrel said:
Loren Pechtel said:
There's no reason for male teams to reject the transgendered. They're going to be inferior, not superior.
Click to expand...

Your comment underscores your lack of knowledge of the sport. (Why would you want inferior players on your team?) The men who founded the league chose to make the question a non-issue by ignoring gender as a criteria for participation/membership. Also women have the equalizing advantage of a lower center of gravity applying more force with their hips and arse and not accepting shoulder hits which men instinctively block with.
Click to expand...

I once worked with an arthritis research fund raising operation on their big money event, which was a go-kart race. The race karts were a 3 hp chassis with a Formula 1 style shell body. The team was required to have one female and one male driver, with one pit stop and driver swap during the race. The women drivers averaged a little over 100 pounds, and the male drivers were much bigger, most at least 200 pounds. My job was to plan and lay out the track. I had one long straight away which went into a hairpin turn followed by a series of wider turns. From my younger days, I assumed the girls would run away from the guys. Three horsepower is not a lot of engine. The last time I was on a go-kart, I probably weighed 160 pounds. My younger brother was about 120 and he could outrun me with little trouble, or at least that was my memory.

What actually happened was the turns became the equalizer. The men entered the turn and had to slow down or face rolling over. It happened more than once, but no serious injuries. They slowed down and then chugged out the back of the the turn. If a lightweight woman went into the turn too fast, she lost traction and spun out. In the real race, the time through the turns was about the same, whatever the weight and center of gravity of the driver.
 
Don't female fights have the same kinds of weight classes and the like that male fights do? If the former guy is bigger than the average sized woman, that wouldn't be an issue since he's not fighting the average sized woman.
 
Tom Sawyer said:
Don't female fights have the same kinds of weight classes and the like that male fights do? If the former guy is bigger than the average sized woman, that wouldn't be an issue since he's not fighting the average sized woman.
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Men tend to have higher bone density and a greater percent of muscle mass for a given weight, which gives an advantage.
 
Axulus said:
Tom Sawyer said:
Don't female fights have the same kinds of weight classes and the like that male fights do? If the former guy is bigger than the average sized woman, that wouldn't be an issue since he's not fighting the average sized woman.
Click to expand...

Men tend to have higher bone density and a greater percent of muscle mass for a given weight, which gives an advantage.
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Are there any studies comparing men and women at the top end? Does intense conditioning mitigate the difference or exacerbate it?

I found the complaint of Brent in the article linked in the OP interesting because, while it could just be sour grapes on her part, it reminded me of this study: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00421-006-0351-1

I'm not sure how well that research has held up in the past 10-years, but it could certainly explain Brent's experience with Fox's grip.
 
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