Trans activists: Trans women should not be required to suppress testosterone to play on women's teams

[Metaphor]

(emphasis mine)
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/ncaa-trans-athlete-policy-groundbreaking-002152513.html

In 2011, the NCAA released a set of guidelines on the inclusion of transgender student-athletes in collegiate sports. It was nothing short of "groundbreaking," Chris Mosier, a pro athlete, transgender advocate, and founder of Transathlete.com, told POPSUGAR. The guidelines provided set-in-stone policy that mandated trans athletes' ability to play. Yet despite this important first step, transgender athletes still experience backlash, discrimination, and harmful misconceptions, both in the NCAA and beyond. Nine years after its publication, the shortcomings in the NCAA's policy have become ever more apparent - especially as it faces recent and serious setbacks in the form of exclusionary state laws and continued discrimination.


According to "NCAA Inclusion of Transgender Student-Athletes," published in 2011, a "trans male (FTM) student-athlete" may compete on a men's team in the NCAA, whether or not they choose to take testosterone as hormone therapy. "Trans female (MTF) student-athlete," however, are required to take testosterone suppression medication for one year in order to compete on a women's team. ("FTM" stands for "female to male," while "MTF" stands for "male to female.") The guidelines expressly state that "a trans female transgender student athlete" who doesn't take hormone therapy is not allowed to compete on a women's team.


As they stand now, the guidelines are exclusionary to trans women who are not taking testosterone suppression medication. This is an issue because, as Mosier pointed out, "there's not just one way to be a transgender person. Trans people can choose many different paths for what transition may look like for themselves."


One of these paths is a medical transition, which may include hormone therapy or gender-affirming surgery. Another is a social transition, which could include changing one's name, pronouns, style of dress, and the locker room facilities one uses. There's also the possibility of a legal transition, which could include legally changing one's name or gender marker on IDs and birth certificates. "There's no one way and no singular 'right' way, and a trans person may do some, any, or none of these in any order they wish," Mosier explained. That makes it complicated to set one policy in place, he added. "Trans people are as diverse as anyone else, and many of the policies in competitive sports, including the NCAA, are centered around hormones."


The guidelines also fail to address the needs of nonbinary student-athletes, while assuming that all transgender student-athletes identify as FTM or MTF. According to the LGBT Community Center of New Orleans's website, "Not all people conceptualize their gender as a transition from one binary sex to another. Some understand themselves to be transgender, neither male nor female, some combination of both, or a third or alternative gender, such as genderqueer or trans."

It's really quite simple. Just let non-binary people compete on whatever teams they want to, or both, since gender is fluid. What's the problem?

According to a spokeswoman for the NCAA, rationale for the policy "noted that issues of student-athlete well-being and protection of competitive equity requires an Association-wide policy that addresses transgender student-athlete participation. The policy sought fair opportunities for student-athletes from diverse backgrounds while ensuring that women's sports would be equitably conducted. It is important to note the policy does not [require] the reporting of testosterone levels."


To understand the issues at play in the NCAA, it's worth looking at the bigger picture. "At all levels of play, athletes who are transgender face discrimination and backlash about their identities due to lack of understanding about what it actually means to be transgender, and why we want to play sports," Mosier told POPSUGAR. Trans women athletes in particular face damaging stereotypes and misconceptions, he said.


Some people argue that trans women have an unfair advantage when it comes to physical athletic competition. Research on the subject tends to be conflicting. A 2017 review stated that neither transgender men or transgender women retained an athletic advantage over cisgender athletes at any stage of their transition. But according to a 2019 essay written by physiologists, "science demonstrates that high testosterone and other male physiology provides a performance advantage in sport suggesting that transwomen retain some of that advantage." Still, policy around transgender athletes goes beyond pure science, the researchers added. "To determine whether the advantage is unfair necessitates an ethical analysis of the principles of inclusion and fairness."

It's transphobic to suggest a person assigned male at birth is meaningfully different to a cis woman. Anyway, we should eliminate the requirement to suppress testosterone, because there's no one way to be transgender, and testosterone makes no difference anyway, which is why we men and women play on the same teams.

"Trans athletes want to participate in sports for the same reasons as anyone else."

Meanwhile, transgender athletes are the ones bearing the brunt. In late May, a Connecticut policy that allowed transgender girls to compete in girls' high school sports was found to violate the civil rights of athletes who have always identified as female. The lawsuit was brought forward by three athletes, all cisgender girls, after two transgender girls saw success in high school track meets; according to the lawsuit, the transgender athletes won a combined 15 championship races since 2017.
Yet according to Helen Carroll, an advocate for LGBTQ+ athletes who worked on the NCAA's handbook, that level of success - whether relevant or not - doesn't seem to be the norm. In a 2019 interview with Wired, she estimated that there are 150 to 200 transgender student-athletes in the NCAA. A few stand out for their successes, such as sprinter CeCé Telfer from Franklin Pierce University, who won the Division II national championship in the 400-meters, and cross country runner June Eastwood of Montana. But "you don't hear a thing about" most of the other transgender athletes in the NCAA, Carroll said; their performances haven't led to controversy.


In addition to backlash and discrimination, transgender student-athletes in the NCAA face additional hurdles. One of these, Mosier said, is a "discrepancy in policy."


In March 2020, Idaho passed a law banning transgender women and girls from competing in women's sports, applying to all sports teams sponsored by public schools, colleges, and universities. As Mosier observed, the new law (HB500) "directly conflicts with the NCAA guidelines that allow trans athletes to participate, so athletes in Idaho or who are at a school that would play in Idaho are at risk of being fully banned from participating." Many other states are considering, or have considered, similar bills that prohibit transgender women from competing in women's sports.

No bill bans transgender athletes from participating. It only bans biological males from participating in women's sports. Trans women can, of course, compete with other biological males in the men's teams.

The NCAA's guidelines have created opportunities for students "to be their authentic selves and continue to play the sports they love," Mosier said. He noted that hundreds of transgender athletes have competed in college without issue. Nine years after the passage of the inclusion guidelines, though, it may be time for an update.


"The NCAA must update its guide for transgender athletes, which still uses outdated terms that were removed from common use in 2013," he said. The policy should also make an effort to recognize nonbinary athletes, "who also need policies for participation," Mosier said. According to an NCAA spokeswoman, "The policy is currently under review by several NCAA committees."


There are various medical, social, and political aspects at play when it comes to transgender inclusion in college sports. But at the heart of the issue is this: "Trans athletes want to participate in sports for the same reasons as anyone else," Mosier stated. "Playing sports at any level leads to positive outcomes in all areas of our lives. All people should take an interest in ensuring trans athletes are included in sport and protected from harmful legislation and policy."

 

[bigfield]

I'm not interested at all in poking holes in the logic of an activist who is basically just trying to help people fit in. What's the point, besides gaining a sense of "hurr durr stupid SJWs"?

This article by Sean Ingle explores the limitations of relying on testosterone levels: https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2019/jul/22/current-impasse-transgender-athletes

But when it comes to the science, a new academic paper in the BMJ Journal of Ethics argues that elite transgender women do maintain an advantage when they transition – and that the current International Olympic Committee policies create what they call an “intolerable unfairness”, because testosterone has much more of an advantage on nearly every sport as opposed to say, being tall, having a large wingspan, or coming from a richer country, which the scientists say is more of a “tolerable unfairness” as it only provides a benefit in some sports.

That is, it's not a great solution. Ingle gets down to the core of the problem: male and female categories are a crude proxy for categorising people according to their natural ability, and we may need to design a finer system.

How might the impasse be broken? The authors of the BMJ piece argue that it is time to end male and female sections and instead put athletes in categories based on factors such as their weight, VO2 max, physiology and so on – ensuring that sport is completely inclusive for trans athletes and women. I can’t see that working.

More likely is that testosterone levels for transgender women will eventually be based on their sport. So a weightlifter might have to lower their levels to 2.5nmol/L, while with track and field it might be double that. Either way, a guiding principle surely has to be that anyone who transitions does not leap from being bog-average to world beater in a year.

 

[DrZoidberg]

That is, it's not a great solution. Ingle gets down to the core of the problem: male and female categories are a crude proxy for categorising people according to their natural ability, and we may need to design a finer system.

I think it's a question of numbers. Female-to-male athletes don't win shit. Male-to-female athletes are grossly overrepresented among winners. Way out of proportion to how many they are. Unless the numbers of the female-to-male and male-to-female winners are roughly the same then it's clearly an unfair advantage to the male-to-female. I think it's unsolvable. It's not just hormones. Men are biomechanically at an advantage. That's bones and joints formed at childhood. There's no hormone treatment that can fix that.

The only problem here is that the male-to-female transexuals are winning so much. That's what makes people react. If they didn't do that systematically there would be no problem. With the current situation we risk putting cis-gendered women off sports, because it'll just be a transexual winning anyway.

I don't think it's transphobic to say that transexuals should compete in their own tournaments. Yeah, sucks for them. But as it is now, I can't see another solution. And LGBTQ campaigners have been going on for decades about that transexuals are a third gender. So it doesn't need to be controversial even.

 

[bigfield]

Yeah, sucks for them.

I think the whole point is to find an arrangement that doesn't suck for them.

 

[krypton iodine sulfur]

That is, it's not a great solution. Ingle gets down to the core of the problem: male and female categories are a crude proxy for categorising people according to their natural ability, and we may need to design a finer system.

Pretty much.

The way sports are run doesn't ever really amount to a system that is fair. At the professional level and Olympic level, it's an entertainment industry. At the recreational level, it's a pastime. That is not to suggest sports can't have other value or can't be meaningful in other ways, but it's strange the extent to which sports get leveraged into a human rights debate regarding gender identity when we readily accept a lack of fairness in sports with regard to equitable access to participation, access to scholarships, and earning potential. Sex, gender identity, age, disability status are all variables where fairness breaks in various ways.

So I guess if we're going to look at fairness in sports with regard to discrimination, we'd have to take a really hard look at the whole damn ballgame.

 

[thebeave]

That is, it's not a great solution. Ingle gets down to the core of the problem: male and female categories are a crude proxy for categorising people according to their natural ability, and we may need to design a finer system.

I think it's a question of numbers. Female-to-male athletes don't win shit. Male-to-female athletes are grossly overrepresented among winners. Way out of proportion to how many they are. Unless the numbers of the female-to-male and male-to-female winners are roughly the same then it's clearly an unfair advantage to the male-to-female. I think it's unsolvable. It's not just hormones. Men are biomechanically at an advantage. That's bones and joints formed at childhood. There's no hormone treatment that can fix that.

The only problem here is that the male-to-female transexuals are winning so much. That's what makes people react. If they didn't do that systematically there would be no problem. With the current situation we risk putting cis-gendered women off sports, because it'll just be a transexual winning anyway.

I don't think it's transphobic to say that transexuals should compete in their own tournaments. Yeah, sucks for them. But as it is now, I can't see another solution. And LGBTQ campaigners have been going on for decades about that transexuals are a third gender. So it doesn't need to be controversial even.

Yup. The world can never be fair to all people all of the time. Short people will never excel in professional basketball no matter how much they love the sport. Conversely, big people will never excel as jockeys in horse racing no matter how much they love the sport. Yeah, it sucks for them. Society seems to accept that OK, though. Why do we have this visceral reaction that when it comes to issues of sex and gender there must always be parity?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Really need to remove the shackles of gender inertia and look into the science to be able to develop a system that provides fairness within a couple standard deviations. Unfortunately, some people seem more interested in mocking than actually addressing the situation.

 

[ruby sparks]

My opinion, as an amateur sportsperson involved in both men's and women's team sports for most of my life, is that if someone has what would be described as a man's body, with the physical advantages that often confers (eg muscle mass or other components of physiology), they should not automatically or necessarily be allowed to compete with cis women in a separate women's category, if there is one for that sport. The rule that they should have to modify in some way (eg by taking drugs or in some other way) seems reasonable to me.

If a trans woman wants to transition in another way, which does not involve eliminating some of the (sports) advantages of a male body, that is up to them, but I don't tend to think they should be able to directly and individually compete against cis women.

It depends (a) on the sport and (b) whether having a male body actually confers an advantage, imo.

I think some categories are reasonable. Another would be age. I wouldn't want adults competing against children for example, especially not in contact sports.

 

[repoman]

Academics have been hijackdd and cowed tp a large degree, so using them is actually biased in favor of trans athletes.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Yeah, sucks for them.

I think the whole point is to find an arrangement that doesn't suck for them.

Is it possible? What is your suggestion?

 

[Toni]

Yeah, sucks for them.

I think the whole point is to find an arrangement that doesn't suck for them.

It would be great if there were a system where it didn't suck for non-trans women.

I really struggle with this idea of trans women in women's sports and I may be wrong here. I admit that straight up.

I grew up when women's sports didn't really exist. The only opportunity that I had for sports growing up, aside from pick up games of (whatever) were gym class and intramural sports within my own high school coached by the only gym teacher for girls, whom I disliked quite a bit. I never had the slightest illusions--or interest--in becoming an athlete. But plenty of my friends were truly talented. For me, the lack of opportunities was more political/fairness based. For some of my friends, they truly did not have an opportunity to develop and compete the way that they really wanted to and were made to be able to. Even now, decades later, they have real regrets about opportunities they did not have---and the hits to self esteem that come with not being able to train, develop skills and expertise and muscles and competence in sports. Oh, I take that back: one could be a skater or a gymnast if you were a girl. If those programs existed where I lived or were supported or affordable or accessible. And if that was where your body drove you to want to compete.

It's wonderful that girls today have much better access and many more opportunities. It's thrilling to see women's soccer and women's basketball gain some airtime and some prominence. And it was thrilling to sit at a MLS game and listen to the two young girls behind me, talking about the game the way boys talked about baseball when I was growing up---and to listen to their excitement about hoping to get tickets to an exhibition game with the women's FIFA world cup champions play. And even more thrilling to hear men in their 20's and 30's also excited to see the women's world cup team play.

Such a huge sea change from when I grew up. You cannot begin to imagine.

I confess that I am concerned that transwomen who do not transition until post puberty or later and who maintain a higher level of testosterone will displace non-transwomen who have been fighting for many decades for the chance to play sports, relegating the cis women once again to a lower level.

Maybe that's bigoted of me. I don't wish any trans individual or group any harm and wish them the best. I just hate to see that once again, women (cis, trans) are the ones who are expected to step aside and take a lesser role.

I admit that may be unfair of me. It may be completely wrong headed of me. It may be that I am grossly ignorant. I just keep seeing the faces of some of my high school friends when they were not allowed the opportunity to play sports in a competitive league. This included, btw, one of my friends who was a much better basketball player than any of the guys on my high school team. Instead of being welcomed, she was ridiculed, called names and left out. I don't want that to happen to anybody.

 

[Jarhyn]

I keep saying this is a moot point if we all get together and make the rules gender and sex agnostic and make them strictly hormone based: not 'mens' or 'womens' but based on testosterone exposure. This whole thing comes from using "men" or "women" as proxy for competitive advantage.

 

[Toni]

I keep saying this is a moot point if we all get together and make the rules gender and sex agnostic and make them strictly hormone based: not 'mens' or 'womens' but based on testosterone exposure. This whole thing comes from using "men" or "women" as proxy for competitive advantage.

Sure it would be moot. It would mean that virtually all cis women would be eliminated from most competitive sports.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Well, according to this site at least, there is a WHOPPING 0.3% of the population that consider themselves to be transgender!!!!!! OMG WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!!!

And if that weren't stupefying enough in it's overwhelmingnessness, in 2017, Doctors reported a TREMENDOUSLY HUGE UNBELIEVABLY LARGE NUMBER who took the extra step to undergo surgery:

They reported 3,256 surgeries, of which 54 percent were performed on male-to-female patients, or transgender women, and the remainder on female-to-male patients, or transgender men.

3,256 out of 325,000,000!!!!! Why it's as if the entire WORLD is being overrun!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



And out of those, I'm sure there's HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS OF "FEMALE" ATHLETES WHO ALL DID THIS SPECIFICALLY TO DESTROY ALL OF WOMEN'S SPORTS IN ONE FELL SWOOP!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Toni]

Well, according to this site at least, there is a WHOPPING 0.3% of the population that consider themselves to be transgender!!!!!! OMG WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!!!

And if that weren't stupefying enough in it's overwhelmingnessness, in 2017, Doctors reported a TREMENDOUSLY HUGE UNBELIEVABLY LARGE NUMBER who took the extra step to undergo surgery:

They reported 3,256 surgeries, of which 54 percent were performed on male-to-female patients, or transgender women, and the remainder on female-to-male patients, or transgender men.

3,256 out of 325,000,000!!!!! Why it's as if the entire WORLD is being overrun!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



And out of those, I'm sure there's HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS OF "FEMALE" ATHLETES WHO ALL DID THIS SPECIFICALLY TO DESTROY ALL OF WOMEN'S SPORTS IN ONE FELL SWOOP!!!!!!!!!!!

No one thinks that.

I do think it is very interesting that men have no real problem with transwomen with greater than average testosterone participating in women's sports. They aren't being expected to make room.

Yes, I know that tran sexuality is passing rare. Yes, I realize that no one is going to transition specifically because they will be able to get a shot on a woman's pro team. Possibly no one ever would do that. Yes, I think they should leave out the sex hormone testing for competitive sports.

And yea, I'd like to see men quit finding ways to try to push women out of sports.

 

[Metaphor]

Well, according to this site at least, there is a WHOPPING 0.3% of the population that consider themselves to be transgender!!!!!! OMG WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!!!

And if that weren't stupefying enough in it's overwhelmingnessness, in 2017, Doctors reported a TREMENDOUSLY HUGE UNBELIEVABLY LARGE NUMBER who took the extra step to undergo surgery:

They reported 3,256 surgeries, of which 54 percent were performed on male-to-female patients, or transgender women, and the remainder on female-to-male patients, or transgender men.

3,256 out of 325,000,000!!!!! Why it's as if the entire WORLD is being overrun!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



And out of those, I'm sure there's HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS OF "FEMALE" ATHLETES WHO ALL DID THIS SPECIFICALLY TO DESTROY ALL OF WOMEN'S SPORTS IN ONE FELL SWOOP!!!!!!!!!!!

What does this outburst have to do with anything? What does the number of surgeries have to do with anything? Whoever claimed that trans people were transitioning specifically to play in women's sports?

 

[Metaphor]

No one thinks that.

I do think it is very interesting that men have no real problem with transwomen with greater than average testosterone participating in women's sports. They aren't being expected to make room.

I have a problem with it and I'm a man.

 

[J842P]

I do think it is very interesting that men have no real problem with transwomen with greater than average testosterone participating in women's sports. They aren't being expected to make room.

I think the word you are looking for is "liberals" or "woke people", not "men". There are men in this very thread who aren't OK with it, and various prominent men who have been excoriated by said activists over it. It's the woke people who have no reservations about it.

 

[bigfield]

Yeah, sucks for them.

I think the whole point is to find an arrangement that doesn't suck for them.

Is it possible? What is your suggestion?

It might be possible, at least in some sports.

In some sports it will probably be best for trans women to be allowed to compete against men, but it ought to be to based on something other than the fact they have a Y chromosome. Some sports can use testosterone to measure and predict what kind of built-in advantage each athlete has.

Combat sports, as an example, put a lot of effort into categorising their athletes based on physiological advantage, and have come up with a pretty good system. They've even incorporated the weigh-in into the spectacle, at least in professional boxing and the UFC.

Short people will never excel in professional basketball no matter how much they love the sport.

Neither will paraplegics.

Maybe someone should try setting up a basketball league with a height limit. It would be pretty novel to see a basketball game dominated by dudes who can jump over each other.

 

[bigfield]

I have a problem with it and I'm a man.

Are you even interested in sports?