Should there be a testosterone limit for participation in female sports events

[Angela]

I can believe this is even a thing, to be honest. The fact that people actually think there shouldn't be shows such cognitive dissonance in my opinion.

 

[bicicleur 2]

there is a female athlete who is forced to take medication to diminish her natural testosterone level, and it reduces her performances

either you must say this female is not a woman, or you don't impose this on her

what about all these transgenders?
oh, this will become a mess..

 

[[email protected]]

I suppose this raises the obvious question of why sports are segregated based on sex (or gender). I know that otherwise men would generally out perform women, but tall men generally out perform short men in foot races, yet we don't segregate them. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to change anything, but if we're going to play gender games we have to live with the consequences.

 

[bicicleur 2]

I suppose this raises the obvious question of why sports are segregated based on sex (or gender). I know that otherwise men would generally out perform women, but tall men generally out perform short men in foot races, yet we don't segregate them. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to change anything, but if we're going to play gender games we have to live with the consequences.

tennis players are becoming taller lately
I guess there would be no interest in watching tennis competitions for men exclusively with restricted heigth
it's simply not the same specatcle nor performance

in soccer you can have a mix of different types of players
when the ball is in the air, being tall is an abvious advantage,
but when the ball is on the ground, shorter men prove to be more agile

 

[Angela]

This all arose because of a recent race where it was disclosed that the first three runners have genetic abnormalities, i.e. male levels of testosterone.

The winner, Caster Semenya, is not XX. She is XY . She has no uterus or ovaries, and male levels of testosterone. Instead she has undescended testes.

What the hell is this person doing competing in a women's event?

The whole idea of Title IX was to create equal sports opportunities for women. Let's be serious: if all teams included both men and women, extraordinarily few women would get to compete.

In the interests of full disclosure, I'm the mother of an extremely athletic daughter: golf, tennis, swimming, skiing teams, high school and college. She beats most men she meets handily at all of them, but at higher level regional competition it's extremely unlikely she'd be on some of the teams if this were permitted, and if she were, she would get very little play time.

It's absolutely not fair to most women.

 

[[email protected]]

Angela, I don't disagree. I don't want to change anything. But . . . if we agree that you are what you say you are, male, female, trans-m/f, and so forth (as we seem to do, at least at the Twitter level), then sports would have to change. I think it's crazy, but again I'm an old man and I can be expected to find a whole lot of crazy in this brave new world.

My children are both sons. My youngest is in the Army and I'm unhappy that we've decided, as an equality issue, that women should be on the front line in combat, in the infantry, facing hand-to-hand combat.

 

[bicicleur 2]

the thing is, IAAF introduced new rules only last year and it only applies for 800 - 1500 m races, they are not universal

IAAF does 'sex verification tests', but it is not known what criteria are used

it is all very shady

and what will they do with transgenders in the future?
it would be much better to have clear criteria now instead of improvising once these problems will arise
they don't have the guts to make clear rules as they are afraid to upset the transgender community and they will be acused of being discriminatory

 

[Angela]

Well, I don't give a darn whom I upset, as usual. That goes double for the twitter mobs, who absolutely do not represent most people in this country.

I don't care what people think they are in terms of gender. Whether I think some of them are just people who are mentally disturbed is a whole other issue. If someone wants to undergo surgery and take hormones to become another sex, and can find a doctor to do it, go ahead. I certainly don't believe in taking away their rights, and they should be treated with respect.

However, one of the operative words here is hormones. They take hormones to change their sex.

If you're in a physical competition like a sport, and want to participate in a woman's competition, and you have male levels of testosterone, you should be disqualified.

I feel about the army the way that I feel about professions like the police forces and firefighters. I absolutely do not believe, and this is after working with female police officers, that the rules should be changed to get more "equality" of numbers. If you want to be a firefighter, you should be able to carry a 200 pound person down the stairs of a burning building. To be in the police, there were always height, weight, fitness requirements (tests) which you had to pass, you should be able to take down a 200 pound man who is resisting arrest, or trying to kill you, run down young, spry people, be a good marksman, and of course pass all the psychological tests. If you can't do it, man or woman, you shouldn't be on the police forces. Watering down the requirements leads to more danger for not only civilians but fellow officers.

Feminist ideology has no business in this. These are areas where reason, logic, and the greater good must prevail.

As for fighting on the front lines, my opinion is the same.

 

[Salento]

@Angela
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[Regio X]

However, one of the operative words here is hormones. They take hormones to change their sex.

But the hormones don't do a perfect job, of course, neither undo certain traits already formed.
Also, some women (men), in sports, take hormonal inhibitors, but in fact it doesn't matter that much, 'cause they grew up, their bodies formed, under male hormones. For example, it's the case of Tifanny (Rodrigo de Abreu), a Brazilian volleyball player who apparently takes inhibitors, but she (he) did the surgery at 30 years old, so her (his) body is masculine.

 

[Angela]

Yes, well, that's hardly the case with someone who has been XY since conception, and producing testosterone over a life time, with the only difference that his testicles didn't descend.

Nor does the fact that high levels of testosterone don't completely do the job mean that they don't have some effect. We're not talking about these "altered" men competing against unaltered "men". We're talking about them competing against unaltered women.

Given that these are all talented athletes who have been training for most of their lives. would anyone really like to wager that those Eastern Bloc "women" athletes of the 70s and 80s would have been as effective against women athletes with normal levels of hormones if the eastern block athletes didn't have all that testosterone and steroids? Believe me, doing the Breast stroke and the Butterfly for hundreds of laps almost daily does increase shoulder and chest size even in normal women. My daughter had a big decision to make as she got into regionals, but not like this.

Let's also not forget that a lot of them were put on these additives as children or in early adolescence, and no concern for the possible health consequences.

East German team at one point. "Females", supposedly.

 

[bigsnake49]

I am all for open competition based on skill/performance level. Men and women and transgender can participate in the same race/competition. So you could have a 100m dash that has lower performance men and higher perfrormance women, Let's say people that have run from 10.9-11.2 secs in the past.

 

[Angela]

Great. So, no room for women athletes at the highest levels. I give up.

 

[bigsnake49]

Great. So, no room for women athletes at the highest levels. I give up.

I don't see any woman running 9.58 sec/100m lately, have you? The world record for women is 10.49 so even the fastest women could not compete with the fastest HS athletes in Florida.

 

[Angela]

I don't see any woman running 9.58 sec/100m lately, have you? The world record for women is 10.49 so even the fastest women could not compete with the fastest HS athletes in Florida.

That's exactly my point.

Title IX was passed in the U.S. to provide funds for all women's teams at high school and college levels so that girls and women would also be able to compete athletically. If they had had to qualify for men's teams the vast majority would be completely shut out.

Believe it or not there are girls and women who like to play sports, at a highly trained level, and not settle for being cheerleaders for men. United States legislators agreed.

If you're not interested in watching women's soccer, for example, or volleyball, or basketball, or tennis, then don't. Let women who want to compete at that level and people who want to watch it do so.

Don't ruin it by letting actual men compete and ruining the whole process.

 

[Regio X]

@Angela
Since my English sucks, it's possible I didn't fully understand your answer. It's also possible I didn't express myself correctly.
I was in agreement. The "but" was directed to the idea that hormones may change/reverse the complexion to the point to equal the (ex-)man to a (XX) woman. Then I suggested that they have to take inhibitors to compete among women, yes, however, they generally grow up as men, which is enough to cause an "imbalance".

 

[Ygorcs]

I think this is an issue that must be really deeply investigated further and ultimately, I believe, fairness will dictate that generalized rules won't do and we'll probably need an individual analysis varying from one case to another, because it's really complex. The reaction of the body to the hormones varies, the age in which the person started taking hormones blockers has a real impact, and so on. Even for the very same person, such as the Brazilian player Tiffany which Regio X talks of, there are controversies and different opinions even among experts. Some scholars claim that the prolonged action of "feminine" hormones take away all the extra strength and resistance of the muscles, so the trans women eventually turn to be within the possible range of cisgender women, and we know that very often the skull structure of men and women does not in fact vary that much (our sexual dimorphism is mostly muscular, not in the skull, though men's tend to be taller and a bit broader), to the point that mislabeling of the sex of individuals in archaeological findings is not rare at all.<br><br>The case of Tiffany in Brazilian volleyball is telling. I mean, she was widely accused of having innate advantages because in her first year playing with the female teams she had a hugely successful performance... however in the next 2 years she was much less successful and was way behind some of her better cisgender colleagues in almost every aspect. So, it becomes hard for me (and other people) to evaluate what's really going on in her case.

 

[Regio X]

@Ygorcs
That's an interesring perapective. I get what you mean, and also that the lack of testosterone causes a percentage loss of muscle, to put it in simple terms. I'm sure the use of an inhibitor of testosterone (by a man) would mean, for example, the loss of competitiviness in relation to other men. I'm just not sure it would really mean become virtually like a woman in regard to physical performance. I mean, let's invert, also for the sake of simplification: taking testosterone could help a woman when competing against women, but I wonder if it would be generally enough to make them compete on an equal footing against men (especially top men)?

 

[Angela]

@Ygorcs
That's an interesring perapective. I get what you mean, and also that the lack of testosterone causes a percentage loss of muscle, to put it in simple terms. I'm sure the use of an inhibitor of testosterone (by a man) would mean, for example, the loss of competitiviness in relation to other men. I'm just not sure it would really mean become virtually like a woman in regard to physical performance. I mean, let's invert, also for the sake of simplification: taking testosterone could help a woman when competing against women, but I wonder if it would be generally enough to make them compete on an equal footing against men (especially top men)?

I'm not sure of the science of this particular situation, but I would think you're right: a man taking a testosterone inhibitor might lose a competitive edge against another man, but I doubt he would be equal to a woman necessarily, in terms of strength, etc., given his body was affected by testosterone his whole life by that point, and he is presumably still xy.

From the perspective of women's sports, in most situations the question is, does taking testosterone, or steroids, for that matter, give an XX woman an unfair advantage against XX women who do not take those things. Then, you have the Semenya case, which is even more egregious, because he is XY, and that y and that testosterone has affected him all his life.

 

[markod]

@Ygorcs
That's an interesring perapective. I get what you mean, and also that the lack of testosterone causes a percentage loss of muscle, to put it in simple terms. I'm sure the use of an inhibitor of testosterone (by a man) would mean, for example, the loss of competitiviness in relation to other men. I'm just not sure it would really mean become virtually like a woman in regard to physical performance. I mean, let's invert, also for the sake of simplification: taking testosterone could help a woman when competing against women, but I wonder if it would be generally enough to make them compete on an equal footing against men (especially top men)?

There are other advantages like skeletal mass (which is an absolute limiting factor in overall muscle volume), limb proportions (short legs are bad for running/jumping, narrow shoulders are bad for mostly any type of sport) and muscle fiber composition (women built for endurance rather than strength) that men tend to have over women. Hormones aid recovery and allow you to get closer to the maximal amount of muscle mass your skeleton can carry.

Those non-hormonal factors are also responsible for some very obvious correlations between physical performance and ancestry.