Transgender athletes

[ICTChris]

 

The IOC has delayed issuing new guidelines on transgender athletes following disagreement among the scientific panel examining the issue. Some members of the panel wished to implement guidelines stipulating that male to female transgender athletes could compete in women’s events provided their testosterone levels were below 5 nanomoles per litre for 12months prior to competing. Other panel members apparently disagreed with this. Current guidelines allow this level to be 10 nanomoles per litre for 12months. The average testosterone level for a woman is 0.79 - 1.79 nanomoles per litre, male levels are typically between 7.7 - 29.4.

 

The IOC has now said that individual sporting bodies should make their own decision about this issue, which strikes me as a bit of a cop out and a hospital pass to the sporting bodies. You could have different regulations for very similar Olympic sports and I can bet the individual bodies would be wondering how covered they are legally to challenge on this.

 

Some studies have shown that transgender people maintain physical advantages after transitioning and there have been cases of athletes both competing successfully in their new genders (I believe all cases are male to female) and other athletes being barred due to fairness concerns. A number of high profile female athletes, like Martina Navratilova and Sharron Davies, have spoken out against allowing transgender athletes to compete arguing that it would be unfair and would endanger the future of women’s sport. Opponents have argued that no transgender athletes have dominated sports and that organisations without similar restrictions haven’t seen any issues.

 

What do P&Bers think of this issue?

Have any male P&Bers ever take a load of hormones to compete as a woman at the Olympics?

Are any P&Bers in the 29+ testosterone category? #alpha #billybigbaws #steroids

 

 

[Shandon Par]

Athletics is shite. 

[Derry Alli]

Have you ever had a transgender athlete in your office @ICTChris? 

[ICTChris]

Have you ever had a transgender athlete in your office [mention=198]ICTChris[/mention]? 

I don’t know.

[hk blues]

Simple solution A-  Men/Women/Others compete together

Simple Solution B - Men's Events / Women's Events / Others Events

Problem Solved

[pozbaird]

3 hours ago, Dele said:

Have you ever had a transgender athlete in your office @ICTChris? 

Have you ever been in a Turkish men’s sauna?

[Busta Nut]

Fallon Fox used to destroy women.

I think she only lost once to a female who went to UFC eventually

[101]

Why not split it on sex rather than gender? 

As an aside I would welcome a doping Olympics with folk doing the high jump and jumping 100ft in the air after pumping themselves full of drugs

[supermik]

13 minutes ago, MixuFixit said:

So much this. Pure sprinting the whole marathon in 20 minutes with eyes like Maradona in 94

 

[ICTChris]

Everyone taking drugs isn’t a level playing field as some people have better reactions than others to them. Also, athletes are also unbelievably competitive and should be protected from themselves. Numerous cyclists died in the 90s from heart attacks in their sleep, an affect of the EPO abuse that was rampant in the sport at that time. Cyclists and other endurance athletes have been seriously injured and almost died from doing things like giving themselves blood transfusions in their hotel rooms. Imagine the sort of person who would try and carry out a blood transfusion in an unsterilised environment without medical training just to make up a few tenths of a second in a race.

You’d also get athletes from more authoritarian regimes being pressured to take drugs (I’m sure that happens now but it would amplified). Look at the East German athletes, particularly women who were forced to take testosterone and, in some cases, had gender reassignment surgery because of the impact on their bodies.

[Venti]

27 minutes ago, Adam101 said:

Why not split it on sex rather than gender? 

As an aside I would welcome a doping Olympics with folk doing the high jump and jumping 100ft in the air after pumping themselves full of drugs

Javelin off the bow of a whaling boat.

[101]

2 hours ago, Slenderman said:

Javelin off the bow of a whaling boat.

 

3 hours ago, MixuFixit said:

So much this. Pure sprinting the whole marathon in 20 minutes with eyes like Maradona in 94

Great ideas shot putting satellites into space. 

Like Chris says folk do it in an extremely dangerous manner just now imagine you had a team of doctors getting you ready for a 100m swim and going so fast you boil the water round about you

[Cerberus]

It worked out fine for Aiden McGeady.

[Shotgun]

13 hours ago, hk blues said:

Simple solution A-  Men/Women/Others compete together

Simple Solution B - Men's Events / Women's Events / Others Events

Problem Solved

A - Good lookers
B - Munters

Put 'B' on the cable channels nobody watches. Problem solveder.

[hk blues]

3 hours ago, Shotgun said:

A - Good lookers
B - Munters

Put 'A' and 'B' on the cable channels nobody watches. Problem solved.

FTFY

[Dee Man]

12 hours ago, Adam101 said:

Why not split it on sex rather than gender? 

As an aside I would welcome a doping Olympics with folk doing the high jump and jumping 100ft in the air after pumping themselves full of drugs

 

12 hours ago, MixuFixit said:

So much this. Pure sprinting the whole marathon in 20 minutes with eyes like Maradona in 94

You would need about a beach worth of sand to make the mile long long-jump. 

[Gnash]

14 hours ago, ICTChris said:

Everyone taking drugs isn’t a level playing field as some people have better reactions than others to them. Also, athletes are also unbelievably competitive and should be protected from themselves. Numerous cyclists died in the 90s from heart attacks in their sleep, an affect of the EPO abuse that was rampant in the sport at that time. Cyclists and other endurance athletes have been seriously injured and almost died from doing things like giving themselves blood transfusions in their hotel rooms. Imagine the sort of person who would try and carry out a blood transfusion in an unsterilised environment without medical training just to make up a few tenths of a second in a race.

You’d also get athletes from more authoritarian regimes being pressured to take drugs (I’m sure that happens now but it would amplified). Look at the East German athletes, particularly women who were forced to take testosterone and, in some cases, had gender reassignment surgery because of the impact on their bodies.

A bit off topic, but while I would take the point about athletes needing to be protected from drugs endangering their health, the point about a level playing field is completely irrelevant.  Sport is already a completely uneven playing field for a huge range of reasons: genetics, parental influence, money, injuries, motivation etc etc.  Having a 'doped olympics' wouldn't make any difference to that.

Back on topic, the issue of transgender athletes is always a thorny one, but IMO it can't be right to have people born as male competing against people born as females, as they have an enduring physical advantage even if they are taking 'female' (/ 'male limiting') hormones.  If taking hormones of the destination gender completely equalised the physical attributes of a person to the gender they are transitioning to, we'd see far more transgender men in sport.  I have a vague notion of a transgender man having a brief, unsuccessful spell playing lower level rugby, but I've never heard of any other examples.

[sugna]

18 hours ago, ICTChris said:

Everyone taking drugs isn’t a level playing field as some people have better reactions than others to them. Also, athletes are also unbelievably competitive and should be protected from themselves. Numerous cyclists died in the 90s from heart attacks in their sleep, an affect of the EPO abuse that was rampant in the sport at that time. Cyclists and other endurance athletes have been seriously injured and almost died from doing things like giving themselves blood transfusions in their hotel rooms. Imagine the sort of person who would try and carry out a blood transfusion in an unsterilised environment without medical training just to make up a few tenths of a second in a race.

You’d also get athletes from more authoritarian regimes being pressured to take drugs (I’m sure that happens now but it would amplified). Look at the East German athletes, particularly women who were forced to take testosterone and, in some cases, had gender reassignment surgery because of the impact on their bodies.

Very well put.

This is another of the problems that seems to split people into those who have studied it and are familiar with all of the intricacies ("There is no really good solution"), and those who have a much more superficial grasp ("It's simple! All you have to do is...").