Why do you think that their real preferred option is a FINA like move? It seems like they are moving in the opposite direction.
FINA were supposed to have released their new policy by now but apparently there's a lot of pushback behind the scenes and they may end up relaxing their stance.
Hard core transphobes oppose that as well. Nothing less than total resistance and removal of transgenders from everywhere will be enough. RunRugged can't even use the words "transgender person".
Most seen quite fine with them competing in anything but the women's category.
FINA were supposed to have released their new policy by now but apparently there's a lot of pushback behind the scenes and they may end up relaxing their stance.
Huh? Here's FINA's policy spelled out in detail. The policy was released many months ago soon after the FINA membership voted to adopt it last June.
Page 10 says: This Policy will come into effect on 20 June 2022.
Page 14 says: These Operational Requirements implement the Policy on Eligibility for the Men’s and Women’s Competition Categories that the FINA Bureau adopted on 18 June 2022 and that the FINA Congress ratified on 19 June 2022 (the Policy). They will come into effect on 20 June 2022, and from that date forward they will bind all Member Federations,athletes, and other natural and legal persons who are subject to FINA’s jurisdiction, and will govern eligibility
The Policy and these Operational Requirements are intended to operate uniformly around the world.
Any athlete (including any transgender or 46 XY DSD athlete) who wishes to be eligible to participate in a FINA Competition, or to set a FINA World Record in a FINA Competition or in another event recognised by FINA, agrees, as a condition to such eligibility.. To fully comply with the Policy and these Operational Requirements; To cooperate promptly and in good faith with FINA and one or more independent scientific and medical experts appointed by the FINA Executive (Independent Expert) in the discharge of their responsibilities...
This post was edited 1 minute after it was posted.
Reason provided:
typos
Sebastian Coe promised to be ‘guided by science’ when it comes to sport’s most divisive issue. But World Athletics’ solution is clearly designed to protect it from legal action too
Could use level of testosterone as classification, the same way as level of eyesight/vision. That way everyone can enjoy a fair playing field.
Alternatively one can opt to compete in the open class.
There are a lot of things that could be done along the lines of Para sport that could be explored for DSD athletes.
But the XY athletes with DSDs whose participation in female sports is contested do not meet the criteria for being physically disabled, particularly not in any way that has a bearing on sports performance. They are all robustly healthy, with all their limbs and senses fully intact. None of them have medical conditions that prevent them from achieving peak physical fitness, reaching their full potential in sport, or which put them at a competitive disadvantage relative to other males in sport.
All through childhood and for most of adolescence, Semenya played sports exclusively with and against boys. As a teenager, Semenya was on a boys' soccer/football team. There's lots of footage of Semenya online which shows that adult Semenya frequently runs with guys in practice/training. So why can't Semenya run against guys in competition?
Also, using levels of testosterone as classification criteria would be a problem because the particular differences or disorders of male sex development that are at issue here do not necessarily lead to levels of T that are low for adult and adolescent males. Yes, some persons with the XY DSDs subject to WA's special regulations have testosterone levels that are lower than males with normal development. But others with these XY DSDs have testosterone levels that are much, much higher.
Some persons with Semenya's DSD, XY 5-ARD type 2, have been documented to have T levels of more than 47 nmol/L. Some persons with XY PAIS, Chand's DSD, have been documented to have T of more than 68 nmol/L. Whereas the top end of the normal T range for XY persons who don't have DSDs is 29-30 nmol/L.
Some persons with Semenya's DSD, XY 5-ARD type 2, have been documented to have T levels of more than 47 nmol/L. Some persons with XY PAIS, Chand's DSD, have been documented to have T of more than 68 nmol/L. Whereas the top end of the normal T range for XY persons who don't have DSDs is 29-30 nmol/L.
That is high. I had no idea that DSD XY can have testosterone higher than regular males.
The thing I wonder about with T suppression is also - how quickly do the drugs work? How do you know they are really suppressing all the time?
I knew a transgender woman who was involved in a sport (not athletics) and would regularly skip meds when she was involved in her events. She did this because she noticed a performance difference. She was a recreational athlete, so not a pro. But it got me thinking about how WA tracks compliance with testosterone levels and if athletes could reap the benefits and then just lower for competition testing.
Some persons with Semenya's DSD, XY 5-ARD type 2, have been documented to have T levels of more than 47 nmol/L. Some persons with XY PAIS, Chand's DSD, have been documented to have T of more than 68 nmol/L. Whereas the top end of the normal T range for XY persons who don't have DSDs is 29-30 nmol/L.
That is high. I had no idea that DSD XY can have testosterone higher than regular males.
The thing I wonder about with T suppression is also - how quickly do the drugs work? How do you know they are really suppressing all the time?
I knew a transgender woman who was involved in a sport (not athletics) and would regularly skip meds when she was involved in her events. She did this because she noticed a performance difference. She was a recreational athlete, so not a pro. But it got me thinking about how WA tracks compliance with testosterone levels and if athletes could reap the benefits and then just lower for competition testing.
See tables 3 and 4 in this paper in Clinical Endocrinology published in 2018:
The range for T in males that WA says is normal is 7.7-29.4 nmol/L.
By contrast, the paper linked to above says
The mean/medians for males with 5ARD2 ranged from 13.4 to 31.2 nmol/L (386-899 ng/dL), and the absolute range of individual values was 3.6-47.2 nmol/L (104-1360 ng/dL).
Males with AIS had mean/medians ranging from 11.9 to 55.7 nmol/L (343-1605 ng/dL), and the overall absolute range was 4.8-68.3 nmol/L (138-1968 ng/dL) Testosterone levels were similar in males with partial AIS (PAIS) and complete AIS (CAIS).
Yesterday (Saturday Jan 21), The Telegraph reported in an "exclusive" that in preparation for World Athletics' annual meeting in March, WA HQ had told member federations that its "preferred option" was for rule changes that would continue to allow male athletes who claim a transgender identity to compete in women's track & field events, but which would require them to have lower T levels for a longer period of time before they could gain eligibility to compete in the female category.
Today (Sunday, Jan 22), Sean Ingle of the Guardian reported that official WA documents shown to him say that WA's proposed rule changes requiring lower T levels for longer lengths of time would also apply to XY DSD athletes like Caster Semenya and Francine Niyonsaba.
Moreover, the new stricter rules would apply to XY DSD athletes in all events - not just middle distance running as is currently the case.
Under WA HQ's “preferred option," the maximum permitted plasma testosterone for all XY athletes with testes seeking to compete in the female category would be halved from 5 mol/L to 2.5 nmol/L – and XY athletes with testes would have to stay below the permitted threshold for two years rather than 12 months as is currently the case for XY trans athletes, and 6 months for XY DSD athletes.
These levels are still considerably higher than the T levels found in women generally and in elite female track & field athletes specifically. WA says the normal range of T in females is 0.2-1.68 nmol/L; and a T level of 1.7 nmol/L in a female athlete is a flag for suspected doping.
When WA looked at the T levels of more than 800 female athletes in elite international track & field competition, it found that the vast majority had T levels under 1 nmol/L. The median level was < 0.7 - more than 3 times under the level that male athletes in women's competition will be allowed to have.
As WA has found in its research, the only female people who would have T levels of 2.5 would be pregnant women, a minority of women with the chronic health condition polycystic ovary syndrome, women with other serious and rare health issues such as untreated congenital adrenal hyperplasia, cancerous tumors that are life-threatening, and a very unusual kind of transient ovarian tumor that occurs every once in a blue moon to a healthy woman during pregnancy.
The WA document shown to Sean Ingle reportedly says, “An analysis of DSD cases observed in elite athletes shows that most athletes are 46 XY persons who have testes that produce testosterone concentrations within the male range and who are not insensitive to the effects of androgens. As far as athletic performance is concerned, there is no significant difference between a 46 XY DSD individual" and other males without DSDs, including those who identify as transgender prior to taking medications to lower their T. "Therefore, in this respect there is a need for consistency between the transgender and DSD regulations.”
Ingle says that in the consultation document, "World Athletics accepts" that post-pubescent males who say they identify as women “retain an advantage in muscle mass, volume and strength" over females after 12 months of testosterone reduction - and WA also accepts that “the limited experimental data” suggests that those advantages continue after T has been suppressed for considerably longer than 12 months.
The WA document reportedly notes that going through puberty of adolescence "results in sex differences in height, weight, wingspan (throws), pelvic and lower limbs architecture. These anatomical differences provide [males with] an athletic advantage after puberty for certain athletic events and will not respond to suppression of blood testosterone levels" later on.
Ingle's article does not say whether the WA document also acknowledges that going through puberty causes males to have lungs and hearts that are 10-12% and 25-38% larger and more powerful respectively as well - and that lowering T levels later on life has no impact at all on the size and power of these male organs, either.
Nevertheless, Ingles says that "World Athletics maintains that its preferred option would work" because it would “allow significant (although not full reduction in anaerobic, aerobic and body composition) changes, while still providing a path for eligibility of trans women and 46 XY individuals to compete in the female category."
The obvious questions that come to my mind is: who decided that "providing a path" for males of any kind to compete in female athletics is good thing? Why is WA HQ pretending that part of its remit is "providing a path" for males who don't want to or feel they shouldn't have to compete against their own sex to compete against females?
My guess is that the supposedly "preferred option" put forward by WA HQ in these consultation documents isn't really that at all. WA HQ seems to want to impose rules similar to FINA's that effectively ban males who've undergone any aspect of male puberty of adolescence from the female category, but WA HQ also seems not to want to say so outright right off the bat for fear of inciting the ire and accusations of the crowd that champions male incursion into female sports under the banner of "diversity and inclusion." So WA appears to have put these proposals out there - and leaked details to the Telegraph and Guardian" - in order to whip up public furor, incite outrage and opposition from female athletes, and stir the pot amongst the member federations who will be sending representatives to the March meeting.
As Ingles says at the end of his article, a World Athletics spokesperson said that putting forward this "preferred option" was “the best way to gather constructive feedback, but this does not mean this is the option that will be presented to council or indeed adopted” and promised they would consult more widely in the coming weeks.
WA seems to have taken a step in the right direction. Dictated by science to the extent it can provide meaningful insights while being sensitive to human rights, all while making both sides unhappy, which is indicative of a good compromise.
Hard core transphobes oppose that as well. Nothing less than total resistance and removal of transgenders from everywhere will be enough. RunRugged can't even use the words "transgender person".
Most seen quite fine with them competing in anything but the women's category.
Most seen quite fine with them competing in anything but the "whites" category.
Most seen quite fine with them competing in anything but the women's category.
nope. humans should only compete in their biological category. trans does not exist. you cant change your sex and adding an elephant trunk to your face does not make one an elephant. Extra categories are bad as well. More work for race organizers and you open the door for 100 new categories. Only acceptable way is having one open (male) category and one female one.
By that logic - we could have a hundred different categories based on biological traits.
There are a lot of things that could be done along the lines of Para sport that could be explored for DSD athletes.
But the XY athletes with DSDs whose participation in female sports is contested do not meet the criteria for being physically disabled, particularly not in any way that has a bearing on sports performance. They are all robustly healthy, with all their limbs and senses fully intact. None of them have medical conditions that prevent them from achieving peak physical fitness, reaching their full potential in sport, or which put them at a competitive disadvantage relative to other males in sport.
All through childhood and for most of adolescence, Semenya played sports exclusively with and against boys. As a teenager, Semenya was on a boys' soccer/football team. There's lots of footage of Semenya online which shows that adult Semenya frequently runs with guys in practice/training. So why can't Semenya run against guys in competition?
Also, using levels of testosterone as classification criteria would be a problem because the particular differences or disorders of male sex development that are at issue here do not necessarily lead to levels of T that are low for adult and adolescent males. Yes, some persons with the XY DSDs subject to WA's special regulations have testosterone levels that are lower than males with normal development. But others with these XY DSDs have testosterone levels that are much, much higher.
Some persons with Semenya's DSD, XY 5-ARD type 2, have been documented to have T levels of more than 47 nmol/L. Some persons with XY PAIS, Chand's DSD, have been documented to have T of more than 68 nmol/L. Whereas the top end of the normal T range for XY persons who don't have DSDs is 29-30 nmol/L.
Do we know that as well as testosterone, Dsd athletes retain all the traits of a regular male athlete? If so, it would only be a matter of time until some truly exceptional Dsd athletes emerged. Ie 1:45 800m, sub 4 in the Mile etc.
WA seems to have taken a step in the right direction. Dictated by science to the extent it can provide meaningful insights while being sensitive to human rights, all while making both sides unhappy, which is indicative of a good compromise.
Please provide links to the science showing that human males who reduce their testosterone for a time following puberty of adolescence lose the wide range of physical characteristics that give male humans as a group such enormous advantages over female humans in nearly all sports.
AFAIK, all the science done on this topic so far shows that males who reduce their testosterone retain nearly all the physical advantages over females they obtained from developing as male in utero and going through male mini puberty of infancy and male puberty of adolescence.
A peer-reviewed paper published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine in 2022 showed that after testosterone suppression (and in some cases total absence due to orchiectomy) along with daily use of high-dose exogenous estrogen for an average of more than 14 years, males in the prime of life (early-mid 30s on average) identifying as transgender still have 20% more muscle strength, 20% more cardiopulmonary capacity/VO2 max, considerably greater lean muscle mass and far less body fat than females of comparable ages.
And those were only the few physical features that the researchers measured too. T suppression and exogenous estrogen do nothing to change the male skeleton, shape of the male pelvis, the male Q angle, male tendon strength, male body mechanics, the much larger size of the male heart and lungs, etc.
Similarly, years of T suppression and taking exogenous estrogen do not endow human males with any of the distinctive features of human female anatomy and physiology that make women and girls physically different to males in thousands of ways - and which can be a disadvantage in most sports.
The ways that female humans are physically different to male human endow us with some special superpowers - such as being able to conceive, gestate and give birth to large-headed human babies without our bodies being torn apart; being able to use our breasts to feed and immunize young human offspring so that they stay not only stay alive, but they thrive and are healthy; and being able to live for many decades after our reproductive years are over. But the ways in which female humans are physically different to male humans also put us at a big disadvantage relative to males when it comes to most sports. Which isn't surprising since sports were designed in the first place by men for the express purpose of showing off the set of physical activities and feats that male human bodies have evolved to be particularly good at.
I believe that all people regardless of their sex, sexual orientation, gender expression and gender identity (for those who have have one), health status, etc deserve to live in peace, safety and dignity free of unfair discrimination and mistreatment. I agree that every human being deserves "human rights." But I don't agree that any males have a "human right" to participate and compete in the category of sport established for human beings who are female.
Please share why you think some males have a "human right" to female sports.
But the XY athletes with DSDs whose participation in female sports is contested do not meet the criteria for being physically disabled, particularly not in any way that has a bearing on sports performance. They are all robustly healthy, with all their limbs and senses fully intact. None of them have medical conditions that prevent them from achieving peak physical fitness, reaching their full potential in sport, or which put them at a competitive disadvantage relative to other males in sport.
All through childhood and for most of adolescence, Semenya played sports exclusively with and against boys. As a teenager, Semenya was on a boys' soccer/football team. There's lots of footage of Semenya online which shows that adult Semenya frequently runs with guys in practice/training. So why can't Semenya run against guys in competition?
Also, using levels of testosterone as classification criteria would be a problem because the particular differences or disorders of male sex development that are at issue here do not necessarily lead to levels of T that are low for adult and adolescent males. Yes, some persons with the XY DSDs subject to WA's special regulations have testosterone levels that are lower than males with normal development. But others with these XY DSDs have testosterone levels that are much, much higher.
Some persons with Semenya's DSD, XY 5-ARD type 2, have been documented to have T levels of more than 47 nmol/L. Some persons with XY PAIS, Chand's DSD, have been documented to have T of more than 68 nmol/L. Whereas the top end of the normal T range for XY persons who don't have DSDs is 29-30 nmol/L.
Do we know that as well as testosterone, Dsd athletes retain all the traits of a regular male athlete? If so, it would only be a matter of time until some truly exceptional Dsd athletes emerged. Ie 1:45 800m, sub 4 in the Mile etc.
There is disagreement on whether atheltes like Semenya retains all the traits of a regular male athlete. Semenya v. IAAF has a detailed discussion from both sides. and CAS concluded that it was not necessary to reach a consensus on that question.
It is well established athletes like Chand do NOT retain all the traits of a regular male athlete. Chand has Partial Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome. (PAIS) To what extent she benefits from her angrogen is not known. There are probably other athletes in the same category who are currently under the DSD rule.
nope. humans should only compete in their biological category. trans does not exist. you cant change your sex and adding an elephant trunk to your face does not make one an elephant. Extra categories are bad as well. More work for race organizers and you open the door for 100 new categories. Only acceptable way is having one open (male) category and one female one.
By that logic - we could have a hundred different categories based on biological traits.
Sports has always been divided based on a handful of biological traits: sex, age, and in certain sports such as boxing and wrestling, weight too. In para sports, categories are based on these factors and on level of physical ability-disability as well.
There's logic to these categories because sex, age, weight and physical disabilities and their lack thereof are matters of observable, verifiable material reality - and they all make a considerable difference in people's ability to perform in sports.
By contrast there's no logic at all to creating a hundred different categories based on biological traits that have no bearing on sports performance at all, such as skin, hair and eye color; the length, texture and amount of hair on people's heads; the amount of hair on people's bodies; the number, color and straightness or crookedness of people's teeth; whether or not people have had appendectomies; and so on.
Do we know that as well as testosterone, Dsd athletes retain all the traits of a regular male athlete? If so, it would only be a matter of time until some truly exceptional Dsd athletes emerged. Ie 1:45 800m, sub 4 in the Mile etc.
There is disagreement on whether atheltes like Semenya retains all the traits of a regular male athlete. Semenya v. IAAF has a detailed discussion from both sides. and CAS concluded that it was not necessary to reach a consensus on that question.
It is well established athletes like Chand do NOT retain all the traits of a regular male athlete. Chand has Partial Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome. (PAIS) To what extent she benefits from her angrogen is not known. There are probably other athletes in the same category who are currently under the DSD rule.
Do we know that as well as testosterone, Dsd athletes retain all the traits of a regular male athlete? If so, it would only be a matter of time until some truly exceptional Dsd athletes emerged. Ie 1:45 800m, sub 4 in the Mile etc.
There is disagreement on whether atheltes like Semenya retains all the traits of a regular male athlete. Semenya v. IAAF has a detailed discussion from both sides. and CAS concluded that it was not necessary to reach a consensus on that question.
It is well established athletes like Chand do NOT retain all the traits of a regular male athlete. Chand has Partial Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome. (PAIS) To what extent she benefits from her angrogen is not known. There are probably other athletes in the same category who are currently under the DSD rule.
Whether or not these individual XY DSD athletes "retain all the traits of a regular male athlete" seems immaterial to me. The point is, they have enough of the physical traits of regular male athletes - starting with their male chromosomes, male genetics, male testes that pump out male levels of testosterone, and male androgen receptors - that it's patently unfair for them to be in women's competition. At the same time, they have none of the myriad physical traits that disadvantage female athletes in sports.
More to the point, these athletes and all the other XY DSD athlete whose place in women's sports are such a bone of contention are males with male-only DSDs. Which means they are not female or physically equivalent to females.
The women's category of sports were created for the purpose of giving the female half of the human race a chance to participate and excel in sports. Not to be used as a consolation prize for males with disorders or differences of male sex development only affecting males that caused them to be born with their testes in an unexpected place and anomalies of urogenital anatomy.
I am sorry that Semenya, Chand and other persons of both sexes have DSDs. But at the same time, I think it's outrageous and unethical for men keep insisting that males with the kinds of DSDs that Semanya and Chand have must be allowed into female sports competition to compensate them for having been born with missing, minuscule or misshapen penises, their testes in the wrong place - and in Chand's case, with some faulty male androgen receptors.
FFS, males with Semenya's DSD produce sperm and with medical assistance, they can and have fathered children pretty easily. Chances are excellent that Semenya provided the sperm that was used to get Semenya's wife, Violet Raseboya, pregnant with the two children she has given birth to since mid-2019.
The fact that some of Chand's male androgen receptors don't work properly and thus Chand can't use all the testosterone that Chand's testes pump out to the same degree as other males still doesn't make Chand female, similar to females or on the same level as females in sports.
The idea that males with male-only DSDs naturally belong in women's sports is based on a theory invented by some men which says that male human beings who come into the world with a couple of their male parts missing, malformed, misplaced or not working properly must be excluded and forever exiled from the category of boys and men and instead awkwardly shoehorned in with girls and women and considered to be girls and women themselves.
This is a misogynistic view as archaic as the ancient male philosophers' position that female humans are nothing but defective, inferior males.
Moreover, it's a view that's pretty rubbish and insulting to males with disorders/differences of male sex development. After all, a core reason that XY athletes with DMSDs like Semenya and Chand have ended up in women's sports is the tendency of phallocentric cultures, many individual boys and men - and some penis-preoccupied minds in medicine - to equate being male with having a penis.
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