Transgender Olympians: The end of female sport?

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A black pigeon video regarding the coming dominance of intersex athletes in women's sport and the civil war that has broken out between former allies radical feminists, radical egalitarians and the LGB(T?) activists.



I honestly can't see how the radical clans that dominate these sorts of debates will reconcile this without turning into the thing they claim to hate the most, a discriminator. One thing I don't see coming from any group is an admission of "hmm maybe we were wrong"

Watch your words in this thread, the moderators are particularly touchy about the T in LGBT.

Transgender women are still women. Why shouldn't a woman be allowed to compete in a women's sport?

In principle, I'd agree. The issue is the fact that a MtF transexual who went though puberty as a male is likely to have as much as 40% greater upper body strength, and something to the tune of 20% greater lower body strength, as well as higher bone density and significantly denser muscles.

It's really a question of fairness vs. fairness; on the one hand, it wouldn't be fair to exclude trans women from competing as women. On the other, it also wouldn't be fair to give women a massive strength penalty for being born women. And I'm not sure the category of trans athletes is large enough to warrant a division of their own. I really have no firm stance here.


Quoting female MMA fighter Tamikka Brents, following her defeat at the hands of MtF Fallon Fox:

I am of the opinion that people who are biologically male, and become transsexual females, should compete as males.

I am of the opinion that people who are biologically female, and become transsexual males, should compete as females.

I'm not going to go batcrap crazy, if this doesn't turn out to be the case.

Women are catching up to men rather fast, actually, even "regular" women.

Within a couple generations, I feel that at least some sports will become the domain of all genders.

The crux of the problem is being born male is an advantage on par with or exceeding testosterone doping. Allowing them to compete is not fair on those born women, but acknowledging this unfairness is to acknowledge that one of these things is not like the other... which is bigotry apparently.

So what is the way forward?
1) Ban transgender athletes from competing - that's bigotry, discrimination and exclusion.
2) Add a third gender to sports divisions - would mean acknowledging transgender people are not the same the gender they identify with - that's bigotry too.
3) Allow intersex people to dominate women's sport, effectively, if not specifically barring those born women from the sporting world - feminists blow their top.

I can't see a way out of this logic trap that the progressively-minded would be happy with.

I hope all this becomes irrelevant soon.

Women are really catching up fast. And I feel this will be accelerated over the coming years.

This is news to me. Have any pertinent links?

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/a ... ot/260927/

This one seems to think the gap is a consistent 10% between men and women, it might not be going away.

When talking about world records, we're always talking about the most accomplished human specimens. These aren't ordinary men or women. To arrive at any lesson about the basic difference between the genders, you have to jump a little, from the best to all.

And there could be social factors that shrink the available pool of women out of which the best athletes can emerge. In the US, let alone in other areas of the world, women make up only 41 percent of high school athletes.

At the same time, the 10 percent difference is clear from sport to sport and does not appear to be closely correlated with overall women's participation rates in athletics. Regardless of specifics, the factors which separate men and women probably seem to be, in Hammerman's words, "simple and basic."

Taking a kind of wild shot at which biological factors might affect athletic performance, Hammerman looked at hemoglobin counts and the maximum amount of oxygen an athlete can use in a minute.

And guess what he found? Men have an average of 13.6 to 17.5 grams of hemoglobin per decalliter in their blood. Women have 12.0 to 15.5 g/dl.

The ratio? .88 to .89.

The gap was wider in the old days.

It's just a feeling I have. I don't have "statistics" to prove it.

We shall see over the next 20 years what happens.

So they've effectively stumbled into their own Kafkatrap.

Women's records in the 100m go back as far as 1922, though we didn't introduce electronic timing until 1977 for both. The difference in apparel between male and female athletes up until the 1960s also means it's harder to get a clear picture of the genuine gap between them. Clearly the ladies would have had to deal with a greater amount of air resistance, thus increasing their times.

Since '77, the women's world record has dropped from 11 seconds to 10.49 seconds (Griffith-Joyner 1988), but there is some dispute over whether the anemometer (which read 0.0 m/s) was functioning. The nearby triple-jump anemometer read 4.3 m/s which would render the record null. The second fastest record is 10.64 seconds, also set by Griffith-Joiner.

By contrast, the men's record stood at approximately 10 seconds in 1977 and now stands at 9.58 seconds. Even if we allow the 10.49 record to stand, the men's record has maintained its 10% cushion to the women's.

If you compare data from other track events, the gap remains roughly 10%. I see no reason this trend will change other than the widespread acceptance of transgender athletes into women's sports.

Okay, I get that.

But suppose just as much emphasis was placed upon women's athletics as men's athletics. I wonder what would happen then.

But I still don't think the infusion of transsexual athletes will be the cause of any "end of female sport," for the amalgamation of sports under one gender will not occur for at least another 50 years or so.

Unless something is done, I give it 10 years tops before female athletics is completely dominated by people "identifying as women". There are real financial incentives to do so.

I think that would be a real pity, if this happened.

Emphasis as in funding or in terms of public interest? The former is a complex subject, though you could analyse the effects of Lottery funding via UK Sports (awarded on merit through Performance Directors) on British athletes. The latter is basically consumerism in action.



Exactly. The rewards for being the fastest "woman" - grants, sponsorship, support, etc - constitute a powerful motivator for a male athlete just shy of the top of their discipline.

This is actually untrue. Trans women take testosterone blockers, which lower their bone and muscle density; in fact trans women actually have less testosterone than cis women on average. You use Fallon Fox as an example, but any cis male MMA fighter would drop her in a second.


Trans women wouldn't be able to beat cis male athletes though.
And cis women aren't going to be able to compete with brawny, bearded, broad-chested trans guys.

If you force athletes to compete in the division corresponding to their birth sex, then only men will win. That will be the end of female sports.