Athletes, chromosomes and competition

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I put this thread in the PPR rather than under the sports section in the event the topic is contentious to some.

Rather than focus on whether or not biological males who identify as female should be considered women and as such should they be able to compete in women's sports, has there been any suggestion put forth that a people with XY chromosomes can't play competitive sports with people who have XX chromosomes or vice versa?

Last edited by Magna on 30 Jun 2020, 12:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I'm not sure if that would work, since not all women with Y chromosomes are transwomen. If a fetus develops with a Y chromosome but complete androgen insensitivity that fetus will develop as a female and most likely identify as cisgender and straight, or at least will be no more likely than any other girl to identify differently.

Many schools don't have "rough sports" for girls, such as girl's football.

So, there are many stories of girls having to fight their way onto a boy's team.

This would be seen as sexual discrimination.

12 year old girl fights to play football (on boy's team)

Interestingly, this doesn't always resolve things for all of the girls since often the 'girl's team' will play by rules that minimize contact. I have mixed thoughts on how to resolve this because some girls are certainly built 'heavily enough' to play the version with contact and no one would suggest we need to protect smaller men or transmen from the full contact version.

Mr. W. our seventh grade science teacher talked all about that when he taught us about chromosomes. How the Soviets would sneak in athletes with nonstandard chromosome combinations. Like women XXY who have male traits, and having them compete against regular XX women athletes. Somehow I get the impression that was what the olympic officials were forced to do- check out the person's DNA to make sure that didnt have some intersex chromosome disorder like that to keep it fair.

This can be further complicated if the individual is a chimera, because humans can express multiple genetic individuals within a single individual. If an athlete has both XX and XXY tissues it might be harder to detect. There was a case of a woman who failed a maternity test (wtf?) because her mouth swab used to confirm her identity at the time of the first test was a different individual genetically than her ovaries (as confirmed in a second test), in this case they were both XX, but it's more commonly detected when there's a chromosomal anomaly than when there isn't.

I think what you're saying would make it even more fair and remove the "men"/"women" or "boy"/"girl" controversy completely. Rather than have this be about "trans" vs. non-trans, what if regardless of how a person identifies, xy and xx can't compete in competitive sports against each other?

You have a good point so I removed "trans" from the topic of the thread entirely.

That's not what I was saying and to give my actual mindset on sports/sex/gender/fairness I'm not sure if it's possible to make sports completely fair because trans individuals and naturally (chromosomal or otherwise) anomalous individuals are inherently difficult to reconcile to the two binary categories based on traditional understandings, the other common traditional understanding wouldn't work much better (males, women, feminized males as a third gender).

My language choices were more about avoiding imposing identities on strangers when their gender identity doesn't really matter to the conversation.

If a man is hyper-masculinized we'd have no trouble considering him a man, but obviously he's going to have the same type of unfair advantage a masculinized woman athlete would display.

One solution would be to have athletes who don't fit either gender well (and possibly athletes who are suspected of doping as well) put in an exhibition class owing to the inherent difficulties of making competition fair for them.

Last edited by funeralxempire on 30 Jun 2020, 12:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I don't think XXY is relevant to the sports argument since it only affects males (Klinefelter Syndrome) and results in poorly formed testicles which results in lower muscle mass, weaker bones and lower energy.

The issue being raised primarily is that XX girls/women are being routinely beaten and even trounced by XY girls/women, not the other way around.

XXY might matter in the case of a chimera who is both XX and XXY, if it's possible as 46,XX/46,XY it's also possible as 46,XX/47,XXY. You're right that it's not likely to be relevant to males and athletics, even if it might be for women and athletics.

It amounts to much the same thing - it's still naked transphobia, and still results in humiliating "gender tests" for women which will still have the same stigma attached. You'd end up with "women's sports" being dominated by men like Mack Beggs who have Y chromosomes. Just do it by gender and you avoid those issues, allow people to compete with dignity and fairness.

Can you steer me to the right information? From what I read Mack Beggs was born XX and has been taking testosterone and identifies as a boy, trounced girls in wrestling but coaches say Mack would easily be beaten if he competed against XY boys in boys wrestling. Where does it say Mack was born XY?

I'm not sure Walrus is saying Mack Beggs was born entirely XY. An intersex individual who has both XX and XY genotypes would 'have Y chromosomes'; as would an intersex person with partial androgen insensitivity and only XY chromosomes. In either of these situations the hypothetical individual would have 'have Y chromosomes' but still be viewed as transmen, but only the latter would fit your interpretation of what Walrus said.

Walrus can speak for himself. He said Mack Beggs has Y chromosomes. I'm simply asking where he found that information since I haven't been able to find it. All I've found is that Mack Beggs was born XX and takes HRT.

I'm explaining the two cases where what he said can be true. He'll need to clarify what he means.

This is somewhat more complicated than chromosomes for the reasons funeralxempire mentioned, but also because of the fact that not all trans people start hormone therapy after they've gone through the puberty they would have naturally gone through, like with puberty blockers and adolescents then going through HRT. (Dear lord, no one turn this into a "forcing children to be trans" argument...)

There are some differences between even young male and female children, but if a trans girl was to go on estrogen before the affects of male puberty took their hold, what advantages would she actually have against adolescent cis girls who went through the same puberty, most likely even a bit earlier than her? Would she possibly even have disadvantages, since if she has XY chromosomes she has different genes from the girls with XX, and thus different possible unconsidered affects from female puberty? These things also need to be looked into when talking about this.