Transgender is it just me that is totally perplexed?

[Horus Snacks]

It would be really wise if everyone didn't btw. This is Awesome Wells / Biscuitician /etc. etc. and he feeds on dragging threads into really nasty hateful places. Hopefully he'll be banned again soon.

Unlike this pathetic attempt at well poisoning by making appalling accusations without evidence of course.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Looking at the evidence such as it is might be a good starting point:

There appears to be very little consensus here, but if this article is right on this bit:

not only can testosterone levels give trans women an advantage over their CIS female competitors, after transitioning a trans woman's muscle mass, lung capacity and muscle memory all remain the same as when they were CIS male

then there may well be certain permanent legacies from growing up (and training as) male that are nothing to do with your current testosterone levels.

Your article and mine appear to contradict one another in certain places.

 

[Omaplata]

It's not a question of being angry, is it? I think it's a very unfortunate situation that doesn't necessarily have a good answer. One answer that doesn't really work is to say there's no problem.

This issue probably has even more importance in combat sports, Fallon Fox in MMA springs to mind Fallon Fox - Wikipedia

There have also been issues within the UK Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu community albeit on a less publicised scale due to the nature of the sport, a trans lady named Chloe Moore guested on the Raspberry Ape podcast a while ago, IIRC she discussed some of the testosterone limits she has to observe but I would have to listen again to remember details. I do remember it being worth a listen though!



I include her name and the link as it is obviously already freely available on the internet, I will of course delete if she happens to frequent here and doesn't want to be dragged in.

 

[smokedout]

There appears to be very little consensus here, but if this article is right on this bit:



then there may well be certain permanent legacies from growing up (and training as) male that are nothing to do with your current testosterone levels.

Your article and mine appear to contradict one another in certain places.

That seems to be based on the opinions of just one person, who doesn't offer any evidence beyond the study which contradicts her claim. There's another study referenced here:

The same data were extracted from all research articles reviewed (Table 1). Below, we provide the most prominent findings in relation to competitive sport participation from each of these articles. Six research articles were concerned with competitive sport participation within this systematic review [23, 25–29]. The only experimental study was by Gooren and Bunck [23] who aimed to explore whether transgender people taking cross-sex hormone treatment can fairly compete in sport. The authors measured transgender people’s muscle mass (via magnetic resonance imaging) and hormone levels (via urine and blood analyses) before and 1 year after cross-sex hormone treatment. They found that 1 year after transgender male individuals had been administered cross-sex hormone treatment, testosterone levels significantly increased and these levels were within a cisgender male range. They also found that 1 year after cross-sex hormone treatment, transgender male individuals’ muscle mass had increased and was within the same range as transgender female individuals (assigned male at birth) who had not been prescribed cross-sex hormone treatment. In relation to transgender female individuals, Gooren and Bunck found testosterone levels had significantly reduced to castration levels after 1 year of cross-sex hormone treatment. Muscle mass had also reduced after 1 year of cross-sex hormone treatment. However, muscle mass remained significantly greater than in transgender male individuals (assigned female at birth) who had not been prescribed cross-sex hormone treatment.

Castration level means they would have less testosterone than non-trans women, so if it is all about that as your source suggests then over time this may be a disadvantage for trans women.

 

[bimble]

I'm not particularly interested in competitive sports but it'll obviously lead to ongoing discussion because people in general aren't ready to unquestioningly agree that differences between biological men and women don't really exist. Eg the controversy about this weightlifter doesn't go away just because the law says she's got every right to compete as a woman.
Human Rights Commission NZ backs transgender weightlifter Laurel Hubbard for Commonwealth Games
http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2017/11/2...es-for-womens-category-at-commonwealth-games/

 

[littlebabyjesus]

That seems to be based on the opinions of just one person, who doesn't offer any evidence beyond the study which contradicts her claim. There's another study referenced here:


Castration level means they would have less testosterone than non-trans women, so if it is all about that as your source suggests then over time this may be a disadvantage for trans women.

Then there are issues such as bone shape and angles, lung capacity and heart size:

the science does show when a male to female transgender properly uses hormone therapy there is significant drops in testosterone (main component in muscle gain and retention), bone density, thinning of skin, and redistribution of body fat. All of the previous conditions lead to a decline in physical ability for any athlete. However hormone therapy does not change the bone shape or angles, lung capacity, or heart size.

Men and women have different angles between the quadriceps and knee. The ability for men to have better patellar tracking in athletic movements doesn’t diminish during hormonal therapy. In fact women are at greater risk for valgus knee positioning, increasing the risk of injury and a decrease of power generation. More physical advantages a man and a transgender male to female person will have are increased lung capacity, larger airways compared to height-matched women. Scientific findings suggest that gas exchange and ventilation will limit women’s ability during exercise. Regardless of hormone therapy a male will retain some of these advantages that can’t just be thrown aside because of legal differentiation.

Transgender, what is fair? - Tabata Times

There are physical legacies from the years of being and training as a male. At the very least, this stuff is tricky to disentangle in terms of fairness. At worst, it risks being blatantly unfair on cis women. Some frame this as a human rights issue to do with trans people's right to compete, but it's really not that straightforward.

 

[weepiper]

There are psychological advantages that late-transitioning trans women have over female athletes too: they were brought up as boys, so they had all the male socialisation that says boys are strong and good at running and years of practice at ball throwing and catching and all that stuff that doesn't generally happen to girls. The phrase 'you throw like a girl' didn't come from nowhere. It's not just about testosterone.

 

[Sea Star]

That's clearly not the only change. Another change would be to expand the group of people who could get a GRC i.e. to any male who (for whatever purpose) claims to be a woman, but who wouldn't meet the current criteria.

And still you insist you're not a transphobe. Wow. Keep misrepresenting things and using transphobic language to do it why don't you?

 

[weepiper]

This is a near 300 page thread where certain posters keep turning up with the most sensationalist bit of news they can find to prove their point - not entirely sure what it is other than TRANS PEOPLE R MAKING ME SO UPSET RIGHT NOW.If even just one of them would respectfully engage in the debate and not just sit on the thread until they can find yet another thing to wind up trans posters with, maybe you could take them seriously. Even the educated feminist as fuck weepiper dropped in with some tabloid nonsense about Ian Huntley having a sex change
It's nuts, so no I don't much feel like shedding a tear over this "very unfortunate situation"

Would you like to quote the post where I 'dropped in with some tabloid nonsense about Ian Huntley having a sex change', because I don't recall that?

 

[editor]

what is the stupid little face for? Can't you people ever just respond without the attitude? I made a point in good faith, and yet hwere we go again. FFS. EIther respond or don't, leave the shitty patronising bollocks at home.

You're now banned from this thread.

 

[smokedout]

Then there are issues such as bone shape and angles, lung capacity and heart size:



Transgender, what is fair? - Tabata Times

There are physical legacies from the years of being and training as a male. At the very least, this stuff is tricky to disentangle in terms of fairness. At worst, it risks being blatantly unfair on cis women. Some frame this as a human rights issue to do with trans people's right to compete, but it's really not that straightforward.

That just seems to be some random on a two bit athletics website. I'd hope the IOC have access to better medical advice than that and they seem satisfied, that on the evidence, trans women with testosterone below 10nmol/L do not have a competitive advantage.

 

[smokedout]

There are psychological advantages that late-transitioning trans women have over female athletes too: they were brought up as boys, so they had all the male socialisation that says boys are strong and good at running and years of practice at ball throwing and catching and all that stuff that doesn't generally happen to girls. The phrase 'you throw like a girl' didn't come from nowhere. It's not just about testosterone.

You could also speculate that the sudden loss of strength could lead to psychological trauma in an athlete and a heightened risk of injury. Not sure speculation really helps here though.

 

[agricola]

There are psychological advantages that late-transitioning trans women have over female athletes too: they were brought up as boys, so they had all the male socialisation that says boys are strong and good at running and years of practice at ball throwing and catching and all that stuff that doesn't generally happen to girls. The phrase 'you throw like a girl' didn't come from nowhere. It's not just about testosterone.

That is true, though of course a lot of that could be remedied by improving the level of and availability of training for girls in many sports - certainly in sports like football and cricket.

However I do think the biggest psychological advantage that a late transitioning trans woman has with respect to the competition is the fact that they have transitioned, or more specifically the struggle that is required to do that; loads of athletes and sportspeople (of any gender or sport) who reach the very top level of their profession have had to fight hard against something (be it trauma, bereavement, racism, rejection or physical problems) in order to get there, indeed there are so many of them its almost a cliche.

 

[weepiper]

You could also speculate that the sudden loss of strength could lead to psychological trauma in an athlete and a heightened risk of injury. Not sure speculation really helps here though.

No amount of you insisting that trans women are identical to born women in every way is going to convince me of the truth of it. We are different, because of our different experiences. What is so wrong with saying that? Why is it hateful?

 

[maomao]

Would you like to quote the post where I 'dropped in with some tabloid nonsense about Ian Huntley having a sex change', because I don't recall that?

HoratioCuthbert clearly has you mixed up with trashpony not that it was an accurate precis of what Trashpony said either.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

That just seems to be some random on a two bit athletics website. I'd hope the IOC have access to better medical advice than that and they seem satisfied, that on the evidence, trans women with testosterone below 10nmol/L do not have a competitive advantage.

The controversy surrounding intersex athletes is relevant wrt that 10 unit limit rule (which is well above the normal range for women and has been chosen pretty arbitrarily - I wouldn't overestimate the IOC's wisdom on this stuff). It's also a doper's charter - women can dope themselves up to that limit and not get done for it.

Here's another article, quoting a doctor about the potential legacy of your previous life:

Whether male to female or vice versa, a trans person's bone structure is unlikely to change in a significant way. If you were born female, you're still more likely to be shorter, smaller, and have less dense bones after transition; if you're born male, you're more likely to be taller, bigger, and have denser bones. And therein lies the controversy.

"A FTM trans person will end up somewhat disadvantaged because they have a smaller frame," Beil says. "But MTF trans people tend to be bigger, and may have certain strengths from before they started using estrogen."

It's these particular advantages that are raising tough questions for athletic organizations around the the world. "I think for high school or local athletic organizations, it's a small enough difference that people should largely ignore it," he says. "It's a harder question when you're talking about elite athletes."

 

[HoratioCuthbert]

HoratioCuthbert clearly has you mixed up with trashpony not that it was an accurate precis of what Trashpony said either.

This is correct, the story has been shared a few times in the thread (hence "dropped in with tabloid nonsense" as that is what it was ) but I must be remembering weepiper as liking all the posts mentioning it which seems an odd thing to do when normally coming across as pretty educated.

 

[elbows]

Issues of level playing field and competitive advantage are a complete mess at the upper level of competitive sports. We've seem glimpses of this for a long time with performance enhancing drugs, and more recently with stuff concerning paralympic classification, which has become very nasty in places. I guess this is what happens when everyone is encouraged to compete to the max on every front and push all the limits all the time. Given these general issues, I have very little hope that trans issues can be dealt with to everyones satisfaction on the sports front.

An example of the paralympic stuff: Sophie Hahn: Classification claims heartbreaking - Paralympic athlete

 

[HoratioCuthbert]

No amount of you insisting that trans women are identical to born women in every way is going to convince me of the truth of it. We are different, because of our different experiences. What is so wrong with saying that? Why is it hateful?

Born women don't all have the same experiences either, and as soon as you start listing things born women all share like fertility for example, it becomes problematic.

 

[smokedout]

No amount of you insisting that trans women are identical to born women in every way is going to convince me of the truth of it. We are different, because of our different experiences. What is so wrong with saying that? Why is it hateful?

I don't think it is hateful to say that and I don't think I've ever insisted that trans women are identical to non trans women in every way. I dont think I've ever heard anyone argue that. The question I think is for legal and social purposes do the commonalities outweigh the differences. I'm less interested in the ideology than I am in pragmatic solutions, and I think those solutions should be as best they can be based on some evidence. My main concern on this thread has been to counter propaganda from some radical feminists who oppose the existence of trans people and have used the proposed changes to the GRA to stir up hatred and misinformation.

 

[Athos]

And still you insist you're not a transphobe. Wow. Keep misrepresenting things and using transphobic language to do it why don't you?

What's transphobic about that? That's simply a fact, isn't it? Which bit is untrue?

 

[cantsin]

No amount of you insisting that trans women are identical to born women in every way is going to convince me of the truth of it. We are different, because of our different experiences. What is so wrong with saying that? Why is it hateful?

doesn't seem a "hateful" thing to say, but it's a line of argument that seems v rarely to be pushed by anyone who isn't hateful tbh...

If there is a good faith debate to be had around these issues, feels like nasty Terfism is poisoning the discourse beyond repair

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Issues of level playing field and competitive advantage are a complete mess at the upper level of competitive sports. We've seem glimpses of this for a long time with performance enhancing drugs, and more recently with stuff concerning paralympic classification, which has become very nasty in places. I guess this is what happens when everyone is encouraged to compete to the max on every front and push all the limits all the time. Given these general issues, I have very little hope that trans issues can be dealt with to everyones satisfaction on the sports front.

An example of the paralympic stuff: Sophie Hahn: Classification claims heartbreaking - Paralympic athlete

It is a mess, I agree, and the comparison to paralympic classification seems a good one. Men's sports are essentially open events - there's no need for restrictions and tests as top-level male competitors will mostly be so much better than top-level female athletes. Women's events exist precisely because women cannot compete with men in most top-level sports, so the only meaningful competition women can enter is one against other women - and restrictions and tests then become necessary, as they are in paralympic events. But as intersex athletes also show, we don't all fit neatly into one of the two boxes provided for us as competitors.

Ultimately, there is no completely satisfactory answer regarding what to do with those who slip between the boxes. The evidence regarding post-treatment performance doesn't alter the fact of various physical legacies from pre-treatment life. The example given of volleyball illustrates that simply enough: Height is a big advantage in volleyball and most top players are very tall. Trans women who transitioned in adulthood have male average height, not female average height; all other things being equal, you would expect to see trans women disproportionately represented at the top level of women's volleyball for this reason alone.

 

[elbows]

Some trans critical rad fems are angry that no women's groups were called to give evidence in person to the enquiry, although the views of providers of women's services were referenced in the final report. From Rudd's interview it now seems like they are going to follow the lead of the review being carried out by Women's Aid into their own employment practices and which looks like recommending women's service providers move to self-identification. This is their policy in Scotland and one shared by Scotland Rape Crisis who have both been fully trans inclusive for some time without any reported issue.

So it might be more correct for that piece to say that some women's voices are being overlooked, but the voices of women who actually work and live in women only services now seem to be at the heart of the government's policy plans.

I think it's important to recognise that the protests over Top Shop toilets and now Hampstead Women's Pool shows that some trans critical feminists are not concerned with preserving the right to biologically born female spaces, but are demanding all women's spaces be trans exclusive regardless of what those women actually think themselves. This really continues an agenda which has been going on since the 70s when feminist music collective Olivia Records started getting hate mail and threats of violence for having a trans sound engineer. Given that trans critical feminism has repeatedly attacked women's groups for choosing to be trans inclusive I'm not sure their claim to be the voice of women is particularly justified.

Thanks. I asked because I was actually hoping the answer might not be the usual suspects. But I had forgotten to check what other articles the author I quoted wrote. It was Debbie Hayton so I'm pretty sure we would already have spoken here about an article she first had published in the Times near the end of November. And I dont want to rehash a discussion about that one again, although it does contain a bit that brings me back to the 'fear of backlash' theme yet again.

We transgender women cannot self identify our sex

The same piece of legislation defends women’s rights. Some women have perceived a conflict and they are asking hard questions. If anyone can self-identify as a woman, what does the word woman even mean? My dictionary tells me that a woman is an adult human female, but that does not fit well with the claim that “transgender women are women”. This is painful territory for transgender people, and it is tempting to shut down debate and dismiss concerns as transphobia. But concerns don’t go away, they fester, and we risk transgender-acceptance being replaced by transgender-suspicion.

I think I already made one reference today to having concerns trying to identify people who are being pushed by the present agenda from transgender-acceptance to transgender-suspicion, as opposed to not coming from a place many would really recognise as transgender-acceptance to start with. Probably because a good many of them struggle to speak in glowing terms about trans people on any level, or at the very least making it hard through their use of language for me to detect a reasonable baseline of trans-acceptance in their starting point.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

This is correct, the story has been shared a few times in the thread (hence "dropped in with tabloid nonsense" as that is what it was ) but I must be remembering weepiper as liking all the posts mentioning it which seems an odd thing to do when normally coming across as pretty educated.

What do you mean when you say ‘educated’?

 

[Magnus McGinty]

Born women don't all have the same experiences either, and as soon as you start listing things born women all share like fertility for example, it becomes problematic.

So if men and women are physiologically identical, why transition?

 

[HoratioCuthbert]

What do you mean when you say ‘educated’?

Now I am stumped, what are my options?

 

[Magnus McGinty]

Now I am stumped, what are my options?

Well it could be a sneer, it’s hard to tell.

 

[HoratioCuthbert]

So if men and women are physiologically identical, why transition?

Debate that one with yourself, not sure why you dragged me into it.

 

[agricola]

Men's sports are essentially open events - there's no need for restrictions and tests as top-level male competitors will mostly be so much better than top-level female athletes. Women's events exist precisely because women cannot compete with men in most top-level sports, so the only meaningful competition women can enter is one against other women - and restrictions and tests then become necessary, as they are in paralympic events.

TBH there is very little evidence to say that women cannot compete with men in "most" top-level sports - athletics might be one of them, but not for that many team sports where training, innate ability and conditioning are far more important than physical attributes (and where there is often a considerable gap in physical attributes between members of a given team). For instance, a girl with the same innate talent as Messi has would probably be the same player as Messi if she had the same training, conditioning, the same team-mates and played at a similar standard of football.