globecanvas

For completeness, the previously linked article (which was written by a canuck belle, but not the canuckbelle): How previous steroid use could give a boost for entire athletic career - The Globe and Mail

The relevant quote: "[University of Olso physiology professor] Gundersen adds this effect on muscle memory may not only have implications for banned substances in sports, but also for transgender athletes. ... “When it comes to strength-related types of competitions, I think one has to be very careful,” Gundersen says. Even if trans female athletes no longer produce testosterone, he suggests, they may still have muscle memory. “I think it’s not unlikely that they will have an advantage.”"

As you say, that's not evidence of anything, just a hedged quote from one guy. The population sizes involved are so tiny it's hard to imagine definitive evidence for any conclusion emerging any time soon.

echappist

and i hang my head in shame for not getting the reference...

globecanvas

It's OK, it's nobody's fault. Not even the Romans.

globecanvas

Interesting and provocative article here:

Let Caster Run! We Should Celebrate Semenya?s Extraordinary Talent | FiveThirtyEight

"In the end, the real question to ask is: What is the purpose of sport? Is it more important to provide uncomplicated stories that make us feel uplifted, or to celebrate extraordinary human effort and performance?"

Ygduf

Oooh, yeah. Legitimacy of the competition has no bearing, right. That's what I say when I look at my Lance tattoo!

Grumpy McTrumpy

Nah. It's all about medal count.

Ygduf

yeeees.

my wife had a photographer come take real pictures. some are good, some are OK, and then some I love because of the faces.

globecanvas

Oh no. You dress your twins the same. Dead to me.



PS. cute kids.

hack

that glove tan ...

Ygduf

my wife and I had a heated moment where I was angry she bought 2 of the same shirt. she claims they didn't have any other colors in that style in the 6mo range.

Ygduf

crisp.

shovelhd

There's been a lot of talk about M2F transition, but very little about F2M transition and the effect on athletic performance. I think that this is a much more compelling case which warrants further analysis.

furiousferret

I've been procrastinating on congratulating for not just bringing in twins, but 2 Evans...so here it is.

Ygduf

I posted in the wrong thread.

furiousferret

Well I just burned out like 1 weeks worth of sentimentalism crafting that post.

hack

that's Central Valley summer crisp

tetonrider

hormones aside (natural or synthetic), if someone is born as a male but transitions to female, it makes sense that they would have some advantage, physically, that would stay with them.

can we agree that in general male physiology tends to offer some advantage, on average, vs female physiology in sport?

not saying there aren't exceptions to the rule or that physiology is the *only* determinant of success in sport, but in everything strength and even endurance-based, while women are closing the gap (and getting closest in distance running, last i checked) there still exists a notable gap.

i do see the analogy to the doper who used prohibited substances for a decade, trained harder, then went clean and still cleaned up. *cough* <insert your choice of pro or amateur doper> *cough*

canuckbelle

But this is important, your 'reasoning' is what most everyone does...and so it's important to take heed of the science, which says that the 'advantage' goes away for transitioned athletes.

tommyrod74

The science currently consists of one longitudinal study, on 8 non-elite runners. It's a good start, but there's a reason almost every study I've read (on any newly relevant topic) ends with some version of "more research is needed".

Distance running is, as someone stated above, where the smallest gap between male and female performances are found. It would be interesting to see a similar study examining athletes in power sports, or even endurance sports with more of a power component (certain cycling events, rowing).

canuckbelle

I'm not talking about that one (very good) study on athletic performance pre vs post transition. I'm also referring to the many studies on various physiological changes to: bone density, musculature, energy, etc etc.

So we have to ask what our baseline 'more study is required' belief should be: that trans women retain an unfair advantage after transition, or that trans women (on average) don't retain an unfair advantage.

Most people retain the former belief in the face of the evidence. I think that's epistemically improper. Given the (granted, inconclusive, but still strong) evidence, people ought to be leaning heavily towards the latter belief.

Heathpack 

If you supply a reference list (as you would for a publication or lecture you'd give on the subject), I would actually pull the articles & read them all in their entirety. I'm not sure if you've got a pub in the works & have your lit search done, but if you do, post em and I'll be the person who actually reads them all.

My guess is that there's a whole bunch of studies that look at various individual attributes that are thought to be important to performance but only one study that looks at performance itself as an outcome. The latter is the only type of study that's really able to determine if there's an advantage. The other types of studies are going to be extrapolating & making assumptions about how these various factors affect performance. Which is maybe the best evidence we have right now one way or the other, but is a long way from science "proving" or "saying" something about the subject of fair/unfair advantage.

Post em up. Links to full text articles makes it easier but no worries if you don't have em. I can get everything through the vet med library, no problem.

echappist

I think you are grabbing for air here. What do you mean by inconclusive but strong mean? The best example of inconclusive i could think of is when you test the effect of something by having a test group and a control groups, determine that one group improved a slight amount after the study, but also conclude that based on the statistics from the study, the p value does not clear the the necessary threshold for to make a conclusive statement. In such situations, the analyst chalks states that further studies are needed. If that p value if widely agreed upon, no reasonable person would be persuaded to believe that they need to change their opinion on the efficacy based on results of this particular study. On the basis that the data is inconclusive, the evidence simply cannot be strong.

So when you state that the evidence is inconclusive but is strong, i'm not even sure what that means. If you, as an advocate acquiesces that the evidence is not conclusive, no reasonable person would expect to be persuaded. Now i will grant that often in today's world people will deny the results of conclusive, well-done studies by uttering "we need more evidence" (global warming now and smoking a few decades ago come to mind), but this just isn't the case here due to the paucity of studies.

I think we all know what your position on the issue is based on your personal moral perspective, and it may certainly be possible that years down the road, after plethora of studies confirm what you believe (which means it would have changed from personal belief to statistically conclusive) that others would still refuse to reconsider based solely on their personal moral beliefs. At which time, you would be right to show your indignation. But we simply are not at the point yet when you, as an advocate, concedes that the evidence is inconclusive.

canuckbelle

Dude, I'm not going to do that. That's a lot of work on my end that could be done on your own. If it just involved linking to a single article or bibliography, I'd be very happy to do so.

Here's one interesting study I just found: Low bone mass is prevalent in male-to-female transsexual persons before the start of cross-sex hormonal therapy and gonadectomy. - PubMed - NCBI

Trans women in the sample had a lower average bone density *pre treatment* than their cis male counterparts.

canuckbelle

I am primarily an epistemologist. I work on what constitutes knowledge. We say that evidence-supported beliefs are gradable: some are stronger supported than others. What I'm saying is that there is better evidence that there isn't an advantage than there is evidence that there is an advantage. That's what 'inconclusive but strong' means. It's hardly incoherent (as I think you think).

Also, what indignation?

Heathpack 

Ok, as you are an academician I thought you perhaps had read these papers and have then at hand all together. This was my practice when I was an academician. I'd pull a group of papers to read them and them keep them all together, it was just more efficient to keep the results of any given lit search together.

The kind of paper you're referencing above I'm sorry IMO does not speak to advantage/disadvantage in performance outcome. They are reasonable studies to do for a number of reasons, but they are not intended I'm sure to speak directly to performance outcome. Instead, they are intended to talk about bone density between two groups or before/after. Period.

You just can't extrapolate that to performance and say science has concluded anything other than the impact on bone density (and even then you don't typically call it a conclusion until several studies find the same thing). This type of thing is commonly done but it's an incorrect application of the science.