KraneXL

One question: are their women competitors complaining about this?

canklecat

Yes.

bbbean 

Yes. Yes they are.

canklecat

At the risk of being pedantic, if the women's ranks were decimated there would still be 90% of them remaining. And they'd have been the ones to eliminate the 10%.

Just one of my pet peeves, like the misuse of "rhetoric" when media pundits mean polemic. Perfectly good words with specific meanings, but being muddied with misuse.

And, agreed, given their current biology and physiology women will never have an equal chance against men in physical competition.

That could change with bio-engineering, and probably will some day in the future. But men will also be bio-engineered so the gap will remain the same. Eventually bio-engineered humans will make PED doping seem quaint.

The only valid reason why women are rewarded equally in some sports is because the associated businesses can profit equally by promoting women's sports. And that's perfectly fine. It's also why most women's sports will never be rewarded equally with men's. The audience/consumer base won't support the profit margin necessary to make it possible.

Other than that, all sports that we participate in are comparably rigged against us. On my best day I'm still slow compared with the fastest guys my age (60+). And on their best day the fastest 60+ guys would get blown off the course by a typical junior road racing team. Physical competitions reward youth and strength. There's no way to make that equal or equitable without resorting to handicapping shenanigans.

DrIsotope

KraneXL

First, I can't tell anything from those photos, they all look alike to me. And second, what of women who is 6'4 and a man who is 5'4? Its not as simple as you proclaim.



Either you're legally recognized or your not. You can't have it both ways. There is no flip-flop selectability between the sexes.

Its not unfair, its just unfortunate.

Doge

This is unfair.
Many cyclist do unfair things.
Cycling is not fair.

I don't know it will destroy women's cycling, because I don't know that wining is all that important in women's cycling.

OBoile

So, a hypothetical situation in tennis where men dominate women (with complaints about prize money distribution that has nothing to do with this) is somehow "proof" that trans women will dominate the sport?

Again, I don't see why this is so difficult to understand: trans women are not the same as men. The Olympics have allowed trans women to compete since 2004. How many medals have they won? When exactly will this domination you fear happen?

OBoile

Some are. Others aren't.

bbbean 

Well that makes all the difference, I suppose.

markwesti

Some people have no shame .

Rajflyboy

Boobs

One person in pic has no boobs. Why?

Women have boobs. Pretty straightforward stuff here.

colombo357

Is synthetic estrogen a banned substance by WADA?

shelbyfv

DNA should settle this. All other considerations are too subjective. It's pretty cheap to test now but sanctioning bodies could subsidize the cost for competitors.

chas58

Gyro

Can't wait for the first at the LPGA.

Flip Flop Rider

not being judgy, but I doubt even former men could beat those girls on the LPGA

DrIsotope

If a "man" were allowed to hit from the women's tees, odds are they would dominate. Hitting the ball an average of 20% farther might be a bit of an advantage.

Gyro

If a "man" were allowed to hit from the women's tees, odds are they would dominate. Hitting the ball an average of 20% farther might be a bit of an advantage.

As a woman, how could they stop him?

OBoile

Again, no one (except possibly this Dr McKinnon) thinks men don't have an advantage over women.

What people here don't seem to get is that trans women, when following the IOC guidelines, don't perform the same as men. There isn't much data available, but the video below discusses the before and after transition effects on performance for both a cyclist and a runner. For those that can't be bothered to watch, IIRC the cyclist loses 11% of her power and the runner slows down by 12% (which, BTW mirrors the difference between men's and women's world records across all distances). This is admittedly, N=2 (or N=1+1 I guess) so take it with a grain of salt. But, in the absence of better data, it makes sense to look at the actual sporting results. Once again, trans women winning major competitions is not a common thing. Women's sport is in no danger currently.

The video also has a few different viewpoints on the issue. Dr McKinnon seems to be in the minority, even in the transgender community, about allowing trans women to compete against cisgendered women without restriction.

DrIsotope

Trans Athletes are Posting Victories and Shaking up Sports

"Transgender women’s performances generally decline as their testosterone does. But not every male advantage dissipates when testosterone drops. Some advantages, such as their bigger bone structure, greater lung capacity, and larger heart size remain, says Alison Heather, a physiologist at the University of Otago in New Zealand. Testosterone also promotes muscle memory—an ability to regain muscle mass after a period of detraining—by increasing the number of nuclei in muscles, and these added nuclei don’t go away. So transgender women have a heightened ability to build strength even after they transition, Heather says."

burnthesheep

Uhm, did we ignore the part about men being born with a few ounces larger hearts and at least 10% larger lung volumes?

Also, in the pics.............the person in question literally looks like a "nobody" Fred on the local 20 mile C or B group ride. The rest of the people in those photos look like cut and trained super athletes.

There's over 800 watts difference in peak power from elite men to women in that event. I'll claim ignorance and go with what I could find at hand, quoting 1400w for women. Not a slouch effort at all, much less not for a clubbie Fred dude. But, for comparison........I'm a skinny roadie nobody that races and can peak at 1200 and hold 700 for darn close to a minute (ok, ok, 690 for 45 seconds and 770 for 30 seconds). Totally untrained for track racing. Zero weight lifting. So, yeah, a Fred dude transitioning and then training could probably smash some women on a sprint.

OBoile

As I've been saying:

"For all the hand-wringing about transgender women ruining women’s sport, so far there’s little evidence of that happening. Although CeCé Telfer and June Eastwood garnered attention for their outstanding performances on women’s collegiate running teams, they are hardly the only transgender athletes in the NCAA. Helen Carroll is a LGBTQ sports advocate who worked on the NCAA transgender handbook. Through her advocacy work, she has interacted extensively with transgender athletes and she estimates there are somewhere in the neighborhood of 150 to 200 transgender athletes currently competing in NCAA sports. Most of them “you don’t hear a thing about,” she says, because their participation hasn’t caused controversy."

This really isn't a major issue currently. If, in the future, that changes, the rules can be revised to be more fair.

himespau 

I'd agree.

himespau 

McKinnon views any requirements to suppress her hormones currently (regardless of what they did in the first 30 years of her life before she transitioned and gave her the muscle mass she enjoys today) as a violation of her human rights.