markwesti

I'll go first . If a guy wants to be a women and does all the surgery stuff , I say that's their business . But don't hijack the real women sports . https://www.breitbart.com/sports/201...mens-records/#

bbbean 

I'm all for people being happy, and I accept the idea that gender is a complicated issue. I have no problem with someone who says they're transgender, and I'll call them what they want. No phobias here.
On the other hand, the body we're born in gives us a lot more than a hormone balance. simply blocking or removing testosterone production doesn't undo all the other physiological attributes that make most men faster cyclists than most women. I have genuine sympathy for someone who is both transgender and has the drive to compete, but I think fairness demands you find a sport or division where your unique history doesn't give you a built in advantage over your competitors.

aspalmat

Just my opinion, 100% unfair.

pickettt

Unfair.

Spoonrobot 

Is this the same woman who shopped around different sports attempting to find one in which to become champion? Also the same woman who essentially trolled the track forum until she was asked to stop posting there?

one4smoke

Good-grief. What a world were living in now. Unbelievable.

Not only is it unfair, it's unfathomable ...in my opinion.

MinnMan

IMHO this thread belongs in P&R. In particular because the link is from a highly partisan source (Breitbart). There are plenty of news stories on this situation from more neutral sources such as Velonews.

eja_ bottecchia

I constantly get dropped on steep climbs by the new generation of younger, lighter, stronger female riders.

Yeah, it is unfair.

jadocs

Absolutely it’s unfair. It’s not even a question. Physiological differences don’t become a non factor based on what one identifies as.

mynewnchome

I agree....someone will be along to argue shortly I'm sure.

hubcyclist

I've been following along since last year (and I know she used to post here on the racing forum). As the parent of a gender nonconforming child I have an appreciation for how folks may feel, but I can't at all agree with her almost militant approach of name calling anyone who reasonably disagrees as transphobic, all it does it serve to shut down any reasonable discussion. The fact is she can cite studies that agree with her stance but from what little I understand there's still not a lot known about how much advantage one has by virtue of reaching puberty as a male. I can also imagine it insulting to women to have this outsider (for lack of better term, for all the challenges that come with being gender questioning, she didn't experience a lifetime of being female and all the baggage that comes with that) come in and suddenly try to tell women how their sport should be.

It's a complex topic with no clear answer, everyone deserves dignity and it seems that there's no path where everyone comes out with their dignity intact, whether it be a large portion of competitors at a disadvantage or folks being excluded from competing with a group with which they identify.

CliffordK

A lot of issues would be solved by making the Men's category into an "open" category, and the women's category a birth women's, androgen restricted category.

So, all transgender athletes, whether M-->F or F-->M would simply compete in the "open" category.

Set basic guidelines for androgen use for the F-->M athletes. Then just watch it to see if it becomes an issue.

This would also allow any super competitive women who wished to race against the men (and could keep up) to do so.

Stravacyclist79

If you know biology you know its unfair.

burnthesheep

I'm going to copy and paste my response from another forum where this topic has 9 pages going.......

Paste:
I think folks really really need to go back and look at the podium pictures.......again.

For all the picking and jibing we give climate deniers on science and selective belief in data........I think we're being pretty selective in our beliefs about all these "genotypes" and testosterone. We're trying to find a reason or way to justify it.

Find the outlier in these photos: to me it's the person who looks like a Fred on the local group ride standing on a podium in a UCI world champ jersey.






Just to keep you on your toes........... spot the d-bag in these pictures also!



I can't wait for this wet paper bag of an argument to get wound up in the pros at some point when someone transitions and starts riding OTF in every race.

Your testosterone is already way down in road racing as a male. What's another few points? Your lungs and heart and body are still some XX% larger from birth anyway.

I don't think giving a man the chemical makeup of a woman makes up for being born 1/2 a foot taller with larger lungs and heart. 180 vs. 118 grams or so. 10% less lung volume. Larger liver and more overall glycogen and other "stores".

C'mon.

OBoile

I also don't agree with her militant approach/viewpoint. The idea that trans women should be allowed to compete as women *without any restrictions* goes too far IMO. It's a selfish viewpoint for her to take.

But having said that...
1. This is a single woman winning a single master's category event. Let's not try to blow it out of proportion. If transgender people are competing on an even playing field they will win sometimes.
2. While I agree that the current rules are probably not fair (and are in the process of being revised), no one really knows that for sure, or the actual magnitude of advantage given. We don't know the effect(s) of drugs taken to suppress hormones, or how a body reacts to a lower hormone level than it is expecting. Furthermore, the magnitude of advantage likely varies greatly depending on the sport in question, or even events within a sport. This lady would likely be at far less of an advantage over her competitors in a hill climb event for instance. We'll probably never know the exact magnitude of the advantage (if any) because there simply aren't enough trans women competing to do a proper study.
3. If, in the future, this really does become a major problem (i.e. say 10% of the elite, not masters, female podium spots are going to trans women) the restrictions can be revisited.


In short, there really isn't a significant issue here. This makes the news every year due to fear mongering and nothing more. Let trans women compete using restrictions that are the current best guess at what is fair. If they start winning a disproportionate number of times, revise those restrictions. But, as of now at least, this isn't happening.

MinnMan

At least at the amateur level, this already occurs - women can choose to compete in men's events, which I suppose makes them "open". This happens in particular in smaller events when the women's field is small and there aren't too many races in which women can compete. I'm not sure if Category rules apply, though (e.g., whether a cat 2 woman could compete in a cat 3 or cat 4 Men's race).

CliffordK

So like a woman can have women's shoe sizes and men's shoe sizes... perhaps also have separate category listings.

I could imagine women being given a choice of a 30 mile vs 60 mile race.

MinnMan

I don't understand what you find head scratching about this. Maybe you haven't ever been around amateur races, but it's common for entrants to compete in more than one race at an event. Especially (but not exclusively) crits and cx. An amateur Cat 4 man might compete in the Cat 3/4 event and in the Cat 4/5 event, or in one of the masters category races. A woman may compete in the womens' Cat 1/2/3 event and in one of the men's events. So the "choice" you describe could be that she competes in both.

I.B.Roots

Agreed...shockingly unfair!

Milton Keynes

No they won't!

Arthur Peabody

A guy who lost his legs creamed the competition in his weight class in weightlifting.

Milton Keynes

Was it Steve Austin?

Hiro11

I think a plurality (majority?) of people (myself included) agree that the social construct of gender is both non-binary and fluid. I think a clear majority of people (again, myself included) is fully supportive of trans rights. Regardless, all of that is completely irrelevant. Politics, identity and social mores are not what's being debated here. Not at all. What's being debated here is biology. The insane liturgical fervor of some people to deny scientific facts of physiology and biology in service of waving their favored political flag is incredible to watch. Watching these same people now tie themselves into logical knots as they try to explain their way around the negative implication for biological women is a particular joy to me. Science is science, folks. Facts are facts. For example, if you want to decry those who reject climate change science, you also have to decry those on your side of the political fence who deny science on the actual risks of GMO food, the true causes of mental illness, and the biological differences between men and women. You can't have it both ways.

Regardless, this is a fairly cut and dry case with small implications. Caster Semenya... now that's truly fascinating case with much higher stakes.

Maelochs

I am wholly in support of adults who voluntarily choose to change their genders .... but they need to understand that they also voluntarily surrender the option of being professional athletes in any sport which involves physical activity, where the typically larger and more muscular male frame is an unfair advantage. I don't hold with hitting women, but id slap that ex-guy ......

OBoile

I think you may have created this debate in your own mind. Dr McKinnon has said she doesn't care about any advantage as (in her opinion) trans rights are more important than a level playing field. Pretty much every other organization has placed restrictions on trans women in order to make the competition fair.

As for the science itself, until recently, no major studies had been done on the matter, so there was only speculation. Sort of like > 100 years ago when CO2 was proposed as a greenhouse gas but there wasn't massive amounts of data to back it up like there is today. Now we are starting to get some research on the effects of hormone suppression but even those results don't directly deal with performance.

In short, while people can speculate about certain factors which could cause an unfair advantage for trans women, no one really knows how much of a benefit, if any, that they receive overall in a particular sport.