Transgender woman wins cycling championship

Now we have something / quite-a-lot to discuss and celebrate.
Cyril Haearn
Posts: 15215
Joined: 30 Nov 2013, 11:26am

Re: Transgender woman wins cycling championship

Post by Cyril Haearn »

cyclemad wrote:I was just generalising -- society needs to change and remove stereotypes etc...As the old saying goes -- '' we are the same underneath'' :D :D :D :D :D :D

Plus One for thread drift and learning new things, meeting "different" people :)

I am male, prefer females not to wear make up but the Grauniad reports that it is being marketed to trendy males too €&€, -1

Like to look at makeover articles in womens magazines, usually the subjects look better beforehand :wink:
IMVHO
Entertainer, juvenile, curmudgeon, PoB, 30120
Cycling-of course, but it is far better on a Gillott
We love safety cameras, we hate bullies
Cyril Haearn
Posts: 15215
Joined: 30 Nov 2013, 11:26am

Re: Transgender woman wins cycling championship

Post by Cyril Haearn »

I think mixed tandem racing (and mixed tandem everyday riding) is the best way to deal with the differences between ladies & laddies
Entertainer, juvenile, curmudgeon, PoB, 30120
Cycling-of course, but it is far better on a Gillott
We love safety cameras, we hate bullies
User avatar
cyclemad
Posts: 186
Joined: 23 Jan 2018, 9:16pm

Re: Transgender woman wins cycling championship

Post by cyclemad »

reply to pasamathe ( sorry didnt want to copy/paste your quote )

I think that person is what you now define as gender fluid...They are happy being either male or female depending on their role at the time..or to some...the best of both worlds :D

They may be happy being male at home and happy being female in the workplace....Its confusing for those of us who are not in their shoes...If that person has made great inroads / promoted female working practice (while in a female role ) then the decision to reward that person is down to the people who give out the award. Should we deride them for accepting the award and let the achievement go un recognised or should we promote this and highlight that achievement / improvement in working conditions for the female members of staff within the specific organisation ?

Does anyone recall a film starring Mel Gibson who after an accident find he has womens thoughts ? His new super powers enabled him to fully understand the needs of a female and it improved his working conditions ... So it maybe that it took a male / female to identify the improvements required etc.......just a thought..

Should we complain that a white European heterosexual male has received a medal from HM for his services to the asian female community or should we salute hm for combatting the problems within that community ?


The problem with ''sensitive '' subjects such as this lies with sensationalist journalism who seem to stir up feelings for and against - and that just a personal opinion at this stage....
Psamathe
Posts: 17646
Joined: 10 Jan 2014, 8:56pm

Re: Transgender woman wins cycling championship

Post by Psamathe »

cyclemad wrote:reply to pasamathe ( sorry didnt want to copy/paste your quote )

I think that person is what you now define as gender fluid...They are happy being either male or female depending on their role at the time..or to some...the best of both worlds :D

They may be happy being male at home and happy being female in the workplace....Its confusing for those of us who are not in their shoes...If that person has made great inroads / promoted female working practice (while in a female role ) then the decision to reward that person is down to the people who give out the award. Should we deride them for accepting the award and let the achievement go un recognised or should we promote this and highlight that achievement / improvement in working conditions for the female members of staff within the specific organisation ?....

(As I said earlier, I don't have adequate knowledge of the issues to argue any point beyond) I don't think anybody is questioning the individual's lifestyle or choices and everybody seems quite happy with however he/she choses to live. The big question in that instance is whether the individual should be eligible for a Women's Business Award when they are a man some days and a woman other days. In a sector where women are underrepresented, does awarding such an individual detract from the purpose of the award?

cyclemad wrote:reply to pasamathe ( sorry didnt want to copy/paste your quote )
.....
Should we complain that a white European heterosexual male has received a medal from HM for his services to the asian female community or should we salute hm for combatting the problems within that community ?....

Services to a community is very different from something open only to members of that community.

One consideration I have seen raised twice now in news programs is that anybody raising disagreements with aspects of the proposed "legal status self-certification" is that they are called "Transphobic" and this has shut down a lot of the debate. My understanding is that the current government consultation (now ending) is about "self certification of legal status" rather than having an independent procedure to certify gender change. And what seems to happen is that when anybody raises any issues related to self-certification they are immediately criticised for supposedly making comments against how people chose to live.

And I'll repeat yet again, I am not commenting on how people chose to live yet am already having to repeat this. The debate is about legal status procedures - so why am I posting again that people can chose to live however they want and that the example I gave was only my repeating an issue raised on the news which passed no opinion on how the individual chose to live.

Ian
Cyril Haearn
Posts: 15215
Joined: 30 Nov 2013, 11:26am

Re: Transgender woman wins cycling championship

Post by Cyril Haearn »

The award got lots of publicity, got people talking, thinking, learning, +1

There are so many prizes, for literature for example, CBE, &c, might be hard to find people to accept them

Not sure whether Robert Zimmermann/Bob Dylan deserved the Nobel prize, maybe he did :wink:
Entertainer, juvenile, curmudgeon, PoB, 30120
Cycling-of course, but it is far better on a Gillott
We love safety cameras, we hate bullies
thelawnet
Posts: 2736
Joined: 27 Aug 2010, 12:56am

Re: Transgender woman wins cycling championship

Post by thelawnet »

roubaixtuesday wrote:I heard the winner interviewed on the Today programme this morning, would have been some time before 8am and will be on iPlayer if anyone is interested.

Her take was that decisions on who is eligible to race should be based on published peer reviewed scientific findings rather than opinons, even expert opinions.


Sounds nice in theory. In practice science is not always objective fact.

How do you generalise about performance differences between biological males who have changed gender and those who haven't? I have read some of the studies and the evidence base is very thin - there simply isn't a large pool of elite athletes, rather the studies may test people who have gone from (for example) people performing lots of exercise before a gender transition, to perhaps very little following it, and which may be complicated by things like surgery (which may or may not be performed).

There are some rather basic pieces of science which are not affected by any gender transition:

1) biological males are exposed to large volumes of testosterone from puberty, which virilise the male body and make it significantly and permanently stronger than the female body
2) we don't have ovaries, which produce oestrogen which restricts female height compared to male
3) we have bigger lungs than females, in part because the female thorax is designed to accommodate the growth of a baby and the male thorax is not

No peer-reviewed study is ever going to show that a transgender woman has anything other than a male skeleton and male lungs.

I don't doubt that you could produce a study, and find people to peer review it to show that 'in general a transwoman loses x% strength following a gender transition with hormone restriction', and somehow to use this to suggest that there are no fairness issues.

That doesn't change the fact that multiple mediocre male athletes have transitioned to female and CRUSHED all-comers.
thelawnet
Posts: 2736
Joined: 27 Aug 2010, 12:56am

Re: Transgender woman wins cycling championship

Post by thelawnet »

Psamathe wrote:
cyclemad wrote:reply to pasamathe ( sorry didnt want to copy/paste your quote )

I think that person is what you now define as gender fluid...They are happy being either male or female depending on their role at the time..or to some...the best of both worlds :D

They may be happy being male at home and happy being female in the workplace....Its confusing for those of us who are not in their shoes...If that person has made great inroads / promoted female working practice (while in a female role ) then the decision to reward that person is down to the people who give out the award. Should we deride them for accepting the award and let the achievement go un recognised or should we promote this and highlight that achievement / improvement in working conditions for the female members of staff within the specific organisation ?....

(As I said earlier, I don't have adequate knowledge of the issues to argue any point beyond) I don't think anybody is questioning the individual's lifestyle or choices and everybody seems quite happy with however he/she choses to live. The big question in that instance is whether the individual should be eligible for a Women's Business Award when they are a man some days and a woman other days. In a sector where women are underrepresented, does awarding such an individual detract from the purpose of the award?


I don't know that everyone is necessarily happy with how this person lives his life. I mean on a basic level if you want to wear a skirt to work, be you male or female, then good luck to you.

HOWEVER, in this case the individual has what would some quarters would call 'white male privilege', in that they are a well-paid executive, have a wife at home to raise their children, and quite literally wrote the rulebook on how to treat them at work: https://outleadership.com/wp-content/up ... _Guide.pdf

So in that context if you are say a female admin worker at Credit Suisse, have this person on their 'woman' day coming into the women's toilet next to you, I don't particularly see that you have any choice about whether you like it or not, given that not only is their particular lifestyle protected by the innate power of being in a senior management position, but also by the fact that they identify as a legally protected minority.

I don't think that someone who dresses as a woman sometimes, for fun, is comparable to someone who is distressed by their male body and wants to be treated permanently as a woman, and I don't think that they do people who experiences debilitating dysphoria any favours.
Psamathe
Posts: 17646
Joined: 10 Jan 2014, 8:56pm

Re: Transgender woman wins cycling championship

Post by Psamathe »

thelawnet wrote:
Psamathe wrote:
cyclemad wrote:reply to pasamathe ( sorry didnt want to copy/paste your quote )

I think that person is what you now define as gender fluid...They are happy being either male or female depending on their role at the time..or to some...the best of both worlds :D

They may be happy being male at home and happy being female in the workplace....Its confusing for those of us who are not in their shoes...If that person has made great inroads / promoted female working practice (while in a female role ) then the decision to reward that person is down to the people who give out the award. Should we deride them for accepting the award and let the achievement go un recognised or should we promote this and highlight that achievement / improvement in working conditions for the female members of staff within the specific organisation ?....

(As I said earlier, I don't have adequate knowledge of the issues to argue any point beyond) I don't think anybody is questioning the individual's lifestyle or choices and everybody seems quite happy with however he/she choses to live. The big question in that instance is whether the individual should be eligible for a Women's Business Award when they are a man some days and a woman other days. In a sector where women are underrepresented, does awarding such an individual detract from the purpose of the award?

.....
So in that context if you are say a female admin worker at Credit Suisse, have this person on their 'woman' day coming into the women's toilet next to you, I don't particularly see that you have any choice about whether you like it or not, given that not only is their particular lifestyle protected by the innate power of being in a senior management position, but also by the fact that they identify as a legally protected minority.

I don't think that someone who dresses as a woman sometimes, for fun, is comparable to someone who is distressed by their male body and wants to be treated permanently as a woman, and I don't think that they do people who experiences debilitating dysphoria any favours.

Whilst I don't really appreciate the issues one aspect that does concern me with "self-certification" and permitting regular legal status changes (e.g. the maybe more unusual one day male, next female, next male, etc.) is how it might provide legal "license" or cover to sex pests and worse providing them with a legal means to e.g. ♂ self-declare as ♀ and 10 mins later they are legally in the women changing room at the local swimming pool. That does not necessarily mean current legislation should not be changed but there certainly would need to be something to avoid loopholes being exploited by those with ulterior motives.

Ian
roubaixtuesday
Posts: 5813
Joined: 18 Aug 2015, 7:05pm

Re: Transgender woman wins cycling championship

Post by roubaixtuesday »

Her case was basically that the rules as written by the IOC and signed on to by the UCI are based on peer-review science and changes to those rules should be likewise based on peer-reviewd science. Which seems reasonable to me. I don't have any expertise to judge the science they are based on, and the rules don't provide references.

It's notable they include this:
The overriding sporting objective is and remains the guarantee of fair
competition. Restrictions on participation are appropriate to the extent that
they are necessary and proportionate to the achievement of that objective.


https://stillmed.olympic.org/Documents/ ... ism-en.pdf
thelawnet
Posts: 2736
Joined: 27 Aug 2010, 12:56am

Re: Transgender woman wins cycling championship

Post by thelawnet »

Psamathe wrote:
thelawnet wrote:
Psamathe wrote:(As I said earlier, I don't have adequate knowledge of the issues to argue any point beyond) I don't think anybody is questioning the individual's lifestyle or choices and everybody seems quite happy with however he/she choses to live. The big question in that instance is whether the individual should be eligible for a Women's Business Award when they are a man some days and a woman other days. In a sector where women are underrepresented, does awarding such an individual detract from the purpose of the award?

.....
So in that context if you are say a female admin worker at Credit Suisse, have this person on their 'woman' day coming into the women's toilet next to you, I don't particularly see that you have any choice about whether you like it or not, given that not only is their particular lifestyle protected by the innate power of being in a senior management position, but also by the fact that they identify as a legally protected minority.

I don't think that someone who dresses as a woman sometimes, for fun, is comparable to someone who is distressed by their male body and wants to be treated permanently as a woman, and I don't think that they do people who experiences debilitating dysphoria any favours.

Whilst I don't really appreciate the issues one aspect that does concern me with "self-certification" and permitting regular legal status changes (e.g. the maybe more unusual one day male, next female, next male, etc.) is how it might provide legal "license" or cover to sex pests and worse providing them with a legal means to e.g. ♂ self-declare as ♀ and 10 mins later they are legally in the women changing room at the local swimming pool. That does not necessarily mean current legislation should not be changed but there certainly would need to be something to avoid loopholes being exploited by those with ulterior motives.


I think that issue already exists in that if there is someone who appears to be male in the female changing rooms, then any challenge of that person is open to accusations of hate crimes/harassment etc. The legal recognition of gender change is something that might be relevant for some specific administrative purposes, but on a day-to-day level people don't have access to the 'legal gender', which is a fiction in reality, in that our interactions with a person are based on more fundamental cues. If someone is legally female but comes across as male, then they are likely to be treated as male. And if someone comes across as female then their ownership of a certificate is largely irrelevant. There are bits in between that are more nuanced of course - I have long hair, and though pink is not my favourite colour, if I did wear it, I would be offended if people called me 'madam' rather than 'sir'. But there are those who identify as female who look less feminine than I do, so I don't know where we go with all of this.
thelawnet
Posts: 2736
Joined: 27 Aug 2010, 12:56am

Re: Transgender woman wins cycling championship

Post by thelawnet »

roubaixtuesday wrote:Her case was basically that the rules as written by the IOC and signed on to by the UCI are based on peer-review science and changes to those rules should be likewise based on peer-reviewd science. Which seems reasonable to me. I don't have any expertise to judge the science they are based on, and the rules don't provide references.

It's notable they include this:
The overriding sporting objective is and remains the guarantee of fair
competition. Restrictions on participation are appropriate to the extent that
they are necessary and proportionate to the achievement of that objective.


https://stillmed.olympic.org/Documents/ ... ism-en.pdf


It's a difficult subject in that as I have mentioned the science/evidence pool is thin.

One issue is that those involved have a vested interest, such as Joanna Harper, IOC adviser, who is transgender.

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/07 ... -including

The study Harper published was ridiculous.

http://10ste93kec2i6oi6nlhmxd19.wpengin ... inalOF.pdf

"Race times from eight transgender women runners were collected over a period of seven years and, when possible, verified. "

If you scroll down just a page or two you can see what a pisspoor piece of work this is.

"Runner No. Age Time AG Age Time AG
One 48 18:27 78.7 52 22:43 75.7
Two 30 15:56 81.4 36 17:51 82
Six (b) 24 15:07 83.5 53 20:22 85.5"

A 52 year old ran slower than a 48 year old. A 36 year old ran slower than a 30 year old! A 53 year old ran slower than a 24 year old!

It's nonsense, because the athletes are not living, training, etc. under the same conditions, the sample size is impossibly small, the athletes are not elite, and so on.

One result stands out: Marathon: at 19yo as male 3:49:55, and at 31 as a female 2:59:10. It is noted that the athlete lost weight, trained more, etc., in the mean time, however the impossibility of comparing the results is obvious, since 'changing gender' is concurrent with numerous other changes in a person's life.

I don't think we have a robust body of evidence on elite male athletes being subject to testosterone reduction to 'become female', however when Caster Semenya was subject to testosterone limits in 2013/2014 reducing testosterone from a male level of 30 nmol/l to a lower level 10nmol/l, the speed reduction was around 5%.

The best 100m for female athletes this year is 10.85s, and for men 9.79s which is a straight 10% speed difference, so a testosterone reduction does not appear to eliminate that gap.

'Caster Semenya' does not constitute a robust sample of course, but I believe that 'being male' is a combination of having male lungs, bones etc., the exposure to years of male testosterone levels, AND the current/recent performance-enhancing testosterone effects, and that a short reduction of a year or so in testosterone doesn't cancel all that out.

The issue is perhaps that legally the athletics bodies need evidence to prove the obvious, because otherwise they will be sued. And the likes of Harper are of course happy to publish studies based on the grand sum of eight people to show that there's no advantage to being male, honest guv.

I think this reflects perhaps a wider modern Western philosophy of individual human rights being the most important good, and this individualism does not pay much regard to the rights of others, but is focused on perceived infringements to the individual - 'it is my human right to compete in elite sport'. That doesn't reflect the realities of the situation in my opinion in that elite sport has other goals - entertainment and some sort of sense of fairness, that competitors are equal on some level (being born female, or being in a certain weight category or whatever)
Vorpal
Moderator
Posts: 20700
Joined: 19 Jan 2009, 3:34pm
Location: Not there ;)

Re: Transgender woman wins cycling championship

Post by Vorpal »

thelawnet wrote:There are some rather basic pieces of science which are not affected by any gender transition:

1) biological males are exposed to large volumes of testosterone from puberty, which virilise the male body and make it significantly and permanently stronger than the female body
2) we don't have ovaries, which produce oestrogen which restricts female height compared to male
3) we have bigger lungs than females, in part because the female thorax is designed to accommodate the growth of a baby and the male thorax is not

No peer-reviewed study is ever going to show that a transgender woman has anything other than a male skeleton and male lungs.

I don't doubt that you could produce a study, and find people to peer review it to show that 'in general a transwoman loses x% strength following a gender transition with hormone restriction', and somehow to use this to suggest that there are no fairness issues.

That doesn't change the fact that multiple mediocre male athletes have transitioned to female and CRUSHED all-comers.

Except that hormones vary hugely. Some women produce high levels of testosterone, and some men produce high levels of estrogen. There is relatively little difference in height between men and women, and most of the differences in strength are differences in how women and men culturally have learned to use their bodies.

Read the book I posted about above.
“In some ways, it is easier to be a dissident, for then one is without responsibility.”
― Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom
landsurfer
Posts: 5327
Joined: 27 Oct 2012, 9:13pm

Re: Transgender woman wins cycling championship

Post by landsurfer »

And again ....

"Women don't have a penis"

Thats the only guidance required ....... :roll:

Am i the only one seeing this simple fact ..........
“Quiet, calm deliberation disentangles every knot.”
Be more Mike.
The road goes on forever.
landsurfer
Posts: 5327
Joined: 27 Oct 2012, 9:13pm

Re: Transgender woman wins cycling championship

Post by landsurfer »

Cyril Haearn wrote:look at makeover articles in womens magazines, usually the subjects look better beforehand
IMVHO


+1
“Quiet, calm deliberation disentangles every knot.”
Be more Mike.
The road goes on forever.
thelawnet
Posts: 2736
Joined: 27 Aug 2010, 12:56am

Re: Transgender woman wins cycling championship

Post by thelawnet »

Vorpal wrote:
thelawnet wrote:There are some rather basic pieces of science which are not affected by any gender transition:

1) biological males are exposed to large volumes of testosterone from puberty, which virilise the male body and make it significantly and permanently stronger than the female body
2) we don't have ovaries, which produce oestrogen which restricts female height compared to male
3) we have bigger lungs than females, in part because the female thorax is designed to accommodate the growth of a baby and the male thorax is not

No peer-reviewed study is ever going to show that a transgender woman has anything other than a male skeleton and male lungs.

I don't doubt that you could produce a study, and find people to peer review it to show that 'in general a transwoman loses x% strength following a gender transition with hormone restriction', and somehow to use this to suggest that there are no fairness issues.

That doesn't change the fact that multiple mediocre male athletes have transitioned to female and CRUSHED all-comers.

Except that hormones vary hugely. Some women produce high levels of testosterone, and some men produce high levels of estrogen. There is relatively little difference in height between men and women, and most of the differences in strength are differences in how women and men culturally have learned to use their bodies.


The quantity of male oestrogen produced is irrelevant in that oestrogen isn''t performance-enhancing, so we'll ignore that.

Women do not, in fact, produce high levels of testosterone. I'm not sure where this has come from, but it's completely untrue.

The normal female level of testosterone is 0.3-2.1 nmol/l. The normal male level of testosterone is 10-41.6 nmol/l. https://education.endocrine.org/system/ ... Ranges.pdf

It is possible, for example, for a man to have lower testosterone than this range without requiring HRT, but that does not mean they are elite athletes!

In terms of women, the primary cause of hyperandrogenism is polycystic ovaries. This is a condition linked to genes, environment, and other things resulting in testosterone being produced to excess. Common effects including hirsutism ('bearded ladies' and infertility). Very severe PCOS can result in testosterone as high as 6.9 nmol/l, but this level would be considered an indicator of ovarian tumours.

This large (600 women) study of women with PCOS found a peak value of ~7 nmol/l, which is well below the bottom of the normal male level.

These are the testosterone levels respectively of female and male athletes:

Image

Image

The median female athlete has 0.67 nmol/l testosterone, the median male athlete has 15.6 nmol/l.

The male & female ranges are completely separate.

In terms of height, it's not true either that there is little difference. The male & female skeletons are different,
Image
and if we look at what it means to be an elite athlete, then height is very important. If we look at the height of the male gold medal winning coxed 8 in 2016 Olympics:

6'9", 6'5", 6'5", 6'5", 6'6", 6'6", 6'4", 6'4"

and the female:

6'2", 6'0, 5'11", 5'11", 6'1", 6'0", 6'2", 5'11"

You can easily see that an average man, at say 5'10" has the height to be an elite (far out of the ordinary) female rower, whereas NONE of the world's best female rowers even have the height to get into a male boat, let alone the other physical attributes.

And obviously the 6'9" man, say, becoming transgender and competing on the female team would be ludicrous. The average British man is 5'9", the average British woman is 5'3". That's an 8% difference, which is huge in sporting terms. And the ranges are also different.

As a basic point, the shortest man on the men's team at 6'4", is at the 99.174th percentile. That's a pool of out of let's say 5 million men of the appropriate age etc., 41,300 men. 41,300 men of that height and taller to decide to become elite rowers, rather than other things, or not at all.

What percentile is 6'4" on the female side? It's basically at the 100th percentile. Out of 5 million women, there would only be 28 that tall.

28 women vs 41,300 men you literally could not make a rowing team of 6'4" women. It's not that 6'4" women would not be good at rowing! It's that 6'4" women are so rare as to be almost non-existent.
Last edited by thelawnet on 22 Oct 2018, 11:17am, edited 1 time in total.
Post Reply