TG athletes getting sports pushback

Various sites in the UK are reporting that a couple of the large athletics regulatory groups and many female athletes are pushing back against the “let transgender men compete anywhere” policies we see pushed so hard here.

World Athletics, the international governing body that sanctions competitions for sports such as track and field and cross country running, voted on Thursday to ban virtually all transgender women from elite athletics, and to tighten restrictions on intersex competitors.

Under previous rules, WA-sanctioned trans and intersex athletes were required to reduce their T to 5 nmol/L or less, according to their posted regulations.

The body… approved new rules requiring “any relevant athletes” — i.e., eligible trans and intersex competitors — to reduce their testosterone levels to 2.5 nmol/L, a fraction over the medically estimated free T range for most premenopausal cis women, for at least 24 months.

There is some pushback, primarily from the LGBTQ community:

Trans sports medicine is not settled science, but studies have indicated trans women on hormone therapies lose many supposed “biological advantages” in sports, and doctors that treat trans children concur. Scientists do not even agree that cis men uniformly have a natural athletic advantage over cis women; in fact, several biological factors may put cis women at an advantage in some sports. Them

May be worth noting that Them is an LGBTQ oriented opinion site. Although I see NPR has decided to bolster that claim, citing Human Rights Watch as its source of info NPR . Me, I never knew  Human Rights Watch was a medical group.

Believe if we think back on Lia Thomas, the U. of PennTG swimmer who after years of failure in men’s swiming absolutely destroyed women after she swapped genders, or Tiffany Thomas, a former guy who has rocketed to the top of women’s cyclingn (above) at age 44 when most athletes have retired, shows in the real world, TG women dominate.

It’s affecting the female athletes, as well: for example,

Champion cyclocross rider Hannah Arensman bolstered her decision with a statement in a Supreme Court filing on the issue.

“I have decided to end my cycling career,” Arensman said last Wednesday.

She said in her last race, in the elite women’s division of the UCI Cyclocross National Championships in late December, she “came in 4th place, flanked on either side by male riders awarded 3rd and 5th places.”NY Post

 

Cycling’s governing body, the Union Cycliste Internationale, has allowed trans women to compete provided that their total testosterone level has been below 2.5nmol/L for a period of at least 24 months. This policy was updated last year from a limit of 5nmol/L over 12 months, but differs from sports like swimming and rugby which have effectively banned transgender athletes from the women’s category by saying that they must have transitioned by the age of 12 or before experiencing any stage of puberty. Telegraph

Meanwhile, the UK’s celebrated 3-time Olympian swimmer Sharron Davies praised the World Athletics decision Daily News, and the grande dame of lesbian athletes, Martina Navratilova, calls the ban ‘a step in the right direction’. MSN

I keep wondering – if it’s no advantage being male first, then why aren’t we seeing former women dominating male athletics?

But elsewhere, correctness RULES as a researcher who wanted to study the views of  athletes and volunteers to “find the views of athletes and volunteers on the question of when males should be allowed to compete in the female category in athletics.” had his funding denied.

Dr John Armstrong, a scholar at King’s College London (KCL), applied to carry out a survey of elite athletes and volunteers on whether trans women, who are born male, should compete in women’s track and field categories and whether they felt they could express their views. Telegraph via Yahoo

The good doctor made the mistake of referring to those who were born male as “males”.

In a rejection letter, the university said: “The language is not sensitive and the misgendering of athletes is not appropriate… there is obvious bias in the language and there is very little scientific reasoning underpinning the hypothesis.”

KCL’s panel also said “there is a risk that some participants might be unhappy or distressed by the questions that are being posed to them”

Category: "Teh Stoopid", Diversity