Transgender Sportswomen in Sport

[KS55]

The years of focus and debate against Castor Sumenya by other female athletes and the governing body has pretty much lead to her being hounded out of the sport. If men who identify as women expect to compete then I would expect a far bigger backlash from women in those sports. For me it just shouldn’t be allowed and would make a mockery of the sport.

It could destroy women's sport.
Semenya is a different matter. She has high testosterone levels, may be intersex.

 

[SWP's back]

It could destroy women's sport.
Semenya is a different matter. She has high testosterone levels, may be intersex.

Testes often leads to that.

 

[7evens]

Is there an actual advantage, or just a perceived one? A little bit of quick googling brings up the fact that not one transgender athlete has qualified for the Olympics since the IOC allowed trans women to compete in women's sports in 2003.

 

[inchy14]

I know what you’re saying but I think you’ve got your classification the wrong way round.

Transgender woman (someone born a man and now living as a woman) - such as in the OP where she competes against women.

Transgender man (the reverse of the above)

Yes mate, thanks for the correction.

 

[I'm With Stupid]

Amazingly none of the transgender women seem to want to compete against the men, always transgender men competing against women, funny that........

That's not true, to be fair. There are some.

But yeah, it's actually a far more complicated question than it seems, and varies depending on the sport and the exact biology of the person in question. There's a big difference between someone who transitioned before puberty and someone who became a woman in their 30s. And then intersex people get caught up in the middle of it too. The real answer is that it should be determined by biology and determined by the potential unfair advantages in particular sports. There's a big difference between power lifting and archery, for example.

The concern isn't really transgender people though. The reality is that there aren't enough people who are both transgender and good enough to compete at the top end of women's sport (someone who's good enough to compete in the Olympics as a woman would still have to be better than 99% of men their age) for it to ever be more than a fairly minor issue. The issue is if allowing transgender women to compete is combined, like it is in Canada, with a law that allows anyone to simply change their gender through declaring it in a court. Do we really think that there wouldn't be some middling male tennis player who would be willing to declare themselves a woman if it gave them the chance to win the £2.35m Wimbledon prize money? People have cheated for far less.

 

[SWP's back]

Is there an actual advantage, or just a perceived one? A little bit of quick googling brings up the fact that not one transgender athlete has qualified for the Olympics since the IOC allowed trans women to compete in women's sports in 2003.

One would imagine so although they have to keep their testosterone levels under a certain limit:

Trans woman wins world cycling championship:

https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2018/10/15/trans-woman-rachel-mckinnon-cycling-world-championship/

Trans woman weightlifter wins by ‘astonishing’ 19kg more:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4329600/Outrage-transgender-weight-lifter-wins-comp.html

Plus you’ve got the OP where the lady has an average of 15 in the local men’s second 11 and 130+ in women’s country cricket. That stands out as a fairly dramatic example of the different standards.

 

[Fame Monster]

I say live and let live. I wanna see how far people are prepared to go to win.

 

[I'm With Stupid]

Plus you’ve got the OP where the lady has an average of 15 in the local men’s second 11 and 130+ in women’s country cricket. That stands out as a fairly dramatic example of the different standards.

To be fair, that's probably more of a reflection of women's county cricket than anything else. There are definitely sports where there is a vast difference in professionalism between the men's and women's games. A male footballer would tear up the women's game not only because he's a man, but also because you're taking a professional footballer and putting him in a largely amateur competition. The difference in more established female sports and especially team sports would probably be less pronounced (yes, I know cricket is a team sport, but batting is largely individual).

Take your Rachel McKinnon example. She's not the world champion, she's the world champion over a particular age. That's a far less competitive event than trying to go up against UK cycling in a proper world championship, for example. You'd still have to be a pretty impressive male rider to get anywhere close.

 

[BlueMoonRisin’]

Sounds a cock and balls tale to me.

 

[Fame Monster]

Bring her in at 3, move Root down to 4