World Athletics Council excludes transgender women from female events

Ruling applies to athletes who have transitioned after puberty
Levels of permitted plasma testosterone also reduced by half

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2023/mar/23/world-athletics-council-excludes-transgender-women-from-female-events

World Athletics has confirmed that its council has voted to exclude transgender women from female events.

The ruling, which will be enforced from 31 March this year, applies to elite competition transgender athletes who have transitioned from male to female after going through puberty. The council also voted to cut the maximum amount of plasma testosterone for athletes with differences in sex development (DSD) in half, to 2.5 nanomoles per litre from five.

The tighter rules will impact DSD athletes such as two-time Olympic 800m champion Caster Semenya, Christine Mboma, the Olympic silver medallist in the 200m at the Tokyo Games, and Francine Niyonsaba, who finished runner-up to Semenya in the 800m at Rio 2016.

There are elements of this decision that I think are important to note.

First, Sebastian Coe was a world-class athlete and Olympic champion. He spent decades in a sport in which many of the top countries and athletes routinely used, and use, all sorts of performance enhancing drugs (PED) and other modification techniques to give women advantages over unmodified women. His organization knows about these things both in the speed events and in the very different explosive jumping and throwing events.

Second, the decision is based in part on the fact that trans women have a demonstrable advantage over women in many competitive sports. The article mentions Lia Thomas, who is an excellent example although there are others, including Lauren Hubbard. In such cases the trans women went from being mediocre male athletes to vastly superior female athletes even after hormone therapy was used in an attempt to neutralize any post-male advantage.

Third--and I think this critical--the World Athletic Council has announced this explicitly as a tentative decision to be in place as further information becomes available. If science demonstrates either that the decision is erroneous or that there are effective ways to level the playing field, the policy will change. That is critical because the position on trans women athletes is not a moral statement against them but a practical attempt to be fair. And empirical rules must always be subject to empirical data.

Fourth, this is not the end of the discussion of trans rights in sports but the beginning. The world must come up with ways to give trans men and trans women competitive opportunities comparable to those available to non-trans people.

> The council also voted to cut the \
> maximum plasma testosterone for\
> athletes with differences in sex       \    I rearranged the
> development in half, to 2.5 nano-   /    wording a bit.  I
> moles per liter, from 5.0 nano-     /      think it's the
> moles liter.                                  /        5.0 & 0.5 ...



"Normal measurements for
plasma testosterone tests:
Female: 0.5 to 2.4 nmol/L."

--https://www.mountsinai.org/health-library/tests/testosterone

For comparison, male normal plasma testosterone is 10 to 35 nanomoles per liter.

It was a bit confusing to me, but my take is that the high end of "normal" plasma testosterone in females is 2.4 nanomoles per liter, which is 0.1 nanomoles per liter less than what the WAC (Western Athletic Conference*: Go Cougs!) will allow.

I see this as trying to do the right thing for 'true body' females.  They will allow transgender females to compete so long as they don't have the 'turbo-boost' of more than normal plasma testosterone.


While noodling around the 'net, I found this article: https://novonordiskfonden.dk/en/news/more-women-than-expected-are-genetically-men/

The article said, "Morris syndrome is now called 46,XY DSD: androgen insensitivity syndrome.

"These people have an extremely high level of testosterone and other male sex hormones, but the testosterone does not affect the foetal cells that usually develop into male sexual organs because of a mutation in the androgen receptor gene.  These people, therefore, have male chromosomes but are women socially and in external appearance."

So the 2.4 nanomoles per liter rule would likely remove these individuals from female competitions if they were subject to the test.  But per the article, they won't be, since they were born externally female.

I've been following track since I discovered the Newbury Park High School track team two years ago and I think I've seen some female track stars who are probably 46,XY DSD individuals.

Probably society will get around to removing them from competition to make it 'fair' to 'normal' people.  I tend not to pity 'normal' people because they never pitied me...












*just in case, here are some WAC facts https://wacsports.com/about/history/wachistory

Yeah, it's a huge can of worms. How do you define a "man?" A "woman?"

As I've said before, I'm not convinced that hormone levels are an adequate basis for drawing distinctions given the Bell Curve distribution of gender characteristics.

And thanks for the information about the WAC. I hadn't known that Seb Coe ran for Fresno State.

"Yeah, it's a huge can of worms. How do you define a "man?" A "woman?""

It's fairly simple when you take the offense out of it..
It's genitalia, estrogen, testosterone, and a persons 'feelings'.

I know many will have a problem w/this, but those are the facts that we know today. Follow the science.

Did you parse these facts before deciding that distinguishing male and female was so simple:

https://novonordiskfonden.dk/en/news/more-women-than-expected-are-genetically-men/

The article said, "Morris syndrome is now called 46,XY DSD: androgen insensitivity syndrome.

"These people have an extremely high level of testosterone and other male sex hormones, but the testosterone does not affect the foetal cells that usually develop into male sexual organs because of a mutation in the androgen receptor gene. These people, therefore, have male chromosomes but are women socially and in external appearance."

"These people, therefore, have male chromosomes but are women socially and in external appearance.""

They can choose to 'be' what they want to 'be'. I support that. Where lines need to be drawn is w/womens' sports. Extra testosterone, disqualifies them as female competitors.
Womens' sports, middle school, high school, college, and pros are for women who aren't 1-percenters. As it is now, women's sports (which women have worked so hard at establishing), are becoming the minor leagues for male competitors..

> They can choose to 'be' what
> they want to 'be'. I support
> that. Where lines need to be
> drawn is w/womens' sports.
> Extra testosterone, disqualifies
> them as female competitors.

We agree.  Any seeming conflict we have may be because you overlooked a basic point of the original fracas; the WAC is ONLY testing individuals whose externals, i.e., genitalia, AREN'T, from birth, female.  As it stands now, no "true" females, from birth, are being tested.

So "Morris syndrome," aka, "46,XY DSD: androgen insensitivity syndrome" females, and their way high testosterone levels, could be considered by some as an 'unfair' advantage, the same unfair advantage the WAC is trying to eliminate.

Amazing things happen when average, ordinary goobers like me, and maybe a couple of others here, try to mediate on behalf of the entire world.

But I trust that won't stop us from trying!

You're not making a lot of sense there, buddy.

Somewhere around 1% of people are born with ambiguous genitalia, in which case traditionally the parents and the doctor decided essentially by flipping a coin which snips to make where. You'd get a step closer to the truth if you said that it is the chromosomes that are determinative, but then Jamie Lee Curtis and millions more would be neither male nor female since they have XXY or other unusual patterns. As for sex hormones, there are women (XX) whose testosterone levels are significantly higher than the average man's.

Put simply, none of the indicia you suggest are dependable. In fact, it is a a peculiarity of your psychology--not theirs--that render you unwilling to "follow the science."



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/02/2023 05:08PM by Lot's Wife.

How much following can there be for that '1%'??

I'm not sure I understand your question but I'll try to answer it.

The 1% was for ambiguous genitalia--and the actual number may be closer to 2%, which I've also seen experts state. The percentage of people with XXY and other abnormal (in a statistical sense, meaning far from the norm) is separate. And the number of people with abnormal (again in a statistical sense) hormones is yet a third category. If you add them together, my guess is you get to 3-5% of all humans.

You ask about whether those people's representations in elite-level sports. My inclination is that unusual genetic and hormonal patterns are significantly over-represented at the highest levels of sport because they entail physical advantages. And I do not think, absent the use of PEDs, that a male level of testosterone for an XX woman should be grounds for disqualification from competition. For physical size, skeletal structure, musculature, and the neurological changes that stem from having trained as a man before becoming a woman are also significant.

That said, my point throughout this thread and others is that I do not believe trans athletes should be included in women's competitions given the demonstrated advantage that comes with having been a male. Another poster asked why no one worries about trans men competing against XY men, implying that the silence on that matter reflects society's fear only of trans women. I think that wrong because trans men are not a threat to XY male athletes for exactly the reason that trans women are a threat to XX women athletes: namely, trans people still exhibit some of the traits that they had before their transitions.

So however much your and my views diverge on other topics, we appear to concur on the sports question--and also on the importance of the individual's psychology in determining gender.

Soooooooo

I’m going to confess to not knowing what you’re talking about ~25% of the time and ask you straight out, because I’m not sure what you’re saying, especially because you used scare quotes.

What do you mean by normal?

Caster Semenya is an outlier of the curves and punished for it.

Agreed

I might be looking at this situation as being to convoluted.

My solution is three categories: Male - Female - Transexual.

Males and Females would compete in the category they were born and matured in.

Those that felt that they sex/gender wasn't correct would compete in the transexual category.

Oh my!!

You've fallen prey to the age-old problem confronting the vast majority of humanity: the inability to make sense of a situation and find a way to compromise...

It used to be so simple to deal with your kind: yell "WITCH!!" and point fingers.

"You've fallen prey to the age-old problem confronting the vast majority of humanity: the inability to make sense of a situation and find a way to compromise..."

That WAS the compromise. Your touchy-feely-ness is getting in the way of women assigned as such at birth, to having fair competitions in their sports. The almost makes you a weird Bizzaro-World bigot.

As I state below, you and I agree on some of these questions. But here you say something to EOD that is nonsensical.

> Your touchy-feely-ness is
> getting in the way of women assigned as such at
> birth, to having fair competitions in their
> sports.

As soon as someone is "assigned" gender at birth, the focus shifts to who did the "assigning." We know that in a significant number of cases the "assignment" has been done by parents and doctors irrespective of genetics.

That inevitably has meant countless cases of XY people being erroneously treated as women, meaning that they have had a substantial unfair advantage against XX women. What EOD proposes is no worse than your principle; and he is no more "a weird Bizzaro-World bigot" than you are,

tumwater, I'm not sure that is the solution--I don't know what is--but searching for accommodations that respect everyone's human rights strikes me as exactly the right approach.

SO then...start making the women's leagues the minor leagues for men-dressing/masquerading as women??
Yeah...THAT respects EVERYBODIES human rights.

Yeah, that's just stupid. I never advocated anything of the sort.

Solutions:
Men's competitions- Best of all genders out there to compete.
Women's competitions- Discriminatory. Not needed
Trans Athletes- Discriminatory. Not needed


Men's competitions- Best males out there to compete.
Women's competitions- Best women assigned as such at birth compete AND those who identify as Women.
Trans Athletes- Discriminatory. Not needed


Men's competitions- Best males out there to compete.
Women's competitions- Best women assigned as such at birth compete.
Trans Athletes- Best Trans athletes compete.
======================================
Keep in mind, just because I am not in favor of trans-women competing w/womene assigned as such as birth does not mean, that I want to discriminate against them, deny them housing, deny them employment, deny them the right to marry whoever. I just want a level playing field for all those competing.

When I read that Lia Thomas/Thompson (Univ of Penn female swimmer..) still has her male parts and other female competitors were subjected to seeing Lia's 'private parts'...that has also in other circumstances, been considered a 'crime' to have a male expose themselves to women. Yes, it was a competition, but it IS a slippery slope.

> I just want a level playing field for all those
> competing.

That's where we agree.


----------------
> When I read that Lia Thomas/Thompson (Univ of Penn
> female swimmer..) still has her male parts and
> other female competitors were subjected to seeing
> Lia's 'private parts'...that has also in other
> circumstances, been considered a 'crime' to have a
> male expose themselves to women. Yes, it was a
> competition, but it IS a slippery slope.

I don't care about "private parts" or restrooms. After some thought I might, but that's not the topic at hand.

I agree with you about Lia Thomas and about Lauren Hubbard, who went from around No. 200 (there are various rankings but that is ballpark correct) among males in the super-heavyweight weightlifting category to, at one point, No. 7 among super-heavyweight women. Clearly Lauren's testosterone adjustments did not level the playing field.

I offer no solutions because I am not informed enough--not sure even scientists know enough yet--to suggest how the categories should be arranged, but I unequivocally believe that trans people deserve equal sporting rights. My only caveat is that that must not occur at the expense of women, who themselves were long denied such opportunities.

*LIKE BUTTON*

That seems like a fair solution to me. I like that they WAC will keep the rules open to revision if scientific advances make that viable.

Remember when Fallon Fox broke the skull of her opponent in an MMA match? Fox failed to disclose that she was a man up until she was 30.

If a woman wants to fight a trans woman, no problem. As long as she knows she's fighting somebody who used to be a man. But Fox said that she didn't tell anybody because it was a private health issue. Then she ran through a few opponents until everybody figured out what was really happening.

Men and women are different. Men have larger muscles and skeletons. Yes, there are women who can beat a man in a tennis match. But the average man can beat the average woman in almost every sport. This is why we have title IX, which created opportunities for women.

Now we're letting trans women into women's sports. Average when they competed against men, they're breaking records in women's sports. How is that fair to women, who lose opportunities to win scholarships, and some of them are just quitting because they can't compete physically?

Finally, if men and women are exactly the same, where are the female to male transgender athletes competing in men's sports?

Excellent.

Guy, biology is more complex than you think.

And, as dagny pointed out, there is also weigh division in sports already. The rest is plain old scaremongering.

And I have seen WAVES Recruits (Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Services, an all female division of the Navy) perform more proper push-ups than a Special Training Division of males. WAVES was started in World War II, please update your view from the War of 1812.

To Done & Done: What is your problem with trans folks? If the answer is "If I had known about HRT I would have transitioned and regreted it," please grow up.

Do not ever tell me to "grow up". Your condescension when you know absolutely nothing about me or what is in my heart is offensive.

I have no problem with trans people at all and your assumption that I do is projection on your part because you need to see anyone who doesn't side with you completely as "haters" otherwise you have to look at the situation more honestly and that might not be convenient.

My issues come down to sports and fairness. Period. We disagree there and only there. Now go back to your warrioring.

Done & Done Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Do not ever tell me to "grow up". Your
> condescension when you know absolutely nothing
> about me or what is in my heart is offensive.
>
> I have no problem with trans people at all and
> your assumption that I do is projection on your
> part because you need to see anyone who doesn't
> side with you completely as "haters" otherwise you
> have to look at the situation more honestly and
> that might not be convenient.

Guy, I'm in this fight for love. It's a stupid reason, but nowhere near as stupid as your accusation here.

You hate being condescended to but love to dish it out?

>
> My issues come down to sports and fairness.
> Period. We disagree there and only there. Now go
> back to your warrioring.

Fine, take your ball and go home.

I agree w/you completely

I have much respect for you, ookami, which I think you've earned.

But... BUT!! I know D&D fairly well, and we are, to a great extent, cut from the same cloth, his a sparkling, luminescent white, while mine came from muddy browns with zero glistening...

I was immediately impressed, upon reading your "What is your problem with trans folks?" comment, that you did not know him as well as I do.

I don't have a single, even itty-bitty problem with trans people, but I, too, as I've stated above, do not think it is fair for a trans female with a fully developed male skeleton and musculature to compete against biological females.

If you see that as 'prejudice,' so be it because in a real sense, it can be labeled as such by people with an agenda!  But the thought resides, comfortably, in a part of my mind labeled "fair is fair."

Agreed on both scores: much respect for ookami and much respect for D&D, with whom I concur on this issue.

It's a mistake to let disagreement on one point cloud recognition of agreement on the other 99. D&D is a deeply compassionate man whose empathy for trans people (and almost anyone else) is beyond question.

I'm just a little touchy. I keep hearing the issues with sports being used by a lot of the same people who think there's something wrong with the woman I love. She's adorkable and the best thing in my life. I live next to the Idaho boarder, so there's a risk of that crazy spilling over, so I get a little hot tempered.

I also hate being condescended to. I may be a Millenial, but I'm not completely stupid. And I'm in my thirties.

To Done & Done: I made an ass of myself, but please keep my points in mind. I'll escort myself to the sin bin next time trans women in sports comes up, though.

Ookami,

Not the kind of thing I would usually put on this board, but since you were one whose posts I always took note of . . .

I have lived in L.A. since the 70's. Let me tell you being gay in that town before AIDS when everyone who didn't fit in their small town flooded to L.A. in droves to find their people and we became a melting pot that was way beyond what the Statue of Liberty ever had in mind. Every color. Every sexuality. Every combination of friends imaginable.


We had less societal rules. The P.C. concept had not yet been invented at least militantly. People's hearts were on display as we were all so raw and felt like we had finally made it to shore appreciating where we were and so there was not so much need to watch what you said. Like nowadays when you feel the need to walk a woke semantic tightrope like it was stretched over the grand canyon.

During that time my favorite Aunt became my Uncle. No one in my extended Mormon family had any issue with it at all. It was no surprise. My Aunt played a mean honky tonk piano and was as cool as they come. Never heard the trans word once. First time I met my "new uncle" was in the men's room at my Grandfather's funeral and all I thought was, "hmmm, this is different". Then I took a leak and went back to the chapel.


Makes me think about my Grandpa's funeral and my Dad the Bishop presided. He didn't do much of the Mormon thing and talked about all Grandpa's family a lot. When he got to Aunt/Uncle he used her name when he talked about childhood and youth, and then used his name when he talked about uncle as an adult. My Dad was a very open loving man. I bring this up as nowadays he would have been accosted for "dead naming". But Aunt/Uncle appreciated his handling this very much.

Many people in town did not know about the sex-change as we called it then. Sometimes a sister would say to someone, you remember my brother . . . to someone. They would look puzzled for a minute and then say, "Oh", and give him hug. There have always been a lot of lovely people in the world.

I offer this as I would like you to know me better. I've had the most fantastic life and I have "seen it all'. I have also embraced it all. I have also been enriched by it all. And because of this I do see the individual parts that make an amalgamation.

And therefore, I do find this jarring that Ann Andres said," . . . maybe my participation isn't necessarily fair---you know there's science, whatever."

I am a person who wants it to be as fair as possible for everyone. That is all. I wish every trans person the best.

I do see how sad it is to be in the situation many trans athletes find themselves in when wanting to compete so badly. I do not have answers. But I do hope they are found.

I have in my life been chased down alleys and over chain link fences by gay bashers. I have been publicly humiliated many times as a kid for being gay. I didn't get a lot of what I wanted because that's just he way it was. Now two guys walk around town with a baby stroller and nobody bats an eye. I hoped we get to that kind of acceptance soon for trans. But I am worried as everyone is about the turn many states in this country are taking and all I can hope for is this ugliness from the religious right is the last breath of a dying beast and the next generation will get it right.

I admire your fierce ardor for your S.O. and happy you found each other. Many people will love you both in this life. I'm sure I would if I ever met you.

And that is one of many reasons why I love D&D. There are others--actually a lot of others--but as he explains here, the man has vast experience and a huge heart.

> I admire your fierce ardor for your S.O. and happy
> you found each other. Many people will love you
> both in this life. I'm sure I would if I ever met
> you.

I almost said that in an earlier post--that if ookami met you, you guys would almost certainly be friends--but I decided that such a comment might have seemed overly intrusive to either or both of you.

Nevertheless, I believe it is true.

Nice comments.

I also grew up in LA around the same time as you. Your comments made me recall my earliest "sex change" exposure. When I was a kid, my mom told me that they wanted to name me Christine but the Christine Jorgensen sex change story hit a few years before.

Apparently Jorgensen went to Denmark for surgery and it was something my mom didn't want associated with my name. I didn't understand at first but realized it must have been controversial since they named me something else. Having been raised in a Mormon bubble, I could tell people talked about certain family members possibly being gay, but I didn't pick up a lot of judgement about it. I was so naïve.

I like to think we'd get along better in person too, Done & Done.

I'm sorry I lost my temper. I think I should put a pin in on joining in on "Trans women in sports" threads until the scumbags using it to push anti-trans laws are dealt with.

One of the reasons I studied creative writing instead of debate is that I get a little too hot blooded on certain topics. Plus I don't get the double standard of allowing topics like "populism is the future" as part of free speech while I'm not allowed to swear. I always thought profanity was a better use of free speech.

Also, I would have loved to hear your uncle play.

"I have been publicly humiliated many times as a kid for being gay."

Just so you know, myself, and others who disagree w/trans-women (male at birth..) competing in traditional female sports...are completely against these types of homophobic actions.

You see?

Here you, D&D, I, and others are on the same page.

"How is that fair to women, who lose opportunities to win scholarships...."

Exactly...I know some women want to 'respect everyone's human rights'...but would they feel that way if they or their daughter was competing against a trans-women who matured as a male?

Is it fair to have a male flyweight boxer fight a male heavyweight?

Gee, it's almost like they already know how to classify and evaluate weight, skeleton, BMI issues etc. for fairness. Who knew.

I think Avi Silverberg did the right thing, for women:

https://nypost.com/2023/03/30/male-powerlifter-enters-womens-event-breaks-record/

Thank you. And bravo to Avi Silverberg for supporting women.