A lot to deal with over the years
More on the trans women running with women in the Boston marathon last year issue:
Transgender women will race in next week’s Boston Marathon, officials say — a decision sparking controversy among experts who disagree on whether runners who identify as women but were born male might hold a competitive advantage.
At least five openly transgender women are signed up to run April 16. And while they aren’t the first, they’re helping bring clarity to the race’s stance on transgender runners.
“We take people at their word. We register people as they specify themselves to be,” said Tom Grilk, chief of the Boston Athletic Association, the group behind the race. “Members of the LGBT community have had a lot to deal with over the years, and we’d rather not add to that burden.”
Unlike women, who have had nothing but love and support and encouragement since time began.
That decision could prove controversial, said Bob Girandola, associate professor in the Department of Human Biology at the University of Southern California. He said if transgender runners produce higher levels of testosterone than their female competitors, that’s an issue.
“If they still have male gonads, they will have an advantage over other women — there is no way around that,” Girandola said. “It gives them an unfair advantage. Maybe they have to have a separate category if they’re going to do that. It’s a dilemma.”
Others disagree. For transgender women who lower testosterone levels, medical experts say there’s no evidence of an athletic advantage.
“That’s a misconception and a myth,” said Dr. Alex Keuroghlian, director of education and training programs at the Fenway Institute, a health and advocacy center for Boston’s LGBT community. “There’s no physiologic advantage to being assigned male at birth.”
So the biologist says there’s an advantage, and the unspecified Dr. who is a director of education says there isn’t. Why should we believe the latter? What does he know about it? Plus…seriously? There’s no physical advantage to having a male body?
They just don’t even bother, do they. Make it up, lie, lie more than Trump lies – whatever. Men are actually oppressed by women, and pigs have wings.
There are prizes in the Boston Marathon. Money prizes.
The fastest overall man and woman each win $150,000. Second place for each category gets $75,000, and third takes home $40,000. The rest of the top 15 win prize money as follows:
- Fourth: $25,000
- Fifth: $15,000
- Sixth: $12,000
And smaller down to $1,500 for 15th.
So trans women will have a shot at stealing money prizes from women too.
So that’s at least $265,000 going to men in the women’s category… #15 in men’s sure seems pretty dumb to be skipping out on that kind of cash.
Would the Boston Marathon organizers be willing to take a runner’s word that they’ve actually run a marathon in a qualifying time? Let’s have a look, shall we?
So that would be “No.”
They do go on to say this, though:
so there are spots for people who don’t make the cut for time, but they are special cases.
There’s also going to be a change in the qualifying time for 2020:
(emphasis mine)
Source for the above quotes: https://www.baa.org/2019-boston-marathon-qualifier-acceptances
If men running as women skew the times for women overall, then fewer women will qualify at the “five minutes faster” standard in 2020. So not only are women being robbed of prize money this year, they’re going to be screwed as far as even running it at all next year.
It’s a good thing the ACLU has asured us that nobody is getting hurt in all this.
I’ve got it! It came to me in a flash of inspiration! (Well, a flash of something, anyway.)
As in Ancient Greece, where all this marathon stuff began, all contestants are required to run naked. That should sort ’em out.
;-)
Dr Alex is a psychiatrist…
https://lgbt.hms.harvard.edu/people/alex-keuroghlian-md-mph
So, less qualified to discuss physiological advantage than say almost anyone with a medical or scientific qualification in biology, physiology, sports medicine, physiotherapy …
Also, Director of a programme that is supposed to provide evidence based policy. Sounds like some questions need to be asked.
These two individuals aren’t even making comparable claims. The former links the issue specifically to higher levels of testosterone, while the latter is talking about trans individuals on hormone therapy that blocks testosterone development. The article is written poorly, with non-comparable sources, even before you get to levels of applicability of their expertise.
Has anyone actually done studies comparing testosterone-suppressed transwomen against natal women to determine if there’s still an advantage to being ‘male bodied’? How about post-operative transwomen? Does the age of transition make a difference? I’d suspect that, for instance, someone who transitions at 23 is going to experience a much different degree of change compared to someone who goes on hormone blockers at 12 and then transitions surgically as soon as they hit their 18th birthday. (Note: I’m saying the issue seems to have no clear answer at this time, and therefore that the Boston Marathon folks are being vastly premature.in allowing transwomen to compete directly with women.)
And also if they don’t for that matter, as the male body has other advantages regarding athletics – larger general size, larger thoracic cavity for lung expansion, and more efficient hip/leg angles for running as examples. These are ‘baked in’ so to speak, locked as they are to skeletal size, which is not even slightly affected by testosterone blocking.
Given that the great and the good have apparently decided to accept self-identification as sufficient to enter the women’s categories, then it is clear – well, to some of us anyway – that we need to develop something along the lines of a height/weight ratio to determine like runs against like. It’s not as thought there’s no precedent – Boxing competitors have long been grouped into competitive categories based on weight.
Of course, up until fairly recently, biological sex was a pretty good proxy for height/weight ratios anyway.
The testosterone quotes are a total red herring in this situation anyway; runners’ testosterone levels aren’t being checked and there isn’t a stated maximum for runners entering as women.
What do you mean, “an advantage over *other women*”? They are not women at all; that’s the entire point. It should be that they will have “an advantage over women,” and they do, BECAUSE they are men.
And testosterone is not the sole measure.
That is, what does Bob Girandola mean. Judging by the totality of the quote I suspect he is being cautious.
Freemage
Nope. In part because transgenderism is still rather rare, and you’d need to find enough trans athletes to study.
Here’s a good piece that looks at the problems:
https://sportsscientists.com/2019/03/on-transgender-athletes-and-performance-advantages/
The burden of proof as to whether trans women athletes do not unfairly compete with women is on the side pushing to have trans women compete with women. There is no doubt that in terms of biology men have an advantage over women, and there is ample data to support this already. Making a social distinction about trans women being women is one thing, but it’s the biological distinction that has to be judged with respect to athletic competition.
Lady M, the other thing that could do it is if enough transgender mtf enter sports and they beat the top women over and over, so that they shut women out. That would be a lot of evidence, but too many people would just shrug and say it isn’t an advantage, they’re just coincidentally better than the “other” women.
And, of course, by the time you got that data, women’s sports would be effectively ended for women. It would simply be men’s sports, and men-identifying-as women’s sports.