Rachel McKinnon wins Worlds gold at UCI masters track cycling

ford2600

Lumen wrote: »

Bear with me, I'm in the process of transitioning from one to the other.

You seem wishy washy I don't think any side can trust you.

You'll be first to be shot when hostilities resume

smacl

Lumen wrote: »

This may seem to be an absurd argument, since there several unlikely factors that would have to come together to make that happen.

Plus of course in the highly unlikely event that it was to happen, the NBA would simply change the rules to reflect the imbalance. Similarly the UCI if it actually became an issue in women's cycling rather than a headline surrounding what is an exceptional case. From what I've read, the IOC have already changed the rules once with respect to transgender participation based on available research, and there is no reason why they or any other sporting body wouldn't do so again where they deemed it necessary. Changing the rules to exclude a certain group of athletes in my opinion needs strong evidence as to why those athletes should be excluded.

There is strong whiff of "values" coming from either side of the argument.

Nothing wrong with that.

Lumen

smacl wrote: »

Changing the rules to exclude a certain group of athletes in my opinion needs strong evidence as to why those athletes should be excluded.

Are they excluded from competing in men's events?

smacl

Lumen wrote: »

Are they excluded from competing in men's events?

No idea. Are women generally excluded from competing in men's events? Worth remembering that trans women are women in the eyes of the law. As such if a sporting body wants to treat them as men, I'd have thought they'd need to have strong evidence as to why they'd do so.

Lumen

smacl wrote: »

No idea. Are women generally excluded from competing in men's events? Worth remembering that trans women are women in the eyes of the law. As such if a sporting body wants to treat them as men, I'd have thought they'd need to have strong evidence as to why they'd do so.

According to Wikipedia, legal status is now irrelevant, at least for the Olympics. It used to be required (in addition to surgery) but since there are many countries where transexuals are not legally recognised this was dropped in favour of a time limit and a testosterone limit, as was the surgery requirement.

"The new guidelines require only that trans woman athletes declare their gender and not change that assertion for four years, and demonstrate a testosterone level of less than 10 nanomoles/liter for at least one year prior to competition and throughout the period of eligibility".

So it seems right now the Olympic position is that a man with naturally low testosterone levels can simply declare themselves female and compete as a woman.

terrydel

smacl wrote: »

No idea. Are women generally excluded from competing in men's events? Worth remembering that trans women are women in the eyes of the law. As such if a sporting body wants to treat them as men, I'd have thought they'd need to have strong evidence as to why they'd do so.

Is male evidence stronger than female evidence? :pac:

smacl

Lumen wrote: »

According to Wikipedia, legal status is now irrelevant, at least for the Olympics. It used to be required (in addition to surgery) but since there are many countries where transexuals are not legally recognised this was dropped in favour of a time limit and a testosterone limit, as was the surgery requirement.

"The new guidelines require only that trans woman athletes declare their gender and not change that assertion for four years, and demonstrate a testosterone level of less than 10 nanomoles/liter for at least one year prior to competition and throughout the period of eligibility".

So it seems right now the Olympic position is that a man with naturally low testosterone levels can simply declare themselves female and compete as a woman.

And I'd guess if it actually starts happening with any regularity they'll change the rules again. Their remit after all is to promote fair play and inclusion. Much like this debate, the loudest voices seem to be against trans participation. The question is to whether this type of pressure is a valid reason to exclude people from a sport. My opinion is not, and that we need a measured evidence based approach.

magicbastarder

smacl wrote: »

And I'd guess if it actually starts happening with any regularity they'll change the rules again.

if they change the rules again, could throw up an issue if records have been set?

GreeBo

smacl wrote: »

And I'd guess if it actually starts happening with any regularity they'll change the rules again. Their remit after all is to promote fair play and inclusion. Much like this debate, the loudest voices seem to be against trans participation. The question is to whether this type of pressure is a valid reason to exclude people from a sport. My opinion is not, and that we need a measured evidence based approach.

Was pressure from the loud trans community voices a valid reason to change the criteria for entry?

Is there evidence that shows it is fair, rather than relying on a (current) lack of evidence to show that it isn't?

smacl

GreeBo wrote: »

Was pressure from the loud trans community voices a valid reason to change the criteria for entry?

Not according to the IOC Consensus Meeting, maybe you can provide another valid reference that says otherwise?

Is there evidence that shows it is fair, rather than relying on a (current) lack of evidence to show that it isn't?

From the same document on Transgender guidelines from the IOC;

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.

The list of people who came up with these guidelines seem to represent a rather vast wealth of knowledge and experience on the subject. Again, feel free to cite anything of similar weight that expresses a contrary position.

Lumen

smacl wrote: »

Not according to the IOC Consensus Meeting

That link sort of doesn't work, and the PDF is hard to quote from, so here are some screenshots to aid readability.

They look like a right bunch of flappy virtue-signalling SJWs to me. :pac:

GreeBo

smacl wrote: »

Not according to the IOC Consensus Meeting, maybe you can provide another valid reference that says otherwise?



From the same document on Transgender guidelines from the IOC;



The list of people who came up with these guidelines seem to represent a rather vast wealth of knowledge and experience on the subject. Again, feel free to cite anything of similar weight that expresses a contrary position.

Indeed.

1) Transgender guidelines
C. It is necessary to ensure insofar as possible that trans athletes are not
excluded from the opportunity to participate in sporting competition.
D. 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.
G. These guidelines are a living document and will be subject to review in light
of any scientific or medical developments.

Why all the caveats if there isnt any chance of an unfair advantage?
What medical or scientific developments could possibly change these guidelines, if, as we are led to believe gender is just a matter of choice and we take peoples declarations at face value?

In this spirit, the IOC Consensus Meeting agreed the following guidelines to be
taken into account by sports organisations when determining eligibility to compete
in male and female competition:
1. Those who transition from female to male are eligible to compete in the
male category without restriction.
2. Those who transition from male to female are eligible to compete in the
female category under the following conditions:
2.1. The athlete has declared that her gender identity is female. The
declaration cannot be changed, for sporting purposes, for a minimum
of four years.
2.2. The athlete must demonstrate that her total testosterone level in serum
has been below 10 nmol/L for at least 12 months prior to her first
competition (with the requirement for any longer period to be based on
a confidential case-by-case evaluation, considering whether or not 12
months is a sufficient length of time to minimize any advantage in
women’s competition)

Why are the rules so totally different for men than women?

If there is no chance of unfairness, why arent you free to change your declared gender whenever you want?

The last paragraph is especially interesting

"with the requirement for any longer period to be based on a confidential case-by-case evaluation, considering whether or not 12 months is a sufficient length of time to minimize any advantage in women’s competition)"

Minimize any advantage...hang about, I thought there was no advantage?

Lumen

Greebo, I have no idea how you think that quoting in bold "The overriding sporting objective is and remains the guarantee of fair competition" is supposed to help your argument.

GreeBo

Lumen wrote: »

Greebo, I have no idea how you think that quoting in bold "The overriding sporting objective is and remains the guarantee of fair competition" is supposed to help your argument.

Because I believe allowing people who can have had many years of training under the benefits of testosterone to compete against those who haven't is unfair.

If the Chinese were giving all their female athletes testosterone for years, but stopping it 12 months before competition would the world be ok with that?
Would you be ok with that on the grounds of fairness?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doping_in_China

Lumen

GreeBo wrote: »

Because I believe allowing people who can have had many years of training under the benefits of testosterone to compete against those who haven't is unfair.

But the consensus report you were quoting had fairness as the overriding principle. Why do you think you know better than those people?

GreeBo wrote: »

If the Chinese were giving all their female athletes testosterone for years, but stopping it 12 months before competition would the world be ok with that?
Would you be ok with that on the grounds of fairness?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doping_in_China]

I don't know enough about the long term effects of testosterone to say. But there's an important difference in intent.

GreeBo

Lumen wrote: »

But the consensus report you were quoting had fairness as the overriding principle. Why do you think you know better than those people?

I don't think I know more than those people, but I haven't seen any evidence that would indicate it is fair, and I'm relying on the evidence where people are banned from taking testosterone.

Lumen wrote: »

But there's an important difference in intent.

Is there really?
Do you think they people coming second and third are concerned with intent?

Lumen

GreeBo wrote: »

Do you think they people coming second and third are concerned with intent?

I've no idea.

Still, you've been presented with a consensus report from qualified experts and your response is that you want more evidence to disprove your unqualified assertion.

That seems unreasonable. Surely you must be able to find some supporting evidence of your own, specifically relating to the performance of trans athletes.

GreeBo

Lumen wrote: »

I've no idea.

Well have a stab at answering it yourself...given that someone has an unfair advantage over you, would you care about their intent?

Lumen wrote: »

Still, you've been presented with a consensus report from qualified experts and your response is that you want more evidence to disprove your unqualified assertion.

That seems unreasonable. Surely you must be able to find some supporting evidence of your own, specifically relating to the performance of trans athletes.

"more" evidence?
The only 'evidence' I have seen so far is the lack of evidence for either argument.

If there is supporting evidence rather than supporting decisions I'd genuinely be interested in seeing it, but I have neither seen any myself or seen anyone on here post about any.

From what I have seen, the weight of 'evidence' for supporting the IOC's decision is that IOC's decision itself.

Lumen

GreeBo wrote: »

Well have a stab at answering it yourself...given that someone has an unfair advantage over you, would you care about their intent?

Let me find a non-trans example, someone being doped with EPO by their coach without their knowledge, perhaps by telling them it was a vitamin injection.

In that case I would feel cheated but not by the athlete, but by the people who exploited them, so yes, the intent of the athlete would matter very much.

In any case, you're loading hypothetical on to hypothetical, since you haven't offered anything but bald assertion that there is an advantage, and neither have you proven that it's unfair.

recedite

Lumen wrote: »

I don't know enough about the long term effects of testosterone to say. But there's an important difference in intent.

Surely the intent of anyone competing is to win?

Weepsie

recedite wrote: »

Surely the intent of anyone competing is to win?

Yes but no one is transitions male to female solely to compete or vice versa. It's a silly logic that doesn't deserve a response, much like the awful crufts, lizard etx remarks. Can't make a good point, so resort to absurdity seems to be the method

GreeBo

Weepsie wrote: »

Yes but no one is transitions male to female solely to compete or vice versa. It's a silly logic that doesn't deserve a response, much like the awful crufts, lizard etx remarks. Can't make a good point, so resort to absurdity seems to be the method

Really? You've checked have you?

You can call it resorting to absurdity all you want, it doesnt change the fact that you cant answer the 'absurd' question I posted.

/edit
BTW thats a fantastic way of avoiding answering questions that you dont have an answer to.

Lumen wrote: »

Let me find a non-trans example, someone being doped with EPO by their coach without their knowledge, perhaps by telling them it was a vitamin injection.

In that case I would feel cheated but not by the athlete, but by the people who exploited them, so yes, the intent of the athlete would matter very much.

I have no idea why you went for the "without their knowledge" example, unless you think people are switching other peoples genders without their knowledge?

Why not deal with the basic example I gave, a biological female taking testosterone for a couple of years while training.

Lumen wrote: »

In any case, you're loading hypothetical on to hypothetical, since you haven't offered anything but bald assertion that there is an advantage, and neither have you proven that it's unfair.

I've offered the fact that the IOC themselves have allowed for individual testing for less than the 12 months in their guidelines and they state "minimize any advantage".
Thats minimize...not remove, avoid, prevent but *minimize*.
so are you ok with people taking a minimal bit of PEDs?

I'm still waiting on evidence to show that in *all* cases after 12 months of hormone 'treatment' biological males are at ZERO physiological advantage over biological females.

recedite

smacl wrote: »

I don't think there's a block to gathering data so much as a lack of statistically valid data due to the tiny number of trans athletes with respect to the total number of athletes out there. The type of reaction I've read on this thread and others seems to be knee jerk, making the assumption that it is unfair because that is the intuitive conclusion, which in my opinion is also a conclusion from bias. For my money the biggest issue for sports is to maximise levels of participation which in turn involves maximising inclusion. This seems to be in line with the view of the IOC who have softened the rules on transgender male participation in recent years in order to be as inclusive as possible. If transgender women athletes start dominating the field in women's sports no doubt these rules will get revised, but until such time as that is the case the argument against trans women being allowed to compete seems ill informed.

A couple of points here. I agree that there would not be enough data available to provide reliable statistics. But in the absence of reliable statistics, the obvious conclusion is obvious. Not just intuitive. That is not "knee jerk" it is common sense.


On "maximising inclusion", these recent changes are likely to turn some women off racing, for example the bronze medallist who initially declared the result "not fair" before being forced to withdraw her comment. Where is she going to find the motivation to go out training on a cold and dark winter's morning in future?


There are so few trans athletes that they will probably never "dominate the field" at least not on a local or regional level. However they will be over-represented at the top level which their inherent advantage will allow them to reach (as per the two trans examples cited in this thread)
Just because you only see a few of them taking gold medals at the top does not make it OK. It does not mean the sport has not been diminished. Similar to drugs cheats, its not the overrall number of them that matters.

Lumen

GreeBo wrote: »

I have no idea why you went for the "without their knowledge" example, unless you think people are switching other peoples genders without their knowledge?

Because we were discussing doping with and without intent, and if someone is doped without their knowledge then they have no intent.

FWIW, I don't dispute that lots of people agree with you, many of them women (one of them is a friend of mine on Facebook ranting about the injustice of this victory) but personally I'm happy that if the UCI and IOC have given this complex issue due consideration (which they appear to have done) then in absence of any qualified voices to the contrary they're probably striking the right balance for now.

I realise that's an argument to authority, but in much the same way as you can't be bothered to look for any data to support your arguments about the superior physical abilities of trans athletes I can't be bothered to look for data to counter it.

recedite

Lumen wrote: »

.. in absence of any qualified voices to the contrary they're probably striking the right balance for now.

I realise that's an argument to authority, but in much the same way as you can't be bothered to look for any data to support your arguments about the superior physical abilities of trans athletes I can't be bothered to look for data to counter it.

If you realise its an "argument to authority" logical fallacy, then surely you must also realise its even worse than that; its a political argument and not a scientific one. Therefore nobody can be "qualified" to rule on the issue. The women who are being bumped off the podium are as qualified to give an opinion as the left wing professors in their ivory towers of the Stockholm university which you listed a few pages back.

GreeBo

Lumen wrote: »

I realise that's an argument to authority, but in much the same way as you can't be bothered to look for any data to support your arguments about the superior physical abilities of trans athletes I can't be bothered to look for data to counter it.

and that to me is a cop out.

Any sane person accepts that men (in the general sense) have superior physical abilities to women.
It then stands to reason that someone born a male who then decides they identify as female is going to have these superior physical abilities.

Your standpoint is that these abilities simply disappear over time (12 months by the IOC)

To that end, I believe that onus is *strongly* on your to prove that opinion, rather than on me to prove the negative.

You are claiming that universally accepted physical traits just vanish after 12 months with ZERO remaining, thats clearly up to you and your side of the argument to prove, its your hypothesis, we are simply asking you to back it up, since you are intent in changing norms that have prevailed for thousands of years.

CramCycle

Weepsie wrote: »

Yes but no one is transitions male to female solely to compete or vice versa. It's a silly logic that doesn't deserve a response, much like the awful crufts, lizard etx remarks. Can't make a good point, so resort to absurdity seems to be the method

GreeBo wrote: »

Really? You've checked have you?

You can call it resorting to absurdity all you want, it doesnt change the fact that you cant answer the 'absurd' question I posted.

Lumen wrote: »

I realise that's an argument to authority, but in much the same way as you can't be bothered to look for any data to support your arguments about the superior physical abilities of trans athletes I can't be bothered to look for data to counter it.

MOD VOICE: If you are going, in future, any of you, to talk about the advantages of being a man earlier in life, then I want linked articles or studies (not opinion pieces). This goes the same for any disadvantages. If you are going to discuss the harm done to the female athletes in regards mental health (be they trans or cis) I want links to articles, not your feelings. If you are going to discuss the fairness of it, back up this fairness. Not just you feeling it is unfair but why (including explanations) it is more unfair on one athlete than another.

This is with the sole purpose of not becoming some daft after hours thread, this one is already going in circles around a black hole and several people have already gotten warnings. The rules are simple and clear. If they are too difficult to follow it is probably a clear indication you have nothing new or useful to say.

From now on I will simply be deleting comments that stray from this, I will Pm posters to stay out of the thread. If they cannot do that, they will find themselves on a permaban from cycling as I have better things to do than read the same posts over and over again.

I'll update these guidelines as the thread goes on but if you stray outside not only the guidelines but the spirit of them, then you are not following them, and the same thing as the paragraph above will occur.

These discussions can be polarising which is why I am stepping back from the discussion. Everyone be civil of GTFO.

Any issues or questions, via PM only, in thread will be treated as not following the spirit of the guidelines.

at1withmyself

MOD VOICE: If you are going, in future, any of you, to talk about the advantages of being a man earlier in life, then I want linked articles or studies (not opinion pieces).
[/B][/quote]

I thought that was the whole point of the forum, to be opinion based otherwise you better start locking all the threads without linked studies

Seems to me you didn't agree with the thread and incorrectly using your mod status here!

haley79

fair play to rachel
if women want to win medals they're going to have to up their game

magicbastarder

at1withmyself wrote: »

I thought that was the whole point of the forum, to be opinion based otherwise you better start locking all the threads without linked studies

Seems to me you didn't agree with the thread and incorrectly using your mod status here!

MOD NOTE - if you have an issue with a mod instruction, take it to PM with the mod, as per the charter. do not respond in this thread again unless it's in line with the charter and mod instructions.