Transgender skaters and ISU

noskates said:

I believe Bruce/Caitlin said she always felt like a woman in a man's body. I don't think you all of a sudden decide to change your gender.

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For future reference, use the trans person's current, preferred name, not their old name. :thumbsup:

That's a fairly common description, especially for trans people caitlins age. Transitioning is an expensive and time consuming process, I don't think anyone has ever started it without a great deal thought.

notunprepared said:

Op has a link to the effects of oestrogen. Strength loss due to muscle loss is one of the effects of oestrogen therapy. Any strength disadvantage goes away in like a year, from what I've heard. So I'd say there would be no quad advantage, especially after the two year ioc rule. If anything I think trans women would be at a disadvantage in ladies singles (let alone pairs) because of potential discrimination. Trans women, on average, have broader shoulders and are taller than cis women.

Someone earlier also brought up the point that skating is still pretty traditional, and that any athlete on hrt would be dealing with body changes too. From experience, being on hrt as an adult is like puberty 2.0 (but without the growth spurts).

As the person before you said, It'd be one hardcore brave person to be the first out transgender international figure skater. But we do have out gay skaters so it will happen eventually.

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I am not convinced this is true. I've seen/heard examples of trans women doing very well in traditional women's sports, especially those requiring strength... women's weightlifting, women's wrestling, etc... but I have not seen any examples of the reverse: a trans man is doing credibly well in a traditional man's sport.

If hormone therapy or chemical medicines were negating biological advantages and leveling the playing field, then wouldn't we expect to see this?

notunprepared said:

Op has a link to the effects of oestrogen. Strength loss due to muscle loss is one of the effects of oestrogen therapy. Any strength disadvantage goes away in like a year, from what I've heard.

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What are you going to do with the male build - hips for example? A male pelvis is a male pelvis. Ladies in skating do not only have issues with strength compared to the men. It is the body build that is the big problem. That does not change with transitioning - something which is a major point of dispute already in contact sports - and then what? That and a very suspect idea that there is muscle loss, you may very well find yourself with someone rotating quads in the ladies discipline.
Even without the quads, triples would still be easier for this person, and we'd again have an unfair advantage.

It's no where near as clear cut as some would like to make it, and the rights of all need to be considered.

TontoK said:

I am not convinced this is true. I've seen/heard examples of trans women doing very well in traditional women's sports, especially those requiring strength... women's weightlifting, women's wrestling, etc... but I have not seen any examples of the reverse: a trans man is doing credibly well in a traditional man's sport.

If hormone therapy or chemical medicines were negating biological advantages and leveling the playing field, then wouldn't we expect to see this?

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Are you saying there a trans women who have gone on to beat every cis woman in a given sport, raising your concern about unfair biological advantage? Please do tell some names because I haven't heard of such cases!

Or are you trying to say that your sense of "fair competition" says that if a trans woman does reasonably well in a sport -- say, sometimes makes it to the podium or near the podium in some major competition -- that means trans women shouldn't be allowed to compete with cis women? Because you only want them to be able to compete if they do A LOT worse than the best cis competitors? In other words, you think that in order to allow trans women to participate they can't be allowed to succeed (because if they do, you immediately start to cast doubt about them having "unfair advantage", no matter what the science and studies say, and you prefer them to be shut out because of your personal feelings, vague suspicions and cultural prejudice?)

[email protected] said:

Disclaimer: I am ignorant on the topic. It is clear that a man's physical limitations are different from a woman's. For example, I was not even a master of sports in the Soviet Union. Yet, my best competition result in long jumps is still better than the women's world record. Now suppose that a skater becomes a woman being able to jump quads. Will it be fair that she competes in the ladies's section? I don't think so. Of course, there might be an argument that after the change her body will be so different that quad skills will be lost. But once again, I am ignorant on the topic.

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Well, obviously.

I wish that after writing this sentence, people would have the STOP writing for a minute and START listening and learning, before they start opining about matter they don't know nothing about. I mean, you're here so clearly you know how to read and how to use the internet. There are many links even in this thread posted to articles discussing the question of possible biological advantage (or lack thereof) a trans athlete might have, the effect that HRT has on muscle mass and strength etc. Have you read any of those? What are you bringing to the discussion (other than your ignorance)?

nimi said:

Well, obviously.

I wish that after writing this sentence, people would have the STOP writing for a minute and START listening and learning, before they start opining about matter they don't know nothing about. I mean, you're here so clearly you know how to read and how to use the internet. There are many links even in this thread posted to articles discussing the question of possible biological advantage (or lack thereof) a trans athlete might have, the effect that HRT has on muscle mass and strength etc. Have you read any of those? What are you bringing to the discussion (other than your ignorance)?

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You are a person who obviously has a great passion for this topic, and I'm sure you wish to advance your cause. So, citing the wisdom that often comes with age, I'm going to offer you some advice, which you may heed or discard.

1. There are people of goodwill who are generally supportive, but not fundamentally committed, to this cause. This means that they are unlikely to have devoted hours to researching scores of academic or medical sources. They naturally have questions. These people are not your enemy. Calling them out as ignorant will not endear them to you or your cause. A general rule of thumb is that lay-people don't listen to unpleasant or condescending "experts." If you want to influence people, first you need them to listen to you - not tune you out.

2. A reasonable person might acknowledge that scholarship on transgender social and medical issues is proceeding at a very fast pace, and not all of it presents a single narrative of what it means to be transgender. Even individuals who themselves are transitioning are not always in agreement on some of these issues. At what point does transition begin? At what point is it complete? Human identity and sexuality is a complicated business for those most directly involved, much less for those of us on the outside looking in.

3. The specific concerns of transgender athletes, as well as their non-trans competitors, on the subject of fairness and a level playing field appears to be an evolving issue which will take some time to fully resolve. It's not bigoted to say this.

TontoK said:

You are a person who obviously has a great passion for this topic, and I'm sure you wish to advance your cause. So, citing the wisdom that often comes with age, I'm going to offer you some advice, which you may heed or discard.

1. There are people of goodwill who are generally supportive, but not fundamentally committed, to this cause. This means that they are unlikely to have devoted hours to researching scores of academic or medical sources. They naturally have questions. These people are not your enemy. Calling them out as ignorant will not endear them to you or your cause. A general rule of thumb is that lay-people don't listen to unpleasant or condescending "experts." If you want to influence people, first you need them to listen to you - not tune you out.

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I'm sure you mean well but...

The post I responded to opened & closed with "I am ignorant on the topic". If me agreeing with that self-assessment makes me some loathsome, condescending "expert" -- BTW I've not claimed to be an expert, unless being willing to use google and actually read things experts on the field have written makes me an insufferable wannabe expert that has no place in a thread like this, or in a polite society in general -- then what about individuals who pose their personal prejudice & cultural bias re: trans people and trans bodies as some kind of higher truth (that should trump decades of scientific inquiry on the subject, as well as the current IOC guidelines that are trying to reflect those findings) and advocate for shutting out a group of people "just in case"? Are they just being "generally supportive, but not fundamentally committed, to this cause"?

What would you say to a "reasonably" trans-antagonistic individual portraying trans women on HRT as opportunistic "biological males" (I guess hormonal status doesn't count as 'biological', then?) who shouldn't be allowed to compete as women, no matter what the IOC says, and who expects this opinion of theirs to be treated and respected as pretty much a FACT that should drive the actual policies? Is it "reasonable" to think we shouldn't really pay attention to the studies and scientific evidence that doesn't fit the preconceived notions about trans bodies being uniquely anomalous/unnatural/suspicious and biological sex being clear-cut binary & fixed thing, and that we'd better stick to '50s understanding of sex & gender "just in case" it gets validated by science in some hypothetical future (no matter what the current scientific understanding is)? Do you find that kind of posting is perfectly fine & totally civil and open-minded and not presumptuous or "condescending" or "unpleasant" or anything? You're not worried about that kind of messaging and how it affects e.g. trans people on this forum (statistically, there's bound to be some) and the people they come into contact with, e.g. whether it's okay for a random cis person to blithely make (probably erroneous) assumptions about a trans person's body and physical performance and use that a justification/excuse to try to drive them out of their chosen sport, if a trans person has been audacious enough to put themselves out there?

TontoK said:

2. A reasonable person might acknowledge that scholarship on transgender social and medical issues is proceeding at a very fast pace, and not all of it presents a single narrative of what it means to be transgender. Even individuals who themselves are transitioning are not always in agreement on some of these issues. At what point does transition begin? At what point is it complete? Human identity and sexuality is a complicated business for those most directly involved, much less for those of us on the outside looking in.

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And what I've been trying to say that I wish people here would do at least the minimum effort of learning and finding out information before they demand that trans women should be cast out.

The person who started this thread asked for more information, but looks like some people aren't willing to even read the very basic info that the OP's very first post linked to. In my part, I've been trying to provide some info & context for anybody interested -- e.g. quoting the actual IOC guidelines, linking to some easy-to-read articles that address some of the typical questions & concerns people have -- and yeah, I get a bit frustrated when a post after post doesn't show any signs of actually engaging with any of that; instead the same old anti-trans talking points get repeated over and over again. Am really I'm being overly aggressive and shutting down conversation and treating other posters as "enemies"? Should I spend hours of crafting posts (I'm ESL and writing even this basic nuts-and-bolts English is pretty time consuming for me) to be sure that they hit all the soothing and pacifying notes and avoid anything that could be interpreted as unsavory or confrontational? Hoping that all that sugar coating could mayyyybe make a couple of spoonfuls of current info to get through to someone not really willing to accept information that contradicts their deeply held gender beliefs? Whereas the ones demanding trans women to be shut out can be as curt and/or dismissive as they want and you don't see no reason to admonish them to behave?

TontoK said:

3. The specific concerns of transgender athletes, as well as their non-trans competitors, on the subject of fairness and a level playing field appears to be an evolving issue which will take some time to fully resolve. It's not bigoted to say this.

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Just so we're clear: are you implying that a statement like "A male pelvis is a male pelvis" (btw, pelvic typology isn't quite that simple, as far as forensical anthropology &
osteological sexing goes) demonstrates an understanding that this is an "evolving issue" but none of my posts in this thread, linking to articles discussing the "evolving issue", demonstrate that understanding?

I would be interested to hear what kind of good advice would you offer to people here who use this thread -- that was started as a request for more info -- mostly as an opportunity to signal that they see trans-inclusiveness in sports as inherently alarming and harmful, instead of providing (or meaningfully engaging with) readily available info. (Unless you think only people making pro-trans arguments deserve to be tone-policed.)


ETA: wording + more links

nimi said:

Well, obviously.

I wish that after writing this sentence, people would have the STOP writing for a minute and START listening and learning, before they start opining about matter they don't know nothing about. I mean, you're here so clearly you know how to read and how to use the internet. There are many links even in this thread posted to articles discussing the question of possible biological advantage (or lack thereof) a trans athlete might have, the effect that HRT has on muscle mass and strength etc. Have you read any of those? What are you bringing to the discussion (other than your ignorance)?

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If people bring a non figure skating topic to a figure skating board they might think that quick education on this topic is a better approach than sending ignorant members to the Internet and personally attacking them.

I beg the mods to close this thread quickly before it becomes a political flame war.

Manitou said:

I beg the mods to close this thread quickly before it becomes a political flame war.

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I just wanted to know about the isu policies I swear. Everytime gender gets brought up people get really passionate. Throw in people who're changing genders! and it becomes a whole other ball game.

But I asked about isu policy, and i got my answers - thanks to everyone who gave me info about trans athletes and the ioc and stuff

notunprepared said:

I just wanted to know about the isu policies I swear. Everytime gender gets brought up people get really passionate. Throw in people who're changing genders! and it becomes a whole other ball game.

But I asked about isu policy, and i got my answers - thanks to everyone who gave me info about trans athletes and the ioc and stuff

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The reason I asked for it is that I am a very traditional conservative and if this thread becomes a transgender platform then I may not resist joining the conversation and then I will end up banned. So I want to avoid that...

TontoK said:

You are a person who obviously has a great passion for this topic, and I'm sure you wish to advance your cause. So, citing the wisdom that often comes with age, I'm going to offer you some advice, which you may heed or discard.

1. There are people of goodwill who are generally supportive, but not fundamentally committed, to this cause. This means that they are unlikely to have devoted hours to researching scores of academic or medical sources. They naturally have questions. These people are not your enemy. Calling them out as ignorant will not endear them to you or your cause. A general rule of thumb is that lay-people don't listen to unpleasant or condescending "experts." If you want to influence people, first you need them to listen to you - not tune you out.

2. A reasonable person might acknowledge that scholarship on transgender social and medical issues is proceeding at a very fast pace, and not all of it presents a single narrative of what it means to be transgender. Even individuals who themselves are transitioning are not always in agreement on some of these issues. At what point does transition begin? At what point is it complete? Human identity and sexuality is a complicated business for those most directly involved, much less for those of us on the outside looking in.

3. The specific concerns of transgender athletes, as well as their non-trans competitors, on the subject of fairness and a level playing field appears to be an evolving issue which will take some time to fully resolve. It's not bigoted to say this.

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Thank you for this, the voice of reason.

These are several articles that are either written by, or an interview with a woman (who is a scientist and transgender) who is an expert witness to the IOC. She is brilliant and fair and has more insight and hard facts than any of us.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...ed1aaea2816_story.html?utm_term=.9424b734501e

http://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens...-testosterone-to-compete-with-women-1.3724790

This is an excerpt from an interview with her.

"Science, sports and gender have always been the three cornerstones of my life, however, for most of my years they occupied distinct sectors within my existence.

I was doing fourth grade math before I started kindergarten, and as soon as I passed the Dick and Jane book stage, I started reading books about science. My love for science and my mathematical aptitude led me to a satisfying career as a medical physicist.

As a male-identified child growing up in Canada, it was expected that I would love hockey. I did not. On the other hand, I was good at a many less-violent sports, and by the time I reached adulthood, distance running became the sport to define to me as an athlete.

It dawned on me fairly early in life, that while I saw myself as a girl, others did not. This gender-based dissonance shaped the ways in which I interacted with the world, and eventually, led me to make some fairly serious changes in my life.

It was not, however, until after my gender transition that science, sports, and gender came together for me. After I started on Hormone Replacement Therapy (a testosterone blocker and estrogen), my ability to run fast took a major hit. This unsettling loss of speed led me to examine the science of sports performance and how we look at gender within the sports world.

I became the only person ever to publish a scientific paper on transgender athletic performance. My study and my interests have opened some rather amazing doors for me; I am the only transgender person in history to be part of the team to advise the International Olympic Committee (IOC) on gender-based issues.
For most of humanity’s existence, sport was for men only. However, I would hope that it would be self-evident that one cannot have women’s equality without women’s sport. In order to make women’s sport meaningful, women must compete only against other women, as they are overmatched by men at the highest levels of most sports.

Unfortunately, biology does not neatly divide human beings into two sexes. There are tens of millions of people on the planet who don’t fit easily into our standard definition of male or female – they are either intersex or transgender. Intersex and transgender people have rights too, including the right to compete in sport. Many intersex or transgender athletes wish to compete in women’s sport, since they see themselves as women.

And this is heart of the matter. How do we support and protect women’s sport and, at the same time, honor the rights of a marginalized segment of humanity?

The transgender community is split over the question of whether or to use T or to use gender identity for eligibility for women’s sport. But if you think of me as only a trans person, then you would miss much of what is important about me. I define myself as a scientist first, an athlete second and as a transgender person thirdly, and the vast majority of scientists support the HA rules.

I would also like to relate a two-part epiphany that I had after my transition. In 2005, nine months after starting HRT, I was running 12% slower than I had run with male T levels; women run 10-12% slower than men over a wide range of distances. In 2006 I met another trans woman runner and the she had the same experience. I later discovered that, if aging is factored in, this 10-12% loss of speed is standard among trans women endurance athletes. The realization that one can take a male distance runner, make that runner hormonally female, and wind up with a female distance runner of the same relative capability was life changing for me.

I would admit that I sometimes feel like a bit of an “Aunt Jemima” in the transgender community. I am, however, more deeply entwined with the athletics community than the transgender community, and many people in the sports world still feel that it is wrong to allow transgender or intersex women into women’s sport under any conditions. Hence, I am condemned by people in both the running and the transgender community for my middle-ground opinions."

"I would suggest that Dutee Chand, or anyone else who sees themselves as a woman, should be allowed to live as one. I believe that social gender should be entirely determined by self-identification. I was proud to be part of the IOC panel that recommended support for gender self-identification.

I do, however, support the right of athletic federations such as the IOC or IAAF to create a de facto athletic gender by preventing those athletes who carry a large testosterone-based advantage from competing against the vast majority of women.

I would further suggest that, while it might not be a right, success in sports is one of the greatest advancements in women’s lives. If we value women’s equality, it is imperative that we protect the ability of all women to succeed in sports."


Her full interview.

http://sportsscientists.com/2016/05/hyperandrogenism-women-vs-women-vs-men-sport-qa-joanna-harper/

as I passed the Dick and Jane book stage

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whats the meaning of this expression btw? (if you dont mind me asking)??

Sugarpova said:

whats the meaning of this expression btw? (if you dont mind me asking)??

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This I guess?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_and_Jane
She started reading literature that is more complicated than basals readers

Just to confirm, in the US of A, (and evidently Canada) the “Dick and Jane” series of books was extraordinarily widespread and popular in school for teaching reading. I used those books in school, “See Dick run. Run, Dick, run.”

Too bad none of them said “See Dick (Button) skate. Skate, Dick, skate”
.

Sugarpova said:

whats the meaning of this expression btw? (if you dont mind me asking)??

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By the way.

As discussed already, there are many factors that go into gender identity:

1. Hormones
2. Genitalia
3. DNA
4. How others perceive you
5. How you perceive yourself

In about 1% of the general population, the first three criteria do not match where all three fit into one of the two binary sexes of male vs female. They are literally BORN that way. Example, someone born XXY or someone with a 'micropenis' or someone with congenital adrenal hyperplasia. These people are intersex.
Then add in the people for whom those top three match but the bottom two don't. These people are transgender.
Consider all the variety.
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Now, consider the fact that (at least in the US) figure skating is very much limited by:

1. Wealth
2. Time
3. Age of start
4. Geography
5. Stigma (for boys or skaters perceived to be boys)

So what we have here is a sport where certain gender differences may be exaggerated due to the fact that very few people participate in the sport overall. Add in the exaggeration caused by some strict rules as well... and the result is that we just don't have enough data to know how big a role gender plays in the sport side of figure skating.
---
So, since I believe that everyone deserves the opportunity to participate in competitive athletics, then I have to conclude that today's rules about transgender people are fairly arbitrary and are likely to change as we learn and experience more.

Hi!

Double whammy here...Too old to even think about being competitive and transgender, but going for it. (Or going to die trying, possibly.)

Obviously, just like every other aspect of life, people's transitions are completely unique. How your body takes (or rejects in some cases) the hormones, how quickly the hormones affect you and in what ways.

I was only on my testosterone injections for 4 months before I had an insurance issue, and am just now getting able to get back on them.

Even if your body takes the hormones well, the changes are very gradual.

Here's what it's done for me over the 4 months on and 2-3 months off - Facial hair and redistribution of fat and muscle, not change in mass of muscle or fat, any differently than before injections. As far as exercise and "performance" goes, nothing has changed, but I was born with a naturally athletic build and have been doing athletics on and off for my entire life; ballet, volleyball, soccer, fire performing (dancing if you must), hooping and even weight lifting.

Everyone worries about the concern of it being fair, and I could see far more concern with MTF, as SOME, not all, biological males are just naturally more resilient and athletically inclined than biological females, whereas biological females usually have an easier time with gaining and maintaining flexibility, and biological males tend to be the same, but with power and strength.

Transitioning from female to male, even with injections you're probably at a disadvantage still when it comes to competing with people who are born biologically male, depending on where in your transition you're at, (I'm looking at this from an ongoing HRT / pre-OP standpoint, because...Hi. That's me.), because the replacement goes at such a gradual pace that there's really not a lot of performance boosting to it...
Not to mention if your T levels are too high, your body can convert it into excess estrogen and essentially cancel out the effects of the testosterone, and it's also hard on your liver, so doses are based on the individual and what is healthy and maintaining for that individual, never too much, or anything extremely high that could be considered performance enhancing, and if that was the case then you'd need to find a new doctor, because that's begging for health problems. (RIP Liver and Kidneys, it was nice knowing you.)

That being said, if you'd been competing as a female athlete all your life, like a gymnast or a figure skater and you had the flexibility edge on the other guys now that you're transitioning, or if you'd been competing as a male all your life and brought your super awesome quad jumps into the female competition, I could see where the playing field seems questionable....

HOWEVER, hear me out, male or female, inside or out, something that you've worked hard to achieve as either sex or gender, before, during or after transition, is something you've worked hard to do REGARDLESS, and should be treated as such without taking your physical sex and gender identity into account.

But you know...that's me... just dropping a little bit of an insight bomb from my end.

I will now descend back into my safety net of memes and cooking videos, as that was hands down the most serious topic I've commented on in quite some time, and it's really draining.

Ciao! :agree:

nimi said:

Well, obviously.

I wish that after writing this sentence, people would have the STOP writing for a minute and START listening and learning, before they start opining about matter they don't know nothing about. I mean, you're here so clearly you know how to read and how to use the internet. There are many links even in this thread posted to articles discussing the question of possible biological advantage (or lack thereof) a trans athlete might have, the effect that HRT has on muscle mass and strength etc. Have you read any of those? What are you bringing to the discussion (other than your ignorance)?

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And what are you bringing to the discussion other than your arrogance.
Links on the internet are one side of the question, personal experience is another.