New Zealand weight lifter at the Olympics

The IOC brought in rules on transgender athletes competing in the Olympics in 2003.

All athletes including those that have transitioned must comply with the World Anti-Doping Code and the WADA International Standards.

Those who transition from female to male are eligible to compete in the male category without further restriction.

Those who transition from male to female are eligible to compete in the female category under the following conditions:
- The athlete has declared that her gender identity is female. The declaration cannot be changed, for sporting purposes, for a minimum of four years.
- The athlete must demonstrate that her total testosterone level in serum has been below 10nmol/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)
- The athlete's total testosterone level in serum must remain below 10 nmol/L throughout the period of desired eligibility to compete in the female category.
- Compliance with these conditions may be monitored by testing. In the event of non-compliance, the athlete’s eligibility for female competition will be suspended for 12 months.
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Since the rules were brought in there have been over 50,000 Olympic athletes & Laurel Hubbard is the first openly trans athlete to qualify. I'm not sure it is a big an issue as it is being made out to be.
 
Boro in Devon said:
Yes,
Female bodies contain more oestrogen which means they have a higher body fat %, grow breasts and have hips. For a female to male, this is firstly blocked so they dont go through a female puberty or if they have, their periods stop happening.
Male bodies contain more testosterone, this creates muscle, less body fat, beards and hair loss. For a female to male, this is introduced later to build a more masculine body. This is also what athletes try to achieve an increase in due to diet, drugs etc.

So a male to female would want to block as much testosterone and increase oestrogen, so this will decrease the amount of muscle mass, and stop beard growth, reduce the adams apple etc.
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Cheers Devon. It's true what they say, you learn something new everyday.

Wouldn't the easiest solution be to develop a class for trans people? We have classes for male, female and different forms of disability at olympic level so it would be easy to implement wouldn't it?
 
Randy said:
Cheers Devon. It's true what they say, you learn something new everyday.

Wouldn't the easiest solution be to develop a class for trans people? We have classes for male, female and different forms of disability at olympic level so it would be easy to implement wouldn't it?
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I would imagine that the numbers are so low as to not make that viable.
 
It looks like Laurel Hubbard's best performance as a trans athlete was two years ago when she got a 154kg clean & jerk and a 131kg snatch, total 285kg.
At the 2016 Olympics that performance would've put her 4th but well short of the Olympic record & even further behind the World record.
 
Boro in Devon said:
I think that a lot of people who go through this process know that there are some things that they wont be able to do in the future. However there are some sports that Male and Female can compete at a similar level i.e. motorsport.
The one thing that a lot of trans people crave is acceptance in their new gender. Therefore they wouldnt want to have a separate classification, so the only answer is to not allow them to compete in a sport where strength is a big factor, at a professional level.
However what do you do with people where their sex is less easy to define, such as the african runner (sorry cant remember their name.
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Castor Semanya?
 
Boro in Devon said:
I have a son who has transitioned from a female to male. I can agree with the feeling of it being unfair, but add the following point.
Those who have transitioned take either hormone blockers and or extra testosterone or the female equivalent. This changed my sons physiology and to some extent personality. His shape changed and he added muscle, I am sure that male to female will also change in a similar way. This may go some way to level up the playing field, but would be interesting if they have to go through doping.
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Thanks for sharing your experience and knowledge BD. I am guessing it must have been a difficult time for you, your son and your family.
Hopefully having come through the experience, things are better all the round.
 
Male or female they will be dosed up to the gills on PEDs in the weightlifting categories anyway. I don't think it's ever been a level playing field.

Athletics isn't clean. They don't even admit there is a problem. London was the dirtiest games in history yet we laud it like it was the best.
 
If a male to female athlete decreases testosterone to decrease muscle mass would the end result leave the athlete with a higher % of muscle mass than a biological female even though upon testing they have similar levels of testosterone/oestrogen hormones?

From what I understand the allowance to compete is governed by hormone levels.
 
Randy said:
Probably true too. Although having its own class could promote further competition and make more people aware of trans people?
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That is an interesting idea, however a lot of trans people just want to be accepted in the gender that they associate with. I cant see many wanting to publicise their difference by creating their own classification. As has been said I think numbers would be small, but I think that there are probably a lot more trans people around than most people realise.
The number of youngsters has increased rapidly in the last few years, the young people have a much clearer grasp of the gender/sexuality identity than older people.
My son has gone on a journey, when he came out 10 years ago. However I will say that people have been fantastic and his school, college and university were great.

I have a great deal of pride in him, it has taken a huge amount of courage to go through what he has done. It also takes a lot of maturity to deal with issues about the amount of surgery that he wants to endure, along with understanding the consequences of future family life. Equally he went through the menopause at the age of 14.
 
Brian Marwood said:
The best solution would be to have a new transgender category in spo
Adi_Dem said:
Transgender issues are deeply complex aren't they? I can't formulate or articulate a strong view on these issues because I lack the understanding or knowledge to have the right to do that. My gut instinct on this though is very similar to @Muttley in that this feels wrong. There is an inevitable advantage to this individual competing against women. I am no expert but I assume that no matter what hormone treatment is given there would remain significant physical advantages. It cannot be fair and just in a sports environment.
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I believe it's called muscle memory, Sharon Davies the ex swimmer mentioned such a thing in an interview she did regarding trans sports
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I would think most people are just interested in having their gender recognised, the competition is secondary, people won't be changing their gender so they can win a competition.
 
Personally I don’t think it’s fair. I have no problem with how people want to live their lives and whatever makes them hapgood for them but you have to draw the line somewhere with things like this. Biology still needs to be acknowledged in some instances.

It’s happening in USA now where girls are losing out on college scholarships from athletics because they can’t win the races against people who are born male identifying as women.

The problem is you can barely even have the conversation about it without being accused of being transphobic, when the truth is it’s a very valid conversation to have and harmful not to have it.
 
Corco65 said:
I would think most people are just interested in having their gender recognised, the competition is secondary, people won't be changing their gender so they can win a competition.
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The problem is in some places like in USA for instance, A new government policy introduced this year means any place that receives public funding has to acknowledge a person by what they identify as even, if they don’t transition through medical purposes or whatever.

And as I said in my above post, this is being abused by guys winning college scholarships in athletics over the girls and just saying they identify as a girl to be able to do it. It’s that simple.

I imagine the vast majority wouldn’t do it just to gain an upper hand, but they will always be some trying to exploit it.
 
Boro in Devon said:
I have a son who has transitioned from a female to male. I can agree with the feeling of it being unfair, but add the following point.
Those who have transitioned take either hormone blockers and or extra testosterone or the female equivalent. This changed my sons physiology and to some extent personality. His shape changed and he added muscle, I am sure that male to female will also change in a similar way. This may go some way to level up the playing field, but would be interesting if they have to go through doping.
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But somebody who has lived as a man for 20+ years and has a different bone and muscle structure and years of natural testosterone is always going to be stronger than a woman, generally, No matter what process they go through to transition and medication they use.

They may meet the set limits allowed to compete but there is no taking away from those natural biological advantages.
 
I wouldn’t get too concerned. The Chinese woman in her class of weight has lifted about 50 kilos more than anybody else in the world including this kiwi lifter and is a stonewall banker for gold.
 
HiredGun123 said:
The problem is in some places like in USA for instance, A new government policy introduced this year means any place that receives public funding has to acknowledge a person by what they identify as even, if they don’t transition through medical purposes or whatever.

And as I said in my above post, this is being abused by guys winning college scholarships in athletics over the girls and just saying they identify as a girl to be able to do it. It’s that simple.

I imagine the vast majority wouldn’t do it just to gain an upper hand, but they will always be some trying to exploit it.
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If they are saying they had changed gender so that they can win a competition then they are cheating and they haven't really won and it says a lot about them.
 
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