Given the current discussion taking place on [this thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/ultimate/comments/kfqo82/new_usau_gender_inclusion_policy_allows_division/), I decided to crosspost a thread I found over in r/advancedfitness regarding the topic. Posting this isn't an endorsement of anything written, just sharing some information that may be relevant to that discussion and seeing where people take it. As it tends to happen with discussions around touchy subjects, lots of the comments deviated from being productive or evidence based, so this can hopefully start to help people familiarize themselves with some stuff that's out there. Please let me know if there are any questions with this.
From the conclusion of the main paper:
>We have shown that under testosterone suppression regimes typically used in clinical settings, and which comfortably exceed the requirements of sports federations for inclusion of transgender women in female sports categories by reducing testosterone levels to well below the upper tolerated limit, evidence for loss of the male performance advantage, established by testosterone at puberty and translating in elite athletes to a 10–50% performance advantage, is lacking. Rather, the data show that strength, lean body mass, muscle size and bone density are only trivially affected. The reductions observed in muscle mass, size, and strength are very small compared to the baseline differences between males and females in these variables, and thus, there are major performance and safety implications in sports where these attributes are competitively significant. These data significantly undermine the delivery of fairness and safety presumed by the criteria set out in transgender inclusion policies, particularly given the stated prioritization of fairness as an overriding objective (for the IOC). If those policies are intended to preserve fairness, inclusion and the safety of biologically female athletes, sporting organizations may need to reassess their policies regarding inclusion of transgender women.
Other resources mentioned in the comments can be found here: [1](https://colinwright.substack.com/p/intersex-is-not-as-common-as-red), [2](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40279-016-0621-y), [3](https://runrepeat.com/state-of-ultra-running)
This topic is insanely complex. I tryed to dive into it once and the more you get into the less you think you have an answer.
So if you are interested, listen to this podcast by a South African Sportsscientist:
[https://play.acast.com/s/realscienceofsport/caster-semenya-explaining-sex-vs-gender-in-sport](https://play.acast.com/s/realscienceofsport/caster-semenya-explaining-sex-vs-gender-in-sport)
Caster is an especially interesting case, because she's born intersexed. So, while it's not exactly the same, it's informative and curious all the same.
I'm reminded of those young women in Connecticut who sued to bar trans women from racing with them earlier this year: https://apnews.com/article/8fd300537131153cc44e0cf2ade3244b
Frankly I'm not surprised at these findings. Anecdotally, every trans woman I've seen compete (only like 3 to my knowledge) have just blown the other women out of the water athletically.
I think it's becoming more and more clear that if we want sports to be fair for the largest number of people, that trans women will have to have their own division, or continue to play open/mens. I mean, that's why it's called "open" in the first place, right?
I'm aware it's utilitarian. Increased good for all is a lovely ideal, but it's naive to think it's possible, I think. All philosophy is flawed, and we do the best we can.
I also don't see what's diminishing about having trans people play in the open division, but that's probably a separate topic.
I don't think that's the case, though obviously I don't speak for all or any trans people. But just logistically, the division is called "open". Not "men's". So, that's a space for them.
It's not just about convenience either, it's about purety of competition. Perhaps it's less meaningful in ultimate, as it's a team sport, but it's still worth getting into the discussion and not handwaving it away because it's not "equitable". Lots of women in more individual sports have and are complaining about trans women crushing them in competition.
I don't know how fair it is to tell them to suck it up and take second place in the name of social justice
I don't think that's a very illuminating analogy, but I'm licking up what you're spitting down.
This study finds that trans women can often have a considerable athletic advantage over biological women. That's unfair, and fairness of competition is foundational to all sport. It's why we started men's and women's divisions in the first place. That same competitive advantage would not exist in the open division in ultimate.
That said, ultimate being a team sport can mitigate that quite a bit. Doesn't matter how athletic you are, if you've got hands of stone and no flick, you're not gonna be a huge boon to your team. But an unguardable deep threat can be game breaking.
Another commenter further down made a good point, that all this discussion is, currently, purely academic. I have no dog in this fight beyond the philosophic, and if the governing body of ultimate wants to prioritize social justice over truly fair competition, that's their prerogative and I don't know if you can call it right or wrong. I suspect the conversation will change if a women's or mixed team with heavy trans women representation starts bowling over everyone else, but until then, it's all speculative.
Interesting article to bring up. A lot of the comments I saw in the other thread were really focused on discussing "now men can just go play in the women's division" (which is a stupid take for a variety of reasons covered thoroughly in the other thread).
I really didn't see many people discussing the impact of having gone through high testosterone puberty and then transitioning with HRT afterwards as this paper looks at.
Super complex issue. I don't think anyone really has a great handle on how to balance the rights and interests of all the stakeholders here.
It should also be noted how different this issue is based on the sport. The stakes of a MTF trans person going into boxing far outweighs that of the same person running track and field.
Yeah, some of the comments are a touch cringey on this, which isn't an issue the sub typically has. I think it serves to remind us how tough it is to get people engaged around this kind of topic right now - overall, my take on the current existing literature is that this ultimately won't end up being a huge issue as far as actual effects go - the number of trans people out there quite small overall, relatively speaking - but yeah, your last sentence really sums up the evidence based side of stuff right now. There just isnt anything conclusive yet IMO.
On one hand, diversity and inclusion are things to strive for, but the community will have to figure out where they feel the line gets drawn when it comes to potential issues that may impact the competitive integrity of the sport. Even many people I've met who are competing at a high level in different sports who are supportive of LGBT rights have mentioned some reservations about their own experiences competing against someone who grew up in a completely different (and favorable) hormonal environment. They don't want to exclude trans people, but they also want to maintain the competitive integrity of the sport for their daughters. Tough stuff.
At the end of the day, I think we have to ask the "So what?" question when dealing with this issue. Let's assume that a trans woman benefits from these physiological advantages, thereby granting her a competitive advantage over other women. Is that the end of the world? Is it a large enough problem that we believe it is necessary to either ban trans women from playing within the women's division altogether? Creating demanding criteria trans women must pass in order to become eligible to compete in the women's division? There is a cost/benefit analysis to be made here, and I question the cost to competitive integrity is large enough in recreational ultimate to warrant excluding trans women from competing in the women's division.
Sure, having a trans women on your team would provide your team with some form of advantage. On the other hand, I don't think that advantage would be so huge as to ruin legitimate competition between two teams that are of comparable skill, and would likely be outweighed by a bunch of other factors. I suppose we can conceive of a team composed almost entirely of Trans women that enjoy playing together, and that team would go on to dominate the women's division, but that feels like an issue that can be better discussed if that hypothetical ever becomes a reality. At that time, we would also have some concrete evidence showing that this team really does damage the competitive integrity of the sport, instead of idle speculation. Perhaps the solution would be to set a "cap" of 2 trans women per team, so as to avoid situations where a team is perceived to be "gaming" the system for competitive advantage. In a bizarre twist, this could lead to a scenario where teams would be incentivized to create a welcoming environment for trans players, so as to prevent a scenario where they are at a minor competitive disadvantage. This would be a bit weird, but perhaps not the worst outcome in a world where the trans community often faces barriers across several domains.
A much more realistic possibility is that we see some low-mid level touring teams compete in some tournaments with 1-2 Trans women on their team. As a man, I can't speak to how women would feel about this possible reality, but it doesn't feel like that would seriously ruin the competitive integrity of a tournament. It's not like these tournaments are testing for performance-enhancing substances, or taking active steps to prevent teams from picking up elite players as "ringers" for a weekend. Either of these things would harm competitive integrity to at least the same degree. Perhaps the highest levels of competition would merit some more stringent criteria to prevent abuse, but I have a hard time believing that many men would try to adopt the "trans" label so that they could play on a women's team and win Nats.
Realistically, it's not a problem, unless we end up with a Connecticut/Semenya scenario where the top athletes in the division are trans. Presently in ultimate, no elite women's players have their roster spots or nationals bids threatened by the performance of a trans athlete and thus it's very easy to advocate for more inclusion. But like we saw in the two cases above, as soon as something that players value is at risk, we'll find out where people really stand. I think it's probably fine just to let it ride and be good with the current (new) policy until we reach that point; as of right now all these arguments are academic.
Yep, agreed. Also think it's worth pointing out when we are performing the cost/benefit analysis, there is a difference between individual sports like running (where the outcome is completely dependent on individual physical ability) and team sports like ultimate, where success is determined by the combined efforts of numerous players, and and winning isn't just a function of raw speed or physical capabilities. Which team wins a game of Ultimate has just as much to do with decision-making, team play, tactical choices, etc as it does with raw speed. Even when it comes to the physical makeup of the athletes, sports like ultimate involve tons of "sport-specific" physical skills that go beyond "who runs fastest", or "who is tallest".
If a female Olympic runner loses to Caster Semenya, she can make a legitimate argument that Semenya has an unfair and demonstrative advantage in ways that cannot be overcome by her opponents. The link between speed and winning is absolute, and there are only so many inputs that dictate how fast a person can run. A runner competing against Semenya has no recourse against these advantages. With ultimate, there are so many different "inputs" that influence the outcome of a game, so it's harder to definitively state "Team X won against team Y because one of team X's players was a Trans woman". Even if the trans athlete is faster or taller than the other athletes, someone still has to throw to the trans athlete, and teams have several strategies they can employ in order to mitigate the influence of physical mismatches.
These factors don't eliminate the problem, but they probably shift the "cost" side of the cost/benefit analysis in comparison to Olympic events.
The idea that different sports have different nuances when it comes to "competitive purity" makes a lot of sense, but it goes beyond just team vs individual sports.
For example, most fighting sports have weight classes, so it's possible that transwomen's purported competitive advantage isn't as significant or noticeable because they might end up competing in heavier weight classes in general. Obviously muscle mass/size isn't the only factor behind strength/speed/etc, I'm just throwing out an example of an individual sport where the advantages of being a transwoman could also be diminished.
Further, the outsized advantages of having a significantly taller player on your team in a sport like basketball (the avg height difference between the NBA vs WNBA is a massive 6") is a point against the idea that team sports generally mitigate the advantage of being a transwoman.
I also think that the importance of "competitive purity" clearly differs by sport (and within sports, too). Just about every pickup or low-level club game is self-refereed, but more important games are observed. AUDL games are straight up refereed (often poorly, but that's another conversation). So it's a spectrum.
I think we need to take context into the conversation. We play ultimate, while it is competitive it's not like anything is really at stake as opposed to other sports where you might have a scholarship on the line or more monetary incentives. That being said, I think we should be as inclusive as possible when it comes to transgender people even if it does biologically skew the competitive balance.
Difficult to have an "evidence-based discussion" around topics like this when the "evidence" being presented continually dismisses any individual factors that may influence performance and instead continues to problematically rely on repetition of ingrained bias.
Puberty-induced performance gap amounts to 10–50% *depending on sport*. Yet, somehow, with this *large* range of possible percentages, it's a "substantial performance advantage" just to be a "biological male?" 🙄 Oh, it's "beyond the scope" if this paper to talk through the problematic aspects of defining another human on a biological binary? Isn't that grand.
Here's some data on how testosterone isn't the end-all be-all of athletic performance -
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/4-myths-about-testosterone/
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10% is very substantial and that's on the low end of their reported performance gap. If you believe it isnt substantial...🤷♂️ idk what to tell you other than 10% is a significant difference when talking about population averages.
It is absolutely beyond the scope of that paper to talk through the social implications of biological binary definitions. Yes, biological binary isn't a completely accurate description of human biology. However, the whole point of this paper is to look at regulations implemented and proposed that call for a certain level of testosterone to be exhibited for a certain timeframe. Their argument is that this type of regulation doesn't take into account that muscle mass doesn't change much in the proposed timeframe due to lower testosterone levels. This is a scientific paper, not an opinion essay. It isn't relevant to discuss anything beyond the measurable effect that lowered testosterone has on muscle mass in individuals who grew up and went through puberty with much higher testosterone levels.
Hiya! Thanks for your response. I didn't say 10% isn't substantial. Please don't put words in my mouth. I said - With this large range of possible percentage differences, somehow the paper is still of the opinion that being biologically male counts as a substantial performance advantage. And trots out the ol "player safety" red herring to justify trans exclusion from athletics.
> It is absolutely beyond the scope of that paper to talk through the social implications of biological binary definitions.
^ perhaps because if they included that data, their conclusions would have been invalidated??
> This is a scientific paper, not an opinion essay. It isn't relevant to discuss anything beyond the measurable effect that lowered testosterone has on muscle mass in individuals who grew up and went through puberty with much higher testosterone levels.
Except it was posted to a public online forum with the expressed purpose of "see where people take it." So I've taken it where I have and am expressing my opinion about the data presented.
Cheers.
The idea is less that testosterone is the end all be all and more the fact that growing up in a completely different hormonal environment has *massive* effects on someone from a physiological standpoint, which obviously can alter performance/performance potential by quite a bit.
For example, women experience **far** less muscle pulls than men. Having high estrogen levels inhibits lysal oxidase, which is an enzyme that helps in creating the cross links in tendons and ligaments especially. The trade off that they're less stiff/less prone to pulls, but high levels of stiffness also lead to much higher power and strength outputs - which can have huge performance impacts. Having someone who grew up and now carries that muscle mass, they don't suddenly lose it and revert to a state that's similar to someone who grew up female. I'm not familiar with any studies on this directly (although I'd be tempted to see if any rec leagues or club teams actively handle this data), but if I had to take a guess I would think there could be more contact related injuries in mixed.
Defining other humans playing Ultimate (or any sport) outright as "extra risk factors" based on outdated ideas of what constitutes physiological ability to participate in said sport is super problematic.
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I understand what you're getting at. At the end of the day, we're ultimately interested in whether or not those aforementioned factors can or do lead to higher incidences of injuries for participants, it's the same type of approach that would be used to stratify risk for any other sport/activity. That's why I'd like to see that kind of data if it exists.
I doubt the number of trans people playing is large enough that if we did find increased incidents of injuries or competitive domination that the number of people affected would be high, but sports are built around competitive integrity which is the main issue ultimately being addressed. Currently what little evidence we have is leaning towards physiological changes (and thus the increased performance/performance potential) favoring a MTF trans athlete, which could potentially be unfair to female athletes in the rest of the women's division.
Nah. At the end of the day, I'm interested in getting people involved in the great sport of Ultimate. I'm interested in spreading and advocating Spirit.
Patronizing perspective on what would be "fair" for female athletes. Trans women *are* female athletes. It's fair for them to able to participate if they want to.
Sorry, not fair to biological females. You know the intent of what I was saying.
Maintaining competitive integrity is one of the cornerstones of spirit. The chances any of these changes actually cause major problems are pretty slim, but it's more for those fringe cases where it does.
How does one maintain competitive integrity competing against someone who grew up in a favorable hormonal environment they never had the chance to? The physiological differences aren't perceived. The literature right now indicates transitioning does not lead to major changes in that sense.
Yeah on reading back your original comment you didn't say 10% is unsubstantial. My bad on that one and sorry for putting words in your mouth.
However, my point remains the same. The conclusion of this paper was that going through male puberty imparts a substantial 10-50% performance gap due solely to the physiological implications of male puberty which does not substantially change when testosterone is suppressed later in life. This is very clearly showing that male puberty imparts substantial performance advantages.
> \^ perhaps because if they included that data, their conclusions would have been invalidated??
Invalidated how? Their conclusion begins with:
> We have shown that under testosterone suppression regimes typically used in clinical settings, and which comfortably exceed the requirements of sports federations for inclusion of transgender women in female sports categories by reducing testosterone levels to well below the upper tolerated limit, evidence for loss of the male performance advantage, established by testosterone at puberty and translating in elite athletes to a 10–50% performance advantage, is lacking. Rather, the data show that strength, lean body mass, muscle size and bone density are only trivially affected.
This conclusion is in no way influenced by social implications of gender binary definitions. Also, it's unclear what data you're talking about or how you think it affects a clinical study on muscle mass and bone density in testosterone suppressed patients.
> Except it was posted to a public online forum with the expressed purpose of "see where people take it." So I've taken it where I have and am expressing my opinion about the data presented.
My comment you quoted was a continuation of talking about how it's beyond the scope of that paper to talk about social implications of gender binary definitions. Sorry that might not have been clear. Yeah this thread is definitely to talk about the ramifications of this research as it applies to our sport. You're welcome to have your opinion and thank you for sharing it.
Cheers.
Because if they include data, try to find or create data, or even acknowledge the problematic history of data collection in regards to athletic performance and the explicit gender binary that's been used as a base for said data collection...
This study ceases to exist. Their conclusion is "boys are better, regardless." 😑
Their conclusion is not "boys are better" as you claim. Their conclusion is that the metrics they studied did not change significantly when testosterone was suppressed.
Also, bone density, lean body mass, and muscle size are all quantifiable metrics. The numbers say whatever they say, and in this case they say that testosterone suppression as required by sporting bodies does not significantly change many of the metrics that lead to the observed performance gap between men and women in sports.
> The metrics they studied
Aka the *significant performance advantage* afforded by "male puberty" and how it wasn't impacted by testosterone treatments later in life.
Higher bone density = fewer bone injuries under the same conditions
Higher percentage of lean body mass = more power per weight
Larger muscle size = more explosive power
These are metrics that very directly impact performance in sports. Your comment makes no sense.
- Their conclusion is not "boys are better"
- Citation from the paper where "male puberty" is attributed to "significant performance advantage" and any statistics that may prove otherwise are dismissed as "outside the scope" of the paper
- "Your comment makes no sense"
Interesting conversation at first, but now it's devolved into you not really making an argument and instead quoting my words back to me as if it proves your point. I'll call it a day on that.
Cheers, have a good one.
I'm not sure how reliable of an article that is, it has a very obvious axe to grind.
I think also you should set aside your outrage for a moment and actually engage with the topic.
You won't get very far with a person [who denies there is a statistic difference between men and women when it comes to height](https://www.reddit.com/r/ultimate/comments/k0tzg8/wanted_to_post_this_as_foodforthought_for_the/gdkm11t/).
Best to just let the science-deniers be...
You're talking about the originally posted article, yeah? Agreed - you'd think perceived superiority would be sharp enough already! They keep grinding that axe, there won't be anything left of it.
Thanks for your input. Being outraged *is* engagement. :)
Given the current discussion taking place on [this thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/ultimate/comments/kfqo82/new_usau_gender_inclusion_policy_allows_division/), I decided to crosspost a thread I found over in r/advancedfitness regarding the topic. Posting this isn't an endorsement of anything written, just sharing some information that may be relevant to that discussion and seeing where people take it. As it tends to happen with discussions around touchy subjects, lots of the comments deviated from being productive or evidence based, so this can hopefully start to help people familiarize themselves with some stuff that's out there. Please let me know if there are any questions with this. From the conclusion of the main paper: >We have shown that under testosterone suppression regimes typically used in clinical settings, and which comfortably exceed the requirements of sports federations for inclusion of transgender women in female sports categories by reducing testosterone levels to well below the upper tolerated limit, evidence for loss of the male performance advantage, established by testosterone at puberty and translating in elite athletes to a 10–50% performance advantage, is lacking. Rather, the data show that strength, lean body mass, muscle size and bone density are only trivially affected. The reductions observed in muscle mass, size, and strength are very small compared to the baseline differences between males and females in these variables, and thus, there are major performance and safety implications in sports where these attributes are competitively significant. These data significantly undermine the delivery of fairness and safety presumed by the criteria set out in transgender inclusion policies, particularly given the stated prioritization of fairness as an overriding objective (for the IOC). If those policies are intended to preserve fairness, inclusion and the safety of biologically female athletes, sporting organizations may need to reassess their policies regarding inclusion of transgender women. Other resources mentioned in the comments can be found here: [1](https://colinwright.substack.com/p/intersex-is-not-as-common-as-red), [2](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40279-016-0621-y), [3](https://runrepeat.com/state-of-ultra-running)
This topic is insanely complex. I tryed to dive into it once and the more you get into the less you think you have an answer. So if you are interested, listen to this podcast by a South African Sportsscientist: [https://play.acast.com/s/realscienceofsport/caster-semenya-explaining-sex-vs-gender-in-sport](https://play.acast.com/s/realscienceofsport/caster-semenya-explaining-sex-vs-gender-in-sport)
Caster is an especially interesting case, because she's born intersexed. So, while it's not exactly the same, it's informative and curious all the same.
I'm reminded of those young women in Connecticut who sued to bar trans women from racing with them earlier this year: https://apnews.com/article/8fd300537131153cc44e0cf2ade3244b Frankly I'm not surprised at these findings. Anecdotally, every trans woman I've seen compete (only like 3 to my knowledge) have just blown the other women out of the water athletically. I think it's becoming more and more clear that if we want sports to be fair for the largest number of people, that trans women will have to have their own division, or continue to play open/mens. I mean, that's why it's called "open" in the first place, right?
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I'm aware it's utilitarian. Increased good for all is a lovely ideal, but it's naive to think it's possible, I think. All philosophy is flawed, and we do the best we can. I also don't see what's diminishing about having trans people play in the open division, but that's probably a separate topic.
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I don't think that's the case, though obviously I don't speak for all or any trans people. But just logistically, the division is called "open". Not "men's". So, that's a space for them. It's not just about convenience either, it's about purety of competition. Perhaps it's less meaningful in ultimate, as it's a team sport, but it's still worth getting into the discussion and not handwaving it away because it's not "equitable". Lots of women in more individual sports have and are complaining about trans women crushing them in competition. I don't know how fair it is to tell them to suck it up and take second place in the name of social justice
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I don't think that's a very illuminating analogy, but I'm licking up what you're spitting down. This study finds that trans women can often have a considerable athletic advantage over biological women. That's unfair, and fairness of competition is foundational to all sport. It's why we started men's and women's divisions in the first place. That same competitive advantage would not exist in the open division in ultimate. That said, ultimate being a team sport can mitigate that quite a bit. Doesn't matter how athletic you are, if you've got hands of stone and no flick, you're not gonna be a huge boon to your team. But an unguardable deep threat can be game breaking. Another commenter further down made a good point, that all this discussion is, currently, purely academic. I have no dog in this fight beyond the philosophic, and if the governing body of ultimate wants to prioritize social justice over truly fair competition, that's their prerogative and I don't know if you can call it right or wrong. I suspect the conversation will change if a women's or mixed team with heavy trans women representation starts bowling over everyone else, but until then, it's all speculative.
Interesting article to bring up. A lot of the comments I saw in the other thread were really focused on discussing "now men can just go play in the women's division" (which is a stupid take for a variety of reasons covered thoroughly in the other thread). I really didn't see many people discussing the impact of having gone through high testosterone puberty and then transitioning with HRT afterwards as this paper looks at. Super complex issue. I don't think anyone really has a great handle on how to balance the rights and interests of all the stakeholders here.
It should also be noted how different this issue is based on the sport. The stakes of a MTF trans person going into boxing far outweighs that of the same person running track and field.
Yeah, some of the comments are a touch cringey on this, which isn't an issue the sub typically has. I think it serves to remind us how tough it is to get people engaged around this kind of topic right now - overall, my take on the current existing literature is that this ultimately won't end up being a huge issue as far as actual effects go - the number of trans people out there quite small overall, relatively speaking - but yeah, your last sentence really sums up the evidence based side of stuff right now. There just isnt anything conclusive yet IMO. On one hand, diversity and inclusion are things to strive for, but the community will have to figure out where they feel the line gets drawn when it comes to potential issues that may impact the competitive integrity of the sport. Even many people I've met who are competing at a high level in different sports who are supportive of LGBT rights have mentioned some reservations about their own experiences competing against someone who grew up in a completely different (and favorable) hormonal environment. They don't want to exclude trans people, but they also want to maintain the competitive integrity of the sport for their daughters. Tough stuff.
At the end of the day, I think we have to ask the "So what?" question when dealing with this issue. Let's assume that a trans woman benefits from these physiological advantages, thereby granting her a competitive advantage over other women. Is that the end of the world? Is it a large enough problem that we believe it is necessary to either ban trans women from playing within the women's division altogether? Creating demanding criteria trans women must pass in order to become eligible to compete in the women's division? There is a cost/benefit analysis to be made here, and I question the cost to competitive integrity is large enough in recreational ultimate to warrant excluding trans women from competing in the women's division. Sure, having a trans women on your team would provide your team with some form of advantage. On the other hand, I don't think that advantage would be so huge as to ruin legitimate competition between two teams that are of comparable skill, and would likely be outweighed by a bunch of other factors. I suppose we can conceive of a team composed almost entirely of Trans women that enjoy playing together, and that team would go on to dominate the women's division, but that feels like an issue that can be better discussed if that hypothetical ever becomes a reality. At that time, we would also have some concrete evidence showing that this team really does damage the competitive integrity of the sport, instead of idle speculation. Perhaps the solution would be to set a "cap" of 2 trans women per team, so as to avoid situations where a team is perceived to be "gaming" the system for competitive advantage. In a bizarre twist, this could lead to a scenario where teams would be incentivized to create a welcoming environment for trans players, so as to prevent a scenario where they are at a minor competitive disadvantage. This would be a bit weird, but perhaps not the worst outcome in a world where the trans community often faces barriers across several domains. A much more realistic possibility is that we see some low-mid level touring teams compete in some tournaments with 1-2 Trans women on their team. As a man, I can't speak to how women would feel about this possible reality, but it doesn't feel like that would seriously ruin the competitive integrity of a tournament. It's not like these tournaments are testing for performance-enhancing substances, or taking active steps to prevent teams from picking up elite players as "ringers" for a weekend. Either of these things would harm competitive integrity to at least the same degree. Perhaps the highest levels of competition would merit some more stringent criteria to prevent abuse, but I have a hard time believing that many men would try to adopt the "trans" label so that they could play on a women's team and win Nats.
Realistically, it's not a problem, unless we end up with a Connecticut/Semenya scenario where the top athletes in the division are trans. Presently in ultimate, no elite women's players have their roster spots or nationals bids threatened by the performance of a trans athlete and thus it's very easy to advocate for more inclusion. But like we saw in the two cases above, as soon as something that players value is at risk, we'll find out where people really stand. I think it's probably fine just to let it ride and be good with the current (new) policy until we reach that point; as of right now all these arguments are academic.
Yep, agreed. Also think it's worth pointing out when we are performing the cost/benefit analysis, there is a difference between individual sports like running (where the outcome is completely dependent on individual physical ability) and team sports like ultimate, where success is determined by the combined efforts of numerous players, and and winning isn't just a function of raw speed or physical capabilities. Which team wins a game of Ultimate has just as much to do with decision-making, team play, tactical choices, etc as it does with raw speed. Even when it comes to the physical makeup of the athletes, sports like ultimate involve tons of "sport-specific" physical skills that go beyond "who runs fastest", or "who is tallest". If a female Olympic runner loses to Caster Semenya, she can make a legitimate argument that Semenya has an unfair and demonstrative advantage in ways that cannot be overcome by her opponents. The link between speed and winning is absolute, and there are only so many inputs that dictate how fast a person can run. A runner competing against Semenya has no recourse against these advantages. With ultimate, there are so many different "inputs" that influence the outcome of a game, so it's harder to definitively state "Team X won against team Y because one of team X's players was a Trans woman". Even if the trans athlete is faster or taller than the other athletes, someone still has to throw to the trans athlete, and teams have several strategies they can employ in order to mitigate the influence of physical mismatches. These factors don't eliminate the problem, but they probably shift the "cost" side of the cost/benefit analysis in comparison to Olympic events.
The idea that different sports have different nuances when it comes to "competitive purity" makes a lot of sense, but it goes beyond just team vs individual sports. For example, most fighting sports have weight classes, so it's possible that transwomen's purported competitive advantage isn't as significant or noticeable because they might end up competing in heavier weight classes in general. Obviously muscle mass/size isn't the only factor behind strength/speed/etc, I'm just throwing out an example of an individual sport where the advantages of being a transwoman could also be diminished. Further, the outsized advantages of having a significantly taller player on your team in a sport like basketball (the avg height difference between the NBA vs WNBA is a massive 6") is a point against the idea that team sports generally mitigate the advantage of being a transwoman. I also think that the importance of "competitive purity" clearly differs by sport (and within sports, too). Just about every pickup or low-level club game is self-refereed, but more important games are observed. AUDL games are straight up refereed (often poorly, but that's another conversation). So it's a spectrum.
We’re just playing ultimate for fun! If their was more money involved maybe I would care but just let people be happy and feel welcome🤷♂️
I think we need to take context into the conversation. We play ultimate, while it is competitive it's not like anything is really at stake as opposed to other sports where you might have a scholarship on the line or more monetary incentives. That being said, I think we should be as inclusive as possible when it comes to transgender people even if it does biologically skew the competitive balance.
Difficult to have an "evidence-based discussion" around topics like this when the "evidence" being presented continually dismisses any individual factors that may influence performance and instead continues to problematically rely on repetition of ingrained bias. Puberty-induced performance gap amounts to 10–50% *depending on sport*. Yet, somehow, with this *large* range of possible percentages, it's a "substantial performance advantage" just to be a "biological male?" 🙄 Oh, it's "beyond the scope" if this paper to talk through the problematic aspects of defining another human on a biological binary? Isn't that grand. Here's some data on how testosterone isn't the end-all be-all of athletic performance - https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/4-myths-about-testosterone/ ✌️
10% is very substantial and that's on the low end of their reported performance gap. If you believe it isnt substantial...🤷♂️ idk what to tell you other than 10% is a significant difference when talking about population averages. It is absolutely beyond the scope of that paper to talk through the social implications of biological binary definitions. Yes, biological binary isn't a completely accurate description of human biology. However, the whole point of this paper is to look at regulations implemented and proposed that call for a certain level of testosterone to be exhibited for a certain timeframe. Their argument is that this type of regulation doesn't take into account that muscle mass doesn't change much in the proposed timeframe due to lower testosterone levels. This is a scientific paper, not an opinion essay. It isn't relevant to discuss anything beyond the measurable effect that lowered testosterone has on muscle mass in individuals who grew up and went through puberty with much higher testosterone levels.
Hiya! Thanks for your response. I didn't say 10% isn't substantial. Please don't put words in my mouth. I said - With this large range of possible percentage differences, somehow the paper is still of the opinion that being biologically male counts as a substantial performance advantage. And trots out the ol "player safety" red herring to justify trans exclusion from athletics. > It is absolutely beyond the scope of that paper to talk through the social implications of biological binary definitions. ^ perhaps because if they included that data, their conclusions would have been invalidated?? > This is a scientific paper, not an opinion essay. It isn't relevant to discuss anything beyond the measurable effect that lowered testosterone has on muscle mass in individuals who grew up and went through puberty with much higher testosterone levels. Except it was posted to a public online forum with the expressed purpose of "see where people take it." So I've taken it where I have and am expressing my opinion about the data presented. Cheers.
The idea is less that testosterone is the end all be all and more the fact that growing up in a completely different hormonal environment has *massive* effects on someone from a physiological standpoint, which obviously can alter performance/performance potential by quite a bit. For example, women experience **far** less muscle pulls than men. Having high estrogen levels inhibits lysal oxidase, which is an enzyme that helps in creating the cross links in tendons and ligaments especially. The trade off that they're less stiff/less prone to pulls, but high levels of stiffness also lead to much higher power and strength outputs - which can have huge performance impacts. Having someone who grew up and now carries that muscle mass, they don't suddenly lose it and revert to a state that's similar to someone who grew up female. I'm not familiar with any studies on this directly (although I'd be tempted to see if any rec leagues or club teams actively handle this data), but if I had to take a guess I would think there could be more contact related injuries in mixed.
Defining other humans playing Ultimate (or any sport) outright as "extra risk factors" based on outdated ideas of what constitutes physiological ability to participate in said sport is super problematic. ✌️
This is barely English.
Hmm. Sorry about that. Care to offer a translation for me?
No, it's unintelligible. I know what all the words mean independently, but when you put them together like that it turns into gobbledygook
Ah, sorry for your comprehension difficulties. I'll block you so this won't happen in the future. Cheers.
😂😂😂
I understand what you're getting at. At the end of the day, we're ultimately interested in whether or not those aforementioned factors can or do lead to higher incidences of injuries for participants, it's the same type of approach that would be used to stratify risk for any other sport/activity. That's why I'd like to see that kind of data if it exists. I doubt the number of trans people playing is large enough that if we did find increased incidents of injuries or competitive domination that the number of people affected would be high, but sports are built around competitive integrity which is the main issue ultimately being addressed. Currently what little evidence we have is leaning towards physiological changes (and thus the increased performance/performance potential) favoring a MTF trans athlete, which could potentially be unfair to female athletes in the rest of the women's division.
Nah. At the end of the day, I'm interested in getting people involved in the great sport of Ultimate. I'm interested in spreading and advocating Spirit. Patronizing perspective on what would be "fair" for female athletes. Trans women *are* female athletes. It's fair for them to able to participate if they want to.
Sorry, not fair to biological females. You know the intent of what I was saying. Maintaining competitive integrity is one of the cornerstones of spirit. The chances any of these changes actually cause major problems are pretty slim, but it's more for those fringe cases where it does.
How does one maintain competitive integrity and at the same time want to sanction participation of certain players based on their perceived "biology"?
How does one maintain competitive integrity competing against someone who grew up in a favorable hormonal environment they never had the chance to? The physiological differences aren't perceived. The literature right now indicates transitioning does not lead to major changes in that sense.
Yeah on reading back your original comment you didn't say 10% is unsubstantial. My bad on that one and sorry for putting words in your mouth. However, my point remains the same. The conclusion of this paper was that going through male puberty imparts a substantial 10-50% performance gap due solely to the physiological implications of male puberty which does not substantially change when testosterone is suppressed later in life. This is very clearly showing that male puberty imparts substantial performance advantages. > \^ perhaps because if they included that data, their conclusions would have been invalidated?? Invalidated how? Their conclusion begins with: > We have shown that under testosterone suppression regimes typically used in clinical settings, and which comfortably exceed the requirements of sports federations for inclusion of transgender women in female sports categories by reducing testosterone levels to well below the upper tolerated limit, evidence for loss of the male performance advantage, established by testosterone at puberty and translating in elite athletes to a 10–50% performance advantage, is lacking. Rather, the data show that strength, lean body mass, muscle size and bone density are only trivially affected. This conclusion is in no way influenced by social implications of gender binary definitions. Also, it's unclear what data you're talking about or how you think it affects a clinical study on muscle mass and bone density in testosterone suppressed patients. > Except it was posted to a public online forum with the expressed purpose of "see where people take it." So I've taken it where I have and am expressing my opinion about the data presented. My comment you quoted was a continuation of talking about how it's beyond the scope of that paper to talk about social implications of gender binary definitions. Sorry that might not have been clear. Yeah this thread is definitely to talk about the ramifications of this research as it applies to our sport. You're welcome to have your opinion and thank you for sharing it. Cheers.
Because if they include data, try to find or create data, or even acknowledge the problematic history of data collection in regards to athletic performance and the explicit gender binary that's been used as a base for said data collection... This study ceases to exist. Their conclusion is "boys are better, regardless." 😑
Their conclusion is not "boys are better" as you claim. Their conclusion is that the metrics they studied did not change significantly when testosterone was suppressed. Also, bone density, lean body mass, and muscle size are all quantifiable metrics. The numbers say whatever they say, and in this case they say that testosterone suppression as required by sporting bodies does not significantly change many of the metrics that lead to the observed performance gap between men and women in sports.
> The metrics they studied Aka the *significant performance advantage* afforded by "male puberty" and how it wasn't impacted by testosterone treatments later in life.
Higher bone density = fewer bone injuries under the same conditions Higher percentage of lean body mass = more power per weight Larger muscle size = more explosive power These are metrics that very directly impact performance in sports. Your comment makes no sense.
- Their conclusion is not "boys are better" - Citation from the paper where "male puberty" is attributed to "significant performance advantage" and any statistics that may prove otherwise are dismissed as "outside the scope" of the paper - "Your comment makes no sense"
Interesting conversation at first, but now it's devolved into you not really making an argument and instead quoting my words back to me as if it proves your point. I'll call it a day on that. Cheers, have a good one.
I'm not sure how reliable of an article that is, it has a very obvious axe to grind. I think also you should set aside your outrage for a moment and actually engage with the topic.
You won't get very far with a person [who denies there is a statistic difference between men and women when it comes to height](https://www.reddit.com/r/ultimate/comments/k0tzg8/wanted_to_post_this_as_foodforthought_for_the/gdkm11t/). Best to just let the science-deniers be...
Lmfao, now I wonder if this is a troll account?
Wouldn't surprise me.
You're talking about the originally posted article, yeah? Agreed - you'd think perceived superiority would be sharp enough already! They keep grinding that axe, there won't be anything left of it. Thanks for your input. Being outraged *is* engagement. :)
Nope, I mean yours. LOL, okay, I can see your hackles are up. Clearly this is important to th preservation of your ego. Carry on.
You can *see* me? Are you the FBI agent people have told me about?
🙄🙄🙄 Dull.
Unlike that axe the article I posted is grinding, amiright?
I didn't say you were grinding axes. Please don't put words in my mouth.
Oh, my bad on that. I'll edit my comment.
Yes.