Transgender woman wins UCI sanctioned race

[mrcharly-YHT]

the only solution is totally open sport without gender categories.

It is interesting reading this comment in light of my current racing activities.

Hasler kayak racing is completely open. No gender or age categories (apart from under 10 years - special races for them).

Racing is 'handicapped' by ability, that is all. Do well in one race and you'll be put in a higher division. It is normal for a start line to include teenagers about 14years old up to people in their late 60s. The teenagers (usually) have an advantage of being very light and being able to paddle faster boats (only restriction on boat design is the length and hydrofoils aren't allowed). The older people (usually) have experience and more power. It evens out. This niche sport has about 2-3 races every weekend throughout summer, with around 100-150 participants. Over a 1000 at the nationals, I'm told.

UCI should take note.

[mattc]

Racing is 'handicapped' by ability, that is all. Do well in one race and you'll be put in a higher division.

This is an excellent system for competitors that just want a challenge and some exercise (it works very well in my local ball-sport evening league )

But as soon as money, egos or status come into it - sadly - you need rigid rules of some sort.

(c.f. able-bodied athletes faking impairments at the Olympics    )

[Karla]

Basically you want TLI to run cycling?

[Lights touch paper, saunters casually away ... ]

[FifeingEejit]

the only solution is totally open sport without gender categories.

It is interesting reading this comment in light of my current racing activities.

Hasler kayak racing is completely open. No gender or age categories (apart from under 10 years - special races for them).

Racing is 'handicapped' by ability, that is all. Do well in one race and you'll be put in a higher division. It is normal for a start line to include teenagers about 14years old up to people in their late 60s. The teenagers (usually) have an advantage of being very light and being able to paddle faster boats (only restriction on boat design is the length and hydrofoils aren't allowed). The older people (usually) have experience and more power. It evens out. This niche sport has about 2-3 races every weekend throughout summer, with around 100-150 participants. Over a 1000 at the nationals, I'm told.

UCI should take note.

Is it mass start or TT based?

Handicaps usually work best on a TT style start system; it's often claimed that the Handicap setter's job is to get everyone to the finish at the same time...

[mrcharly-YHT]

Mass start, each division starts in a separate race.

Different divisions have different length races. Usually 9-7 race over 6.8km. Div6-4 race over 13-15km. Div 3-1 over 21-30km.

Regarding matt's comment, the ability levels go right up to olympic and world champion level.

There are very rigid rules. The rulebook is massive. You just don't need to separate people by age or gender to have good racing. 

[Kim]

You just don't need to separate people by age or gender to have good racing.

This fits with my limited experience of the HPV world, where separation is usually by speed (and occasionally bicycle vs multitrack) on safety grounds.  If it were separated by age or gender, some people would have very boring races.

[mattc]

Basically you want TLI to run cycling?

[Lights touch paper, saunters casually away ... ]

I've never heard of these people!

Would you recommend their events?

[Danu]

Google is your friend,Matt
Yes

[Jakob]

The hypothesis has been quite well tested, with trans women having been allowed to compete in the Olympics for years without a single one ever winning anything.  If they have an unfair advantage, it's clearly not an effective one.  (Or at least not sufficient to overcome whatever unfair disadvantages they experience on account of being trans, which amounts to the same thing.)

Laurel Hubbard, as mentioned above, lifted higher as a male junior, than she did as a female world record breaker...and his junior record was still a good ~90kg (25%) below the world record. A top male lifter transitioning would, even with a 20% loss in strength, obliterate the field.

There's a good blog post from Ross Tucker on how good you would have to be pre-transition, in order to be world class after transition, given the performance impediment that transition brings. I know nothing of the weight lifting world, so I can't speak to that, but I guess it comes down to how much better (if at all) than the current top women are the men who are next level down (or further) from the top? If the #10,000 in the world is 20% better than the top women, then there are a large number of men who could transition and perform better than the current top women, even accounting for the performance loss of transition. If you have to be among the top 10 men in the world to have that sort of performance gap, then the numbers suggest it is unlikely that a man with that level of ability will transition.

That's my point. Laurel was lifting 25% below top level before transitioning, Basically a nobody, who, despite the strength loss, became a world beater.

[Jakob]

And she's back.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/jun/21/olympics-tokyo-laurel-hubbard-trans-weightlifter-new-zealand

"Last year, the scientists Emma Hilton and Tommy Lundberg found that the male performance advantage in weightlifting was 30% when compared to women. Their research indicated that even when transgender women suppressed testosterone for 12 months, the loss of lean body mass, muscle area and strength was only around 5%."

[barakta]

I wouldn't trust the Guardian's quotage of anything about trans people as they're well known for generally being pretty anti-trans.

This article from a cis woman weight lifter I think covers some of the relevant issues including being wrong about being anti-trans in sports in the past: https://www.outsports.com/platform/amp/2021/6/16/22536714/rosi-sexton-mma-trans-athletes-fallon-fox

[Hot Flatus]

I wouldn't trust the Guardian's quotage of anything about trans people as they're well known for generally being pretty anti-trans.

Here is the research paper the guardian is quoting. Not read it myself yet.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/346774077_Transgender_Women_in_the_Female_Category_of_Sport_Perspectives_on_Testosterone_Suppression_and_Performance_Advantage

[DuncanM]

It seems to be a paper using data from a variety of studies, I don't know if it actually has any new data. I skim read it, and while they cited evidence showing that muscle mass wasn't reduced from male->female levels by following the hormone treatments, the implications for performance were inferred rather than measured. Anecdote from several athletes who have gone through that transition is that their loss of performance was pretty close to the performance gap between men and women (reference this: https://sportsscientists.com/2019/03/on-transgender-athletes-and-performance-advantages/ )

From what I have read, I suspect that if you were to take an aerobic sport then you might end up with the loss in performance being significant enough that a trans athlete would not enjoy a significant advantage, but if the sport is primarily one based on power then that advantage would not be eroded as much. On that basis, if you were going to pick an event in which a trans athlete might be advantaged, weightlifting is probably quite high on that list.

Not sure this is the right venue for this discussion, seeing as it's no longer about Dr McKinnon - maybe we need a new thread in The Sporting Life?