Good afternoon, dear Take in Mind visitors! Today we have decided to talk about the issue of justice for women. You must agree that this topic is more than relevant, especially on the eve of the wonderful Women’s day.
During the last year the media (especially in the Life and Style and Sport columns) periodically delight us with very intriguing reports of a delicate topic… I’d better give a couple of the latest examples (do not be lazy, look on the Internet for reports of these events):
- Connecticut sprinter Terry Miller won the 100-meter and 200-meter dashes (both meet record times) among high school girls at the Connecticut State Open track and field championships.
- New Zealand’s weightlifter Laurel Hubbard won two gold medals at the 2019 Pacific Games in Samoa.
- Liao Mensyu and Tong Zhenhuan won gold and silver in the 400m race at the China Athletics Championships.
- Liao Mengxue and Tong Zenghuan became the winners in the women’s 400m dash at the recent National Track and Field Championships Finals in Daqing, Heilongjiang province (China).
- Canadian Rachel McKinnon won the women’s masters track cycling world title in the sprint competition for ages 35-44.
For those who do not understand why our site suddenly decided to discuss these events of a truly universal scale, such as the Pacific Weightlifting Games and the Connecticut State Championship in Athletics among schoolchildren, I need to explain. All these examples described above are official women’s competitions in which transgenders were allowed to participate and win deservedly (to put the last word in quotation marks or not – this is exclusively your personal decision).
Such media reports have long ceased to be published under the “scandal” heading. Most likely, the victories of these athletes would have remained known exclusively to a small group of sport statisticians, if there were not the “egregious” statements from… the losers. The victory story of Canadian cyclist McKinnon appeared in newspapers and TV exclusively due to the cry of despair of the bronze medalist of these competitions, American Jen Wagner-Assali. Wagner-Assali published a tweet with the award photo and noted: “It’s definitely NOT fair”. Immediately with that, Jen began received numerous outraged letters from the tolerance fighters (there were even threats!) with a strong demand to apologize to McKinnon and to stop humiliating Rachel. The winner of the high school championship, Miller, argued that women athletes should train harder, instead of complaining about injustice because they are forced to compete against transgenders.
How to react to this, I personally do not know.
If you study the history of sports, you may find several examples in which alleged transgender athletes have won at many Olympics and World Championships. Here I should point out that now it is almost impossible to establish whether the athletes were transgender or hermaphrodites. Thus, in Berlin’s Olympic Games in 1936, American runner Helen Stephens won gold medals in the 100-metre dash and as a member of the 4×100 meter dash team. When this illustrious athlete passed away, the autopsy showed that Helen was more a man than a lady. German athlete Dora Ratien set a world record in women’s high jump and became European champion in 1938. In the same year, she finished her sport’s career as a woman when his true gender was revealed. Soviet athletes, sisters Tamara and Irina Press (Tamara won a gold medal at the Olympic games in Rome (1960) and Tokyo (1964)) stopped their sport’s carriers immediately after the introduction of a mandatory gender test in 1966. After the sex control procedure, Polish runner Eva Klobukowska was deprived of Olympic awards from Tokyo-1964. From the recent person, we may remind the story of the Australian professional golfer, Mianne Bagger. Bagger, who was born as a man and undergone sex change surgery in 1995, became the first transgender who was allowed to participate in the official Golf tournaments, such as Women’s British Open and U.S. Women’s Open. I do not mention specifically the well-known story of a South African middle-distance runner Caster Semenya, who won the gold medals in the 2012 and 2016 Olympics. This story is really unclear and I think that we will never know the right answer of the “woman, hermaphrodite or transgender?” question.
Later our expert will talk in detail about the physiological aspects, testosterone, surgical intervention, etc. But now I want to share a few words about one of the most beautiful phenomena of human society – about the phenomenon of women’s sport. I’m not a sociologist, but even at my amateurish level I can claim: Women’s sport is a super-advanced evolutionary product (perhaps even more advanced than men’s sport)!
A man has a sporting essence in his nature; and the “Citius, Altius, Fortius!” Olympic motto clearly defines it. However, the women’s sport is “Faster!” and “Higher!” as a supplementation to “More Elegant! Tenderer! More beautiful!”. In other words, we are talking about a completely different matters, atmospheres, entertainments and even spirits. Therefore, it is generally impossible to compare women’s and men’s sports! Both types should be included into the list of the intangible cultural heritage of our civilization; each is unique in its own way, and each must be supported! Look and compare male and female curling games, figure skating, high jumps. I don’t even speak about European football… You get absolutely different pleasure from each spectacle – from excitement and power in the “men” case, and the grace and aesthetics in the “women” sport… However, I repeat, all of the above is exclusively subjective view of the “Take in mind” site’s administrator.
Let’s back to the topic of today’s discussion. So, the transgenders in sports and what criteria does sport medicine use to determine who is who?
Leonid Livshits: Unfortunately, there are no clearly defined standards for determining sex in sports for now.
Historically, various methods have been used for the so-called sex control in sports:
- Mandatory gynecological examination (in the 60s).
- Test for Barr bodies (which are found only in cells with XX chromosomes (until 1991).
The presence of a small, well-defined body which stains intensely with nuclear dyes was first demonstrated in the nerve cells of the cat by Barr and Bertram (1949), leading to the terms “Sex chromatin” or ‘Barr body’. It is present in a large proportion of nuclei of female origin and absent in male nuclei. Barr bodies have one of several distinct shapes. Many appear to be plano-convex or wedge-shaped. Sex chromatin is caused by the inactivating mechanism of one of the X chromosomes. However, for some types of hereditary diseases, Barr bodies may be found in the male’s cells, and, conversely, be absent in women (for example, Klinefelter syndrome and Turner syndrome, respectively). Therefore, the test for Barr body identification cannot be used as a universal gender test.
- Test for the presence of the SRY gene (in the 90s).
The SRY gene is located on the Y-chromosome of most mammals (in humans, the SRY gene is located on the short arm of the Y-chromosome) and takes part in the development of the body according to the male type. The SRY gene encodes a protein that activates the development of the testes and initiates the development of the male body. However, the SRY gene test is also not “the gold standard” for sex control. Mutations in the SRY gene can lead to the appearance of a female organism with the XY genotype (XY gonadal dysgenesis, also known as Swyer syndrome). Conversely, the translocation of the part of the Y chromosome containing this gene to the X chromosome leads to the appearance of a male organism with genotype XX without SRY gene (de la Chapelle syndrome).
- Since 2012, the International Olympic Committee has performed a hormonal analysis of athletes, namely checking the level of testosterone in the blood.
Testosterone is one of the most dominant androgens (male hormones) in our body. With the onset of puberty in men, the hypothalamus triggers a hormonal cascade, which finally leads to testosterone production in the testes (on average, in men, the concentration of testosterone in the blood is from 7.7 up to 29.4 nanomoles per liter).
Naturally, this mechanism is absent in women. In women, testosterone is produced in small quantities (the concentration in the blood does not exceed 2 nmol / l) by the adrenal glands, ovary as well as by processing testosterone precursors in the liver, kidneys, muscles, adipose tissue and skin. In other words, the concentration of testosterone circulating in the blood of a woman of any age is on average 15 times lower than that of an adult man.
The biological correlations between the concentration of circulating testosterone, muscle mass and the level of circulating hemoglobin has been repeatedly tested and proved in both men and women. This is the reason to why, starting from puberty (and, accordingly, with an increase in the concentration of testosterone in the blood of men), such a clear difference in physical results between men and women is manifested. The ergogenic advantage of men over women is at least 8-12%.
It is known that a decrease in the level of circulating testosterone in hyperandrogenic athletes reduces physical strength, endurance and results. Based on these facts, as well as the fact that women can be diagnosed with moderate hyperandrogenism (an increased concentration of male hormones), doctors recommend that the maximal allowable concentration of testosterone in participants of women’s competitions should not exceed 5 nmol /L. It should be noted that the International Olympic Committee (IOC), by its decision from 2015, allows athletes to participate in competitions among women if their testosterone level is twice higher – 10 nmol/L. An additional requirement for the transgendering athletes is the start of hormone therapy at least one year before the competition. At the same time, the surgery for the sex correction is unnecessary (that the performances of the transgenders who have no time to undergo sex reassignment surgery would not affected).
Finally, I want to remind another important aspect: Not all “male” advantages disappear with a decrease in testosterone. Increased bone structure, elevated lung capacity and a larger heart size remain after the hormone correction. In addition, testosterone promotes muscle “memory” – the ability to restore muscle mass after the training process. So, transgender people have an increased ability to build up strength (and, accordingly, have an advantage) even after a hormonal change.
Administrator: Thank you, Leonid! Ladies and gentlemen, let’s put delicacy aside! The gradual destruction of women’s sports in the last 20 years, has reached today a new, already undisguised level. Moreover, if you look on other social trends, you can clearly predict that all these fashion trends lead to the emergence of a mono-gender society. And this will not take centuries or millennia, but one or two generations. Seriously, do we want this? By the way, for those who believe that such an unnatural society is biologically impossible, I propose to read our article from December 14, “Is this how the love story ended?” Alas, it is really possible! The question is if we want such a future for our children and grandchildren?
Before moving to the discussion part, I want to quote the article “Trans Athletes Are Posting Victories and Shaking Up Sports” by Christie Aschwanden (Wired Magazine, 29/10/2019):
“…Where to draw the line between inclusiveness for transgender athletes and fairness for cis ones is an ethical question that ultimately requires value judgements that can only be informed, not decided, by science. Even basic notions of a level playing field aren’t easy to codify. Which means that at some point the question of who is a woman becomes a cultural inquiry: How athletically outstanding can a girl or woman be before we no longer see her as female?”
Ladies and gentlemen, all this, isn’t it absurd?