Maybe I missed it, but do the women in question have an XX sex chromosome configuration? And I am also curious how the testosterone ambiguity was discovered. Is there standard testing on female competitors for this?
The regulations apply only to 46XY women with one of a small number of diagnoses
A few years back WADA, the anti-doping agency, changed its rules to allow anti-doping test to be used for sex testing
The issue here is not about identity (who is a real woman?) but an alleged unfair performance advantage.
World Athletics says: “[I]n no way are [the regulations] intended as any kind of judgement on or questioning of the sex or the gender identity of any athlete.”
Your use of "anti-trans" activism in foitnote 6 is unfortunate and biased. One can hold that biological men who have gone through puberty should not compete with biological women and still not be anti-trans. Other than that and without reviewing the data, I agree with your conclusion. Even if there were a significant difference, if these athletes meet the criteria of a female, however we define that (with total understanding of the inherent ambiguity of that determination),they should allowed to compete as women.
Roger, I don't really care if you are going to try to resurrect this topic and have a bro discussion.
The jury is in. DSD athletes with a male physiology are not going to be allowed to compete in the female category in the next Olympics. They are, of course, welcome to compete in the male category.
"Or you think that childhood vaccination is more risky that no vaccination? Think again." This sounds overly sweeping. Childhood vaccination is a good idea in most cases but I'm doubtful about COVID vaccination for very young people. Also, the childhood vaccination schedule varies across countries and there is no reason (no clinical basis, no studies) supporting the USA's schedule over anyone else's.
Giving the death shot to children who had virtually zero risk from Covid was a crime against humanity. Roger, you need to check out Steve Kirsch's substack.
I think that is very important research. Unfortunately, it may not completely answer the question of whether women with DSD have on average an athletic advantage over regular women. Here’s a quote from the paper linked below:
“The incidence of 46,XY DSD in the general population is estimated to be 1 in 20,000 births. In comparison, the prevalence of this condition among female athletes participating in the World Championships was 7 in 1000, that is, 140-fold higher”.
1. Prevalence estimates of individuals with natural sex variations in the overall population are not particularly well known. The 1 in 20,000 is a fairly old guesstimate.
2. The 7 in 1000 produced by IAAF in support of regulation is easily shown to be a false number, as it includes several individuals with PAIS. The actual number was 4 of 849 athletes at the 2011 World Championships, or 4.7 out of 1,000. The difference between 4.7 and 7 doesn't make a difference to their argument, so why do they exaggerate?
But let's take the numbers at face value. Prevalence of individuals with certain biological or physiological characteristics different from the overall human population can not be the basis for regulation of unfair advantage. For instance, you'll find a much higher prevalence of tall athletes in basketball, muscular athletes in weightlifting, black athletes in sprinting, and on and on. Natural variations in humanity is celebrated in sport.
Of course, we implement weight classes in boxing, there is 6 foot and under basketball, and so on. We can make the rules however we want them. There could of course be the XX and XY games, but sport has always had men's and women's categories, which are mostly but not completely the same thing.
Sport is an excellent selector of unique human traits. So even if women with natural sex variations were to be found in sport at a higher rate than in the general population, that itself is not evidence of an unfair performance advantage in competition.
Why would we want to base track competition on a biological trait of a subset of women if there is no evidence that they have an unfair performance advantage?
This is where the issue often slips into identity politics . . .
This point is discussed explicitly in the paper. However, there is no evidence of a 10% or 1% advantage for this population. The question of a 1% advantage was also discussed in the CAS ruling on Chand.
The rules for commenting on this post are clear. No discussion or speculation about the private medical information of any individual. The many errors in this comment illustrate why this matters. No more of this.
The information I posted about Caster Semenya is on wikipedia. It is widely available. You have invoked the example of Semenya, but you are not willing to discuss the specifics of their biology that render them male, not female. So this is a phony discussion.
You also removed the information I posted about female menstruation and how that affects female athletes.
So it appears that you have great interest in DSDs, but little interest in female athletes.
Fascinating. Some may question the (understandably) small sample size, but many observational studies have a small n. I had trouble reconciling your study’s conclusions with the 2nd (Gollish) chart, which showed a subset of your cohort outperforming women including the women’s world record for that event. What did I miss?
The nine women are in one respect a sample from a larger population, but in another they are the entire population who is currently banned from competition. These are the women that WA alleges have an unfair advantage. In fact, there has never been any woman in the history of track and field who has performed like an elite male athlete, including high school boys.
No women in our study has achieved a world record.
The 800M at Paris was run tactically, and is discussed in detail in the paper. The two women who ran faster than the winning Paris time in the 800M did not set a world record, nor do their times approach those of men.
I know. Most men are XY and most women are XX. However, there are very small but very real populations of XX men and XY women, from birth (i.e., this is not about transgender individuals).
Some people are surprised to learn this, and prefer that categories be black and white, neat and clean. They are not.
In any case, that these women are women is not the issue here, as World Athletics explains. The issue is that World Athletics claims that their rare biology gives these women an "insuperable advantage" over other women. The issue is about a possible unfair advantage not identity.
Evidence in performance is how we assess the possibility of an unfair advantage.
Is this sentence meant to be a question or a statement:
It is actually true that these women are “indistinguishable from males” in terms of their athletics performance, alleged to have “exactly the same performance advantages” that men have over women?
Maybe I missed it, but do the women in question have an XX sex chromosome configuration? And I am also curious how the testosterone ambiguity was discovered. Is there standard testing on female competitors for this?
Thanks.
The regulations apply only to 46XY women with one of a small number of diagnoses
A few years back WADA, the anti-doping agency, changed its rules to allow anti-doping test to be used for sex testing
The issue here is not about identity (who is a real woman?) but an alleged unfair performance advantage.
World Athletics says: “[I]n no way are [the regulations] intended as any kind of judgement on or questioning of the sex or the gender identity of any athlete.”
Your use of "anti-trans" activism in foitnote 6 is unfortunate and biased. One can hold that biological men who have gone through puberty should not compete with biological women and still not be anti-trans. Other than that and without reviewing the data, I agree with your conclusion. Even if there were a significant difference, if these athletes meet the criteria of a female, however we define that (with total understanding of the inherent ambiguity of that determination),they should allowed to compete as women.
I full agree with your second sentence. 100%. That said, I'm also 100% comfortable with footnote 6.
What about championship men with naturally higher testosterone than average males? #BlurredLines
Almost all the commenters here are men.
Roger, I don't really care if you are going to try to resurrect this topic and have a bro discussion.
The jury is in. DSD athletes with a male physiology are not going to be allowed to compete in the female category in the next Olympics. They are, of course, welcome to compete in the male category.
Maybe they should be competing against low testo men...
"Or you think that childhood vaccination is more risky that no vaccination? Think again." This sounds overly sweeping. Childhood vaccination is a good idea in most cases but I'm doubtful about COVID vaccination for very young people. Also, the childhood vaccination schedule varies across countries and there is no reason (no clinical basis, no studies) supporting the USA's schedule over anyone else's.
Giving the death shot to children who had virtually zero risk from Covid was a crime against humanity. Roger, you need to check out Steve Kirsch's substack.
Right -- Evidence matters.
Roger, this question is admittedly off-topic but what are your thoughts on Trump withdrawing the US support for the latest UN IPCC meeting?
Off topic, but OK ;-)
Funnily, I was just exploring this.
Possible THB post on it to come . . . When I am more informed I'll be happy to comment.
I think that is very important research. Unfortunately, it may not completely answer the question of whether women with DSD have on average an athletic advantage over regular women. Here’s a quote from the paper linked below:
“The incidence of 46,XY DSD in the general population is estimated to be 1 in 20,000 births. In comparison, the prevalence of this condition among female athletes participating in the World Championships was 7 in 1000, that is, 140-fold higher”.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7159262/
What is your take on this research?
Great Q. A few thoughts:
1. Prevalence estimates of individuals with natural sex variations in the overall population are not particularly well known. The 1 in 20,000 is a fairly old guesstimate.
2. The 7 in 1000 produced by IAAF in support of regulation is easily shown to be a false number, as it includes several individuals with PAIS. The actual number was 4 of 849 athletes at the 2011 World Championships, or 4.7 out of 1,000. The difference between 4.7 and 7 doesn't make a difference to their argument, so why do they exaggerate?
But let's take the numbers at face value. Prevalence of individuals with certain biological or physiological characteristics different from the overall human population can not be the basis for regulation of unfair advantage. For instance, you'll find a much higher prevalence of tall athletes in basketball, muscular athletes in weightlifting, black athletes in sprinting, and on and on. Natural variations in humanity is celebrated in sport.
Of course, we implement weight classes in boxing, there is 6 foot and under basketball, and so on. We can make the rules however we want them. There could of course be the XX and XY games, but sport has always had men's and women's categories, which are mostly but not completely the same thing.
Sport is an excellent selector of unique human traits. So even if women with natural sex variations were to be found in sport at a higher rate than in the general population, that itself is not evidence of an unfair performance advantage in competition.
Why would we want to base track competition on a biological trait of a subset of women if there is no evidence that they have an unfair performance advantage?
This is where the issue often slips into identity politics . . .
Again, not all DSDs are the same, so it is inaccurate and misleading to lump them all together. The specifics matter.
The above are weasel words.
The WA DSD regulations are specific as to what biological conditions they are regulating. They do not regulate all DSDs.
How do women athletes feel about a 1% advantage vs 10%?
Are they ok with someone having a 1% advantage over them?
This point is discussed explicitly in the paper. However, there is no evidence of a 10% or 1% advantage for this population. The question of a 1% advantage was also discussed in the CAS ruling on Chand.
At this level of competition any advantage is magnified and we are talking hundredths of a second difference between winning and losing.
Again, curious how women athletes feel about this.
I understand this topic has absolutely no relation to the question of biological men identifying as women competing In women’s sports.
Saying that there is a 1% or 10% advantage is relatively meaningless.
The difference in testosterone levels for Semenya was more than 10%.
The rules for commenting on this post are clear. No discussion or speculation about the private medical information of any individual. The many errors in this comment illustrate why this matters. No more of this.
The information I posted about Caster Semenya is on wikipedia. It is widely available. You have invoked the example of Semenya, but you are not willing to discuss the specifics of their biology that render them male, not female. So this is a phony discussion.
You also removed the information I posted about female menstruation and how that affects female athletes.
So it appears that you have great interest in DSDs, but little interest in female athletes.
No surprise. Just like a lot of men.
Fascinating. Some may question the (understandably) small sample size, but many observational studies have a small n. I had trouble reconciling your study’s conclusions with the 2nd (Gollish) chart, which showed a subset of your cohort outperforming women including the women’s world record for that event. What did I miss?
The nine women are in one respect a sample from a larger population, but in another they are the entire population who is currently banned from competition. These are the women that WA alleges have an unfair advantage. In fact, there has never been any woman in the history of track and field who has performed like an elite male athlete, including high school boys.
No women in our study has achieved a world record.
The 800M at Paris was run tactically, and is discussed in detail in the paper. The two women who ran faster than the winning Paris time in the 800M did not set a world record, nor do their times approach those of men.
This is silly. If someone is born with X&Y they should be able to perform in either.
Silly, agreed. But also extremely consequential for the women who WA has targeted in the absence of evidence. So the silliness must be dealt with.
Your kind to do this for them
In this I agree. Natural variation should not be penalized.
Do the DSDs show up at the genetic level, or would these women all be XX in their genes? Maybe that question oversimplifies the matter.
It does oversimplify. The regulations apply to 46XY women.
I’m confused (see my first comment). XY females? This would seem to go against the biological definition of a female. Please clarify.
I know. Most men are XY and most women are XX. However, there are very small but very real populations of XX men and XY women, from birth (i.e., this is not about transgender individuals).
Some people are surprised to learn this, and prefer that categories be black and white, neat and clean. They are not.
In any case, that these women are women is not the issue here, as World Athletics explains. The issue is that World Athletics claims that their rare biology gives these women an "insuperable advantage" over other women. The issue is about a possible unfair advantage not identity.
Evidence in performance is how we assess the possibility of an unfair advantage.
Is this sentence meant to be a question or a statement:
It is actually true that these women are “indistinguishable from males” in terms of their athletics performance, alleged to have “exactly the same performance advantages” that men have over women?
Good catch! Now fixed. Thanks