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PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   26360 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 8, 2024

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I don't know why people in this particular debate are so obsessed with intuiting the answers to empirical questions. It is not the case that nobody has ever tried to measure the sport performance related effects of gender transition. Here is a BMJ meta-analysis from 2021 of 24 different studies. What do they find? Basically what you'd expect. 1-2 years on HRT decreases strength related performance pretty substantially. The study subjects retained some advantage over cis women but were significantly worse than cis men.

In keeping with the muscular anabolic effects of testosterone and the mixed effects of oestrogens, studies using dual energy X-ray absorptiometry report decreased LBM (0.8%–5.4%) in association with GAHT. Twelve months of GAHT also decreased muscle CSA (1.5%–9.7%). However, a further 12 or 24 months of GAHT did not always elicit further decreases in muscle CSA. Strength loss with 12 months of GAHT also ranged from non-significant to 7%. Taking these strength parameter data collectively, and in consideration of cisgender women demonstrating 31% lower LBM, 36% lower hand-grip strength and 35% lower knee extension strength than cisgender men, the small decrease in strength in transwomen after 12–36 months of GAHT suggests that transwomen likely retain a strength advantage over cisgender women. Whether longer duration of GAHT would yield further decrements in strength in transgender women is unknown.

n contrast to strength-related data, blood cell findings revealed a different time course of change. After 3–4 months on GAHT, the HCT or Hgb levels of transwomen matched those of cisgender women, with levels remaining stable within the ‘normal’ female range for studies lasting up to 36 months. Given the rapid fall in Hgb/HCT to ‘normal’ female levels with GAHT, it is possible that transfemale athletes experience impaired endurance performance in part due to reduced oxygen transport from the lungs to the working muscles. This postulate is consistent with findings reported in one of the few studies conducted in athletic transwomen. In this study, the race times of eight transfemale distance runners were compared at baseline and after one or more years of GAHT. After adjusting performance for age, the eight runners were not more competitive in the female category (after GAHT) than they had been in the male category (before GAHT). Given this, and that the changes in Hgb/HCT follow a different time course than strength changes, sport-specific regulations for transwomen in endurance ver strength sports may be needed.

And trans women tended to be less strong than average cis-men even pre-transition.

Of interest, compared with cisgender men, hormone-naive transwomen demonstrate 6.4%–8.0% lower LBM, 6.0%–11.4% lower muscle CSA and ~10%–14% lower handgrip strength. This disparity is noteworthy given that hormone-naive transwomen and cisgender men have similar testosterone levels. Explanations for this strength difference are unclear but may include transwomen actively refraining from building muscle and/or engaging in disordered eating or simply not being athletically inclined, perhaps influenced by feelings of an unwelcome presence in sporting arenas. Taken together, hormone-naive transwomen may not, on average, have the same athletic attributes as cisgender men. The need to move beyond simple comparisons of cisgender men and women to assess the sporting capabilities of transwomen is imperative.

Anyway I think the whole discussion is kind of dumb. Different athletes have all kinds of different advantages due to biological features. Is there some level of biological advantage at which point intra-group competition becomes unfair? Is the advantage a top trans woman has over a top cis woman larger than the advantage Michael Phelps had over his fellow Olympians? One can't help but notice that no one was interested in banning people from competing in sports due to biological advantage until the discussion was about trans women.

  • -10

One can't help but notice that no one was interested in banning people from competing in sports due to biological advantage until the discussion was about trans women.

No, it only appears like it to you because previously there was a consensus matching the status quo, so no one talked about it.

Banning men from women's sports was accepted wisdom, and no one felt any need to disagree, until trans women came around.

You don't see anyone interested in banning teachers from murdering students - because it's already illegal. If Catholic Teachers For Murderism suddenly started arguing they should be allowed to kill students, there would certainly be a lot of disagreement, and not because they're catholic.

One can't help but notice that no one was interested in banning people from competing in sports due to biological advantage until the discussion was about trans women.

Weight classes. Age classes in sports leagues for children (under-11s, under-12s and so on). Separate divisions for wheelchair-bound marathonners and on-foot marathonners.

If you think it's unfair to pit a heavyweight against a flyweight, a 17-year-old against a 10-year-old, or someone who can roll down a hill against someone who has to use their own feet like a sucker - congratulations, you understand how female athletes feel when asked to compete against male athletes.

Strength loss with 12 months of GAHT also ranged from non-significant to 7%.

...

Explanations for this strength difference are unclear but may include transwomen actively refraining from building muscle and/or engaging in disordered eating or simply not being athletically inclined

Presumably men with interest in high-level athletic competition (in the women's division, but nevertheless) would be unlikely to actively refrain from building muscle, engage in disordered eating, and/or be athletically disinclined -- which one might suppose would tend to place them more in the 'non-significant' part of the strength loss range, were they in this study population.

(Trying to apply a population level metastudy to a freakish subpopulation (high-level athletes, not transpeople) is probably a mistake, IOW)

On a personal note, I have one bicep much smaller than the other due to surgery related to a horrible accident a long time ago. With physio etc the strength difference between the two arms is indeed minimal -- but the surgeon at the time warned me that while I should make every effort to rebuild strength, the arms would probably never 'match' in terms of muscle size. This was 30 years ago, so 'LBM != strength' does not seem like a novel concept to the medical community. I wonder why the reviewers at the BMJ would not point this out to an author trying to elide the difference?

One can't help but notice that no one was interested in banning people from competing in sports due to biological advantage until the discussion was about trans women.

On the contrary; plenty of people were banned from competing in sports due to biological advantage before trans women were even an issue. They were just called "men" and they were banned from women's leagues.

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