
Myths about Testosterone - LinuxBender
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/4-myths-about-testosterone/
======
mcguire
" _The IAAF’s enforcement of gender normativity is also evident in its
rebuttal of concerns raised by the World Medical Association and the United
Nations, among others, about mandating that healthy athletes undergo medically
unnecessary interventions in order to compete. Rather than viewing the serious
and long-term consequences of lowering testosterone as “side effects,” the
IAAF proposes that they are “the desired effects.” These changes—including
reduced muscle and increased fat—are supposed to produce the kind of body that
Stéphane Bermon, Director of the IAAF Health and Science Department, has
presented as the “ideal female phenotype” at scientific conferences._

" _Disregarding women athletes who have resisted these interventions, even to
the point of bringing legal challenges against the regulation, the IAAF
insists that these “medications are gender-affirming” and “change their body
to better reflect their chosen gender.” The latter statement insinuates that
women athletes who do not willingly modify their bodies to fit IAAF standards
actively “choose” their gender, which deliberately encourages confusion with
transgender athletes._ "

What the heck?

~~~
pjc50
This is about Caster Semenya and attempts to mandate that she take
testosterone-reducing medication in order to compete.

~~~
mcguire
And apparently to be closer to the "ideal female phenotype."

~~~
charliesharding
It's because she has a condition where she has XY chromosomes (typically
signifying a male)

~~~
mcguire
" _In April 2018, the IAAF announced new "differences of sex development"
rules that required athletes with specific disorders of sex development,
testosterone levels of 5 nmol/L and above, and certain androgen sensitivity to
take medication to lower their testosterone levels, effective beginning 8 May
2019. Due to the narrow scope of the changes, which also apply to only those
athletes competing in the 400m, 800m, and 1500m, many people thought the rule
change was designed specifically to target Semenya._"

\--
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caster_Semenya#2018_testostero...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caster_Semenya#2018_testosterone_rule_change)

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elil17
People need to reframe the problem. It’s not an issue of men vs. women. It’s
an issue of segmenting the population into groups that can fairly compete with
each other. As I can see it, those groups should be split up such that the
number of men/women who win is proportional to the number of men/women who
compete (i.e. if the group is split up based on height and there are 10% men
in that group, men should win about 10% of the time).

Wrestling does it via weight, and different sports might have different
metrics.

~~~
twiceaday
I think the proper framing here is that there is no ambiguity when competition
attempts to select the best human. The ambiguity is introduced by people
adding rules in order to select the best human fitting some criteria. And
usually this means excluding 'men.' This is usually the only reason to
introduce the notion of sex into the rules and is the source of all of the
ambiguity. Such leagues used to be about selecting women who are the best at
competing but are now increasingly becoming about selecting women who are the
most man.

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alwaysanagenda
A little research on the author shows she is:

> an "American sociomedical scientist whose research focuses on sex, gender
> and sexuality, as well as the epidemiology of HIV/AIDS"

and her own profile says: [https://womensstudies.barnard.edu/profiles/rebecca-
jordan-yo...](https://womensstudies.barnard.edu/profiles/rebecca-jordan-young)

> "I am an interdisciplinary feminist scientist and science studies scholar
> whose work explores the reciprocal relations between science and the social
> hierarchies of gender, sexuality, class, and race."

This author is less of a scientist and more of a sociologist that is using
data points to leverage an agenda about gender, sexuality and sports. Putting
'feminist' before 'scientist' implies a host of biases.

This is politically expedient propaganda that can be used to leverage the idea
that trans-women (biological men) should continue to compete in women's sports
because "it's not all about testosterone."

And then there's this lovely disclaimer by SA, as if to say 'we know...':

>"The views expressed are those of the author(s) and are not necessarily those
of Scientific American."

Are there ANY medical doctors, chemists or biologists who want to weigh in on
this, not just "feminist scientists" who have made a career in "science
studies" via identity politics?

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microcolonel
Non-myth: People with higher testosterone tend to have higher bone density and
muscle mass and a whole host of other things, and people who have had higher
testosterone for most of their life retain all of these advantages to some
degree.

It's all fine and good that you want a space for trans athletes, but the
experiment is going poorly; many women's leagues are being dominated by
biological males, to absolutely nobody's surprise.

~~~
Raphmedia
> and people who have had higher testosterone for most of their life retain
> all of these advantages.

Transgender woman here.

The lack of testosterone in my blood resulted in my muscle mass reducing to
the point that I cannot do regular push-ups anymore. Granted, I could have
trained if I wanted to retain this muscle mass but didn't.

I also have to take supplements as prescribed my by healthcare provider to
retain bone density.

Both of those facts are well documented.

IMO athletes should be weighted & tested and then put in devisions as is done
in boxing. A heavyweight will never fight a light flyweight. The same concept
should be applied independently of gender.

~~~
microcolonel
> _IMO athletes should be weighted & tested and then put in devisions as is
> done in boxing. A heavyweight will never fight a light flyweight._

That's certainly an option, but if that's it, then that's the end of women's
and girls' leagues. I don't particularly enjoy watching sports, and I can't
name more than a couple athletes of any league, but it seems to me like a lot
of people will be very disappointed by that.

> _The lack of testosterone in my blood resulted in my muscle mass reducing to
> the point that I cannot do regular push-ups anymore. Granted, I could have
> trained if I wanted to retain this muscle mass but didn 't._

This takes time, is more what I was getting at. I didn't write it all that
well in my original comment so I guess it's going to get ripped to shreds. ;-
)

~~~
Raphmedia
> then that's the end of women's and girls' leagues

So what? Why should we have "women's hockey" and not "lightweight hockey"?

This would insure that everyone can compete in their division independently of
gender. This is pretty much already what's happening but with a naming system
based on gender. The ability to carry children or lactate is pretty much
useless as a differentiator of skills.

Some athletes would probably also push themselves to reach the division above
their current one as if often done in boxing and this would results in
interesting sportsmanship. Again, this is my merely my opinion and I'm sure
that this would require more thought than the few minutes I've spent pondering
the question.

> This takes time

This happened in a few months. Granted, I'm a programmer and my only exercise
is hiking.

~~~
JamesBarney
Because the lightweight hockey would still be dominated by men. In most sports
that require power/speed men still maintain a significant advantage even for
size.

Also many sports require people of varying body sizes for different positions.
In football for instance a wide receiver will look very different from a
lineman.

~~~
Raphmedia
When I said "weighted & tested", I meant it as some magical way that would
ensure that individuals of similar body type and physical characteristics are
grouped together independently of gender.

Taking boxing as an example again, sure if you put a female heavyweight (179
pounds / 81 kg) against a male heavyweight (201 pounds / 91 kg) the male will
dominate. But if you standardize the divisions and have her compete against an
equal the situation might be different.

The again, you would have to take into account things like bone density, etc.
In a sport like boxing, that's not very straightforward to do because of the
fact that individuals with testosterone usually have greater upper body
strength and that's a big advantage.

In a team sport, this might be different since they allow for the team to be
balanced depending on their members. For example, some individuals might have
greater endurance but lower strength, etc. I'm sure that we would also see a
more diverse cast of males as opposed to only "peak athletes" (7 ft+
basketball players, super heavyweight hockey players, etc.) and that would be
great.

I do agree that's it's a complicated question that should be deeply analysed
and that we won't come to a solution in this comment section.

However, a statement such at that one from the article is simply anachronistic
and wrong in 2019. This isn't the right way to tackle the problem.

 _" mandating that healthy athletes undergo medically unnecessary
interventions in order to compete [...] These changes—including reduced muscle
and increased fat—are supposed to produce the kind of body that Stéphane
Bermon, Director of the IAAF Health and Science Department, has presented as
the “ideal female phenotype” at scientific conferences."_

~~~
dogma1138
If you put a mediocre male featherweight against a female heavyweight champion
in any contact sports the male would pummel her into a pulp we had these
experiments before in show matches.

Gold medal women winners would not pass the men’s qualifiers in most Olympic
sports, in fact in many of them the world record for women isn’t enough to
pass the qualifiers for mens.

Anyone who is advocating turning sports into coed brackets has never competed
in their life professionally on at least a national level or they don’t mind
women not wining a single match from that point onwards.

Now as far as transwomen (I’m assuming that’s the correct term for M2F gender
reassignment) in professional sports this would likely require a separate
bracket if we get to the point where there is a sufficient mass of trans
athletes, or if there will be explicit proof that it doesn’t matter allowing
them to compete in the women’s bracket under certain conditions.

However the doesn’t matter is also a tricky part there is a big difference
between someone who transitioned before going through puberty and someone who
transitioned 6 months ago.

Humans are a dimorphic species males are stronger, faster have better response
time and ironically when trained are even more flexible than females because
they are stronger and have better joint stability.

The irony is also that the closer you get to peak performance the wider this
gap gets which is why while in say high school track or varsity basketball
some females can play in the same ballpark as males once you go into
professional sports and Olympic sports they might as well not be the same
species.

~~~
belorn
Raphmedia is talking about improving competition through better classifier,
and you are pointing to experiments when people removes all classifiers.

There are searcher studies on how much of athletic success is heredity. That
number is estimated to be around 66% at a minimum for all athletic sports, and
around 80% for sports which has highly heritable
([https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3993978/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3993978/)).

That number is with gender separated sport classes. If we did coed brackets it
would naturally go up, and in many sports above 90%. No one is advocating for
such solution.

Instead what is suggested is to replace current classifier with those that
reduces heredity as a determining factor. If we take endurance sports like
biking, skiing, and running, blood values should not all be in the 99.9999
percentile of rare blood disease. Blood doping tests use conservative numbers
and allow extreme range of blood values, and yet most contestant in world
championships and the Olympic tend to be on the border of doping.

Heredity should not determine the outcome of professional competition. Weight,
height, blood, musculoskeletal, cardiovascular, respiratory, nervous, and more
all influence outcome. As can be read in the linked study, there are key
performance genes linked directly to performance.

As the study conclude, Current evidence suggests that a favorable genetic
profile is critical for the achievement of elite athletic status. Splitting
sports into male and female does not fix this problem, and the discussion
around rare chromosomes disorders that Caster Semenya has is a good reason why
we should look into fixing unfair advantages that favorable genetic profiles
has in competitive sport.

~~~
dogma1138
You don’t need a study to know genetics play a major role, in fact the only
role elite athletes would be elite athletes regardless of the sport they play
which is why the US has more football and basketball players than soccer and
rugby it’s not because Germany and Australia have better genetics for the
latter than the former but because the same elite athletes choose sports based
on cultural and environmental factors.

You can’t classify people based on genetics we don’t have enough information
and at that point it’s going to be boring might as well give the gold to the
one with the best genes and be done with it.

However if you take the top 0.1% of males and the top 0.1% of females of even
further 0.001% it’s still not a competition.

Heck the world record for women’s 100m which likely will never be broken as it
was achieved with both doping and a timer screw up isn’t enough to pass the
qualifiers to even compete in the 100m men’s event.

~~~
belorn
I find it pretty boring that 41 percent of skiers that won medals between
2001–2010 had blood values that only has a probability of happening in 1 per
10000. It is basically theater where the audience is told to ignore that
aspect.

Maybe in 100m the effect is smaller but I do not know who would win a marathon
between a top 0.1% woman that has blood levels close or above doping levels vs
a top 0.1% man who has average blood. As research say, the effect from blood
doping is more noticeable in long distance endurance sports which a 100m dash
is not.

We do have some understanding on what genetic factors give a performance
benefit in sports. Weight, height, blood, hormones, and so on. Gender is just
a fuzzy proxy. People who advocate for better classifiers is against a fuzzy
proxy when current science can produce better competition where the result is
less dictated from the start. I theory, such competition is more fair,
healthy, and more interesting to watch.

~~~
dogma1138
It’s pretty simple elite athletes already are a one in
10^the_power_of_whatever it’s all about gaming the system and gaming the game
beyond that.

Better suits, better shoes, high altitude training, pressure chambers,
“supplements” these are all in play.

If you aren’t in the top 0.1% or even rarer than that you ain’t gonna win any
Olympic medals.

Take Phelps for example the guy is a genetic phenom he produces almost no
lactic acid, he is double jointed which allows him to swim butterfly like no
other, his proportions are utterly fucked up with having a longer torso with
stubby legs, a longer wingspan than his height and huge flipper feet.

His mom might as well had gotten knocked up by a dolphin considering how near
perfect he is for swimming.

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sdinsn
This article cherry picks research, ignoring mounds of research that shows the
opposite.

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barrkel
This is a topic upon which it is impolitic to express an honest opinion, so I
flagged.

~~~
almostdeadguy
lol and then left this useless comment just to make sure everyone knew your
opinion anyways.

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lazylizard
Genders equal right? Why not just have 1 category? Do all athletes fall into
male/female only?

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amelius
Since it becomes increasing clear that gender isn't a binary property,
shouldn't we do away with gender difference in sports altogether?

~~~
cco
Just a note, you're advocating for the end of women in professional sports.
Only a tiny handful of women could continue to compete at the professional
level.

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amelius
Not really, it was just a question. I think that perhaps we could shift to
different sports where "men" don't have a clear advantage.

~~~
JamesBarney
How would we switch sports? Get together and sign a global treaty that bans
any sports where men show an advantage?

Sports are incredibly ingrained in culture, traditions, and institutions
around the world.

