Discover and read the best of Twitter Threads about #WorldRugby
Most recents (6)
Before a sport can ban a trans athlete for having an unfair advantage the sport has to define what this unfair advantage actually is. Human rights are not based on assumptions!
A sport such as rugby union which is a contact sport in which players require high levels of physical fitness, which is a composite of aerobic and anaerobic endurance, muscle strength and power, speed, agility and body composition.
All of these attributes can be assessed on a case by case basis very easily for any athlete, male, female, trans or intersex.
The human rights framework controls this “debate.” The practice of sport is a human right (IOC Charter), sex is a matter of legal recognition (CAS), & trans women can be legally recognized as female. Therefore, trans women have a HR to participate in competitive sport as women.
Trans women don’t have to justify our inclusion. The burden of argument is entirely on those who seek to exclude us. And, as I’ll briefly prove, that burden has not yet been met, and is unlikely ever to be met.
There currently exists NO evidence to suggest that trans women who elect to suppress testosterone (through, for example, gender affirming hormone therapy and/or surgical gonad removal) maintain disproportionate advantages over cis women indefinitely.
Blanket banning trans woman from playing rugby on the basis of risk outcomes of a group level aggregate of physical characteristics that any given individual in this group may demonstrably not possess individually cannot be considered reasonable, proportionate or justified. 
This is before we consider the uncomfortable fact that none, zero, zip of the evidence presented by World Rugby involves empirical research of trans women rugby players actually playing rugby or in fact any sport. There were no injuries reported & zero elite trans players.
There is clear evidence that increasing the acceptable period of testosterone suppression further reduces parameters thought to be associated with “meaningful” performance advantage in trans women (which would clearly be more reasonable than banning all trans women).
The airforce study even though it had many flaws actually confirms the reduction in athletic performance. The reduction doesn't stop after two years eventually HRT takes you completely out of sports. Post operative it's an immediate loss.
This study from the U.S. Air Force looked at trans men and trans women in three fitness tests before and after their transition. The tests were a 1.5-mile run and the number of situps and pushups that can be done in a minute.
After 2 years of hormone therapy, the trans men matched the cis men in the 1.5-mile run and in the number of pushups per minute, and they exceeded the cis men in the number of situps per minute.
It has been argued by the likes of Tucker & Hilton et al without evidence that cisgender women athletes could be at greater risk of physical harm and injury if they compete in sports with larger and stronger transgender and intersex athletes.
This is the basis of World Rugby’s ban on trans women. According to the report prepared for World Rugby, trans women who transition after male puberty retain ‘significant’ physical advantages over cisgender women — even after they take steps to lower their testosterone levels.
The report claims advantages include being 30–40% stronger and more powerful and 10–15% faster.101 Importantly, the report concludes these advantages create at least a 20–30% greater risk of injury for cisgender female rugby players competing against transgender female players.
Sports like #WorldRugby blanket banning #transgender women on safety grounds place themselves on a slippery slope. Safety has no gender!
austlii.edu.au/au/journals/Ad…

austlii.edu.au/au/journals/Ad…

A separate trans policy is not necessary to address physical safety risks in sports. It is the disparity in size/strength that is relevant, not the source of the disparity.
Assessing any group of athletes as a monolithic group especially amongst trans athletes is flawed. Trans is an umbrella term many different body stages of transition & body types.
