, 7 tweets, 2 min read Read on Twitter
Cricket Australia announces guidelines for transgender inclusion (will ask for T levels under 10nM for 12 months). I get that sport is facing a real dilemma, the societal pressure to be inclusive. But in sport, it DOES make sense to exclude some people from certain categories
And one of those categories that depends on ‘exclusion’ is women’s sport. This is because men & women are separated because the performance gap created by BIOLOGICAL (that is, sex) differences is so enormous that without “exclusion”, women’s sport loses a big part of its meaning
Other examples are age categories, weight categories & categories for disability in the Paralympics. For these categories to have integrity (to protect their participants for both safety and competition), the exclusion of people “above” them is actually crucial, not arbitrary
In an ideal world, there would be evidence that ALL elements of physiology that impact performance (strength, endurance, power, agility, anthropometry) are removed by the lowering of T. I sincerely wish this evidence existed & was convincing. It would simplify a lot.
However, at this stage, the evidence seems to point the other way for many characteristics - muscle mass doesn’t drop enough, strength is maintained in MtF athletes (no drop), and so the theory points to persistence of advantage, and that makes these policies inherently unfair
And so we come back to this statement - it absolutely DOES make sense that people are “excluded” from sports categories based on who they are. Because a key element of who they are - biology - provides them with a POTENTIALLY insurmountable advantage that can’t be ignored
A final point - the above eligibility criteria applies to elite cricket. For community cricket, a different guideline document exists, one that does not require a reduction in testosterone. These are the even eligibility criteria - nomination & consistency in everyday life
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