This is a sound and accurate logical explanation of why this notion of “matching for performance” to sidestep male and female sports categories is flawed. There are so many problems with it, one being that it fundamentally undermined the meaning of sporting competitions. (1/)
Another way to frame or conceptualise this is to recognize that if a female and male athlete are “matched” by this “unicorn-algorithm matching strategy”, the female athlete will be relatively better in their original category than the male athlete in theirs. Fundamentally unequal
A woman would be in say the 95th percentile for metrics like strength, speed, power etc, vs a men with equal numbers who is at around the 50th to 60th percentile for men. This “competition” enables relatively mediocre males to compete “equally” against excellent, top 5% females
Not to mention that once you test these metrics in your “unicorn matching strategy”, you’ve now either created a disincentive for people to train to get stronger, faster, more powerful, or you’ve basically tied yourself into rescreening every time there’s a competition.
Imagine being in the top 1% of your category, with no way to get better legally since you’re constrained by biology, & then having to compete in a lower division against men who aren’t even in the top 25% of their class, without knowing if their tests are valid. It’s so stupid
Imagine the Olympic Games 100m final for “Tier D” athletes. Fraser-Pryce, the fastest woman in 40 years, pipped on the line by Doug Leadfoot, club runner proudly representing The Cape Crusader Sprint Club. Time 10.68s. Plus, the Olympics would be 2 months long, nobody would watch
The most ludicrous thing is that some people who argue for this (& case by case assessment & entry, too), also act like they’re interested in equality for women. How does equality look when the best female athletes in the world are racing males in the 4th (or lower) category?

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Ross Tucker

Ross Tucker Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @Scienceofsport

9 Oct
The World Rugby Transgender guideline is now out, and fully available here: playerwelfare.worldrugby.org/gender You’ll also find a document called FAQs which tries to answer some common questions. We firmly believe it is the right thing in an emotive issue, for many reasons.
The Guideline is also accompanied by a visualisation that summarises the available physiological evidence that informed the Guideline. Here are those images, but I’d encourage consideration of all the issues - biological, legal, medical, social, ethical. All are in the doc & FAQs
As brief a summary as I can provide:
It is not possible to balance inclusion, safety and fairness. All the quality evidence, even if incomplete, strongly suggests that advantages are retained with welfare & performance implications. Therefore, players must compete in sex category
Read 10 tweets
9 Sep
Let me share a few thoughts on the latest #Semenya development - her appeal rejected by the Swiss Supreme court, World Athletics policy supported (pretty strongly too). We are planning a short pod on this tomorrow too, but here are a few thoughts… (1/…)
First, we’ve spoken a lot about transgender athletes recently. That has many elements to it. This has even more, and it’s really an unsolvable situation. It’s been present for nearly 100 years in sport, some horrendous attempts to manage it, and no clean solution in sight (2/…)
This decision establishes, for now, the policy that requires athletes with hyperandrogenism to lower T in order to compete. But not any hyperandrogenism, and not just any events. It covers only that caused by a selection of DSDs, where a person is 46XY, with testes, and thus (3/
Read 28 tweets
31 Aug
Last week, I posted a thread addressing a common criticism of transgender athlete policies, namely that they’re based on evidence in non-athletes. Here’s that thread, for a reminder. Today, I want to mull on another common issue raised in objection: (1/)
The objection is this: People argue that because trans women are often smaller, lighter, slower, weaker etc than biological females, it should be fine for them to compete as women. It’s an “overlap argument". Here’s one example of that thinking (this particular poll backfired): Image
The premise of the argument is this:
- Testosterone confers upon males advantages including size, strength, speed, power. This is why women have a separate category;
- If someone identifies as female (trans women), provided they’re not too big, strong, fast, they can compete as W
Read 15 tweets
24 Aug
This has been a common argument in the trans women in rugby debate. People have the idea that unless you *directly* study rugby AND show that TW cause injuries, it can’t be evidence based. Of course it can - there are peer reviewed studies that show two related things (thread)
2/ First, you have so many studies that identify both performance determinants and risk factors for injury in rugby. Dozens of studies identify when injury occurs, and thus what the significant risks for injury are. Similarly, performance is multifactorial but is KNOWN to be...
3/ …significantly influenced by a handful of testable/measurable factors. In fact, these measurable factors are so crucial and “robust" that teams actually have minimum standards for them, and select or drop players based on achieving these targets. They’re not “guesses”.
Read 22 tweets
24 Aug
@AntiAnja @Lukeyswords @cuthbert_shaw @JohnJMcGivern @WorldRugby We are hearing this argument a lot. People have the idea that unless you directly study rugby AND show that TW are causing more injuries, it can’t be evidence based. But of course, it can. Because there are peer reviewed studies that show two related things. First, you have...
@AntiAnja @Lukeyswords @cuthbert_shaw @JohnJMcGivern @WorldRugby …a ton of studies that identify what causes injury and performance in the sport. You know, based on hundreds of studies, when injuries happen, and how, and so you can identify the significant risks for injury and the determinants of performance. The performance variables are...
@AntiAnja @Lukeyswords @cuthbert_shaw @JohnJMcGivern @WorldRugby …so robust that teams actually have minimum standards for them, and select or drop players based on achieving these targets. Then second, you have a host of peer reviewed studies that have examined what the biological differences are between M and F, and what this means for
Read 12 tweets
29 Jul
@bloodandmud @smash_rugby @CarolineLayt @SquidgeRugby @KirstiMiller30 @VeritySmith19 @CardiffLions Hi Lee. Heard your discussion on the latest pod, and appreciate the views raised (though I don’t agree with some of the criticisms of the process). regarding the science, the principle or conceptual approach to the issue is very much the same as it was for head injuries. (1/)
@bloodandmud @smash_rugby @CarolineLayt @SquidgeRugby @KirstiMiller30 @VeritySmith19 @CardiffLions That approach is a classic “public health model” where the risk is first identified, then risk factors are assessed, and then attempts are made to mitigate, reduce or avoid those risk factors altogether. I’m know you’re familiar with how this played out in the concussion space
@bloodandmud @smash_rugby @CarolineLayt @SquidgeRugby @KirstiMiller30 @VeritySmith19 @CardiffLions In this area, the same recognition of risk was raised. What you guys discussed on the pod, which wasn’t entirely true, is that there is ONE anecdote (the deckchairs) that raised this concern. There were actually multiple concerns raised. So that was part of it - the sport was
Read 38 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!