Anyone wishing to spot changes from our pre-print:
1. We included a section on pre-pubertal differences (that is, even young boys outperform young girls, thus the performance gap is not solely down to pubertal T).
2. We extended our analysis of CV capacity changes and potential impact on endurance performance (although we had acknowledged a likely effect, we have drilled deeper into mechanism).
3. We have *significantly* extended our discussion of impact on athlete transwomen and the mitigating effects of exercise (that is, moderate training can mitigate or even reverse muscle/strength loss during T suppression).
The remaining differences are minor, and represent no significant change from the pre-print.
Lots of genuine people asking questions and less genuine people building hilarious strawmen about sex screening in sport.
Another thread, on SCREENING.
Sex categories in sport are built around sex, which is anchored in your gonads.
Sports federations that have grasped this issue are equally clear that categories are concerned with physical development that starts with gonads.
I have talked a lot about looking at chromosomes as a means of understanding someone’s sex.
I have not randomly switched my developmental biology position to a chromosomal definition of sex. And I have never denied the existence of people with DSDs.
That some people are something other than XX or XY - and shock horror, I say that to the BBC - does not negate anything I’ve said in the past 😂
There are many people spreading misinformation about the reliability of sex testing, repeating arguments made for its abolition some 25 years ago.
I don’t know if they have noticed that we’ve undergone something of a genetics revolution over the past few decades 😀
So let’s look at some chromosomes.
Historically, chromosomes were analysed by adding a chemical dye to cells and looking at their shape and size. Given that most animals have two copies of each chromosome, the pairs could be lined up by matching their shape and size.
These are chromosomes stained with a dye called hemotoxylin. I still use this dye in the lab today.
Nettie Stevens discovered sex chromosomes in the early 1900s, after noting that female worms had twenty big chromosomes while male worms had nineteen big chromosomes and plus a small one.
Further, she noted that Worm Sperm either had ten big chromosomes or nine big chromosomes plus a small chromosome.
She reasoned that the small chromosome carried by some sperm makes male babies, while the sperm carrying the tenth big chromosome made female babies.
Brilliant woman, but her discoveries were overshadowed by the male scientists of the era, of course.
I blocked Dope because he could not entertain a discussion that wasn’t on his terms within his framework.
I don’t accept his framework. And because he wouldn’t discuss a single thing within mine, it was pointless.
Because he wouldn’t discuss anything outside of his own narrow ideology, I am left with no idea whether he even understands that my framework is different to his.
His repeated questions indicate he seems to think they were natural progressions of my framework.
They were not.
I and others have discussed - at length, ad nauseum - about how reducing sex to a composite tally of characteristics is ideological.
It is an abuse of the system in use to describe the sometimes incongruent reproductive biology of those with DSDs.
Clownfish. Some dominant males can change their biological sex to female. We know they have switched sex because they change their gonad tissue, stop making sperm and start making eggs.
Two sexes? Yes.
Sex change? Yes.
Trans Nemo? He’s way down the pecking order of “dominant male”. Doubtful clownfish have gender identities.
Ruff. Males have three different body types/behaviours, one is mimicking females (males pretending to be females is not exactly unique). We know it is a male pretending to be female because he makes sperm.
Two sexes? Yes.
Sex change? No.
Tranimal? Maybe, if transgenderism is based on gendered stereotypes, and we keep getting told it definitely isn’t ever based on stereotypes, so no.
1. We disagree with the assertion that the IOC framework [fairness, inclusion, and nondiscrimination on the basis of gender identity and sex variations] is consistent with existing scientific/medical evidence and question its recommendations for implementation.
2. Testosterone exposure in male development:
--> physical differences between male and female bodies
--> male athletic advantage in muscle mass, strength and power, and endurance and aerobic capacity.
The IOC's “no presumption of advantage” principle disregards this reality.
3. Studies show that transgender women (male-born individuals who identify as women) with suppressed testosterone retain muscle mass, strength, and other physical advantages compared to females.
Male performance advantage cannot be eliminated with testosterone suppression.