Thread by @FondOfBeetles

Full contact ‘collision’ sports are those where deliberate, forceful contact against an opponent are an integral part of gameplay.

The aim of contact play may be to defend or retrieve possession of, say, a ball (e.g. rugby) or to win by disabling your opponent (e.g. boxing).

Sports federations regulating full contact sports, where contact cannot be eliminated without changing the face of the sport, have a *special duty* to minimise the potential for injury during gameplay.

See Jon Pike @runthinkwrite on this.

tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10…

This is evident in policies to, for example, limit contact to specific moves or regions of the body, to regulate how contact is enacted, and the wearing of protective gear to minimise injury potential during contact.

Boxing is perhaps the most mainstream of heavy collision sports, where one route to winning is to directly disable your opponent by maximum force punching to the head, to effect loss of consciousness.

i.e. spark your opponent out.

Males have extensive advantage over females in boxing. Upper body strength is far larger in males (larger than the difference in lower body strength). Males have wider shoulders and more force through upper body rotation. They have longer arms and bigger hands.

The differential force through a punch motion is 162% higher in males than females.

And females have thinner skulls and weaker neck muscles, providing far less resistance to vastly superior punch force.

Of all the mainstream sports where inclusion of transwomen in female categories is under the microscope, boxing is, quite simply, a sport that cannot afford to follow standard-issue IOC guidelines (T suppression for a year before competition).

The current trans policy from Boxing Canada @boxing_canada is flawed, and dangerous.

boxingcanada.org/wp-content/upl…

They do not outline safety assessments for transmen wishing to compete in the male category.

Many think consent to compete in the male cat is sufficient, and regulating inclusion of transmen on safety grounds is ‘paternalistic’.

This is boxing, not track running.

If a transman is assessed as sufficiently strong to fight with males without unique risk of serious injury, that’s one thing. To not bother with assessments is another.

The policy permits inclusion of transwomen in the female cat after 12 months of T suppression, despite this regime being wholly insufficient to reduce muscle mass and strength acquired during male puberty to any meaningful degree.

https://twitter.com/FondOfBeetles/status/1368174222992961547

The policy does not permit case-by-case exclusion of transwomen, when there is overwhelmingly obvious retention of male advantage.

You think Anthony Joshua - 6’6’’ and 110kg - would be safe to fight females after 12 months of T suppression and 5% down on strength?

Proponents of inclusion have suggested just that.

fb.watch/43kpMRCgPG/

@piersmorgan

Oh wait, only if Joshua were similar height/weight as her opponent...

OK, Golovkin (left) .v. Cederoos (right).

Male athletes can be 30% stronger than female athletes of the same height/weight.

From Hilton and Lundberg, 2021:

link.springer.com/article/10.100…

You think a male boxer suppressing T, who might lose around 5% of their strength (assuming they don’t train to maintain), can fairly - and more importantly *safely* - box against a height/weight matched female?

Federations that regulate boxing need to think about how they construct trans policies, because they simply cannot blindly adopt the same rules that regulate track running.

It’s perfectly OK to identify your sport as somewhat exceptional, thus requiring more stringent rules.

In fact, you have a special ethical duty to do so, for the sake of your female athletes.

@JaneCouchMBE @NicolaAdamsOBE