@Scienceofsport @njstone9 “Hubbard says she stopped weightlifting in 2001 at the age of 23 "because it just became too much to bear", blaming "the pressure of trying to fit into a world that perhaps wasn't really set up for people like myself".
@Scienceofsport@njstone9 “After transitioning to female aged 35 in 2012, it would be another five years before Hubbard competed at international weightlifting competitions - and she achieved immediate success.”
@Scienceofsport@njstone9 It can’t just be me that realises how utterly insane it is that this is a person who didn’t lift weights for over 15 years - 15 years - and has, in a couple of years of retraining, become competitive at the highest level???
@Scienceofsport@njstone9 Hubbard isn’t just old (will be the oldest weightlifter ever to compete as female) but has been out of the game for so long, any hope of international success would be typically way out of reach.
@Scienceofsport@njstone9 Elite weightlifters who compete at Master’s age with long-standing and successful international careers behind them (or still ongoing) are not as far ahead of their age-matched peers as is Hubbard.
@Scienceofsport@njstone9 Hubbard took at least 15 years off and, within a couple of years, is better in her category than males and females with a slew of international medals in their locker and a lifetime of elite training and competition.
@Scienceofsport@njstone9 And at an age when those elite weightlifters are getting weaker, losing their edge, no longer challenging in the senior category, Hubbard is getting stronger and has the third highest total lift in an Olympic field.
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“Most of the studies used to ban transgender women so far are based on the performances of cisgender men, which scientists have argued is not an appropriate comparison.”
That’s me, @TLexercise and others.
“Others” including the ones moaning about not having their say. You know, the say they took for granted. The one they didn’t tell @nrarmour about.
Ever read their archery paper?
“Other studies have compared the performances of transgender women athletes with sedentary cisgender women, also argued as an inappropriate comparison.”
NGL, bit flummoxed here. Any ideas?
If you want inappropriate comparisons, try the Fat Bloke Study. Written by the scientists moaning about being excluded.
Nancy @nrarmour links to it. Fails to care that the reason why trans-identifying males can’t jump as high as the female comparators is that they are 20kg heavier, carrying way more fat, and are far less fit.
For disclosure, I have not been part of this IOC working group.
So the actual paper is fine. I’ve only skimmed, but it looks at gene expression between male and female humans and mice, to answer questions about the evolution of genes associated (or not) with sex.
The authors - who admit in peer review that these graphs exaggerate overlap - suggest in discussion that if one were to look at gene expression in, say, the skin from an individual within the overlap, you could not identify whether that individual was male or female.
It’s a high-level take on a more simple principle in this debate: overlapping height, and is a 5’8” individual male or female?
The authors use the same analogy in the introduction.
Even the ones who said it was “just a few”. They knew the scale.
Even the ones who said “you’re racist” as they fervently argued that black women are fundamentally different to white women. They knew the scale.
Also a poorly kept “secret” is that the majority of this cohort are 5ARD, where males can appear to be female at birth but have male-pattern athletic advantage.
Birds use genetic sex determination, just like humans.
The "make male" gene for humans is called SRY, and it lives on the Y chromosome.
If you have functional SRY and its downstream transcriptional storm, you will make testes and make male.
Birds differ. Their "make male" gene is called DMRT1.
It pretty much works like SRY, in that it's immediate downstream target is the parallel gene in both humans and parrots, and the ensuing transcriptional storm triggers testes development (testes being male, of course).
"This model of estradiol’s role in improving resistance to wound sepsis predicts at least four “sexes” across two treatment groups: females who are in the proestrus phase, females who are in the diestrus phase, females who are postmenopausal, and males."
This is Sarah Richardson, of the Fuentes review.
Four "sexes", three of them female and the other male. JFC.