Thread by @FondOfBeetles

A couple of explainers to follow.

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The data does not support the IOC decision to include trans-identified m... via @YouTube

From Hilton and Lundberg, 2021. @TLexercise

“Using an age grading model designed to normalize times for masters/veteran categories, Harper analyzed self-selected and self-reported race times for eight transgender women runners of various age categories…

…who had, over an average 7 year period (range 1–29 years), competed in sub-elite middle and long distance races within both the male and female categories.

The age-graded scores for these eight runners were the same in both categories, suggesting that cross-hormone treatment reduced running performance by approximately the size of the typical male advantage.

However, factors affecting performances in the interim, including training and injury, were uncontrolled for periods of years to decades and there were uncertainties regarding which race times were self-reported vs. which race times were actually reported and verified…

…and factors such as standardization of race course and weather conditions were unaccounted for. Furthermore, one runner improved substantially post-transition, which was attributed to improved training.

This demonstrates that performance decrease after transition is not inevitable if training practices are improved.”

END

From a talk I gave for A Woman’s Place Is On The Podium, with @Womans_Place_UK and @fairplaywomen

“Harper studied eight sub-elite runners, pre- and post-transition, and graded their performance for age and sex. There are many, many flaws in this study.

Firstly, the data is hardly more than a collection of anecdotes, with the majority of times self-reported, not verified, and reliant on memories often spanning decades. I can’t even remember my run times from a month ago.

Small cohort, no control group, transition times varying from 1 year to a whopping 29 years, no correction for the myriad changes any athlete may experience regarding fitness, diet, training regime, injury.

Causing me the most concern, and I’m not sure it’s widely known, Harper’s study was published by a sports society where authors pay to submit manuscripts and agree, in return, to review those of others, each of whom has paid to submit a manuscript…and so on.

Yet Harper’s study, as poor as it was, and even containing examples of transwomen with vastly improved running performances after transition – one moved from the 55th to the 75th percentile – it is widely understood to have been…

…key in persuading the IOC to make it easier for transwomen to enter female sports, despite the increasingly consistent evidence out there that transwomen long after transition remain more muscular and stronger than females.”

END

Links to resources:

Hilton and Lundberg, 2021

link.springer.com/article/10.100…

Me, at WPUK/FPFW.

And because I apparently have to make such things clear these days, I received neither payment nor expenses for this event. I did get a free WPUK badge and someone bought me a drink afterwards, but they weren’t even WPUK/FPFW 😅

A transcript of the above talk, where you can track the development of regulations with the available scientific data.

fairplayforwomen.com/emma_hilton/