Thread by @KirstiMiller30

Approaches to Balancing Biological & Sociological Considerations. As the grey literature revealed, some sports organizations have produced regulations that take into account

https://twitter.com/KirstiMiller30/status/1494081618348507140

social issues, discrimination experienced by trans women, and the discourse surrounding their participation in sports competitions.

For example, the rules of the UKRDA (UK Roller Derby) a collective sport with important and violent contacts, allow trans women to compete in the women category with no restrictions by taking into account the diversity of women's bodies (cis, intersex, and/or trans) and

the many factors of sports performance other than physical capacities, namely technical, tactical and strategic intelligence:

“The UKRDA do not believe that we can prove that transgender skaters experience a physical advantage or disadvantage over cis-gendered (non-trans) skaters.

To maintain fairness and equality, & as well as to avoid legal challenge, the UKRDA feel that we cannot categorically state that skaters who identify as a different gender than that which they were assigned at birth experience a physical advantage and

we cannot, therefore, utilize the legal exceptions.

The legislation in the 🇬🇧 & Australia 🇦🇺 states that evidence is required to claim an ‘unfair advantage’.

In a roller derby team, and AFL and rugby teams etc there exists a spectrum of heights, weights, natural abilities, and existing or gained fitness levels.

Each skater on a team utilizes the strengths they have – whether it be a speedy, explosive jammer compared to a more powerful, offensive style jammer, or a super-agile blocker compared to a powerhouse blocker.

It is not therefore relevant to deem a transgender skater ineligible for inclusion in roller derby based on what stage of gender transition they are at or how their physical body presents.”

The statement from the Australian Human Rights Commission Regarding Testosterone and Competitive Advantage notably draws to sports organizations in process of policy- making's attention that knowledge on testosterone is restricted and debated,

and many factors outside testosterone influence own’s sports performance and capacities. Further, the statement reminds affected parties that there have been no cases of people transitioning solely to gain advantage in a sport, and that, “for transgender athletes,

as for all athletes, sport is about the physical, social and mental health benefits of participation”

There are, regrettably, also problematic clauses in the statement which permit Australian sports governing bodies to make their own decisions at the elite level and continue with exclusionary practices –

more work needs to be done to act, and to seam these acknowledgements closer to implementation of new policies created in Australia under the new IOC gender framework.

There is currently no substantial research evidence of any biological advantages that would impede the fairness of trans women competing in elite women’s sport.

There currently exists no evidence to suggest that trans women who elect to suppress testosterone (through, for example, gender affirming hormone therapy and/or surgical gonad removal) maintain disproportionate advantages over cis women indefinitely.

More specifically, current evidence suggests any biological advantages trans women have in sport performance do not fall outside the range observed among cis women
after testosterone suppression.

Red blood cell count is well within cis women’s range after four months of testosterone suppression.

Available related research seems to suggest strength decreases over time after suppression, demonstrated through significant decreases in strength (LBM, CSA) after 12 months of suppression and ongoing decreases after the arbitrary one year mark.

Even so, the cut-off levels of testosterone for trans women and of the length of time after testosterone suppression in current sport policies are not currently evidence-based including the new @USASwimming and @BritishCycling & NCAA newly adopted 10nmol/L rule.

Most biologically-based studies focused on the question of appropriate levels of testosterone for testosterone- suppressed trans women for fair competition among women (cis and trans) and did not arrive at a consensus about

(a) whether the question of testosterone is a and/or the most salient biological marker, nor (b) assuming testosterone is an imperfect proxy of heightened and/or ‘unfair advantage’ in performance, at what levels such advantages are incurred.

Further, there is currently no existing evidence on the measurable difference R has on lean muscle mass for active (versus sedentary) individuals, & no research in the context of high-performance athletes that would help understand,

for example, testosterone uptake capacities among cis and trans women athletes.

There are also questions which remain about what length of time of gender affirming hormone therapies are appropriate to be comparable to cis women on various factors,

as well as questions about the definitions of what can be celebrated as a biological gift versus condemned as an ‘unfair advantage’ and where the boundaries of those are.

Additional biomarkers (such as grip strength, hip angle, bone density) have been used uncritically in positivist biological studies to demonstrate cis men’s purported biological advantages over cis women,

but there is not sufficient evidence these measures are salient to the question of trans women’s participation.

In fact, studies (Hilton, Lunberg for example) often use these measures without examining appropriate comparison populations (often resulting in an uncritical comparison of cis men to trans women, which additional evidence suggests is not apt),

possible confounding factors, controls for weight and height, controls for hand size, or other methodological concerns.

Some study authors (Hilton, Lunberg again) also selectively reported on measures (for example, one review left out the results of a primary study whose conclusion ran counter to their claims), did not include important conflicts

of interest (such as funding from groups who support the exclusion of trans women from sport and/or society), and relied on ‘common knowledge’ claims that were not scientifically supported as foundational assumptions.

There are also key areas of positivist biological research that remain unexplored: for example, the ways in which trans women are biologically disadvantaged in elite sport,

and the ways in which cis women tend to outperform cis men on a population level in some sport-relevant attributes (e.g., endurance, recovery, perfusion, balance).

In this dearth of positivist evidence (evidence which anticipates one objective ‘truth’), research indicates that people not only fall back to socio-cultural, historical, geopolitical systems, but are actively engaged in political practices of non-knowledge and

active ignorance within these systems when it comes to the topics of gender, sex, and trans women’s participation in elite sport.

It is within this absence of biological evidence and within these systems that current arbitrary boundaries, policies, limits, levels are formed.

There is strong evidence that elite sport policy is made within transmisogynist, misogynoir, racist, geopolitical cultural norms.

There is evidence that the fears that cis women need be protected from trans women in elite sport are unsubstantiated and misplaced:

What threatens women’s elite sport, for cis and trans women, is not trans women, but is rather misogyny in the form of underfunding, non-parity in participation and leadership, inequitable sport space allocation/access, and a range of sporting opportunities not afforded to women

– cis and trans - in equitable ways. Counter to these misplaced fears and in addition to the limited opportunities for women in sport, trans women also face overlapping systems of cissexism and transmisogyny (among others) in accessing sporting opportunities.

To answer the positivist question of what biological factors would make sport ‘fair’ among cis and trans women, more research needs to be funded and conducted using appropriate, ethical methods and populations.

The critical question of what sociocultural factors would make sport ‘fair’ among cis and trans women can already be adequately answered, but requires transformations and more actions towards equitable sport at the elite level.

Many current trans inclusion policies at high-performance levels act as trans exclusion policies or arbitrary criteria that trans women must meet to compete and

sports organizers need better education, dedicated resources and high-quality research to confront, disrupt or transform gendered systems.

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