Shocking from @nrarmour here.

“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.

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.

World Athletics reveals the scale of the issue of male athletes with DSDs competing in the female category in international track and field.

I am not surprised at the number (I suspect the true figure is higher).

Nobody working in this area will be surprised at the number.

https://twitter.com/seaningle/status/1969044965360554247

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.

I had no experience of Charlie Kirk beyond the occasional clip that went past my timeline, none of which I engaged with deeply.

From this UK POV, he was a preppy fundie Christian conservative doing preppy fundie Christian conservative stuff.

No opinion about him beyond characterising him as above, and not thinking at all about that.

But I have rarely wanted to defend anyone more. Why would I want to defend a preppy fundie Christian conservative? Why did my gut plummet and my heart sink when I learned he had died?

Almost all of us can understand the human POV.

So, this paper is being widely circulated as a gotcha.

First thing, any author whose affiliation is "The University of the Sunshine Coast, Sippy Downs, Australia" is probably winning at life.

But let's talk about bird sex.

royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rs… 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.

"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.

Also in the frame as new sexes, fat men, pregnant women and children. JFC.scholar.harvard.edu/files/srichard…

An interesting article from Professor Andrew Sinclair here, criticising World Athletics proposals to SRY screen their elite female athlete cohort.

It’s a classic. Arguments from authority. Cherry-picking. Doesn’t appear to have read the policy. theconversation.com/world-athletic… A half-truth.

Apparently-female athletes who test positive for SRY will have a consultation with WA, with a view to medical assessment to better understand any medical conditions (DSDs) they have.

It is this diagnosis that will determine eligibility (or not).

Ok.

Let’s take Kelly’s penalty at 110 kph and Isak’s belter as 108 kph.

First up, Isak’s belter was from outside the penalty area, under defensive pressure, on the run and without perfect body positioning.

Compare.

https://twitter.com/fondofbeetles/status/1949905387181818276

That Kelly put 110 kph on a penalty is astonishing. That Isak managed to get 108 kph out of this belter is astonishing.

Isak could put 110 kph on a penalty with his eyes closed. Kelly will never get 108 kph on a 20-yard shot she digs out from under her.

No shade.

Five years ago, I gave a speech comparing sex denialism to creationism.

At the time, my partner-in-crime, Colin Wright, and I were near-lone academic voices willing to stand up and say “Biology! We have a problem!”

@SwipeWright Reflecting, back in 2020, on that state of affairs:

“[That] there are two sexes, male and female is apparently something that biologists do not think needs to be said.

I think they are wrong.”

It took Naomi Cunningham a single minute with a medic under oath to get a straight answer to a question that nobody wants to answer. Crickets.

"My data has suggested that my power, strength, stamina, muscle mass, oxygen levels and lung capacity all fit within the c*sgender female range."

Let's look at why this is a red herring.

onmanorama.com/sports/cricket… Several people argue that if the metrics of a trans-identified male fall "within female range", it is fair for that male to compete in female sport.

But we need to look at what's typical .v. what's exceptional.

Let’s address what many consider an uncomfortable topic.

Here, Bunce argues that Khelif was “condemned on her looks”.

That’s not true.

https://twitter.com/bigdaddybunce/status/1928704857336168626

People argued that Khelif appears to be male.

They may not have always been as polite as Bunce’s sensitivities required, but this is not “condemning” someone “on their looks”.

It’s noting that Khelif looks male/masculinised/(a man, if you prefer), and raising urgent alarms about what that means in boxing.

I don't think this is The Solution, but I'm generally in favour of weighing up proposals, so let's look at this one.

California high school sports have proposed to protect girls and accommodate trans-identified boys as follows:

If a male athlete gets a medal, the displaced female athlete also gets her medal.

Some thoughts to follow, chewing the fat for open discussion... An example of finish places and medals under this scheme might look like this:

1st William-now-Lia 🥇
2nd Helen 🥇
3rd Sarah 🥈
4th Catherine 🥉

So on the face of it, the top three girls get their rightful medals. Presumably this is how CIF say they are protecting those girls.

This is a computer-generated series, transitioning between "hyper male" and "hyper female".

Where does your perception of the sex of the person shift?
Which face is the most ambiguous?

If you reply, please include your sex (the actual one). OK, in the paper, the data was:

Faces 1-3: 100>97% scored "male"
Faces 5-7: 94>100% scored "female"
Face 4 was the transition face, with 68% scoring it "male".

FTR, I didn't hesitate on 4/male then 5/female.

This is the menstrual cycle.

Trans-identified males do not have one. This is the uterus, from which we bleed.

Trans-identified males do not have one.

People with 5ARD are male, not female

In defence of Semenya et al, many argue:
1. athletes with 5ARD are female;
2. features associated with 5ARD are normal female variation;
3. these athletes should be included in female sports.

The first claim is incoherent. To understand 5ARD, let's look at healthy reproductive development.

Both male and female development are well-understood.

“Sex screening in athletes is racist!”

Why? Really struggling with this.

In our recent paper (cited by World Athletics @sebcoe) calling for the reintroduction of sex screening in the female category, we make it very clear that this type of screening must be:

1. Cohort-wide | performed in all athletes wishing to enter the female category, regardless of skin colour, religion, nationality etc.

2. Early | to protect privacy and dignity, and avoid athletes being front-page news.

With these parameters in mind, the sex screen itself cannot be considered “racist”.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.11… Citing historic ethical issues won’t wash. We all acknowledge these. Early, cohort-wide screening will avoid the failures of the past.

So the cry of “racism” must be aimed elsewhere, presumably anchored on the premise that previous targeted screening (which is precisely what I and others advocate against) brought multiple black athletes and very few white athletes to our front pages.

In sport, we are interested in the effects of male or female development on the body, not the booty.

The category boundary between males and females is male-pattern androgenisation - having testes that make testosterone (T) and a functional T response. Disorders of sex development (DSDs) affect reproductive development, and sometimes challenge legal and social sex classification.

5ARD, for example, means a male baby doesn't make the hormone required for penis development. The baby may be misclassified as female at birth.

On “we all start as females” (by request).

At the level of anatomy, “female” describes a particular reproductive system - eggs in ovaries, oviducts, uterus, cervix, vagina and vulva. This reproductive system begins to differentiate at around six weeks post-fertilisation, when the embryonic gonads - two balls of cells clumped in your pelvic area - turn into ovaries and not testes.

I ran a fairly straightforward analysis of track and field performances across junior ages in different track and field competitions.

The raw analysis looks like this for international records. Above the line is male advantage, below the line is female advantage.

This pattern its repeated across national and state-level competitions. You can see that for almost all events at all ages, boys hold advantage over girls.
Where female advantage is detected, this is easily explained.

At 10 years old, girls grow ahead of boys, and catch up/overtake them briefly in running.

The female advantage in discus at 15-16 years old is because girls throw lighter implements.

The distance drop off as boys move to the 2 kg discus is obvious.

Hello @michaelshermer

Please see the following links to various papers and commentaries I and others have published on sports categories.

Please follow me (obvs 😂), @TLexercise @Scienceofsport @runthinkwrite @cathydevine56 @BrowngaGreg @MaryOConnorMD @DrMJoyner and associated scientists for academic work.

Guys, add your papers below please. Where it all started (academically): “the muscular advantage enjoyed by transgender women is only minimally reduced when testosterone is suppressed.”

There are a couple of letter responses linked to this too.

link.springer.com/article/10.100…