The development comes after a presentation to the International Olympic Committee by its medical chief, which highlighted the potential physical advantages of competing in women's sport after being born male.

The development comes after a presentation to the International Olympic Committee by its medical chief, which highlighted the potential physical advantages of competing in women’s sport after being born male.

    • shalafi@lemmy.worldEnglish
      25·
      3 days ago

      You didn’t answer the question. And it’s a valid question to my mind. See my reply to the above.

      • toomanypancakes@piefed.worldEnglish
        65·
        3 days ago

        Let me ask you a question in turn. How many trans women are placing well in sports? Numbers, percentages, whatever you’ve got. How many cis women have had their rightful first place stolen by someone who’s just naturally better by merit of how they were born?

        In answer to your question, transition does a lot, more than you would expect. It’s pretty statistically clear that the residual effects of going through the wrong puberty haven’t caused a physical ability imbalance that renders competition unfair. We haven’t seen any such thing play out, unless you consider any trans woman placing ever as inherently unfair and stealing results from cis women.

        I want to know where this outrage was for Michael Phelps. We didn’t see legislation passed to deperson Andre the Giant. There are huge biological differences between people, and some people have an advantage in sport by merit of how their body works. There’s never outrage against gifted men.

        Women have to suffer the brunt of this line of attack. Many cis women, for some reason especially women of color, get attacked as men if they have elevated testosterone, chromosomal abnormalities, or many other random biological quirks that someone doesn’t think is fair. Imane Khalif, a cis woman, gets attacked for not being a woman. Lin Yu Ting gets attacked for not being a woman. Caster Semenya gets attacked for not being a woman.

        This trans panic in sports is not about fairness. Nobody making these decisions are doing so to create a balanced competition. This is sexism and transphobia being used to police women to ensure they’re feminine enough to appear on the world stage.

        • powerstruggle@sh.itjust.worksBanned from communityEnglish
          37·
          2 days ago

          Imane Khelif, Lin Yu Ting, and Caster Semenya are all biologically male (not trans, DSD males incorrectly assigned female at birth). No cis women won a medal in the 2016 Rio 800m, all of the medal winners were DSD male. That would likely continue to be the case except they are no longer eligible for the women’s category.

          Michael Phelps’ records have already been surpassed. DSD males competing in women’s sports set records that cis woman will never surpass. It is not surprising that the vast majority of people find this unfair. The IOC is doing the right thing.

          • canofcam@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            1 day ago

            So, none of the people mentioned are trans women? Why exactly are you making these comments?

            • powerstruggle@sh.itjust.worksBanned from communityEnglish
              12·
              1 day ago

              I focused on those athletes because they’re the motivating factors behind this decision. DSD males and trans women both have the innate advantage of male puberty, which is why the IOC is making this move. To focus specifically on trans women, here’s one example out of many on why we have separate competitions for men and women (not a sympathetic article, but factual):

              https://quillette.com/2025/10/30/the-scandal-of-ana-caldas-and-the-case-for-sex-screening-in-female-athletics/

              In 2016, a Portuguese-American athlete named Hannah Caldas participated in the female category of the “Monstar Games,” a large fitness competition held in Rio de Janeiro. The Games included a weightlifting challenge run by Brazil’s Fortify Equipamentos sporting-goods retail chain, whereby contestants were scored on how many times they could lift heavy balls over their heads in the space of a minute.

              An event official asked Caldas to choose between one of two balls—weighing thirty and seventy pounds, respectively.

              “How about the 120?” Caldas replied, pointing to a third, much larger ball.

              According to Caldas’s subsequent recollection, the official explained that this wasn’t a realistic option for contestants registered in the female category, since “no girls had been able to pick it up.”

              “Challenge accepted!” Caldas later wrote on Instagram. While a fellow athlete named Joyce Rodrigues filmed, Caldas proceeded to heave the 120-pound weight into the air no fewer than sixteen times.

              The idea that biological males don’t have an athletic advantage over females is plainly, obviously wrong

              USMS records indicate that it was 23 January 2009 when a new swimming sensation identified as “Hannah Caldas” suddenly appeared on the women’s USMS racing scene. Despite being a complete unknown, Caldas immediately began dominating the competition in the 30–34-year-old age group—including winning five out of six events at Caldas’s inaugural tournament in Charlotte, NC. The performances were so astounding that Caldas reportedly almost hit a benchmark time for Portugal’s women’s Olympic swimming team (missing the cut by a mere 0.3 seconds).

              This would be a shockingly impressive athletic run for anyone—let alone a (nominal) rookie such as Caldas, who was able to blast past former NCAA swimming stars with ease despite having no collegiate training as a female athlete; and who was, by this point in life, a full decade past the prime age for Olympic-calibre swimmers.

              That’s why the argument that trans women are only 0.X% of competitors doesn’t hold any water. They can still dominate a sport and deny medals to any cis women competing. This is now becoming an issue at the Olympic level which is why the IOC is addressing it, but people have tracked many more cases at sites like https://hecheated.org/. Whether or not you like the people behind that or similar sites, it’s more about the facts.