A person holds up a sign that reads “Trans athletes belong in sports” during a demonstration. (Getty/Michael M Santiago)
A new report has found trans women do not have any advantages over any other women, when competing in elite sport, if existing rules are followed.
Findings from a report, which was commissioned by the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport, clarified that biomedical factors do not pose an advantage, but suggests social factors – like nutrition and training quality – do.
The new reportis an in-depth review of all scientific literature published between 2011 and 2021 in English regarding trans women and their participation in elite-level sports.
These studies show there is little evidence to show that factors relating to male puberty – such as lung size and bone density – produce an advantage for trans athletes.
Existing rules regarding trans women in sport most often relate to the suppression of testosterone to certain low levels.
The report concluded that trans women that have begun testosterone suppression have no clear biological advantage.
“There is not one discrete biomarker that allows easy comparison of athletes’ bodies to each other in terms of performance,” thereport reads.
Trans people, especially trans women, have been unfairly targeted in the elite and grass-roots sports worlds, with some even being banned entirely from competing due to anti-trans rhetoric.
Thereport found“strong evidence” that “elite sport policy is made within transmisogynist, misogynoir, racist, geopolitical cultural norms”.
These ‘norms’ are the outcome of a long history of exclusion of women in sports, especially women whose bodies did not conform to standards of femininity.
British Cycling suspended its trans and non-binary participation policy. It comes after trans cyclist Emily Bridges (pictured) was banned from participating in a top women’s event. It is still being updated. (YouTube/Sky News)
Bridges, whocame out publicly as trans in October 2020, was due to compete against some of the top female cyclists in what would have been her first women’s event on 2 April (2021).
British Cycling said it was informed shortly before the event by the UCI that Bridges was not eligible to compete under its guidelines at the time.
Despite new evidence proving that biological traits from trans people pose no real threat to cisgender men and women, the community is still vilified and barred from competitive sports.
Quick update on me before the video that has information that everyone should hear. I hurt so bad right now I can only stand a few minutes before the pain is so bad I either have to sit or fall. Of course it is better earlier when I first get up by noon or 1 PM I can barely get up and go to the bathroom before the pain is so severe I am in danger of falling down. But if I sit the pain builds up in the upper part of my back instead of the lower part so again I have to move. Mostly right now it seems I get about 3 hours up at most and then 2 hours laying down. When I take enough medication to help cover the pain which lately has been the maximum of my medications, the next day I am sick to my stomach and have nausea issues. Think of it like being on a drunken night out at the bars, and how you would feel the next day. That lasts until I get enough medication back in my system again, and then if I take the maximum again I am sick the next day. It is a cycle I cannot stand. Be pain controlled in the afternoon and rest of the day while befuddled with confusion of the medications and the next morning wake up sick with a rolling stomach and nausea that either makes me vomit (three times yesterday) or just feel like I am going to vomit such as today when I did not vomit but felt I could until about 1 PM. I have an MRI on the 25th. I am losing the good from the last set of spine shots in the bottom of my spine, so tomorrow I need to call the pain clinic and see if they can adjust my appointment to get another set of spine epidurals for all three sections. Right now I am spending as much time laying down as I am upright. However this morning and yesterday morning Ron and I did take a short walk as we used to before the hurricane. It is much shorter than the other walks were because my back gives out and his hip starts to bother him too much to do a longer one. If the new spine shots don’t fix this, then I need to change medications to fentanyl or something as strong. The doctor tells me that fentanyl is much stronger than the medications I am currently taking. One last thing. Randy my wonderful brother has tried to get me to look at getting an over the bedside table like hospitals use and using a couple of the old laptops we have or at least the bedroom TV and a laptop to read and answer comments which I bitch constantly I am missing. Today Ron and I have started talking about it. It will depend on what the doctors can do. Hugs
An update and a photo. The update from last week is the testing seriously poisoned me and I was very sick. When I told that she was cruel and even told the doctor I should report him to the Geneva Convention both were stunned until they looked at my back. Then they kept saying I should have called in. But I reminded them I was reacting so badly during the midweek visit they already claimed it was a serious problem and gave me a list of things to avoid in products. On Thursday Ron started using every medication we could get including the ones given me from the allergy office. By Friday afternoon I was a raw mass on my back and so sick I was throwing up. Ron wanted to take me to the emergency room. I decided to take a bunch of Benadryl as that was what they would do in the ER. It was a long weekend.
Today I was starting to feel better, but still so very tired. But ready to seriously get back to my blog rather than just read / watch stuff and post it. But the universe is not done messing with me yet.
Ron has not been feeling well either this last week he has been in a lot of pain in his back and hip. But today he decided to put up the shelves I have been asking for … a long time. Due to the small space and James being at work I needed to help Ron. That was a mistake that couldn’t be avoided.
The effort involved with putting up the shelves aggravated and caused serious spasms in my back. Due to that I started having trouble walking and couldn’t stand without support. Lucky for me I have lots of great canes. The pain caused my heart at one point to peak at about 168 and go out of rhythm for a bit. I took my medication and it settled at about 115. Then slowly slowed to 95, 85, and then down to 83. Right now it is 80. But the good news is my disk has a lot less stuff on it and will have even more stuff tomorrow when I feel like moving more of the wired stuff. Odie is happy he has more room to spread out. I did not get back to the comments and other blogs like I planned today but I sure have that as my goal. Anyway here is a picture of the new shelves long after the sun went down and I could stand again. I was able to move a lot of stuff off the desk which was over crowed and yet the other set of speakers the cord is too short. I have to look in my many boxes of extra cords for an extensions of the right wires / jacks … (What I want is a new set of much better sounding surround sound speakers …) Hugs and lots of love. Scottie Oh Yes that is Odie on my desk, now that Tupac is a house permanent person Odie is making sure he gets as much desk time as possible. Hugs
The popular ‘gender critical’ theory about pelvic bones is simply nonsense. (Credit: GiaPratamaMD | Twitter)
It’s a popular ‘gender critical’ argument, that if archaeologists were to dig up a skeleton in hundreds of years from now they’d be able to tell whether it was male or female.
Sadly for them, it’s total nonsense.
The belief that birth sex is identifiable through skeletal structure is entirely “misleading” according to various experts.
The myth became popularised by so-called gender-critical individuals following claims of a physical disparity between pelvic bones of those assigned male at birth and those that were assigned female.
It is routinely used as an argument by anti-trans groups to claim that the concept of gender identity is useless because of its impermanence.
You can say gender neutral, you can have many sexual orientation.
But hundreds years from now, if Archeologist find your bone, they will say you either Male or female. pic.twitter.com/tamYUUxCPF
But, according to several experts in archaeology, the claim ignores a number of fundamental steps when identifying skeletal remains.
ATSU assistant professor and biological anthropologist Caroline VanSickle told AFPthat professionals often cannot say with any certainty if an individual was male, female or other just by looking at their bones.
“We can offer a fairly educated guess, but even then we sometimes get the answer wrong or end up with inconclusive results,” VanSickle says.
She added there is currently “limited data” on how hormone replacement therapy (HRT) affects bone structure, which makes it even more tricky to define the facts about a centuries-old skeleton.
“We also lack methods to identify intersex individuals, who make up around two per cent of the population,” she added.
The pelvic bone is not reliable enough to identify a male or female skeleton
Because of this ambiguity, archaeologists often refrain from definitively identifying the sex of a skeleton unless there is further proof to corroborate the decision.
When examining a skeleton, Osteoarchaeologists often consider both the physical characteristics of the skeleton, while also considering evidence of the person’s gender identity – especially in cultures which have exhibited gender-neutral or third-gender identities.
Durham university archaeology professor Rebecca Gowland said that skeletons are often categorised as male, probable male, unknown, female, or probable female.
She said the categorisation is based “on a number of different factors… [including] poor preservation, or it could be that some of the skeletal traits used to estimate sex are ambiguous.”
Archaeologists have routinely said that a person’s skeleton isn’t enough to identify their sex, let alone their pelvic bone. (Getty)
Sexual dimorphism – the biological or physical difference between the sexes of a species – is reportedly so slight in the skeleton of a human that the margin of error can be exceptionally high.
Gowland added that professionals are aware “biological sex exists on a spectrum, of which skeletons and the sexual variation they show is only one part of a greater whole.
“They also understand that the assessment of sex using skeletons is not 100 per cent accurate and this analysis may not align with an individual’s biological sex or gender identity.”
But, as many trans activists have pointed out, the concept of being misgendered in hundreds or thousands of years from now is not exactly on the top of their anxieties list.
“I won’t be alive by then, so I don’t really care,” journalist Katelyn Burns said in response to a post using the argument.
“Oh no! I’ll be so embarrassed when my bones are dug up in several hundred years! What ever will I do!?” another sarcastically wrote.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) held an anti-trans rally at the Capitol this week. A whopping 12 or so people attended and no major media outlets covered it.
The rally was a veritable who’s who of contemporary transphobic trolls, including members of the book-banning “parents’ rights” group Moms for Liberty; members of the anti-LGBTQ conservative think tank Heritage Foundation; de-transitioned young adult right-wing media darling Chloe Cole; J.K. Rowling fanboy Chris Elston; conspiracy theorist James Lindsay; sexually harassing “comedian” Alex Stein; and of course, Greene herself.
The protestors held signs proclaiming, “Children cannot consent to puberty blockers,” “Gender ideology does not belong in schools,” and signs that defined the words “mom” and “dad” as “a human parent who protects kids from gender ideology.”
Greene brought the transphobic sign that she hangs in front of her congressional office which says, “There are two genders: male and female. ‘Trust the science.’” In reality, biology has proven the existence of numerous animals that can change gender and that gender and sex are both more complicated than binaries.
The protestors spent their time taking pictures of each other and then re-tweeting one another’s posts about the protest.
In a tweet tagging many of the protestors, the Heritage Foundation wrote that the demonstrators were “calling out policies that push for minors to have access to puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and sex-reassignment surgeries.”
This is a lie, of course. No policies are “pushing” minors to undergo gender-affirming treatment, and surgeries aren’t conducted on minors either. The policies the protestors oppose include acknowledging the existence of LGBTQ+ people in schools and ensuring that trans youth have access to life-saving care as well as an equal education.
Right-wing transphobes imagine that LGBTQ+ people and allies, drag queens, and medical professionals all use “gender ideology” to “indoctrinate” and “groom” impressionable young kids into states of “gender confusion” and “rapid onset gender dysphoria” in order to “mutilate” their bodies in profitable surgeries.
However, every major medical and psychological association recognizes that trans youth self-identify consistently, insistently, and persistently from young ages. They also have deemed access to gender-affirming care as necessary for ensuring the emotional and physical well-being of trans youth.
ICYMI: Idaho Republican Rep. Jack Nelsen compares women to farm animals and says experience working with cattle has given him "ideas on repro and women's health thing" in his first-ever committee meeting. pic.twitter.com/Y4DSusQBAc
In this episode we chat with sexologist, author, social worker Dr Joe Kort about male sexuality and sex. We discuss – Gay sex – What is sexual fluidity? – What does non-binary mean? – Porn, good or bad? – The problem of men, sex & shame – Homosexual attractions in straight men – What does it mean to be gay & bi – What is sex therapy?
Republicans cannot seem to care how their smoking hurts others around them who don’t smoke. Sad that in 2023 with all the information around about how bad tobacco both smoked or chewed is for both those that do it and those around them. But again republicans have a real issue trying to care about anyone other than themselves. Hugs
“Smoke ’em if you got ’em.” That’s not just the name of a 2004 Cypress Hill EP but also apparently the new rule in the GOP-controlled House. Republican members are lighting up their cigars in Congressional offices — and driving members of the press corps “insane in the brain” with the smell.
An executive order signed by President Bill Clinton in 1997 banned smoking in many federal buildings, but only those under the control of the Executive Branch. The laws in Washington, D.C. similarly ban smoking in indoor spaces, but again, that does not apply to congressional offices.
Yuck, cigarette and cigar smoke stinks. Inside buildings it spreads through the HVAC system and permeates everything, everyone’s clothing. It becomes in escapable. People who smoke reek of it; you can smell the stench when they walk into a room.
Republicans have been making life worse for everyone since 1968.
It literally does not apply to Congress – perhaps we need a constitutional amendment requiring members of Congress to be held to the same legal standards as other Americans – and perhaps their salaries should be tied to median incomes in their districts, and they should not have any better medical coverage or retirement benefits than ordinary Americans.
why don’t we totally go back to the 1950s – old white guys smoking cigars in the back offices making deals. how progressive. i’m surprised if they do not allow drinking on the House floor – it’ll be just like bowling!
The GOP oft reminisce about the “good old days” of the 50s…a white man’s world, where the US dominated the world economy, while much of the world was still recovering from WWII.
They do conveniently forget the 90% tax rate on the wealthy & corporations…which helped the middle class to grow & prosper.
It seems republicans are intent on exerting their right to be rude assholes no matter the cost to themselves or others. Please keep it up until you have turned public opinion solidly against your party.
The only thing the GOP think of pregnant staffers is “you’d better have that baby or you’ll be going to jail for murder. And don’t expect any handouts or time off”
When the new Resucklicans said they need to tear down the establishment, that’s the establishment they’re talking about: considering other’s welfare. They want to be obnoxious assholes again! Make me King of Assholes again! Trump is our Assholiness!
I would refuse to work in a smoke-filled office. Hopefully many of the junior staff will quit (or sue) rather than elect to get cancer form secondhand smoke. .
OT. Lawyer said we need to prosecute Donald Trump immediately. Sitting next to his Passport? Sounds like he’s going to turn them into big $$$fortune by selling us to Putin when he needs to escape justice to Putin his protector.
AND tfg had top secret docs literally sitting in the same drawer as his PASSPORT.
Gross. I’d be pissed if I was a staffer who had to go home every day with my clothes reeking of smoke. Dry cleaning ain’t free. That’s minuscule to the effects that kind of enclosed environment can have on people with asthma and other respiratory ailments.
Plus, that nasty, greasy residue will be settling all over inside the Capitol. I guess lathering the place with that residue isn’t too unexpected from the party that smeared their own feces around the building.
*shakes head* If Biden was really as awful as the Republicans say he is, they sure have some bizarre priorities now that they control the House.
I don’t care what people do with their own lives, and it gives me some comfort knowing these assholes are opening themselves up to an old age of sickness and likely a miserable death (both my parents died of smoking-related illnesses, not pretty) but I feel sorry for the reporters and staffers who are subjected to their secondhand smoke
Scottie's Playtime 