this post was submitted on 23 Dec 2023
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These people also never consider that they're measuring the wrong thing. If they're taking the position that the effects of testosterone from birth in trans M-to-F kids gives them an unfair advantage due to bone density and muscle mass, then they're failing to take into account that there are a number of natural health conditions that produce elevated testosterone levels in women as well.
I'm not saying this to be funny, but women with stubble especially around the chin often have elevated T levels, often due to PCOS. There truly are some women who are "built like a man" and they're not trans - at least certainly not in the way we use the term today. They're natural, their bodies just work differently.
Banning trans kids isn't going to level the playing field in the way they say they want to. Measuring things that testosterone affects like bone density would.
Yep. T level testing was a popular trans exclusionary test until the transphobes learned that there's significant overlap in t levels between trans women and cis women.
Edit: lol looks like we upset the transphobes
Most sports are dominated by people with genetic gifts. But having a little extra testosterone from a genetic quirk is a completely different thing than having extra testosterone because you were born with testes.
Yet the end result is the same, an advantage over those that don't have it. Why is one fair and one unfair?
Sport is arbitrary rules we decide. Some trans athletes are going to be better at some sports, not because of their trans status but because they work hard and train lots. It is just as unfair to exclude them in case another trans athlete has a genetic advantage, that most research says they don't have.
Do you have evidence that a cis woman with high testosterone remotely experiences the amount of testosterone produced by testes?
Sure https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7159262/
Also that trans athletes don't have an advantage after starting hormone therapy. https://www.cces.ca/sites/default/files/content/docs/pdf/transgenderwomenathletesandelitesport-ascientificreview-e-final.pdf
Although there are other studies which show an advantage for running (not at elite level)
Why?
We know things are different because of the way that they are.
It is one thing to have a quirk of the same organs, it’s another to be born with a different organ that effectively produces performance enhancing hormones.
But fine, then ban cis-women with unnaturally high testosterone.
What is "unnatural" though?
Atypical of the vast majority
That's a strange redefinition of words.
The definition is literally “not being in accordance with nature or consistent with a normal course of events”. How is that a redefinition?
Because those women's testosterone levels are in accordance with nature, and caused by normal events.
Normal COURSE of events, i.. not normal for a woman in general terms.
People commonly have high cholesterol. It’s still considered abnormal when you get a lipid panel back.
You said it sarcastically, but doesn't that truly address the situation that you and others believe is occurring, in a non-discriminatory way?