about what it's like to be on the unfavored side of the story.
This appears to be discrimination against a vast majority of true women athletes. It is basically unfair to those who expected to have an opportunity to compete against their gender equals.
The problem is that during the time they need to get to an equitable solution, there will likely (Thomas this year for example) be exceptional athletes that stand out. I would rather have a well-thought out solution, than not. What I am hearing is that there will likely be some revisions to the policy in the next year or two. A possible solution could include a tie period of testosterone suppression and a test level of testosterone.
As I have stated before, this is an issue in D3 track where I coach. There have been a couple All-American transgender athletes in the last several years.
As a cis-gender female athlete (non-elite, but hey, I was an age-grouper for a long time) and a coach for girls' athletics, it's an interesting issue to have to try to work out. There has to be a way to ensure that all athletes are able to compete as the gender that they identify with, and yet ensure fairness for all athletes as well. It's such a difficult thing, and I am glad that there are smarter people than me working on it.
yesterday. It is effective immediately and modeled after the Olympic model.
I agree that a discussion about the rules regarding transgender participation in sports (i.e., testosterone level testing vs. hormone suppression) is important. It sounds like the NCAA is re-evaluating their current rules.
That being said, so long, Cynthia Millen, don't let the door hit you on the way out. Millen pulled out right before the Paralympics Swimming National Championships. Lia Thomas is not a member of USA Swimming, nor was she a participant at the U.S. Paralympic National Championships. USA Swimming has stricter rules than the NCAA regarding transgender participation (they follow IOC rules). So Millen choosing that moment was more about grandstanding than anything affecting the actual event she would have officiated.
Further, Millen purposefully and repeatedly misgendered Thomas during her Fox News interview, using he and him. If you can't use proper pronouns, which is not hard and the least one can do, then you don't belong in the discussion of how the sport handles this issue.
This is a heavily charged issue, and opposition to trans-females tends to get one labeled as prejudiced and intolerant. I certainly don't pretend to understand all the aspects of the issue, but I (probably like you GKC) have heard that many people are much happier and at peace after switching gender. I respect their courage in this difficult step and wish them the best.
I, like many other people, think that trans females have physical advantages in most sports competition. A person like Lia Thomas should not be allowed to advance their percentile ranking due to a transition (e.g. if Thomas was in the top 20th percentile as a male swimmer, being in the top 1% as a female swimmer is an unfair advantage).
Other than outright banning her, the only thing I can think of is assessing a time penalty to equalize her advantage. I don't pretend to know how to calculate it.
Unfortunately many people making decision about this or strongly expressing opinions don't consider the outlooks of females-by-birth.
Compete against men and women, if there are any in the latter category, of approximately-equivalent ability.
This is how club track works in the UK, where I live. Runners are classified on ability. Nobody cares if they are men, women or something in-between. And all the athletes seem to respect each other.
Unfortunately, the NCAA doesn’t seem to have a construct that works at the current time, surely partly due to an inadequate number of talented transitioning athletes to create a competitive classification.
Having Lia compete against biological women doesn’t hold water and is grossly unfair: it’s insulting and a disregard to the tremendous work the biological women put into the sports they compete in. The biological women deserve every opportunity to win the laurels they compete for.
Maybe a time penalty could be an answer. In track, men’s recruiting times are something like 14-15% faster than women’s. I’m not familiar with swimming, but perhaps it’s directionally similar.
The problem is that Lia has lost some ability/time to the previous year before she had hormone treatments; so you can't use her previous times (as a male) as a male as a starting point. That is, if the women's world record is 30 seconds slower than the men's, it's not fair to add all of that 30 seconds difference to her time as a female swimmer since she is swimming slower as a female.
Neutral observers also realize that she has advantages as a transgender competitor (height, body structures); so some equalizing time offset is needed. The question is what should it be.
Perhaps, your hint at letting them compete, but not for championships is necessary. I know I would be pilloried for my opinion that a transgender person is male or female and choosing to live their life as a member of the other sex, and there are limitations they have to deal with. Perhaps I'll change with more knowledge or the grace of God.
Duckworth-Lewis (or maybe it was Duckworth-Lewis who figured out cricket), then somebody can figure this out.
Take a look at Lia’s page under the women’s swimming roster tab on the Penn athletics website. Still looks like a dude!
There is practically no information that compares times for a transgender female versus those times were as a male before treatments. Nor are we sure whether her times will get slower the longer she is taking treatments. I'm sure many will vociferously claim that Lia is a female and should be allowed to compete without a penalty.
As to your cricket analogy, the Duckworth-Lewis-Sterne method is used to set a winning target number of runs scored when weather conditions limit the number of balls the team batting second will face. Teams play fairly conservatively in their first overs (sets of 6 balls) to avoid making out and then play riskier shots and score at a higher rate later on. So just averaging the rate team 1 scored runs is not a fair way of setting a target in this case.
...was born a male. I wonder how this goes down with all the other female contestants. The previous title holder was gracious.
“Jeopardy!” champion Amy Schneider made history again on Friday, becoming the highest-earning female contestant in the game show's nearly 57-year run.
The engineering manager's 18th consecutive win brought her total earnings to $706,800, bumping her above Larissa Kelly to become the show's top-earning female player.
unless possessing the Y chromosome gives us an advantage of more intelligence! If so, female contestants should be given a $10,000 head start. I realize that being born male had nothing to do with her success, and the previous leading female money-winner was gracious and fair.
As a side note, GAMES magazine had a discussion over 10 years ago why leading chess players were almost all male. Beside usual reasons (chess itself wasn't interesting and young women are too life-oriented to spend a large amount of time on games), a female professor noted that the very high-end and low-end of the IQ spectrum were over-represented by males. Perhaps IQ testing covers traditional male supposed strengths.