Live blog: Transgender track world champion receives criticism and abuse online, Frank Vandenbroucke’s daughter joins Lotto-Soudal + more

22 thoughts on “Live blog: Transgender track world champion receives criticism and abuse online, Frank Vandenbroucke’s daughter joins Lotto-Soudal + more”

1. Wow, perhaps I shouldn’t be

   Wow, perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised, but jeeze there’s some horrible abuse of that transgender athlete on twitter.

   I am sympathetic to transgender athletes, my limited knowldge of such things informs me that there are strict hormone levels restrictions (inc testosterone) far lower than ‘normal’ people which have a huge effect on the body which fly in the face of becoming an elite athlete. 

   I’m not qualified to know whether the playing field is level or not, but I am sympathetic, it is complex and must be tough on the individuals to find their place.

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2. It’s a minefield, and one

   It’s a minefield, and one only surely a very small number of people are qualified to comment on, with authority (one being the athlete herself, it seems).

   This is something that the governing bodies need to be clear on, because ‘the public’ (incl me) need it to be as black/white as it can be. They’re way behind the game and athletes themselves are being used as test cases. The Caster Semanya case has been an ugly mess. 

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   • davel wrote:

     It’s a minefield, and one only surely a very small number of people are qualified to comment on, with authority (one being the athlete herself, it seems).

     This is something that the governing bodies need to be clear on, because ‘the public’ (incl me) need it to be as black/white as it can be. They’re way behind the game and athletes themselves are being used as test cases. The Caster Semanya case has been an ugly mess. 

     — davel

     Unfortunately being a man / woman is not black and white, even in the ‘natural’ state. No-one can make it thus, regardless of how great your need might be.

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3. Still a massive advantage to

   Still a massive advantage to grow up a man, with a man’s frame and underlying muscularity, regardless of where hormone levels end up.

   Needs a separate class imo, they people aren’t women when it comes to competing against other biological women. If this is what it’s going to come to then you may as well just let the women dope. Surely there’s only so long natural women athletes can put up with this sort of thing? You dedicate you life to something then Bradley Wiggins decides he’s a woman and wipes the floor with everyone. Not fair really.

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   • Yorkshire wallet wrote:

     Still a massive advantage to grow up a man, with a man’s frame and underlying muscularity, regardless of where hormone levels end up.

     Needs a separate class imo, they people aren’t women when it comes to competing against other biological women. If this is what it’s going to come to then you may as well just let the women dope. Surely there’s only so long natural women athletes can put up with this sort of thing? You dedicate you life to something then Bradley Wiggins decides he’s a woman and wipes the floor with everyone. Not fair really.

     — Yorkshire wallet

     I can get my head round, say, Justin Gatlin. Trains harder, longer, lifts more, all on steroids. Stops taking the steroids, passes tests, but he keeps the gains he puts down under steroids.

     I’m inclined to agree with your assumptions, but it’s way more complicated than what I can get my head around. Needs the governing bodies to step up. That doesn’t often happen. 

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   • Yorkshire wallet wrote:

     Still a massive advantage to grow up a man, with a man’s frame and underlying muscularity, regardless of where hormone levels end up.

     Needs a separate class imo, they people aren’t women when it comes to competing against other biological women. If this is what it’s going to come to then you may as well just let the women dope. Surely there’s only so long natural women athletes can put up with this sort of thing? You dedicate you life to something then Bradley Wiggins decides he’s a woman and wipes the floor with everyone. Not fair really.

     — Yorkshire wallet

     OTOH my wife’s cousin’s wife is a cis female.  She’s six foot three, weighs more than me and is way stronger (I’d bet). Just sayin’.

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     • brooksby wrote:

       Still a massive advantage to grow up a man, with a man’s frame and underlying muscularity, regardless of where hormone levels end up.

       Needs a separate class imo, they people aren’t women when it comes to competing against other biological women. If this is what it’s going to come to then you may as well just let the women dope. Surely there’s only so long natural women athletes can put up with this sort of thing? You dedicate you life to something then Bradley Wiggins decides he’s a woman and wipes the floor with everyone. Not fair really.

       — brooksby

       OTOH my wife’s cousin’s wife is a cis female.  She’s six foot three, weighs more than me and is way stronger (I’d bet). Just sayin’.

       — Yorkshire wallet

       Snu snu?

        

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     • brooksby wrote:

       OTOH my wife’s cousin’s wife is a cis female.  She’s six foot three, weighs more than me and is way stronger (I’d bet). Just sayin’.

       — brooksby

       A 6ft 3 athletic man will be way stronger. On average a man is 40% stronger in upper body strength and 33% stronger in lower body. Take this sort of figure into trans territory and you can see where things will go wrong in sport. Take a man that did steroids and then transitioned and you’ve got even more wrong. 

       The most ludicrous case was the fighter Fallon Fox. Fighting natural women and breaking eye sockets. 

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       • Yorkshire wallet wrote:

         OTOH my wife’s cousin’s wife is a cis female.  She’s six foot three, weighs more than me and is way stronger (I’d bet). Just sayin’.

         — Yorkshire wallet

         A 6ft 3 athletic man will be way stronger. On average a man is 40% stronger in upper body strength and 33% stronger in lower body. Take this sort of figure into trans territory and you can see where things will go wrong in sport. Take a man that did steroids and then transitioned and you’ve got even more wrong. 

         The most ludicrous case was the fighter Fallon Fox. Fighting natural women and breaking eye sockets. 

         — brooksby

         I saw an expert (biology/sports biology – just had a quick Google and can’t find the comments I’m after – will have more of a look: BBC I think) talking about Semanya, and basically saying Man/Woman definitions in elite sport don’t work. His argument was that our whole categorisation was around the male physical ideal, with what we expected as ‘women’ not really being consistent with many female elite athletes. 

         He suggested we have either ‘Elite Men’ thresholds (eg certain testosterone level) and ‘Everyone else’ , with the understanding that some women would fall into the Men category, and loads of men falling into ‘Everyone else’. 

         Or, have ‘Elite Men’ and ‘Women’ categories, where the women would have to face lower thresholds that loads of elite women would fail now. The third category would be the middle ground between the two – ‘Everyone else’. He acknowledged that neither approach would be acceptable, but said the current approach doesn’t work. 

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         • davel wrote:

           I saw an expert (biology/sports biology – just had a quick Google and can’t find the comments I’m after – will have more of a look: BBC I think) talking about Semanya, and basically saying Man/Woman definitions in elite sport don’t work. His argument was that our whole categorisation was around the male physical ideal, with what we expected as ‘women’ not really being consistent with many female elite athletes. 

           He suggested we have either ‘Elite Men’ thresholds (eg certain testosterone level) and ‘Everyone else’ , with the understanding that some women would fall into the Men category, and loads of men falling into ‘Everyone else’. 

           Or, have ‘Elite Men’ and ‘Women’ categories, where the women would have to face lower thresholds that loads of elite women would fail now. The third category would be the middle ground between the two – ‘Everyone else’. He acknowledged that neither approach would be acceptable, but said the current approach doesn’t work. 

           — davel

           Probably Ross Tucker. He has some interesting talks on his youtube channel (not a lot of new content lately unfortunately). His web site The Science of Sport is good reading too if you’re interested in sports science. This might be the article you’re referring to:

           https://www.researchgate.net/publication/45167582_The_Science_of_Sex_Verification_and_Athletic_Performance

   • Agree with coments made

     Agree with coments made earlier.   Create a sepearate class; atheletes shouldn’t be taking drugs to suppress or enhance their performance and audiences shouldn’t be having to work out what’s considered physiologically fair.

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4. There’s quite a lot of
   There’s quite a lot of evidence to suggest that using anabolic steroids for a prolonged period leads to lasting changes in skeletal muscle morphology.

   If someone spends a prolonged period as a male with ‘normal’ male levels of testosterone then transitions to a female you would expect something similar to occur.

   Athletes who have spent prolonged periods of their lives with male levels of testosterone will therefore have a lasting advantage against athletes who have spent their entire lives with female levels of testosterone.

   For that reason I don’t think it is fair for athletes who have spent large periods of time with high levels of testosterone to compete against those who haven’t.

   Paper detailing the difference in muscle morphology:
   https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4160183/

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   • Agree with Rich_cb, there

     Agree with Rich_cb, there will always be people who are closer to the opposite sex biologically and in recent times Caster Semenya by definition of undescended testes is as close to the middle as any athlete at the top. She was however born this way, she had no say whatsoever in how she turned out biologically and with no penis, on the outside to the average joe she was/is a women. Semenya may well have had the advantage of having circa three times the testosterone levels of an average women up until the IAAF decided she needed to take drugs to reduce that so as to compete as a woman but this wasn’t her fault or choice to make. There was a lot of sour grapes by athletes competing against her and even now there is still lots of complaints/mutterings despite the drugs to surpress the hormones.

     However it’s different for those competing in transgender sport, it’s their decision to compete against people who were born female and haven’t had that early years advantage of male hormones, but the rules allow it.

     It’s pretty clear to me at least that many of the Eastern European ladies competing in the strength events in athletics and weighlifting BITD were likely to be identified and being closer to the biological dividing line chosen to take drugs and compete. There were cases of kids as young as 8 being given steroids to get them to the top by the time they were 21. The likes of Jarmilla Kratochvilova and Heidi Kreiger are prime examples, Kreiger changed her sex in the lates 90s and you would have no way of knowing she was a women before. You then have Florence griffith Joyner who was a very attractive woman and a good athlete, however she underwent a rapid change in her mid 20s, not just muscularity gains but also her jawline changed, adams apple became prominant, her voice totally changed and the other classic signs of heavy testosterone use such as enlarged clitoris, hairy top lip. The Chinese went through a massive steroid programme in the 90s and their women destroyed the 3000 to 10,000m records as well as swimming, just as the East Germans had in the 70/80s and into the 90s.

     I also have a lot of suspicion of British athletes, Alan Wells was accused by his fellow Scot Drew McMaster to having taken steroids that changed him from a scrawny long jumper to a pumped 100/200m champion. I also think certain lady field event athletes in those days were ‘on it’, maybe not as much as the Eastern Europeans but it’s always interesting when you see big gains much later in ones career. I asked the same question of Alf Engers who came back after a year away from any competition and a 3 hour sleep after a bakery shift at the age of 38 managed to smash the UK 25 time trial record.

     Someone suggested that they need seperate classes within transgender sport, I’m glad it’s not me having to worry about that but something has to be done to make it a fairer system, as I said, they made a decision to change sex, those like Semenya did not choose to be born close to being a male.

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     • BehindTheBikesheds wrote:

       Agree with Rich_cb, there will always be people who are closer to the opposite sex biologically and in recent times Caster Semenya by definition of undescended testes is as close to the middle as any athlete at the top. She was however born this way, she had no say whatsoever in how she turned out biologically and with no penis, on the outside to the average joe she was/is a women. Semenya may well have had the advantage of having circa three times the testosterone levels of an average women up until the IAAF decided she needed to take drugs to reduce that so as to compete as a woman but this wasn’t her fault or choice to make. There was a lot of sour grapes by athletes competing against her and even now there is still lots of complaints/mutterings despite the drugs to surpress the hormones.

       However it’s different for those competing in transgender sport, it’s their decision to compete against people who were born female and haven’t had that early years advantage of male hormones, but the rules allow it.

       It’s pretty clear to me at least that many of the Eastern European ladies competing in the strength events in athletics and weighlifting BITD were likely to be identified and being closer to the biological dividing line chosen to take drugs and compete. There were cases of kids as young as 8 being given steroids to get them to the top by the time they were 21. The likes of Jarmilla Kratochvilova and Heidi Kreiger are prime examples, Kreiger changed her sex in the lates 90s and you would have no way of knowing she was a women before. You then have Florence griffith Joyner who was a very attractive woman and a good athlete, however she underwent a rapid change in her mid 20s, not just muscularity gains but also her jawline, adams apple became prominant, her voice totally changed and the other classic signs such as enlarged clitoris, hairy top lip. The Chinese went through a massive steroid programme in the 90s and their women destroyed the 3000 to 10,000m records as well as swimming just as the East Germans had in the 70/80s and into the 90s.

       Someone suggested that they need seperate classes within transgender sport, I’m glad it’s not me having to worry about that but something has to be done to make it a fairer system, as I said, they made a decision to change sex, those like Semenya did not choose to be born close to being a male.

       — BehindTheBikesheds

       The MOST RECENT 100-800m female track record was set 30 years ago. Something dodgy was going on, and it wasn’t just the shellsuits.

       “Hands up if you believe I got these thighs through vitB12 and power laps”

        

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     • BehindTheBikesheds wrote:

       Caster Semenya … Jarmilla Kratochvilova …. Heidi Kreiger …. Florence griffith Joyner … The Chinese … the East Germans … Alan Wells … the Eastern Europeans

       I asked the same question of Alf Engers ….

       — BehindTheBikesheds

       Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, fella! You’re havin’ a laff?!? Naming Alf in amongst that lot?Broke the 25 record when he was 19. Banned from amatuer sport for the next ten years for taking some sponsorship funding. Came back at 28 and dominated short distance testing in the 70s regaining the record at the height of his powers. Come on…

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       • JohnnyRemo wrote:

         Caster Semenya … Jarmilla Kratochvilova …. Heidi Kreiger …. Florence griffith Joyner … The Chinese … the East Germans … Alan Wells … the Eastern Europeans

         I asked the same question of Alf Engers ….

         — JohnnyRemo

         Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, fella! You’re havin’ a laff?!? Naming Alf in amongst that lot?Broke the 25 record when he was 19. Banned from amatuer sport for the next ten years for taking some sponsorship funding. Came back at 28 and dominated short distance testing in the 70s regaining the record at the height of his powers. Come on…

         — BehindTheBikesheds

         So you don’t think it’s even a tiny bit suspicious that a 38 year old beats not just his but the national record by well over a minute after a massive lay off and a knee tied together with liquorice strands, come on.

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         • BehindTheBikesheds wrote:

           Caster Semenya … Jarmilla Kratochvilova …. Heidi Kreiger …. Florence griffith Joyner … The Chinese … the East Germans … Alan Wells … the Eastern Europeans

           I asked the same question of Alf Engers ….

           — BehindTheBikesheds

           Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, fella! You’re havin’ a laff?!? Naming Alf in amongst that lot?Broke the 25 record when he was 19. Banned from amatuer sport for the next ten years for taking some sponsorship funding. Came back at 28 and dominated short distance testing in the 70s regaining the record at the height of his powers. Come on…

           — JohnnyRemo

           So you don’t think it’s even a tiny bit suspicious that a 38 year old beats not just his but the national record by well over a minute after a massive lay off and a knee tied together with liquorice strands, come on.

           — BehindTheBikesheds

           No.

            

           My bad it was 5 years he was banned for, then totally dominated short distance time trialing for the next decade – 6 times 25TT champ. King Alf – Total legend.

           http://www.classiclightweights.co.uk/riders/engers-riders.html

            

            

5. I think, more interesting

   I think, more interesting than our comments, would be to hear what 2nd and 3rd place think.

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   • efail wrote:

     I think, more interesting than our comments, would be to hear what 2nd and 3rd place think.

     — efail

     Given the viciousness and bigotry that the transgender lobby normally deploys in the face of even the slightest criticism, they are probably keeping their mouths shut. 

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   • efail wrote:

     I think, more interesting than our comments, would be to hear what 2nd and 3rd place think.

     — efail

     I agree BUT in the current climate anything other than  a fully suportive view from either will lead to their villification by a very vocal self interest group so no point. The  governing body should step in BUT same reasons as above they will not. My View? I take the view that  it is not possible to have a level palying field where people have not grown up sharing the same gender its rather like doping. If that offends sorry but at least its an honest opinion.

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6. The data suggests that when

   The data suggests that when you change your hormones from male- to female-typical, you change your performance similarly.  On transgender forums the rule of thumb is if you were an x-percentile male, you’ll be an x-percentile female.  If you could finish at 20 from 100 starters before transition, that’s what you’ll be afterwards.  My own experience is entirely consistent with this.

   You muscles are weaker without testosterone.  It’s harder to build muscle, easier to lose it, and the opposite with fat.  And those big male bones are just ballast without the muscle to move them.

   I don’t think there is a need for a separate class- the problem is disappearingly small.  Do you think that think any athlete who is not trans would do that to their body and mind, just to win the women’s class in a race.  Seriously?

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7. Fascinating and informative

   Fascinating and informative discussion on ‘Woman’s Hour’s this morning (Tuesday) on the whole subject. Worth a listen if you can find it. By the way, until recently I thought LGBT(?) was a type of sandwich.

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