Martina takes another stand

My ex-wife donated part of her liver to her son and the transplant was successful.

 

it doubles the amount of prizes that can be won

 

I've sometimes wondered whether one of the reasons it's so hard to be trans is that you can never perfectly fix the mistake that you feel nature made. There is a trans woman in my town who you would never guess was born a boy, but she still struggles mightily with depression and suicidal thoughts. I can't imagine what it's like for someone who more obviously displays attributes of their former gender.

 

The LGBT group -- practically any group, in fact -- is/would be being stupid to sever links with Navratilova.

She is one of the most intelligent, fair, articulate, courageous, brave, active and fearlessly proactive people who could ever be behind anything. I'd listen to and think hard about anything she ever wished to discuss.

 

I wonder how she feels about bitcoin.

 

People want certainty (understandably) but on this issue there's unlikely to be a bright line available. I read a story in the 2017 Best Sportswriting compilation (sorry forgot author) about this issue and its heartbreaking how they isolate and quickly condemn those who "appear" to be cheating. Those born with ambiguous genetalia or high testosterone levels are doomed to leper status until we as a society become more understanding of their plight.

What's the answer? I don't have it but I do know that my heart goes out to those who have drawn that unlucky straw.

 

That's the problem. I don't think anybody has a good answer. I do think it is a terrible idea to accuse somebody like Navratilova of transphobia because she is used the word cheating. Cheating is a big deal in sports. If the games aren't honest, what separates them from entertainment such as pro wrestling? Just because a current or former athlete or coach has a strong reaction to something they consider cheating doesn't mean they have any hatred or ill-will toward people who are transgender.

 

This will become a major issue once someone who looks like Gorman Thomas from the ‘79 Brewers shows up and hit 37 home runs and drives in 118 in D1 college softball.

 

Never heard the liver thing, so I went looking for some information. If you want to read fun with scientific research, there's this article Organ transplantation and gender differences: a paradigmatic example of intertwining between biological and sociocultural determinants, which states there have been some poorer outcomes with female donor-male recipient liver transplant cases, but that may be due to confounders like donor age, health etc. But you can never 'completely' transition for other reasons, notably breast tissue (FTM have a higher risk of breast cancer than XY males or MTF, prostates, etc.). This really only matters to physicians in terms of screening tests.

This is such a difficult topic, and it's not any clearer to me after my last two months, where I learned a lot about this in general and some of the intersex conditions, because it gets at the absolute and actual difference between male and female physiology and "athletic prowess," for lack of a better term.

Some people, especially on social media or the lay press, like to imply that elite male and female athletes are on an equal playing field, so to speak (the Billie Jean King thing, the national team hockey player in the NHL fastest skater comp, etc.), but especially around here we know that's just not true. In sports, there are reasons we have gendered divisions as the most primary starting point for elite competition, and that's because in basically everything a genetic female (XX, no pathologic conditions) is physically less apt than a genetic male (XY, SRY gene present, no pathology). There are a very few exceptions like women's gymnastics that have to do with center of gravity position, flexibility, height, etc., but for the faster, higher, stronger sports, there's no substitution for male levels of testosterone. This has been recognized all the way back to the beginnings of organized sports.

And so we segregate by gender, which is almost always determined for genitals at birth but works to equalize adult testosterone levels across divisions. This works for 99.9 percent of people, and even most of the weird pathologies. But there are a handful where you get a combination of essentially female external parts and very male levels of testosterone. It's an incredibly difficult question to know where they can fairly compete, as we've decided that exogenous testosterone is a banned, performance-enhancing drug and they have levels that clearly exceed typical levels allowed in females. It's clearly not "cheating," but it's also basically obliterating the purpose of gender divisions, putting someone with the athletic blessings of high testosterone compete against people who don't, and I understand why that might make people angry. Is that the same thing as having genes that make you 6-foot-9 or better vision? I have a hard time arguing with that, but I also have a hard time making peace with that as well.

Transgender is a little easier for me. For competition levels, at least, I have no problem asking that they meet the IOC standards of basically drug-testing for female athletes. If the purpose is to transition to female, then your hormones need to be at female levels to compete with female athletes. In the athletic world, testosterone is a performance enhancing substance in many ways (muscle mass, bone strength, height if given before puberty, aerobic capacity, energy storage, etc.) and to ignore that is almost purposefully naive. It's not "cheating" to not take the hormones, but if you choose not to you should be allowed to compete against the appropriate class of near-equals, which in that case would be XY males. External parts shouldn't matter because they're not what makes a difference in athletic ability.

If anyone is actually curious about those intersex pathologies and how they work/who gets an advantage, happy to explain that on DM. Way too nerdy for here.

 

I have turned into Ragu. I am so sorry.

 

Testosterone levels seem the fairest way to regulate this issue. So far.

In your reading, have you found any other chemical/biological markers or methods that might make sense in testing transgender athletes?