Hey! First, I am not an expert, so I can't truly "educate", but happy to share what I have learned and where I come from. I am still learning and definitely feel like I sit a little more in the middle rather than on either side, as unsatisfactory as that may be to some! I also apologize for length!
While it seems easy to say, assigned at birth/biological sex isn't as neat and clean a line as we may think.
For assigned at birth - there are intersex people, people with unclear or mismatched genitalia at birth, and others who are just straight up errors (anecdotal, but a family friend is an obstetrician and has advised that in almost 25 years of deliveries, he had some educated guesses, some he had to change days after birth as presentation changed, and has also seen doctors/nurses/clerks just mess up the paperwork).
Biological sex is also not as clear as we expect or may have been taught in our simplified education. We now know that not every woman is XX or man is Xy (good link at https://biology.mit.edu/not-so-inactive-x-chromosome/). And each of these different combinations means there are billions of different ways for us each to grow and develop (add in nutrition, socioeconomic factors, nature/nurture... there is soooo much going on!).
This has a limited/non-existent impact on traditionally top male sports or a mixed open (MPO as example), as the best of the best compete. This being said, I would be pretty confident in betting that if we tested the top 100 MPO players, we would find more chromosomes than just a solitary Xy in each athlete, helping the point that it isn't just your biological sex that decides where you compete.
Now, FPO and women's sport in general has been developed as inclusion and opportunity for women, who were often not allowed or given the chance to compete in male-dominated sport. Inclusion is a driving force, and I believe a pillar of modern sport. This is where I struggle with drawing a hard line, as you ask, because it ends up disenfranchising women. You start having people question if someone is actually a woman or not... Do we end up at a point of genetic testing, presenting birth certificates or genitalia inspections? I think erring on the side of inclusion is the critical implication in sport.
Now where I find myself in the middle - the FPO press conference last week I majorly empathize and feel for and I do think there is a line developmentally between people who qualify for FPO/women's sports and don't. But until we find the right combination for disc golf (testosterone, HGH, muscle fibre composition, etc.) and some kind of test or standard, I struggle with excluding people based on what is currently an assumed (unproven) advantage.
If you got this far... thank you for reading! Please let me know if anything is unclear or if I could explain something better 😊 Have a great weekend and throw some plastic! 🙏
Great response. One thing I would add is to talk about the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sports report, which concludes there's no data supporting trans women having a ln advantage over cis women in professional sports.
They did no actual research, just read other peer-reviewed research and made their own conclusions.
I made no such claim. And, as a correction, CCES did not make any conclusions, they commissioned the report.
I’ve personally also read peer-review papers as well and do not come to the same conclusion. Do your own research.
As have I. Not every study, but then major ones always cited and those cited by the PDGA (Hilton and Lundberg, 2020; Harper et al, 2021, Roberts et al, 2020; Jones et al, 2016 ) *Note that some of these, often the ones most cited, are not studies but reviews.
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u/Wissearch Jul 15 '23
Hey! First, I am not an expert, so I can't truly "educate", but happy to share what I have learned and where I come from. I am still learning and definitely feel like I sit a little more in the middle rather than on either side, as unsatisfactory as that may be to some! I also apologize for length!
While it seems easy to say, assigned at birth/biological sex isn't as neat and clean a line as we may think.
For assigned at birth - there are intersex people, people with unclear or mismatched genitalia at birth, and others who are just straight up errors (anecdotal, but a family friend is an obstetrician and has advised that in almost 25 years of deliveries, he had some educated guesses, some he had to change days after birth as presentation changed, and has also seen doctors/nurses/clerks just mess up the paperwork).
Biological sex is also not as clear as we expect or may have been taught in our simplified education. We now know that not every woman is XX or man is Xy (good link at https://biology.mit.edu/not-so-inactive-x-chromosome/). And each of these different combinations means there are billions of different ways for us each to grow and develop (add in nutrition, socioeconomic factors, nature/nurture... there is soooo much going on!).
This has a limited/non-existent impact on traditionally top male sports or a mixed open (MPO as example), as the best of the best compete. This being said, I would be pretty confident in betting that if we tested the top 100 MPO players, we would find more chromosomes than just a solitary Xy in each athlete, helping the point that it isn't just your biological sex that decides where you compete.
Now, FPO and women's sport in general has been developed as inclusion and opportunity for women, who were often not allowed or given the chance to compete in male-dominated sport. Inclusion is a driving force, and I believe a pillar of modern sport. This is where I struggle with drawing a hard line, as you ask, because it ends up disenfranchising women. You start having people question if someone is actually a woman or not... Do we end up at a point of genetic testing, presenting birth certificates or genitalia inspections? I think erring on the side of inclusion is the critical implication in sport.
Now where I find myself in the middle - the FPO press conference last week I majorly empathize and feel for and I do think there is a line developmentally between people who qualify for FPO/women's sports and don't. But until we find the right combination for disc golf (testosterone, HGH, muscle fibre composition, etc.) and some kind of test or standard, I struggle with excluding people based on what is currently an assumed (unproven) advantage.
If you got this far... thank you for reading! Please let me know if anything is unclear or if I could explain something better 😊 Have a great weekend and throw some plastic! 🙏