NCAA's 'sport-by-sport approach to transgender participation' stirs debate - CNN
Here in reality the trans athlete debate is front and center. Any contentions it is not are rightwing lies...
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
(CNN)A new NCAA policy allowing the national governing body for each sport to determine the eligibility of transgender athletes has come under fire by observers on the various sides of a highly charged debate over participation in college sports.
The policy, announced late Wednesday, comes as University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas-- who handily won the women's 100- and 200-yard freestyle at Harvard on Saturday --is setting record times on the women's team this season. She had previously competed on the men's swimming team at Penn and underwent two years of hormone therapy. Now Thomas is being hailed as one of the best women's collegiate swimmers in the country, with her rapid success prompting both praise and criticism in the swimming world. Transgender athletes will now have mandatory testosterone testing starting with the 2022-23 academic year -- at the beginning of their season and again six months later, according to rules approved this week by the NCAA Board of Governors. Additionally, they will need to test four weeks before championship selections. Florida becomes 8th state to enact anti-trans sports ban this year The NCAA previously required that transgender women have testosterone suppression treatment for a year before competing on a women's team. Read More Penn Athletics said it will work with the NCAA regarding Thomas' participation in the 2022 swimming and diving championship in March. Still, from the association representing college swimming and diving coaches to former Olympic swimmers to the parents of women swimmers at the collegiate level, the NCAA's new policy is being criticized as insufficient and lacking clarity. CNN has sought comment from the NCAA about the criticism. "They're doing this in the middle of the season and it's clear that they haven't entirely thought everything out," said Joanna Harper, a transgender runner who is researching transgender athletic performance at England's Loughborough University. Harper, a medical physicist who published the first study of testosterone suppression and estrogen treatment on the performance of transgender athletes, added: "I don't think this policy, for instance, will affect Lia Thomas one bit, and people are going to be unhappy because she's doing well." Thomas, 22, has not publicly commented on the new policy. She told SwimSwam Podcast last month that "continuing to swim after transitioning has been an incredibly rewarding experience." She said she hoped to "continue to do the sport I love as my authentic self."
Policy in line with that of Olympic committees
The NCAA this week voted in favor a "sport-by-sport approach to transgender participation" it said was consistent with the US and International Olympic Committees. Transgender participation for each sport will be determined by the policy for the sport's national governing body. In the absence of a national governing body, the policy of a sport's international federation would apply. And if there is no international federation policy, "previously established IOC policy criteria would be followed," according to an association statement. International Olympic Committee announces new framework on transgender athletes "We are steadfast in our support of transgender student-athletes and the fostering of fairness across college sports," said John DeGioia, chair of the NCAA board and Georgetown president. "It is important that NCAA member schools, conferences and college athletes compete in an inclusive, fair, safe and respectful environment and can move forward with a clear understanding of the new policy." About 80 percent of US Olympians are current or former college athletes, according to NCAA President Mark Emmert. The IOC in November announced a new framework on transgender athletes, saying no athlete should be excluded from competition on the assumption of an advantage due to their gender. The change placed the responsibility on individual sporting federations to determine if an athlete was at a disproportionate advantage. The IOC's previous policy allowed transgender athletes to compete provided their testosterone levels were below a certain limit for at least 12 months before competition. Thomas addressed the IOC framework in her interview with Swimswam: "I think the guidelines they set forward are very good. They do a very good job of promoting inclusivity while keeping competitional integrity going."
Penn Athletics says it supports Thomas
At the University of Pennsylvania, parents of other swimmers have questioned the fairness of allowing Thomas to race on the women's team. The mother of a female swimmer at Penn said her concern is about fairness and the 1972 Title IX provision banning discrimination on the basis of sex at schools receiving federal funding that in her words "allowed women to shine in athletics." Title IX is credited an explosion of women in collegiate athletics and schools pouring money into female sports. "Girls who dedicate their lives to swimming, they start really early," said the mother, who asked not to be identified for fear of reprisals against her daughter. "They never miss practices. They wake up at 5 a.m. starting from age 12. They don't take vacations." Transgender runner CeCe Telfer is ruled ineligible to compete in US Olympic trials This mother and another parent worry that Thomas' success could come at the expense of their own daughters' chances to travel and compete because of roster limits. "My daughter, for instance, all through high school, she trained upwards of 20 hours a week," said the other parent, a father who asked to remain anonymous. "Her only day off was Sunday. In addition to maintaining the kind of academics required to get accepted to a school like the University of Pennsylvania. She worked for four years through high school for that. Not to mention all of the years prior to high school that led up to that. And then to be told that you and your teammates are going to lose spots to a transgender woman." In a statement, Penn Athletics said it supports Thomas and "we will work with the NCAA regarding her participation under the newly adopted standards for the 2022 NCAA Swimming and Diving Championship." Former Olympic swimmer Nancy Hogshead-Makar, who runs a nonprofit that offers legal advocacy for women in sports, said she agreed with the new policy since it would require transgender swimmers like Thomas to report their testosterone levels four weeks before the championship selections. But she called the new policy unfair because of what she perceives as Thomas' biological advantage.
'Policy is a direct response to pressure'
The College Swimming & Diving Coaches Association, in a statement, this week supported Thomas' right to compete and condemned the "hatred" directed at her. But the association also said the new NCAA policy is "not a solution" and a "missed opportunity to lead" in a "thorough, thoughtful, and scientific discussion about the balance of inclusion and fairness." USA Swimming, the national governing body for the sport in the US, expressed support for "inclusivity" and "competitive equity." In the statement, the organization vowed "to learn and educate ourselves on the appropriate balance in this space." Jenner opposes transgender girls participating in girls' sports Chris Mosier, a transgender athlete and advocate, via Twitter said the NCAA has "whipped up a ridiculously complex policy that will prove impossible for them to follow." "It is clear this policy is a direct response to pressure surrounding a current athlete competing in the NCAA," Mosier said in a joint statement with Athlete Ally, a group that supports LGBTQ athletes. "It is disappointing to me that after years of discussions and calls for more research, a new policy could be quickly assembled under pressure from people who don't want to see a great athlete who is transgender succeed." The controversy surrounding Thomas comes at a time when a number of state legislatures have banned transgender girls and women in public secondary schools and colleges from participating on girls and women's sports teams.
Controversy 'hugely overblown,' researcher says
Harper, who is transgender, estimated that about 50 of the roughly 200,000 athletes competing in women's sports at the collegiate level in the US are transgender. In 2015, Harper published the first study on how hormone therapy affected transgender athletes. It found that transgender distance runners had no inherent advantage as women. The study involved a small sample of runners, she said, adding that the muscle mass of transgender sprinters could be advantageous for them in shorter races. Eric Vilain, a geneticist who specializes in gender-based biology at George Washington University, called Harper's study "groundbreaking" in a 2018 article in Sciene -- a peer-reviewed journal published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The NCAA says it supports transgender student-athletes as some states enact sports bans Still, there is heated debate in the scientific community as to whether androgenic hormones like testosterone are useful markers of athletic advantage, according to experts. Harper said the controversy over Thomas record-breaking season stems from her domination in the sport. "I think a lot of the heat over Lia Thomas is just hugely overblown," Harper said. "Trans women don't transition for sports. We transition to be more like other women. And so as part of this therapy to be happier, healthier ... trans women will undertake this therapy and will have testosterone levels in compliance because it's for their health, not because it's has anything to do with sports."
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Here in reality the trans athlete debate is front and center. Any contentions it is not are rightwing lies...
Low testosterone levels do not a woman make. This guy is a phony and a cheat...not good enough to compete against other men. Transgenders should only compete against other transgenders, to make it fair.
Looks like he took a knee on the last race. All of his "wins" and times should receive the symbol of shame, a big fat *
It is not overblown. Lia Thomas' performance as a male swimmer was nothing to write home about. As a female swimmer, she's taking home national championships. Just her greater wingspan, an irreversible result of growing up with testosterone, gives her an enormous advantage over cis-female swimmers that was neutralized when she competed as a man. She ranked 462nd in the nation when swimming as a man, and won a national championship as a woman.
I'm glad Lia Thomas is happy as a woman, but she should not have been allowed to competitively swim as a woman.
Joanna Harper is a trans-female runner who has benefitted from the same biological advantages as Lia Thomas. I question her ability to see this issue clearly. We often prefer to think our successes are due to our own hard work and talent, and forget that we may have had advantages others have not.
Separate divisions for transgender athletes are a solution I could support.
A better solution would be transitioning to more open competitions where age, height and weight categories are used only when those are primary determinants. This solution seem logical especially for team sports and lots of events like gymnastics, diving, figure skating, archery, shooting etc etc...
That might work for some sports, but I could see some difficulty determining which ones.
Gymnastics - well, that's one in which trans-women would be at a disadvantage competing with cis-women, at least in the events for women's gymnastics. Cis-women have a lower center of gravity that allows them to compete on balance beam - someone who had developed male shoulders and hips likely couldn't compete.
I don't see a gender advantage in shooting sports. Possibly in archery.
I am wanting to understand the 'difficulty' here from being outside of it all. This is truly a novel issue for the world. My attempt to understand: Is it as though these trans-females are benefiting from the best of both worlds, eh?
To an extent, yes. They have matured with the advantage of male hormones giving them greater height, longer limbs (swimmers with long arms have a tremendous advantage over those with shorter arms), and greater muscle mass. That muscle mass is not all lost, and of course their height remains the same, even after they transition. So now they are competing against cis-women who have grown up without the influence of those hormones, and who are naturally smaller and cannot develop the same muscle mass, no matter how hard they train.
So they have an advantage in many sports over cis-women. Now, there are sports in which that advantage does not exist - equestrian, shooting events, and I'm going to guess things like curling. Women's performance in endurance sports such as ultramarathons is fairly close to the same as men's. And cis-women would likely beat men and trans-women in some women's events, like the balance beam in gymnastics, or possibly uneven bars where shorter height allows one to work the bars more easily.
But in tests of strength or speed over shorter distances, men still outperform women, and trans-women will likely outperform cis-women.
I see your point. Another (quick) question/concern: Trans-women are still 'driven' by or remember what it is to have male competitiveness-and since they do not have female sexual organ "worries" (periods, or wombs) does any of this present as a sports-related 'pluses'?
I would imagine so, to an extent. Menstrual cramps can be debilitating, and heavy periods can cause anemia.
However, many female athletes who perform at high levels stop having periods, because their body fat becomes too low for them to ovulate. This can have long-term effects on a woman's health, as it can be accompanied by early-onset osteoporosis.
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Female gymnasts, in particular, are prone to this, because of the pressure on them to be extremely slim and the strenuous nature of their training.
Hmm. Interesting. I did not know any of this. Thank you. Reflection time. Listening. . . . Before I listen in. . . how are trans-women affecting cis-women emotionally and spiritually in your opinion? That is, is this a reason for the two groups to split and fall apart from supporting each other?
Where they're affecting them at all, it's in instances like these, where trans-women compete with unfair advantages in events that were reserved for cis-women and no longer are. It's been a long time since I was a competitive athlete, so it has never affected me personally, but I imagine that if I were still playing softball, practicing or playing 6 days a week during season even when I had bronchitis and my arm was somehow both numb and sore simultaneously, and weight training and attending pitching camps in the off-season, I'd be pretty pissed if my spot on the team were taken by a boy who had much longer arms (longer arms are a great advantage to a softball pitcher) and muscles I could never hope to achieve. In short, a boy who could outperform me without putting in nearly the effort I had, and whose speed I couldn't match no matter how much effort I put in. Especially if there were scholarships involved.
I was never an elite pitcher, and there were several girls who could throw harder than I ever could, but I could hold my own as a pitcher well enough to help my team have winning seasons and some post-season success. If I were competing against trans-female pitchers, my team would be at a disadvantage.
Outside the sports world, I'm not aware of much effect. I have heard some complaints about trans-women objecting to cis-women being called just "women", and to mothers being called "mothers" instead of "birth persons", or something to that effect. At a certain point, I think most of us just tune those complaints out and realize that some folks are looking for reasons to be offended.
Mortals never felt competition with giants was fair.
David disagreed.
Would David versus Goliath have been such a big enduring inspiring story for the last three thousand years if it had been a fair fight?
Depends on how you define fair, instead of being too big to fight, Goliath was too big to miss.
Whatever...
There have been no top ranked trans athletes in any NCAA sports yet so the issue has not been forced...
There has been no top ranked tran woman in any NCAA sports. So, discuss this article and its contents or move along to another article...
In her first year swimming for the Penn women’s team after three seasons competing against men, Thomas throttled her competition. She set pool, school and Ivy League records en route to becoming the nation’s most powerful female collegiate swimmer. Photos of Thomas resting at a pool wall and waiting for the rest of the field to finish have become a popular visual shorthand of her dominance.
The 2018–19 season proved to be Thomas’s best yet. She earned second-place finishes in the same trio of Ivy championship races in which she’d excelled the previous year, earning her multiple spots on the All-Ivy team. Thomas got closer to her goal of swimming at the NCAA championships and perhaps qualifying for the ’20 Olympic trials. In just two years she’d proved to be a quiet leader—a no-complaints workhorse who kept a steady pace in practice and flipped the switch in competition.
Against other women, though, she was still extremely fast in the water. At a November 2021 meet against Princeton and Cornell, Thomas posted the NCAA season-best times in the 200-yard freestyle and the 500-yard freestyle, set Penn records in those events and won three individual races . In the blowout 500 free, she beat the second-place finisher by nearly 13 seconds.
Interesting - all those schools are NCAA - she/he is on the Penn State team - would kinda make her a tran woman in an NCAA sport.
Your next denial is?????
Born a male, compete as one.
Born a female, compete as one.