IOC Revises Guidelines for Transgender Athletes

[dtrick924]

The International Olympic Committee has revised their guidelines for transgender athletes. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/transgender-athletes-olympics_us_56a5bc6ee4b0d8cc109a8e9

The International Olympic Committee's medical officials announced Sunday that trans men will be able to compete "without restriction" and trans women will only need to undergo one year of hormone replacement therapy, according to a new policy initially reported in Outsports. Previous guidelines, in place since 2003, mandated athletes undergo gender reassignment surgery as well as two years of hormone therapy. The Associated Press notes the new guidelines aren't rules that other sports bodies must follow, but rather a set of recommendations to match changing attitudes and updated scientific consensus regarding transgender people. The guidelines should apply as soon as this year's Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. You can read them in their entirety here.

 

There was a great discussion on the Ronda Rousey thread about cisgender and transgender women competing together. 

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

The International Olympic Committee has revised their guidelines for transgender athletes. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/transgender-athletes-olympics_us_56a5bc6ee4b0d8cc109a8e9

There was a great discussion on the Ronda Rousey thread about cisgender and transgender women competing together. 

 

So interesting Kristen. So basically they are defining the female gender by two elements: public declaration, and minimization of testosterone, and leaving genitalia out:

2.1.  The athlete has declared that her gender identity is female. The declaration cannot be changed, for sporting purposes, for a minimum of four years.

2.2.  The athlete must demonstrate that her total testosterone level in serum has been below 10 nmol/L for at least 12 months prior to her first competition (with the requirement for any longer period to be based on a confidential case-by-case evaluation, considering whether or not 12 months is a sufficient length of time to minimize any advantage in women's competition).

2.3.  The athlete's total testosterone level in serum must remain below 10 nmol/L throughout the period of desired eligibility to compete in the female category.

This is kind of epic.

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

Very good linked article by Joanna Harper, who is a trans female distance runner and was a strong voice at the IOC meeting. Most compelling are her own studies of trans distance times.

Do transgender athletes have an edge? I sure don’t.

 

"I understood that this would happen to me, too. But I was surprised how fast it happened. Within three weeks of starting hormone therapy in August 2004, I was markedly slower. I didn’t feel any different while I was running. But I could no longer match my previous times. By 2005, when I was racing in the women’s category, the difference was astounding. I finished one 10K in 42:01 — almost a full five minutes slower than I’d run the same course two years earlier as a man.

Interestingly, when I looked up my times in USA Track & Field’s age-grading tables — used to compare runners of all ages and both sexes — I found that I was just as competitive as a 48-year-old woman as I had been as a 46-year-old man.

I was curious whether my experience was typical. There had never been any studies of transgender athletes, only of transgender women generally. So over the next seven years, I collected almost 200 race times from eight distance runners who were transgender women (including myself as runner No. 6).

My research, published last month in the Journal of Sporting Cultures and Identities, found that collectively, the eight subjects got much slower after their gender transitions and put up nearly identical age-graded scores as men and as women, meaning they were equally — but no more — competitive in their new gender category. (The outlier was a runner who had raced recreationally as a 19-year-old male and became serious about the sport —"

[Sylvie von Duuglas-Ittu]

The International Olympic Committee has revised their guidelines for transgender athletes. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/transgender-athletes-olympics_us_56a5bc6ee4b0d8cc109a8e9

There was a great discussion on the Ronda Rousey thread about cisgender and transgender women competing together. 

This is amazing. I'm interested to see how it actually pans out in application to different sport authorities and practices, but it's pretty radical!

[WaffleNinja]

I'm interested in how they chose 10 nmol/L as the designated female testosterone level. Paging all 8limbs forum endocrinologists, is that reflective of an average female athlete? Above average? Below average?

[bakpao]

As long as its fair then who cares what gender they used to be...