{"id":2208985,"date":"2024-03-29T08:51:02","date_gmt":"2024-03-29T12:51:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/scientists-refute-olympic-committees-misguided-policies-on-fairness-and-testosterone-levels\/"},"modified":"2024-03-29T08:59:29","modified_gmt":"2024-03-29T12:59:29","slug":"scientists-refute-olympic-committees-misguided-policies-on-fairness-and-testosterone-levels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/scientists-refute-olympic-committees-misguided-policies-on-fairness-and-testosterone-levels\/","title":{"rendered":"Researchers debunk Olympic Committee&#8217;s misguided approach to &#8216;fairness&#8217; and testosterone thresholds"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">22<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fscientists-refute-olympic-committees-misguided-policies-on-fairness-and-testosterone-levels%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2208985&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>The\u2064 2021 IOC\u2062 framework\u200d prioritizes fairness, inclusion, and non-discrimination, allowing each sport&#8217;s body to identify disproportionate advantages \u200damong athletes.\u200d Researchers challenge the IOC&#8217;s stance on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/ncaa-all-american-swimmer-riley-gaines-calls-out-the-ncaa-says-men-competing-in-womens-sports-is-a-mockery\/\" title=\"NCAA All-American Swimmer Riley Gaines Calls Out the NCAA, Says Men Competing in Women\u2019s Sports Is \u201cA Mockery\u201d\">sex-based categories<\/a>, presenting evidence from various\u2064 disciplines. They highlight the persistence of male advantage even after testosterone suppression and call for a \u200dreevaluation of current sports categorization policies.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<p><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><\/p>\n<div class=\"article-content\">\n<p>The International Olympic Committee (IOC) developed its 2021 framework on sex and \u201cgender\u201d around the concepts of fairness, inclusion, and non-discrimination. This framework leaves it to <a href=\"https:\/\/stillmed.olympics.com\/media\/Documents\/Beyond-the-Games\/Human-Rights\/IOC-Framework-Fairness-Inclusion-Non-discrimination-2021.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">each sport\u2019s governing body<\/a> \u201cto determine how an athlete may be at a disproportionate advantage against their peers.\u201d However, they admonish sports organizations against \u201ctargeted testing \u2026 aimed at determining [athletes\u2019] sex, gender identity and\/or sex variations.\u201d Instead, it\u2019s up to each sport to \u201c[provide] confidence that no athlete within a category has an unfair and disproportionate competitive advantage.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The IOC\u2019s sophistic gymnastics to deny sex-based categories in sport prompted 26 researchers from around the world to rebut the IOC\u2019s framework. Their paper, published last week in the <a href=\"https:\/\/onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/full\/10.1111\/sms.14581\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><em>Scandinavian Journal of Medicine &#038; Science in Sports<\/em><\/a>, is the latest peer-reviewed study providing evidence of the obvious about sex in sports.<\/p>\n<div class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-paragraph-2-long d-flex justify-content-center\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center; \" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-2096090048\">\n<div id=\"div-gpt-ad-1379703300879-0\" class=\"mb-30\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-5e2f2cf768df3c077b52a0e6ca5d63e9 fdrlst__b89e9-paragraph-2\" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-5e2f2cf768df3c077b52a0e6ca5d63e9\"><\/div>\n<p>The researchers reviewed studies from \u201cevolutionary and developmental biology, zoology, physiology, endocrinology, medicine, sport and exercise science, [and] athletic performance results within male and female sport\u201d to refute the <a href=\"https:\/\/bjsm.bmj.com\/content\/57\/1\/26\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">IOC\u2019s position that male athletes<\/a> warrant \u201cno presumption of advantage\u201d over female athletes based on \u201cbiological or physiological characteristics.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That statement \u201cis ridiculous on its face,\u201d says Kim Jones, co-founder of the Independent Council on Women\u2019s Sports (ICONS). \u201cThis is the basic knowledge we all understand and see play out in front of our eyes every day. [This new] paper is brilliant at laying out how clear the differences are between men and women. There are thousands of differences between male and female development in humans across the entire maturity path that result in these huge performance gaps.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>John Armstrong, a mathematician at King\u2019s College London who was not affiliated with this research, highlights this \u201ccentral flaw\u201d of the IOC\u2019s framework. \u201cTo say we should not presume male advantage in a sport unless we have specific data for that sport is like saying that just because most of the apples in a tree have fallen to the ground, one shouldn\u2019t presume the remaining apples are also subject to gravity,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere is overwhelming evidence of male advantage from across different sports and there is little to be gained from demonstrating this again and again, sport by sport,\u201d Armstrong noted. <\/p>\n<div class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-826048c378642937408567d7758897d9 fdrlst__b89e9-paragraph-6\" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-826048c378642937408567d7758897d9\"><\/div>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Illusion of Testosterone Suppression<\/h2>\n<p>But even sports that have copious research into sex differences in performance have permitted males to compete in the female category at all levels of competition and age. One path has been through misguided policies based on testosterone levels.<\/p>\n<p>Over the last decade, various sports governing bodies \u2014 including the <a href=\"https:\/\/stillmed.olympic.org\/Documents\/Commissions_PDFfiles\/Medical_commission\/2015-11_ioc_consensus_meeting_on_sex_reassignment_and_hyperandrogenism-en.pdf\">IOC<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.usaboxing.org\/about-us\/compliance-policies\">USA Boxing<\/a> \u2014 have attempted to define females through testosterone levels. Those organizations <a href=\"https:\/\/www.spiked-online.com\/2023\/12\/14\/the-trans-colonisation-of-womens-sports\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">relied heavily on a publication by Joanna Harper<\/a>, a trans-identifying male medical physicist. The paper consisted of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsintegrityinitiative.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/R15_47780_RaceTimesforTransgenderAthletes_FinalOF.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">eight self-reports by trans-identifying male recreational runners<\/a> who had suppressed their testosterone pharmacologically and recalled that they ran slower after doing so. Harper excluded the one respondent who said he ran faster and then concluded that males who were suppressing their testosterone could compete fairly in the female category.<\/p>\n<p>Last week\u2019s paper builds on research by lead authors Tommy Lundberg, Emma Hilton, and others who demonstrate the persistence of male advantage after testosterone suppression.<\/p>\n<p>While testosterone suppression decreases various measures of anatomy, physiology, and physical performance, those changes are a small fraction of the differences between men and women on these metrics. A testosterone-suppressed male will have less muscle mass than his former self, but as a category, testosterone-suppressed men remain larger and stronger than women. Further, testosterone suppression does not change attributes like height, bone length, or hip and shoulder width.<\/p>\n<div class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-c4219b04eddd14ef1d0f525df4c58d16 fdrlst__b89e9-paragraph-10\" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-c4219b04eddd14ef1d0f525df4c58d16\"><\/div>\n<p>Even before puberty, though, males outperform females in athletic competitions. Greg Brown is an exercise physiologist at the University of Nebraska at Kearney and was a co-author on the Lundberg paper. Brown recently published research based on national youth track and field championships. He found that by age 8, the <a href=\"https:\/\/onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/epdf\/10.1002\/ejsc.12075\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">boys ran faster in their final rounds than the girls<\/a> did in theirs, at race distances from 100 meters to 1,500 meters.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">When \u2018Obvious\u2019 Sex Differences Are Not Enough<\/h2>\n<p>Brown\u2019s article came out a few months after John Armstrong (mentioned above), sociologist Alice Sullivan of University College London, and I published a paper on the role of <a href=\"https:\/\/bmjopensem.bmj.com\/content\/9\/4\/e001662\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">sex versus gender expression in distance running<\/a>. Having been on the receiving end of many tweets and articles saying, \u201cDuh, obvious, did we need research to prove this?\u201d I asked Brown if we really needed quantitative research to prove that boys run faster than girls.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSome court cases regarding transgender athletes competing in girls\u2019 sports said there\u2019s no evidence of prepubescent <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/jeremy-newcombe-distorting-floridas-parental-rights-bill\/\" title=\"Jeremy Newcombe: Distorting Florida\u2019s Parental Rights Bill\">sex-based differences<\/a>. This kind of work does matter to inform policy. Moreover, it can be useful to evaluate the obvious because some of the things we take for granted as truth, maybe they\u2019re not,\u201d Brown said.<\/p>\n<p>The obvious question in response to this accumulation of \u201cobvious\u201d data is: What will it take to restore and enforce sex-based categories in sports at all levels? Even if the International Olympic Committee aligned its policies with the Lundberg paper, the IOC is not binding on youth sports, grassroots sports, or even the NCAA.<\/p>\n<p>Brown is optimistic about \u201cthe grassroots level, where girls and women\u2019s sports will start being limited to female athletes. Some school districts and other local organizations are making female-only sports policies when state or higher-level organizations won\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Brown noted the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.iconswomen.com\/take-on-the-ncaa\/\">lawsuit against the NCAA<\/a> by female athletes will \u201cmake those in charge of sports have second thoughts about their transgender inclusion policies. Before there was a fear of <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2024\/02\/02\/how-lia-thomas-and-a-small-cabal-of-lawyers-are-waging-lawfare-across-womens-sports\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">lawsuits from transgender activists<\/a>, but now the shoe is on the other foot.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He also called on \u201cscholarly journals, sports science organizations, and sports scientists to speak out and keep the reality of sex-based differences in sports performance in the news to counteract the 20-year head start the transgender activists have.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>ICONS is funding the lawsuit that Brown mentioned. \u201cWe need people to realize there can be no fear and no shame in standing up for women. It\u2019s a basic message that we all have the responsibility to communicate clearly,\u201d said ICONS co-founder Kim Jones. \u201cThe stories of women and girls being robbed of fair sport, or even facing injury, are the path of change. It shouldn\u2019t take women and girls being hurt, but everyone has the clear evidence.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Jon Pike, a sports philosopher and a co-author of the Lundberg paper, advises sports organizations to look to the evidence and not to the IOC. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey are training and developing athletes who aspire to international competition. They owe female athletes the same <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/brexit-trade-deal-published-as-uk-calls-for-end-to-ugly-divisions\/\" title=\"Brexit trade deal published as UK calls for end to \u2018ugly\u2019 divisions\">level playing field<\/a> that they will get at the international level. Female athletes at all levels are entitled to fair sport,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n<p>Objective empirical data that accord with everyday experience and observation are the most powerful counters to the emotion, rhetoric, and threats that often accompany attempts to deny the validity of female-only spaces and categories.<\/p>\n<p>The value of studies like those of Lundberg, Brown, Armstrong, and their respective colleagues will play out in board rooms and courtrooms, not to mention the living rooms where so many grassroots sports decisions are made. The more decision-makers can rely on research rather than earnest but shallow plaints of \u201cBut it\u2019s obvious!\u201d the more women and girls will flourish in fair and competitive sports.<\/p>\n<div class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-bcd1fd779463374ba35ec71034517e4e fdrlst__b89e9-after-post-content\" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-bcd1fd779463374ba35ec71034517e4e\"><\/div>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\">    \t\t\t\t\t   \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The 2021 IOC framework on sex and &#8216;gender&#8217; is based on fairness, inclusion, and non-discrimination. It lets each sport&#8217;s governing body decide how athletes might gain an unfair advantage. Despite this, the IOC warns against targeted testing that aims to<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2498,"featured_media":2208986,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/Womens_800m_-_ISTAF_2011.jpeg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[546],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2208985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-federalist"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/Womens_800m_-_ISTAF_2011.jpeg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2208985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2498"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2208985"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2208985\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2208986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2208985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2208985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2208985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}