Cut From Yahoo News:
LAUSANNE, Switzerland - Transsexuals were cleared Monday to compete in the Olympics for the first time.
Under a proposal approved by the IOC executive board, athletes who have undergone sex-change surgery will be eligible for the Olympics if their new gender has been legally recognized and they have gone through a minimum two-year period of postoperative hormone therapy.
The decision, which covers both male-to-female and female-to-male cases, goes into effect starting with the Athens Olympics in August.
The IOC had put off a decision in February, saying more time was needed to consider all the medical issues.
Some members had been concerned whether male-to-female transsexuals would have physical advantages competing against women.
Men have higher levels of testosterone and greater muscle-to-fat ratio and heart and lung capacity. However, doctors say, testosterone levels and muscle mass drop after hormone therapy and sex-change surgery.
IOC spokeswoman Giselle Davies said the situation of transsexuals competing in high-level sports was "rare but becoming more common."
IOC medical director Patrick Schamasch said no specific sports had been singled out by the ruling.
"Any sport may be touched by this problem," he said. "Until now, we didn't have any rules or regulations. We needed to establish some sort of policy."
Until 1999, the IOC conducted gender verification tests at the Olympics but the screenings were dropped before the 2000 Sydney Games.
One of the best known cases of transsexuals in sports involves Renee Richards, formerly Richard Raskind, who played on the women's tennis tour in the 1970s.
In March, Australia's Mianne Bagger became the first transsexual to play in a pro golf tournament.
Michelle Dumaresq, formerly Michael, has competed in mountain bike racing for Canada.
Richards, now a New York opthamologist, was surprised by the IOC decision and was against it. She said decisions on transsexuals should be made on an individual basis.
"Basically, I think they're making a wrong judgment here, although I would have loved to have that judgment made in my case in 1976," she said.
"They're probably looking for trouble down the line. There may be a true transsexual — not someone who's nuts and wants to make money — who will be a very good champion player, and it will be a young person, let's say a Jimmy Connors or a Tiger Woods, and then they'll have an unequal playing field.
"In some sports, the physical superiority of men over women is very significant."
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Originally posted by breastroker
There are several problems with the arguments presented so far so let me clarify what I have seen.
1) There are many countries where Olympic athletes make millions of dollars, Euros etc. This includes swimmers. Just because Americans and English (GB) don't make significant money to justify a sex change doesn't mean the financial incentive is not there.
There are two ways that Olympic athletes make money: sponsorships and state incentives. Do we really foresee sponsors offering big money to a transexual athlete? How many states will want to be seen winning Olympic events using transexual athletes? Countries that have used performance enhancing technologies in the past have always done so covertly, the idea was to deceive the world into thinking their athletes were superior. Will wins by transexual athletes serve the state's propaganda purposes?
2) Even in Masters swimming I have seen men who were using steriods. Ever 5 years these men would gain 25 pounds of muscles, pimples on their backs, tearing of their muscles, all sorts of steroid symptoms. There is no money in Masters swimming (at least none I know of) so this steroid use was done for other weird reasons. Younger swimmers would do ANYTHING to win a Olympic Gold Medal.
You might find it interesting to find out how many of these men who are taking drugs that make them muscular and buff would be willing to have their genitals removed, breasts added, and undergo two years of feminizing hormone treatment. It seems to me that being turned into a female is a considerably more immediate consideration than adverse health effects somewhere down the line. Before we can accept that young males will do ANYTHING for an Olympic Gold we have to establish what their motivations are, it certainly isn't just to possess the physical medal, I strongly suspect that undergoing a sex change would directly contradict basically all the motivations young men have for wanting to go to the Olympics. On top of that, winning a medal as a transexual would certainly be a completely different experience, knowing that most of the world looked down on you rather than admired you.
3) Just like women using steroids, the strength advantage would last for many years. With some world class swimmers now swimming in 4 Olympics, this could give a lifetime advantage to transsexuals.
It is possible but certainly open to question that a male to female transexual would have an advantage. Even if you take it as a given, the question remains, why would it be a bad thing for a transexual to win a medal? We've already had the "because I don't like/approve of transexuals" expressed, but that is hardly valid basis for policy. We ban performance enhancing drugs because they have adverse health effects not because they enhance performance, otherwise we would ban vitamins, ordinary supplements, and healthy living.
4) What is to say a state sponsored program of genetically altered or surgically altered athletes start dominating sports events? First Germany, then China, it can happen again. How about webbed feet and fingers? Gills?
Despite the above this is completely irrelevant to this discussion, the IOC did not create a blanket "any medical procedure is ok" policy. Interestingly, I believe webbed digits do occur naturally sometimes, if this were to happen in an otherwise talented individual should that individual be banned? Does the Olympics really come down to a test of who was born with the best genes? Certainly you have very little hope of medaling in the Olympics if you weren't born with a very rare set of genes, is that "fair"?
Originally posted by breastroker
There are several problems with the arguments presented so far so let me clarify what I have seen.
1) There are many countries where Olympic athletes make millions of dollars, Euros etc. This includes swimmers. Just because Americans and English (GB) don't make significant money to justify a sex change doesn't mean the financial incentive is not there.
There are two ways that Olympic athletes make money: sponsorships and state incentives. Do we really foresee sponsors offering big money to a transexual athlete? How many states will want to be seen winning Olympic events using transexual athletes? Countries that have used performance enhancing technologies in the past have always done so covertly, the idea was to deceive the world into thinking their athletes were superior. Will wins by transexual athletes serve the state's propaganda purposes?
2) Even in Masters swimming I have seen men who were using steriods. Ever 5 years these men would gain 25 pounds of muscles, pimples on their backs, tearing of their muscles, all sorts of steroid symptoms. There is no money in Masters swimming (at least none I know of) so this steroid use was done for other weird reasons. Younger swimmers would do ANYTHING to win a Olympic Gold Medal.
You might find it interesting to find out how many of these men who are taking drugs that make them muscular and buff would be willing to have their genitals removed, breasts added, and undergo two years of feminizing hormone treatment. It seems to me that being turned into a female is a considerably more immediate consideration than adverse health effects somewhere down the line. Before we can accept that young males will do ANYTHING for an Olympic Gold we have to establish what their motivations are, it certainly isn't just to possess the physical medal, I strongly suspect that undergoing a sex change would directly contradict basically all the motivations young men have for wanting to go to the Olympics. On top of that, winning a medal as a transexual would certainly be a completely different experience, knowing that most of the world looked down on you rather than admired you.
3) Just like women using steroids, the strength advantage would last for many years. With some world class swimmers now swimming in 4 Olympics, this could give a lifetime advantage to transsexuals.
It is possible but certainly open to question that a male to female transexual would have an advantage. Even if you take it as a given, the question remains, why would it be a bad thing for a transexual to win a medal? We've already had the "because I don't like/approve of transexuals" expressed, but that is hardly valid basis for policy. We ban performance enhancing drugs because they have adverse health effects not because they enhance performance, otherwise we would ban vitamins, ordinary supplements, and healthy living.
4) What is to say a state sponsored program of genetically altered or surgically altered athletes start dominating sports events? First Germany, then China, it can happen again. How about webbed feet and fingers? Gills?
Despite the above this is completely irrelevant to this discussion, the IOC did not create a blanket "any medical procedure is ok" policy. Interestingly, I believe webbed digits do occur naturally sometimes, if this were to happen in an otherwise talented individual should that individual be banned? Does the Olympics really come down to a test of who was born with the best genes? Certainly you have very little hope of medaling in the Olympics if you weren't born with a very rare set of genes, is that "fair"?
