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 tjburk
Lindsay...the XX or XY chromosomes determine how your body composition will turn out. Men's major leg muscles turn out to me more vertical, hence the ability to piston the legs straighter and faster, because a woman's leg muscles are actually more angled to the side. That is why you will probably never see a woman swim or run faster then a man. Men's records will always be faster then women's. That is one of the reasons why it is not fair to combine women and men.
I suppose it would be a cheap debating point to point out that some women swim and run faster than some men? ;) But seriously, if your definition of fair is that people of different physiques racing each other is unfair then surely competition among men and among women is also unfair as physique varies widely (as much?) within the sexes? People have a sense of fair that is purely based on current rules, the point is that if you change the rules the degree of fairness doesn't change. According to the "it is fair if the two people have the same abilities" definition of fair races should be between people of equal ability not people of identical chromosomes.
Another way to think about it is to question what makes an advantage unfair compared to any other advantage?
Originally posted by tjburk
Lindsay...the XX or XY chromosomes determine how your body composition will turn out. Men's major leg muscles turn out to me more vertical, hence the ability to piston the legs straighter and faster, because a woman's leg muscles are actually more angled to the side. That is why you will probably never see a woman swim or run faster then a man. Men's records will always be faster then women's. That is one of the reasons why it is not fair to combine women and men.
I suppose it would be a cheap debating point to point out that some women swim and run faster than some men? ;) But seriously, if your definition of fair is that people of different physiques racing each other is unfair then surely competition among men and among women is also unfair as physique varies widely (as much?) within the sexes? People have a sense of fair that is purely based on current rules, the point is that if you change the rules the degree of fairness doesn't change. According to the "it is fair if the two people have the same abilities" definition of fair races should be between people of equal ability not people of identical chromosomes.
Another way to think about it is to question what makes an advantage unfair compared to any other advantage?
