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."
Values have no place in this discussion. You have returned to the notion that the entirety of sex is determined by clothing, a document, hormones and shots. This is about competition, not values. You can't change your sex, it's that simple.
Did a little Google search, and found this: About Gender UK site. This would appear to be a goldmine of scientific, medical, and psychological information. (As opposed to the personal opinions that have been expressed here, myself included.)
In their definition section, found this:
Sexual identity. The objective categorisation of a person's physiological status as male or female.
Sexual identity, especially, gives problems. Does it mean genetic status as XX or XY, or does it mean the sum of our development up until birth? Or is it simply the social label applied to us by our birth certificates?
Under the section Genetic Errors of Metabolism, they discuss Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (XY who can develop as girls), and Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia (which can lead to XX who have been raised as boys). These are "natural" conditions where the gender lines have been blurred.
Originally posted by aquageek
1. The very first thing the doctor says at birth is either "boy" or "girl." There are no reference manuals, gender dysporia or sex continuum slide rules to consider. Pretty simple, boy or girl.
You have been pretty vocal about using chromosomes to determine sexual identity. Have you changed that? You appear to have switched, to what is written on the birth certificate by a doctor. (The examples given show that some doctors chose "boy", some chose "girl", for the same type of baby. That decision is often made based on development up until birth.)
(I'm not claiming to have an answer. I'm just trying to argue that there are (rare) cases that are not so cut and dry.)
Originally posted by tjburk
The physiology of a male vs. female is what gives males the advantage. Go do some research on why men swim or run faster than women. It is because of muscle/bone structure, all the hormones in the world do not change your initial structure, be it male or female.
So Tracy, you are saying that gender should be based on development up until birth (or maybe up until puberty?), and not chromosomes? I gave the example of AIS and CAH, where physiological development does not match genetics.
Originally posted by gull80
I guess we can just wait until the About Gender UK site is complete to give us all the answers.
Craig, when I read this, it came across as a snide remark. Was that your intent? I listed that site because it had a wealth of facts and information that seemed appropriate for this discussion. I assumed that there were some people out there, besides myself, who never really considered the issue of gender (before this thread), and do not have an informed opinion. I do not see how providing more information can be considered "giv(ing) us all the answers". (If you decide they are wrong somewhere, you can prove it because they cited their references.)
This is a medical condition quite distinct from "gender dysphoria" and should properly be considered separately (which the IOC seems to have done).
I had missed this comment before. How does the IOC decide for medical condition?
mattson:
Good catch, I had trouble explaining it. There are a lot of components of sex but you are still one sex, not subject to change. The baby example was my (poor) attempt to state it's easy early on to figure it out and it doesn't get any harder even if you do all sorts of strange things to your body. You are always fundamentally the sex you were born. Societal notions change with time on this but you are always a man or a woman.
If a person wants to change gender, that's fine by me but I'm not convinced that person still doesn't have a competitive advantage. My point with chromosomes has always been you can't take all the man/woman out of a person to make them the other sex, not now anyway.
I've always wondered about people who change sexes as saying they are a mistake, they shold be a man when they are a woman or vice versa. Who made a mistake?
I used the word gender not sex, I even put it in italics.
If you want to define sex as immutable all that does is change the question to whether sex, so defined, is the appropriate way to divide the competition. As indicated by my use of the word "appropriate" the answer to that question will come down to a value judgement.
The physiology of a male vs. female is what gives males the advantage. Go do some research on why men swim or run faster than women. It is because of muscle/bone structure, all the hormones in the world do not change your initial structure, be it male or female.
Mark, not just up until birth, you can not change chromosomes through hormones, your individual body structure is determined by genetics, it can not be changed by cutting things off or adding things on. Each individuals' structure even amongst male/female is slightly different. But the norm for males is different from the norm for females. Unless I am wrong (won't be the first time), the example of AIS and CAH is not the norm but rather the exception. Exceptions exist for almost every rule and law in nature and physiology. Those should be looked at one by one.
Some items to ponder:
1. The very first thing the doctor says at birth is either "boy" or "girl." There are no reference manuals, gender dysporia or sex continuum slide rules to consider. Pretty simple, boy or girl.
2. Do men who have the surgery go to OB/GYNs for their health care issues down there? If not, are they really women?
3. If a female swimmer who use to be a male swimmer, stops taking their shots or reduces their shots for a week or so prior to competition, does that constitute unfair advantage?
Mark:
Apparently the IOC has made a distinction between those who are "reassigned" before puberty and those who do so after. Interestingly, in congenital adrenal hyperplasia surgery is performed (in early childhood) not to reassign sex but rather to match external appearance with the chromosomal and gonadal sex of the child. I see this as a very different situation from that of the gender dysphoric individual.
As for the About Gender site, my point was that this is not exactly an online medical textbook, and consequently the information presented should be taken with a grain of salt.
