• Welcome to OGBoards 10.0, keep in mind that we will be making LOTS of changes to smooth out the experience here and make it as close as possible functionally to the old software, but feel free to drop suggestions or requests in the Tech Support subforum!

Transgender Athletes

I guess we will have to ask Lance. Still one less nut than Lia.

In some cases, if one testicle is left, fertility returns after the testicular cancer has been treated. For example, fertility typically returns about 2 years after chemotherapy stops.

Testicular Cancer and Pregnancy | Testicular Cancer Fertility

Testicular cancer treatment can affect hormone levels and might affect a man's fertility. Discuss any fertility concerns with your doctor before treatment.
www.cancer.org www.cancer.org
 
pinochadeac said:
I guess we will have to ask Lance. Still one less nut than Lia.

In some cases, if one testicle is left, fertility returns after the testicular cancer has been treated. For example, fertility typically returns about 2 years after chemotherapy stops.

Testicular Cancer and Pregnancy | Testicular Cancer Fertility

Testicular cancer treatment can affect hormone levels and might affect a man's fertility. Discuss any fertility concerns with your doctor before treatment.
www.cancer.org www.cancer.org
Click to expand...
Nice quick googling!
 
pinochadeac said:
He only lost 1 testicle. Yes to gametes, just not as many as Lia.
Click to expand...
Most likely not. For all the “gamete producing” talk, y’all do realize that a year of HRT would cease the production of sperm for the overwhelming majority of people? That sperm production is greatly limited and often ceases after 3 months of estrogen treatment.

So if Lia had been on estrogen for a full year, she most likely was not producing any gametes.
 
Rugby Sevens--7 player rugby, a shortened, faster version of the game of rugby union with its 15 player teams--will be an Olympic sport again at the Paris games in July. Both versions of the game are growing in popularity in the U.S. but U.S. men's and women's teams are generally not among the top teams in the world.

World Rugby is the governing body for both Sevens and traditional rugby union. In 2020 World Rugby banned "trans women" (AKA "males") from participating in women's rugby. The ban covers all males whether they passed through puberty and/or take large does of hormones that would supposedly turn them into females.

Women who call themselves men or "nonbinary" are generally allowed to participate in men's rugby, so the ban on transgender people is not absolute. For the record, I'm not opposed to women participating in men's sports, though for the sake of their health and safety, it is highly inadvisable in a contact sport like rugby.

In a contact sport like rugby where size, speed and strength and other factors already make the game somewhat dangerous for both women and men when they only compete against each other, it is obvious that World Rugby had to ban males from the women's game.

www.world.rugby

Transgender Guidelines | World Rugby

World Rugby guidelines on transgender.
www.world.rugby www.world.rugby

The Guideline was developed by a World Rugby working group following research into available scientific literature, detailed and extensive consultation where the working group heard from independent experts in the fields of performance, physiology, medicine, risk, law and socio-ethics, and subsequent research and consultation on matters arising from the meeting. the presentations delivered by each of those experts at the meeting are available on World Rugby's Player Welfare website.

Having carefully considered the currently available information, the working group determined World Rugby's current policy. A summary of the position for transgender women is set out below and full guidelines for transgender women are here, a summary of the position for transgender men is set out below and full guidelines for transgender men are here and the guidelines for non-binary people are set out here.

Transgender women may not currently play women's rugby​

Why? Because of the size, force- and power-producing advantages conferred by testosterone during puberty and adolescence, and the resultant player welfare risks this creates

Biological Advantages from TestosteroneResultant Performance Differences
  • Significant increases in total body mass
  • Significant increases in lean/muscle mass and muscle density
  • Reduction in body fat mass, improving strength and power-to-weight ratio
  • Increased height, changed dimensions of important levers, greater bone density
  • Increased haemoglobin levels
  • Increased heart and lung size
  • Significantly greater strength (between 50% and 60% percent by adulthood, with relatively greater upper body strength)
  • Significant speed advantages (between 10% and 15% over various durations)
  • Greater capacity to produce force/power (advantages of between 30% and 40% in explosive movement capabilities)
  • Strength-to-weight and power-to weight advantages (even after adjusting for mass, height and similar level of performance (elite, untrained etc), males have a 30-40% strength advantage)

Risk of Injury is too great​

It has been proposed that the suppression of testosterone for a period of 12 months is sufficient to remove the biological differences that create performance differences summarised above.

Research contradicts this, consistently showing that total mass, muscle mass and/or strength are reduced by at most 5% to 10% when testosterone is suppressed to levels in the female range, for a period of 12 months. With the additional factor of training, either before or during the period of testosterone suppression, it is expected that baseline/pre levels for these variables will be higher, and that training will attenuate the decline in these variables with testosterone reduction. The consequence is that given the size of the biological differences prior to testosterone suppression, this comparatively small effect of testosterone reduction allows substantial and meaningful differences to remain. This has significant implications for the risk of injury in rugby.

Forces and inertia faced by a smaller and slower player during frequent collisions are significantly greater when in contact with a much larger, faster player. Research has found that the discrepancy in mass and speed is a significant determinant of various head injury risk factors, including neck forces, neck moments and linear and angular acceleration of the head. When two opponents in a tackle are significantly different with respects to mass or speed, these risk factors increase significantly. All these factors are 20% and 30% greater when typical male mass is modelled against typical female body mass in the tackle. Further, the ability to exert force (strength and power) is greater in biological males, and the ability to receive or tolerate that force is reduced in relatively weaker players. Collectively, this means a dynamic tackle situation would create a large increase in risk for players who lack these physiological attributes relative to their opponents. Similarly, scrum forces are significantly greater in men's rugby (twice as high for elite men vs elite women, and 40% higher for community level men compared to elite women). The implication of this finding is a significant increase in injury rates in contact situations, since the magnitude of forces and energy transfer in those contacts will increase substantially as a result of the collection of physical attributes that differ by biological sex.

World Rugby's number one stated priority is to make the game as safe as possible and so World Rugby cannot allow the risk to players to be increased to such an extent by allowing people who have the force and power advantages conferred by testosterone to play with and against those who do not.

Retention of Meaningful Performance Advantages​

Given that the typical male vs female advantage in the above-described biological variables and hence performance outcomes ranges from 30% to 100%, a substantial and meaningful advantage is retained even after testosterone suppression. This has implications for performance, given the premium on contact and collisions, speed, force production and power in rugby.

A detailed explanation of the biological rationale, along with explanations of the effects of testosterone and its potential influence on safety and performance factors can be read in the guidelines for transgender women here.
Click to expand...
 
I know this is a rather unpopular opinion on these Boards; on a thread that I started over 3 1/2 years ago and got laughed out of town and told no one cared and the topic was not even worth a conversation. I applaud the Olympics for coming up with this ruling. At that level, in particular, it is a fair and logical ruling.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top