Transgender players who have been through male puberty will not be permitted to play international women’s cricket under new ICC gender eligibility regulations

The International Cricket Council has become the latest sports body to ban transgender players from the elite women’s game if they have gone through male puberty.

The ICC said it had taken the decision, following an extensive scientific review and nine-month consultation, to “protect the integrity of the international women’s game and the safety of players”.

It joins rugby union, swimming, cycling, athletics and rugby league, who have all gone down a similar path in recent years after citing concerns over fairness or safety.

  • AnotherAttorney@kbin.social
    0·
    10 months ago

    Sorry dude, but you’re objectively wrong. There is a wealth of academic studies demonstrating that transgender players have an advantage in women’s divisions, and that gender-affirming treatment fails to rectify that.

    Testosterone drives much of the enhanced athletic performance of males through in utero, early life, and adult exposure. Many anatomical sex differences driven by testosterone are not reversible. Hemoglobin levels and muscle mass are sensitive to adult life testosterone levels, with hemoglobin being the most responsive. Studies in transgender women, and androgen-deprivation treated cancer patients, show muscle mass is retained for many months, even years, and that co-comittant exercise mitigates muscle loss. Given that sports are currently segregated into male and female divisions because of superior male athletic performance, and that estrogen therapy will not reverse most athletic performance parameters, it follows that transgender women will enter the female division with an inherent advantage because of their prior male physiology.

    Heather AK. Transwoman Elite Athletes: Their Extra Percentage Relative to Female Physiology. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022 Jul 26;19(15):9103. doi: 10.3390/ijerph19159103. PMID: 35897465; PMCID: PMC9331831.

    Transwomen retain an advantage in upper body strength (push-ups) over female controls for 1–2 years after starting gender affirming hormones. Transwomen retain an advantage in endurance (1.5 mile run) over female controls for over 2 years after starting gender affirming hormones.

    Roberts TA, Smalley J, Ahrendt DEffect of gender affirming hormones on athletic performance in transwomen and transmen: implications for sporting organisations and legislatorsBritish Journal of Sports Medicine 2021;55:577-583.

    [T]he transgender woman swimmer experienced improvements in performance for each freestyle event (100 to 1,650 yards) relative to sex-specific NCAA rankings, including producing the best swimming time in the NCAA for the 500-yard distance (65th in the men’s category in 2018–2019 to 1st in the women’s, 2022). Similarly, NCAA-ranked male swimmers had no improvements in rank in the men’s category during the same time frame. Our findings suggest that the performance times of the transgender woman swimmer in the women’s NCAA category were outliers for each event distance and suggest that the transgender woman swimmer had superior performances relative to rank-matched swimmers.

    Case Studies in Physiology: Male to female transgender swimmer in college athletics Jonathon W. Senefeld, Sandra K. Hunter, Doriane Coleman, and Michael J. Joyner Journal of Applied Physiology 2023 134:4, 1032-1037

    • HubertManne@kbin.social
      0·
      10 months ago

      honestly his use of the term superhuman athlete makes the whole thing just silly. men are not automatically superhuman athletes either but in many physical sports they might as well be compared to women. Mens sports generally allow both sexes so are open to all, womens are basically so that women athletes have an outlet where they can reasonably succeed. Otherwise its like chess tournaments always allowing computers.

      • tygerprints@kbin.social
        0·
        10 months ago

        Women are not in any way less athletically abled than men are. I’ve seen men gymnasts that could outdo women and women football players than could outdo men. It’s not about who is better abled to do something - sports is about having inclusion for everyone no matter their level of talent or ability.

        • HubertManne@kbin.social
          0·
          10 months ago

          yes the best female athlete can beat some male athletes but the best male will always outperform females where physical strength is an issue. Just look at any olympic events male/female side to side or that one male tennis pro while a pro was ranked something like 100 and smoke serena who was ranked 1 among women. Look at all the olympic races, weight lifting, etc male/female side by side.

          • tygerprints@kbin.social
            0·
            10 months ago

            I disagree with that idea - that the best male will always outperform females where physical strength is concerned. And even if this is true, sports should not favor those with the greatest physical strength, to me the best athletes are those with the drive and determination to participate. Trans, straight, bi, gay - those things are only relevant off the field, not on.

            • HubertManne@kbin.social
              0·
              10 months ago

              this is not an idea, its just facts plain and simple https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Olympic_records_in_athletics# your physical strength idea only works if you put forth the idea that pretty much every competition is reliant on it. strength speed endurance. its all men. its not about willingness to be an athlete its just about having a doable categorization. This is why combat competitions besides having seperate mens and womens also have weight classes.

              • tygerprints@kbin.social
                0·
                10 months ago

                No it’s not “facts.” It’s your acceptance of bigoted and chauvinistic ideas about women and men based on outdated stereotypes. Men are NOT inherently stronger than women are, and I’ve even go so far as to suggest that women are many times stronger in the realms of emotional stability and reliability than men could ever be. You can have whatever bigoted ideas you want - but dont try and pass them off as “facts” just because you were never taught any other way to see the world.

                • xmunk@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
                  0·
                  10 months ago

                  We’re talking about sports here - men, on average, have more muscle mass than women, on average, have. So in most sports men will have a higher average and peak performance than women with otherwise the same physiology. This isn’t to say that men are better than women, they simply have a higher physical capacity in this regard.

                  • tygerprints@kbin.social
                    0·
                    10 months ago

                    If your idea of strength is only measured by muscle mass instead of by qualities like perseverance and speed and agility, then it’s true that men have an edge over women. I happen to think that strength can be measured in other ways.