If it was a complete fabrication, it wouldn’t have made headlines across so many news outlets. “Lie” is a strong word.
None of them specifically bring up being transgender; but a previous boxing association banned her for having too much testosterone. I am curious if that means the testosterone was either natural (meaning we can’t effectively test gender for the sport, and competing by sex is pointless) or if it was a simple case of doping, injecting it manually. Neither feels like a fun conclusion.
EDIT: I’ll walk myself back on this a bit. Someone else pointed out to me that this other boxing association is Russian-owned. Given their track record for unsportsmanlike exclusion, I think that lends suspicion to their “testosterone test”.
It is true that the average male human has some physical advantages on the average female human.
Otoh the variability amongst people of the same sex is wider than that average difference. This effect is reinforced in professional sports because it tends to attract outliers.
And then for trans athletes, most of that difference gets smoothed by a well adjusted HRT applied fpr a few years.
We have divided a bunch of sports into “open class” and “women only” (some sports use “men only” and “women only”) because the difference between men and women is large enough that
Women would be unable to compete at a professional level otherwise
A lot of sports would be directly dangerous for women (see: contact sports without weight classes)
Nobody argues that it’s pointless to have weight classes. How is that different from having classes based on (a proxy for) levels of testosterone?
One of the best male 1500m runners today, Jacob Ingebritsen, beat the current women’s WR by almost 4 seconds when he was 15 years old. Women can be amazing athletes, and watching women compete at the top level is amazing. That’s why we need a class where they can compete, just like we need weight classes in many sports.
Her opponent never claimed she was punched harder than she’d ever been punched before, so the story is a lie anyway.
If it was a complete fabrication, it wouldn’t have made headlines across so many news outlets. “Lie” is a strong word.
None of them specifically bring up being transgender; but a previous boxing association banned her for having too much testosterone. I am curious if that means the testosterone was either natural (meaning we can’t effectively test gender for the sport, and competing by sex is pointless) or if it was a simple case of doping, injecting it manually. Neither feels like a fun conclusion.
EDIT: I’ll walk myself back on this a bit. Someone else pointed out to me that this other boxing association is Russian-owned. Given their track record for unsportsmanlike exclusion, I think that lends suspicion to their “testosterone test”.
Competing by sex is pretty pointless.
It is true that the average male human has some physical advantages on the average female human.
Otoh the variability amongst people of the same sex is wider than that average difference. This effect is reinforced in professional sports because it tends to attract outliers.
And then for trans athletes, most of that difference gets smoothed by a well adjusted HRT applied fpr a few years.
We have divided a bunch of sports into “open class” and “women only” (some sports use “men only” and “women only”) because the difference between men and women is large enough that
Women would be unable to compete at a professional level otherwise
A lot of sports would be directly dangerous for women (see: contact sports without weight classes)
Nobody argues that it’s pointless to have weight classes. How is that different from having classes based on (a proxy for) levels of testosterone?
One of the best male 1500m runners today, Jacob Ingebritsen, beat the current women’s WR by almost 4 seconds when he was 15 years old. Women can be amazing athletes, and watching women compete at the top level is amazing. That’s why we need a class where they can compete, just like we need weight classes in many sports.