Doge

My wife agrees with you.

Doge

As my wife sided on the side of y'all, let me try again.

USAC says if I register to race (which I was doing), I can't be part of the legal tradition of giving a cigar to my cadet on finishing his year.

The rational person would just ignore it. We've established I am not that.

This cheapens USAC's whole anti PED campaign when they move into a nanny type role on how an adult rider should behave on things that are legal, and not banned.

Does anyone agree, or am I still on my own?

Da Reef

I agree. That rule is stupid.

Chrisp8

My friend had a very expensive bike but he never seem to like riding it.he seemed to worry about scratching it

Doge

We had discussed this pages back. Sorry ladies.
Biological male dominates women?s cycling event in historic first - Sticky Bottle

I'm not sure this is a USAC race, so may not matter.
Oops...it matters
"Earlier this year the IOC said transgender athletes in all sports should be permitted by national federations to compete in the Olympics and international events without undergoing sex reassignment surgery."

Heathpack 

So frustrating for women's cycling.

Doge

At first I thought the event being a Fondo (not confirmed) my reaction was "whatever - like Strava". The IOC part is particularly depressing.
If this rolls into the NCAA you might as well get rid of women's sports.

canuckbelle

Wow, guys. Calm down. Check the transphobia at the door, please.

aaronmcd

I didn't see any transphobic posts.

canuckbelle

Really? Saying that it's bad for women's cycling that trans women are allowed to compete? That we should just do away with women's events now?

Heathpack 

As we've discussed previously it's not a transgender phobia or even a prejudice. It's physiology. It's the reason men & women & children compete separately. Testosterone levels are not the sole determinant of performance in cycling. Body size and muscle mass are some of the determinants of sprint performance and these are advantages that remain in transgender women vs non transgender women. Just because people think it's unfair does not make them phobic about transgender women.

You were the one who claimed that science had "proved" that testosterone levels were the great leveler in cycling competition and the matter was settled. But that previous discussion was what led me to read further and realize that no such thing has been proven.

Not worth rehashing again though. Any argument to the contrary of what you already believe will just be labeled as "phobia".

canuckbelle

A more balanced post: https://cyclingtips.com/2016/12/pavi...llian-bearden/

And you've got the physiology wrong: trans women show the same physiological characteristics as cis women.

Do you *seriously* think the IOC, UCI, USAC etc would adopt these new policies unless they had determined that there were no significant advantages?

canuckbelle

Also, read through the entire Dutee Chand decision to see the state of the research on testosterone and performance: https://www.tas-cas.org/fileadmin/use...d_internet.pdf

Cliff's notes: cis men and cis women have a 10-12% performance gap. Trans women and cis men also show that 10-12% performance gap. Cis and trans women show very similar performance metrics.

ETA: Yes, I've read the entire Chand decision.

Let me put it this way: The IOC, UCI, and even USAC *all* think that it's fair for trans women to compete with women. They're in the business of fairness. Why do you think you're right, while they're wrong?

Heathpack 

Yes, I do. There is a lack of evidence & the are doing the easiest, most politically correct, most expedient thing right now. I feel it's pretty likely that if this issue impacted men's athletics primarily, rather than woman's, different decisions might be made. Women's athletics simply isn't as important IMO to these governing bodies.

Again, I'll make the same offer now that I made previously- you give me the references for the scientific studies that tell me testosterone is all that's important to cycling performance, and I'll pull the articles and read them. The truth is these studies don't exist. And additionally there is excellent reason to believe body size & muscle mass are quite important to sprint performance and that transgender women have an unfair advantage on these grounds.

It would actually be interesting to look at what kind of races transgender women perform better in- are they winning sprint events on the track? Are the winning crits by virtue of a killer sprint? If so, despite your claims to the contrary, there may be more to winning on a bike than testosterone levels.

So the offer remains. Not blog posts. But actual scientific articles that say testosterone levels are the sole determinant of athletic performance- post em and I'll read em. But I searched my own and could not find any such thing. Without that, there's really no discussion to have. You will believe that anyone who thinks science does not support your view is phobic and we'll just go around in circles again.

canuckbelle

I gave you the CAS. Off you go.

And that the IOC/UCI is caving to political correctness is...laughable if it weren't so sad that you think that.

Doge

I noted NCAA in mentioning the end of women's sports. Many sports are driven by the NCAA scholarships. 2 million girls are playing soccer, in part [parents] looking for that piece of the billion$ pie. College men's rowing gives 0 scholarships. Women's rowing gives a pile of them. Far more men than women can play at the NCAA women's college level.

Coaches are paid to win.

All a decent male has to do to is identify with being female to get college paid for. Are we going to rely on individual ethics and morals to see that does not happen? Some will, others will get most of college paid for.

canuckbelle

What you're worried about has never happened, and is likely never to happen. It's not worth the social ostracism trans people face.

Doge

You may recall way back in this thread I said basically the same about insulin. That one group shouldn't be allowed what others are not. I made the point all TUEs should be done away with. This is not more phobic or bigoted than that.

We group sports events by age and gender. It is often unfair, but the fix becomes everyone participates open class and everyone can talk about how they were the best in this group or that. I actually think that contributes to the popularity of fondos. But...cycling is grouped by age and genders (and substances, and prosthetics allowed) and as those get redefined, so does the competition.

Heathpack 

Surely you know the difference between scientific articles and a court decision? Courts make (what later is believed to be) wrong decisions all the time. Something like the Dred Scott decision would be a great example.


You are an academician, I believe. So surely you understand how a critical reading of the literature goes. You actually read the study, you make an assessment of the methods used, you evaluate whether the data supports the studies' conclusions and then you judge the weight of the evidence. And then you repeat for the next paper. You don't read court conclusions. Courts must make a decision one way or the other. The fact that they made a decision is not scientific proof one way or the other.


The IOC, UCI and USAC did not all reach independent conclusions on this issue BTW. USAC for example followed UCI's decision. They did not know what to do, so they deferred to the international organization. It is naïve to think decisions like this are not made in part because of expediency or fear of legal action or a desire to seem inclusive and politically correct. My main point being that the UCI sees women's cycling as a lesser thing and if it needs to be sacrificed over this issue, so be it. Its my opinion that they would make a different decision if it were men's cycling at stake. Sure, I could be wrong.

canuckbelle

One topic I teach is sports ethics. One topic I teach in sports ethics is trans and intersex athletes and the ethics of it. Science matters, but it's not merely a scientific question. It's an ethical one. The ethics are clear. You're hung up only on the science.

Doge

You may see that. In swimming (I posted pages ago) NCAA - it was being discussed if some swimmers on the men's team should be allowed to take hormones to make them more competitive.

echappist

the ethics are far from clear. That fairness and equality of the issue can be approached from different angles makes it a complicated, nuanced issue. Ergo, not clear. What you have is a preponderance of evidence to sway the decision one way or another, but far from clear. It would also be quite absurd to portray the situation as if ethical considerations were somehow orthogonal from scientific ones.

Once again a surprisingly shoddy argument from a philosophy professor. Makes me wonder if you dock points if your students answers in a way that differs from your view point.

canuckbelle

Well, the sports governing bodies have decided the ethics one way. The professional ethicists have decided the same thing. Not sure what to tell you. I'm not going to write an academic paper just for y'all.

Doge

Thank you.

I see this as a sport, not a social/society thing.
Soccer, is far more multi-cultural than cycling and in my 15 years officiating that game I found vast disagreement on what was ethical. The thing I liked is that there was universal agreement that it was the referee's call - even if the referee was later shot. I was never shot at. But made it pretty clear to me - ethics are way harder to get agreement on than rules/laws. So seems like working on the rule enforcement 1st made sense.

I want to be binary about rules because I like the International open competition where not everyone has the same understanding of what is right. Things like age and chromosomes, prostheses and substances (if you can catch them) can be binary.

The whole ethics/fairness thing is just too muddy for me in International sports.

The Fondo/Strava - I don't care so much what folks do.

shovelhd

Yeah, cycling is a bastion of ethical behavior. Highest standard.

They ruled for one three letter reason. CYA.