This is another story that will have you wondering whether supporters of the pro-trans movement are stupid or if they just think the rest of us are stupid. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has come under fire for funding a study claiming that biological male athletes somehow have physical disadvantages.
Given that the IOC has been kowtowing to the progressive agenda on gender for years, it is no surprise that they would fund a deceptive study to convince the rest of the world that our eyes are lying to us when it comes to differences between men and women.
A recent report highlighted the controversy as medical professionals criticize the committee for trying to justify its decision to allow biological men to compete with female athletes.
The International Olympic Committee has been accused of sinking to a new low after funding research into transgender athletes that claims they are at a physical disadvantage to biological females.
The research paper, which has been published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, reported that physically active transgender women performed worse in certain cardiovascular tests and had less lower-body strength than cisgender females. Researchers at the University of Brighton also found that, contrary to previous claims, transgender women’s bone density was equivalent to cisgender females, which has links to muscle strength.
The findings, published on Thursday morning, could have a significant effect on the debate around gender-inclusion in sport ahead of the Paris Olympics as the research was the first relating to the issue that the IOC has funded and is the first scientific study of “athletes” who have undergone gender-affirming hormone therapy.
The authors, who included a member of the IOC’s medical and scientific commission, said their results showed that sporting federations should caution against banning transgender women from the female category without further research into their individual sports.
“While longitudinal transitioning studies of transgender athletes are urgently needed, these results should caution against precautionary bans and sport eligibility exclusions that are not based on sport-specific (or sport-relevant) research,” the paper said in its conclusions.
The researchers supposedly analyzed transgender female and actual female athletes to ascertain whether there are physical advantages.
The study collected data from 69 volunteers, who had responded to social-media adverts seeking participants in the research. The cohort comprised 19 transgender women, 20 cisgender women, 19 cisgender men and 11 transgender men. To qualify for the study, they had to be taking part in competitive sport or physical training at least three times a week, and the transgender volunteers needed to have undergone hormonal therapy for at least a year. None of the subjects were competing in national or international sport.
Researchers found that transgender women performed worse than cisgender women in the countermovement jump that tests lower-body strength. It involves jumping vertically with hands on hips. Transgender women’s average jump was 36.4cm with a standard deviation (SD) of 7.9cm. Cisgender women’s average was 40.7cm with a SD of 5.8cm.
Cisgender women also performed worse in an important test of lung function called the FEV1/FVC ratio, which compares subjects’ Forced Expiratory Volume (the maximum amount of air that is expelled during the first second following a deep inhalation) with their Forced Vital Capacity (the volume of air that can be exhaled following a deep inhalation and a measurement of lung size). It added that there was no meaningful difference between the two groups’ haemoglobin profiles and bone density – both of which are related to athletic performance – even though, the researchers noted, previous studies of sedentary subjects found that transgender women performed better in both.
So, this tidbit supposedly shows that it is perfectly fine for men to play in women’s sports because they are supposedly at a disadvantage. I wonder what would have happened if they had pitted them against each other in arm wrestling matches?
But this is par for the course for the IOC, which has bent over backward to make the pro-trans crowd happy even if it means robbing female athletes of well-deserved achievements. Earlier this year, the committee announced changes to its policies related to biological males competing with women.
The International Olympic Committee announced a new framework for transgender and intersex athletes Tuesday, dropping controversial policies that required competing athletes to undergo "medically unnecessary" procedures or treatment.
In a six-page document, the IOC outlined 10 principles, which it described as "grounded on the respect for internationally recognised human rights," that sports competitions should follow. It also said it will no longer require athletes to undergo hormone level modifications to compete.
"This Framework recognises both the need to ensure that everyone, irrespective of their gender identity or sex variations, can practise sport in a safe, harassment-free environment that recognises and respects their needs and identities," the committee said.
Before 2016, the IOC placed a limit on a transgender woman’s testosterone levels, which required them to have genital surgery to be allowed to compete in events for the opposite sex. Now, it appears that men won’t even be required to have lower testosterone levels to compete against women.
The notion that men do not have a physical advantage against women is, of course, ludicrous. The members of the IOC know it is ludicrous, and they are promoting it anyway out of a desire to either avoid the anger of the crybully progressive crowd or because they are true believers in the ideology, regardless of how it affects actual women.
It makes one wonder what the committee will do when they have a deluge of biological males taking over women’s sports because they are unable to win victories against members of their actual sex. It probably won’t take too long to find out.
