Quote Originally Posted by spazzdog
I just read a very interesting article in the June issue of Bike magazine called Venus Envy

The article really bothered me. Its seems a transgender woman (M->female) took up mtn biking. She got really good, started competing as an amateur, then as a pro. Some pro women protested her right to compete (not when she was amatuer, and only when growing talent threatened their podium finishes), she was suspended. Reinstated by Canada's IOC and other governing bodies she still gets dissed when she podiums.

*snip*
I dunno ... am I the only one who's wondering if this is really fair? How often do people beat the pros in the very first year they compete? Especially people who smoke?? I absolutely agree that hormones can do a number on you -- anyone who's taken hormonal birth control methods must know that -- but on some level, she still has her old body. She still has the same brain. If her heart and lungs were bigger than a woman's before surgery, I seriously doubt they shrank; I don't think it works like that (but I'm no expert).

Then again ... as the article points out, there's plenty of confusion about what sex really means. (As I understand it, one can identify oneself as female in gender while still having male body parts, or vice versa; "sex" is another matter.) We'd like to think that male and female are the only choices, but there are grey areas, like people who've always thought they were women because of outward appearances but are physically male on the inside. And then there are people who are physically simply predisposed to being better at certain things. Certainly a tall person has an advantage in volleyball; a lean person has an advantage in long-distance cycling; every sport has its key characteristics. Some sports even have weight classes. So I guess the question is, what does the governing body consider "fair enough" for a given sport.

I've even wondered if women shouldn't compete against men, in general ... I don't know that women would ever close the gap, but I think they'd narrow it considerably. I've seen what happens when individual women are forced to compete against men; they get better. It's just a human thing; once one person breaks a record, others swiftly follow. That being said, if everyone were competing together, women athletes would almost certainly get even less support than they get now. Maybe women as professional athletes would just disappear. So that's pointless.

So where was I? Oh, right. If I think any one thing about all this, it's that it hilights the fact that we never compete on an even field. The question is, what boundaries will we set on the spread of the field? It's clear that Michelle would be at a disadvantage competing against pro men; the question is, is she at an unfair advantage competing against pro women? I don't know that medical science has done enough studies of TG women to answer that question.