Quote Originally Posted by KnottedYet View Post
Colby asked: "And what are transgendered people (especially MtF) really to do? Not compete at all? Is their inherent genetic "advantage" really an advantage after hormone therapy and gender reassignment surgery? Any moreso than a statistically tall/athletic woman born a woman?"

That question was pretty neatly answered by the experience of Janet Furman Bowman.

Janet Furman Bowman was a pretty serious competitive runner (and kept excellent records) when she was a man, and continued running after she became a woman.

Her experience of the level of effort was the same, though her times dropped enormously. But, within the women's category she was in the same percentile as when she raced in the men's category.
I heard about this after I posted. Very interesting, and good for the case to allow transgendered individuals to continue to compete, which I know has come up before in other sports.

There was also a video and some commentary on another blog I read, Sociological Images. The video is from MSNBC.

http://contexts.org/socimages/2009/0...-semenyas-sex/

He doesn't really add anything to the conversation, except to try to allude that there shouldn't be male/female categories either. So what does that boil it down to, testing for testosterone levels? So you compete in a category with similar levels of "genetic advantage" to your own? That seems extreme. We sure are overcomplicating things for something that's supposed to be fun.

And in those pictures, she sure looks like a woman to me. A lot of the track and field athletes are tall, fit, muscular, and don't have strong feminine features. That body type is kind of what got them there in the first place, isn't it??