What do you think of females with high levels of testosterone participating in sports?
Asked by
rockfan (
14632)
August 2nd, 2015
A new ruling allows women who have high levels of testosterone to compete against other women. I think it’s ridiculous that there even needs to be a ruling on this. It’s like making a ruling that people with high IQ’s can participate on Jeopardy. Your thoughts?
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9 Answers
Well on the one hand, they certainly have an advantage, but it’s tough to fault them for seeking to participate in something in which their hormone levels allow them to excel. There probably is no compromise that would be fair to everyone.
They’re still women, so I don’t see any issue. Everyone has varying levels of testosterone and estrogen and no two people will be alike, so if there was ever an issue of trying to ban women with higher levels of testosterone from playing against other women, that’s just idiotic.
As long as the levels are natural I don’t see a problem. And yeah, I’m shocked there even needed to be a discussion about this.
i ditto @johnpowell and @DrasticDreamer,
I mean, yeah, she has high levels of testosterone, so what?
But, do you think they would make a ruling to allow men with high levels of estrogen (or whatever, you know what I mean) to compete in sports? Well they probably would give 1 shot about it.
But that’s just the trouble with categorizing eligibility by gender. If an individual has every attribute of a man except reproductive equipment, of course it’s only logical that the prototype would tend to dominate events restricted to women. The ironic conclusion to be drawn from this is that the the only fair way forward is to eliminate both men & women’s categories, and let all competitors compete side by side, just as in all other matters.
W’ere probably headed in the direction of eliminating gender restrictions on sports, and it will be the unwitting result of the fight for the elimination of gender restrictions in employment. After all, it’s difficult to defend gender categories in athletics while insisting on female fire fighters, combat infantry women and fighter pilots.
My guess is that throughout history women with high testisterone have excelled in sports. They have a physical natural advantage in many sports, not all, that’s just how it is. I am in favor of separating the sexes for many sports, and I don’t think cosideration about testosterone levels changes my view on that.
Are men subjected to the same tests to compete? Or is it just assumed that there is no variance of testosterone levels in men?
Of course there are variances in men. It sounds like it has been decided that if the variances are natural then fair game.
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