Trans athletes in women's sports: Is this fair?
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How much of an advantage to trans women have over cis women? How much does hormone therapy do about it? In this video we look at what the scientific literature says about this.
The paper I mention at 1 mins 20 seconds is here: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...
(Beware: graphic content.)
Estimates for the frequency of disorders of sex development that I quote at 1 minutes 50 seconds are from here: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23045...
The paper about serum androgen levels I discuss at 2 minutes 50 seconds is here:
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25137...
The paper about testosterone levels I mention at 4 minutes 20 seconds is this:
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24593...
The paper about hormone treatment I discuss at 7 mins 10 seconds is here:
ec.bioscientifica.com/view/jo...
The paper I mention at 7 mins 55 seconds is this:
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31794...
The meta-analysis at 8 mins 48 seconds is here: bjsm.bmj.com/content/55/15/865
The paper about the long-term effects of hormone therapy that I mention at 9 mins 35 seconds is this: academic.oup.com/jes/article/...
The study about ultra-running among casual athletes that I mention at 13 mins 10 seconds is here: runrepeat.com/state-of-ultra-...
Estimates for the number of transgender people in the USA are from here: ajph.aphapublications.org/doi...
And Estimates for the number of transgender people in Brazil are from here:
www.nature.com/articles/s4159...
Many thanks to Jordi Busqué for helping with this video jordibusque.com/
You can support us on Patreon: / sabine
We now have a newsletter with weekly science updates! It's completely free and you can unsubscribe at any time. Subscribe here: sabinehossenfelder.com/
0:00 Intro
0:26 Intersex Conditions
3:17 Testosterone Levels
5:02 Trans Athletes
7:08 The Effects of Hormonal Treatment
9:51 The Question of Fairness
11:23 The Relevance of Entertainment
13:49 The Actual Problem
14:54 Sponsor Message
Trans mtf here. I transitioned 20 years ago and have had all the surgeries and I live stealth amongst you. Even though I have lost most of my male body mass, I can still out do most cis women. IMO it is not fair. Id love to see a trans category.
You mean women. Cis nonsense is made up and normal born women dont want to be called that. How far have come, that we have to call women cis women. This is braindead nonsense.
What about stop using cis for us, it's insulting we're not responsible for your madness.
It suits you. From your thumbnail, I would have never in a million years guessed.
@@andym4695 Thank you, I had Facial Feminization Surgery 3 years ago which made the difference in my transition.
Thank you!
I'm reminded of a scene in the Red Dwarf books where athletes were genetically modified to gain advantage, to the point where soccer goalkeepers were modified to fit exactly into the dimensions of the goal.
Must have been kind of hard for that goalie to get on the bus after the game!
Really? That's funny as fuck!
That was specifically the Scotland goalie. They still failed to reach the knockout phase.
Red dwarf is fun
Indeed, and why I love British humor; it always has an element of truth behind it (as compared to American humor which is usually based entirely on a complete fabrication of the truth, aka lies). I've lost interest in what I call "freak sports". Basketball became "who is the tallest". Volleyball has become the same and they even allow freely swapping their 7 foot freaks into the front row and replace them with rear court defensive specialists ... they don't even play a full rotation anymore. Most hockey goalies are the biggest players on the team, for the simple reason they fill the net more and barely have to move to save a puck. I still like hockey because it's too dynamic to totally turn it into a freak sport.
See a lot of male transition to female in sports, but never seen the opposite. Would be interested in the results of such competition.
It's almost as if we all know what the result would be.
Shhh, we must pretend that it doesn't matter.
A lot? How many is a lot? 250? A good number of things to be able to see a statistically valid result is n=1500. When n=250, the stats tell you nothing reliable. When n=3, you are exploring your bias.
Patricio Manuel a trans man has a 3-1 win ratio so pretty well so far it seems
where?
I'm glad she mentioned the fact that competitive athletes have a variety of physiological advantages over the rest of us. That's why they became athletes and why they win.
Yes, born advantages. Not surgery or drug advantages...
@@AntonAdelsonWhat you say is objectively false. There are countless men who take anabolic stereoids so they can outperform their peers
@@mmmmmmkatata Which is against the rules and gets them banned from competitions. Exactly! Thank you for supporting my point!
@@AntonAdelson I've just realized that you're trying to say trans women are getting an unfair advantage from taking hormones, which is not true. They're LOSING some of the advantage that they were born with, but not enough to become on par with cis women. It's the opposite of something like doping. Therefore, any advantage that they have is a born advantage.
I have to disagree with you. Being a former athlete and nation coach in both men and women's sports you've put too much too much value on genetics. The greater component is epigenetics, in other words environmental expression. Bolt as an example, defied the physics, but you have to understand the physics of sprinting to understand thar. Steve Prefontaine is another example, too short, but became a world class middle long distance runner. Cultures that live at higher elevations develop larger lung capacity, not because of genes, but because of environment. Then why is it some coaches produce more elite athletes than others? Why do some coaches bring home more championships than others. This is not a simple topic, it is very complex. As for the transgender competition goes, you can throw all the studies etc out there you want, but the reality is a trans women can't compete against men, and women cannot compete against trans women. I have coach both elite men and women, but I have yet to coach an elite woman athlete that could compete against elite men. Trust me I would love to be the coach who did it. Did you see the USA national women's soccer team play against a U15 boys team? Women got killed by these boys. I have done the battle of the sexes as a coach, U13 girls vs U13 boys. both at the state level. My girls team beat the boys 3 -0. I knew this would be the results, before stepping on the field, why? 1) Girls were well into puberty and where bigger than the boys as the boys hadn't hit puberty yet. 2) the girls had it mentally together more than the boys. Had we did this with u15 girls and against u15 boys, we would not have stood a chance. The is evidence based science that Sabine, who is awesome, misses the boat on this one!!
"Athletes are biological extremes. Fairness has never been the point of these completions. They are really more like freak shows! Kind of like Physics Conferences." LOL - I love it.
This is a complete misunderstanding of professional sports and athletes. Athletes aren't biological extremes, they are just people that have decided to focus their efforts on improving themselves in their chosen sport like almost anyone can. They aren't special. And fairness has been a VERY important point when it comes to competitive sports where people are playing as a career. Otherwise things like using steroids would be permitted, or really ANY other kind of cheating. To say that "Fairness has never been the point" Is either totally ignorant or willing disingenuous.
@@GiRR007 athletes aren't biological extremes? how many 5'8" basketball players are you seeing succeed in the NBA? effort is absolutely a major part of the equation, but it's disingenuous to act as though biology has nothing to do with top athletes' success. you need both to succeed.
@@xynix1549 no you need both to be one of the best, you only need 1 to succeed.
@@GiRR007 okay, how many successful 5'8" basketball players are there in the NBA?
@@xynix1549 quite a few, actually theres one guy who was in the NBA at 5,3
I'm a dressage trainer and therapeutic horseback riding instructor, and equestrian sports stand out as not being segregated by sex, even at the elite level. On the other hand, there's one big unfair advantage that determines a person's high level success at these sports, and that's money. There are exceptions, of course, but starting out wealthy is a big indicator of whether you can ascend to the top level. Competitive sports are not fair in many ways, and I love the concept of meaningful competition instead.
I feel like the horse is the one doing all the work, if we're being honest.... lol
Are male horses stronger than female horses? I have no idea
Can we really call this a sport? You do less work than a race car driver.
YES COMRADE!!!❤
Money is a huge advantage in every single sport. I'm glad you agree that it's an *unfair* advantage.
In the video you explain that the advantages decrease over time with the administration of hormone therapy. I think this situation is compounded by the fact that, for the most part, sports are a young persons game. Very few athletes stay relevant even in middle age. The average age of medal winning gymnasts at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics was 20.6 years old. Athletes don't have the time to wait for the playing field to level. I also guess, but don't know for certain, that the biological differences between the physical performance of men and women is most pronounced at younger ages, the age demographic where they athletes are competing.
Still you have body height and bone structure even without going through male puberty. It just isn't fair. Especially in stregnth based sports. She said that it is not so much the case with endurance but even there the difference is not as small as she made it look. It is still significant.
Laurel Hubbard is a good example of what you're speaking to. She competed in the Olympics at age 43 and was considered a serious medal contender having ranked 7th in the IWF's women's +87 kg division. The biological women she was competing against were 10 to 20 years younger than her. She had a previous lifting career, then took more than a decade off and did not compete internationally for 16 years. That is an eternity to be out of training for an Olympic level competitor. She had only been training again for 3 years when she was selected for the Olympics. That is a suspiciously small amount of training for that level of competition. The fact that she took so much time off, but at age 43 was an Olympic contender after just 3 years training again demonstrates your point: even though her age has diminished her competitive abilities, as a biological male she continues to lift at the same standard as female competitors who have consistently trained and are in their prime.
@@XXXX-yc6wvhe* Can't believe your grandmother gave birth to your mother for you to turn around and reduce womanhood to a costume a man can put on. Get rid of your misogynistic views.
@@XXXX-yc6wv "as a biological male she..." That's the problem right there. 🤡🌎
Gymnasts are particularly young, not a great event to choose
would have been good to have a look at safety issues in contact sports. international rugby did quite comprehensive research into the safety of those who haven't gone through male puberty, playing with/against those who have, and there was about a 30% increase in injuries, including concussions. given that we are learning more and more about the very serious and long term affects of concussion, it seems extremely irresponsible to allow women who haven't undergone male puberty to be put at increased risk.
I never got the fairness argument. If we are to say, “Sports is unfair anyways, why try to make it fair now?” then why not remove the division between men and women’s sports completely? The reason for the separation in the first place is because we acknowledge the physical advantages men have over women. But if you’re going to accept these and still go on with it, then why limit it to trans athletes?
I mean there’s no reason to keep a division. Sure there will be a lopsided representation of men over women but since it’s purely competition, no reason not to allocate athletes to divisions purely by performance. Un-ironically many sports SHOULD remove gender divison
@@woolfie8766 There is no gender division. There is no such thing as a men's sports. Leagues that are mostly or all men are open to women. The problem is that women can rarely compete at the level men do, so the leagues appear to be men's leagues. Women's leagues were started because women wanted to play and compete in sports too. Allowing men to compete in women's leagues takes us back to a time when women will simply not do sports. That is unacceptable.
@@woolfie8766 I don't think you appreciate just how lopsided such representation would be. Sports would be *dominated* by men. Many elite female athletes will lose against teenage boys. Celebration of female athletic excellence would be almost impossible. Women and girls who love sports would have to accept they would likely never be able to properly compete. What a tragic, misogynistic world that would be.
@@boredom2go Dude. thats called gender division. you said yourself..."The problem is that women can rarely compete at the level men do, so the leagues appear to be men's leagues." if gender division is not a thing, women and men can compete in the same match. I still dont get what you are trying to say. From what i understand is that you dont see the "division" because 'hey, women can play that sports too. just like the men. so there really is no gender *division*'. I think what you are trying to prove is the fact there is a *representation* of women in the sport that is "fair". not about the gender division topic..
@@hanjoyitsu1414 I'm saying that the leagues that men compete in are already open to any gender. There's no need to create some combined leagues because they already exist. Women's leagues were created because either women compete only with other biological females or they don't compete at all. Women's sports should be off limits to transgender women (biological males).
"So maybe the solution is in the end we all just do eSports." I CAN'T
Hey I've seen impressive things in evo
Too bad men dominate e-sports as well, and no amount of screaming about "patriarchy" is going to change it that much.
@@KhukuriGod Its a joke calm dowm
@@KhukuriGod yeah but in many fighting games there are woman who consistencely in top 16. Its just that gaming events/ online evironment is generally toxic for woman so I think that I also why woman are less likely to participate in them
She legit had me waiting for her chuckle. It never came.
Arguments of some people that sport in general is unfair because for example some women are taller than others, therefore, they have advantage in playing basketball makes no sense. It's only natural and normal that within a sex category (male or female) obviously the people with the best physical attributes for a given sport will participate in it. Tall women will play basketball etc, short women might go into figure ice skating etc.The issue comes when we have a group of the best female athletes, both when it comes to a talent and innate physical attributes necessary to perform best in a given discipline, so we cannot actually find anyone better in the female category, and then comes someone whose only talent was being born male. All female basketball players will be tall and female, but one can be as tall and male. And this is what makes it unfair.
"All female basketball players will be tall and female, but one can be as tall and male" and what does it matter? In that case "male" means you have another power, being genetically stronger what is an advantage just like "a tall woman". So the Person would have simply two advantages, being a Woman that is tall and genetically stronger. It is not the Gender that is the problem, it is the genetically advantage the Transwoman has then. But that doesn't make her less of a Woman. Just a double strong Woman. Therefore Sports should be devided by abilities and advantages, that take the biological sex obviously in account. But the Biological Sex has not to do with what Gender the Person is. It just shouldn't be called Women Sports or Men Sports, if it excludes Transpeople. They should just say Sports or use Terms that refer to the Genetically Advantages and Abilities. But thats "difficult" and "complicated" so people rather refer to it as Women and Men Sports, even if it excludes Men or Women with different Biological Advantages. There are alot of Ciswomen that are Tall and just as strong as a man, that have the two advantages then. But then it would be fine? As already said, Sports should be seperated by abilities, not gender.
I'm increasingly skeptical that science actually has much to say on this. It's a democratic, collective issue, not a facts-and-logic issue. All this discussion of HRT is a red herring. The point of female athletes is for women to have relatable individuals to look up to in the domain of sports and physical achievement. The same for male athletes. The majority of the female population is cis. It's only fair that they get a category that fits their general experience. Ideally there's simply a category for everyone. Who cares which is most prominent... the Special Olympics can be incredibly meaningful for the athletes who compete in it. And objectively it is just as "hard" as the regular Olympics, if not harder. Similarly for the hypothetical Trans Olympics.
We don't allow employers to join unions because we recognize it is not in the collective interests of the majority of the workers. But employers *are* employees, they work for the company too. And there are pro-labor employers out there, who identity with workers and would likely not negatively impact the union. There's no perfect dividing line. Yet unions generally don't open membership to employers. There's just bits of inflexibility in the world that you have to accept, because none of these institutions are perfect, and none by themselves safeguard the general welfare.
@@theshadowsroses Well, you can say that transwoman's gender is "woman", but her sex is still male. The division in sports has never been based on gender (self-identification) but on sex (physicality) because that's what matters in sports performance. I find it "fascinating" that although "gender community" has always been saying that sex and gender are two different things, now they seem to conflate the two when it benefits them.
@@ZawieHahis sex is still men. It's pretty offensive towards women that just because a man says so, he is suddenly seen as a woman. It's denigrating and humiliating against real women. And the women that support this misogyny are just women too eager to humiliate middle class workers by forcing us to accept men in the same bathrooms our daughters are.
Before I went on HRT I tried to see how many pushups I could do. My sedentary ass could do 10. Now I'm 6 months on T, and I could do 20. I'm still a sendentary ass obviously. But it kinda surprised me, cuz it had never been easy for me to do 20 pushups, even back in my weird gym bro phase
Bro I’m 24 pre Hrt (MtF) and I can only do 11💀
Why can't you do a pushup? I was 32 when I went to US Army basic training in Jan of 1982. I started training for my enlistment and was in much better shape than others were. I was 5'7" and weighed 130 lbs. At the end of USArmy Basic Training I was able to do 67 pushups in 2 minutes, 69 situps in 2 minutes and run 2 miles in 13.2 minutes. 20 years later, at age 50, I could equal the same scores. At age 34, I went to USArmy Parachute school. I saw Marines get run off. I saw men that were age 18 - 30 drop out of runs that were very challenging. At parachute training school, 5 women got their wings. They weren't men transitioning to female. They were petite, small girls. There is no reason a man cannot do a pushup. If you are willing to train, you can do it. Your mind is your biggest enemy. I was never an athlete. In school, I was always the last one picked. I couldn't run fast, I couldn't throw a ball, and I couldn't get a basketball into the basket. What happened? What was different at Airborne School? I decided I was a winner. Nothing was going to stop me. Attitude is the key.
I just came here to flex on you specifically. I can casually do 20 push-ups no drugs after not doing it for weeks. To be fair I'm a short teen but still.
@@MD-kv9zo That's the dumbest way to flex I've ever seen in my life
@@tueanhtata5609 I didn't know a better way to state that I can do 20 push ups without doing it everyday.
Congrats on taking on a ‘controversial’ topic and conveying the complexity of the science as opposed to taking a ‘stance’ as is often expected from commentators. I note that people on both sides of the conversation have a tendency to over-simplify and reach for easy answers, which sadly are not readily forthcoming. I use the same term to describe athletes btw - freaks! But the physics conference follow-up burn was perfectly on brand 🔥😂
We demand more videos with various poorly attempted accents, Rohin.
Both sides tends to over-simplify but it’s pretty obvious that ONE side is doing it on purpose and on repeat to further their hateful agenda, while the other side is simply trying to defend a marginalized group, sometimes in a clumsy manner. The dynamic is such that there is a clear aggressor in this discussion and I find it ironic to reduce this to “both sides are wrong”, because it’s an oversimplification.
@@AiguilleVoodoo sounds like steel man/strawman interpretation based on perspective. One could be just as uncharitable and say "one side is protecting a marginalized group (women) and the other is trying to set progress back by excluding women's achievements and purposefully misrepresenting the facts" Like your statement, it's an incredibly unhelpful summary and not acknowledging that these divisive ways of talking about these issues aren't moving the needle for any dissenters
@@maverick9708 There's plenty of other evidence that the great majority of people screaming loudest about "save women's sports" (1) actually couldn't care less about women's sports and (2) hate any kind of gender nonconformity.
Nothing brings me more joy than seeing one of my favorite youtubers adding a well thought out comment to a video from another.
I find the story of Tom Dempsey really illustrative here, especially when compared with Michael Phelps. Tom Dempsey was a kicker in American Football who, in 1970, kicked a successful field goal from 63 yards (57.6 meters) out. This record stood for over 40 years, only being beat in 2013 by a single yard. Tom Dempsey also only had half a kicking foot. He was born with no toes on his right foot (and no fingers on his right hand). This mild disability gave him the ability to kick a football straight-on rather than needing to use the side of his foot. The advantages that would give are obvious. He had a custom shoe made to fit his foot, but investigation by ESPN sports science determined that that hadn't given him any more advantage than a normal shoe would a normal kicker. Even so, people were pissed. Noted union-busting piece of shit, Tex Schramm, openly said that he thought there should be an asterisk by Dempsey's record. And in 1977, a rule was made specifically saying that anyone kicking had to wear a normal shoe, no matter how much of a foot they did or didn't have. Tom Dempsey had a unique body that let him do something incredible, and people really didn't like that. Contrast this with Michael Phelps. Michael Phelps is a mutant who was genetically engineered to swim really fucking good. He has a huge torso and short legs (relatively speaking, he is 6'4"), a wingspan longer than he is tall, hyperextended joints that let him move like a mermaid, huge paddle feet, and he even produces half as much lactic acid (the thing that makes your muscles hurt when you work them hard) as his competitors. Michael Phelps and Tom Dempsey both worked incredibly hard and pushed their unique bodies to the peak of athletic ability. But one of them is celebrated, and one of them had the guy who invented the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders and their hotpants say that his record didn't count.
This is not random and it makes sense. Phelps is still using his own body whereas Dempsey is relying on specialized external apparatus to enhance his performance. This is like if a boxer lost his arms in an accident and replaced them with metal prosthetics. We would not cheer for him either. Furthermore I should note that Phelps genetic mutation (Marfan Syndrome) is less obvious and well understood by the general public than the idea of having half a foot. So it makes sense that one would generate more ire than the other. They are simply not aware of Phelps' advantage.
@@yessum15 I said in the original post that an investigation determined the shoe hadn't given him any particular advantage. But even so, he still had to have immense leg strength and incredible aim to make that kick. He didn't have a rocket boot attached to his foot. That said, I will grant you Phelps' mutations are significantly less obvious than Dempsey's. But that's honestly kind of my point.
@@elijeschke You did say that the investigation determined the shoe gave no advantage. And I ignored that. Just like the people in your story. Want to know why? Because that is likely nonsense and people intuitively know it. People know that the likelihood the man with this rare physical abnormality and specialized equipment also just happens to be the best kicker ever is too big a coincidence. They also know that such a dramatic change to the major variables present having no effect positive or negative on outcomes is basically 0. This is like if every football player kicks a football but I throw a Frisbee and score dramatically different from the rest. It's gonna take more than a scientist simply declaring "the Frisbee made no difference" to convince people. We're going to need a mountain of high quality evidence here. Now consider the problems with getting _any_ evidence at all. Science is a slow process. It operates best when questions are narrowly defined and variables are limited. When sample sizes are large and research is conducted by disinterested neutral parties ashering to strict protocols. The number of variables present here is insane and the physics is very complicated. Having half a foot dramatically changes the muscle to weight ratio between his power generating hips, and the weight of the foot they have to lift. The swing is totally different. And the shape contacting the football is totally different. The traction on that shape is different. His body mechanics as a whole are different. It would take a great deal of money and time to attempt to get a solid scientific answer to these questions. On top of that their sample size is literally n=1 And the "investigation" is probably as far from scientific as one can imagine and is being organized by a non-scientific organization with a vested interest in a particular outcome. This "investigation" probably has about as much scientific credibility as that ridiculous simulated fight between Rocky Marciano & Muhammad Ali. Which is to say it probably has less credibility than the the scripted fights of Rocky Balboa. So given the extremely obvious nature of the deformity, its hugely intuitive likelihood of influencing outcomes, and the dearth of any real evidence to the contrary some skepticism is totally understandable.
@@yessum15 In case of all that, then what would you suggest Dempsey do? Should he not be allowed to play the game because he only has half a foot? Should he be forced to play with no shoe, disadvantaging him compared to every other player? Should he have to have an extra half-foot stuffed into a shoe, and if that's the case, wouldn't that also be a device that could potentially aid him? What's the solution here?
@@elijeschke No. Because everything I just described is good reason to _suspect_ an advantage but it is not by any stretch of the imagination proof of an advantage. The best solution is to do what they did. Let him play and let the losers talk trash. I was only pointing out that his detractors' talk wasn't entirely unreasonable. It is understandable why they would feel that way. But that doesn't mean we should act on their feelings.
In sociology we think competition is mainly between peers (who's are seen as similars), because of comparability principle. When protagonists look not comparables, we not see it as a competition.
Ok, Sabine never dissapoints, she can take the hardest topic and presented a really fair point like it is easy
Too bad that so many people just wanted her to agree with what they already think. Thus, the anti-trans crew comes out and says she is biased and unscientific - solely because she did not say "it's unfair and should not be allowed" (in other words, they wanted her to present only the science that reflects their opinion and then claim the science agrees fully with their opinion). But like so many things it is much more difficult. Science can tell us the physical aspects of the situation, but it is silent on philosophical aspects. Clearly, it is true that sports has favored those with various advantages. What humans have had to do is come to some agreement about which of those are "fair" and which are "unfair". So, we have men's and women's categories for most sports. We have weight classes for many sports. In horseracing we even add weight if a jockey is too light. At the same time, we have also barred things when they are widely considered to break the idea of "fairness" (be it a spitball or a PED). There has also been plenty of argument about what should and should not have been allowed in those other cases. The same debate is occurring here. That debate will be informed by science but can't be resolved by science.
not really, this is out of her area of expertise. She's cherry picking "science". Most modern studies with larger number of partipants clearly show hormone therapy is inadequate. Males still maintain denser bones, greater lung volume, jump higher, stronger, run faster...
@@sethtenrec Good for you that you can see your problem.
@@Dadofer1970 your reference to the “anti-trans crew”, are you referring to people opposed to former men who want to compete as women? And use women’s bathrooms? Sabine definitely falls into the common sense category when she says the IOC is correct in preventing these adults who suddenly feel like a different gender from competing in women’s sports.
@@sethtenrec I was very clear about who I was referring to. She didn't actually say that that she agreed with the IOC rules. Instead, she launched into a discussion of how nothing in sports is really "fair". I explicitly stated that I was talking about people who are attacking her for NOT saying what you claim she said. FYI, she also did not say that the IOC is "preventing these adults who suddenly feel like a different gender from competing in women’s sports." She stated the opposite, that the IOC has chosen to let trans women do so in various situations. Personally, I tend to disagree with letting trans women compete against cis women in most situations. It breaks my idea of what is "fair". I realize that it is not a case of someone "suddenly feeling like a different gender", but the way I see it the physical aspects do go against the entire point of having women's categories in the first place.
"sports has never been about fairness, it's always been a freak show" Golden quote.
"kind of like physics conferences" lol @ Sabine
There's a reason we don't have Gladiator arenas
Sure. So we should exclude biological women from the “freak show”? If a heavy-weight boxer identifies as a lighter weight class, then he (or she, possibly...) should be allowed to knock around actual lighter boxers? Excluding them from competition would be cruel, and mis-weight-classing them is surely a ‘cancellable’ offence. Maybe the well-meaning / clout-chasing people pushing for trans-gender inclusion in areas where physical reality suggests it isn’t justifiable should be thinking about why they’re willing to dive over this cliff. The point is that people should be ‘allowed’ to have a self-identification that they feel comfortable with, and others should acknowledge that they have this right by virtue of being a person. It shouldn’t become a niche fight over - in essence - massive drug-cheating being allowed because otherwise a very tiny minority will be sad.
@@boggisthecat "If a heavy-weight boxer identifies as a lighter weight class" This is where your line of thinking fundamentally falls apart. Weight is not an indentity, its not something you can EXPRESS. Its a physical property Sex, like weight,is a physical property that exists on a spectrum: male, intersex, and female. It is comprised of several components including hormones, chromosomes, genitalia, and secondary sex characteristics. Gender is the EXPRESSION of these physical properties. Someone who is trans, such as myself, does not identify with the gender expression that they were assigned at birth. My birth gender was man and my birth sex was male. I now identify as a woman. Here's where it gets important: sex, like weight, can be CHANGED over time via biological conditioning. For weight its excercise and diet. Trans people often make efforts to change the components of sex that I mentioned above, specifcally hormones, secondary sex characteristics, and on occasion even genitalia. Sure its not everything, but the sex has CHANGED. A trans person who desires to and can make the change is biologically different from what they were born as, even if not in every single way. My sex is now changing to female. The crux of the problem is two-fold. FIRST: Sports are not a measure of identity but a measure of biological disparity, as Sabine made clear with the above quote. The best athletes are at the top of the mountain BECAUSE they are at a biological advantage. Even cis women who are higher in strength based sports are technically at an advantage because they have sex characteristics such as hormones or chromosomes of a different sex. They were born with that. That is the issue with sports as a whole, they are not fair and will likely not survive in their current segregated form as we acknowledge more and more the wide array of biological differences between all humans. SECOND: The person you are describing is just a liar. They can identify as someone who is on a diet, but until that diet kicks in they will not have changed their weight from heavy to light. This is not how trans people think. Even in the video its acknowledged that any laws allowing for the inclusion of trans people would require that they be two years into their SEX CHANGE. A transition is never immediate. Its gradual and requires time before it properly sets in. Obv society becomes uncomfortanble during the transitory period (which is itself an issue) but many trans people have the self-awarness to wait until they are far enough along to start doing things like sports in their gender identity.
The ‘freak show’ argument doesn’t hold because at the highest competitive levels freak show males will still beat freak show females on average, so it isn’t fair to have them compete with one another. Sabine seems to have no experience or empathy with athletes who work their asses off throughout their youth to reach the highest levels. Why should female athletes just make way for males, after all that work?
"... too many opportunities for unethical behavior..." is exactly why pro sports will still exist.
Perhaps... But the money in pro sports comes from people willing to watch it (and their ads), so if most people turns their back on it because it's just about what rich people/teams bought/developed the most extreme gene modification, the money incentive will be gone. Still people want to be entertained, so perhaps either a shift towards blood/death/gladiator things (humans are humans), or things like driverless motor sport (no driver, so no genetic enhancement - just best motor, sensor, and programming/AI).
@@baardkopperud I think most people would complain but still watch it.
@@baardkopperud What evidence is there that people would actually do that? Or are you just projecting what you see as an ideal world?
Also sports will always be part of our society because it is part of our human nature in so many ways. And since we love to optimize and earn money (love /need) there will always be the road to professiinalism
@@TheRealFlenuan I suppose it'll depend on why you follow sports... For the acheivments? Gone! It's about who could afford the best mods. Because you dream it could be you out there, or remembering how you almost made it as a youth? Nope! Anybody good were moded, injected and trained from before birth. Rooting for the underdog? No such thing anymore! Celebrating human acheivment and endurence? No! ...Unless you mean our ability to tamper with genes &c. Sure there are many other reasons to follow sport, but I do think they'd loose many - if not most - viewers.
12:55 I saw multiple videos from women who are competing in different sports, like swimming or 100 metres running and they say that since trans women (who are biologically men) entered the competition, they never won even once - no matter how hard they are training. They have to give up their career, because they simple physically have no chance to compete with trans women. So I partly disagree with the statement that _"sex differences decrease the more emphasis a discipline puts on endurance rather than strength"_ - yes, it decreases same way as it does if you and me have a similar physique but I work out while you eat chips and watch KZhead all day long. But this is a completely different thing than if you are 2 metres high due to your genes while I'm just 1,8m and you win in a running competition. No matter how much I exercise - I simply won't be able to win assuming that we have otherwise the exact same physique, training, health, age and whatever else, because my legs are physically shorter than yours. These are often not subtle advantages, but measurable and significant advances, which very clearly favor trans women in sports. So you see - This has actually nothing to do with the fact that these people are trans. It has something to do with the fact, that they have significant advantages which cannot be overcomed by simply training harder (which would also be unfair - you can compare that with doping). That's why people are separated in classes in sports.
Simple questions.. Why are there women sports to began with? Why is it considered "cheating" for women to take steroids?
Because otherwise, athletics would simply be closed to women.
It starts at the local town level with casual play. If there are large groups which have a high difference in aptitude it makes sense to play separately (sex, weight etc.). Competitions arise from this separated casual play. In the case of sex separation we overdo it sometimes out of habit (darts, pool etc.) but the sensible origin is clear.
You had me laughing at, " They're really more like ... freak shows. Kind of like physics conferences."
She recovered from the 'freak show' comment with the 'physics conferences' comparison. I wonder why athletic competitions are more interesting freak shows? Hmm...
It's not fair, at every physics conference I've been to there's someone smarter than me and at every basketball game, many people way taller and somehow they're hardly ever trans. (though not always, that said, my basketball, swimming, and running careers were not derailed by trans people.)
That line of Sabine's got a spontaneous fist-pump from me! Then I had an urge to check the physics conference photo to she whether she was in it…😜
I loved the Meghan trainor “all the right junk in all the right places” line
@@bcwbcw3741 So what you’re saying is… the true question is why aren’t we segregating physics conferences by sex???
Science as it should be. Not just throwing numbers and studies at the viewer, but actually understanding the method used, number of subjects tested and context of the study to weight the real compatibility of the resulta with the whole population. Keep up with the great content!
as well as contextualizing the dry facts into the real world with societal nuances!
Really, this is the most neutral yet extremely informative piece of video essay material on a touchy societal/social subject I've seen
That being said, the numbers in these studies are quite small. Too small by most standards (11-12). Also, who funded the studies? Unfortunately, science is rarely unbiassed as there is always an incentive to satisfy the stakeholders (funders) with results they want or expect. After all, The tobacco industry funded peer reviewed studies that determined cigarettes are good for you and Coca-Cola funded peer reviewed studies that concluded that sugary beverages have no adverse health effects.
I am trans myself and heartily support the LGBTQ community, but prior to viewing this wonderful thoughtful educational video, I was also of the opinion that this was an unfair practice. Bless you for your no-nonsense fact based analysis that presented all sides without bias or sensationalism. Knowledge is power. I just wish more people sought after wisdom and acquiring knowledge rather than having knee-jerk reactions by listening to social media disinformation, their feelings or unquestioningly following the crowd. What a wonderful world it would be.
@@seth7745 Not all studies follow american practices that can lobby and pay off results to their liking. There is an international scientific community where this kind of practice simply doesn't work. We also have far more transparency with the scientific community today, so while your extremely common knowledge examples from over 50 years ago are examples of one kind of practice that does not mean that practice is a universal concern in an internet age where peer reviews, conflicts of interest, money trails, credibility of scholars, universities and institutions, are under constant scrutiny from anyone with an internet connection. "That being said", studies on top trans athletes in particular might be quite small, studies on the effects hormones have on muscle atrophy and or muscle increase, on the performance of top athletes with invisible intersex conditions, on the sexually dymorphic traits that influence competitive advantages, how prominent they are, and to what extent trans people carry them, are better documented, at least to a point where we can have a much more informed opinion on the issue even if we don't reach a definitive consensus. And keep in mind, the tobacco industry and Coca-Cola directly benefitted from these studies being published which is why the studies are directly related to what they are selling. Who exactly would benefit financially from trans people being allowed to compete in sports? I gotta be honest, I've yet to hear a person bring up "big money" being involved in regards to trans people being treated fairly and equally in society that didn't end in "the jewish question".
I live in Seoul, Korea, where in 1988 Griffith Joyner set a women's 100-meter dash record of 10.49 seconds that remain unbroken to this day. But that same 10.49 seconds, which no other woman has been able to match for 36 years, would rank Joyner at around 3000th in the world as a male athlete. The athletic gap between men and women, especially when it comes to muscular strength, is quite substantial. World's best female tennis couldn't beat the world's best 300th best male player, etc.
It’s obviously not fair. Men and women are very different and the Olympic records are clear proof
Your comment makes too much sense to these woke lefties who deny reality.
In martial arts it is axiomatic that a good, large fighter will defeat a good small fighter. There are exceptions, but this is exactly the reason there are weight classes in these sports-- they create a level of fairness. And I won't get into how the gambling aspect helps drive this system.
Yeah...trying to blunder the meaning of "fair" it wasn't a solid argument...first time I caught her on a slopy point though, usually solid as rock.
“create a level of fairness” that doesn’t mean it’s fair. It just means it’s more fair. Not to mention this same logic doesn’t apply to every sport.
@@amorfo9127 nah, it definitely was completely logical. It’s an undeniable fact that athletic competitions are heavily impacted by your genetic makeup. do you really think splitting competitions between male and female makes it fair? She already listed every variable and difference. feel free to try to argue against it 😂
@@arturintete2461 The same logic applies to all sports. It's not fun to watch a 2000 elo play against a 400 elo chess player past the first few rounds. It's not fun to watch the world's most athletic men compete against the world's most athletic women.
@@erseshe no, it doesn’t. Because not every sport separates people in the same way, lmao.
"They're freak shows. Kind of like physics conferences" that is pretty much spot on. There's no better argument for Borg infiltration than attending a large conference.
Ya, that was hilarious.
This statement was hands down the best! 😆😆
What do you mean, why would the Borg help?
@@watcher8582 I think he means "take me now, make it stop", lol.
Really though, aren't conferences actually dating forums for scientists now??
I agree with your point and thus we talk about whatever you get from birth is considered fair. But any amount of drugs to alter it is not considered fair.
This is the simplest problem to solve. In drag racing, one fellow (who can afford it) buys a custom aluminum block engine and plops it into an aluminum tube frame, then tacks on a supercharger and runs it on an alcohol blend. While the next guy just tunes his old Chevy to top condition. The first is a much faster car, maybe crosses the quarter in 8.3 seconds, while the Chevy takes 14. So... you give the Chevy a 5.7 second head start. Theoretically, they will cross at the same time. Any difference is the skill of the driver. But if you cross faster than your claimed time (8.3, 12) then you were "sand bagging" during time trials. You were cheating. To cross faster than the claimed ability of your car disqualifies you, and the other car wins. In this way men, women, trans, whatever can all compete on an even playing field. It would work very well for most track and field, swimming, and some other sports. But not quite so well for baseball, football, futbol, etc...
???? when do you apply these categories and when do you not. does usain bolt start 5m back?
@@eeeaten😁Lol! 😄 But yeah, that's basically how bracket racing works. At a typical NHRA event (National Hot Rod Association) there are several brackets: the fastest cars, the rather fast cars, the souped up street cars, etc. They race against each other just as I described. The big money goes to the winner of the first bracket, the fastest cars; lesser payouts to the other brackets. But I attended a race on a holiday eve when most people (even car nuts) were home with their families instead of racing. There were only two brackets: the really fast and moderately fast cars made bracket one, and a few street cars just in it for fun made bracket two. For the final race, one of the two fastest cars developed a problem so they had to bump up the fastest bracket two street car to race him, some kid in his mother's sedan. He got his green light and took off and the fast car had to wait till he was about 20 yards from the finish for the fast car to get his green light. He popped his clutch and twisted his drive shaft and was stranded on the starting line. That night, the kid in his mother's sedan won the big money!
@@ThePeaceableKingdom yeah I get it, I just don’t see an appetite for it in elite sports
@@eeeaten And Motor Sports aren't elite? Naw, just kidding. Drag Racing is kinda nerdy, where fans want to talk about alcohol versus nitro, or injection versus carburetors, etc. But the flash points for "trans in sports" isn't elite sports either. It's High School track and field and college swimming and such. In elite sports, in professional sports - the team sort - it's all about ability. There is no "Men's NFL" there's just the NFL. It's down at the local high school where we're invited to take a large draught of a cup of outrage about "some wannabe girl" competing unfairly against "real girls," etc. That's a problem easily solved without insult or unfairness.
To be fair, I would love to see professional basketball with different height groups. Not only would that allow for shorter men/women to compete professionally, but it would also be quite refreshing, since different height teams would have to utilize very different techniques.
I wanna see Lebron James identify as female and go play in the WNBA. 😆
The “transgender women should have their separate sports” argument always strikes me as a rehash of the “separate but equal” doctrine from the segregation era. “White people feel uncomfortable sharing a restaurant with black people! Why do you demand to be let into the white restaurant when there’s a perfectly good black restaurant down the street?”
@@smokexsmoke99, except here it's not about "comfort", bot fairness.
In college, there were under-6' intramural basketball leagues. I enjoyed being able to play against people who did not tower over me.
Muggsy Bogues disagrees.
“They’re really more like freak shows, kind of like physics conferences.” Lol!!!! Great presentation.
I lol
11:16 context for those curious like me, she's talking about how professional athletes already represent the best of the best and can't be considered representative of the rest of the population.
That's right. And if in reality I was a Chemical Engineer, Structural Engineer or some other scientist who actually worked for a living, but insisted on admission into the Physics conference because I "identified" as a Physicist, then I could increase my chances of consideration if I took enough cognitive suppressing drugs that allowed me to share in the wonderful joy of string theory, supersymmetry and all of the other topics presented at the average conference.
I knew someone would get this comment in before me - Sabine excelling herself (again).
"Woah woah woah, you used to say you were a Chemical Engineer but through years of hard work and persistence in study, you now have a paper certifying from the experts of your higher learning institution that you have a degree in physics and you want to be let in and treated like a Physicist since accredited experts say you are one? Nice try, Chemical Engineer. Maybe in another life" - physics conference people *and _certain other folks_
As a man (no matter trans or not) it must be unfair for anyone to compete against women in general.
Definitely, the physical capabilities cannot be disregarded.
@@KatyWellsKingsland Quaterback, yeah right. How much time before one of those ladies become paralized after a brutal sack? How many head traumas before turning pro?
@@KatyWellsKingsland NOBODY will make it
Sabine. Thank you for your sincere research. I appreciate that you on the one hand show empiric data and on the other hand take the ethical aspects into account. Perfect mix.
Thank you for offering such a fair and unbiased look at the issue. As a transperson I cannot tell you how sick I am of everything trans-related being political or pushed with an agenda one way or the other. Please keep making great content, bringing facts, and offering many angles; It is refreshing.
I know what you mean. It's also really condescending to be told to not talk about politics as much or to watch less news as a trans person when everyone is out here making our very existence political -_- Edit: Not trying to make, /are/ making *
it's really not an issue either You're a man or you're a woman It's pretty simple
I think we’re all sick of the politics. I personally feel like we could have had a reasonable discussion about this as a society, taking into account the challenges of natural advantage balanced against the feeling of the individuals. There’s probably no perfect solution, but we could keep trying to make it better with time. Instead, it has been politicized with one side saying you must accept it without question and the other side predictably reacting to try and prevent all of it under concerns like unfair advantage. Both sides are ignoring the science, resulting is a lot of improper transitions (causing serious harm in society) while further stigmatizing those with actual physiological needs from the other end. It really is the extremes that are killing us.
@@michaelturner7641 pretty sure you mean people have either male or female genitals but can express themselves externally in a large amount of ways that don't conform to your backwards worldviews
@@michaelturner7641 It's actually not that simple unfortunately. Some people don't identify as male OR female. They're known as "Non-Binary" and might prefer an "X" gender marker on their ID. They don't generally look like boys or girls, but something in between. They feel uncomfortable using men's AND women's restrooms, and probably wouldn't feel comfortable competing on Men's OR Women's sports teams. They're the only reason we need a third bathroom or a third sports league; for the nonbinary individuals who don't want to be viewed as male or female. 🙃
I thought the random Meghan Trainor lyric would be the highlight of this video, but then there came: "Athletes are biological extremes. Fairness has never been the point of these competitions. They're really more like freak shows. Kind of like physics conferences, basically." 😆
This quote is so degrading to people who put in hard work and determination. And also degrades the people who lose... As though winning is the only reason we have sports. A tall lazy man always loses to a short hardworking one. The people who think trans people can compete don't even watch sports.
@@dansfrance188 There are no lazy tall athletes at elite level. They are competing with other motivated abnormally tall athletes. The short person has no place there no matter how hard he/she trains.
@@dansfrance188 a lazy female trans athlete also loses to the hardworking female cis athlete
@@dansfrance188 why do you think trans people can't compete? Does the transgender particle stop them from being able to pick up a ball or something?
@@66Kusmu Us women’s Olympic soccer champions lost to 15 and under boys. Same with the Australian women’s Olympic soccer team. They lost to 14 year old boys. Trans men have an unfair advantage on women when it comes to physical sports. That’s why you don’t have any examples of transitioned women to men in male sports.
they should have their own class. not a perfect solution, but at least it would stop a small % of people ruining the competition for the majority.
Misses the point.
"Too many incentives for unethical (extremely egregious) behavior" - Well said, my thoughts exactly on the swimmer - and the horse he rode in on for the legalized theft.
"This is why I suspect a century from now, professional athletics will not exist anymore. It creates too many incentives for unethical behaviour." I agree that competitive athletics create incentives for unethical behaviour but that hasn't stopped anyone yet.
And it breed animosity within children and promotes troubling dynamics of power (e.g. bullies get a platform)
It won’t exist because people won’t exist
Yeah, I find that prediction somewhat unlikely, what will happen though is that records will be reset as they cannot be compared to older ones.
@@noxiousophidian9634 I don't think anyone is talking about the end of sports in general especially not for kids.
The existence of many incentives for unethical behavior hasn't done that much to get rid of politicians or elite universities.
There was a comedian somewhere that suggested we should have one "normal" person off the street compete as a "control"... just to up the entertainment value.
i saw the suggestion yesterday that the olympics should have a random public draft - that it's just random people who are called up and you just have to do it. i'd watch.
That's actually a really good idea.
@@eeeaten You would have a bunch of broken necks in olympic gymnastics.
@@Alkis05 party pooper
@@eeeaten Hey, I didn't object. It would be the olympic version of jackass movies.
Sports is supposed to be good because it teaches "Sportsmanship". But all we have now is disputes, arguing, business, lawsuits, hatred, nationalism, sexism and money, money, money.
Thank you Sabine. Your work is amazing. Your communication is very clear and the sprinkling of humour is refreshing.
The part at the end about how sports would incentivize unethical behavior brings to mind the Futurama episode where Lela tells fry about the time that steroids became mandatory for all Blernsball players to make the game fair.
Isn't that essentially the case now? I've heard that in many sports you can't be competitive unless you are taking steroids and other performance enhancing drugs. And none of our current pro sports even have "multi ball mode". As far as I know.
the steroids thing is tame compared to genetically modifying babies to maximize athletic output, but we're likely to be dealing with that in all aspects of life if it's not heavily regulated :(
Lol!
When I first read the title, I thought to myself “oh no, is she really gonna go there?!” I’m sure glad you did! I’ve never seen this topic tackled in such an objective and multidimensional manner and I commend you for doing so.
Me too! Another really good video.
I agree. It's a "hot topic," but a valid question to ask and discuss. And science should be able to ask the uncomfortable of questions and look at them in an objective way. Although it may be a hallmark of transphobia, I believe it isn't transphobic to discuss how trans people in sports should work, or in prisons. And this was a good discussion of those issues, without being bogged down with feelings.
Obliterating the gender divide after decades of hard work giving women a fair way to play is objective?
I was also worried! But I thought this was very well done
I feel like this creator is interested in a purely rationalistic approach. Such an approach seems to support the basic tenets of trans rights.
You think that pro sports will disappear due to high incentives for unethical behavior? I admire your optimism. Personally, I think we're much more likely to increase unethical behavior than get rid of sports.
perhaps it all boils down to people just wanting to enjoy the thrill of overcoming or outcompeting each other without any care for the methods or ethics involved therein...
Being trans is unethical?
The definition is professional is to get paid for the activity. The idea is that the money gets removed from the equation. But yes, agreed, I can't see prof sports going away in the foreseeable future.
@@BooksAndShitButNotLiterally did u even watch the video…?
@@user-bl2vr9jj2z Some of it.
I was initially worried about how this video would shake out, but it was remarkably clear headed and dignified to all! I should have known that ultimately Sabine would end by completely dunking on professional athleticism entirely.
What? You're not even qualified to understand the pubs yet you're confident in your understanding of the validity of the peer review??
@@kathleenpearson-dh9od Those are entirely different moral questions. We are here to talk about the science, at least Sabrına is. What you are doing is shaming another person for not entertaining a personel belief on a science video, which I think is indefensable. I would be happy to discuss why the beliefs you hold are bigoted however. I am not a scientist (though I am a med student) so discussing morality is more in my wheelhouse.
@@kathleenpearson-dh9od Kathleen - take a fucking chill pill.
Why were you worried? Were you worried she'd state the obvious?
@@kathleenpearson-dh9od Nope. Not really. I guess this video ultimately justified natural males competing in female sports, which is what most people were hoping for to avoid being offended.
Pretty good coverage, though it would have been interesting if there were information on whether or not hormone therapy given before the assigned puberty will result in a musculoskeletal structure equivalent to the HRT gender. If this is confirmed in pre-puberty MtF trans women, that would add a lot of weight to the argument that it's important to avoid male puberty in such cases, whereas radicals tend to want to stop _all_ treatment, including puberty blockers.
this! i'm glad to see this nuance in the comments, because a problem i see a LOT with this debate is the oversimplification of the trans experience. there seems to always be a focus on trans people who started medically transitioning after their assigned puberty, when that is not reflective of every trans person's journey. (though, a lot of the arguments against trans people in pro sports are driven by anti-trans bias, so it would only really mean anything to those engaging in good faith...)
@@nyanbinarydisaster I think your parenthetical note is the real problem. I've pointed this out to people who are zealously against trans people and they just move the goalposts every time without acknowledging the point, complaining instead that no child should get blockers because it will somehow ruin them ... rather than accepting that for most of them, it will eventually allow them to be as perfect as they choose to be. The truth is, they don't _want_ anyone to be able to present and live as a gender other than assigned, because it gives them the _ick_ factor. Arguing in good faith is extremely rare.
@@Felice_Enellen i've noticed a similar thing from my own experience with the anti-trans crowd. no matter how well you deconstruct their arguments and provide them with evidence against their rhetoric, they refuse to be convinced or to even try to see you eye to eye because they're overtaken by hatred (though they won't admit this, and they hate it when you point it out). the other day, i saw someone making that argument about the "damage" that puberty blockers apparently cause, so i asked them how they feel about that same medication being prescribed to cis children for things like precocious puberty and, interestingly, they had nothing to say at all. with people like this, i imagine even they know how easily their arguments crumble under scrutiny, but for them to care about that, their goal would have to be a productive conversation, which it typically isn't. it's a shame, because we could all benefit a lot if people would put their hatred and egos aside and instead prioritise what's actually best for society, even if that means we have to abandon ideas we've been fed for generations and feel an irrational need to stick with. there's nothing inherently wrong with change, after all.
Stopping puberty is one of the worst things we can do medically to a developing human. Doing so needs to be considered unethical, because it causes a whole slew of problems down the line. Muscular issues, skeletal mass issues, hormonal issues. It's stopping a critical growth period of humans, one that is inherently important to every other aspect of the human body. If you think it should be stopped, for any reason, then you're disgusting.
@@dragonmaster1360 If you think people who have a mismatched mind vs. their body should be forced to go through the wrong puberty because of junk science you've obviously read from biased sources on the internet, you're the disgusting one. The changes the wrong puberty makes to the body can cause suicide, which is a far worse result than anything you imagine in order to fuel your hatred for trans people. Oh, unless that's the outcome you want, in which case disgusting is the biggest understatement ever. Get outta here.
The question of fairness is very subjective. Im saying it as a professional game designer. For example, most people agree that born advantage is more fair than surgery or drug advantange. So a woman born tall or strong is more fair than a woman being tall and strong because she decided to have surgery and hormonal treatment after being born male. As far as the solution goes, Id recommend to have game designers to be in charge with rules. Thats what we deal with. Balancing fairness, entertainment, fun, practical issues, budgets, etc.
Did I miss the discussion on bone, heart, and lungs differences in men vs women?
Yeah, I was disappointed by that exclusion, too. How about the fact that men have proportionally longer legs, making them faster runners? People were really impressed by the impartiality of this video, but I felt it fell a little flat in the science department. This isn't in any way a sort of close call physically.
Skeletal shapes as well. Post-puberty hormones aren't going to change the shape of your hips, shoulders, jaw, hands, etc...
@@TheGiantRobot yes I was impressed
@@n0madtv Which also affect center of gravity, a significant factor in many sports. Another point ignored in this video. Unfortunately, this video includes just enough bits of science-related factors to make it appear as if it's actually scientific, but it isn't. Selective data is junk science, anti-science, whatever term you want, but to say that it's flawed is a considerable understatement. So much so as to undermine her credibility, which is also truly unfortunate.
@@barbarakauppi9915 It is unfortunate. I liked her physics videos, but after a little too much misinformation on various subjects, including physics, I've now unsubbed.
This is the best I’ve seen anyone handle this topic on KZhead by a long way. Very well handled. Finally have a video I can share with people to help them understand.
Yeah absolutely. This is such a divisive topic! When I saw the title and thumbnail, I literally thought "Oh f*%k". But this is about as best and as factual as anyone has handled this topic.
@@contrabest528 I mean, she did mention there's a ton of variantion in testosterone production in men and women, and she does acknowledge and even cite studies that show post-puberty transition does indeed give and advantage. If there's a significant effect of testosterone exposure in-uterus and that reflects on athletic performance, and that is documented in studies, I do think it'd have been a good idea for her to mention. Would you know any study on this?
@@contrabest528 Definitely not. Before puberty there’s hardly any difference in muscle and bone structure. That small difference is vastly exceeded by woman with deviating hormonal function.
Sorry a lot of the “scientific” studies she quotes were written by activists with an agenda. In addition what is a trans athlete? Is it someone who had doped for a could of years? The difference in womens tennis between men and women is huge. Same for soccer. The American womens soccer team was easily beaten by a high school boys club team. Many boys high school track teams beat the woman’s world record for the mile.
@@jimkennedy4509 It's funny how I recognise every single talking point you deliver because it's hatemongering propaganda that has all been debunked for ages. How about you step out of your indoctrination camps and look at reality?
It seems they’ve managed to sort out categories in disabled sport, why not in trans sport?
This is probably the most honest and well researched take on this issue, thanks for taking the effort to clear things out
@OGSF exactly i wanna see some cyberpunk shit like adam smasher competing in the olympics
No completely solar panels can be placed in area like water canals that would help with algae growth without disturbing land also solar can work with distribution verses Transission and battery storage like Hopedale Australia has proven the concept while also showing how batteries have helped during g peak operation instead of starting up a peaked plant which is vastly expensive saving the customers money united Arab emeritus use solar for pumping gas at 5 cents a kilowatt hour and if no sun or wind for 3 days we'll we would have another more to worry about than energy
Sorry, but she's a professional LIAR: TWO QUESTIONS THE SABINE HOFFSTEDER AND OTHER LIARS WILL REFUSE TO ANSWER Firstly, if at some point in a physical endeavor, strength becomes a secondary factor to endurance, and women are supposedly able to cope better than men when it comes to physical endurance, why is it that even in extreme endurance events like the Navy Seals Hell Week and Ultra Marathon Runs that men still continue to show significantly higher levels of endurance than women? Why is it that only ONE woman Grace O’Rourke, has ever been recorded in all the history of Hell Week to endure its brutal and punishing physical regimen and practically ALL the most significant endurance records listed in the Guinness Book of World Records are held by men? Secondly, if fairness is essentially a meaningless concept in competitive sporting events, what’s the point of even having rules that punish cheating or doing anything that gives one competitor an unfair advantage over another?
@@thebeatnumber long distance swimming records are all women
@@allijnera That was based on skewed data collected from the Manhattan Island Marathon Swim ( between the years 2009 and 2010). The women in the Manhattan Island Marathon Swim were on average significantly YOUNGER than the men (33.7 versus 41.5 years) In marathon swimming events where men and women are the same age, the men dominate.
10:18 Sport have been "fair" based on the common understanding of the word "fair". We (humans) have sought to eliminate the most pronounced sources of unfairness (age&sex) by creating alternative leagues or divisions. An inability to achieve perfect fairness (not the goal anyway) is not the basis of an argument to give up on the pursuit of fairness entirely.
In terms of biological sex, trans women are closer to cisgender women than they are to cisgender men. If you are truly interested in pursuing fairness, you should know it's unfair to have trans women compete against cisgender men who haven't transformed their bodies and biochemistry in ways that align more with women than men.
Well said.
This video made me realize that this channel is not about science at all but rather about indoctrinating people into leftist ideology
Just legalize hormones and put everyone in the same league without exceptions on weight, gender or age. Lets ruin all sport careers for once as we have already started with women
There's no common understanding for fairness, only constant negotiation and renegotiation.
I don't agree that competitive sports will stop in 100 years because of genetic engineering, but rather become more like motor sports are today where a team will rise around a sponsored athlete and it will be teams that compete using a genetically engineered humans
The studies that focus on muscle size and mass, while telling, also seem to neglect the advantage of neuromuscular efficiency in biologically male athletes. If you are born as a male your neurological development in regards to muscle fiber recruitment is likely much superior to someone born as a woman. It also doesnt account for pre-disposition to a higher proportion of fast twitch glycolytic muscle fibers as opposed to slow twitch oxidative. Im not sure how much of these gender differences are brought on by the onset of puberty.
Well thought out, but the fact still remains that as far as I know up to this point, there hasn't been a single trans man win a single male sporting event of any type, (if anybody knows of one please reply) while trans women are breaking women's records left and right at all levels and all events.
Patricio Manuel comes to mind
@@orbeetles Exactly what title or gold medal did he win against another man? He's had 4 fights against men. The first 3 were against specially picked fighters to let him win, the most recent one didn't go that way. I know all about Patricio Manuel. He's the first and only one anybody brings up so I did some research on him. As a female she was a champion, as a male he's just an oddity and will never win a title.
can you please show me where this left and right winning everywhere is?
@timehaley which trans women are doing all this record breaking
@@orbeetles Using the web Here are some of the trans women who have won national or international competitions or championships: Tiffany Abreu: The volleyball player was a big part of the team that won the 2022 Brazilian Cup. Molly Cameron: Cameron won the female category of the three-day Cascade Gravel Grinder in 20231. JayCee Cooper: Cooper won the women’s 2019 national championship for bench press in the super heavyweight division. Michelle Dumaresq: She won the 2003 Canadian National Championships in downhill mountain biking. Laurel Hubbard: The Olympic weightlifter won two Oceania Championships and two Commonwealth Championships, amongst many gold medals she won during her competition years, adding a World Masters Games title in 2017, when she won a silver in the World Championships. Veronica Ivy: Ivy is a two-time masters world champion, notably winning the 2018 UCI World Masters Track Cycling Championships in her age category. It’s important to note that no out trans woman has won an Olympic medal in the women’s category. However, Canadian soccer player Quinn, who identifies as nonbinary, has earned gold medals. Please note that this is not an exhaustive list and there may be other trans women who have achieved similar feats in various sports
and let's not forget that those competitions mean something to those who put a lot of effort into training to compete! it is not only about winning a trophy but also money and opportunities afterwards.
I mean, most won’t get any money and opportunities afterwards. Thinking about profesional sports as a competition for money is flawed because most will make extreme sacrifices and still don’t make money. The effort and years of training and dedication do mean something to the athletes. But it’s not as if sports being unfair and taking away money that could have been theirs is their main risk.
@@yucol5661 nobody said it was the “main risk” Simply another cost for women from men participating in their sports.. despite their leagues being separated BY sex. It’s just so ridiculous…
There are other studies which state that transwomen who have undergone HRT went to strength levels equivalent of cis women, I don't think it's a done deal like you are making it out to be based on the studies you found if others state the opposite. It may depend on the type and strength of HRT that those who were studied are on because a lot of HRT treatments are not up to the strength which they should be for proper feminization. I'd also like to mention my own experience and that of transwomen who have undergone years of high HRT treatments that we have had very noticeable reductions in strength. I used to be able to do pull-ups and push-ups with very little effort and now I can not even do one.
what studies? can you name one?
No one ever talks about the ridiculousness of basketball associations scouting the world for the tallest players and then acting like all is equal on the court.
As a trans person (but not a competitive athlete,) I have been struggling with how to feel and think on this contentious issue. Thank you for bringing some objective scientific perspective!
I respect your choice - be it man or woman. I respect your right of living the life you choose. On the other hand, if you were a man last week, or last month or last year and chose to compete in a women's event I would be as mad as hell.
so, what is your conclusion? Should trans-women be allowed in women's sports?
@@neyson220293 not the ones who are playing now … I wouldn’t even call a person that looks like Thomas a trans woman
@Alex "I respect you as long as you don't do the things I get to do despite all evidence in the video showing the whole of sports is inherently unfair and we focus on classically male advantages too much, but hey that's not the problem no it's your participation that crosses the line" lmao go "be mad" elsewhere if you aren't here to learn. Telling someone you respect them but would get angry at them for athletic participation is such a masked threat of power -- it makes your respect flimsy at best, and an obvious lie to say what you *really* mean at worst.
At one end of the scale, we have scoundrels, men that put on a dress then compete in women's sports to gain a competitive advantage. IMO, these people need to be permanently banned, stripped of all titles and publicly shamed. On the other end, there are sincerely trans individuals that never fealt like their genetic gender and have transitioned. I am simply too ignorant to even talk about how these cases ought to be handled. I don't even have an opinion. But the real problem is, who determines who the con artists are?
I love Sabines sense of humour. Like when she said an extremely popular, multi billion dollar industry will go away because of ethics. haha.
It's not about industry it's about human nature. We always compete. It's what makes life fun.
Yes, but look at Stricly Come Dancing. We COULD watch the very best dancers, but we don't. We watch a bunch of celebs competing to dance, not so well, but there's going to be a winner. Athletics could go this way.
She is german afterall. They aren't particularly popular for their humour
@@rogerstone3068 I doubt it. The Olympic games started over 2700 years ago and it is still around. Humans are competitive by nature, that is what evolution has created in order to survive. We are still competitive in modern society in an economic way as men want money and power because that attracts a mate and a woman wants beauty and charm. There are outliers, but this is rather a rule for the vast majority. Simple evolutionary biology. People want to see the extremes of what a human body can do, so there will always be competitive physical sports at the highest limits because that is also a way we can say our team (tribe) is better than your team (tribe).
@@joeiborowski9763 "It is still around" makes it seem like it has been practiced continuously for 2700 years, whereas the reality is that the modern Olympics were rather spontaneously created about 130 years ago. As an aside, I've noticed that people who say something is categorically "simple evolutionary biology" are often the least suited to explain evolutionary biology to others.
Severly disagree with the Fairness part of the video. It's one thing to be randomly seated somewhere on a Bell curve or to compare two entirely different bell curves. The tallness argument is the best proove for that. The exact same male teams will have similar differences between teams..but 10-20cm above their female counterparts....
yeah she really dropped the ball there. Her field of expertise is physics. Talking about equality, sports and transgenderism is clearly not her specialty.
@@bananatree1234567so is that your speciality? 🙄
@@user-sb3sn8di1s you don't need to be a chef to say a certain meal tastes bad.
Thank you for tackling a complicated issue. It seems that I was correct about this matter; that I don’t have the mental ability to understand this matter.
I really appreciate the sources in the comments. So many popular and trusted channels provide no sources which I think is messed up. Its a huge relief to be able to watch your videos and not have to worry about being lied to.
I get that about other topics but if you need sources to know women get crushed by trans women idk what is going on up there.
@@raykings5244 that's because that doesn't happen. Hard to find sources about something that doesn't happen. That's like trying to find sources about the dimensions of Santa's house in the North Pole.
I will never trust anything without a source, so I love this channel.
@@hollisticc But it does happen, and it will happen more and more.
@@hollisticc wdym it doesn't happen?
11:24 regarding the entertainment value of sports; It's more interesting to watch a sporting event where the contestants are closely matched but have slight variations in abilities than watching one team curb-stomp the other. That is, of course, unless the one doing the stomping is the one that is considered the underdog.
That's not true, Usain Bolt stomped his competition for over a decade and was really fun ti watch
Or any team against the Dallas Cowboys.
@@jamonnaranjo Now replace all his opponents with the fastest women.
If its the Pats or Colby Covington getting stomped, I'm here for it any day.
Sabine talked about fairness in sport, but safety is also a factor. ie boxing or rugby when deaths or serious injury can occur. Its well to have fairness on paper but in the real world safety is also an added consideration. With regards to fairness in other areas for example height or bone density some people are born with those advantages. Unfortunately I was not born with the brains that Sabine has so is that fair? no proberbly not. But we are talking about people who chemically change themselves in some way so that they can fit into a catergory to compete with people who are only given what they are born with and have worked many years for in training. If they were to use drugs it would be called cheating.
Sabine's intersex stats are way off. That paper by Furtado et al (2012) does not provide any reference for the 0.1-0.2% statistic. It's literally the first line in the abstract and is a common trope in scientific papers, to cite a statistic demonstrating the rarity or significance of the condition being discussed. Usually that statistic is supported by a reference in the paper, so you can assess the provenance of the evidence, but in this case it isn't. A more reliable estimate is 0.018% found by Sax (2002). That's actually a paper on how common intersex is.
Yes and also some acitivists vastly inflate the number by putting other conditions under the Intersex umbrella. I heard someone claim it could be as much as 1.7 percent which is wild. Intersex is a super rare condition. Also even the people having so called ovotestis are a mixture of distinctly male and female anatomy. Not some kind of third sex and there a new "spectrum" like they claim. Also the overlap of T levels is not that big if it is even there at all. The study I found stated: "In the healthy, normal males and females, there was a clear bimodal distribution of testosterone levels, with the lower end of the male range being four- to fivefold higher than the upper end of the female range(males 8.8-30.9 nmol/L, females 0.4-2.0 nmol/L). Individuals with 46XY DSD, specifically those with 5-alpha reductase deficiency, type 2 and androgen insensitivity syndrome testosterone levels that were within normal male range. Females with PCOS or congenital adrenal hyperplasia were above the normal female range but still below the normal male range." You can look it up. Should be easy to find.
I disagree Sabine. I think sports will eventually devolve into reality TV, but never truly go away
r u talking abt wwe
@@chrisangel6833 That’s actually a really good example
@@markus4925 She spends the second half of the video saying that it’s not just about physiology and they need to analyse fairness, competition, and entertainment. Did you not watch that far?
@@JM-us3fr Maybe they were too eager to voice their disappointment and couldn't continue watching.
Sports are ALREADY reality TV.
Sabine, it is possible that the low testosterone scores for elite male athletes was a result of them coming off of their steroid cycle. These kind of scores are often seen in athletes who are known to use steroids, Jon Jones is a good example. It is very unlikely that a man with levels of testosterone comparable to elite female athletes would be able to compete at an elite level with men… unless of course he’s just coming off a steroid cycle
... i'm not sure she actually critically examines every study she shows. actually i'm rpetty sure she doesn't.
Just read the discussion of the paper. These levels were measured after an event, and extreme stress can deplete your testosterone levels apparently. Often this is recovered after a good night's sleep. This study was a spin-off from a study on the effects of doping, so roids have definitely been checked for :) The interesting part of this paper isn't necessarily about testosterone, but differences in lean body mass. They even conclude that using serum testosterone as a means to exclude certain women from competition is untenable, and that LBM is likely a much more important marker.
Yeah that was weird
@@sandrawiersma2512 Good on you, dude-ette!
@@sandrawiersma2512doping still takes place at extraordinarily high levels at the olympics and not usually in very specific and borderline undetectable way, very hard thing to control for even in a study of this magnitude
I love how how none bias you are when presenting your data
Im glad that you took your time too discuss this subject! It is a complicated subject between the question of fairness and the medical and scientific question of advantage and differences. The scientific question i've always think is an interesting one: its is hard (impossible) to do experiments so one has to deal with observational data which can hide selection biases connected to gender, the probability to be trans and so on. I think your take that it is a matter of meaningful conpetition to be a fresh look at it! Thanks!
Very informative and well-articulated. I especially appreciate the brief coverage of intersex conditions at the start, the philosophical exploration of "fairness" in sporting events at the end, and the humourous bits interspersed throughout. Thank you for making this.
But it isn’t though it’s the same exact thing every other person says “yes it’s not fair but sometimes life isn’t fair” ignoring the difference between controllable and uncontrollable advantage
It was a low quality compared to what she normally produces. Her conclusion is literally a Nirvana fallacy lol. Her analysis is also lacking a lot of relevant physiological differences between males and females yet she only focuses on males who have undergone "transition" of which the data pool is extraordinarily small while we already know for a fact that muscle insertions, distribution, and bone density stay the same. She, like so many others, is afraid of having her career assassinated by political zealots.
@@deuscoromat742 EXACTLY !!!!!!
@Deus Coromat if she would care to be canceled, she doesn't criticize hardly string theory.
Intersex people are so rare you may as well say they are statistically zero. The issue is not people being born with female and male parts, it is people who feel they do not have the right parts.
Thank you so much calling the Olympics a freak show. You made my day :)
The same was said about a physics conference.🙂
Exceptionally intelligent people is not the normal and you can't raise IQ in anyway but dangerous drugs. You can lower IQ with poor nutrition, etc.
do you mean the special Olympics??
@@berniv7375 ..and so has Astrophysics...
@@georgeanthony4834 WTF is wrong with you?
Thank you for this scientific and clean breakdown of this question, you put things into great perspective and I feel entertained and educated at the same time. :)
Admits trans women have residual advantage as long as they had male puberty, but proceeds to red herring 'what is fairness really'
Waist-hip ratio (very important for punching), heart and lung size relative to body mass, relative fist size, relative jaw size, bone density (for many years or life), neurological differences in spatial reasoning. Those are some of the advantageous differences that are not eliminated by postpubescent hormone treatment.
Thank you! And to bolster the argument I point to the fact that there are a plethora of records that were set by trans women but I've never heard of a single one by a trans man. Where are the scholarship opportunities being taken away from men because a trans man beat them in the regionals etc? The nuttiest part about this is that is she's all "Is there an unfair advantage? Yes there is but it doesn't matter because sports are unfair anyway". What?! What's the point of looking into the science if the answer is the same no matter what?
@@jasondashney exactly! 👏🏼 Brilliantly put. Thank you.
@@jasondashney well said
@@jasondashneyExactly! I caught that portion too! The muscle retention is still there, along with many biological advantages that hormones just can’t strip away. Thank you for sharing your piece - this really hurts women ultimately and nobody wants to hear it!!
How ever trans women are not neurologically alike cis men even before HRY in general and even less so post HRT. Spatial skills like sense of direction declined to a degree even in cis men if they for any reason had to radically lower their testosterone.
"Sports have never been fair" It's a fantastic way to put it. Just look at the birth months of professional baseball players. August 18.6 26.6% September 17.8 21.1% October 15.9 8.2% Why would this be? What does their birth month have to do with ability? These kids were as old as possible when they start school. In fact in many states if haven't turned five by a certain date you don't have to start school that year. This means children will be larger and have an advantage in sports for their age. This is an example of the Matthew effect where people with an advantage gain more advantages over time. The month that you were born in contributes overwhelmingly to the possibility of you being a professional athlete. That's definitely not fair.
No it's not, the only reason women's sports exist is to let women compete against other women without men. Excluding males from competing is the entire reason women's sports exist. It's a terrible argument.
I learned this fact a few months ago and was so surprised. It perfectly shows how unfair sport is. People really underestimate the effect luck have on an outcome. So many people like to believe it’s all a 100% hard work.
Uhm...you do know that correlation doesn't imply causation, right?
@@juimymary9951 Absolutely, but everything we're talking about today is statistical. Taller basketball players are statistically more successful in basketball, but that doesn't erase the fact that Muggsy Bogues was successful and was only 5'3.
@@AiguilleVoodoo We all like to think that we deserve what we have because we work hard, and while working hard does contribute, there is so much luck in everything we do. Being born into a country where you can get an education, being born to a family that can afford to feed you good food, pay for college and on and on. It's uncomfortable fact that working hard is only one factor in being successful in anything.
Thank you for your objective and honest depiction of the science! An important (in my opinion) question that hasn't been addressed here is the question of whether trans people might also have to deal with the disadvantage of having gone through gender dysphoria? I.e. are trans people statistically less fit than other people of their biological sex at the start of their transition?
Interesting points. However I disagree with the slippery slope argument - just because a slope *is* slippery does not mean we *will* slip. However, I get the point that perhaps that would be the best case for fairness, if we were willing to do so. Then the follow-up point is, are we willing to do so? The answer is probably no - its just not entertaining, and can also be difficult to be accurate about. So, the result I come to is, we can proceed down the slope as far and only as far as meets the following values: entertainment, fairness, accuracy of identification. Sex, i.e. male and female categories, I would argue do meet these - the first two quite easily, and the last is not terribly difficult if we stick to biology. People do want to watch the different male and female categories (half the population is one or the other - thats fairly compelling), it is noticeably fairer (the difference is significant), and it not too difficult to be correct about biologically (the biology is binary, albeit with some complicating factors that can be detected). Meanwhile heart size, for example, doesn't really meet any of them - people don't care as much about things they cannot see at a glance (its not emotive), it is not readily apparent how much difference the actual range of size on offer makes, and its difficult to establish to any degree of accuracy without some fairly invasive and dangerous proceedures. So, maybe we could *realistically* have categories based on sex (most sports do this), race (somewhat fails the third criteria due to being on such a spectrum and complexity), weight (boxing does this), height (for applicable sports like basketball), etc. I think these are likely to fit the three-point test mentioned above to a strong enough degree. Meanwhile, liver function, metabolism, blood count, etc., dont likely meet it - no one is entertained by different categories of blood count. TL;DR - some categories make sense, some dont, we don't need to do all or nothing.
I am very used to seeing videos with titles like this one ending up being statements of opinions with half hearted proofs, and I am very happy to have learned so much in this one! Very comprehensive and truly instructive, thank you for making this topic so understandable !
It’s very sad that you think you learned something from her rationalizing and pandering.
@@RAF71chingachgook shut up karen
Yes if your certain you are Wright then oh oh possibly an error has occurred
Life is not fair soon going to be hard for sports to be truly fair as spectators kinda know this already fans still like to watch it is entertaining
@@josephcunningham5482 - Who is "wright"? Are you referring to one of the Wright Brothers-- Orville Wright and Wilbur Wright? 🤔
I like the idea of "meaningful competition." We don't have to account for every variable either. Boxing has weight classes. Why not apply similar classes to sports based on advantages? Yes, it would be imperfect, but most things are until we observe and adapt.
I find it funny how the "fairness" goons are trying to force women's sports that include trans women to exclude them. The fairness goons FUCKING HATE flat-track roller derby because we've told them in no uncertain terms to get bent.
It's not just a matter of 'imperfect'; it's a matter of 'does it work at all'. For instance, the same blow landed on a woman will be much more likely to cause injury than on a male, due to bone strength and size (the latter applying even in cases of similar height-weight, curiously enough). So a woman competing against a man in a boxing match will be much more likely to suffer a broken bone or other serious injury than her opponent, EVEN IF they fall into the same weight class. That is neither fair nor meaningful competition.
We already divide them into classes for fairness - those classes are called male and female
@@OutsiderLabs And you actively try to destroy anyone and anything who steps outside those classes because those classes aren't about fairness.
@@katherineberger6329 'actively trying to destroy'? What on earth are you talking about? People pointing at the scientific literature and demonstrating that temporary HRT exposure doesn't magically erase the significant physical differences between male and female competitors are not trying to "destroy" people who don't fit neatly into "male" and "female." There is a complicated ethical discussion to be had about intersex people who have advantages within female sex segregated sports (with the most significant being XY chromosomal people with partial/complete androgen insensitivity and as a result naturally present as female). That conversation has nothing to do with the fairness of allowing natal males to compete against natal females under the (empirically verified to be false) presumption that undergoing hormone therapy to aesthetically appear more female makes one physically equivalent to a natal female competitor in sports performance.
Obviously for athletic competition there needs to be a third classification or 'open' category to cater for competitors who are not recognised (rather than identify themselves) as male or female: that would be fair.
Genetic engineering is no where near creating super-athletes. We do not know what 90% of the human genome does and what we do understand shows that every gene controls more than one biological effect. Every attempt to create a superhuman in one aspect will cripple that same human in another aspect. We just are not smart enough to outsmart the genetic selection that places good and bad results in moderating positions. (For example, sickle-cell anemia can be very bad.... unless you contract malaria, in which case it can be a life-saver.)
This video was an absolute blast. I love how dry your joke delivery is, you made me laugh so hard and presented a logical and well-supported argument at the same time. Keep on producing such amazing content!
Me too! She doesn’t change her demeanor or tone at all, then suddenly I realize she just told a joke! Great delivery 😂
I used to compete internationally at orienteering. It’s an interesting Sport in that all competitors can compete at self assigned levels, males and females, young and old, able bodied and those with disabilities, or those outside these groups. Awards were given for fastest time, as well as by gender, age and category. If you won in lower levels you moved up, regardless of body make-up. Seems like a very fair way of doing things.
Right on Luke. That's the way forward in sport without alienating any competitors.
presumably, making out of the forest alive is 'winning,' but how many categories will be enough? how many gender categories were there?
That sport is basically irrelevant to physical ability, unless you're really messed up. Orienteering is more mental than physical. You might be able to run 4 minute miles, but if you suck at reading maps, you're probably not going to do all that well. The same way physical ability doesn't matter much in chess. I don't think anyone would really care who was what in chess. Nor would they in orienteering. But physical sports are a whole nother ballgame, so to speak. A 140 pound female would get near killed on a NFL field full of men....
@@curtisnixon5313 women’s sports won’t exist. The top 1,000 male runners are faster than the fastest woman.
The reason we seperate sports by sex is so females can win something
The mind blowing gibberish I just heard from a purportedly intelligent person.
Or maybe she isn't the problem. Maybe it isn't gibberish. Hmmm.
@@briancolw In failing to countenance or apply relevant context/relative merit both you & she, know, full well, it's gibberish. No exegesis required, both you & her know exactly what I'm talking about.
Regarding individual advantages in sports competitions, it is important to highlight that individuals are born with their advantages. If they alter their natural bodies, that is considered doping. Therefore, the main difference between an individual with natural advantages and a transgender individual is that the transgender individual is artificially changing their natural body. In this case, if we start defending differences and advantages, if transgender individuals are allowed to undergo doping (hormonal treatments), non-transgender people should be allowed to as well.
They do, HRT is used vastly more by cis people than trans people. And cis people don't need to jump through hoops, so they just get a doctor's note.
@@ThePlayerOfGames You didn't get my point. I'm talking about fairness. Fairness in sports comes from different competitors from the same NATURAL category. They have natural differences, but they're still in the same natural classification. They're born that way even they have their own natural advantages as differences. That concept seems fair even though they are different. But with new technologies we started migrating people from one category to another which seems unfair due to we still don't completely understand if that migration technology really works as designed. There are no scientific proof you can change a lion to a tiger even though you can print stripes to a lion. No matter lions and tigers can reproduce to ligers, born lions will never be tigers with our current technology and born tigers will never be lions the same way. We still don't have technology to do that miracle yet.
When I saw the card, I can't say I wasn't concerned. This is something that hits close to home for me. After watching it I have to say this was extremely well done. Thank you for compiling all this data and presenting it as you did.
I was concerned too, but Sabine did an excellent job. Again.
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Same here. And let's not forget why this topic is hot right now. Because American conservatives, who never cared for woman sports, are creating a moral panic around trans people.
Its interesting to note that the paralympics do classify people by giving them a handicap; thus enabling many people with varying levels of the same type of handicap to compete against one another. Of course this doesn't remove all differences, but does allow for a certain level of reasonable competition. In the end this is all that can be done; like the way we separate competitors with respect to age. Today we even have senior competitions. Should we provide every person in the world with a handicap evaluation such that someone who is half-blind can complete on the same level as someone who has perfect vision in archery? I'm sure there isn't a perfect answer to this question; as the answer will depend on the objective of competition. Is it to amuse the spectators, it is to make money for the performers, or profit to the business people? Good luck solving that riddle!!
Perhaps what should then be included in professional sports is an active 'handicapping' negotiation segment where teams or individuals are handicapped based on pre-event negotiations by the managers or coaches. Like in hot rod street racing! Michael Phelps, no one will race you unless you give them x seconds head start!
This is a crazy utopian idea that will, if implemented, destroy elite sports for spectators and thus lead to their complete collapse. We watch sports to see the amazing feats the very best athletes can pull off. Seeing Bolt win by 0.5 seconds in a ten second race makes more people want to watch, not less. Seeing a man who identifies as a woman beat people by that distance in a women's race, would have those who aren't utopian fantasists throwing their remote control through the TV and not replacing it.
Paralympics is rife with cheating
I’m so glad someone with a science background is broaching this contentious subject. It is a very volatile space where multiple perspectives are presented without sufficient justification.
The simplest solution is to have 4 categories for athletes to compete: men, women, trans men and trans women. Problem solved!
Misses the point. Trans women want to compete as women.
@@tauntingeveryone7208 if you're ok with no more women in sports, then sure. men are much faster and stronger than women even when weight is taken into account. that's a worse solution.
@@tauntingeveryone7208 this is nonsense sorry. Where are you getting *your* information? Men have more muscle and are therefore much stronger and faster. EVEN WHEN muscle mass is accounted for men are still stronger and faster, and what are you going to do anyway, have muscle mass categories and body fat categories? The whole reason for gendered sports is so women are represented in high level sports, not to protect men’s egos. How silly! Men not winning as much as women! Hahahaha!
@@tauntingeveryone7208 mansour 2021 _During short and maximal exercise, male performed better with their hands, back and legs than female students. Excess fat for female students has a disadvantageous effect on vertical and horizontal jumps performances. _*_The persistence of sex differences after weighting_*_ of male students indicates that body fat is responsible for 30 to 70% of the observed differences between sexes performances and power outcomes during jump tests_
@@tauntingeveryone7208 bartolomei 2021 _Women athletes are known to be less strong and powerful than equally trained men, muscle strength of women indeed, is typically reported in the range of 40 to 75% of that of men; women are also known to be less powerful than equally trained men. _*_Gender differences are still evident when power per kg of body mass is considered_*_ and the difference in absolute strength between genders appears more evident in the upper body compared to the lower body. On the contrary, several studies have reported that strength per unit of cross sectional area or lean body mass, do not substantially differ between sexes. The main factors accounting for gender differences in maximal strength, indeed, have been identified as the muscle mass. Other studies confirmed that gender differences in strength may be accounted to LBM but reported that the differences in power performances were still apparent regardless of body composition, and muscle mass. These results support the idea that _*_differences between genders in anaerobic power and jumping capacity could not be accounted for by differences in lean body mass_*_ only_
I saw the title and my heart sank: A physics researcher weighing in on trans people in sports?? But wow, I'm so glad I sucked it up and clicked, this was honestly one of the best summaries of the actual facts I've ever come across. And of course, the actual facts reveal that people's emotions have been preoccupied with the wrong things. Thank you so much for putting in the effort on this, Sabine.
Yes, I completely agree. Sabine is really great at that !
I like how you expose your bias where you start with the idea that a scientist can't have an opinion and share it.
@@yozul1 I don't think any of us has the level of insight to confirm that either way. We can agree that being instantly dismissive of someone else as if they can't have a reasonable opinion on a subject is pretty nefarious, as impedes discourse and learning. I believe anyone with this type if prejudicial reaction should evaluate why they initially thought Sabine incapable of providing some insightful commentary.
They are not facts. Just observation which is like quantum mechanics - unreliable.
Let's call it for what it is: you're just relieved that she toed the PC line and that she didn't make you question any of your beliefs.
@Sabine, in the video, you presented percentage statistics for the effects of hormone therapy on trans men and trans women. But percentage increase vs. decreases aren't directly comparable. A 1% increase in body mass does not always correspond to the same amount of mass as a 1% decrease. The former can be smaller than the latter when starting from different body masses. This is important in comparing the statistics about the effects of hormone therapy on trans women and trans men. If the body changes happen after puberty, the trans women's changes are likely measured from a larger body mass than for the trans men. So a 1% decrease in body mass for trans women can on average be a larger amount of mass than a 1% increase in body mass for trans men. In comparisons between countries with different population sizes, this kind of problem is handled by quoting changes per some fixed amount of people (e.g. percent per 100,000 of population). Might a similar comparison help somewhat here (e.g. percent per kilogram of body weight)? It may not change which of trans women and trans men experience the larger change, but it will make the gap appear smaller.
MANSPLAINING!
@@gerry4b shut up
Good point!
@@gerry4b you are not funny
@@gerry4b a - this joke died half a decade ago b - this isn't "mansplaining" at all, by the terms definition
"Well sports is not fair, so we can be unfair here as well" is the worst cop out ever. Imagine if anyone said "Some people are poor. But we're not going to attempt to do anything about it, because life is unfair, sorry!"
I understand your frustrations, but tbf, very little people who have a problem with trans athletes also happen to have a problem with the well-known unfair bits of their favorite sports. You must agree that’s a double standard, yes?
@@phamdung3884 How about we turn the tables? I'm not tall, so I could never be a basketball player. I'm also kinda bad at sports, so I'll never be a professional athlete. Or a astronaut. Or a billionaire. Some people were born in the wrong body, so they can never be professional athletes. It's okay if they want to do sports recreationally or in "Sunday league"/amateur competitions, that's fine! And this way, it's much less discomfort, and less controversial, for everyone, especially regarding women's sports.
@@DudeWatIsThis eh… maybe? I don’t necessarily disagree with your suggestion on how we could go about it as I dislike the concept of elite sports (the kind people watch on TV) since it’s so detached from fitness reality. I’m just asking whether you think it’s a double standard towards trans athletes that *THIS* is the aspect of “fairness” we’re focusing so much on. Side note: while I respect a bandaid solution in the mean time we figure out a *real* one, I also doubt that half of the people currently against trans athletes actually want to build a better system. Granted, just allowing people to announce their gender willy-nilly like Canada’s lifting did was a pretty bad bandaid.
@@phamdung3884 I don't believe it's a double standard. It's had arguably the highest impact regarding results, besides using performance-enhancing drugs. It was sudden, it was impactful and it is recent, so it is talked about. If you're trying to dig for latent transphobia, you won't find it here. Just because I'm in favour of social progress, it doesn't mean I'm not equally critical of it as I am about other political or social views. Nobody should get a pass for BS. Not even those in our side. I don't think we're doing the community any service by defending this issue. I do enjoy elite sports extensively. And I find this to be unnecessary. It's like putting lemon in the conservatives' wounds. Why would you give them legitimate reasons to hate other people?
@@phamdung3884 Okay so KZhead just deleted my 3-paragraph response. Thanks, KZhead!
i'm trans and autistic. It is becoming more clear is that there is a large inter lap between the two.I'm most likely have OCD and I also have a very high IQ. I personally believe that there are probably more neurological connections than what is known. The increase of the numbers is simply an increase of understanding what to look for. I was born in the 1950s. My first episode of gender dysphoria happened before I was 4 years old. I started to school at 4 years old because I couldn't talk. I had to request an autism test in 2017. It is so obvious to me now. I'm so neurologically divergent I own all the type C category of personality disorders. There is most likely a genetic aspect to these issues. In time it will become clear.
no idea what your point is or how it's related to this video.
I am transgender. Mtf. 1. Gender.... Is not sex. It is not physical. It is an expression of behavior. 2. Sex, is determined by x and y. Transsexuals, after surgery, have only changed one organ. Not their skeletal / muscle system .. to me,IMHO it is ABSOLUTELY unfair. The only time it might be a consideration, is. 3. If the person, was on HRT, starting before puperty. Blocking T. once testosterone changes the body, the muscles, the skeleton, these effects generally cannot be reverted. The parents that allow their children to make that decision, should also understand their child, MAY STILL have an advantage, and since that cannot be determined , they should accept, that everyone else is going to have a problem with that. The parents or that child, in that case needs to debate the public over that issue. I think the outcome of that should be obvious to all of us. Perhaps, maybe, the schools, should make some changes to their sports options, or maybe open up a trans league? I mean, if they will accommodate medical conditions of say... Handicapped students.. Then they should make the exact same effort towards accommodating trans students. Especially on HRT.... Because after all.. It's considered a medical condition in the first place OR ELSE they wouldn't be having hrt administered by medical professionals. My final thoughts. It is in almost all senses.. unfair. But THAT was the wrong question to begin with . The question should be instead... If a state, or country, sees HRT for minors, a medical condition that is treatable... Then WHY ISN'T the schools, under that same govt, and law... Addressing and accommodating trans students and they would any other student, with a physical condition. (And this isn't about opinion. It's about laws, it's about respect and it's about eduction. If your opinion, isn't in line with the laws.... Then change the laws by voting, or, change your opinion, I know I've changed my opinions throughout life many many times, and it hasn't sacrificed my dignity, or my children's well being) Tink tink. Kat Williams. What ever happened to old tink tink? (Again, I'm mtf transgender , and I believe it is unfair, and schools need to recognize the laws and hrt as a physical condition, worthy of sprouting new classifications)
Gender = Sex
11:20 "Kind of like physics conferences". I'm dying.😂😂😂😂 A was already laughing with "all the right junk in all the right places." Sabine is the best!
😂 i thought I was the only one that found it so funny
when she said "all sports are freak shows" i thought that's going to be a tough statement to keep socially acceptable... but Sabine did it 😁
Yeah, I think Sabine is absolutely hilarious in an effortless way. I love her videos.
@@KristopherNoronha "when she said "all sports are freak shows" i thought that's going to be a tough statement to keep socially acceptable" Same here. I thought: 'No, Sabina, you can't say that!'. And then, when she said: "Kind of like physics conferences", I thought: 'Right, that self-deprecating remark is going to save you from all that horrible kick back that was coming'.
Sabine slays each time ..
This made me nervous, seeing the topic, but you've earned my trust enough that I gave you a shot, and I think you've earned that trust again.
She doesn't take any stand and only presenting what is. I think she rarely doesn't if ever in any of her videos.
@@lylelaney8270 there is no such thing as not taking a stand -- you can't avoid making a choice
@@philipripper1522 unless she clearly said I agree or disagree or this is right or wrong then it's not.
@@lylelaney8270 That's still a stance. You think she doesn't editorialize? She'd correct you herself.
@@philipripper1522 If she does then she does. I'm pointing out unless she says it unambiguously then it's not a stance. That's all. It's unfair but it's still OK. It's wrong but it's acceptable. It didn't fit the current fact but it's still not contradictory. That's basically what she said. (Rephrasing)
Although Sabines points are very interesting, the fact that sports are always unfair doesn't imply that we should add another layer of unfairness by disrespecting the women's category. If top Athletes are freaks with extraordinary features, then biologically male athletes have still always an advantage over biologically female athletes.
And with that, you have conceded that sports are a genetic competition, since only the best genes for each sport win. Adding that to determinism, which negates the notions of “willful determination” and “spirited competition,” all sports are like watching a game played 20 years earlier, where the winner is already known. How boring.
If you believe it’s fair you’ve never played a sport in your life let alone had any type of physical competition in your life
Sabine is the mind our world needs right now. Imagine if governments could be this sincere. Love your content Sabine!!!
No woman should ever be governing civilization unless you want civilization to fall into a multicultural hellhole that is, on the surface, a means to help the brokensexuals and us POC feel "equality" within civilization aka North America but below the surface it is only a means to reduce overall population.
She is still superior to 9/10ths of all male politicians but the solution isn't one man level woman, we need a superman level man to guide us all.
Yeah she'll wade into any poop for money.
Are people so ignorant to not realize there are Transgender Men? People born and identified on Birth Certificates as Boys?
Actually this video is a great example how politicians work with science. Hard science: "Trans women have unfair advantage". Our proposition: "Sport is inherently unfair!" Our conclusion: "Science tells it's OK to let trans athletes to compete in women's sports!" ???? Profit!
This is an excellent presentation! BTW, I took a deeper dive into other topics that caused me to watch some of your earlier videos from 4 years ago. Your production quality has really improved. Congratulations on your great work!