Trans player puts cricketers on the back foot

There is a new star in the Kent women’s cricket team — its first transgender player is opening after one season.

Maxine Blythin, who is more than 6ft tall and under England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) rules can self-identify as a woman, has a batting average of 124 this season and has hit four centuries already.

Under ECB rules transgender players have to test their testosterone only if they are selected for England.

Fair Play for Women has said the policy is unfair, especially at a time when the game is improving opportunities for female players. A £20m semi-professional competition for women starts next year.

“Letting males who self-ID as women play in women’s competitions is demonstrably unfair,” the campaign group tweeted last week. “The ECB *knows* males have a performance advantage over females. This is [why] it lets women use lighter & smaller cricket balls & why boundaries are set closer.”

Last week Cricket Australia announced that testosterone levels would be tested in non-professional leagues. Female players’ testosterone levels will need to be below 10 nanomoles per litre for a year, in line with the International Cricket Council’s policy.

Cricket Australia’s policies were shaped by the experience of transgender players such as Erica James, 44, who transitioned three years ago. She took female hormones two months before taking up cricket again in 2016 after quitting team sports aged 15.

The ECB is understood to be worried about a backlash against transgender players. “Our position on transgender participation will be reviewed as part of our commitment to regularly review all governance policies,” it said.

But as far as the policy of self-identification with no medical requirement went, it was “unlikely to make any unilateral changes”, the board added.

“We are proud that this model promotes an inclusive environment for all participants in domestic and recreational cricket.”

The ECB said it was aware that “we have some transgender cricketers playing county cricket out there”.


https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/trans-player-puts-cricketers-on-the-back-foot-nfljzh2h9


This is simple getting ridiculous and are placing biological female players at risk, facing Transwomen. Who are biological men. Here they do not even have to lower testosterone levels. When womens levels are never higher than 2.8. Men are between 10 and 28. Let alone the effects of male puberty. That make men, taller, faster, stronger, big bone density, bigger hearts and lungs etc. Lowering testosterone levels does not take away many of these male puberty advantages.

To place this in perspective. The fastest women bowler is Cathryn Fitzpatrick, who fastest bowling delivery was 77 mph.
The fatest male bowlers are a 100 mph. Which is a huge difference, espcially with height and speed that can create this kind of deadly delivery.

Now imagine this happenning to a female batsman.

https://twitter.com/SkyCricket/status/1162722265424941057

Jofra bowls at an average speed of 92 mph

I am sorry but sport is based on sex difference on categories, not gender and this is completely unfair to women.
They might as well scrap protected categories for women. If they are going to allow biological male Transwomen to compete against women

It's getting worse Didge, if I was a women Cricketer or Runner I'd refuse to take part !

nicko wrote:It's getting worse Didge,   if I was a women Cricketer or Runner I'd refuse to take part !

Agreed mate and nobody is against Transwomen competing, even though they claim its a human right to compete in women protected categories. No its not, if that was the case. Men would be able to also compete in these categories. The human rights issue is only on being able to compete in sports itself. What needs to happen is a rethink on the categories to make this fair for all. Those claiming that Transwomen that have gone through male puberty, have no advantages, are simple being disingenious.



At least some are coming up with solutions.

Existing gender categories in sport should perhaps be abandoned in favour of a more "nuanced" approach in the new transgender era, University of Otago researchers say.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) guidelines that allow male-to-female transgender athletes to compete in the women's category at the elite level has raised significant debate since being introduced in 2015. A recent case of New Zealand weightlifter Laurel Hubbard, a transwomen competing in the 2018 Commonwealth Games, has polarised opinions about the inclusion of transwomen in women's sport.

Bioethicist, Associate Professor Lynley Anderson, says that in discussing this topic we need to consider the principles of inclusion and fairness.

Associate Professor Anderson and Dr Taryn Knox from the Dunedin Bioethics Centre, together with Otago physiologist Professor Alison Heather investigate the ethics and science around the IOC's decision in research published in the latest issue of the Journal of Medical Ethics.

They explain the recent IOC guidelines allow transwomen to compete in the women's division if (amongst other things) their testosterone is held below 10nmol/L.

Professor Heather says this is significantly higher than that of cis-women [whose sex and gender align as female].

"Science demonstrates that high adult levels of testosterone, as well as permanent testosterone effects on male physiology during in utero and early development, provides a performance advantage in sport and that much of this male physiology is not mitigated by the transition to a transwoman," she says.

Far from arguing that transwomen be excluded, the authors are in favour of a radical change to what they describe as "the outdated structure of the gender division currently used in elite sport."

They consider possible solutions in their research however, some options value inclusion more than fairness and vice versa. The potential solutions include excluding transwomen from competing in the women's division, creating a third division for transwomen and intersex women and calculating a handicap for transwomen based on their testosterone levels -- similar to that used in golf.

Their preferred option is an extension of this with a proposed algorithm that could account for a range of parameters, both physical and social, including pyshiological parameters, gender identity and could include socioeconomic status.

Associate Professor Anderson says it is important to both extend and celebrate diversity while maintaining fairness for cis-women in sport.

"To be simultaneously inclusive and fair at the elite level some innovative thinking is required, rather than attempting to shoehorn people into either 'male' or 'female'.

"Perhaps the male/female binary should be reconsidered in favour of something more nuanced and useful?," she questions.

"We conclude that the gender binary in sports has perhaps had its day."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/07/190723092111.htm

They need to add a third "mixed competition" division (not a trans-gender/transexual/non-binary division --  as that's simply pandering to the ridiculous..).

Netball, lawn bowls, tennis, indoor soccer and indoor cricket, all have their "mixed competitions" --  where women can compete in a more equalised 'levelled' competitive field with men, while those men (and suitably tough women..) who don't want to mix it with more aggressive higher standard single-gender competitions can have a third option..

British cricket could have a more rationalised and fairer approach, if they seriously wanted to.

'Wolfie wrote:

They need to add a third "mixed competition" division (not a trans-gender/transexual/non-binary division --  as that's simply pandering to the ridiculous..).

Netball, lawn bowls, tennis, indoor soccer and indoor cricket, all have their "mixed competitions" --  where women can compete in a more equalised 'levelled' competitive field with men, while those men (and suitably tough women..) who don't want to mix it with more aggressive higher standard single-gender competitions can have a third option..

British cricket could have a more rationalised and fairer approach, if they seriously wanted to.

+1

Any one remember those Russian "Women" Weightlifters from an Olympic Games years ago ?

nicko wrote:Any one remember those Russian "Women" Weightlifters from an Olympic Games years ago ?

And this mate

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doping_in_East_Germany