It came up last year with weightlifting too, when a transgender woman (Laurel Hubbard) won an international competition.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/early-lead/wp/2017/03/22/transgender-woman-wins-international-weightlifting-title-amid-controversy-over-fairness/?utm_term=.14376df6b077

---

JustinDoesTriathlon

Owner, FuelRodz Endurance.

But people get SO wound up on the BQs .

-------

i would assume people get more wound on up "fairness" and the higher the stakes, the more it gets people talking about the issue.

---

Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

For Boston its a fairly simple solution, separate qualifying times for transgenders. Other competitions where the pool is smaller, then it becomes a much more difficult problem; that is if you believe there's an advantage.

I'll fully admit I'm not an expert on this subject so I don't know if there's an advantage or its just a perceived advantage as transgender wins make headlines. For all I know, there is a huge ignored pool that are terrible at sports.

Couldn't care any less how people no where near the front are let into Boston. I say this as a dude who has qualified many times and run the race before. 3:40something? You're not really affecting anything.

That's the problem, we don't know. Where do you draw the line? Can I put a wig on for my next race and go break some world records? Or do transgender individuals need to be under hormone therapy? If so what doses or what process? Would reassignment surgery be mandatory to compete as transgender? What if a transgender cant afford the surgery, would this constitute discrimination? and on and on and on.

---

2x Deca-Ironman World Cup (10 Ironmans in 10 days), 2x Quintuple Ironman World Cup (5 Ironmans in 5 days), Ultraman, Ultra Marathoner, and I once did an Ironman.

Transgender people taking part in sports is a difficult topic. At the end of the day not everyone can be happy.
IAAF rules require an endocrine test and surgery https://www.transathlete.com/...cies-by-organization
Other sports have different rules. Sportsscientists had a good article following the Caster Semenya debacle. For most people the male to female athletes are the most difficult as without treatment they would have a competitive advantage. I understand that there is limited research on the effect of hormone therapy on sports performance. Anecdotal reports say that female hormone therapy is pretty awful for performance.

Since Boston uses birth year to determine age graded BQ categories, they should also use birth sex. Otherwise it's OK for me to fib my age as a 45 year old male - because I "feel" perform like one at that age (I am in my 30s fyi)

I totally agree this should be the norm for all sports. Or like I said before, ill race in a wig for my next race and add some wins to my name.

---

2x Deca-Ironman World Cup (10 Ironmans in 10 days), 2x Quintuple Ironman World Cup (5 Ironmans in 5 days), Ultraman, Ultra Marathoner, and I once did an Ironman.

I think if "adding wins to your name" was such a legitimate concern of yours that you would claim to be female just to get it, then its not that far of a logical jump to suggest you're potentially cheating in other ways.

---

Use this link to save $5 off your USAT membership renewal:
https://membership.usatriathlon.org/...A2-BAD7-6137B629D9B7

Might be true, but technically wearing a wig and winning wouldnt be cheating now would it?

---

2x Deca-Ironman World Cup (10 Ironmans in 10 days), 2x Quintuple Ironman World Cup (5 Ironmans in 5 days), Ultraman, Ultra Marathoner, and I once did an Ironman.

Of course, that means that those born female who transition to male (complete with hormonal assistance) now have a big advantage due to testosterone.

(and because of the testosterone, they're also violating the doping regs unless they get a TUE).

My preference would be: you race in the sex you were born, unless you undergo hormone replacement therapy. If you undergo HRT, then you swap to your preferred gender.

HRT doesn't fully change your sex. Bone density, menstruel cycle, menopause, child birth cannot be done by man who seeks to be a woman. These are issues woman deal with that affects performance

At the amateur level (even really fast amateurs), I think we let competitors state their gender and race their race. The idea being that gender is not an either/or proposition and your sexual organ at birth is not always aligned with ones actual gender. Does a random guy wear a wig or a skirt and BQ or KQ? Maybe. I care far more about the many more who will be negatively effected by other approaches.

At the pro level, it's much more complicated (maybe), but invasive examinations are NOT the way to go.

Are you allowed to 'believe' that gender is a matter of science anymore or has this been banned by they people who are in charge such matters these days.

Obviously you can see my thinking here but some of the results that are coming out in the name of political correctness and modern liberalisation are pretty farcical.

I'd say either transgender has its own category. Or preferable it is the sex on your birth certificate at the point of birth.

Having transgender as a category makes its own issues when people will start claiming we further break it down into the 928373 genders some claim there to be. Maybe I'm just too old fashioned.

You couldn't care less, but the person in that AG that didn't get a spot that they really wanted, maybe trained their butt off to get sure does. And for Boston, pretty much everyone is at the front of their AG, at least at the race they qualified.

Here's a hypothetical question:

A Russian female runner has been hormone doping for 49 years. She then stops for 3 years and decides she wants to run Boston. Should she be allowed? Are we talking about the same thing or something entirely different. Is our desire to be inclusive driven by a political agenda or an attempt to be truly fair and is the fairness one-sided towards the runner to the detriment of the rest of the field?

---

Scott Fricks, President
Virgin Islands Triathlon
USAT & FM Tri Level I, USAT Youth & Junior, ITU Level II Triathlon Coach
USAT Certified Race Director

This is a really interesting debate that seems to be coming up more and more lately. Thinking outside the individual endurance sports, such as running/triathlon/cycling/etc., where there really isn't a risk of injury from the transgendered woman. What happens when you put a (born male) transgendered woman in a boxing ring with a born female still identifying as female? There's a genetic difference that becomes dangerous with the transgendered woman clearing having a physical advantage over her opponent. Then what? Despite people identifying one way or the other, there's an indisputable genetic difference that needs to be considered.

Already happened but not in boxing. Be interesting to see what happens when she flattens someone in Aussie Rules: it's a very physical game.

http://www.bbc.com/...d-australia-43044082

https://www.lifesitenews.com/...on-breaks-her-eye-so

This happens.

---

2x Deca-Ironman World Cup (10 Ironmans in 10 days), 2x Quintuple Ironman World Cup (5 Ironmans in 5 days), Ultraman, Ultra Marathoner, and I once did an Ironman.

So what? It's a privately run race that in the end means nothing. They're under no requirement to make things 100% fair, whatever that might mean. So someone at the margin got left out? Boo hoo.

Right, so who here will identify themselves as 90 year old female to KQ?

agreed, that makes it simple. Not only does it level the playing field for women, but also for transgender men, who otherwise would be unlikely to be able to run the male BQ times.

Setting those qualifying times will be tricky, another headache for poor Dave McGillivray.. but it is the fairest way.

Transgender women in boxing/rugby/etc is just unfair to the other women.

Gender is fluid throughout the animal kingdom including the human animal, but competition in games is a question of rules and fairness. We can't assign a gender but we can do our best to make competition fair.

White-crowned sparrows have four sexes. Each of the sexes can mate with only one-quarter of the population.
White-throated sparrow has two morphs, with either white or tan stripes on its head.
White stripe - promiscuous, poor parent, aggressive, tuneful.
Tan stripe - monogamous, good parent, protective, poor at singing.
Each morph can mate only with the other morph.

my favorite fish story is the Australian barramundi - they become sexually mature as males at about three to four years old. Males turn into females from about five or six years of age onwards, but require saltwater for this sex change. Barramundi in freshwater remain male all their lives, and so freshwater barramundi are entirely artificial, created by man.

for more, http://humoncomics.com/archive/animal-lives

This issue is another reminder of how personal honor should be at the heart of athletic competition. There is a fixed number of competitors, so one person cannot take a place without affecting another faceless person. A transgender runner needs to look herself in the mirror and ask if her performance is more worthy of participation than the other person’s. Doing the right thing is a matter of honor.

The rest of us should just shrug and free ourselves from having to arbitrate these matters.

Is there any particular reason we (I) should be ok with the Marathon Investigations dude outing three people as being transgendered? I don't recall any of those women calling me to tell me about their gender status, or announcing it to the world on live tv, so..... I can't really think of any good reason for me to know about this except that some nerd decided to hint that maybe they're taking away three spots from more "deserving" runners.

To echo (sorta) what the OP said, if this was any other race, people would be outraged about the invasion of privacy. But since it's Boston, the primary thing on most people's mind is "Can I get dibs on their spot if they're disqualified?"

Personally, I hope they do well in the race.