It's been well documented that increased volume of endurance training correlates with lower testosterone levels, so I don't think it should be a surprise. I think it might be a mistake to suggest causation. E.g. the lower testosterone levels might not cause higher maximal workload.

I read the article as explaining that the influence of testosterone on athletic performance is complex, which is how I understand its influence on my own athletic performance from age 15 to 60.

Eh. They're implying causality without evidence.

Perhaps it's that the higher performing athletes are doing more volume which continues to drive down testosterone levels. The more apt comparison would be volume/training load matched groups. One takes testosterone and one doesn't. Obviously you can't do that study due to rules and regulations, but anything short of that is reaching for a conclusion that isn't appropriate.

Yeah the testosterone effect is all psychological

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They constantly try to escape from the darkness outside and within
Dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good T.S. Eliot

https://sportsscientists.com/...g-on-caster-semenya/

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Janyne

You mean like 100% of the people that drink water will die so therefore, water will kills people?

The New York Times has done an abysmal job as of late at reporting science. To wit:

https://www.acsh.org/...nce-news-sites-10948

"The New York Times is a joke. The NYT -- America's alleged newspaper of record -- has itself quite a record of unscientific transgressions. The paper promotes dubious fad diets, cited the quack Joe Mercola on a story about the safety of wearable electronics, and gives voice to organic foodies. It also published a story on a fake disease called post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome. The NYT regularly reports false information on GMOs and agriculture, perhaps none so egregious as this utterly abominable article by Danny Hakim that compared pesticides to Nazi-made sarin gas. If it wasn't for the fact that some respectable writers like John Tierney and Carl Zimmer also publish there, the NYT's science coverage would be comparable to that of the Huffington Post."

Sadly, there are far more examples:

https://www.realclearscience.com/...g_about_science.html

https://archives.cjr.org/..._of_the_wrongest.php

https://www.acsh.org/...lows-it-anyhow-13948

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___________________________________________________
Taco cat spelled backwards is....taco cat.

This one is worth a read.

Yeah, the NYT often does a spectacularly abysmal job of their 'lifestyle science' articles, meaning those that are trying to self-interpret science and health as opposed to their better stated mission of just reporting what 'real scientists and doctors' are discovering in research and trends.


This article's fatally flawed central premise is instantly debunked just by asking any sports scientist or endocrine doctor as to what happens to female athletes or even animals who are injected with large amounts of testosterone.

It should be pretty shocking to me that a well-esteemed paper such as the NYT can let this get through scientific editorial review, but honestly, the NYT has been consistently horrendous with their interpretation and reporting of lifestyle science, to the point I think it's intentionally so since a 'soft' article like this gets 1000x more views than the die-hard objective and dense articles that a true scientific journal would put out.

FIFY..

it's an odd mix of excellent coverage, and wild-eyed weirdness - for both science and general reporting.
I keep wanting to subscribe to support journalism, then they take on board another lunatic op-ed writer or publish something entirely ludicrous, and I don't..

So if the big T don't matter, why does Caster run slower on low T (2010 to 2015) ?
I feel really sorry for her but there's no way around some kind of restriction..

Amby Burfoot's 3 questions:
1. do you believe there should be separate races for men and women ?
2. if so, how should we establish the categories - ask the athlete for their gender, or some kind of objective test ?
3. if an objective test, what should it be ?
T's about the closest thing there is.

The New York Times has gotten so bad with all of their articles that I've grown tired of cringing every time I read something from them. Overall, there seems to be a general trend of journalists not actually knowing enough about what they are writing about and not doing the proper research necessary to learn. And the Times seems to have replaced any good journalist they might have once had with this type.

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-Bryan Journey
Travel Blog | Training Blog | Facebook Page

In this case it was more of an editorial failure rather than a journalistic failure. The authors are not NYT journalists. But I agree that the NYT should have better gatekeepers on editorial content.

Semantics. Every political and fitness article I've seen from them for the last few years has been garbage. All of them.

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-Bryan Journey
Travel Blog | Training Blog | Facebook Page

The Sports Scientists article is a necessary read. If you have opened this thread and haven't given it a thorough read, please do.

Unfortunately the mainstream press would rather turn this into an outrage and morality play. This has caused huge amounts of anguish among feminists, and among black people and a lot of Africans. That pain is unfortunate.

But it's not racism. The world loves Eliud Kipchoge, for example, and Usain Bolt, and will continue to do so until the day either is busted for doping (not to single him out, and I have no evidence against them other than the presumption that every elite runner skirts the limits of medical allowability). Every Black, Afro-Carribean, and African runner that has competed at the highest level has been celebrated, except for when they've doped.

And it certainly isn't anti-women. Women deserve to compete in sport at the highest level, with the field not limited to XY-intersex folks who are producing male levels of testosterone, male muscle and lung volume, with male secondary sex characteristics, and with internal testes.

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'It never gets easier, you just get crazier.'

Georged, I don't understand how race plays into this as Caster could also be a white European woman and targeted in the same way.

Re: the discussion on NYT, couldn't agree more and I've stopped reading it years ago. I did read this article and even though I'm against the ruling - I don't agree that higher levels of T = better sports performance is a myth.

It's undeniable that having higher levels of T is advantageous for any athlete - however, I do see the IAAF ruling as problematic and unfair. Caster is producing extra T's naturally. It is not like she is going out injecting the stuff into her body.

Women's hormone levels fluctuate all the time. Are they going to test all female athletes now? If Caster didn't appear as she does - she would not have been targeted (imo).

Also, what are the rules for men? What about men who produce higher than average levels of T naturally? Are they also going to be required to take drugs to reduce their T levels?

I do consider the ruling discriminatory and unfair.

best person to read on this is Ross Tucker, Science of Sport.

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Eric Reid AeroFit | Instagram Portfolio
Aerodynamic Retul Bike Fitting

“You are experiencing the criminal coverup of a foreign backed fascist hostile takeover of a mafia shakedown of an authoritarian religious slow motion coup. Persuade people to vote for Democracy.”

Not sure I can take an article seriously when it says thing like this (even if the infographic/source is correct):

"Scientific American became the headquarters for left-wing social justice warriors and others who felt bashing conservatives was more important than reporting good science."

"Daily Mail and The Telegraph serve up a disproportionate amount of sensationalist garbage. Avoid. "

That's just unprofessional writing and reads like an opinion piece by an undergrad.

The article you quoted put Fox News and NPR is the same category of evidence based reporting. Regardless of your political background, that's a stretch.

Others have already mentioned this, but I'll point out again to emphasize that the authors of the piece that was labeled at the top as "Opinion" were clearly identified, and not as NYT staff members.

I have no problem criticizing a journalist when deserved, or disagreeing with an opinion piece, but I also think it is important to emphasize the difference to folks that don't pay enough attention to distinguish between an opinion piece and a straight news story.

Castor is producing testosterone, naturally with his testes. Wont even show results of chromosome test. I do think rating gender on hormone levels is wrong, but if you have male parts... go run in the male division.

The name is Caster, and she presents as a woman. Use of male pronouns here is purely out of adolescent spite. She is by all available evidence intersex - biologically something in between a man and a woman. Not by choice. Some women have internal testes aren't even aware of it. I also believe she should be banned from female competition. But I don't think she should be subject to ridicule for her decision to present as a woman, which she's done her entire life.

So where does one turn for good daily journalism and reporting?

Caster was singled out because she won-by a lot. As a woman, I consider the result to be welcome and fair to the vast majority of female athletes.

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DFL > DNF > DNS

I should have been more explicit to say that she was singled out because of her more masculine appearance - as she was made to undergo gender/sex tests after her first world championship win in 2009. I recall that her fellow female competitors had complained about her appearance with the presumption that she’s a man.

For any other athlete that “won by a lot” I’m guessing the usual drug testing would happen. I don’t know if tests also check for T levels (I’m thinking yes, elevated from using performance enhancing drugs - not to check someone’s gender).

There are a few on here who claim she’s got testes. Can anyone verify if she’s actually had this very invasive test done? Surely I’d hate for total strangers to speculate or comment about my private body parts (so I really have a lot of sympathy for her).