Men and women do already compete together in the very few sports where testosterone isn’t an advantage, like equestrian events.
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I mentioned Joanna Harper above, but wanted to reiterate that one of the things in her work she mentions often is the need for each sporting body to look at the science and develop appropriate guidelines. Her most recent work on hemoglobin levels for instance on endurance athletes is pretty interesting, but not applicable to many sports. In her initial study of runners, while limited, showed a pretty strong trend of the competitive level being the same after a year of hormone therapy. ie the women were not preforming at a higher level than pre-transition.
Obviously this case is different. Whether it’s because a lower level of suppression needs to occur (the allowed testosterone is still about 3x higher than an average cis women) or a longer period of suppression. I disagree with many that once puberty has occurred, a transgender woman should not compete. The science doesn’t actually back up that contention. I think a nuanced, science driven approach needs to occur by sport with compassion for ALL athletes.
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I suspect the horses would beg to differ 
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You took the words right out of my mouth…neigh! 
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Actually mares are competing against geldings in most of the Olympic events. I think mares have an overrepresentation in dressage and geldings in eventing, but it’s been a long time since I looked at the data. But there are absolutely mares competing in all of the Olympic events.
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If player safety becomes an issue in a sport like lacrosse, the players and/or teams should protect themselves through direct negotiation with teams that have a transgender member, or boycotting games if that doesn’t work.
The NCAA is a horrible organization, and can’t be relied upon to be proactive in cases like this. Just take their inaction toward football players and CTE as an example. It borders on criminal, in my opinion.
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Here we go again.
Football may be at or near the top of the list, but you’ll also have to add sports such as ice hockey, boxing, MMA, soccer, cheerleading, basketball, baseball and softball, among others.
I coached two youth sports (not football) where players in each sport had to “retire” from the sport due to concussions. One sport temporarily made concussion protection headbands mandatory for about season or two and then the like a “fart in the wind” disappeared from the rules.
We should just get rid of sports in general. 
Especially cheerleading. It’s the only sport in college where there are more injuries in practice than in competition.
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And how would that help Lia if we just got rid of all sports?
I’m pretty sure both comments (@sushiritto and mine) were sarcastic.
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A tangent was forming about potential player safety issues in terms of contact sports (LAX), not just sports such as swimming where there’s no participant-to-participant contact.
Yes, my “get rid of all sports” comment was tongue-in-cheek.
As long as American football (large number of players, male only) exists as it does now, the rest of men’s sports will be limited to that many fewer players than women’s sports who get the same total number of players. So Lia Thomas’ moving to the women’s team is slightly beneficial to the college and other players with respect to player spots under Title IX, although that is not the main unsettled controversy.
However, the small sample size of elite-level transgender athletes means that it may be quite a while before there is enough data on that to set a rule for each sport, if one goes by this standard of fairness.
Indeed, the whole controversy is unsettled probably because there is very little data (only rare anecdotes) that might help in determining what is “fair”, with some outrage from anti-transgender culture warriors thrown in to heat it up.
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i saw a chart posted on CC just today maybe - - (and maybe you posted it??) i’m thinking the word Bandit applies to Lia.
I think we should abolish men’s and women’s divisions and instead have an “open” division and a “restricted” division. Anyone can participate in the open division. Only athletes without a Y chromosome can compete in the restricted division.
That way, no one has to compete in a division named for a gender with which they do not identify. And the separation of the divisions is based solely on the only reason that there are two divisions in the first place — biology, not identity.
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There are (non-transgender) XX men (with SRY genes attached to one of their X chromosomes) and XY women (without SRY genes on their Y chromosomes, or with androgen insensitivity).
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Why am I not surprised….they’ve decided to pass the buck and dodge the tough decisions.
https://www.si.com/college/2022/01/20/ncaa-updates-transgender-athlete-participation-policy
On Wednesday, the NCAA announced it had updated its policy regarding participation for transgender athletes, adopting a model that is in line with those used by the U.S. and International Olympic Committees. The Board of Governors voted in support of a sport-by-sport approach to participation that “preserves opportunity for transgender student-athletes while balancing fairness, inclusion and safety for all who compete.” The new policy will be effective immediately.
Transgender athlete participation will now be determined by the national governing body of that particular sport. If no national governing body exists, the international federation policy would be followed. The IOC’s previously established criteria would take effect next if there is no international federation policy.
NCAA was unlikely to adopt a different policy than any of the sport governing bodies, USA teams, USOC, or IOC. They don’t have the standing, nor the data, to do something different.
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Agreed. You don’t have a transgender issue for sports with professional leagues after college (football, basketball, baseball), it’s in the Olympic sports…so let them be the final backstop if the national governing bodies can’t decide.
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The NCAA passing the buck to national or international governing bodies of each sport makes sense, since there may be sport-specific differences that are best assessed and governed by those more familiar with the sport. It also ensures consistency between NCAA policy and that of national or international governing bodies of the sport, so that athletes do not have to deal with inconsistent rules for college versus other competitions in the sport.
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