53
BabyCobraJuly 1, 2024
Obviously I support Martilova and her stance (my grandfather 1st put a tennis racket in my hand while mentioning her and Billie Jean King) but what ai can't understand is who I am supporting in tennis who eould dare to say women ought to compete against men.
There have always been men who demand that in order to be an excellent tennis player, women's champions ought to have to compete against men. But it (as far as I know) has never been men who actually know or play tennis.
Long live Martina.
The testosterone levels mandated for males is still more than twice what it is for women. And of course these guidelines ignore every other physical advantage males have over females.
Just to amplify your point:
The normal range for natural testosterone in females age 18 and up who aren't visibly pregnant and don't have a health condition like PCOS is 0.2-1.68 nmol/L. If women with elevated T due to conditions like PCOS and CAH are included, then the top end of the female range tops out at 2.4 nmol/L. Even women with very high T for females due to PCOS or advanced pregnancy will hardly ever get near 5 nmol/L.
When World Athletics tested the top 839 female athletes competing in elite international track & field in 2011, it found that the median T level was 0.69 nmol/L. 75% of the world's best female track & field athletes had T below 0.93 nmol/L. Only 8 out of 839 athletes competing in the highest ranks of women's track & field had T levels of 3 nmol/L or more - and WA suspected that most of them were either doping or had undisclosed XY DSDs.
Accordingly, World Athletics, World Aquatics and some other global sports governing bodies now say male DSD athletes and TIM athletes have to have T levels below 2.5 nmol/L to be considered eligible for women's competition. What's more, they say that that TIMs have to be able to prove they've had T below 2.5 nmol/L since age 12 or Tanner Stage 2, whichever comes first.
If we use the median level of T that WA found in the world's top female track athletes as the standard - which corresponds with the median level of T most ordinary women have - then it turns out that the amount of T that TIMs are allowed to have in women's tennis is actually more than 7 times the amount that women (the AHF kind) have.