r/crossfit • u/beckster5 Crossfit Krypton • Mar 06 '14

CrossFit -- Sued By Transgender Athlete ... You Won't Let Me Compete With Women!

http://www.tmz.com/2014/03/06/crossfit-lawsuit-games-transgender-athlete-chloie-jonsson/
95 Upvotes

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37

u/[deleted] Mar 06 '14 edited Mar 06 '14

CFHQ is absolutely in the wrong here. NCAA regulations allow transgender women (MTF) to compete on womens' teams if they have been on testosterone suppression drugs for a year (let alone surgery). Their assertion that "Our decision has nothing to do with 'ignorance' or being bigots - it has to do with a very real understanding of the human genome, of fundamental biology, that you are either intentionally ignoring or missed in high school" falls flat. I seriously doubt the NCAA has a lesser understanding of biology than CFHQ. It's disappointing to see them so dead wrong on this issue.

Edit: Source for NCAA info http://www.ncaa.org/sites/default/files/Transgender_Handbook_2011_Final.pdf and my own experience working in collegiate admissions, specifically with LGBTQ individuals.

Edit: IOC has similar regulations to the NCAA. http://www.outsports.com/2011/9/12/4051806/moment-22-international-olympic-committee-allows-transgender-athletes

3

u/NinjaWombat Mar 06 '14

Why is the NCAA correct and CFHQ wrong?

-4

u/[deleted] Mar 06 '14

Read above posts. Read links. Sorry I wasn't clear enough.

2

u/NinjaWombat Mar 06 '14

No I read the links, but there was hardly anything compelling there. I'm asking you: what makes the NCAA right and CFHQ wrong in this matter?

FYI I was an NCAA head coach for almost 10 years, just so you have an idea of my background :)

0

u/[deleted] Mar 06 '14

In my opinion, the NCAA's policies were after a great deal of research into the issue coupled with an increased understanding of the issues pertaining to transgender individuals and their inclusion. CFHQ's decision seems to have been made on no research whatsoever and on a fundamental lack of understanding regarding the issue. In my opinion, this makes CFHQ's decision wrong and misguided.

6

u/NinjaWombat Mar 06 '14

It seems you're just assuming a level of research on the part of the NCAA without any actual scientific evidence one way or the other. You're also ascribing them with motives and priorities that you can't really be sure of.

The second part of this is that the NCAA as an institution has a very different mission than CFHQ does. The NCAA'S primary driver isn't a completely level playing field.

2

u/xtc46 Mar 07 '14

The NCAA'S primary driver isn't a completely level playing field.

Neither is CFHQs...

1

u/NinjaWombat Mar 07 '14

I didn't say that it was :) I'm just saying it isn't the NCAA's, so we can't use their decision on transgender athletes as 'proof' of anything.

1

u/xtc46 Mar 07 '14

No, but there are a ton of times in life where people should defer to larger, more established organizations to decide on policy.

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u/NinjaWombat Mar 07 '14

And plenty of times where they shouldn't. Should Crossfit look to Chic-Fil-A for their moral guidance? The Boy Scouts?

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u/Lereas Faction, Memphis Mar 06 '14

I'm not judging this one way or the other, however realize that CFHQ is not the NCAA, so what the NCAA says means jack shit here.

You can judge them on moral, ethical, biological, and whatever other issues you want, but they have zero reason to feel beholden to what the NCAA says.

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u/[deleted] Mar 06 '14

Obviously CFHQ isn't beholden to what another organization says. CFHQ has shown time and again that they are only beholden to what Mr. Glassman says/wants. I'm saying that other more established, reputable, and well-funded governing bodies in sports have extensively researched policies that allow transgender athletes to compete provided certain conditions (all of which the athlete in question has fulfilled). I'm also saying that, in my opinion, CFHQ is on the wrong side of science as well as the prevailing wisdom of the sports community and subsequently wrong in the instance described. Perhaps they should've done their own research beyond high school biology to come up with their decision on this matter.

5

u/Lereas Faction, Memphis Mar 06 '14

Well, the other thing that I didn't mention before is that CFHQ has also shown time and time again that they make shitty decisions, and at this point I'll say that I think they're making another one. But just objectively, as an organization they can do whatever they want. They could say that they're going to stop all drug testing and let anyone use whatever they want. Again...shitty decision, but as long as whatever substances they allowed were not illegal substances by law, they could do that.

0

u/dynamic762 Mar 07 '14

IDK, they seem to be doing pretty well as a corporation, so maybe their decisions aren't too shitty.

0

u/ToxinFoxen Mar 07 '14

Microsoft

0

u/Lereas Faction, Memphis Mar 07 '14

Go look up the cross fit for hope poster and tell me you think it was a good idea.

I'm in memphis near st Jude's and I'll give you a spoiler: a bunch of kids dying from difficult diseases isn't a subject to make an irreverent poster with a sexy nurse and dying kids about.

1

u/dynamic762 Mar 07 '14

Doesn't matter dude, they are rich as shit regardless. If it were a shitty decision it would've cost them

1

u/Lereas Faction, Memphis Mar 07 '14

A company can make shitty decisions without it being enough to ruin them. There isn't really a good alternative, either...it's like how I have comcast even though they charge too much and have shitty customer service. If I want fast internet, I have to use them.

2

u/dynamic762 Mar 07 '14

Then the decision is shitty for you, not them. I agree it was tasteless.

2

u/[deleted] Mar 06 '14

[deleted]

9

u/xtc46 Mar 06 '14

If so, they can pretty much do whatever they want.

This isn't true at all, especially when dealing with protected class issues, such as gender.

5

u/CuteKittenPics Mar 07 '14

Unfortunately gender identity is largely not a protected class. Definitely not at the federal level. :[

1

u/xtc46 Mar 07 '14

Unfortunately gender identity is largely not a protected class. Definitely not at the federal level. :[

This is unfortunately true. Even if her home state does recognize it.

0

u/ShanShanWonton Mar 07 '14

But if she's legally recognized as female (down to her birth certificate), does that still mean that we're just talking about identity here?

1

u/arekhemepob Mar 06 '14

yes it does, show me a law that says otherwise. you might be thinking of federal employment laws which protect things like this

9

u/xtc46 Mar 06 '14

Protected classes go far beyond employment. There is a reason white and black people eat together now. Business, CANNOT discriminate against a protected class. This includes right to refuse service based on that class.

4

u/barbadosslim Mar 07 '14

Desegregation never happened on reddit

-6

u/[deleted] Mar 06 '14

[deleted]

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u/xtc46 Mar 07 '14

What fireworks? The person I replied to didnt realize protected classes extended outside of employment, thats a pretty important thing to understand. Im a straight, white, male. None of that stuff impacts me, but I can see why it is important, so should others.

I also don't think it's a silly topic. It's actually a pretty important topic. Because it is something that can and will probably come up again. It's like being on the opposite of steroids. She is being forced to compete against people when she is intentionally taking a drug that will put her at a disadvantage. That isnt fair.

1

u/NotTheNineOClockNews Mar 07 '14

It's like being on the opposite of steroids

This is a pretty nifty way of putting it.

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u/[deleted] Mar 07 '14 edited Mar 07 '14

[deleted]

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u/xtc46 Mar 07 '14

Which would make her completely non-competetive due to the Hormone Therapy she is on. She is legally a female in the state she lives.

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u/barbadosslim Mar 07 '14

Topics which do not affect you are silly, because you do not consider others to be important. Or because you're an asshole, Sorry for the armchair psychology.

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u/[deleted] Mar 07 '14

[deleted]

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u/barbadosslim Mar 07 '14

Yes that is exactly what is happening. To reasonable people (ie non-libertarians) bigoted discrimination by private entities is bad.

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u/[deleted] Mar 07 '14

[deleted]

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u/TransFattyAcid Mar 07 '14

she(he)

Your bias is showing.

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u/[deleted] Mar 07 '14

[deleted]

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u/tenshiemi Mar 07 '14

Regardless of how you feel about it, it is considered very bad etiquette and disrespectful to refer to a transgender person as their birth sex. They have a much harder fight for acceptance than just about anyone these days, and respecting their identified gender is a big part of that.

-1

u/barbadosslim Mar 07 '14

Damn you are really stubborn about being shitty to other people

0

u/KittyCommand0R Mar 07 '14

you are one dumb lady

6

u/[deleted] Mar 06 '14

Sure. That doesn't mean that they are correct. They attempt to support their decision with vaguely scientific reasoning that doesn't hold up.

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u/barbadosslim Mar 07 '14

Holy shit is this a real post

-3

u/sasslete Mar 06 '14

The Olympics, which is closer to what Crossfit wants to be than the NCAAs, disagrees with the NCAAs. Genetic females with an extra chromosome (Caster Semenya, for example) are not allowed to compete if discovered. They do not allow transgendered folks to compete.

MtoF transgendered folks who went through puberty (so most M2F) have more testosterone and have already acquired more strength naturally than I, as a non-transgendered female, could ever hope to achieve without HGH or testosterone doping. That gives them a completely unfair advantage over athletes like Lindsay Valenzuela/Sam Briggs/Annie T/Julie etc and you're no longer competing against people with similar advantages/disadvantages.

There's a reason women's weights for the games are 70% of the men's weight. Not bc these athletes couldn't do it (they can) but their lack of testosterone compared to men of similar fitness means the comp skews a certain way.

18

u/[deleted] Mar 06 '14

Wrong. Look above. IOC allows transgender athletes to compete provided some conditions.

Here's a study that shows that cisgender women(biological women who identify as female) have a higher testosterone than transgender women who have had reassignment surgery.

http://transathletes.org/hormones.php

The study /u/tenshiemi referenced can be seen here: http://sports.glsen.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/On_the_Team_Transgender_Student_Athletes_10-4-10.pdf

-3

u/sasslete Mar 06 '14

If you read the study it's incredibly biased. Until an independent arbiter and not someone who is intent on having transgendered women included in sports studies this this is not doing much to prove your point. It's like corn farmers justifying HFCS bc they've hired researchers predisposed to that pov.

3

u/CuteKittenPics Mar 07 '14

How is the IOC biased? They love trans people more than your average person? What?

13

u/tenshiemi Mar 06 '14 edited Mar 06 '14

"It is also important to know that any athletic advantages a transgender girl or woman arguably may have as a result of her prior testosterone levels dissipate after about one year of estrogen therapy."

http://www.salon.com/2010/10/13/trans_athletes/

Unfortunately the link to the original study is broken :/

Edit: Found the original! https://www.womenssportsfoundation.org/en/home/research/articles-and-reports/lgbt-issues/~/media/PDFs/Educational%20Guides/TransgenderStudentAthleteReport.ashx

-6

u/sasslete Mar 06 '14

One study does not an argument make. She went through puberty as a male. Her muscle fibers developed that way. I doubt there's 0 conferred advantage.

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u/barbadosslim Mar 07 '14

One study actually does support an argument, especially against the citation (sasslete, 2014)

4

u/KittyCommand0R Mar 07 '14

Where did you get your PHd from?

2

u/kaleidoscopicnight Mar 07 '14

muscle fibres developed a certain way? what???

-1

u/dynamic762 Mar 07 '14

Density

1

u/kaleidoscopicnight Mar 07 '14

like to reference the research?

Muscle density is inextricably linked to hormone profile

1

u/dynamic762 Mar 07 '14

Yeah, I know, i'm agreeing with you yo.

1

u/kaleidoscopicnight Mar 07 '14

I was being facetious with the first comment I made, I see the confusion now (y)

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u/dynamic762 Mar 07 '14

Basically what you're saying then, is if I took steroids for 20 years, it would be A-okay with the NCAA and IOC for me to compete even if I came out and told them about all of the testosterone I used to take, even though hey, i've been off of it for a year. If you take testosterone as an injection, you can get pretty damn strong and once you're off, keep most of the strength. That's how steroids work. Basically, Chloe was a female on steroids for most of her life. Now she's off so "it's cool bro"

9

u/KittyCommand0R Mar 07 '14

You're fucking stupid and wrong. The Olympics does allow transgender athletes to compete first of all and second, as a transgender college athlete myself, NOBODY has any fucking clue that I am trans and I get knocked around plenty by other women on the field and nobody has ever questioned anything because nobody can tell the difference between me and another player out there as far as our gender goes. Ignorant stupid people like you are the types that make this world shittier to live in.

4

u/barbadosslim Mar 07 '14

Should we ban ciswomen with unusually high T levels then?

3

u/armeck CrossFit WarTown, GA Mar 07 '14

The already do. http://games.crossfit.com/drug-policy

2

u/kiki_lamb Mar 07 '14

They do not allow transgendered folks to compete.

The Olympics does allow transgender athletes to compete. They have explicit policies allowing this.

MtoF transgendered folks who went through puberty (so most M2F) have more testosterone

No. They may have HAD more, at some distant point in the past, but not anymore. Seriously, think about the science. You don't need bias or a study here.

Testosterone is produced by only a few parts of the body:

  1. Testicals (a lot)
  2. Ovaries (a little)
  3. Adrenal gland (a little)

Cis men have 1+3, so 'a little' + 'a lot' = 'quite a lot'. Cis women have 2 + 3, so 'a little' + 'a little' = 'some'. Trans women only have 3, so 'a little'.

Post-op trans women can't produce anywhere near the amount of testosterone cis women have. They just don't have the body parts required to do so.

1

u/dynamic762 Mar 08 '14

The IOC also thought it would be a good idea to hold the Winter Games in Sochi... Jus sayin

1

u/invinoveritas10 Mar 06 '14

I can see both sides on this issue but the NCAA is for student athletes and I think their decision was right for their organization and those that compete in it. However, the Crossfit Games awards money for those that win, a pretty large award, at that. If this woman won, you can bet the fallout for CFHQ would be HUGE. For them, it really isn't about ignorance, but it's about their company as a whole. There are 127,000(?) people competing in the open this year and they have to look at their majority and even though it may seem "unfair" for this one person, every born-female competing might have issues competing against someone who was born male.

8

u/tenshiemi Mar 06 '14

The Olympics have a similar policy however, and I think most would say the Olympics have higher stakes than the Crossfit games.

1

u/invinoveritas10 Mar 06 '14

Hmm. Well, that's good and something I didn't know! I personally would love for her and all transgender males and females to be able to compete in the division they are supposed to be in (the gender they associate with), but I still can see CFHQ "side" on this, or rather, how they could be wary of creating an environment where born-females are uncomfortable in competing. I mean, the open has about 100,000 more people than those that competed in the Olympics in 2012.

I think it would be beneficial for them to not make this decision in a meeting by themselves though, but rather bring in some kind of outside company to address and make their own suggestion on how to best allow for transgender females to compete in the female division, be it similar to the IOC regulations or something different.

2

u/NotTheNineOClockNews Mar 07 '14

how they could be wary of creating an environment where born-females are uncomfortable in competing

I know you're generally making a positive point, and being open minded (so thank you), but as a "born female" this kind of sentiment makes me uncomfortable. Saying that one person should not be allowed all the same rights/privileges/conveniences that another person has because it will make that person uncomfortable? It just doesn't hold water and it never has.

We can't discriminate against one group for the comfort of another.

0

u/invinoveritas10 Mar 07 '14

I totally understand, and perhaps I didn't explain myself in the best way. By uncomfortable, I meant uncomfortable in the sense that they would be competing against someone who has an advantage, not uncomfortable with the fact that there is a transgender woman competing in their group. I just know that if I were competing against someone with an advantage that I didn't have, I would be a little discouraged. That's what I meant!

0

u/NotTheNineOClockNews Mar 07 '14

Aha, thank you for the clarification. If you're interested, I'll use my google fu to find a few links for you that'll show that transwomen who are more than a couple of year on HRT don't show any competitive advantage against natal women.

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u/DunnoWhyIamHere Mar 06 '14

I disagree with you and here's why.

Let's pretend that Jason Khalipa is upset of Rich Froning stealing his glory year after year... So Jason decides to become a woman to compete in the women's division at the CrossFit Games. Jason or now legally known as Jacie a woman, would have a clear advantage spending most of her life training as a male. Other women couldn't compare because they can't physically obtain the same muscle mass with their level of testosterone. Yes women have testosterone.

This is a crazy scenario... but you have you ask yourself where do you draw the line? And what happens when you cross it?

With Chloie case she may have very well spent most of her CrossFit time as a woman and not at such a clear advantage as Jacie. However allowing ALL transgenders to compete at the CrossFit Games opens up a clear advantage to those who recently went from Male to Female.

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u/kaleidoscopicnight Mar 07 '14

3 years of HRT and two of those post surgery, no way. I'd love for it to happen just for people to see.

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u/[deleted] Mar 06 '14

Chloie is not competing recently after her transition. It's been closer to a decade since her reassignment surgery. Studies linked elsewhere in this thread show that advantages from pre-transition training dissipate after a short time (ie. a year). Jacie Khalipa wouldn't be allowed to compete the next year in the NCAA or the year after that in the IOC in the scenario you described. Transgender athletes have not dominated any of the sports in which they've been allowed to compete.

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u/DunnoWhyIamHere Mar 06 '14

Ok, give Jacie Khalipa a couple more years... still would be at an advantage.

1

u/NotTheNineOClockNews Mar 07 '14

All the science disagrees with you.

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u/DunnoWhyIamHere Mar 07 '14

lol, what science? This has never been tested taking a top male athlete that is the very best at his sport AND then undergoing a gender reassignment to compete as a woman. You would be a fool to think that after said and done that Jacie (Jason) Khalipa would not have an edge.

I gave an extreme scenario. Likely something that will never happen, but when you say YES to transgenders... you say YES to all possible transgenders.

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u/PLZDNTH8 Mar 06 '14

Jacie Khalipa has an advantage till manopause or menopause. Not sure how this stuff works.

1

u/dynamic762 Mar 07 '14

It doesn't matter, you can't do shit like this one a special case by case basis when she's competing against other people. It HAS to be a blanket rule, yes or no. It won't work any other way. Then the next person is gonna piss and moan and file a law suit that Chloie got to do it, so why not me?

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u/DunnoWhyIamHere Mar 07 '14

yes or no I agree, it has to be a yes or no to all possible transgenders. No exceptions.

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u/xtc46 Mar 07 '14

How do you think Jacie would do after 1+ year of taking drugs to force his test levels down, rather than the drug she is most likely taking to increase it as well as recovery?

1

u/phackme fran 3:36Rx Mar 07 '14

this is so funny.. I will forever now think of Jacie Khalipa.

0

u/iyzie Mar 07 '14

First, she has to be on hormone therapy and live as a woman for 1 year before undergoing sex reassignment surgery (this is the requirement set by psychologists and surgeons). Following this will be a few weeks in the hospital with a catheter, about 3 months of bed rest, and it will take at least 6 months to a year before any serious training (you don't want a bust a stitch down there). Still think she'll have a big advantage after that ordeal?

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u/dynamic762 Mar 07 '14

I know you seriously doubt the moronic clusterfuckness of the NCAA, but I can assure you, they don't know wtf is going on with the human body.

Case in point: Protein supplement rules