CharonY

Here, a rather precise analysis is warranted as such a sweeping statement (as mentioned multiple times) can mask important differences caused by transitioning. It is complicated by the fact that performance is not an inherent ability but also depends on the sport, training and the how the performance improves with training. It also does not help that elite athletes are a tiny fraction of an already highly selective group, so it is small wonder that there is even less data available. In fact, a study on elite transgender athletes at this point would essentially likely only consist of a handful of people, scattered across different types of sports, which would likely be rather useless. Things are even further complicated as longitudinal studies are needed as the effects of transitioning on the body can take a long time. As also mentioned before, data is therefore lacking and a lot is still based on extrapolation rather than high quality data. Depending on the length and cohort investigated, the results can be fairly different. For example, here is a review on a cohort of non-athletes: https://doi.org/10.1210/clinem/dgad414 Here, they found that the "innate advantage" of transgender woman after 4 years amounted to a statistical advantage of push-ups, but in none of the other measures.

I think it got lost in the thread, especially as we have been repeating the same things for quite a while now, but I have mentioned before that studies have shown different levels of separation (or lack thereof). This includes the Healy paper (SJ posted the abstract earlier), which was not included in the review you posted, for example.

Well, talking about facts, that one is false, for example. Studies have shown that older folks are more likely to share fake news: https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0963721420915872 Though some studies indicate that the inability to spot fake news tend to increase in the upper age bracket. https://doi.org/10.1093/geroni/igab046.3489

Well both are often tap water, I assumed bottling process for all drinks. If not, self service soda fountain could be cheaper (no labor).

The cheapest non-alcoholic drink to produce is arguably bottled water. Everything else is an additive.

If there are no taxes and easy access to all the ingredients, the equipment is readily available with, then no or perhaps yes. The real answer is dependent on how well you streamlined production, how much you scaled it up etc. Small-scale production are quite a bit more expensive regardless what types of drinks you make, for example. But there are of course also rather expensive non-alcoholic drinks. Kopi Luwak coffee is likely going to outprice all but the most exotic beers.

Depends on where you are and which non-alcoholic drinks you are thinking about. Tap waters is a non-alcoholic drink and very cheap, for example. But generally speaking, high beer cost is typically caused by high taxes on alcohol more than anything else.

True, the issue is that in essence they are appeals to base emotions (mostly fear and aversion) and those are quite resilient to facts. This can be easily weaponized in order to introduce authoritarian viewpoints (i.e. by saying that only a strong man can save us) and from then on, an erosion of liberties and rights can follow (Hungary, Poland and Israel are well on the way to the next stage there, for example).

Well, culture wars and scapegoating have been the go-to for authoritarian regimes for a long time and they are making many successful revivals in recent times.

There are different types of reviews and they are not all written the same. A good review is typically written by someone who is engaged in the field and hence knows the relevant lit and can critically evaluate and synthesize the information in the field. Often when grad or undergrad student write a review, it starts off as a a list of facts and factoids out of the papers folks read (often having highly relevant and irrelevant info side by side) and needs to be heavily edited to provide real benefits to the reader. If no supervisor is involved, it is rather unlikely that an undergrad paper will be in a shape for submission to an academic journal in most areas. Yes it can. It serves more like a writing example and a potential supervisor can use it to judge your ability to read and write. However, in order for it to be seen as a plus one should spend a fair bit of time on editing it. Obviously, just reading something does not mean that you understood it. A paper that is clearly just a crude summary, plagiarized from multiple papers or contains guesswork to gloss over parts that were clearly not understood won't necessarily leave a positive impression. Conversely, a well written review that shows a certain level of understanding (or at least a serious effort to understand) even with gaps (that are ideally acknowledged) will provide potential supervisors with an idea of what capabilities a candidate might start off with.

Another thing that I forgot to mention is efficacy, as that obviously has a huge impact on overall evaluation.

The question cannot be answered properly with the parameters driven. The first obviously is the type of risk. Mild symptoms are viewed differently than severe or potentially fatal ones. Short-term issues are different than potentially chronic issues. Others have already mentioned the lack of a control (i.e. what is the rate in placebo groups, for example). And in addition there is also the question of what the drug/treatment is against. Even severe symptoms might be considered acceptable, if the untreated outcome is high risk of death, for example. Due to the complexity regarding pharmaceutical safety, it is not judged on a simple safe/unsafe dimension. It should be stressed that there is no drug that is safe under all circumstances. I.e. one should not take drugs without indication. A drug is at best "safe" for a given purpose and that is what you can see on the labels, together with the likelihood of adverse effects commonly encountered. Edit: managed to cross-post with others, so much has already been said. Well, there has been a discussion on this and in all actuality there are no side effects either. Biologically, of these are effects. The difference is mostly whether they are desired (in a given context) or not. But it has been universally ruled that this level of accuracy is going to confuse consumers.

Yes I was referring to that study earlier, too (I only posted a DOI of it). There are other surveys, though often from non elite athletes, and one exclusively from runners, which showed more separation. It is a bit messy overall. I would like also to highlight your earlier point that sex verification has been an issue for female athletes for a rather long time, often to their detriment. Likewise, the scientific validity has been questions for basically as long, if one looks at the literature on that topic. Potentially the ideological shift of the broader population towards inclusion, rather than exclusion to resolve these issues, will fuel more research on that matter to create better evidence-based guidelines.

All levels are to some degree arbitrary. At best standards represent the bulk but not every individual, which is where the discussion really has shifted to. I.e. in the past the assumption if we got most of folks squared away that is good enough, the rest has to fall by the sidelines. Now the question has become how can we be more inclusive (which IMO is a real generational change in attitude). That being said, initial testosterone limits were in part based on some screening studies which showed gaps in testosterone levels (and excluding at least one study, it seems, which showed overlap). The secondary fight is then the role of testosterone in performance. The latter is going to turn into a very sport-specific discussion eventually (as noted, testosterones levels varied quite a bit by top athletes in different sports and some found negative correlations, e.g. in cyclists and female weightlifters) . By the way, do you have an article (perhaps I have missed it) suggesting that trans-athletes have troubles hitting the guideline thresholds? What I have read seemed to suggest that levels are "typically" reached after two years of transitioning. I am curious to see whether there is more info out there.

It is basically both. The opening of channels is first analog (i.e. neurotransmitter bind to receptors and trigger opening of ion channels). Depending on how many and which channels are opened or closed, the potential of the membranes changes accordingly. This then changes once a certain threshold of depolarization is crossed as then a positive feedback kicks in, resulting in the action potential. So one could see it as an analog phase first which can then become digital. The signal that travels distally across the axon is the digital component that then results in release of neurotransmitters, where the analog part at the next neuron starts.

Was curious about that lock and found this video on a simpler series: But at that price perhaps stealing the lock becomes worthwhile

So it seems you are advocating to drop scientific rigor whenever you feel like it. I am pretty sure that if you have bag with 1000 skittles and just one is deadly, you would just assume that the whole bag is safe, too. I mean, it is just nitpicking.

As characterized throughout the whole thread, definitions vary a fair bit in various uses and precise language is needed if one wants to discuss this issue. Throwing something as vague sex characteristics muddies the waters even more, as especially here we actually do have a broader range of quantitative features. While highly associated with each other, there are numerous genetic traits that make this difficult. E.g. there are cases of XY karyotypes (typically male) with testosterone insensitivity which results in testosterone levels associated with human males, but with female sexual organs. I think JCM's link shows a very nice example of a true binary classification (i.e. gamete types), but also highlights the problem to extend it beyond its specific use (i.e. if we are not exclusively classifying it based on reproductive capacity). The main issue is really not whether there are sex-based classifications or not. There clearly are. But the issue that folks keep missing is that those are not universal. And as such it is necessary to clearly outline the specific contexts in which they apply (or don't apply). That is the crux here. From a classification standpoint, if the claim is universality what minority there is highlights that there is something else going on. You cannot claim that the physical world is entirely Newtonian just with some exceptions on the side. The exceptions can be ignored in many cases, but not in others. What one cannot claim is that they don't exist and hence the classification is universal. Even if you say there is male/female and asexual/others, that is three. It is only binary (for the most part) if you specifically use it in the context anisogamic reproduction.

I got a set of lockpicks and played with a few padlocks I had. I didn't rake them as I wanted to avoid damage, but I was surprised how quickly you can pick them even without training. And raking would have been likely as effective but only taking seconds.

As a corollary to 1. it makes the target less attractive compared to unsecured targets. Even if built sturdy, many padlocks (especially in the low to mid-price range) can be picked by simple raking (a simple technique that often only takes seconds).

Your link, didn't you read it? They assert that: They elaborate on this, but the point is that: I.e. if biological sex is a process, we cannot use it to categorize individual persons as a whole throughout all the stages of their life. I.e. trying to apply it would mean to classify a menopausal woman to a different biological sex as she was before. Also the binary classification would exclude sterile/asexual individuals, which makes sense to a certain degree from an population evolutionary viewpoint. But it becomes useless on an individual level (remember in evolution we think about populations, not individuals). I.e. they assert that there are only two biological sexes in humans (large and small gametes), yet they also say that we cannot use it for the types of classification we try to do it here, at which point the authors point to the use of gender, instead. Also important to note, the authors make not claims regarding other sexual features beyond gamete development, in fact, they assert they can change between species or even within species throughout their lifetime.

Yes, but that makes it a singular factor like testosterone rather dubious. And again, we are switching between elite sports (which is part of OP) and the biology a fair bit through the thread a fair bit. And as your link actually argues, the biological concept of sex (regardless whether one agrees with the author's definition or not) is not really helpful or applicable to human questions (such as sports). And for the latter, the key element is still more information. Studies are indicating that testosterone as sole indicator is too weak to assess risks, for example. Clearly in sports like boxing better indicators appear to be weight, and muscle mass, for example. And if there are better indicators, it would be time to ditch traditional but inferior methods. Some of the papers measuring testosterone levels among athletes are arguing that precisely. For example: There was a recent paper suggesting that testosterone might have been a factor in male performance (or something to that effect) but then they issued a correction and stated that they actually do not have the data to suggest that (as they did not measure other data such as LBM (lean body mass) as the paper above. As suggest previously, depending on the types of sports it might be worthwhile to look at a) demographic input and b) potential indicators for class formation (e.g. using LBM or other factors as appropriate). Demographics can be important as some sports may have large differences in term of participation. Different groups are then sometimes created not because of performance differences, but to strengthen participation. Trans folks are more likely to cross categories that way, but at least they would not be fundamentally excluded based on assumptions. I.e. there is a need for evidence-based inclusion strategies rather than assuming things and then go from there.

If we look at this individual dimension and ignore e.g. the fact that individuals can react very differently to the same hormonal levels). Problem is data is scarce for the few that do not fit the binary definition. That being said, there are profiles in athletes and some indicate overlap between male and demale athletes in the extremes. https://doi.org/10.1111/cen.12445. However other cohorts show less overlap and there was one study with longitudinal showing overlaps when one considers the fluctuations through life but I think. But that is only part of the issue. The other is that folks have different sensitivity to hormones. In the extreme case e.g. insensitivity to testosterone leads to development of female features. In sports they tried to implement a testosterone threshold, but now several women have run afoul of it without any drugs (just genetics). And finally, because bodies react differently there is still no clear correlation between testosterone level and performance. Athlete surveys don't show that top performers have the highest levels, and there seem to differences between disciplines (power lifters were among the lowest in testosterone in the male group, iirc).

Sorry, cross-posted, and added some more details. But overall I think that the authors attempted to simplify the model, which, in for all purposes has worked fairly well. But more recent research focusing on aspects of sexual selection and evolution of sex has put some dampers on prior assumptions. I am no expert in this field, so I cannot interpret the whole situation accurately, but depending on how good the data and experiments are, (some of which are at least mentioned in the paper I linked above), there might be a broader rethinking needed. But that is nature of science, the more details we get, the more we chisel on grand old concepts.

I think the idea was to reframe into a gamete specific discussion, but then they kind of got selective and used a fair bit of handwaving without getting into the necessary weeds. The paper I linked picked up on those bits. But I would still characterize the whole discussion as "what is useful" rather than "what is true" and perhaps ironically they claim anthropocentrism as the reason for this issue, but at the same time they use the same to form their argument and kind if try to simplify things down. I.e. if an organism changes its sex it is clearly still a binary situation, either they produce ova or sperm. Yet developmental it is not necessarily a full switch. They say that beyond humans there are all kind of changes from being both, to switching between asexual and sexual reproduction or have no sexual reproduction at all. That is all true, but unclear why that would be an argument for binary states? They then further argue that sex can be a stage in life, and they say that But it does not appear that the follow up on what it means to the definitions we use under these assumptions. I.e. a menopausal person would then be considered, well asexual, I suppose as they would never produce ova or sperm. They do acknowledge that these definitions therefore are not great to describe the human condition (i.e. applying those concepts would define things very differently, as in my example) but ultimately fail to support why then all things considered a binary definition would be useful.