IOC allows transsexuals to compete at Olympics
WebPosted Mon May 17 16:03:17 2004
CBC SPORTS ONLINE - The International Olympic Committee cleared the way for athletes who've undergone sex-change operations to complete at the Olympic Games.
Transsexuals will be allowed to participate if their new gender has been legally recognized and they have gone through a minimum two-year period of post-operative hormone therapy.
The IOC's decision goes into effect immediately, meaning transsexuals can compete at the Athens Olympics next August.
Some members had been concerned whether male-to-female transsexuals would have physical advantages competing against women.
Men have higher levels of testosterone and greater muscle-to-fat ratio and heart and lung capacity. However, doctors say, testosterone levels and muscle mass drop after hormone therapy and sex-change surgery.
They're thinking that the differences that pan out will change enough over 2 years that it's fair enough to let transsexuals compete. Whether this is true or not is for a scientist, and not someone like myself to say.
I wpould be entirely against this, but I think the eastern bloc countries already have done it in the past, some of the females they sent to the games were scary.
But seriously no one should be allowed to compete as a gender other than that they were born with, we have already seen in another post recently that you cannot force change someones basic mental character ( some wrongly implied that had anything to do with their sexuality but they are not linked) so a man who becomes a woman is merely a man with a more feminine set of features. Like this thing that Kilmoll fell for at the Minn Fan Faire, but it did not make it a woman.
I am firmly in support of adding a genderless class of competition on the other hand, and think that like Special Olympics serves a subset of society perhaps people that want to have sex changes for purpose of the sex change should compete in an alternative game for a century or two then if it is successful merge them. But considering the number of people who will do anything for a medal ( look at figure skating chicks with attitudes) this is a poor ruling.
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