25. Trans Athletes, Part Two: No Opinions, Just Science!
Our WTYT? duo expand on their discussion from last week, turning the spotlight this time on some aspects of competitive sport which might not be quite as fair as we like to think they are.
As society wrestles with the issue of trans athletes and fairness, is it time to expand the conversation to consider the fairness of everything from altitude training to low oxygen tents and genetic advantages or are we really only interested in who can go “faster, higher, stronger”, regardless of how they do it?
episode resources:
FINA (the international swiming federation) has made the decision not to allow trans female athletes to compete alongside biological female swimmers, read their thoughts here.
Interested in those hemoglobin numbers? Click here to remind yourself of the normal male and female ranges for hemoglobin concentration in the blood.
It’s worth noting that hemoglobin is usually quoted in weird units, deciliters.
As a deciliter is 1/10th of a liter (100ml) that means if you want to calculate the amount of hemoglobin in a liter, you have to multiply the deciliter value by ten!
For a little more on the influence of genes on hemoglobin level, check out this article.
Injecting EPO can have a potent effect on hemoglobin levels, maybe increasing them as much as 20% whereas altitude training whilst increasing EPO, red blood cell number and blood hemoglobin levels, it doesn’t do it to the same extent as EPO.
It’s unclear whether the altitude-mimicking tents actually increase red blood cell number and blood hemoglobin but here’s an interesting piece of science that appears to show there are some advantages to using these tents, but probably only if you have certain genetic combinations!
Here’s an thought-provoking resource to show that it’s not only us here at WTYT? who are asking why tents are okay but using other methods to achieve the same end i.e an increase in red blood cells and hemoglobin, isn’t!
Read more here about the totally fascinating Eero Mantyranta
Here are a couple of resources I found that appear to suggest not only female muscles might recover quicker than male but they might also be less likely to get injured in the first place.
Lest we think being biologically female is a walk in the park, biological females do appear to have several musculo-skeletal disadvantages, such as increased risk of ligament damage:
Anatomy makes champions, or at least is very, very useful. Read about how Michael Phelps unusual body proportions definitely helped in his none the less, very hard-earned massive success.
