Connecticut Girl Track Athletes Fighting To Get Transgenders Off Their Track

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https://www.si.com/olympics/2020/02...inow&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com

Megan Youngren to Become First Openly Transgender Athlete to Compete at the U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials
Chris Chavez
Feb 13, 2020

On Dec. 8, 2019, 28-year-old Megan Youngren became one of 63 women at the California International Marathon to officially qualify for the 2020 U.S. Olympic marathon trials, the race that will determine the team for Tokyo. Her 40th-place finish in 2:43:52 came as both a relief and a reward, after four months of intense training. But it also marked another significant moment: With her qualification, Youngren is set to make history on Feb. 29 as the first openly transgender athlete to compete at the U.S. Olympic marathon trials.

“I’m open to talking about it to people because that’s the only way you make progress on stuff like this,” says Youngren, who first started taking hormone medication as a college student in 2011. She came out publicly as transgender in ’12 and finalized paperwork for her transition in ’19.

“To my knowledge, and that of other staff who have been with USATF for many years, we do not recall a trans competitor at our Marathon Trials,” spokesperson Susan Hazzard says. Just last month, Chris Mosier was interviewed by The New York Times as the first transgender athlete to qualify for and participate in an Olympic trials in the gender with which he identifies. Mosier is the first trans man to compete with cisgender men at the 50-kilometer race walk in Santee, Calif. “For me, it’s all about making a pathway for all the trans athletes that come after me,” he told the Times.

In 2013, Youngren started running to lose weight and boost her health after transitioning, and now she primarily races on trails and runs up and down mountains for fun. Youngren says that running helped alleviate any lingering symptoms from a case of shingles. By 2014, she was running consistently, but with little structure to her training. An Alaska native, Youngren ran her first marathon at the 2017 Equinox Marathon in Fairbanks in 4:48, on a course with an unforgiving 3,285 feet of elevation gain and loss. Despite the difficulty and cramping, she credits that race as the one that got her hooked on the 26.2-mile distance.

At the 2019 Los Angeles Marathon, Youngren managed to get her time down to 3:06:42, which propelled her to seek out a sub-three-hour goal for the first time. At the time, she was working at a bakery and her job required a lot of manual labor, but she still managed to fit in runs after work. When the bakery closed in September, it freed up some time in her day to run more, and Youngren’s mileage eventually reached 85 per week, with the majority on trails.

“I thought that if I worked incredibly hard and took some huge risks that I could run a 2:45,” Youngren says. “People will try to put it down by saying, ‘That’s too easy because you’re trans.’ But what about the 500 other women who will qualify? There’s probably someone with the exact same story. I trained hard. I got lucky. I dodged injuries. I raced a lot, and it worked out for me. That’s the story for a lot of other people, too.”

Before the California International Marathon, Youngren’s previous PR was a 2:52:33 set in August at the Anchorage RunFest’s Humpy’s Marathon, where she battled heavy winds and was on qualifying pace through 18 miles.

“I’ve had multiple times this year when I thought I was going to hit that time but then fell apart,” Youngren says. “This time, it was really hard but I made it through. The race itself broke me mentally.”

In the past few years, the organizers of major distance races have reviewed their rules regarding transgender participants. In April 2018, the Boston Marathon updated its policy on transgender runners, stating that athletes can qualify and participate in the marathon as their identified gender, and told NPR that it does not require runners to outline their gender history. The Western States Endurance Run, a historic 100-mile race in California, released a transgender entrant policy stating that female transgender entrants can register to compete as women, provided that they have been undergoing continuous, medically supervised hormone treatment for at least one year before the race. A male transgender entrant can register to compete as a man with no restrictions.

USATF says that it follows the (somewhat controversial) rules set forth by the International Olympic Committee in regards to transgender qualifiers or entrants for the Olympic marathon trials. A transgender female athlete must demonstrate that her testosterone level in serum is below 10 nanomoles per liter for at least 12 months before competition and must remain below that level for the period of desired eligibility to compete as a woman. The IOC has been planning to implement stricter guidelines that could lower the testosterone levels in serum to 5 nanomoles per liter.

Youngren, who has been working with the same doctor since 2013, has levels that are well below either standard, which were last measured at below 2 nmol/L when tested.

“I have done everything by the book, and I can show that,” Youngren says.
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Some people don't cleanly fit into biologically male or biologically female categories-- then what? What if a trans woman is pretty far along in her transitioning. You still make her play with the boys?

I understand the concern, and I've defended folks who've expressed such views from accusations that they are being transphobic (even got myself twitter-banned for doing so by a Vox writer, haha). There isn't an easy answer here (for high school, I'd say it's an easier question to answer). But I've landed on the side of letting trans athletes compete among people they see as their peers. I think if we're going to treat men and women differently in various social contexts (medical intervention is of course different), then do so on the basis of their gender identity rather than their biological sex.

 

I think at higher levels of competition putting in some sort of requirement (testosterone levels and the like) could make sense. That's a bit much for high school, IMO. So they come in 2nd ... big deal. Again, for me, there are more important things to worry about.

 

being Delted is no laughing matter.



Especially being niger delted

 

You really are dismissing the feelings of a girl in the moment in high school. To her, it's everything because that is all she has experienced. To us, "it's just high school".

 

If they have completed transitioning than there should be no issue. A transgender woman who has completed hormone therapy will build muscle and perform like a woman. In fact, they may be at a disadvantage in some ways.

 

Honestly? Virtually all serious female athletes...
I am not taking a position on the issue. I can understand the argument of the greater good or being inclusive... I can also understand why a serious female athlete feels it is completely unfair for someone born male to compete against them.

There is also a fair amount of tension between some woman’s rights groups and transgender women... if you dive into it you will see opinions expressed that transgender women really have not lived the entire lives as women and therefore are not women.

It is a very complicated issue because so much of social construct is based on what has traditionally viewed as gender.

A lot of progress has been made on the issue but there are some key road blocks that remain.

 

I don't think there is any doubt about it. It is unfair. I'm in favor of not ostracizing trans folks and allowing many accommodations. But in this case, it isn't fair. It simply isn't fair.

That being said it isn't in the top 100 of important issues to worry about.

 

Dumbest response so far. Congrats.

 

It's unfortunate you don't believe in science.

 

Yes, I am. My sympathies mostly lie elsewhere on this issue, I have to admit.

 

I used to be employed at a consulting company that championed social justice issues and hired a few trans employees. They later put the company on blast in the online townhall for not expanding insurance coverage for several different reassignment surgeries. I suppose I wouldn't mind paying 5 more bucks a month for them, but it wasn't a simple issue like that. I don't think many providers offered a bulk plan that justified the costs.

The discussion in those topics were like the love child of Fukushima and Chernobyl. They would claim HR downright lied to their faces and were more or less hypocrites. Then some LBG members would try to defend the company only for the trans employees to reply how They don't speak for Them and were more or less sabotaging their message. Chapelle's alphabet car ride routine reminded me of those public correspondences.

Another issue was that they didn't want to fly into southern clients because of their history of being discriminated against in the office place, or just getting ****ed up on the streets (realistic). Interesting point for a company that made its money flying consultants to clients.

It made me think about their circumstances differently even though I grew up in the 80s weirded out with those kind of issues (media like the Silence of the Lambs didn't help). If you put yourself in the shoes of a trans person, your reality is different than the agreed upon reality of everyone else who sees you. That's a highly oppressive handicap to live in, and one that drives a lot of trans individuals to suicide or other self destructive behavior.

I do think for sports, if you're born a specific gender type, then you should compete amongst the closest biological match. Then again there's cultural issues like having at least one bad jock ruin it for the trans athlete or people born with three sex chromosomes. Pretty hard to weigh in on this topic...

 

I’m not sure that’s really the case . It might be true if you are talking transition at the middle school age . But , if you’ve been a male for like 30 years 1 or 2 years of being “female” isn’t gonna change your frame and some of the muscle fibers you’ve built up .

And if you are talking about transitioning when you are 13 I think there are ethical questions about that .

 

An intersex person would have male and female reproductive organs; they undergo an internalized, individual development process that determines their discrete gender identity distinct from biological makeup: same as any transgender person.

 

related:

"Science Won't Settle Trans Rights"

http://bostonreview.net/science-nat...sto-sterling-science-wont-settle-trans-rights

 

Abnormalities are a part of life, but should not be something we construct our society around or even give so much thought. It's not healthy to obsess oneself on such things. I sympathize with the difficulties they may face, and I am sure as in the past, these people will figure out a way to get on with their life. Would be nice if people stopped weaponizing their issue as a political issue. I doubt most people really care about those who face this issue and just want to lord over someone on a false sense of morality based on twitter posts or something they read in a think (for you) piece. Also the athletics, which is at the heart of this threat, is ridiculous. I can't believe people are so stupid, or scared of being called a bigot falsely, that they'd allow these biological males, these boys, to ruin their leagues and ruin the scholarship opportunities of actual young women (real ones). If you want an actual feminist issue, there is is. Help these girls instead of name called and harassing people who just want their sport to be competitive and fair.

I want to stress that I absolutely sympathize with these people facing real intersex issues. And also people facing mental health issues in regard to their own identity. But I don't have any sympathy for people who rob women of their opportunities to be successful or even just enjoy sport. I find it to be a gross negligence from the current generations that hold authority but is unwilling to use it responsibly or too scared to be an adult.

 

What the hell are you on? Science supports my positions. Get lost.

 

Track?

 

The trans people are higher on the oppression ladder than women sadly so these people will attack women all day long. This is the new ideology. Oppression points are a real thing in these peoples' minds.

The fact is women's sports will cease to exist if you do away with them and force everyone to compete. The female body and the male body are different in many ways beyond chromosomes and sex organs. These people who are pushing trans people in women's sports really don't give a **** about women and care more about this moral positioning game that they obsess over. They don't care if it means women getting grinded down and pushed out of their favorite sports. They honestly don't care if women are sidelined.

These are mostly teen girls people. Stop screwing them over because you have some weird ideology that has come into contact with reality. Face the fact that your emotional ideology is not consistent or practical in the real world.