Lab 008: Fair Play

You are the only friend that I have that insists on FaceTime calls, not just a phone call with voice or a text message. You want to see my eyeballs.

That's right. That means I'm the only friend that really cares about you.

Is that what that means?

Yeah?

Other people are saying, hey, I only want you in this one dimension. I just want your voice. I'm saying, no, I want your voice, your facial expressions, your hand gestures, context. I want to see what's going on around you. Who else is there? Show me?

And if you don't answer, as the kids FaceTime call, I'm calling again.

What do you mean?

It's like, oh, maybe she missed it. Let me give her some time to get ready. Maybe she didn't have reception.

All of that being said, we love getting calls from y'all.

Yeah. Sometimes y'all call just to say hi or to tell us how much you like the show.

And sometimes y'all call to give us suggestions for episodes.

One of our new friends, Rockie and White, call to suggest an episode topic that we really feel like is a major part of this episode.

Peace Loves.

I am in love with your podcasts, like y'all give me so much.

Damn life.

Thank you. I know that you said you are open to topic suggestions, and I am really interested. And you are having a discussion about gender and or sex and the way that it plays out, like with with people being trans or people truly embodying themselves as the gender, as the sex as themselves.

Can't wait talk about that? Hello, get into it.

I stole that that. Amen, all right, peace loves, thank you, Thank you, Rahem White.

I'm TT and I'm Zachiah and from Spotify Studios. This is Dope laps ho hope.

So listening to Raheem's comments, really, you know, that's a really big topic.

It is, and it would be really really hard to do an episode that covers everything.

But I feel like we have the opportunity to kind of touch on a little bit of it. It feels really timely, especially considering what's been going on with Caster Semenya's case with the I double af oh following.

Yes, it's so crazy to me, that whole situation.

So let's run down for the people what happened.

Okay. So, Caster Semenya is a South African Olympic gold medalist that competes in track and field.

Her body naturally produces more testosterone than the average woman, and so then the IAF came on the scene saying they think this is an advantage for her.

And she recently challenged the IBAF.

The i DOUBLEAF is the International Association of Athletics Federation. They were founded in nineteen twelve to be the governing authority for athletics and that's just a turn and used for a track and field specifically, and they make the rules about who can and cannot compete in international competitions.

In twenty eighteen, the IBLEAF presented updated regulations and they were meant to replace those previous regulations that Chan basically knocked out. But Duty was a shorter distance runner, and they only changed the rules for those distances, but left the testosterone regulations in place for longer distances.

Right, and that's exactly what cast does. She won the women's eight hundred meters gold medal at the last two Olympics.

So Castro went back to the IAAF and was like, what's up? The sain't fair. You need to get rid of these rules for all the distances, not just some.

And Caster has been subject to so many tests over her entire professional career, and I'd like to note she passed all of them.

And so this feels like they're moving the goalposts. Imagine you've been running your whole life, doing all the right things, working hard, and then someone says, oh, you have this thing naturally occurring in your body that happens to other people, but we're gonna say that you can't compete anymore because of that thing. First of all, do you know the amount of training and preparation it takes to be an Olympian? I don't know why I'm not an Olympian.

Come listen.

That's why none of us are.

This whole thing bothers me because the premise is that her hormone levels put her at an advantage, as if all these test things and all this stuff disrupting her schedule doesn't put her at a disadvantage. And there are lots of things that are not hormones, that are not biological, that put you at an advantage. Nobody's regulating or normalizing the amount of training, the amount of resources, the amount

It's weird.

So we wanted to ask kind of what's the science behind this, what's going on with caster Somenia's case, right, because it feels like everything that's going on with it in the IBAF is more reactionary. Who are the scientists for the I double AF, That's what I want to know.

What group of scientists came to the conclusion are there scientists that work at the IAF.

Show yourself, which among you has a doctorate? Show yourself and show your lab notebook. We want to see exactly even that thing better be clean. As we're talking through this, this feels like one tiny piece of the bigger pie of the conversation about regulating and controlling women's bodies right It's all over social media right now. Honestly, the policing of women's bodies is something that is at the forefront of everybody's minds because the people who are doing the

So let's get into the recitation. What do we know?

Do you have a couple of things that we want to address here. First we need to lay down the law. We got to bring y'all everybody up to speed because some of y'all Fox News don't understand the difference between sex. So that's biological sex and gender identity and sexual preference. Some of y'all don't understand the difference between them. But that's okay, because we're going to walk you through it. We know sex and gender are not the same thing.

So when you are biologically female and when your brain identifies your being as female.

Yes, trans which means opposite or different is when someone biologically presents as female and psychologically identifies as male, or biologically presents as male and psychologically identifies as female.

And then there are people who are a gender, which means that regardless of what their biology says, they don't feel a majority pull towards one gender or the other.

So, now that we've gone through through biological sex and gender, we want to point out that these things have nothing to do with sexual orientation.

Sexual orientation has nothing to do with your sex or your gender, so we're not talking about that in this episode.

So, now that we've leveled the play and field, here are some of our questions. So we're going to talk about some of the hormones. What is testosterone. We know it's a hormone, but what does it have to do with your ability to perform as an athlete?

Does testosterone give you a competitive edge, like if you have more of it.

Are there other hormones that we should be considering or is testosterone the only one that matters.

I want to know what is the average testosterone level for a woman and who determined the baseline in the IAF and what are the effects of having a higher testosterone level.

So I think that's a good starting ground for us. Very good, let's dig in for today's dissection. We've invited doctor Anthony Hackney.

I'm doctor Anthony Hackney of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a professor of Exercise Physiology and Nutrition in the Department of Exercise and Supports Science.

Doctor Hackney served as a scientific expert on the Castors to Menu case against the IAAF, and he testified several times on her behalf.

We'll talk more about Caster's case later in the show, but first, let's talk about hormones.

We know that testosterone is a hormone, but what are hormones like on the Grand scheme.

Hormones are chemical signals that are secreted into your blood or other fluids in the body, and they just act on other cells. So you have other cells that may have a receptor and they get that signal. So hormones are often considered like the long distance signal, so they can travel throughout the bloodstream.

And then depending on what type of hormony it is, it has a specific function.

Yeah. A hormone is a broad term for any kind of chemical signal that acts on another cell.

Okay, So where are they made? Where do they come from?

Hormones are made in cells, and those tend to be grouped in different glands. Right. So thyroid that's a gland that makes hormones, the pituitary gland, testes, ovaries, adrenal glands.

And so all of those glands they make up your endocrine system, right.

Yeah, those glands and cells that secrete hormones make up your indocrine system. Okay, and so the study of those hormones and those glands is into chronology. So hormones are basically a communication network. They kind of keep your body at its physiological norm. So people don't think of it often, but insulin is a hormone, oh right, So keeping your gluclose level in a range that is physiologically is favorable. Right.

Right, And so your endocrine system when you're at that age is like pumping out all kinds of stuff. It's like, all right, it's not for you to grow up. You're gonna hate your mom for about a year.

That is not exactly how I would have described it, but thank you you guys wan TC teaching your kids biology. I love it. So hormones play a role even in early stages of development, and it also has a role in biological sex.

And doctor Hackney says that there are three specific types of hormones that are critical in determining biological sex. It's testosterone, estrogen, and progesterone.

People sometimes think of testosterone as the male hormone and estrogen as the female hormone, but we all actually have all three.

But what we find is when we're looking at males as females, the proportionality the amount of each of those hormones is quite different.

Typically, men have a lot of testosterone and much smaller amounts of estrogen and progesterone, while most women have smaller amounts of testosterone and much greater amounts of estrogen and progesterone.

Let's look at testosterone levels specifically, since that was the focus of cast Seminius case. What are the average levels of testosterone for both men and women.

Men are going to have testosterone that's about ten to thirty nanimals per leader. Women are going to have testosterone that's going down to zero to about ten nanimals per lider.

So what makes testosterone so special?

Testosterone has both anabolic and androgenic properties testosterones.

Androgenic properties means that it contributes to the development of male characteristics, particularly around puberty. So that's deep voice a lot of body hair, you know, things that we typically associate with b and male And.

When we talk about anabolic we're talking about the ability to influence protein synthesis. And when we think of protein synthesis, we tend to think of muscle tissue. And what you find is in the presence of testosterone, muscle will grow and will be able to add more muscle to the body.

This helps explain why everyone is talking so much about testosterone as an indicator for maleness in sports as opposed to talking about estrogen and progesterone, because estrogen and progesterone don't contribute as much to what we see as stereotypically athletic functions.

But having said that, just because you have more testosterone and you might have more muscle mass is not automatically something that results in you having an enhance sporting performance.

Folks think that having higher testosterone levels means that you're automatically going to be the Hulk or the Juggernaut, but not.

And the other point I want to make is sometimes people again tend to view this in a very simplistic fashion. What you find is they tend to think of it as linear and proportional. Oh, if I have twice the testosterone, I have the capacity to have twice the muscle, therefore twice the strength, twice the power output. And it's not a linear relationship, it's not proportional.

Testostphone is not the defining factor of maleness or athleticism. If we're regulating testosterone, we should probably be regulating some other genetic and biological factors that could affect athletic performance. So if you think about it, like we should probably be talking about Michael Phelps, right because Michael Phelps, who we all know, is a world class swimmer. You know, he's won a bunch of gold medals, but he also is known to produce way less lactic acid than the

Lactic acid is and what you're feeling. And since he doesn't produce as much, he is able to recover from workouts way faster than his other male competitors.

Then you have to think, well, why is it lactic aid production regulated? It sounds like he has an unfair advantage. Now, hmmm, interesting, very interesting, Simps Tea. If I do say so myself, I'll have conference with this tea. So we're gonna take a quick break and when we come back, we're going to talk more about Caster Semenya's case against the IUBLEAF and then what her options are in this scenario.

And we're back, and now we're going to dive into the Caster se Mena case in more detail.

What happened The IBLEAF, which is in charge of track and field or athletics as it's known through most of the rest of the world. Have tried to make certain that the playing field is fair and so that we have men competing against men, women competing against women. So they came up with this materia in the last few years of X amount of testosterone would designate someone as being a man. Below x amount of testosterone would be as someone designated as a woman.

So what is the IUBLEAF defined criteria for a man and a woman.

The original value that they set for male versus female, the cut point was a unit of ten animals per leader. If you were below ten, you're a woman. If you were above ten a man.

Just as a reminder, we know that women have testosterone levels from zero to ten and men have testosterone levels from ten to thirty. So the IUBLEAF redid their analysis and said, hm, ten's too high, let's make it five for women.

So now the criteria is, according to the IUBLEAF, if you are at five to zero nanimals per leader of testosterone, you are a woman. If you're ten to thirty, you're a man.

How are they even coming up with these numbers?

Right? That's half the range, half the known range. You know for a fact, right that women fall between zero and ten, and you're just like five. I've decided and noticed that the range for women that the IAAF is setting is from zero to five, and the men is from ten to thirty. And so now you're saying five and above. Even though our known range for men was ten to thirty, you're saying five and above. Now you're a man. That's crazy.

The way they came up with this is, as most people were aware, at the very high level of sports, there is testing for doping of athletes. Well, these doping tests have involved many times collecting urine samples but also blood samples, and so the IAAF, in concert with some of the doping control agencies, went back into their data files and came up with their standards based upon that.

It's hard for me a scenario where you say, I get more data, so now I have fewer outliers. What now I.

Narrow the range. It doesn't make sense. If you're seeing that women fall within this range from zero to ten, why would you then narrow it.

And say, actually, I changed my mind, turned to CUSHA goal change your mind from now change my mind. Oh we are sharp.

That's fine.

So we know now in Castor's case that the IAAF is saying her testosterone levels are too high. So she has three options. She can stop competing all together, compete with men, or lower her hormone levels. And if she wants to lower her hormone levels, she has two options. That's to have some type of hormone surgery or to take hormone suppressants.

And the way that these suppressants work is that they target the gonads. Yes, women have gonads, it's your ovaries or the adrenal glands, and these suppressants make them stop producing or greatly decrease the amount of testoone that's produced.

The problem you run into is when you start suppressing intocrenfunction, there is always going to be a cascade of some side effects. And one of the side effects in the context of these drugs is it can make the athlete or any individual feel very lethargic, very tired. They can experience some aspects of mood swings that relate to their motivation.

Turn that ball around, we want to see the fine print.

What are the nutrition facts on that. Because intestinserone is involved in other pathways with other hormone.

Right, like on those commercials for any drug when it's like this may cost diarrhea, consumpation, and you may want to cut off your left arm.

And so you find that the athlete who is on this treatment may therefore not be able to train as well because they don't feel well, they may not be as motivated, and training is a critical thing for enhancing sports performance.

So basically they're setting these women up to how are you supposed to be an elite athlete if you don't even have the motivation or the energy to train? That turns castas and mena into T T. Shadia couch potato extraordinaire.

So what about men? What if we have a man that has a high level of testosterone? Is anybody checking this? Because that range is ten to thirty that's a pretty big range. So are certain men gonna have to take hormone suppressants if we flip it on his head? What about men that have low levels of testosterone? Are they now going to to be able to take hormones? Right?

Because doctor Hackney told us about an actual scenario where men who exercise a lot over a long period of time, they experience this thing called hypogonadism which causes their testosterone level to drop, so you could be an elite athlete and then all of a sudden everything goes pear shape.

One of the questions when we were at the actual court of arbitration for sport I brought up was are we going to next move to those men who have low testosterone and give them supplementation so that we can classify them as a man. And that question was very quickly shut down by the judges and the other legal team saying, that's not the question we're dealing with. But might we see that as a future legal argument that someone's going to bring. I don't know, but I would not be surprised.

So where do we go from here? I mean, is there a future where even the young tykes in the pee wee league and the AAU basketball team, where they're now doing hormone testing right and disqualifying all of these people from certain sports because or telling them they have to compete in a sport that is for a different sex. Yeah, Like what's next?

I don't know. And what doctor Hackney is saying is that it's this, in his opinion, is going to lead to this slippery slope.

I'm speaking opinion here. My fear here is that, to use a cliche, we have started down a slippery slope where a sporting organization gets to dictate whether someone is a man or a woman and then impact their lives.

I think one of the major things that I took away from what doctor Hackney was saying is that it's not cut and dry, right. Testosterone is not like one single player out here. It's interacting with other things, and it's not a linear relationship. I think that was one of the most eye opening things for me. And I had no clue about those ranges. I knew that they were moving the levels, but I didn't know that there

Yeah, And I think the part that stood out for me was the fact that it's only those ranges for certain events. Yes, that was so jarring for me because I was just like, this does not come, does not compute, So I don't very good point. So it's just like it's not even just the range was changed, it's that it's not even across the board.

Yeah, So you got to decide is chestosterone providing a competitive edge.

Or not, because it should provide it for every single event.

You can't say it's only useful if you run a mile, but not if you run three quarters.

What that doesn't make sense, not to me at least. Imagine you get to your job and they're like, sorry, based on the amount of hair loss that you have, you are now a man.

That would be crazy.

That's crazy. And so that means that you would have to use the men's rest. It would literally change everything you do at work.

Now, that's a good example, but for somebody like caster Samnia, it's like we're saying you're a man at work, and now I will introduce you to the entire world as a man. Because when you think about it, The only way I know who cast Samenia is is because her employer introduced her to me right through the television, through

Another one right, another one and another one.

And because we know those laws are not creating in isolation, it kind of brings like what's gonna be next?

I feel like I can already predict what's going to happen next. You know how like they do sports for kids, how they group them by age group, right, And so what if they test this this little kid and they're like, oh, I know he's five, but he has the testosterone level of a sixteen year old. So now he's got to go play on the JV team at the at the high school. Man, that's crazy, that's crazy. No, little Timmy needs to be playing with five year olds because he has the brain of a five year old.

He still has his baby team. You can't be out here playing with these sixteen year.

Old right, He's still taking Flintstone vitamins at night. Okay, So I'm joking because testosterone doesn't really kick in until after puberty. But I mean, there's some huge implications here.

And the people that are making the decisions are not the ones that are affected by it. And it sounds about Alabama. Sounds about Alabama, sounds about Kentucky and Georgia. Y'all better wake up. For more on today's episode, check out our cheat sheet and show notes at Dope Labs podcasts dot com.

And remember the phone lines are always open. You can leave us a question or a comment or text us. Our number is two zero two five six seven seven zero two eight. That's two zero two seven seven zero two eight.

You can find us on Twitter and Instagram at Dope Labs podcast. T t is on Twitter and Instagram at dr Underscore t Sho.

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And if you do love the show, don't forget to follow us on Spotify or wherever else you listen to your podcast.

Special Thanks today to our guest doctor Anthony Hackney. If you want to learn more about the topics in today's lab, check out his book Doping, Performance Enhancing Drugs and Hormones and Sport.

We'll link to it in our show notes on Dope Labs podcast dot com. Special thank you to Raheem White, our wonderful listener who called in and gave us a question that led to today's episode. Our producer is Jenny Rattle at MAAST. Mixing and sound design by Hannes Brown.

Original theme music by Taka Yasuzawa and Alex sugi Ura. Additional music by Elijah Lexhrvey.

Dope Labs is brought to you by three M and is a production of Spotify Studios and Mega Own Media Group, and is executive produced by us T. T. Shadia and Zakiah Wattley. Who you think will winning a foot rights me or you?

If you?

It depends on what's it the finish line? If if if it's organic greens, I'm losing.

I'm winning. I'm winning.

If there's hot dogs at the finish line, I'm definitely winning.

Yeah, you'll beat me. I love hot dogs.