Stephen Taylor

Scientific Lead for Mucosal Immunity and Vaccines for AMR at UKHSA, Porton Down. Any comments are personal and do not represent UKHSA

[Kirsti Miller @KirstiMiller30]

In sports without weight categories, height and weight do not meet the threshold to be considered characteristics involved with “intolerable unfairness.”

Advantages due to being taller or heavier in these sports (e.g., basketball, volleyball, rugby) are not currently considered “unfair”.

The average NBA player, for example, is nearly 10 inches taller than the average man and 40 pounds heavier.

Male and female muscle is the same strength when comparing equivalent cross section/size.

Much of the increased strength of cis-men compared to cis-women can be explained by height differences.

When adjusting for height and fat free mass, this relative difference disappears. Lean body mass increases with height for both men and women.

Suppressed testosterone in trans women results in reduced muscle mass over time and inhibits the ability to build as much muscle as those who have their normal or high concentrations of testosterone.

The limiting factor in endurance sport is not the size of an athletes lungs. The limiting factor is the oxygen carrying capacity of blood (red blood cell count which is affected by hormones.

Without a doubt the single most important physiological factor for endurance athletes is hemoglobin.

In sports it’s often measured as hematocrit levels. Hematocrit is the percentage of blood that's red blood cells.

That's the reason that endurance athletes go to altitude to train, or [those who cheat] use blood doping or EPO. There are a lot of things that go into making an endurance athlete, but the single most important factor would be hemoglobin levels.

Testosterone suppression reduces the oxygen-carrying hemoglobin in blood to cisgender female levels after around three months of GAHT.

A trans woman's body with their reduced levels of the oxygen-carrying hemoglobin in their blood will be significantly underpowered.

Trans women have less delivery of oxygen to the working muscles produces a higher rate of metabolites and consequently results in muscle fatigue.

While estrogen supplementation greatly increases the total body fat percentage in trans women.

This results in what we call reduced fat-free mass. Fat provides resistance for movement, as opposed to a muscle, which provides torque for movement. Consequently, the more fat-free mass someone has, the better athlete they are likely to be — independent of skill level.

A relatively unknown study from 2021 took strength data from eight trans women and eight matched cisgender males and females. It found that the measured strength of trans women was not as low as cis women, but nowhere near as high as cis men.

But when the strength of cis men and women was divided by their fat-free mass, they were equal. Conversely, when trans women's strength was divided by their fat-free mass, they were around 19% weaker, kilogram for kilogram, than cis men and women.

https://t.co/9gKXUwikgF

Alvares et al (2022) noted trans women had a lower VO2 peak/lean mass index,& lower mean strength/lean mass index than both cis women & cis men.

Trans women once again produced less force per gram of muscle than both cis women & cis men.

https://t.co/TFMER2CdZe

Based on this data, a cisgender male and a trans woman cannot be equated.

Existing research suggests that transgender women do not equate to cisgender men in either physiological or performance terms.

Testosterone suppression coupled with estrogen supplementation (on a case by case basis) is the best way to make decisions for the eligibility trans women competing in the female category of sport.

It's ultimately a question of how long that treatment should be for each athlete and each sport.

Cheung & colleagues suggest, REASONABLE accommodations for the inclusion of TRANS WOMEN are sport specific & COULD be based on the range of competitive ADVANTAGES & ABILITIES that are ALREADY accepted in the CIS FEMALE population.

https://t.co/Xe0hWKXqCM

https://t.co/Nk5PKIeoN7

[India Willoughby @IndiaWilloughby]

Hi @vicderbyshire - why can’t BBC journalists do an honest story on what’s happened to the trans community, and puberty blockers? Why? 🤷‍♀️
(I’ve just watched your TikTok).

First, PBs are only banned for trans kids. Miraculously, c!s kids can still have them. No ill effects. Nobody has ever been injured by a PB. Freely available everywhere except Trump US and their gimp - UK.

This isn’t even join the dots. They’ve admitted the truth of what happened. See screenshots below. Kemi Badenoch injected KNOWN ‘gender critical’ figures into key positions that impact trans lives - with the brief to destroy rights and health provision. Cass at the NHS - Baroness Falkner at the EHRC.

The Cass Report was cooked to order. Trans people and gender specialists BANNED from participating.
It is outrageous none of this is reported despite it being fact. Do your job Victoria. I’m so upset and frustrated by this bias and misleading reporting.

FOI’s show 50 trans kids dead since PBs started being restricted (@GoodLawProject ) . The figure is now probably closer to 100. How many deaths will it take? THIS is the story. It is a scandal as big as the Post Office and Contaminated Blood. People in my community are dying because of this doomed attempt to stop people being trans. We are a natural occurring part of humanity.

This is the Church - the Religious Right. It’s the same type of people involved with the anti-abortion movement, who flood the zone with fake studies and misinformation. DO YOUR JOB. Please.

[Stephen Taylor @Dr_SCT]

@speakoutsister In the BA lounge at Heathrow earlier was a middle aged lady moaning they hadn't yet made the toilets separate male and female

WTF, they're gender neutral. With each toilet having its own sink etc.

Some people are just weird

[Susan Hopkins @SMHopkins]

Important that Public, Clinicians and Labs remain alert - thanks to all working in @UKHSA and @NHSuk @NHSEngland for prompt action to date.

[Stephen Taylor @Dr_SCT]

Nearly home from @vaccinenation World Vaccine Congress in Barcelona. Excellent meeting and networking.

Enjoyed sitting on the Vaccine for AMR panel with Jan, Berit & Marco, so much work to be done to de-risk these vaccines. Apologies for being a chatterbox! #WVCEU

[Stephen Taylor @Dr_SCT]

Dear Wes, just saying something isn't dystopian doesn't make it so.

How about trying to actually follow decent scientific decision making in your attacks on the marginalised?

[Stephen Taylor @Dr_SCT]

What is with the recent demonising of fat people & trans people by Wes & Labour?

Must be so far down the list of things that will have any impact on UK society or that anyone gives a toss about (aside from the RW press)

How about fixing some actual problems champ?

[Stephen Taylor @Dr_SCT]

If he really wants to increase productivity, and not just shout random weird things to the RW press, maybe improving mental health services and making sure ADHD gets properly diagnosed and treated in the UK.

[SpeakOutSister @speakoutsister]

Streeting also proposes to give fat people WITH jobs weight loss jabs to see if they "increase productivity".

https://t.co/FmwfONVi3S

[Stephen Taylor @Dr_SCT]

@Lisa_DrX @CarmenLSheppard A full house for me if you swap PHLS for CAMR

[New Scientist @newscientist]

If only it were always this relaxing...

You can see all our @tomgauld cartoons on our website.
https://t.co/M2o5ypJndu

[Stephen Taylor @Dr_SCT]

@Susannajd @MORUBKK Totally agree.
Teams has it's place but when it comes to scientific meetings there's no replacing a proper face-to-face

[Stephen Taylor @Dr_SCT]

Yeah feel that 😅

[Adi @IDdocAdi]

Getting manuscript under word limit https://t.co/msdFfhXEzR

[Stephen Taylor @Dr_SCT]

Absolute bane of our lives with all the 100s of 1000s of covid serology samples flying around and being archived

[Trevor @TrevorBNicks]

Whoever designed cryotubes to have a larger diameter than 1.5ml Eppendorfs, I just wanna talk… and possibly fight

[Stephen Taylor @Dr_SCT]

@Susannajd We're gutted that one of our cell lines is much happier in 20% than 10%.

Don't the ungrateful things realise how expensive and hard to get it is?! Like all the goldfinches in the garden that will only eat expensive sunflower hearts

[Bryson Lab @TheBrysonLab]

What do you think bacterial death inside an immune cell looks like?

[Stephen Taylor @Dr_SCT]

All I can see is a 50ml centrifuge rotor insert

[Cami Ryan, PhD @CamiDRyan]

If anyone out there has any experience using these accessories in their InstaPot, I’d appreciate some advice (recipes?). Not sure what the ones at North and East are for.

[Stephen Taylor @Dr_SCT]

Insane levels of packing waste for these two little boxes. I'm convinced lab suppliers don't like trees.
😐😐😐

[Brittlestar @brittlestar]

HOW MANY SHOTS WILL WE NEED TO GET?

[Shamez Ladhani @ShamezLadhani]

1/ We have just published the first cut of the results of our nationally-representative #SARSCoV2 antibody seroprevalence study for primary & secondary school students in England using oral fluids (saliva) in our School Infection Survey (SIS) …🧵

👉 https://t.co/XmUrNIfYCR