Chromosomes? NOPE
Testosterone? NOPE
Height? NOPE
Vo2 Max? NOPE
Hemoglobin? NOPe
Weight? NOPE
Bone Density? NOPE
Let’s Look at height! A complete overlap. In fact, in the sample of 693 elite athletes, the shortest athlete was a man!
This kind of complete overlap between genders is true for any and ALL physiometric characteristics you can pick.
First, there’s complete overlap for every feature.
Second, the RANGE within a single sex is much much wider than the AVERAGE DIFFERENCE between sexes. Like, a LOT wider.
The difference between the shortest and the tallest woman will be in the area of FEET, but the average differences between men and women are measured by INCHES.
This is true for all physiometric characteristics.
And guess what? There is no relationship between unaltered endogenous testosterone and sport performance. None.
I know. Surprising, right?
Also, there’s complete overlap of testosterone values for cis males and cis females.
And guess what!
Low testosterone elite men are statistically OVERrepresented in elite male sport.
0.5% of ELITE male athletes were naturally below the average for cis female athletes.
&25% of ELITE cis male athletes are below the current 10nmol/L cutoff for female athletes.
Wait!
This means that for ANY TESTOSTERONE POLICY you pick to exclude ‘men’ from women’s sport WILL. NOT. WORK.
There will always be some elite cis males naturally below that level.
I hope you can see a clear pattern emerging.
First, there’s complete overlap for every feature.
Second, the RANGE within a single sex is much much wider than the AVERAGE DIFFERENCE between sexes. Like, a LOT wider.
In fact the only gene on the Y chromosome associated with an effect on height is the short stature homeobox (SHOX) gene, which has a dose-dependent effect on height in humans.
In other words, the more copies of this gene a person has, the taller they grow. As it turns out, the SHOX gene is located on both the X and Y chromosomes – not just the Y chromosome.
Individuals with the genotypes 47 XYY and 47 XXY are approximately the same height, which suggests the Y chromosome’s genetic effect on height is insignificant, if present at all.
Bone density varies greatly from each individual based on nutrition, sex, age, and race. It is true that men have higher bone densities than women, but African-Americans also have higher bone densities than Caucasians and Hispanic people.
Bone structure also varies greatly by individuals based on genetics. Additionally in a 2003 study of the dimensions of shoulder width with the consideration of height and weight of a sample of over 500 males and females shows that there is a significant overlap of male and female body dimensions.
The same argument of bone density was used to keep African-American and Caucasians segregated in athletic competition fifty years ago.
The biggest disappointment in the whole trans people in sports conversation is those that appose trans athletes are also the first to play down the abilities of cisgender females in sports they portray elite female athletes as delicate little butterflies.
The abrupt hormonal changes induced by medical treatment in intersex/DSD or transgender individuals are telescoped compared with male puberty where circulating testosterone concentrations increase irregularly and incompletely for some years.
Gooren found that during the first 12 months muscle mass (area) was decreased by 9.4% & hemoglobin levels by 14% in 20 transwomen (M2F trans) treated with an estrogen-based regimen that reduced circulating T concentrations from the male range to the female range.
Conversely, in 17 transmen (F2M transgender) treated for the first time with testosterone for 12 months (which increased circulating testosterone levels to a mean of 31 nmol/L), muscle mass increased by 19.2% and hemoglobin by 15%.
This is a huge change and it affects all endurance sports, and, in fact, any sport where you were being active for more than a few minutes. The hemoglobin level in your blood is important for taking up and using oxygen in your muscles heart& lungs. It’s perhaps the single most important reason that men outperform women in endurance events, because of the higher hemoglobin level. It has been long noted that hemoglobin levels are closely tied to testosterone levels. When transgender women lower their testosterone levels to female levels, which happens universally when trans women under undergo medical transition, trans women move from male levels of testosterone & hemoglobin to female levels of testosterone hemoglobin levels.
Testosterone levels drop quickly after hormone treatment. It is true that the testosterone levels of trans women are similar to cis female levels. 95% of cisgender women have testosterone below 2 nanomoles per liter. And in a recent study of nearly 250 trans women 94% of them had testosterone below two nanomoles per liter.
All the studies so far have been conducted on non-athletes. One of the important things to note is that even before starting hormone therapy, the trans women in every one of these studies were substantially less strong than cis men. I put it colloquially that as a population group, trans women would rather starve themselves to look like models, than put on muscle to be athletes. But that’s the population these studies looked at they weren’t looking at trans women who are active in sports. They found that the trans women didn’t lose very much strength or lean body mass because they didn’t build up very much before they started hormone therapy. How applicable that finding is to trans athletes is massively debatable.
It is probably true that the greatest changes in the strength of trans women on hormone therapy occur in the first 12 months, but there aren’t enough data to make a definitive statement. There are further declines in strength after 36 months as shown in the case of Kristen Worley, and a recent small study out of Brazil suggests that the entire strength advantage might go away. But they just looked at grip strength in eight trans women, compared with eight cis women matched for BMI, so I think the matter is far from settled.
The important question isn’t, “Do trans women have advantages?” What really matters is can trans women and cis women compete against one another in meaningful competition. There’s no indication that trans women are anywhere close to taking over women’s sport, it’s not happening now. It’s not likely to happen anytime in the future.
Whenever the TERFs have to cite either McKinnon, Fox, Hubbard, Mouncey or the 2 trans HS students in Connecticut as their example of the ’trans advantage remind them not a single trans woman has ever won a sports scholarship anywhere in the world or broken a single elite WR in womens sports or even won a a single Olympic or Commonwealth Games medal of any colour in any sport in 9 Olympic & 4 Commonwealth Games. Not one boxing title, not one wrestling title, or MMA title, has ever been won by a trans woman athlete they have never dominated a single womens sports, if trans women have this advantage where is it?
The IOC amended their policy (removed surgery) in Nov 2015, six years ago in that time we have had three Olympic Games Rio & PyeongChang 2018, Tokyo 2021. Only two trans women athletes even qualified in these three Olympic Games & one came dead last (Laurel Hubbard). In the 6 years not one single elite world title or world record has been broken by a transgender woman athlete.
The NCAA removed gender surgery as a prerequisite to compete in 2011 in those 10years we have not seen a single Division 1 title won by a trans athlete. We have had one division 2 trans female who has one title. Her times are 5 seconds slower than Div 1 record level over 400m.
Many Usa high school policicies don’t follow IOC guidelines in all the Usa High Schools we have seen only two athletes that have excelled but they are no where near their age group national record level & neither hold a state record or won a scholarship.
Finally the argument most used against trans women athletes is also a myth, the haters say: “Fallon Fox brutalised Tamikka Brents in their MMA fight; it was a travesty of a sporting event; and it’s evidence that trans women have a huge unfair advantage.”
Lately haters have been pushing this photo of Fallon and some other female fighter who is a bloody mess. Fallon never even fought this woman. They say she “broke her skull.” This is loosely based on another fight where Fallon fractured her opponent Tamikka Brents’ orbital bone. So now there are rumours that Fallon broke two women’s skulls. Fake news.
Not to mention the fact that an orbital bone fracture is a common injury in women’s MMA.
Just take this example where another women’s fighter succumbed to the same injury:
Or this one:
Or this one:
This injury is so common, you can get it in training:
Devoid of any sensible arguments against transgender athletes the #Terfs subject us daily to a carefully crafted sideshow of straw man conjecture, smoke and mirrors.
End