What it boils down to are the following questions:
- Why do we separate sports based on sex in stead of a single mixed-sex competition?
- Why would those reasons not be valid when it involves transwomen?
The answer to the first question is rather simple: physiological differences between males and females cause a disparity of 10–40% in top performance results depending on the type of physical sport. Obviously, the best female would still be able to beat almost all of the males in the world, but in a single sex competition they wouldn’t even reach the top 1000 in almost every physical sport. In fact: most of them would lose in a competition against teenage boys. Most men’s sports divisions are actually open divisions; women are free to compete, but few of them are able and willing to do so successfully.
So that leaves the question: why would those reasons not be valid for transwomen? Recent research has shown that although transwomen performance diminishes under HRT, it does not come even close to eliminating all the advantages males have over females. A team of New Zealand scientists stated in their research paper: “We conclude that the advantage to transwomen afforded by the IOC guidelines is an intolerable unfairness.” As such, if we value women’s sports, and accept the reasons for their existence, transwomen should be competing in the open division, and not the women’s division.