Inclusivity and Fairness Polarized in Transgender Athletes Competing in Women's Sports

"Inclusion rights have dominated the policy podium for a generation of athletes. Female athletes watch in dismay as those who were born men breeze past them in track and field, rowing and other sports where post-puberty disparity in muscle power and lung capacity -- even with testosterone reduced -- guarantee them a significant boost in the women's category."

"Resistance was futile."

Sport associations were so committed to the inclusion principle that complaints were interpreted as transphobic, and female athletes risked being cancelled by stepping out of line: team expulsion, loss of athletic scholarships and the annulment of dreams nurtured since childhood. Their coaches went along to get along."

Barbara Kay, columnist, National Post

 

"'For the Olympic level, the elite level, I'd say probably two years is more realistic than one year' said the study's lead author, Dr. Timothy Roberts, a pediatrician and the director of the adolescent medicine training program at Children's Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, Missouri. 'At one year, the trans women on average still have an advantage over the cis women', he said, referring to cisgender, or nontransgender, women."

Dan Avery, NBC News 

Mara Gómez, the first transgender woman to play professional soccer in Argentina, heads the ball during a match in Buenos Aires on Dec. 7.  Juan Mabromata / AFP - Getty Images

"In an effort to better understand this topic, [how hormone therapy affects physical performance], researchers assessed heart-lung (cardiopulmonary) capacity and strength among 15 transgender women, 13 cisgender men, and 14 cisgender women. Each person was in their mid-thirties and generally engaged in similar physical activity levels."

"Participating transgender women had been on hormone therapy for an average of 14 years. On average, these individuals started hormone therapy at the age of 17. The research team measured each person’s body fat and muscle mass (bioimpedance). A hand grip test to assess strength was also conducted, in addition to cardiopulmonary exercise testing (VO2) on a treadmill."

"Transgender women had lower total body fat levels than cisgender women, but more fat than cisgender men. Similarly, skeletal muscle mass was higher among transgender women in comparison to cisgender women, yet lower than it was among cisgender men."

 “Thus, long-term estrogen exposure and testosterone suppression were not enough to completely shift [body composition of transgender women] to the female pattern, despite their direct and indirect effects on fat and lean mass,” researchers say in a media release.

"Transgender women had stronger grip strength and average peak VO2 than cisgender women."

“Thus, long-term estrogen exposure and testosterone suppression were not enough to completely shift [body composition of transgender women] to the female pattern, despite their direct and indirect effects on fat and lean mass,” researchers say in a media release."

John Anderer, Health and Medical, Sports News

University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas congratulates Princeton's Ellie Marquardt at qualifying event  Mary Schwalm/Associated Press

As a male swim competitor in elite sports, trans-identifying Lia Thomas was considered a second-tier swimmer. After socially transitioning and reducing testosterone levels, as a female, the new 'she' outperformed female competitors on a wide scale in the 200- and 500-yard freestyle races in women's swimming and diving championships seemingly effortlessly; an event and a performance that served to emphasize grpss unfairness as an undeniable problem. 

Male sport figures transitioning to female time and again demonstrating an obviously unfair advantage due entirely to their male physicality inherited at birth. From weightlifting competitions, to team sports, racing and racquet sports, men transitioning to women have taken to competing in women's league sports resulting in the advantage of their superior male-inherited muscular endurance strength outlasting and outperforming women's.

The very idea of males competing at muscle-performance strength with females foresees a huge competitive edge, yet the 'human rights' of men declaring themselves females is not to be questioned for their negative impact on women's success in sports that should see women ideally competing against other women, not transwomen who are obviously physically differentiated from born females. Strange beyond explication that the human rights entitlements of transwomen trumps that of women whose gender is without question natural.

The International Consortium on Female Sport, a lobby group advocating for female sport category preservation on a global scale represents member groups that include Canada, the  United States, Spain, France and the United Kingdom, as original members. At the annual National Collegiate Athletic Association convention in January in San Antonio Texas, the ICFS lobbied the NCAA to commit to respecting women's sex-based rights in sport.

In doing so, they ran into a bit of a problem when it was discovered that the convention on "inclusion in sports" and transgender athlete policy did not appreciate dissenting views. "The panellists were all trans activists. Not a single panellist representing the female voice", stated activist Linda Blade, high-performance Alberta coach and author. Each of the panellists justified the sacred inclusionary principle claiming women are obligated to make their sport "safe" for trans-identifying athletes.

"Fairness in sport can be achieved with the reconceptualization of the male category as 'Open' and the women's category as 'Female', where female refers to the sex recorded at birth"; a quote from a Macdonald-Laurier Institute report examining the principles of "fairness, safety and inclusion"; concluding that no scenario exists in which fairness and safety might harmonize with inclusion.