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Transgender Women in Female Competition

We live in a time of contested inclusion of transgender individuals in many walks of life. Some Americans are baffled and repulsed by people who have chosen to change their gender identity, whereas others celebrate such actions as examples of individual freedom. It’s been a rocky road. Discrimination against transgender people in the US military was required, then eliminated, and now re-imposed. Laws were passed, and then contested, requiring transgender children to use school bathrooms designated for the gender of their birth.

The general trend has been toward increasing acceptance, largely because gender dysphoria is now accepted as a genuine psychological malady which can be successfully treated through gender re-assignment. People who sense their original gender assignment to be psychologically inappropriate and burdensome – leading to discontent, depression, and even suicide – are now less often discriminated against in education and employment when they take steps to assimilate with the opposite gender.

Central to the case for acceptance is that gender re-assignment doesn’t harm others. The military has found that transgender personnel do not impair military operations, and it’s fanciful to suppose that anyone would undergo re-assignment in order to spy on others in school bathrooms. If the mere discomfort of others at the thought of gender re-assignment were a serious consideration to justify discrimination, we would all lose many of our freedoms, and the tattoo and body-piercing industries would probably suffer.

But there is one area where even very liberal people pause in their acceptance transgender women and girls, and that is sports, because the participation of transgender females may harm others. Competition is fundamental to sports. The point of sports is to give people the opportunity to compete with one another under fair terms. Chances of success at the elite level of any sport depend on many factors. Some people, simply on the basis of their physical being, can run faster, jump higher, endure longer, see balls better, or push harder. People differ also in their competitive drive.

In most sports, men have an advantage over women because they are generally bigger, stronger, and faster. This is why many people, including some who support the inclusion of transgender individuals in other areas, want to exclude them from female competition. The fear is that transgender females will dominate in competition among women, thereby discouraging other women from participation.

Idaho passed a law in March 2020 disallowing the participation of transgender women in female competition. Its sponsor, Barbara Ehardt, said that without the ban of transgender women, “The progress that we, as women, have made over the last 50 years will be for naught and we will be forced to be spectators in our own sports.”

By contrast, Connecticut allows transgender women to compete as women without restriction. A star transgender athlete in the state, objecting to a lawsuit aimed at overturning Connecticut’s law said: “The more we are told that we don’t belong and should be ashamed of who we are, the fewer opportunities we have to participate in sports.”

But the issue is fair competition, not shame. In order to promote fairness, the International Olympic Committee (OIC) allows transgender women to compete in the female category only after they have undergone at least one year of testosterone suppression. This is no burden. Transgender women typically take medication to suppress their testosterone levels in order to reduce male secondary sex characteristics, such as facial hair.

Recent studies indicate, however, that one to three years of treatments that bring the testosterone levels of transgender women within the normal female range do not eliminate the advantages in muscularity and strength provided by having had male testosterone levels during puberty. Whereas men typically have 40 percent more muscle mass than women, the loss of muscle mass by transgender women after one year is in the range of 3 percent and has never been observed at more than 12 percent after three years of testosterone suppression.

On the other hand, hemoglobin levels, and therefore oxygen carrying capacity does seem to reduce significantly in transgender women undergoing hormone therapy. So, in long-distance running, transgender women may have no unfair advantage. Event-specific research is needed.

In the meantime, if transgender women don’t want to harm others of their own gender, they should cease competing as women in certain organized sports. It’s a grave personal sacrifice to give up formal competition, but the world isn’t always fair, and this injustice to some is needed to preserve and promote justice for the majority.

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