How Opposing Transgender Athletes Hurts All of Us

How Opposing Transgender Athletes Hurts All of Us

In several states, legislators have introduced bills to ban transgender girls from competing on girls’ and women’s sports teams in public high schools and universities. They claim the reason for these bills is to protect cisgender girls and women, who identify as the gender they were assigned at birth. But, it’s not true. These laws will only hurt cisgender people.

Now, don’t get me wrong. The most important reason to support trans athletes is to support trans athletes and trans rights, in general. But, if you don’t care about trans people, maybe you’ll care about how these bills damage cis people.

With that in mind, I’m not going to explain about the gender affirming hormones that many trans women take and how they significantly reduce muscle mass as well as red-blood cells that carry oxygen to the muscles to enhance performance. These hormones also reduce speed and strength. Many young trans girls take puberty blockers that inhibit the initial growth of muscle mass, so they are not actually bigger and stronger than cis girls.

I won’t point out that people come in all different shapes and sizes regardless of their genitalia. I happen to be 5’10”, which makes me, a cis female, 2” taller than the average male, and I’m no unicorn. I have known many cis women taller than me.

It’s not worth mentioning that many female athletes have higher testosterone levels than non-athletes. Testosterone levels in men range from 10–25 nmol/L, and studies show these levels do not directly correlate with athleticism.

I won’t bother to pontificate on the studies that show that trans female athletes do better when training in the same manner as cis women, and trans male athletes tend to do better when training in the same manner as cis men, indicating that gender is more in the brain than in the genitals.

I’m not going to talk about the Associated Press interviews of a dozen lawmakers sponsoring these bills. How they only knew of the same few occasions where it had been an issue, out of hundreds of thousands of teenage girls who play sports. Which makes sense since surveys show that .06% of Americans identify as transgender. Only about half of that percentage will play sports in high school and fewer in college. Most athletes will never play against a transgender person.

It’s probably not worth mentioning that California has protected the rights of transgender students to play sports among the gender they identify with for the last eight years with no major complaints or issues.

I won’t tell you about these things, because you’ve probably already made up your mind that trans women are really just men in dresses. So, if you’re still with me, let me explain how your intention to protect cis girls and women by banning trans girls and women from school sports will backfire.

By claiming that trans girls and women have an unfair advantage over cis girls and women you are telling everyone, AGAIN, that people with vaginas are not good enough. You are telling us that we are weak, fragile and insufficient.

I was an uncoordinated child in an athletic family. I have one sister and one brother and the two of them were probably equal in strength and coordination. I have a minor disability that affected my coordination, so I was never very good at team sports. I was strong and had great endurance, so I was a good skier, swimmer and runner. I was better at the solitary sports.

Because of my lack of coordination I struggled in social situations where games were played. I fought to defy the image of being a stereo-typical ‘girl’. There were plenty of strong girls around me, and I felt weak and frail. I was ashamed because I made girls look bad by fitting the stereotype. It damaged my self-esteem in ways that took me decades to overcome. I still struggle with it. And this debate about trans athletes has brought it all back, front and center in my mind.

In my twenties, I took a six year old girl and her friend to the mall. They wanted to go to the arcade. The first game we saw as we walked through the door was a machine to test strength. There were categories to mark how strong a person is. Strongest was Superman. Towards the bottom were Wimp and Weakling and the lowest category was Girl.

The six year olds weren’t very strong and couldn’t get above the lowest category.

I stood there listening to them tease each other.

“You’re a girl!”

“No, you’re a girl!”

My heart broke for them because I knew too well the stigma they would have to overcome by learning that the label ‘girl’ is an insult. That being a girl is worse than being a wimp or a weakling.

By opposing trans athletes, you’re not only telling cis girls and women that they aren’t good enough to compete, you’re telling boys and men that women aren’t good enough. You’re reinforcing the agenda for women to work lower paid jobs and have fewer benefits and opportunities than men. You’re reinforcing a culture that makes women submissive to men.

Stop telling girls and women that we aren’t good enough!!! JUST STOP IT!

It’s true that men on average tend to have 40–60% more upper body strength and 25–30% more lower body strength, but female power lifters, through proper training and diet have lowered that ratio to 0–8%.

Even though there is some correlation between muscle mass and strength there is plenty of evidence that there are other factors that impact an athlete’s abilities, such as genetics and muscle and bone length. Studies have even shown that women, with less lower body strength, have outperformed men in leg presses.

In endurance sports, women excel far beyond men. In the 2003 Boston Marathon, the average times for women were five times faster than the average times for men. Alaska’s Iditarod dog-sled race is frequently won by women whose endurance and higher body fat play an important role. Higher body fat also makes women better swimmers by making them more buoyant with less drag.

If your real agenda is protecting girl and women athletes from unfair advantage then it might interest you to know that even though girls’ opportunities to play in sports have increased since the 1970s, boys still have 1.13 million more sporting opportunities every year than girls.

Researchers found in studies of small children learning to play tee-ball, that coaches and parents gave extra attention to boys, giving them pointers and encouragement, leaving the girls to figure it out on their own or simply fail.

In 2018, a Neilsen report showed that only 4% of total commercial investment in sports goes into women’s sports, despite 84% of sports fans expressing an interest.

If you really want to ensure that women have a valuable experience in sports, then your time and energy would be better spent making sure they have more opportunities and better media attention. Making sure equal money is given to girl’s athletic camps and school sports as to boy’s. Put your passion into supporting all girls and women, not into tearing down a small subset of them just because you don’t understand them.

The social impact of sports on young women is undeniable. Study after study proves women’s confidence, earnings potential, and even their tendency to leave a violent domestic situation goes up along with participation in sports.

School sports is not supposed to be about competition and exclusivity, it is supposed to be about being a team, about inclusivity, diversity and fun! Sports are a way to gain a feeling of belonging, as well as to build physical health and reduce stress. If you truly support girls and women in sports, please stop opposing trans people’s right to play as the gender they identify with. They are not hurting girl and women athletes. You are.