During the recent Paris Olympics, Algerian boxer Imane Khelif, a biological woman, faced international backlash for her participation in her event. She was subjected to scrutiny, ridicule, and relentless online abuse and threats. Khelif fell victim to these attacks because she was suspected of being transgender.
This controversy brought renewed attention to a long-standing debate; do transgender athletes hold a significant competitive advantage over their cisgendered counterparts?
To an untrained eye, or to a closed mind, the answer may seem obvious: of course they do. Many cling to the notion that transgender athletes dominate women’s sports, citing differences in physical attributes as advantages. However, these beliefs are baseless and dogmatic.
According to the British Sports Medicine Journal, bjsm.bmj.com, transgender women who have undergone one or more years of hormone therapy have similar testosterone levels, higher estrogen levels, stronger grip strength, lower forced expiratory flow, lower jump height and lower relative V̇O2max compared to cisgender women.
Moreover, a separate British Sports Medicine Journal article reported the effects of hormone therapy on transgender individuals’ athletic performance. The results further strengthen the fact that these athletes hold no significant advantage.
According to bjsm.bmj.com, “Prior to gender affirming hormones, transwomen performed 31% more push-ups and 15% more sit-ups in 1 min and ran 1.5 miles 21% faster than their female counterparts. After 2 years of taking feminizing hormones, the push-up and sit-up differences disappeared but transwomen were still 12% faster.”
After two years of hormone therapy, transgender women hold only a fundamentally insignificant advantage running 1.5 miles. However, the study discloses the participants’ training intentions and regimens were unknown.
The perception that transgender athletes pose a threat to women’s sports is rooted deeply in fear, bigotry and misunderstandings, rather than fact.
According to the Olympic Charter, the official rules and guidelines for the Olympic Games, the Olympics have strict regulations and policies set in place for transgender athletes to mitigate any significant advantage that could occur.
Transgender individuals are already prone to, and experience, relentless discrimination and prejudice. To carry this cisgender-chauvinism to the field is asinine and unwarranted. Transgender athletes train just as much, if not more than any other athlete; their spot in major league sports is rightly deserved.
