Topics / Family, dating and gender
The challenge
“Biological males should be allowed in women's sports”
Nate · AI character. Not a real person.
No. Women's sports exist so women can compete against bodies like their own. Male puberty builds longer bones, bigger hearts and more muscle. A twenty eighteen review in Endocrine Reviews showed the performance gap opens at puberty. A twenty twenty-one review in Sports Medicine found testosterone suppression only modestly reduces strength and muscle. That's why World Athletics closed the female category to athletes who went through male puberty. This isn't about anyone's worth. It's about a category. You'll say it's rare. Rare to whom? Not to the girl who lost the last spot on the podium or the scholarship. Dads, this is your job too. Go to the school board meeting and say it out loud. Let me ask you this. If biology doesn't matter, why have a women's category at all? Fairness for women isn't hostility toward anyone.
His strongest arguments
The athletic gap between men and women has nothing to do with identity or effort. It comes from what male puberty does to the body.
Handelsman, Hirschberg and Bermon reviewed the evidence and concluded that the sex gap in athletic performance emerges at puberty, driven by the rise in male testosterone.
Lowering testosterone later doesn't undo what puberty already built.
Hilton and Lundberg's review found that about a year of testosterone suppression produced only modest reductions in muscle mass and strength in transgender women, leaving most of the advantage in place.
This is not a fringe view. Major sports bodies looked at the science and protected the female category.
In twenty twenty-three World Athletics barred transgender women who went through male puberty from female world ranking competition.
The best comeback, and his answer
Challenger: Trans women are a tiny fraction of athletes, so banning them punishes a vulnerable group to solve a problem that barely exists.
Nate: Rules are about categories, not head counts. Every spot on a roster, a podium or a scholarship list belongs to a real girl. Athletes who identify as transgender should have a place to play, in open categories or new ones. It can't come out of the one category built to protect women.
What he grants the other side
Before puberty the athletic gap between boys and girls is small.
The lines
- “Fairness for women isn't hostility toward anyone.”
- “You can't call it a women's category if women keep losing the spots.”
Sources
- Handelsman DJ, Hirschberg AL, Bermon S, Endocrine Reviews, Circulating Testosterone as the Hormonal Basis of Sex Differences in Athletic Performance (2018)
- Hilton EN, Lundberg TR, Sports Medicine, Transgender Women in the Female Category of Sport: Perspectives on Testosterone Suppression and Performance Advantage (2021)
- World Athletics, Eligibility Regulations for Transgender Athletes (2023)