Over the last few months, I\u2019ve seen people sharing memes and links about trans women athletes competing on primarily cis women teams. They\u2019re worded in a way to get people worked up over having a \u201cbiological male\u201d or \u201cgenetic male\u201d competing with \u201cbiological\/genetic females\u201d, with the assumption that being assigned male at birth gives athletes some sort of advantage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This just isn\u2019t true.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Competition requirements mandate low levels of testosterone. The IOC, for example, requires athletes competing on women\u2019s teams to have testosterone levels of 10 nmol\/L or lower. To get that low, trans women will have to take blockers, reducing how much testosterone their bodies produce. As testosterone production wanes, muscle mass, bone density, and other typical dimorphic advantages wane.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Let\u2019s look at four examples that I\u2019ve seen shared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
First, Fallon Fox. She\u2019s a MMA fighter. She was in the news a few years ago when she fought Tamikka Brents, who ended up with a concussion, cracked orbital bone, and 7 staples. Here\u2019s the thing though. Brents is pound-for-pound stronger than Fox. Look at them side by side. Fox is 4 inches taller, but Brents is way more muscular. In fact, Brents\u2019 BMI is 27.3, while Fox\u2019s is only 22.5. Fox didn\u2019t win because of muscle mass. Maybe she won because she was taller, but she\u2019s only 5’7″. She\u2019s not a massive person.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Let\u2019s also not forget that Brents\u2019 MMA record is horrible. She hasn\u2019t won a single match since she lost to Fox. She\u2019s on a 4-game losing streak, and she\u2019s lost twice as many games than she\u2019s won. And guess what? Fox lost her bout against Ashlee Evans\u2013Smith, who\u2014surprise, surprise\u2014is taller than Fox.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Second, Hannah Mouncey. She\u2019s a handball player, playing on the Australian national women\u2019s team. People are upset because she\u2019s 6’3″ and 230 lbs, which they think gives her an advantage. Except it didn\u2019t seem to help a lot having her on the team, since they placed only 5th (out of 10) in the 2018 Asian Women\u2019s Handball Championship and lost half of the games they played. Plus, she got only 23 of the total 99 goals her team scored in the games, and her team finished the games with a 6 goal deficit. Her teammate Sally Potocki, a cis woman, scored 32 goals in those games, and led the scoring on 3 of the 4 games the team played.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Third, Andraya Yearwood. She\u2019s a high school track athlete out of Connecticut. She made headlines when she won second place in a 100 metre track meet earlier this year. What people sharing news articles about her fail to mention is that she placed only 7th in the 200 metre meet at the same event, and 7th in the 400 metre meet at an event the month before and 14th in the 4×100 relay that same month. If she has a biological advantage, why isn\u2019t she winning every meet she competes in?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Finally, Rachel McKinnon. She\u2019s the first trans woman to win a world championship, having won the master 35\u201339 200-metre women\u2019s sprint at the 2018 UCI Masters Track Cycling World Championships this past October. She also set a world record during the quarterfinals of that event. That is of course something that transphobic commentators focus on. Except, her record was broken that same day by a cis woman. Plus, she came in fourth in the 500-metre event, losing to 3 cis women. And the person who broke her 200-metre record, led in the qualifying heats, and beat McKinnon in the 500-metre event didn\u2019t even compete in the final 200-metre event. Had she, McKinnon might not even have won her gold medal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And speaking of being the first trans woman to win a world championship, if trans women have an athletic advantage over cis women, why has it taken 14 years for a trans woman to win a world championship? The IOC has allowed trans women to compete since 2004.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And these are just the four athletes who seem to make the rounds the most. There are similar stories for other trans athletes. They perform well at an event, then everyone criticizes them for their performance, citing unfair advantage, despite their records showing otherwise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is just plain old transphobia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n