Originally Posted by
Maelochs
Men start with an average of 15 percent more size and more muscle per pound than women. That's a bigger heart, lungs, and muscles .... nothing that would be affected by hormone suppression.
There is a reason many sports have a Men's and a Women's division---same reason some don't. In some sports the physical size and strength difference cannot, in general, be trained away.
Look at cycling. it isn't that the women don't train as hard, don't have the same training regimens, don't have the same technology ... yet they are generally slower. Look at tennis. Look at any sport where any physical edge makes a difference. Ask why in fight sports there are so many divisions by weight---because those few pounds's advantage matter.
Anyone who is honest knows this stuff. it has nothing to do with politics, it has nothing to do with gender identification rights. it has everything to do with the idea of athletic competition.
First, muscle size is largely dependant of hormones and would be affected by hormone suppression, although someone who has built muscle under favourable conditions is still likely at an advantage as retaining muscle is easier than building it. Second, the advantages men have is still largely dependant on the sport chosen. Women have less bone mass and less upper body mass, both useful things when trying to go up a mountain which is why I suspect Dr McKinnon isn't trying to do any road races in the Alps. Third, many sports are difficult to measure. Running is easy, we can see the times put up by elite athletes but how do you quantify tennis ability? When McEnroe said that Serena was maybe the 300th best player in the world, no one could definitively say if he was right or not.
But, none of that really is relevant because we're not comparing men with women. We're comparing trans women with women. It's not as simple as that. Only the most extreme people, like Dr McKinnon, believe that trans women should be allowed to compete against cisgendered women without restriction. The effects of the various hormones and hormone suppressors they take isn't well known. The effects of their hormone levels being different than than what their body is used to is not well known. The effect of using synthetic hormones instead of your body's natural hormones isn't well known. Do they still have an advantage? Probably for most sports. That advantage is almost certainly significantly smaller than the advantage men have. How much of an advantage? It's difficult to say but I suspect this race wasn't particularly fair. IIRC, the age range for this category was 35-44. Was her edge greater than the advantage a 35 year old has over a 44 year old? Maybe. The fact is, even with a 5% advantage, she'd have to be very, very good in order to win. It's not like she's just some no talent hack who decided to ride bikes a couple of weeks ago.
People that have actually investigated this (unlike any of us) came up with guidelines they felt were fair. As more information has become known, those guidelines have been revised (and are currently in the process of being revised again to be more strict). As our knowledge grows, they likely will be revised several more times. But as of now, no one really knows what is or isn't fair. The fact is, at this point, trans women wining sporting competitions is virtually unheard of. The idea that women's sport is at risk, or being significantly damaged, is simply not true at this time.