Originally Posted by
Hiro11
I think a plurality (majority?) of people (myself included) agree that the social construct of gender is both non-binary and fluid. I think a clear majority of people (again, myself included) is fully supportive of trans rights. Regardless, all of that is completely irrelevant. Politics, identity and social mores are not what's being debated here. Not at all. What's being debated here is biology. The insane liturgical fervor of some people to deny scientific facts of physiology and biology in service of waving their favored political flag is incredible to watch. Watching these same people now tie themselves into logical knots as they try to explain their way around the negative implication for biological women is a particular joy to me. Science is science, folks. Facts are facts. For example, if you want to decry those who reject climate change science, you also have to decry those on your side of the political fence who deny science on the actual risks of GMO food, the true causes of mental illness, and the biological differences between men and women. You can't have it both ways.
Regardless, this is a fairly cut and dry case with small implications. Caster Semenya... now that's truly fascinating case with much higher stakes.
I think you may have created this debate in your own mind. Dr McKinnon has said she doesn't care about any advantage as (in her opinion) trans rights are more important than a level playing field. Pretty much every other organization has placed restrictions on trans women in order to make the competition fair.
As for the science itself, until recently, no major studies had been done on the matter, so there was only speculation. Sort of like > 100 years ago when CO2 was proposed as a greenhouse gas but there wasn't massive amounts of data to back it up like there is today. Now we are starting to get some research on the effects of hormone suppression but even those results don't directly deal with performance.
In short, while people can speculate about certain factors which could cause an unfair advantage for trans women, no one really knows how much of a benefit, if any, that they receive overall in a particular sport.