Transgender Athletes: The Truth

"'How many athletes are there in the U.S. in NCAA schools?' Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) asked Baker during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday on federal regulations around sports gambling.

“'Five hundred and ten thousand,' said Baker, a former Republican governor of Massachusetts who has served as president of the NCAA, which governs intercollegiate athletics at more than 1,000 colleges and universities across the country, since 2023.

"'How many transgender athletes are you aware of?' Durbin asked.

'Less than 10," Baker said."

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"Baker said it is 'debatable' whether transgender women will 'always' have a physical advantage over cisgender, or non-transgender, women.

"A recent cross-sectional study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine found that transgender women who completed more than one year of hormone replacement therapy performed worse than cisgender women in tests measuring lower-body strength and lung functioning.

"Trans women’s bone density, which is linked to muscle strength, was found to be equivalent to that of cisgender women, and there were no meaningful differences in levels of hemoglobin, which facilitates oxygen delivery to muscles and is related to greater aerobic performance.

"An earlier study, also published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, found that transgender women who went through male puberty retained an athletic edge after one year of hormone therapy. The study’s lead author has cautioned against using the results to categorically ban transgender athletes from competitive sports."

Click on the link below for the full article. IMHO, let the leaders in the particular sports where this could be an issue decide what to do to ensure fairness BASED ON SCIENCE RESEARCH AND NOT POLITICS/IGNORANCE/BIGOTRY!!!:

NCAA president says there are ‘less than 10’ transgender athletes in college sports

Trans Athletes: The Current Knowledge

"A groundbreaking study that was sponsored by the International Olympic Committee and released late last week sought to compare a range of athletic abilities between trans athletes and their cisgender counterparts. The finding that trans women athletes are at a relative disadvantage in many key physical areas relating to athletic ability and perform worse on cardiovascular tests than their cisgender counterparts could be the first step in fighting back against the conventional wisdom conservatives have spread that trans women’s participation is inherently unfair."

Click on the link below for the details that fly in the face of ignorance, dogma, and bigotry:

This study on trans women's athletic disadvantages ought to change the debate

Transgendered Athletes: The Nuances

"1. There are many existential threats to the trans community in the United States right now. The question of whether trans women should be able to participate in elite women’s sports is not one of them.

"2. It is possible to be in favor of trans rights and against trans participation in sports.

"3. The central question has been: 'Should transgender women be allowed to compete alongside cisgender women?' That’s the wrong question."

Click on the link below for a well-informed, thoughtful opinion regarding transgendered athletes:

Lia Thomas, Trans Rights, and the Future of Elite Sports: 3 Takeaways From My MIT Panel

Shedding More Light Than Heat On Trans Women In Sports

The link below is to a 20-minute trialogue on the YouTube channel The Line that was a respective, concise, and thorough interaction on this emotionally-charged topic:

How Are Trans Women in Sports Fair?

Transgender And Sports: More Heat Than Light

The dogmatic and ignorant Republicans are pushing through state legislatures bills banning not only medical treatment for transgendered people but also their participation in sports. Click on the link for an excellent response to a caller to an atheist YouTube program on the latter subject.

Caller Believes It Would Be Unfair To Allow Trans Women In Sports

The harm to sex/gender non-binary folks and to society is from putting unsupported religious dogma over the consensus of science.