1. Trans men get the ability to compete with other men, I assume you mean trans women get to compete with other women.
2. No one actually cares about women’s sports until “the trans issue” comes up. This argument is just an excuse to try to harm trans people. Most people can’t name a WNBA team, or name more than 5 female athletes.
3. Biological differences is what professional sports are. That’s why people who have similar builds seem to play the same sports.

Agreed; it’s not worth the rhetoric and actions. And while there’s definitely merit in assessing trans athletes to try and keep things as fair as possible (though they never stopped Phelps from competing, so “fair” is kind of a joke), it’s far more complex than a simple “there was testosterone so they have an advantage!”

For the “nonathletic” groups - think community-level sport - based on what data is available, there is effectively no statistical difference between cis and trans women’s physical performance after 2+ years on hormone therapy.

When it comes to elite athletes, trans women outperformed cis women in Fat-free mass index, Absolute hand grip strength, and Absolute Vo2Max, but under-performed in Relative VO2Max to mass, Ratio of expiratory volume to vital lung capacity, and Absolute countermovement jump (lower body power). The lower Relative VO2Max, and Expiratory volume can lead to disadvantages in terms of speed, recovery and endurance.

While hand grip strength is considered an indicator of overall muscle strength, to quote the first article linked:

The correlations between hand grip strength and individual sports are reviewed comprehensively in Cronin et al. Though maximum hand grip strength has a strong relationship with maximum upper or body strength in some movement patterns such as in powerlifting strength, there are weaker relationships with other movement patterns. There is evidence that hand grip strength is a poor correlate of knee flexion or extension strength and is far more reliable as a marker of physical function if used together with lower limb strength. Hand grip strength is more relevant for some physical performance activities such as rotational movements that transfer force and torque to the hand (ie, ball throwing), but shows poor correlation to movement patterns that require technical ability, physical capacity, aerobic fitness or tactical ability (ie, tennis stroke placement or cricket fielding performance)

It will require a lot more information before any athletics group would be able to make a truly informed decision, and it’s going to have to be sport by sport. Elite athletes are all outliers in their genetic makeup (Phelps, The average height of a WNBA player, etc). We know athletes have different hormone levels depending on the sport they play, but it’s chicken vs. egg on whether the hormones or elite performance came first. So trying to decide what is an acceptable advantage re: “pro athlete genetics”, vs. an unacceptable advantage re: “transgender genetics” is little more than opinions and politics at this point.

/info dump

I’d argue the sport influences the build more than the build influences the sport, with the exception to height. Athletes in the same sport have similar builds due to training in similar ways to use the same muscle groups. Cyclists have strong legs because they train to cycle, they didn’t wake up one day with massive legs telling them to be a cyclist.

These idiots really think that a fucking sign will stop nefarious people from doing what they wanna do

I do agree that people in the same sport will train the same muscles, but they normally start with a biological advantage in order to be good enough in the sport to start to train specifically for it to begin with. There are other things than height, such and foot/hand size, torso length, natural testosterone levels, how fast your body removed lactic acid, if you were born with a cardio-vascular issue, dozens of factors that affect your balance, and much more.

Someone with Ehlers-Danlos isn’t likely to become a powerlifter.

Derek Berry is our prophet they were always right.

John Oliver has a episode on this and it changed my mind. Sure at the top level there has to be conversations about this but for kids and non pros which lets be honest is the vast majority of people playing sports, just let people play.

PRIDE IS A PROTEST. IT WAS THE FUCKING GOVERNMENT WE WERE LARGELY PROTESTING. If they backslide, we will fuck their shit up all over again.

Seeing sports exclusively through the lens of competition is toxic masculinity.

I’ll have to look it up

I only really think at the professional level it might make sense to not allow trans competitors in certain leagues. They should be able to compete in o o pen leagues/divisions though.

I see it like how I’m colourblind, and by no fault of my own I was born in a way that I’m banned from a lot of jobs. I almost went to school for animation and design, but I can’t actually do that job.

But I don’t know how this affects intersex people, or people like that boxer everyone is accusing of being trans, or the genetic Micheal Phelps of the world, so it really isn’t my place to opine.

But one thing I’m certain of is nobody is actually going through gender reassignment just to beat women in sports.