When it’s men v women, it can never be a level playing field

Oct 17, 2018 by

by Ollie Wright, TCW:

A transgender woman, Dr Rachel McKinnon, has just won a gold medal in the UCI Masters Cycling World Championship.

Dr McKinnon is not the first trans person to win a women’s race across various sports, and it looks like we are going to be seeing this more and more. The implications for women’s sport are massive.

Whatever the supporters of trans athletes might say, being born into a man’s body is a substantial advantage. Recognising this, the authorities in many sports will insist that to compete against so-called ‘cis’ women (women who were born as women), trans athletes have to undergo testosterone suppression treatment to create a level playing field. On Twitter, Dr McKinnon refers to the ‘unhealthily low level of endogenous testosterone’ such competitors must endure, and attributes the gold medal to long hours of training.

Those who cast doubt on the fairness of Dr McKinnon’s victory are apparently bigots. Well, I don’t consider myself a bigot, but perhaps I’m wrong about myself? I just can’t ignore some of the advantages of having a man’s body.

I’m sure that Dr McKinnon did train very hard. But doubtless so did all the other competitors. That’s what you do when you want to win races. Trans women will still normally benefit from male physical characteristics that won’t go away simply because their testosterone level has been lowered. The bigger skeletal muscles men have, the bigger hearts and lungs. Men have more haemoglobin, a key factor in endurance sports; their blood vessels are bigger and carry more blood. These all count.

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