New studies show trans-female athletes retain natural advantage over female athletes

by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent

(Worthy News) – Emerging research suggests trans-female athletes continue to have natural advantages over female athletes, even after extensive hormonal treatment, Just the News reports. The issue raises complex social questions about whether transgender inclusion is more important than leaving female athletes at an unfair competitive disadvantage.

One of the new studies, published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine in December, aimed to “examine the effect of gender-affirming hormones on athletic performance among transwomen and transmen.” To find answers, the researchers drew on “fitness test results and medical records of 29 transmen and 46 transwomen who started gender-affirming hormones while in the United States Air Force.”

The researchers found that “prior to gender-affirming hormones, transwomen [males who identify as women] performed 31% more push-ups and 15% more sit-ups in 1 min and ran 1.5 miles 21% faster than their female counterparts,” Just the News reports. “After 2 years of taking feminizing hormones, the push-up and sit-up differences disappeared but transwomen were still 12% faster,” the study found.

Another study published in the Sports Medicine journal in December aimed to discover, “whether evidence exists to support the assumption that testosterone suppression in transgender women removes the male performance advantage and thus delivers fair and safe competition.”

In this study, the scientists found that “current evidence shows the biological advantage, most notably in terms of muscle mass and strength, conferred by male puberty and thus enjoyed by most transgender women is only minimally reduced when testosterone is suppressed as per current sporting guidelines for transgender athletes.”

“In sports where muscle mass is important for performance,” the study authors wrote, “inclusion is therefore only possible if a large imbalance in fairness, and potentially safety in some sports, is to be tolerated.”

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