Fitness guru and biological woman Jillian Michaels took to her webspace this week, publishing a long and well-thought-out treatise on the problem of allowing men to compete against women in professional sports—any sports, really, whether they’ve had their hormones blocked or their bodies altered.
Sports performance is determined by a host of physiological components: musculoskeletal system, muscle structure and contraction, energy systems, phosphocreatine system, endocrine system, pulmonary system, nervous system, thermoregulation, oxygen uptake etc. All of which influence the athlete’s endurance, speed, strength, and power.
These factors differ significantly between biological males and females because of both genetic differences and differing levels of sex hormones within the sexes – (testosterone, estrogen, progesterone).
The prevailing argument for allowing men or boys who identify as girls or women, aside from the idea that their feelings override risk under the rubric of fairness and a right to compete, is that science can even the playing field. If we do this now, or then, or forever, it is just as good as the real thing. Feelings aside, Michals brings the rain, dispelling nearly every myth that this is even remotely possible.
Even before puberty, when the differences effectuated by the influence of sex hormones sets in, from a purely genetic perspective, biological males are significantly advantaged.
Case in point, one study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine extensively researched peer-reviewed studies on the health-related fitness data of 85,000 Australian children aged 9-17. It found that when “compared with 9-year-old females, 9-year-old males were faster over short sprints (9.8%) and 1 mile (16.6%), could jump 9.5% further from a standing start (a test of explosive power), could complete 33% more push-ups in 30 seconds and had 13.8% stronger grip.”
Another study of Greek children, published in the European Journal of Sports Science compared 6-year-old females and 6-year-old. Researchers found that the “boys completed 16.6% more shuttle runs in a given time and could jump 9.7% further from a standing position. In terms of aerobic capacity, 6- to 7-year-old boys showed a higher absolute and relative (to body mass) VO2max than 6- to 7-year-old females”.
I must’ve read ten similar studies comparing the fitness of prepubescent kids across the globe and all had similar findings regarding the extent of male advantage in sports performance.
From this jumping off point, once androgenization begins during puberty the male advantage is essentially insurmountable. Circulating concentration levels of testosterone during puberty are 15 times higher than in women resulting in dramatic anatomical differences: Men have more muscle mass, stiffer connective tissue, less body fat, longer and larger skeletal structure, superior cardiovascular and respiratory function with larger blood and heart volumes, higher hemoglobin concentration, and lower oxygen cost of respiration. All of which translates into a superior physical capacity due to size, speed, strength, and endurance.
One study published in Sports Med evidenced proof of this conclusion by doing a comparison of adult elite male and female achievements in sports by searching publicly available sports federation databases. Men dominated across the board.
But what about the claim that the male performance advantage is lost when testosterone is suppressed in transgender athletes.
The same study published in Sports Med looked at this possibility in particular and found the reliance upon puberty blockers to regulate fairness have proven invalid with changes in physical capacity related to sports performance being “trivial”.
For example, the pioneer work by Gooren and colleagues published in the European Journal of Endocrinology compared the baseline measurement of thigh muscle area in transgender men to transgender women. The final thigh muscle area, after three years of testosterone suppression, was 13% larger in trans women than in the trans men at baseline. Meaning biological males taking puberty blockers for 3 years still had 13% more muscle than biological females taking testosterone.
Michaels doesn’t stop there. Not only can men not be dismissed in a meaningful way to create parity with women, women can be made into men who can compete with transgender women.
Another study published in the journal, Endocrine Connections, measured grip strength (which is a maker indicative of overall strength) in both transgender males and transgender females. The researchers found that transgender women (biological men on puberty blockers and cross sex hormones) retained a 17% advantage over transgender men (biological women on puberty blockers and testosterone).
The authors of all the above referenced studies concluded that testosterone suppression in transgender women does not reverse muscle size to biological female levels even when testosterone is within biological female range.
And then there is the evidence we can see with our own eyes.
Studies aside, the proof is being borne out in real time. We are seeing fast rises up the rankings by biological males who, on transition, go from average rankings among the men to champions among women. Transgender athletes are in the news more and more breaking record after record in a variety of different sports. Along with several incidents of significant injuries to biological females along the way.
And the very real future that is continuing to excuse these differences, drugs or not, portends.
Their concerns should be closely considered as an entire generation of upcoming girls may never get the opportunity to fulfill their dreams no matter how hard they work. The scholarships, titles, world records, prize money, Olympic opportunities, endorsement deals could all eventually become out of reach. This looks like a world without Serena Williams, Lindsay Vonn, Megan Rapinoe, Simone Biles, Ronda Rousey and many more. Serena herself said in that famous interview with David Letterman that if she had to play Andy Murray she would refuse because she would get beaten 6/0 6/0 in under ten minutes. One doesn’t get labeled “the G.O.A.T” if they never become number one.
The solution is not an easy one; we have the core of an entire political party and millions of compliant parrots insisting that girls and women are not being harmed by this. The Education industrial complex they control continues to churn out new recruits to this worldview. And while we have seen protections arise at the state level, including in my own state of New Hampshire, these are fleeting if the gender benders gain the necessary control to overturn them. What, you ask, must be done?
Women need to emulate Jillian Michales or Riley Gaines. Start your own X files because the truth is out there. The science supports a biological threat to women forced to compete with anyone carrying XY Chromosomes. We are putting girls and women in harm’s, risking actual harm to avoid hurting someone’s feelings, and that needs to stop.
