Medical Evidence Points to an Insurmountable Advantage in Sports for Biological Males
Our day to day experiences inform us that men are physically bigger, stronger and faster than women. Post-pubescent teenage boys are also bigger, stronger and faster than post-pubescent teenage girls . The male physical advantage translates into an insurmountable advantage in sports. Countless peer-reviewed medical research reports confirm the male physical advantage, an advantage that is determined by biological sex at birth, and cannot be fully reversed by any hormone or other treatment.
USA Fencing, in the formulation of its transgender policy for cadet women’s events, prioritized the principle of inclusion over fairness, directly in the face of clear medical evidence confirming the male physical advantage that accrues to post-pubescent boys, including those who identify as transgender girls.
According to the National Institute of Health, that “For many decades, it has been recognized that testosterone drives muscle mass and clear sex differences exist…..Males have approximately twice the cross sectional area of upper body muscle, and 30% more cross sectional area of lower body muscle relative to females [30]. The difference in muscle mass emerges during puberty as circulating testosterone levels increase in boys.”
Alison K Heather, a physiology academic with a PhD points out that “Most elite sports are divided into male and female divisions because of the greater athletic performance displayed by males. Without the sex division, females would have little chance of winning because males are faster, stronger, and have greater endurance capacity.”
Research from Duke University’s Center for Sports Law and Policy references indisputable data confirming the male advantage in sports.
In its report, Duke University says that “If you know sport, you know this beyond a reasonable doubt: there is an average 10-12% performance gap between elite males and elite females. The gap is smaller between elite females and non-elite males, but it’s still insurmountable and that’s ultimately what matters.” (Boldface is FP’s)
Screenshot from Duke University Center of Sports Law and Policy’s report “Comparing Athletic Performances: The Best Elite Women to Boys and Men”
In the same Duke report, the data shows that the differences in performance between the best women compared to men over the age of 18 magnifies by a factor of 20 or more. Thousands of men outperform the world’s best women, and they manage to do so tens of thousands of times.
Screenshot from Duke University Center of Sports Law and Policy’s report “Comparing Athletic Performances: The Best Elite Women to Boys and Men”
In the report “Should Trans Women be Allowed to Compete in Women’s Sports”, the experts point out that “Overall, by mid-puberty, males outperform comparably aged, gifted, and trained females by 10-60%, depending on the sport, with the smallest differences in running and swimming and the largest differences in weightlifting and baseball pitching…” The chart below illustrates the advantage that biological males have over females across a number of sports.
Screenshot from the report “Should Trans Women be Allowed to Compete in Women’s Sports”
It is hard to imagine that USA Fencing, through its medical experts at Mount Sinai and other sources, did not have access to this expert evidence during the process of formulating its transgender policy. Yet USA Fencing hides behind the explanation that it consulted medical experts at Mount Sinai in the formulation of its transgender policy, while refusing to share the authoritative medical sources it relied on to explain why it decided that it is acceptable for transgender girls to benefit from their biological physical advantage in cadet women’s events.
USA Fencing is fully aware of the male physical advantage given its more restrictive requirements for participation in junior and senior events for transgender women.
Yet, without consulting the girls, USA Fencing has decided that it is an acceptable trade-off for girls aged 13, 14, 15 and 16, the typical age of competitors in cadet women’s events, to be materially disadvantaged in the face of transgender girls’ biologically bestowed physical advantage.
As a sports organization, whose guiding principle should be one of fairness and the creation of a level playing field, USA Fencing fails to make good policy when its inclusion of transgender girls in fencing leads to unfairly disadvantaging cisgender ones in cadet events.
USA Fencing should distinguish between national, regional and local fencing
FP made abundantly clear in the article USA Fencing's Transgender Policy Disadvantages Girls in Cadet Events that it fully supports inclusion of transgender athletes in fencing, but it also demands that USA Fencing give due consideration to the principle of fairness in Cadet women’s events.
In a seemingly irreconcilable conflict between inclusion and fairness, FP suggested a compromise for USA Fencing to inject some fairness back into cadet women’s events and still remain inclusive. That suggestion is for USA Fencing to follow the USA Tennis model, and make a separation between the recreational and the competitive side of the sports - participation in fencing competitions at the regional and local level is unconditional while participation in national competitions requires proof of hormone suppression treatment.
FP knows that many states today prohibit access to hormone suppressant treatment for those under 18, and agrees with USA Fencing that it should do its best to include transgender fencers unable to access treatment. However, USA Fencing cannot lose sight of the interests of its cisgender cadet women fencers either. USA Fencing must recognize that it cannot create justice for one group by imposing an injustice on another group.
We must point out here that USA Fencing’s transgender policy for Junior women’s events requires fencers under 18 to provide proof of hormone suppressant treatment in order to compete, undermining USA Fencing’s own argument for why it maintains an unconditional policy for cadet women’s events. Perhaps, USA fencing fails to grasp the demography of the fencers who participate in junior events, the vast majority of whom are under 18.
A separation between national, regional and local events will have a fairer and still very inclusive result.
USA Fencing should take note of the authoritative medical reports cited below that the biological male advantage in sports is insurmountable.
USA Fencing must take steps to amend its transgender policy to make it fairer for cisgender girls competing in cadet women’s events. Failure to do so can only be interpreted as USA Fencing intentionally creating an environment unwelcoming to teenage cisgender girls.
Absent a level playing field, fencing would not be a sport at all, but simply a social engagement without any pretense of fair competition.
Medical and Expert research on the male physical advantage
FP owes a big thank you to the many members of the fencing community, including parents, coaches and fencers who generously shared their time and effort to help collate these authoritative citations.
The research not only affirms the physical advantage of biological males, but also indicates that the advantage persists even after one year of hormone suppressing treatment, which is the typical period of treatment required by many sports organizations of transgender women as a condition to participate in women’s sports.
Medical and expert sources
Duke University Center for Sports Law and Policy - Comparing Athletic Performances: The Best Elite Women to Boys and Men
Center on Sport Policy and Conduct - Should Transwomen be allowed to Compete in Women’s Sports?
Springer Link - Transgender Women in the Female Category of Sport: Perspectives on Testosterone Suppression and Performance Advantage
United States Sports Academy - Assessing the Potential Transgender Impact on Girl Champions in American High School Track and Field (a PhD dissertation)
National Library of Medicine - Transwoman Elite Athletes: Their Extra Percentage Relative to Female Physiology published in International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
National Library of Medicine - Transgender Women in the Female Category of Sport: Perspectives on Testosterone Suppression and Performance Advantage published in the Journal of Sports Medicine
National Library of Medicine - Transgender Girls Grow Tall: Adult Height Is Unaffected by GnRH Analogue and Estradiol Treatment published in Journal of Clinical Endocrinal Metabolism
National Library of Medicine - Transsexuals and competitive sports published in the European Journal of Endocrinology
British Journal of Sports Medicine - Effect of gender affirming hormones on athletic performance in transwomen and transmen: implications for sporting organisations and legislators
National Library of Medicine - Change in grip strength in trans people and its association with lean body mass and bone density published in Endocrine Connections
National Library of Medicine - Effect of Cross-Sex Hormones on Body Composition, Bone Mineral Density, and Muscle Strength in Trans Women published in Journal of Bone Metabolism
National Library of Medicine - Muscle Strength, Size, and Composition Following 12 Months of Gender-affirming Treatment in Transgender Individuals published in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism
British Journal of Sports Medicine - Cardiopulmonary capacity and muscle strength in transgender women on long-term gender-affirming hormone therapy: a cross-sectional study
National Library of Medicine - 12-months metabolic changes among gender dysphoric individuals under cross-sex hormone treatment: a targeted metabolomics study published in Scientific Reports
British Journal of Sports Medicine - How does hormone transition in transgender women change body composition, muscle strength and haemoglobin? Systematic review with a focus on the implications for sport participation
A third way - create an open category based on level of competition
Many FP readers have written in suggesting that USA Fencing create an Open category where fencers participate based on the level of competition rather than gender.
According to Dr. Bradley Anawalt , an endocrinologist and professor of medicine at the University of Washington School of Medicine in an interview about How Science Won’t Solve Debates About Trans Athletes said that, “You could have different policies or options for college athletics, the Olympics and professional sports. For transgender athletes, you could make distinctions based on when somebody initiated their hormonal, gender-affirming therapy. There might be sport-specific considerations; right now, we're trying to give one answer for everything, and you can't come up with a single, clean, simple answer that's going to work for every circumstance.”
Dr Bradley Anawalt believes that it is possible to “…have an open category that's not gender- or sex-specific. You could create categories that relate to the level of competition. So if we're talking about kids and teenagers in elementary school and club sports after the age of puberty, you wouldn’t focus on hormone concentrations and so forth. Instead, you’d allow the individuals to self-assign gender.”
USA Fencing should heed Dr Anawalt’s advice and the suggestion of many parents.