TRANSGENDER FEMALE SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED IN WOMEN’S SPORTS.

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There is a recent athletic event that a trans woman just won. At the 2018 masters world track championship event, a transgender woman won the gold medal and as expected, the victory was met with mixed reactions. But this is not the first time this will happen and neither is transgender new in competitive sports. It dates back to 1975 and questions have been asked by academics, sports organisations, athletes and spectators whether transgender people should be allowed to compete in sport according to their gender identity.
An early high-profile trans-athlete was a tennis player Renée Richards. He transitioned in 1975 and started competing in women’s tournament a year later. He was forced to withdraw from the 1976 US Open when WTA and USTA withdrew their support, and 25 of the 32 cis-women withdrew from the tournament. In 1977, Richards was back to the Open after winning a lawsuit claiming “her” civil rights were violated.
Since then, policies have been put in place to ensure the eligibility of trans-females in women’s sports, one of which is the testosterone [C19H28O2] levels test. According to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Rule of Law 2016 review ‘transgender (MTF) must have testosterone levels lower than 10nmol/L for at least 12 months prior to competition.’

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To put this in perspective , a medical article published in NCBI medical research by Endocr Rey in 2018 on ‘Circulating Testosterone as the Hormonal Basis of Sex Differences in Athletic Performance’ indicates that the normal testosterone levels in an adult male (19 years above) is between 10.41 nmol/L and 34.70nmol/L while an adult female has between 0.52 nmol/L and 2.43nmol/L, exceeding 15-fold that of women . This implies that, according to the IOC regulation, a transgender with 9.99nmol/L which is significantly higher than a female upper limit – is allowed to participate in women’s sports.
This level of testosterone as well as other physical attributes such as muscle mass and strength, bone density, energy and competitiveness, Bone structure and maturation and expanded rib cage give a trans-female undue advantage over a cis-woman because the functions of testosterone in women different from that of men .
Professor Eric Vilian, a professor of human kinetics at the University of California, Los Angeles and a consultant to IOC medical commission stated in his YouTube ‘Fair game’ speech

“there is 10-20% difference between male and female athletes performance. We need to categorise with criteria that are relevant to performance. It is very difficult situation with no easy solution.”

NOTEABLE TRANS-FEMALE ATHLETES IN THE 20’s AND HOW THEY DOMINATED THEIR WORLDS:

Here are some of the noteable transgender athletes who have dominated womens sports;

• Fallon Fox (MMA): Married and had kid at 19. He worked in the US Navy before he transitioned in 2006. She won 5 of her 6 fights.

• Cece Telfer (Athletics): He competed in the men’s 400m hurdle and was ranked 390th before he transitioned in 2018 and raced in the women’s college 400m hurdle where she was ranked 1st.

• Dr. Rachel McKinnon (Cycling): He was a philosophy professor before transitioning in 2012 and competed at the 2018 masters world track championship where she won gold.

In some part of the world, there are regulations addressing the undue advantage that transgender athletes have over cis-women. Sports regulations in Texas, Alabama, North Carolina, and Kentucky requires ‘trans-athletes to compete alongside athletes of their ‘assigned sex at birth’.
There is a big difference between gender and sex. Hence, the logical solution will be to separate women’s sports into cis and trans categories or adopt the tri-gender (female, male and trans) sport culture.