Finally. A federal study on transgender athletes in female sports

Better late than never I suppose. Why this didn’t happen years ago remains a mystery, but the Department of Education has finally agreed to look into the practice in several states of allowing boys who “identify” as girls to compete against actual girls in athletic competitions. This action came in response to recent complaints from the families of several girls in Connecticut who have been shut out at track events by two biological male competitors who have been setting records and clearing the field over the past couple of years. (Washington Times)

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The federal Office for Civil Rights has launched an investigation into Connecticut’s policy that allows transgender high school athletes to compete as the gender with which they identify.

The investigation was announced in a letter Wednesday from the arm of the U.S. Department of Education. It follows a complaint in June by the families of three girls, who say they were discriminated against by having to compete in track events against two athletes who were identified as male at birth and who they say have “male hormone levels and musculature.”

The complaint was submitted on the girls’ behalf by lawyers for the conservative non-profit organization Alliance Defending Freedom…

The problem here is that any study they engage in is going to immediately be poisoned by all the politics involved. Unfortunately, we have too many elected officials who have been cowed by activists and have seemingly forgotten that biology is not bigotry. It’s just science.

If they need some guidance as they tackle this subject, perhaps they should take a look at the results of a recent study on transgender athletes in women’s sports. (Daily Caller)

The paper, “Transwomen in elite sport: scientific and ethical considerations,” concluded that male athletes who identify as transgender women have an “intolerable” advantage over their female competitors.

The authors, two bioethics professors and a physiology professor, noted that “there is very little scientific evidence” to support the argument that “hormone therapy will mitigate the advantage transwomen may have in comparison with cis-women athletes.”

The authors cited research showing that “healthy young men did not lose significant muscle mass (or power) when their circulating testosterone levels were reduced to [below International Olympic Committee guidelines] for 20 weeks.”

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At least someone is throwing some actual science at a subject that should have been available for a yellow card based on common sense. You really need to go no further than clicking through the links above and looking at those two high school track stars from Connecticut. I’m sorry to have to be the one to say it, but those are not girls. They can “identify” as girls if they like. They call themselves whatever they wish… it’s still a free country for the time being. But when it comes to physical prowess, those are boys. And they are shutting out actual girls from a chance at scholarships and college acceptance.

We have separate sports for the two genders for a reason. Males have distinct biological advantages for most fields of athletic competition and the best among the men will defeat the best among the women virtually every time. If you’re going to ignore science, then we might as well just do away with having female sports entirely and just have everyone compete in the same leagues. And the women might as well pack it up and go home if that’s the case.

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Ed Morrissey 12:40 PM | December 16, 2024
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