Trans women competing in the same category as biological women has been a controversial debate for decades now. Multiple studies have shown that women who have female biological makeup have different physical attributes compared to trans women because they were men at a point in their lives, and testosterone levels are ten to fifteen times higher in males than females. Simply put, males are faster, stronger, and have greater endurance capacity. Therefore, trans women should not be allowed to compete in the same competitions or categories as biological women.
One of the most looked upon trans women competing with biological women is Lia Thomas, an American swimmer. She was on the women’s swim team at the University Of Pennsylvania. She was 22 when she made a huge win for herself, first place in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) first-division swimming championship. Swimming at 4:33.24, she crushed her competition by 1.75 seconds; people began to testify and say it was because she didn’t have the same biological makeup as the rest of the women who she was competing against.
Another reason trans women playing with biological women is unfair is that trans women could have had practice on men’s teams before they transitioned. Going back to Lia Thomas, before she transitioned she was on the men’s swim team in 2017, her freshman year. She ended up training and competing on that swim team for 3 years. When it comes to the average opinion, nearly 70 percent of adults agree that trans women should not be in competition with cis women.
Another example of a trans woman playing in cis women’s competitions would be Andraya Yearwood, a trans female Olympic track runner from Connecticut. Unlike Lia Thomas, she did not have training from a men’s coach or compete with men before she transitioned. She has run on a female track team since high school. Her first real blowout from a completion against other biological women would be on June 4th, 2017 when she was running a 100-200 meter dash. Andraya blew her competition out with flying colors, and she became a controversy throughout social media, even getting her own show on Hulu titled, Changing The Game.
More statistics show that trans women, since they still have the biological makeup of a man, have 40% more muscle mass than biological women. Even when trans women take hormones, it will not have a “long-term change of the body.” According to Big Think, “Long-term estrogen exposure and testosterone suppression were not enough to completely shift the body composition of transgender women to the female pattern, despite their direct and indirect effects on fat and lean mass.”
