Next year’s Tokyo Summer Olympics may spell the swift death of the transgender movement as a dominant politically-correct touchstone. Biological men, self-identifying as women, are poised to make a clean sweep of the Women’s Olympics, triggering a very public debate on this third-rail subject. That firestorm, pitting pro-women feminists against extreme pro-transgender progressives, will begin July 24th, just as the Presidential sweepstakes moves into its sprint to the finish line.
The International Olympic Committee — the IOC — recently admitted they couldn’t come up with fair guidelines governing how and when transgender women can compete as women, against biological women. Currently, the IOC says self-identified women can compete, so long as their testosterone level remains below 10 nanomoles per liter (nm/l) for 12 months. Typically, men have between 7.7 and 29.4 nm/l of testosterone, while women have between 0.12 and 1.77 nm/l. Under those IOC guidelines, hormonally-restricted men can still maintain nearly 500 percent testosterone advantage over women.
Amazon.com Gift Card i...
Buy New $10.00
(as of 08:25 UTC - Details)
However, the real benefit transgender women experience, according to recent studies by Sweden’s Karolinska Institutet, a leading medical university, is found in their masculine bone structure and upper body strength. This develops throughout puberty, making current testosterone levels largely insignificant. These masculine genetic benefits are the very reason for women’s athletics.
“Not every male advantage dissipates when testosterone drops” according to Alison Heather, a physiologist at the University of Otago in New Zealand. “Some advantages, such as their bigger bone structure, greater lung capacity, and larger heart size remain. Testosterone also promotes muscle memory. Transgender women have a heightened ability to build strength even after they transition,” Heather explained.
Olympic Gold Medalist Paula Radcliffe called it “naïve” not to think transgender women “will become a threat to female sport, asserting “people will manipulate the system.” She tweeted that “If you are born and grow up male you cannot be allowed to compete in female sports simply because you ‘identify’ as female. It makes a mockery of the definitions of male and female sports categories.”
High-profile tennis phenom and outspoken lesbian advocate Martina Navratilova, concurred, raising concerns over the equity of transgender women competing against biological women. “A man can decide to be female… win everything in sight, earn a small fortune, then reverse his decision. Letting men compete as women – simply because they change their name and take hormones — is unfair.”
