# Do trans girl athletes have an advantage? \[Moderated title for clarity\] **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 1, 2021, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-trans-girl-athletes-have-an-advantage-moderated-title-for-clarity/945447 "2021-07-01T17:36:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 27
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2021, 11:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-trans-girl-athletes-have-an-advantage-moderated-title-for-clarity/945447/524 "2021-10-06T11:16:57Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > Just have an open division and be done with it. The fascinating thing will be watching the reality is a social construct brigade’s cognitive dissonance being shattered. Are you advocating destroying all high school girls’ sports just in case one or two transgirls want to try out for a team somewhere? All so you can own the libs? On the topic at hand, I’m wondering if we can not to anything about this until there’s some sort of demonstrable problem. I say this because my kids’ high school was extremely trans-friendly (they had a transgirl as prom queen almost a decade ago), and I’m sure any transgirl that wanted to play on a girls’ team would be allowed to (and maybe already has – my kids have been out of school for a few years), and there have been zero issues. ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2021, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-trans-girl-athletes-have-an-advantage-moderated-title-for-clarity/945447/525 "2021-10-06T12:01:12Z")
> [@RitterSport](#): > > I’m wondering if we can not to anything about this until there’s some sort of demonstrable problem. Possibly, the issue seems to be getting people to state what a “demonstrable problem” is. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2021, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-trans-girl-athletes-have-an-advantage-moderated-title-for-clarity/945447/526 "2021-10-06T12:10:50Z")
A demonstrable problem, to me, would be transgirls dominating high school sports, or boys pretending to be trans in order to make a team or something. Most high school athletes are there for the exercise and camaraderie. Some are there because they are serious about the sport, and are even thinking about college scholarships and even a pro career. Since the rules for competing at the college level are more strict in terms of drug testing, testosterone levels, etc., there’s no end game for someone pretending to be trans in order to dominate a team and get a scholarship, or even for someone who is genuinely a transgirl hoping to compete at the college or Olympic level. This thread is specifically about the high school level. There are thousands of trans high school students and the only issue I know about is a transboy who wants to compete on the boy’s wrestling team and is not allowed to. He was dominating the girl’s matches. It’s basically the opposite problem that people are wringing their hands about in this thread. [Here](https://nypost.com/2018/02/25/transgender-boy-wins-girls-state-wrestling-title-for-second-time/) is that wrestler – Texas requires boys and girls to compete in the division that corresponds to their birth certificate, so this boy must compete against girls. Ludicrous. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2021, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-trans-girl-athletes-have-an-advantage-moderated-title-for-clarity/945447/527 "2021-10-06T12:48:20Z")
> [@RitterSport](#): > > A demonstrable problem, to me, would be transgirls dominating high school sports, or boys pretending to be trans in order to make a team or something. Let’s quantify it. On the hugely overestimating side, as many as [3% of teens are trans or gender nonconforming](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/more-u-s-teens-identify-as-transgender/). Let’s ballpark for now and say that 3% of girls are trans–that is, 3% of US girls were assigned male at birth. Can we agree that as long as fewer than 3% of girl championships are held by girls, there’s not a problem? Between 3% and 50%, I suppose there could be debate. If trans-girls are overrepresented in championships by a factor of 10, that still means that 70% of championships are held by cis girls: the best of the best aren’t being crowded out by trans girls, and the second-tier of the best are being crowded out by a combination of cis girls and trans girls. More than 50%, and I think most folks will agree that there’s a problem. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2021, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-trans-girl-athletes-have-an-advantage-moderated-title-for-clarity/945447/528 "2021-10-06T13:01:41Z")
Sure. I’d be shocked if even 1% of girl championships were held by transgirls. To overgeneralize from my limited experience with my kids’ friends – transgirls don’t tend to be the athletes in the school. I’m sure all kinds of kids become athletes, of course, and transgirls represent the entire spectrum of student types. ---
**Author:** ![Stanislaus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stanislaus/32/3391_2.png) [@Stanislaus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stanislaus)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2021, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-trans-girl-athletes-have-an-advantage-moderated-title-for-clarity/945447/529 "2021-10-06T13:25:09Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > It can be clear - let them play unless there’s a provable impact to competition or safety. And then have a clear process for making that determination. I don’t think this is as simple as it sounds, particularly with respect to safety. How would you determine a “provable impact” on safety? Let’s say that in some semi-contact sport the risk of, say, concussion from collisions is 1 incidence in 10,000 matches when only cis-girls are playing. A trans-girl joins the team and in her third match concusses an opponent in an accidental collision. Have we proven an impact on safety? That one concussion might not reflect any increase in risk. Sometimes concussions happen. On the other hand, if there really is no increase in risk it’s a hell of a coincidence for such an unlikely event to happen so early in her playing career. I believe there are statistical tools which can work out exactly how likely it is that there’s no increase in risk given a concussion-incident occuring in her third match. So let’s say we hand it over to the statisticians and they come back and say that given the base rate of concussions and this particular incidence, the chances that there’s no increase in risk when our trans athlete plays are \<10%. Does that prove an impact on safety? Is that \>90% likelihood that there is an increased risk to player safety when this trans athlete plays grounds to exclude her or not? If not, the blunt question is, “How many 16 year old girls are going to get concussed before there’s a sufficiently clear impact on safety to justify preventing a trans athlete from participating?” ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2021, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-trans-girl-athletes-have-an-advantage-moderated-title-for-clarity/945447/530 "2021-10-06T13:37:17Z")
Maybe it’s not simple, but ISTM that so far no one has proposed an alternative which better maximizes fairness, access, competition, and safety. ---
**Author:** ![CardboardBoxx](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cardboardboxx/32/7079_2.png) [@CardboardBoxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CardboardBoxx)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2021, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-trans-girl-athletes-have-an-advantage-moderated-title-for-clarity/945447/531 "2021-10-06T14:13:13Z")
There’s a way that maximises fairness competition and safety 100% but you don’t like it. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2021, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-trans-girl-athletes-have-an-advantage-moderated-title-for-clarity/945447/532 "2021-10-06T14:35:36Z")
I understand that access doesn’t matter to some people, but I explicitly listed access because it is indeed important to me. And obviously we disagree on what “fairness” means. So I don’t know what your point is. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2021, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-trans-girl-athletes-have-an-advantage-moderated-title-for-clarity/945447/533 "2021-10-06T14:44:40Z")
> [@CardboardBoxx](#): > > There’s a way that maximises fairness competition and safety 100% but you don’t like it. I mean, sure–eliminating all sports is the only way to maximize safety 100%–but neither iiandyiiii nor anyone else wants that. Every other solution short of completely eliminating sports will allow for some level of unfairness and risk. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2021, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-trans-girl-athletes-have-an-advantage-moderated-title-for-clarity/945447/534 "2021-10-06T15:11:27Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Can we agree that as long as fewer than 3% of girl championships are held by girls, there’s not a problem? No. There will be a problem when any transgender girl does well in girls’ sports. ~Max ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2021, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-trans-girl-athletes-have-an-advantage-moderated-title-for-clarity/945447/535 "2021-10-06T15:15:32Z")
> [@Max\_S](#): > > No. There will be a problem when any transgender girl does well in girls’ sports. > > ~Max Are you saying that you consider it a problem, or that transphobes will consider it a problem? If the latter, the transphobes consider it a problem when 0% of championships are held by trans girls, so I’m not super into their opinions on the subject. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2021, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-trans-girl-athletes-have-an-advantage-moderated-title-for-clarity/945447/536 "2021-10-06T15:20:41Z")
I consider it a problem because it will create problems for the girl. Her team mates will probably be nice, but it is unavoidable that a newspaper will run a story and a significant number of people will say she doesn’t deserve the win. She will be boo-ed at events and subjected to social media harassment. ~Max ---
**Author:** ![Stanislaus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stanislaus/32/3391_2.png) [@Stanislaus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stanislaus)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2021, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-trans-girl-athletes-have-an-advantage-moderated-title-for-clarity/945447/537 "2021-10-06T15:22:08Z")
But the point is that you don’t know if it’s maximizing any of fairness, competition and safety. Your approach is “let’s maximise access and see what happens to everything else”. I don’t even think that’s a bad approach! We’ve got a very limited amount of data; we’ve got a known downside of limiting access; maybe we should just give it a go. But if that is the approach, I think we need some pretty firm guidelines ahead of time as to what would be unacceptable levels of unfairness, risk, and whatever the opposite of competition is. That way, if and when it becomes necessary to exclude trans-athletes then you have an objective framework for doing so, rather than ad-hoc rationalisation, gut-feeling or panic, all of which would be bad for the trans-athlete. I’m not saying it’s for you to work out now, but if the organising bodies can come up with some guidelines about how many injuries are acceptable, what happens if match-ups against a trans-athlete are utterly uncompetitive (and what that means in terms of e.g. winning margins) etc. then you’ve got a framework that people can buy into, that can be referenced to settle arguments and which provides objective standards. On the other hand, if it’s just “we’ll busk it as and when we need to” that feels like storing up trouble. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2021, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-trans-girl-athletes-have-an-advantage-moderated-title-for-clarity/945447/538 "2021-10-06T15:22:11Z")
This could have been used as an argument against racially integrating sports and schools decades ago. It was bullshit then and it’s still bullshit. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2021, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-trans-girl-athletes-have-an-advantage-moderated-title-for-clarity/945447/539 "2021-10-06T15:22:31Z")
> [@Max\_S](#): > > I consider it a problem because it will create problems for the girl. Her team mates will probably be nice, but it is unavoidable that a newspaper will run a story and a significant number of people will say she doesn’t deserve the win. She will be boo-ed at events and subjected to social media harassment. So that’s a different set of problems entirely from what we’ve been talking about so far. The problem isn’t that she got to compete in the girls’ division, the problem is that people are assholes… The solution isn’t to prevent her from competing in the girls’ division, the solution is to get people not to be such roaring assholes. It’s a harder problem to solve, but we gotta diagnose the problem accurately. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2021, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-trans-girl-athletes-have-an-advantage-moderated-title-for-clarity/945447/540 "2021-10-06T15:26:55Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > This could have been used as an argument against racially integrating sports and schools decades ago. It was bullshit then and it’s still bullshit. What I wrote just now wasn’t an argument against integration, it is acknowledging the existence of a demonstrable problem. ~Max ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2021, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-trans-girl-athletes-have-an-advantage-moderated-title-for-clarity/945447/541 "2021-10-06T15:31:39Z")
That problem is that some people are bigoted assholes. That problem will always exist. The existence of bigoted assholes should be irrelevant when we’re trying to find the best policy for kids, schools, and the like. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2021, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-trans-girl-athletes-have-an-advantage-moderated-title-for-clarity/945447/542 "2021-10-06T15:31:40Z")
> [@Max\_S](#): > > What I wrote just now wasn’t an argument against integration, it is acknowledging the existence of a demonstrable problem. Straight up this is a little irritating. This conversational thread goes back to **Rittersport** talking about how we shouldn’t borrow trouble, that until we can see there’s a demonstrable problem with transgirls dominating sports we shouldn’t wring our hands over it. You’re equivocating here, taking that phrase “demonstrable problem” and using it to mean “demonstrable problem with transphobes being assholes.” It’s not really a productive way to discuss things, and all it does is confuse people as to what the hell you’re talking about. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2021, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-trans-girl-athletes-have-an-advantage-moderated-title-for-clarity/945447/543 "2021-10-06T15:46:02Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > demonstrable problem _with transgirls dominating sports_ I must have misunderstood that part. I am also of the opinion that trans girls dominating school sports is a non-issue, despite the assumption that it is possible for such a girl to have an advantage. There were a couple (2) of track students in Connecticut, but I’m not aware of any other publicized cases of a trans girl dominating school girls’ sports. > **[Connecticut high school transgender athletes ‘no longer want to remain...](https://www.courant.com/2019/06/20/connecticut-high-school-transgender-athletes-no-longer-want-to-remain-silent-following-title-ix-complaint/)** > > Two transgender high school track and field athletes responded Wednesday to a Title IX complaint alleging that the runners prevented other female runners from top finishes and potentially from coll… ~Max [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-trans-girl-athletes-have-an-advantage-moderated-title-for-clarity/945447.md?page=26) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-trans-girl-athletes-have-an-advantage-moderated-title-for-clarity/945447.md?page=28)