# 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:** 37
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2021, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-trans-girl-athletes-have-an-advantage-moderated-title-for-clarity/945447/725 "2021-10-16T18:14:57Z")
> [@filmore](#): > > The top spots are not just the spots at the very top, like winning state I didn’t say they were. I’m including being the top at individual schools on up. > [@filmore](#): > > A trans girl (non hormone) will likely have a much easier time being in these top spots in track events and they will likely make it in more events due to their genetic athletic advantage. “likely” is your supposition. Prove it with numbers from the states that currently have trans athletes. > [@filmore](#): > > The fact that a trans girl made it to the top from that large pool of athletes is not just from random variation. That’s … not good stats at all. You can’t say jack about the likelihood if there’s just _one_ athlete you’re basing your account of advantage on. > [@filmore](#): > > The really big problem I see that needs to be addressed is trans girls in the championship meet series. So has this “really big problem” reared its head in the states that allow trans girls? ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2021, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-trans-girl-athletes-have-an-advantage-moderated-title-for-clarity/945447/726 "2021-10-16T18:44:39Z")
> **Redacted by mod. Do not respond** > > > [@RitterSport](#): > > > > This is utterly off-topic for this thread, since the mod instructions are to keep this thread about high school sports. At professional and Olympic levels, other factors come into play. Unless you’re claiming that MMA is a high school sport? > > I used it as an example of how disparities in strength can be dangerous, then I brought it back around to high school sports like football. It was directly on topic, especially since high school boys can be pretty much fully physically developed. > > > [@MrDibble](#): > > > > My daughter’s prep school judo is all co-ed. As far as I’m aware, that continues into the high school. Of course, judo has weight and belt grades. > > I used to teach martial arts to children and teens. Before puberty there was very little difference between the boys and the girls. After puberty, however, the differences grew rather rapidly. It’s not just weight class. Boys have different muscle development, they tend to have more upper body strength, their bones are denser, etc. > > In our classes we sparred with light contact only, so the difference didn’t matter in terms of getting hurt. But if you were holding a punching or kickkng cushion, the difference in power between an average teen boy and teen girl was immediately obvious. Occasionally you’d get an exceptionally strong or talented girl who could hold her own with the average boy, but then the exceptional boys were in another league. > > Judo with weight classes would have less of a disparity, as skill and leverage have a lot more to do with the outcome when you control for weight. > > I fully support trans issues, but I also fully support reality. Wishing there were no differences doesn’t help when there clearly are. Perhaps something needs to be done about the rougher contact sports like football and rugby. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2021, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-trans-girl-athletes-have-an-advantage-moderated-title-for-clarity/945447/727 "2021-10-16T18:55:01Z")
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**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2021, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-trans-girl-athletes-have-an-advantage-moderated-title-for-clarity/945447/728 "2021-10-16T18:58:55Z")
**Modnote** bordering on a warning. You ignored this modnote from the start of the thread. This is very close to a warning. Drop this side subject immediately! # Please keep this thread on the subject of transgender girl athletes competing in girls’ sports. > [@Do trans girl athletes have an advantage? \[Moderated title for clarity\]](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-trans-girl-athletes-have-an-advantage-moderated-title-for-clarity/945447/5): > > Modnote: Please keep this thread on the subject of transgender girl athletes competing in girls’ sports. Please keep in mind the new guidance on transgender issues on the SDMB. So don’t be insulting and don’t bring up other transgender issues. Keep on topic please. Thread closed for 6 minutes while sorting out Sam Stone’s offending posts. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2021, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-trans-girl-athletes-have-an-advantage-moderated-title-for-clarity/945447/729 "2021-10-16T19:00:45Z")
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**Author:** ![filmore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7993a0/32.png) [@filmore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmore)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2021, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-trans-girl-athletes-have-an-advantage-moderated-title-for-clarity/945447/730 "2021-10-16T19:46:15Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > “likely” is your supposition. Prove it with numbers from the states that currently have trans athletes. The trans status of athlete is not recorded in results, so I don’t think it’s possible to report numbers. But why wouldn’t trans girls not on hormones perform at typical levels with genetically similar athletes? We are all having to draw our own conclusions from experiences since this stat is not recorded. I don’t think anyone doubts that genetically XY athletes generally have an advantage over genetically XX athletes. That doesn’t mean they will always win, but in general they have an advantage. Why wouldn’t that advantage be maintained on the girl’s team and cause them to generally finish in higher positions than their genetically XX athletes? > [@MrDibble](#): > > That’s … not good stats at all. You can’t say jack about the likelihood if there’s just _one_ athlete you’re basing your account of advantage on. There were actually two trans girls in that state who won state events (Miller and Andraya). And we know about them because of the lawsuit. The other states may have trans winners, or maybe they have been the only ones. Unless there was some news event, I’m not sure we would know about it. But likely it’s pretty rare regardless since it would probably be reported somewhere I would guess. But this is the problem situation (winning the highest events). As I’ve said many times, I don’t think this means that trans girls can’t play on sports, but this is the situation that is the problematic situation. From this thread, I don’t think people care about this situation at all. They discount it as being rare, so it’s not a problem. They discount the people complaining about it as transphobes. And they discount the cisgirl athletes as lazy transphobes who are mad they have to try harder. But this is the problem situation that needs to be addressed if it’s rare or common. But on the other hand, it’s just HS sports, so who cares? My feeling is that if there is not a compromise, this is the type of problem which will get legislation passed to totally ban trans athletes (like is happening in Texas). ---
**Author:** ![mistymage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mistymage/32/459_2.png) [@mistymage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mistymage)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2021, 5:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-trans-girl-athletes-have-an-advantage-moderated-title-for-clarity/945447/731 "2021-10-17T05:20:55Z")
> [@filmore](#): > > o me, as the parent of competitive daughters, the problem I see is that cisgirls are trying to compete for the top spots, the availability of which get greatly reduced by trans girl athletes. There are certainly valid reasons for having trans girls and cisgirls compete together, but we can’t just say that the competitive desires and goals of cisgirls are worthless and they are just a bunch of complaining transphobes who just need to try harder. As the mother of a transwoman… she didn’t come out until after she graduated high school. Which made me sad because she turned to cutting and burning instead of just telling us. I wish she had told us earlier (I thought from when she was young that she was either gay or asexual). I would have found help for her… mental and physical. She might want to have her adam’s apple shaved someday. Throat surgery she could have avoided if she had felt safe enough to tell us. That sucks for me and Mistermage because… we always told the kids how much we love them no matter what. Why sie thought we would have had a problem is something that we both still worry about. She did sports in grade school and then switched to music (band and, well, she had an ear, mouth and could read music … not anything I or Mistermage could do. When she plays her flute… I am in awe even if she isn’t a “genius”… she’s awesome as far as I am concerned.) 3rd year on the Nurse track… she still can’t keep her room clean. I’m glad her room mate is her BFF and he’s as messy as she is. And they go to a very trans-friendly University school. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2021, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-trans-girl-athletes-have-an-advantage-moderated-title-for-clarity/945447/732 "2021-10-17T06:08:29Z")
> [@filmore](#): > > The trans status of athlete is not recorded in results, so I don’t think it’s possible to report numbers. So entirely based on supposition then. > [@filmore](#): > > Why wouldn’t that advantage be maintained on the girl’s team and cause them to generally finish in higher positions than their genetically XX athletes? If this was happening consistently, _even at just the school level_, we’d have heard all about it by now, since there are vested interests in even the trans-positive states who would trumpet that kind of result. > [@filmore](#): > > There were actually two trans girls in that state who won state events (Miller and Andraya). Two is only marginally better than one from a stats viewpoint. > [@filmore](#): > > The other states may have trans winners, or maybe they have been the only ones. “Might”? “maybe”? Come back when you have “definitely”, and in enough numbers to matter. > [@filmore](#): > > From this thread, I don’t think people care about this situation at all. They discount it as being rare, so it’s not a problem. No, I discount it because the trans athletes aren’t dominating their school sports _at any level_ in those states where trans girl athletes are permitted to compete as their real gender. It’s not rare, it’s nonexistent. > [@filmore](#): > > And they discount the cisgirl athletes as lazy transphobes who are mad they have to try harder. You were doing so well, and then you have to pull this strawman bullshit? Who the fuck has said that in this thread? > [@filmore](#): > > But this is the problem situation that needs to be addressed if it’s rare or common. Does it need to be addressed if it’s completely made up? > [@filmore](#): > > But on the other hand, it’s just HS sports, so who cares? I have one kid in high school, and another who’ll be there in a couple years, so this attempt to claim the moral high ground by pretending all your debate opponents hate HS sports is laughable. I scorn it for the obvious _ad hominem_ it 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 18, 2021, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-trans-girl-athletes-have-an-advantage-moderated-title-for-clarity/945447/737 "2021-10-18T01:29:10Z")
> [@Summerday](#): > > For me, competitive fairness and safety should be prioritized. Safety should, of course, be prioritized. But competitive fairness is a secondary value not a primary value. Competitive fairness should only be valued inasmuch as it makes the experience a better one for children. If you increase competitive fairness by making it a significantly shittier experience for children, that’s no good. Who gets to play, and who gets to win, is literally a zero-sum game. Every cis-girl that wins means a cis-girl or a trans-girl loses, and that’s also true for every trans-girl who wins, and for every rich girl who wins, and every extremely tall girl who wins, and so on. But there’s an additional effect. If, in addition to creating a zero-sum-game environment for children, we also create one that tells a whole class of kids, “Your gender identity is a lie, just like the rest of society says,” we’re taking an action that’s going to increase suicidal risks. If we play word games (doesn’t, like, _everything_ we do increase suicide risks, mannnnn?) it’s a tacit admission that we’re okay with that increase in suicide risks. And that’s monstrous. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2021, 6:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-trans-girl-athletes-have-an-advantage-moderated-title-for-clarity/945447/738 "2021-10-18T06:28:14Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Who gets to play, and who gets to win, is literally a zero-sum game. I don’t think that first one _has_ to be true. It can be that anyone who wants to, gets to play. ---
**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 18, 2021, 10:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-trans-girl-athletes-have-an-advantage-moderated-title-for-clarity/945447/739 "2021-10-18T10:42:31Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > I don’t think that first one _has_ to be true. It can be that anyone who wants to, gets to play. You’re right. Summerday _et al_ have been talking about situations where it _is_ a zero-sum game, with the idea that it’s unfair to cis girls if they’re kicked off limited team spaces by trans girls. The obvious fix is to expand the total number of spaces, but I suppose there are situations where that’s financially unfeasible. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2021, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-trans-girl-athletes-have-an-advantage-moderated-title-for-clarity/945447/740 "2021-10-18T16:05:08Z")
14 posts were split to a new topic: [Language used around transgender issues](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-used-around-transgender-issues/952697) ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2021, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-trans-girl-athletes-have-an-advantage-moderated-title-for-clarity/945447/741 "2021-10-18T16:09:42Z")
After discussing a recent thread hijack with the GD mods, we agreed it was best to split the hijack into its own topic, linked above. Please stick to issues around trans girl athletes in this thread. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2021, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-trans-girl-athletes-have-an-advantage-moderated-title-for-clarity/945447/742 "2021-10-19T01:04:50Z")
> [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > As a sports fan it is certainly true that, for the sports that interest me and that I know intimately, I pay attention to the elite men’s version far, far more than the womens because I do consider that to be the very best example of the sport. […] > > I don’t think that is so much of an “attitutude” by sports fans but more a reality that the top level of anything is pretty much always going to be more attractive to more spectators. […] > > […] I don’t think we’ll ever have a world where segregated sport (segregated in whatever way) can avoid existing in a hierarchy of implied superiority. No problem with that. The point is that there needs to be an end to the widespread concern trolling to the effect that the participation of an occasional transgender female athlete in girls’/women’s sports must be prohibited on the grounds that it’s bad for cisgender girls’ self-esteem and makes them feel inferior. If cisgender girl athletes are already supposed to know and accept the fact that their lack of male physiology makes them athletically inferior to boy athletes, and that many sports fans consider their sports uninteresting and unworthy of attention because of their athletic inferiority, then the claim that we must ban transgender girls from girls’ sports to save the cisgender girls’ self-esteem from feelings of inferiority rings pretty damn hollow. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2021, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-trans-girl-athletes-have-an-advantage-moderated-title-for-clarity/945447/743 "2021-10-19T01:18:14Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > … the claim that we must ban transgender girls from girls’ sports to save the cisgender girls’ self-esteem from feelings of inferiority rings pretty damn hollow. I admit I have yet to see such an argument be made by itself; in no way is that an accurate description of the concern. The primary argument is always that it takes opportunities from cis girl athletes, which is a much more tangible harm. In the long run, removing girls’ opporunities to play competitive, high end sports would of course result is emotional harm, but it’s not from knowing males are better athletes - everyone knows that now. It would be from the feeling that biological females are not being granted a fair chance just because of the way they’re born. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2021, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-trans-girl-athletes-have-an-advantage-moderated-title-for-clarity/945447/744 "2021-10-19T02:06:29Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > In the long run, removing girls’ opporunities to play competitive, high end sports would of course result is emotional harm, but it’s not from knowing males are better athletes - everyone knows that now. It would be from the feeling that biological females are not being granted a fair chance just because of the way they’re born. This is exactly the kind of inconsistent argument I’m complaining about. “Biological female” athletes are supposed to just take it in stride that they’re intrinsically not entitled to the same amounts of public attention, popularity, money, or respect that male athletes are, “just because of the way they’re born”. In general, female athletes from day one have had their noses rubbed in the fact that they’re on average athletically inferior to male athletes, and that their achievements are correspondingly less worthy and less valued. (The use of sneering comparisons to female athletes in order to mock and denigrate male athletes is just one of many examples.) The intrinsic unfairness of the underlying biological disparity, and the social inferiority that’s ascribed to it, is something that female athletes are just expected to accept as part of life, rather than whining that they’re “not being granted a fair chance just because of the way they’re born”. But as soon as a transgender girl takes an occasional spot on some girls’ team (which of course is a very far cry from wholesale “removing girls’ opportunities to play competitive, high end sports”), all of a sudden we’re supposed to worry about the “emotional harm” caused by cisgender girls’ feeling that they’re “not being granted a fair chance”? Nah, I don’t buy it. Occasional outlier big/strong/fast individuals out-compete more averagely built athletes for spots on teams all the time, “just because of the way they’re born”. An unusually tall girl, or a girl with an unusually early birthday who’s older and stronger than most of her teammates, or a cisgender girl with high testosterone levels, etc., can have a natural physiological advantage over her competitors. And we expect her competitors to accept that and not sulk like little boys when that advantage works in her favor. ISTM quite reasonable to treat the equally natural fact that (some) transgender girls have a physiological advantage over cisgender girls in the same way. Suddenly discovering a bunch of concern that occasionally losing to a transgender girl might cause cisgender girls “emotional harm” from feeling that they’re “not being granted a fair chance” because of their physiology smells like bullshit to me. (I wonder if the real concern in some cases might actually about about potential emotional harm to insecure men and boys from the prospect that, on the contrary, the transgender girls will sometimes lose to cisgender ones.) ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2021, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-trans-girl-athletes-have-an-advantage-moderated-title-for-clarity/945447/745 "2021-10-19T02:13:57Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > “Biological female” athletes are supposed to just take it in stride that they’re intrinsically not entitled to the same amounts of public attention, popularity, money, or respect that male athletes are, “just because of the way they’re born”. I never made that argument, though. I don’t see why biologically female athletes should be satisfied with that at all. That may be the current state of things but that doesn’t mean it can’t be better. So, I’m not sure who you’re making this point against, but it’s not me. The FACT that males are stronger and faster than females has to be accepted because it’s simply and unquestionably true, and pretending things aren’t true, and filling people’s heads with friendly lies, doesn’t help anyone. It does not follow from that that girls must always accept second best in sporting opportunities and benefits, that they must fight for more funding for their sports, be relegated to second class facilties, and the like. In historical terms, it is not that long ago at all that girls barely had sports at all. Progress has been made. More can be made. But let me again ask the question no one ever answers; if sports aren’t to be segregated according to _sex_, then why have two divisions at all? What’s the point of that? ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2021, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-trans-girl-athletes-have-an-advantage-moderated-title-for-clarity/945447/746 "2021-10-19T02:37:49Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > (I wonder if the real concern in some cases might actually about about potential emotional harm to insecure men and boys from the prospect that, on the contrary, the transgender girls will sometimes lose to cisgender ones.) I have wondered this, too. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2021, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-trans-girl-athletes-have-an-advantage-moderated-title-for-clarity/945447/747 "2021-10-19T02:45:43Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > But let me again ask the question no one ever answers; if sports aren’t to be segregated according to _sex_ , then why have two divisions at all? What’s the point of that? Having more than one division makes sense. It gives more kids a chance to compete. Male/female isn’t the only division. We have Varsity/JV/club in many sports, too. We split kids by age, and sometimes by weight. Male/Female is a pretty decent split to give girls a chance to compete, but most of these divisions are a little arbitrary. It doesn’t really matter exactly what the birthday cut-off is, so long as it’s clear and consistent. It turns out that male/female is a little fuzzy, too. When I was a kid, everyone self-declared their sex. There were no-doubt some intersex kids, etc, who got placed… where-ever they had been assigned at birth, mostly. As I mentioned above, a few girls used to play on the boys’ teams due to lack of support for girls’ sports. So what those of us supporting trans girl athletes playing on the girls’ teams are advocating is that in most sports, at the high school level, when we split up leagues by male/female, we probably create the best environment for the most kids by drawing that line to include trans girls with the girls, and trans boys with the boys. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2021, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-trans-girl-athletes-have-an-advantage-moderated-title-for-clarity/945447/748 "2021-10-19T03:11:47Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > I never made that argument, though. I don’t see why biologically female athletes should be satisfied with that at all. So we’re just supposed to scold the millions of sports fans like Novelty\_Bobble, who find women’s sports to be intrinsically less interesting than men’s sports, into dividing their attention and fan dollars equally between men’s and women’s sports? I don’t think that sounds realistic. Yes, it would be nice if many men’s sports people could get rid of particularly egregious habits like using female-gendered terms such as “ladies” to insult male athletes with. But ISTM that if sports fans watch sports largely for the spectacle of top-level athletic performance, and if most female athletes are inevitably going to be athletically inferior to most male athletes because of sex-based differences, then we are never going to see equal amounts of attention and fan dollars devoted to men’s and women’s sports. Even if the current disparities in school team funding and locker room facilities, etc., can be made somewhat less glaring, AFAICT true equality in the social/financial status of men’s and women’s sports is not on the table. I don’t think you’ll ultimately be doing female athletes any favors by encouraging them to perceive that inevitable inequality as “not being granted a fair chance just because of the way they’re born” and a source of “emotional harm”. > [@RickJay](#): > > But let me again ask the question no one ever answers; if sports aren’t to be segregated according to _sex_ , then why have two divisions at all? Most people in this thread don’t seem to have a problem with the basic principle of segregating (most post-pubescent competitive) sports teams by gender, on the grounds that gender mostly correlates with biological sex and that biological sex largely correlates with physical size/strength. As puzzlegal notes, at some levels of competition the competitors are often additionally segregated by criteria like age and weight as well. (Although modern understanding of the biological realities of sex-linked physiological differences was not really the motivation for the original segregation of school sports teams by sex. The original motivation was simply that schoolchildren were automatically segregated by sex in many contexts, including having separate schoolhouse entrances, classroom locations, and recess activities, if not entirely separate schools. As you note, girls were often not considered suitable for athletics participation in any context. Even as that gradually shifted, the assumption that girls’ athletics should be separate from boys’ remained unchanged.) But a small number of transgender competitors with moderate physiological differences from their cisgender competitors aren’t distorting the basic reasonableness of that division. Of course, the question then arises about where to draw the line for the criteria “small” and “moderate”. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-trans-girl-athletes-have-an-advantage-moderated-title-for-clarity/945447.md?page=36) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-trans-girl-athletes-have-an-advantage-moderated-title-for-clarity/945447.md?page=38)