# 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:** 39
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2021, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-trans-girl-athletes-have-an-advantage-moderated-title-for-clarity/945447/769 "2021-10-19T12:49:46Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > 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 I’m not a fan of this argument because it holds up equally well with allowing the ‘occasional’ cis-boy to compete on the girls team. This idea doesn’t become OK just because there aren’t many boys making that choice, or because the boys who do tend to not be dominant athletes, or because the allowance has definite positive benefits to the boy’s emotional state. > [@Kimstu](#): > > No, the point is whether it’s an allowable function of girls’ sports to undermine the gender identity of transgirls. I would prefer to separate sports from gender identity entirely. Even with the most gender identity friendly rules being suggested here, children would be told ‘pick a gender’ if they want to play a sport, and we know there are many who don’t see themselves as either a Boy or a Girl. With gender being as fluid and variable as we are recognizing it to be, I think a Testicles vs. Ovaries split makes more sense than trying to draw a line around a child’s self image. We know the performance enhancing properties of testosterone, and the impact it has on physiology. It’s also non-judgemental regarding a child’s identity, the same as age or weight. With that said “create the best environment for the most kids” is a good solution, and you don’t throw out a good solution for a better solution that isn’t going to happen. ---
**Author:** ![WalterBishop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/aeb1de/32.png) [@WalterBishop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WalterBishop)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2021, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-trans-girl-athletes-have-an-advantage-moderated-title-for-clarity/945447/770 "2021-10-19T12:55:37Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > ISTM that if transgirls are girls, who happen to be as a group larger and stronger than other girls because of their physiology, then it’s not “problematic” if they sometimes beat out cisgirls for a spot on the team. Any more than it’s problematic if an older and stronger cisgirl beats out a younger one, or a taller one beats out a shorter one. I think you may be underestimating the difference male puberty can make to athletic prowess. A transgirl who has gone through male puberty, who isn’t on hormones, and who trains as hard and competes as fiercely as the top performing cisgirl on a team won’t just have an advantage. They’ll have an _enormous_ advantage. For the purposes of illustration, the best women’s soccer team in the world is the US team. They have an excellent record, have won the women’s World Cup four times (more than any other team), and resoundingly beat nearly every other world class women’s team they play. However, they occasionally train against the Dallas under-15 boys team, and when they do they get clobbered. The last time they played against them they lost 5 - 2. The best women’s soccer team in the entire world is no match for the best 14 year old boys team in Dallas, Texas. Post-pubescent transgirls who don’t take hormones are, all other things being equal, very likely to dominate any cisgirl teams they join. You liken this to natural physical variations between cisgender girls, but I’m not sure that comparison holds. It certainly isn’t problematic if a slightly taller, slightly older cisgirl beats another cisgirl for a position on a team. But what if the taller, older cisgirl was three feet taller and ten years older? Because that’s the level of disparity we’re talking about. It seems self-evident to me that girls with those kind of advantages shouldn’t be competing against girls who don’t have such large advantages. It’d be like pitting heavyweights against middle-weights. Needless to say, the above doesn’t apply to pre-pubescent transgirls or to post-pubescent transgirls who _are_ taking hormones or puberty blockers. The evidence I’ve seen suggests that such interventions go a long way towards nullifying any innate physical advantages transgirls may have. ---
**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 19, 2021, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-trans-girl-athletes-have-an-advantage-moderated-title-for-clarity/945447/771 "2021-10-19T13:06:28Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > How is calling a biological male a biological male “misgendering”? “Biological male” is unambiguously a reference to biology - sex - not gender. It is an accurate term and specifically relevant here. What’s nice about using “assigned male at birth” or “transgirl” is that it acknowledges the change that the transgirl has gone through (emotionally, mentally, physically). Biomale or biological male, while accurate (leaving out intersex people) ignores that change. As you noted in the other thread, some people are fine with that, but I imagine that many transgirls who are trying to become more comfortable in their new identity don’t need to be reminded that they are biologically male. What do cisboys have to do with this conversation? Why do you need to include them in a discussion of transgirls playing high school sports? ---
**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 19, 2021, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-trans-girl-athletes-have-an-advantage-moderated-title-for-clarity/945447/772 "2021-10-19T13:08:33Z")
> [@WalterBishop](#): > > Post-pubescent transgirls who don’t take hormones are, all other things being equal, very likely to dominate any cisgirl teams they join. You’d think this would already be happening in all the states where it has been fine for transgirls to play on girls’ teams for years. I look forward to all your cites for domination at the high school level. Thanks in advance. Feel free to skip over the Connecticut track story. ---
**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 19, 2021, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-trans-girl-athletes-have-an-advantage-moderated-title-for-clarity/945447/773 "2021-10-19T13:15:50Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > But it is insulting to assume it’s not based on any biological underpinning. Why? It seems pretty insulting to insist that gender identity must always be a manifestation of physical sex in some degree. If a person has “a male brain”, male genitals, male chromosomes, male everything-we-can-measure and yet states that they identify as female… are they lying? Delusional? Will we tell them that their biology means they cannot truthfully identify as female? I hope we wouldn’t. Should we conclude that there must be some as yet unidentified “femaleness” lurking somewhere in their body that we haven’t identified yet? That seems pretty insulting, to be honest. (And also, what happens if you do identify it and then someone who checks that box too says they’re female? Search for yet another physical femaleness signifier, or accept their declared identity?) It seems to me that insisting that gender identity must have a physical link is a backwards step. It takes us back to “you’re only a real woman if you have this physical attribute” which is something we’ve been moving away from. ---
**Author:** ![WalterBishop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/aeb1de/32.png) [@WalterBishop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WalterBishop)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2021, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-trans-girl-athletes-have-an-advantage-moderated-title-for-clarity/945447/774 "2021-10-19T13:22:08Z")
> [@RitterSport](#): > > You’d think this would already be happening in all the states where it has been fine for transgirls to play on girls’ teams for years. I look forward to all your cites for domination at the high school level. Thanks in advance. Feel free to skip over the Connecticut track story. As I believe has already been covered, these numbers don’t exist because those states don’t keep records of how many transgirls are playing sport with/against cisgirls in the first place. But don’t you think the women’s World Cup squad example is instructive? A team of 14 year old boys in _one city_ routinely dominates the best adult women’s team _in the entire world_. Just absolutely slaughters them. Now, imagine a transgirl who (a) has gone through male puberty, (b) hasn’t taken any hormones, and (c) trains as hard and competes as fiercely as she can. What mechanism exists to impede her domination? Assuming she’s not physically disabled, how could she _not_ outperform the cisgirls she plays against? ---
**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, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-trans-girl-athletes-have-an-advantage-moderated-title-for-clarity/945447/775 "2021-10-19T13:23:08Z")
> [@Stanislaus](#): > > It seems pretty insulting to insist that gender identity must always be a manifestation of physical sex in some degree. I didn’t say that. I said “usually”. And I likewise think it’s insulting to assume that just because the transgirl was born with a penis, you KNOW that she is completely biologically male, and you should make all the rules assuming that’s true of “transgirls”. > [@WalterBishop](#): > > It seems self-evident to me that girls with those kind of advantages shouldn’t be competing against girls who don’t have such large advantages. It’d be like pitting heavyweights against middle-weights. Or like letting that boy who hit puberty early compete with his elementary school peers. Yeah, completely horrible, ruined it for every other child. (not) ---
**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 19, 2021, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-trans-girl-athletes-have-an-advantage-moderated-title-for-clarity/945447/776 "2021-10-19T13:34:37Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Sorry, biofemales. Screw you if you miss out on a scholarship. Gotta center biomales! > > It’s funny though how the “life isn’t fair, get over it” is so disproportionately said to the half of the human population that developed along the lines of the sex that produces ova and bears young. > [@RickJay](#): > > Cis girls are not less fit at sports as cis boys because of some emotional or psychological effect of being told they are less capable. How insulting that is to female athletes, my goodness. Watching a dude repeatedly scold women on how they’re being insulting and dismissive to women is . . . well, it’s something. ---
**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 19, 2021, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-trans-girl-athletes-have-an-advantage-moderated-title-for-clarity/945447/777 "2021-10-19T13:50:10Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > so I switched to “biologically male” “Biologically male” is one thing but “biomale” is just a figleaf for misgendering - a word _you_ introduced, that no-one else was using, and that emphasizes the “male” part. ---
**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, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-trans-girl-athletes-have-an-advantage-moderated-title-for-clarity/945447/778 "2021-10-19T13:59:04Z")
There is not a doubt in my mind that within a few months, people will say “biologically male” is also misgendering, so this is just a temporary solution, but I’ll re-expand the term and use that just to get beyond the hijack and return to the topic at hand. > [@puzzlegal](#): > > And I likewise think it’s insulting to assume that just because the transgirl was born with a penis, you KNOW that she is completely biologically male, and you should make all the rules assuming that’s true of “transgirls”. Well hell, I may not be “completely” biologically male, though I appear to be, but we do have to draw the line somewhere. Once again; why have male and female sports at all? What’s the point if we are dismissing the idea of there being two sexes? Explain why we should have two divisions, or argue that we should not. ---
**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 19, 2021, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-trans-girl-athletes-have-an-advantage-moderated-title-for-clarity/945447/779 "2021-10-19T14:13:46Z")
> [@WalterBishop](#): > > But don’t you think the women’s World Cup squad example is instructive? No, I do not. You’re worried about a problem that may happen someday – lots of transgirls dominating high school sports. Transgirls have issues _ **today** _ with identity, bullying, suicide, and so on and so forth. I don’t think it’s right to add to their burdens and exclude them from high school sports because someday, somewhere, there might be some competition issue. > [@WalterBishop](#): > > As I believe has already been covered, these numbers don’t exist because those states don’t keep records of how many transgirls are playing sport with/against cisgirls in the first place. And I believe that, if a cisgirl in high school was denied a position or an athletic scholarship because of an influx of transgirls, her parents would go right to the media, especially the right wing media. In fact, I know this because a few parents sued over it, but where are the rest of the lawsuits? You’re in favor of preventing a hypothetical problem by further discriminating against transgirls today. It is reminiscent of the debate over gay marriage – those opposed brought up all these hypothetical problems. Those in favor said, if those things actually happen, we’ll find a way to deal with it. If transgirls actually start dominating high school sports, I’m happy to think about what solutions make sense – more teams, open teams, testing, whatever. It will depend on what the problem actually is. _Since there is no evidence of a problem today, there’s nothing to think about yet._ ---
**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, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-trans-girl-athletes-have-an-advantage-moderated-title-for-clarity/945447/780 "2021-10-19T15:05:38Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Once again; why have male and female sports at all? What’s the point if we are dismissing the idea of there being two sexes? Explain why we should have two divisions, or argue that we should not. I already answered this. > [@puzzlegal](#): > > > [@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. And my next post pointed out that “age” is similarly a fuzzy proxy for physical development, but we don’t throw out the idea of segregating sports by age just because it’s imperfect. ---
**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, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-trans-girl-athletes-have-an-advantage-moderated-title-for-clarity/945447/781 "2021-10-19T15:11:45Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > Having more than one division makes sense. It gives more kids a chance to compete. Male/female isn’t the only division. But the boy/girl division isn’t some sort of chance division someone came up with because it was arithmetically convenient. If it’s just to have more teams, why not divvy the kids up based on whether their last names begin with A through M or N through Z? No, we split them up into biological male and biological female (especially when puberty hits; prior to that, it’s not important) because we want the biological females to have a shot. If it’s not split that way, the split is pointless. > [@puzzlegal](#): > > And my next post pointed out that “age” is similarly a fuzzy proxy for physical development, but we don’t throw out the idea of segregating sports by age just because it’s imperfect. And yet you propose to throw out the idea of segregating by sex because it’s imperfect. I’m not the one who wants this very, very useful separation to be turfed in favor of something - gender - everyone agrees is a totally different thing. Would it be okay if a school board just openly stated “Look, we’re not doing girls and boys sports anymore. It’s not a great way of divvying this up. What we’re gonna do is have AFAB and AMAB sports.” It’s a division surely as neutral as boy/girl. ---
**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 19, 2021, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-trans-girl-athletes-have-an-advantage-moderated-title-for-clarity/945447/782 "2021-10-19T15:17:36Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > And yet you propose to throw out the idea of segregating by sex because it’s imperfect. I’m not the one who wants this very, very useful separation to be turfed in favor of something - gender - everyone agrees is a totally different thing. But it’s not being thrown out. Even with the trans-friendly proposals for sports, the vast majority of girls team players will be biologically female. And the vast majority of boys team players will be biologically male. If we restrict to biology alone, then your concern doesn’t go away. Trans boys could have just as much athletic advantage, potentially, if not more (depending on hormones, treatment, etc.), as trans girls, as compared to cis girls. If the categorization is based on biology alone, most trans boys MUST play girls sports. Why is that a better solution? AFAICT, that would just piss everyone off even more. ---
**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 19, 2021, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-trans-girl-athletes-have-an-advantage-moderated-title-for-clarity/945447/783 "2021-10-19T15:58:07Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > And yet you propose to throw out the idea of segregating by sex because it’s imperfect. Can you quote where **puzzlegal** proposes this? ---
**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 19, 2021, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-trans-girl-athletes-have-an-advantage-moderated-title-for-clarity/945447/784 "2021-10-19T16:05:25Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > And yet you propose to throw out the idea of segregating by sex because it’s imperfect. You say “throwing out,” I say “making a tiny modification to.” You say “because it’s imperfect,” I say “because without the modifications it’s a suicide risk factor for some children.” Tomayto, tomahto. ---
**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 19, 2021, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-trans-girl-athletes-have-an-advantage-moderated-title-for-clarity/945447/785 "2021-10-19T17:05:57Z")
You definitely express my thoughts more clearly than I do! ---
**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, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-trans-girl-athletes-have-an-advantage-moderated-title-for-clarity/945447/786 "2021-10-19T20:36:54Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Furthermore, no, I cannot substitute “transgender girls” because I meant biological males, which includes cis boys. But nobody’s talking about cis boys playing on girls’ teams in this thread: the people you mean when you talk about non-cisgender-girl athletes “taking the spots” of cisgender girls on sports teams are transgender girls. There’s absolutely no reason to use the misgendering term “biomales” when who you’re referring to is transgender girls. I already illustrated in previous posts some of the non-misgendering ways to say explicitly that transgender girls have male physiology, which is indeed true and which nobody here is trying to deny. But using “biomales” when you mean “transgender girls” is not appropriate. > [@RickJay](#): > > just changing, on a month to month basis, what words people are allowed to use Oddly enough, those of us who actually support trans rights, even if we aren’t any more involved in the trans rights advocacy movement than occasional arguments on a messageboard, seem to have no trouble understanding what words aren’t offensive to use. Nor do we make a big fuss about it if we occasionally use a problematic term and get corrected on it. ISTM that most of the whining about how complicated and irrational transgender people are being about the nomenclature is just another excuse to shit on transgender rights. > [@WalterBishop](#): > > I think you may be underestimating the difference male puberty can make to athletic prowess. I don’t think I am. I know that most top male athletes are much stronger, faster etc. than even most top female athletes, and I recognize that such immense sex-based disparities can occur among non-elite teen athletes too. But I also recognize that in the day-to-day world of ordinary high school sports, most trans girls who play on girls’ teams are not in fact beating all their cisgender competitors, and indeed many of them aren’t any more successful than the average. Add that in to the fact that a very small percentage of girl athletes are transgender, and there’s still a serious dearth of actual evidence that transgender girls are really messing up girls’ athletics for cisgender girls in any meaningful way. No matter how many times the well-known fact about the US women’s soccer team being defeated by championship under-15 boys’ teams gets trotted out, that still doesn’t constitute evidence about this other issue. ---
**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, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-trans-girl-athletes-have-an-advantage-moderated-title-for-clarity/945447/787 "2021-10-19T21:02:09Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > But nobody’s talking about cis boys playing on girls’ teams in this thread: the people you mean when you talk about non-cisgender-girl athletes “taking the spots” of cisgender girls on sports teams are transgender girls. Who are, of course, biologically male, as you appear to agree. This is literally from your post I was referring to: > [@Kimstu](#): > > I repeat: If cisgender female athletes aren’t expected to be “emotionally harmed” by the existence of average performance differentials between male and female athletes in general, and the inevitable differences in status arising from that, then it’s not reasonable to expect them to be “emotionally harmed” by occasional competition with transgender female athletes. > > Life isn’t fair, male physiology is typically larger and stronger than female physiology, get over it. So according to you, transgirls have “male physiology.” Is that a transphobic use of the word “male”? I didn’t think so, personally. I guess I could have pulled the gotcha card. ---
**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, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-trans-girl-athletes-have-an-advantage-moderated-title-for-clarity/945447/788 "2021-10-19T21:36:17Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Is that a transphobic use of the word “male”? No, I don’t think that’s transphobic. I was going to suggest that as a good term to use in this thread. It focuses the “maleness” on the aspect of the person that’s relevant to this conversation. I might even specify that we seem to be talking about trans girls who have male physiology. Not transgirls who are on hormone therapy or those who were born intersex and never developed male physiology. In past threads of this nature, I have referred to “trans girls who have undergone male puberty”. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-trans-girl-athletes-have-an-advantage-moderated-title-for-clarity/945447.md?page=38) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-trans-girl-athletes-have-an-advantage-moderated-title-for-clarity/945447.md?page=40)