# Non-political, pure-sports discussion about how women compete against trans athletes **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [May 7, 2026, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-political-pure-sports-discussion-about-how-women-compete-against-trans-athletes/1029893 "2026-05-07T18:34:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2026, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-political-pure-sports-discussion-about-how-women-compete-against-trans-athletes/1029893/1 "2026-05-07T18:34:43Z")
There is another re-hash of the MtF transgender athletes in women’s sports thread going on in Politics. I wanted to try a **non** -political thread, one purely about sports and leaving politics out of it. If cis-women are competing against transgender athletes (MtF,) what can they do to elevate or step up their game? They could practice harder, train harder, but those are all things the MtF athletes can do, too, so it seems like that advantage becomes negated. Are there some supplements that women can legally take that might boost their bodies? In boxing, or other sports, or sprinting, are there tactics women can use that could counter the tactics of someone who has more male physique, muscles, bones, etc.? ---
**Author:** ![AlsoNamedBort](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alsonamedbort/32/3213_2.png) [@AlsoNamedBort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AlsoNamedBort)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2026, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-political-pure-sports-discussion-about-how-women-compete-against-trans-athletes/1029893/2 "2026-05-07T19:53:07Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Are there some supplements that women can legally take that might boost their bodies? The obvious answer: if there was something (legal) an athlete could do to boost their performance, why wouldn’t they already be doing it? ---
**Author:** ![colinfred](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colinfred/32/21338_2.png) [@colinfred](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/colinfred)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2026, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-political-pure-sports-discussion-about-how-women-compete-against-trans-athletes/1029893/3 "2026-05-07T19:56:04Z")
There is nothing pinnacle XX humans can possibly do to compete with elite XY humans. ---
**Author:** ![Dorjan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dorjan/32/12440_2.png) [@Dorjan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dorjan)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2026, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-political-pure-sports-discussion-about-how-women-compete-against-trans-athletes/1029893/4 "2026-05-07T20:01:09Z")
From a purely biological perspective, perhaps in certain sports XY athletes should not be competing against XX athletes. At the elite level there’s not much they can do to compensate. But these sports are segregated by gender, not by sex, and that is an inherently political discussion. It’s also pretty rare. What sport at an elite level is currently being dominated by a MtF transgender athlete? ---
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2026, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-political-pure-sports-discussion-about-how-women-compete-against-trans-athletes/1029893/5 "2026-05-07T20:05:04Z")
Your OP gives the impression that transgender dominate cisgender women, and can cisgender women do anything about it. Statistics over time show that this is not true. I did some research and found that Renee Richards was the first transgender WTA player. Found the following: “WTA/Open Career: Following the court victory, she played on the professional tour, reached the 1977 US Open doubles final, and attained a career-high ranking of No. 20 in 1979.” Nothing to write home about here. Also found this: “Trans Women Are Not Dominating”: Many researchers and advocates point out that despite fears, there is no evidence of trans women dominating women’s sports overall, and they remain underrepresented at the elite level." This would suggest that, if a cisgender woman has an athletic body, works and trains hard, and is very talented, she doesn’t need anything else. At least WTA statistics support this. ---
**Author:** ![xtenkfarpl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/c2a13f/32.png) [@xtenkfarpl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xtenkfarpl)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2026, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-political-pure-sports-discussion-about-how-women-compete-against-trans-athletes/1029893/6 "2026-05-08T02:07:52Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > I wanted to try a **non** -political thread, one purely about sports and leaving politics out of it. If cis-women are competing against transgender athletes (MtF,) what can they do to elevate or step up their game? It seems to me that you cannot avoid politics here, since you have already used the term ‘transgender’? ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2026, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-political-pure-sports-discussion-about-how-women-compete-against-trans-athletes/1029893/7 "2026-05-08T02:13:34Z")
What would you use instead? ---
**Author:** ![xtenkfarpl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/c2a13f/32.png) [@xtenkfarpl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xtenkfarpl)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2026, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-political-pure-sports-discussion-about-how-women-compete-against-trans-athletes/1029893/8 "2026-05-08T02:20:08Z")
The concept of self-defined ‘gender’ is a rather recent one, and not everyone agrees it is valid or acceptable. I will hang with Buddha on this one, and say “I make no pronouncements on the matter”, ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2026, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-political-pure-sports-discussion-about-how-women-compete-against-trans-athletes/1029893/9 "2026-05-08T02:23:17Z")
Well, until you can come up with a better term I guess we’re stuck with the one being used, instead of not talking about the subject at all… which seems much more political than using that word in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2026, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-political-pure-sports-discussion-about-how-women-compete-against-trans-athletes/1029893/10 "2026-05-08T02:28:15Z")
It’s my understanding that hormone replacement therapy causes muscle mass to drop pretty quickly, eliminating any advantage there. And as said in the other thread it ignores the issue that some _cis_ women just naturally are bigger and stronger than the average women. Should they be forbidden to compete too? I also note that the existence of trans men is being entirely ignored (it’s always about trans _women_ athletes for some _mysterious_ reason). And unlike the women, they _are_ taking hormones that increase muscle mass. > [@xtenkfarpl](#): > > The concept of self-defined ‘gender’ is a rather recent one, and not everyone agrees it is valid or acceptable. Actually it goes back thousands of years. Just because _our_ culture has a fixation on How Gender Works doesn’t mean everyone else is required to agree with us. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2026, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-political-pure-sports-discussion-about-how-women-compete-against-trans-athletes/1029893/11 "2026-05-08T02:37:32Z")
> [@Jasmine](#): > > I did some research and found that Renee Richards was the first transgender WTA player. Found the following: “WTA/Open Career: Following the court victory, she played on the professional tour, reached the 1977 US Open doubles final, and attained a career-high ranking of No. 20 in 1979.” Nothing to write home about here. Two things to note: - Richards was born in 1934, and transitioned around 1975, at age 41. - She was not permitted to compete in professional tennis until 1977, when she was 43. So, she was playing at a high level, as a woman, in her early 40s. When she reached #20 in the rankings, she was 45 years old. It’s also important to remember that, while some elite athletes are, today, able to compete at a high level well into their late 30s and 40s, thanks to much better sports medicine and sports nutrition, that wasn’t the case in the 1970s; it was extremely rare for a tennis player to succeed at that level in their 40s, in that era. As far as I can tell, prior to transitioning, in the 1960s, Richards was a very good men’s player, but to the level of being a high-ranking amateur, and not at an elite professional level – and that was five to ten years before she began playing on the WTA tour as a woman. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2026, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-political-pure-sports-discussion-about-how-women-compete-against-trans-athletes/1029893/12 "2026-05-08T02:46:14Z")
My example in the other thread was in the track-and-field sport of shotputting. Olympic caliber women are on par with _high school boys_. That’s a sport where the XY difference in strength is glaringly obvious. ---
**Author:** ![DWMarch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dwmarch/32/1010_2.png) [@DWMarch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DWMarch)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2026, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-political-pure-sports-discussion-about-how-women-compete-against-trans-athletes/1029893/13 "2026-05-08T03:15:50Z")
> [@bump](#): > > That’s a sport where the XY difference in strength is glaringly obvious. Strength isn’t the only thing that counts in sports. I am a large man, at least 225lbs if I am being kind to myself. Theoretically I am much stronger than any 100lb woman. But if said woman was even a casual practitioner of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, she is going to hand me my ass because I have no skill in martial arts at all. So in such a match up, if I can can use my weight and leverage against my tiny opponent, I might be able to ruin her day by simply squishing her. But if I leave an arm exposed and she grabs onto it… well, my arms aren’t built to take even a measly 100lbs of torque going in the wrong direction. What the women may lack in raw strength they can make up in speed or skill or agility or etc. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2026, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-political-pure-sports-discussion-about-how-women-compete-against-trans-athletes/1029893/14 "2026-05-08T03:23:16Z")
> [@DWMarch](#): > > Strength isn’t the only thing that counts in sports. Depends on the sport. Something like shotput is almost purely about strength. Upper body strength at that; it might as well have been designed as something men would have a large advantage at. ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2026, 6:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-political-pure-sports-discussion-about-how-women-compete-against-trans-athletes/1029893/15 "2026-05-08T06:01:15Z")
> [@Dorjan](#): > > But these sports are segregated by gender, not by sex In what sense? ---
**Author:** ![SanVito](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sanvito/32/2805_2.png) [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2026, 7:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-political-pure-sports-discussion-about-how-women-compete-against-trans-athletes/1029893/16 "2026-05-08T07:50:19Z")
Can I see the link to the original thread? Because I’m more inclined to have a political discussion. I’ll end it there rather than getting modded. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2026, 8:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-political-pure-sports-discussion-about-how-women-compete-against-trans-athletes/1029893/17 "2026-05-08T08:15:18Z")
Sure, but someone like you wouldn’t be entering a martial-arts competition to begin with, since you would have no background (and probably no interest). Presumably, that 100-lb woman would be facing cis-women (and transgender) opponents who enter the contest with substantial background and experience in her same sport. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2026, 8:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-political-pure-sports-discussion-about-how-women-compete-against-trans-athletes/1029893/18 "2026-05-08T08:21:18Z")
> [@SanVito](#): > > Can I see the link to the original thread? Because I’m more inclined to have a political discussion. I’ll end it there rather than getting modded. [Here](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/barney-frank-criticism-of-democratic-party/1029811) is the thread. ---
**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:** [May 8, 2026, 9:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-political-pure-sports-discussion-about-how-women-compete-against-trans-athletes/1029893/19 "2026-05-08T09:01:45Z")
Theoretically, a male bodied person could dominate in a women’s sport. But where is your evidence that this would necessarily happen if trans women are allowed to compete with cis women? ISTM that this has been allowed for decades in many sports and we haven’t seen this. So other than political fear mongering and bigotry, why be so concerned about it right now, @velocity? ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2026, 9:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-political-pure-sports-discussion-about-how-women-compete-against-trans-athletes/1029893/20 "2026-05-08T09:14:17Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > I also note that the existence of trans men is being entirely ignored (it’s always about trans _women_ athletes for some _mysterious_ reason). And unlike the women, they _are_ taking hormones that increase muscle mass. A FtM trying to compete against cis-men could only be, at best, equal, and probably be at a disadvantage. The trans man would have started out with a female body and be taking testosterone to try to reach the same point where the cis-men have already been starting out biologically all along to begin with. An MtF is in the opposite situation. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-political-pure-sports-discussion-about-how-women-compete-against-trans-athletes/1029893.md?page=2)