A number of prominent former athletes, including Martina Navratilova and Paula Radcliffe, have been openly critical of transgender women competing in women’s sports.
One of their main arguments is that it is theoretically possible for a cisgender man to “decide” to be a woman, take hormones, win and earn money while competing as a female, then go back to living as a man.
“One of their main arguments“.
Ah, but is it their main argument?
The reason I ask is that my main argument against transgender women (ie men who believe they are women) competing in female sports competitions is that they’ve effectively been on hormone treatment during the main physical developmental stages of their lives.
That is, a boy growing up and experiencing puberty will have a bone and muscle mass advantage over a girl of the same age.
To suggest that a subsequent course of female hormone treatment somehow levels the playing field seems to be wilfully ignoring what has happened to zher in the preceding years.
Flip it the other way round; do we knowingly allow male sportsmen to compete if they’ve been caught taking performance-enhancing drugs for decades? Nope.
Bill’s Opinion
Martina Navratilova isn’t transphobic, she’s simply a biological realist.
Unfortunately, a vocal minority of activists have currently hijacked the narrative to the point where otherwise credible news sources such as Business Insider are publishing obvious strawmen arguments against reality.