Allowing Transgender Olympians Is Unfair To Women

“I’ve never felt so overpowered in my life,” said female mixed martial arts fighterTamikka Brents. “I’ve fought a lot of women and have never felt the strength that I felt in a fight as I did that night. I can’t answer whether it’s because she was born a man or not, because I’m not a doctor. I can only say I’ve never felt so overpowered ever in my life, and I am an abnormally strong female.”

The woman Brents was referring to isn’t a woman at all, but transgender MMA fighter Fallon Fox, who fights as a woman against women. Brent felt the full weight of what it was like to fight a man, and even with all her training and strength, she quickly fell to Fox.

Transgenderism has invaded the public consciousness, raising awareness of gender dysphoria; but not as the disorder linked to depression and suicides at an alarmingly high rate, but a celebrated identity everyone must respect—or else. The concept of transgenderism has become so pervasive that a man can step into the ring with a woman and pummel her for money, and the media will cheer for him.

What Brents reportedly experienced at Fox’s hands was a concussion and a broken orbital bone that required staples. In other words, this woman was savaged by an opponent that was genetically advantaged with a thicker bone structure, longer reach, and denser musculature—or, put more simply, was a man. Fox was able to do this despite hormone treatments that made him more feminine in certain aspects.

Reality Is No Match for Our Logic

Pitting men against women in sports very rarely ends with the woman coming out on top. Men are typically faster, stronger, and better physically built than women. In fact, studies consistently show that women tend to fall 10 percent shy of men’s records. All this to state the obvious: men generally are stronger than women generally.

That said, it should be common sense to not pit men against women in any serious sporting event, regardless of any hormone treatment or any genital surgery.

This has not been the opinion of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), however, which has been allowing transgender athletes to compete against athletes not of their sex since 2004. They had formerly allowed transgender athletes to compete if they had fully transitioned with cross-sex hormones and surgery. As Fox demonstrates, this transition makes very little difference to a fully trained athlete.

But now the IOC has recommended ending the surgery requirement. In the “IOC Consensus Meeting on Sex Reassignment and Hyperandrogenism” report, the committee recommends that a male-to-female transgender “must demonstrate that her total testosterone level in serum has been below 10 nmol/L for at least 12 months prior to her first competition.” Female-to-male transgendered athletes may register to compete with male athletes without restriction.

Let’s Smash Olympians’ Dreams

While many Olympic sports don’t require athletes to physically come into contact with each other, the ones that do will have the female-to-male transgender athletes at a disadvantage. If the 90 percent figure is any indication, these women may have to give up their dream of having a gold.