Dueling Genders: Should Transgender Women Be Allowed in Women’s Fencing
By
Leonard Zwelling
The issue of transgender women competing against biological women has entered a “new arena,” women’s fencing.
On March 30, a biologic female (Stephanie Turner) refused to duel a transgender woman (Red Sullivan) and set off yet another controversy in yet another sport. Unlike track and field or swimming, where such competition has been banned, fencing has not gotten around to making rules about the participation of transgender women in matches against biologic women. A lot of the confusion comes from the fact that it is not uncommon for women to beat men in fencing when they do compete against one another. Thus, it is unclear whether going through male puberty actually gives a person an advantage against an opponent who is a biologic woman.
As readers know, this has been a topic to which the blog has returned quite a few times. The podcast I do with my son Andrew called A New Prescription will specifically address the issue of sex vs. gender and whether transgender women should be allowed to compete in women’s sports in a coming episode.
Forget about the politics for a moment and let’s address why men don’t compete against women at almost all levels of sports.
Once a human (usually bearing XY chromosomes) goes through male puberty, that human is stronger and bigger than a human who does not go through male puberty (those usually bearing XX chromosomes). Transgender individuals (born with XY chromosomes) who wish to compete against biologic XX people are usually XY people who identify as women, but that does not alter their XY biology. But it is not that simple.
Think about what makes a world-class athlete as good as he or she is. There is certainly all that training, but there must be biochemistry and genetics involved. Thus, using biochemical measures to allow a transwoman to compete against other women raises the issue of what the biochemistry of the other XX competitors is. Perhaps the champion women’s sprinter in the Olympics has slightly high testosterone levels despite being XX. In other words, if we are going to have a biochemical standard as to when an XY person becomes allowed to compete against XX people we really ought to examine the biochemistry of all of the competitors which is foolishness.
Let’s keep it simple. If you were born XY, you cannot compete in women’s sports. Period. If we don’t do that, we will be allowing women athletes to manipulate their biochemistry to gain an advantage. That’s called doping.
I really do feel for the XY people who wish to compete as women because they gender identify as women. But sports eligibility should not be dictated by social constructs. There simply is no doubt that anyone going through male puberty is going to have an advantage in competition against women. As there are more and more restrictions against puberty-blocking drugs, it seems likely that those XY people who will become transgender females will go through some aspect of male puberty. Unless the sports associations are prepared to equilibrate the testosterone levels of all competitors, transwomen should remain on the sidelines in women’s sports. It’s just logical.
