We love women. We love sport. And we think this is bulls%!t...
The topic of trans athletes competing in sport has been a hot topic lately. It's always when men decide to take on women as it doesn't happen so much at the highest levels the other way round.. that in itself might be telling enough.
Firstly, this is a sports debate, not a trans one. If you want to change your name, wear a dress & cut off your nuts we live in a free country so knock yourself out - you have every right to do that without being subject to discrimination. BUT us saying you're not allowed to play women's sport IS NOT hate speech, its not malicious.
Its not transphobic - it's bloody common sense.
We could get into the nitty gritty of the science but facts don't seem to sway some opinions when you have bozos like Dr. Joshua D. Safer, Executive Director of the Mount Sinai Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery in New York, saying things like “A person’s genetic make-up and internal and external reproductive anatomy are not useful indicators off athletic performance”.
B&%ch, have you watched the UFC? We have a group of 280 000 men & can all tell you we know we don't have the genetic make up to last one round in there.
Athletics is physical, and hormones aside, males have more of their circulatory system in the skeletal muscle providing faster oxygen uptake, they develop a higher ratio of fast twitch muscle fibres, have different ratios of the three collagens, have better recoil in their joints, have higher bone density. These and many other physical features cannot be changed at a later date with hormones.
So that's why the sexes were always kept seperate, but in recent years organisations have either given into social pressure, or being unable to block and protect their cis gender athletes.
Lets take a look into some of the ex-blokes who have taken wins at a national or world championship level.
This US swimmer has been all over the news after setting multiple Ivy League records. This comes as little surprise seeing she competed as male for 3 years through the National Collegiate Athletic Association, ranked as the sixth fastest time for the 1000 yard freestyle.
For a little perspective: Olympic superstar Michael Phelps just a .08% of an advantage over second place Ian Crocker in the 100 butterfly in the 2004 Olympics, but held a 12.62% advantage over the women’s gold medalist, Australian Petria Thomas. Phelps’ advantage over women equates to over 150 times more than the advantage that Phelps had over his male competitors.
JayCee Cooper
One sport where gender matters is Power Lifting - a sport where you literally just pick up the heaviest stuff you can. Cooper won the Women's USPA National Championships in 2019 with a 149.6kg squat, a 99.7kg bench, and a 174.6kg deadlift.
To their credit, a different organisation and the governing body is merica, the USA Powerlifting Organisation, stood behind their transgender policy and would not allow her to compete... so she filed a lawsuit for discrimination and the court sided with her stating USA Powerlifting must “cease and desist from all unfair discriminatory practices”.
Tiffany Newell
This 50 year old Canadian set the nation record for the 1500m in the 45-49 division last year after beginning transition in male in her mid-40's. Newell has compared banning trans athletes to banning people based on their race. You know why you see no white guys in the 100m? Because genetics matter, but they are playing the game we all agreed to.
Laurel Hubbard
All the way back in 1998 Hubbard set New Zealand Junior Records in male weight lifting. Fast-forward to 2017 at the Australian International and Laurel was now competing in the female class after beginning a transition in 2012. Hubbard competed at the heaviest division of 90kg+... while weighing in at 131.83kg and (no surprises) winning the Gold medal.
Cece Telfer
This Jamaican-born athlete became the first openly transgender person to win an NCAA title in 2019. Telfer first competed without success in the men's division from 2016 to 2017 but after transitioning gender, Telfer was allowed to compete in the women's division. Not only did she take first place in the 400-meter hurdles event in June 2019, but she was also Outsports 'Female Athlete Of The Year'.
The Tour of the Gila is a UCI (the world governing body for sports cycling) sanctioned and regulated race & at the 2023 event Killips won Stage 5, making it the first time a trans women has won a UCI stage. Austin was fully sanctioned to compete in the event under the rules set by the UCI, and entitled to the $52 000 prize that came with 1st place. Not bad for someone who has been only been racing full time since 2021!
In an interview with the Knoxville News Sentinel, Killips said that biological men are underrepresented in women's sport. What. The. F*ck.
To wrap things up, we think everyone knows this is situation is a mess. The governing bodies in different sports have fallen to the social pressure of inclusivity to different degrees and we expect to see more ex-blokes taking the podium in time to come. As traditional women get pushed out of their own category, we hope someone c.
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