RE: The TERF War - The Fiamengo File Episode 96
I'll admit I've been conflicted over trans women playing against cis women in sports believing that trans women (pre-transition) would somehow have an unfair advantage to cis women.
Then I actually spoke to a trans woman about this and I learned something very fascinating.
Trans women - as part of transitioning - take androgen blockers along with estrogen. Which actually makes perfect sense when you think about it!
A trans woman doesn't WANT to be a man. She doesn't WANT her testes. She would rather she was born WITHOUT them.
And the very act and process of transitioning means she DOESN'T have the strength. She DOESN'T have the stamina. She DOESN'T have the muscle mass that she had PRIOR to transitioning.
It's MUCH EASIER for a trans man to transition from a woman into a man. After all, all babies start out as female. It's only the introduction of hormones thanks to the Y chromosome that turns a female fetus into a male baby by the time it's born.
Transitioning from a female to a male simply involves the introduction of testosterone. An anabolic steroid. Testosterone natually supresses estrogen.
Estrogen HAS no suppressive mechanism to testosterone, so when a trans woman starts transitioning, she HAS to take androgen blockers. Otherwise her testosterone will be countering any estrogen she might be taking.
All this TERF vs. non-TERF bullshit is just blatant prejudice and bigotry and I used to believe a lot of the bullshit myself.
Then I got schooled.
That is all very true but it's nothing I didn't know before. You are not the only one who spoke with actual trans women. It you read my posting carefully you will notice I spoke of men and women competing and didn't actually voice my opinion on trans women and trans men competing.
As I said what you said is correct. However there are two caveats:
A trans women who started with with favourite sport in puberty will still have an advantage over those who had been women at puberty.
And here is the catch: pubescent gender dysphoria has an 80% chance of receding at the end of puberty. So under not circumstances should anyone transitioning or block their hormones before the end of puberty.
I'm currently still working things out because I don't want to exclude trans women from sport while still acknowledge the advantage of pubescent testosterone.
With respect, actually it does. Androgen blockers and the lack of testosterone depleted the bone density in males (and mtf women transitioning).
See https://www.webmd.com/osteoporosis/features/male-men#1
And as you already know, trans women need to block their testosterone and take estrogen in order to chemically transition.
That article from WebMD is focusing on men and male bone density. But your hypothesis is that trans women have an unfair advantage due to them being born male and maintain their male bone density. But as you see from the WebMD article, cis men are quite prone and susceptible to osteoporosis and osteoporenia due to low or lacking testosterone.
Those are the same factors that trans women seek.
The argument doesn't hold water.