He huffed about how the question wasn’t “appropriate” even though his bill would result in kids being asked that same question.
A Republican state rep from Michigan testifying about his anti-trans sports bill on Monday was left speechless after an out Democratic colleague began his questioning by asking, “Representative, can you tell me: are you trans?”
A long beat staring down out gay Democratic state Rep. Mike McFall followed, before state Rep. Jason Woolford ® managed to reply, “Are you?”
“I’m actually going somewhere with this,” he said to lawmakers in the small chamber.
“Because I want to know, how does a 14-year-old girl prove whether or not she’s trans to a 50-year-old coach?”
“Do trans women generally have a physical advantage over women?”
No. Trans women were able to complete in the Olympics beginning in 2004. No trans woman has won an Olympic medal in the woman’s category.
There are many studies that compare cis men to cis women and based on that claim trans women have an advantage. Among the studies that actually compare trans women to cis women it is generally found that trans women have no overall advantage.
“Are there any rules for this kind of thing? Do they need to be transitioning or taking suppression drugs?”
The rules and requirements vary by league. At higher levels of competition its generally required to have hormone levels at cis female levels for a prolonged period. Often 6 months or longer. To clarify, getting to those levels roughly takes 2+ years of hormone replacement therapy(hrt). Hrt for trans women generally consist of an anti-androgen, estradiol, and progesterone.
They also selectively exclude all of the sports where women have distinct advantages, like cross-country. Cis men are statistically better at quick bursts of energy, like weightlifting or sprinting… But cis women are statistically better at endurance sports like cross country. Basically, cis men have an higher concentration of fast-twitch muscle fibers, which use a lot of energy but are more powerful. While women have more slow-twitch muscle, which allows them to last longer while exerting less energy or using less oxygen.
Sports were originally segregated by sex because men couldn’t stand the thought of losing endurance sports to women. It would be wholly undignified for a dainty woman to beat a bunch of big strong men, after all. They broke women off into a separate category, so they didn’t have to worry about it. And all of those endurance sports conveniently get left out of the conversation whenever discussing the advantages that conservatives claim trans women have.
I want to believe you, but the record for marathon time for men is faster than the record for women and the record for long swim events (1500m freestyle) for men is faster than the women’s record.
Maybe you missed the word “statistically”? Single examples of records, which are by nature statistical outliers, don’t really address the point.
Elite levels of competition like the Olympics are testing those statistical outliers/ extreme ends of the bell curve though.
I mean this is categorically false. The gold medal winner for the women’s marathon at the last Olympics had a lower time than the average finisher on the men’s side. 10th place in the men’s marathon would have won gold in women’s by over 15 minutes. Even on a pretty basic level, an 18 year old woman has the same qualifying time as a 60 year old man for the Boston Marathon.
The only time I’ve seen women compete are when the length of the races get massive. I’m talking like ultra marathons or the moab 240 or something. It is possible to see women legitimately compete with men and even win there but it’s still pretty rare (look up Courtney Dauwalter if you want to see something really impressive). It is very interesting to watch the gap close as the length of the races increases tho.