Some doctors are now publicly confirming what most people already knew: Men who identify as women have a strong competitive advantage over their female opponents.
For years, those who oppose allowing men to compete in women’s sports have said the male body into which these “transgender” athletes were born clearly gives them an edge over women.
Transgender activists have disputed that, claiming that testosterone suppression therapies reduce the strength of male bodies to the point where men who identify as female don’t have an advantage.
But the near clean sweep of victories racked up this year in NCAA competition by transgender University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas brought further scrutiny to the issue.
The New York Times reported Monday that a doctor from the prestigious Mayo Clinic and an international physiologist who consults on sports both agreed that the male body gives athletes like Thomas an advantage over female competitors.
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“There are social aspects to sport, but physiology and biology underpin it. Testosterone is the 800-pound gorilla,” Dr. Michael J. Joyner of the Mayo Clinic told the Times.
In other words, despite the testosterone suppression treatments, Thomas has a serious advantage over female swimmers.
Sports physiologist Dr. Ross Tucker agreed, saying, “Lia Thomas is the manifestation of the scientific evidence. The reduction in testosterone did not remove her biological advantage.”
The swimmer competed for the Penn men’s team as Will Thomas for three seasons. He was a mediocre athlete who won a few meets here and there but was otherwise unremarkable.
Do transgender athletes have an advantage over female competitors?
Late last year, however, Thomas came back from a hiatus using the name Lia and joined the women’s team with the wholehearted support of coaches and school officials. He was soon destroying women’s records and beating opponents like they were standing still.
Thomas did meet the standards for testosterone levels, but teammates and opponents both maintained that his more powerful male body gave him an unbeatable advantage.
In fact, the transgender swimmer so effortlessly beat his female opponents that he was heard boasting about how easy it was to win.
Along with the criticism from outside the school, Thomas also faced an uprising from inside the Penn program. In December, the parents of about 10 female swimmers sent a letter to the NCAA to demand that Thomas be barred from competing against women. Unfortunately, the NCAA ignored the plea.
By the end of the college swimming season, Thomas had claimed championships that many said belonged to the women who were competing.
One Virginia Tech swimmer was furious about the transgender athlete’s dominance.
“Then you go into it with a mindset that you are, you don’t have a chance, if that makes sense,” she said. “Like, it’s hard to compete against someone with the aerobic capacity, the muscle development, the body of a man — it’s hard.”
The swimmer said her teammate — who was 17th in the race for 16 spots and thus had her place taken by Thomas — was “very emotional, and it’s hard to see since it’s her last NCAAs and she really loves that race.”
“And it was just heartbreaking to see that she put all their effort into it today, and with the best time that she’d went in the morning session before, and still not make it back. It’s hard to see someone who works every day, every night, still not be able to compete against someone like that,” she said.
The doctors who spoke to the Times have substantiated all the concerns that Thomas’ female competitors and even some of his teammates have voiced for the past year.
GMA interviewed Lia Thomas today. Great timing. Our film features one of Thomas’s teammates. She told me that women on her team were silenced and referred to psychological counseling if they objected to having Thomas on the team. More in the full film: https://t.co/xibkNa4oHW pic.twitter.com/YRRf2S712a
— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) May 31, 2022
If a man wants to live his life as a woman, that is his prerogative. But when his fantasies about his gender impinge on the lives of women, his claims must have some ending point.
It is simply unfair that an athlete with a biologically more-powerful male body should be allowed to compete against less-powerful women. If nothing is done, transgender athletes will necessarily mean the end of women’s sports.
Lia Thomas is a perfect case in point. He is taller, his shoulders are wider, his musculature is stronger and he clearly was able to dispatch almost all his opponents with ease. He obliterated a series of longstanding records achieved by women and took away spots in championship meets that women had earned. How is this fair?
It is long past time to end the left’s fantasy about transgender athletes who are denying the role God gave them and systematically eliminating women from sports.
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