A video showing a make track athlete easily racing past a female runner highlights the unfairness of transgender athletes competing against natural-born women.
A tweet of a video of contestants in the mixed-gender relay race at the World Athletics Championships shows just how much faster and stronger male runners are compared to female runners that are at the peak of their athletic capabilities.
Despite this particular female runner having a seven-second head start, the male competitor cruises past her as if the woman were standing still.
“How big a difference is eight seconds? Well, a gap of just *0.8* seconds, over 1600m, was the difference between 2nd and 5th in that race,” the Twitter user added.
Granted, the video did not concern men claiming to be transgender women competing against natural-born women, but the video clearly shows just how much faster and stronger male athletes are compared to women. The implication for transgender athletes and their natural-born female opponents is clear.
Indeed, the women’s rights group, Fair Play for Women, amplified the Scottish Twitter user’s posts and noted that the video is a perfect example of how unfair it is for men claiming to be women to compete as a natural-born woman.
According to its website, Fair Play for Women “is a campaigning and consultancy group which raises awareness, provides evidence and analysis, and works to protect the rights of women and girls in the UK.”
The group also provides legal and scientific evidence to help craft sports policies that “maintain fairness and safety for women and girls.”
Indeed, the group is not alone. A new study finds that hormone therapy, testosterone treatments, and surgery really do little to dampen the strength and power of the male physique for men who want to compete as transgender women.
The new study conducted by the Swedish Karolinska Institute and Linkoping University found that even after a full year of hormone therapy, transgender women still retain their male strength and muscle mass.
“Despite the robust increases in muscle mass and strength in TM, the TW were still stronger and had more muscle mass following 12months of treatment,” the researchers found. “These findings add new knowledge that could be relevant when evaluating transwomen’s eligibility to compete in the women’s category of athletic competitions.”
A similar study from three professors at New Zealand’s University of Otago, similarly concluded that men claiming to be transgender women do not lose much of their male strengths in sports despite testosterone loss, hormone therapy, and transgender surgeries.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston.
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