2750 words

Two months ago, I wrote about the two transgender high-school athletes in Connecticut that competed in the in-door running competition. Of course, the two top-placers were the ones who went through male puberty. There is a short interview involving some of the competitors in that specific competition. One of the girls shows her face—the others do not, because they fear the repercussions of discussing this. They are scared of airing their grievances due to “the far left” as one of them says. And this is a completely rational thing to do, especially if they are attempting to make track a career and compete in college.

In any case, the one girl—Selina Soule—who does show her face in the interview levels some solid points. (The quotes are from Selena and they come from 8th Place: A High School Girl’s Life After Transgender Students Joined Her Sport.)

“When I’m at the start of the race, when I’m lining up and getting into my blocks, everyone already knows the outcome. Those two athletes are going to come one and two, and everyone knows it.”

Now, think back to what I wrote about the two individuals who took first and second place. You can see in the pictures from the competition that they have extremely narrow bodies—specifically narrow hips—compared to the actual female competitors. In the previous article on this matter, I discussed numerous variables that men have that are more conducive to success in running sports. Such as larger stroke volumes, smaller Q-angle, and larger hearts. Testosterone stimulates red blood cell production. This is important during exercise, since the more blood that can get to the muscle means that the muscle can work harder.

Sprinting is a full-body sport—each part of the body needs to work in harmony. So, if the whole of the system of individual A is better than B, then A will most likely win. Take A to be a transgender runner who went through puberty and “presents” as a “girl.” Take B to be a normal girl who went through a female puberty. They were exposed to differing levels of steroid hormones (estrogen is a steroid, too—the main differentiator between men and women). So, even if A takes hormones, A STILL had the physiological and anatomic advantages from going through male puberty.

So, to take the girl’s point that “everyone already knows the outcome”, this is on its face already true. In a competition like this, one can get a general idea on the results of the event by looking at the somatotype differences between the girls. Of course, some girls have a narrower frame than others—but the thing is is that they were not exposed to a male puberty, and so, while they do have certain (natural) advantages over other girls, they do not have the main advantage that these transgender runners had.

“No one thinks it’s fair, because we all know that males are physically stronger than females and they compete at a higher level.”

Men have 63 percent more muscle mass than women, which is related to their higher levels of exposure to testosterone both developmentally (in the womb) and during puberty. Most of this muscle mass is located in the upper-body, with men having around 75 percent more arm muscle mass than women. This difference then translates to about a 90 percent higher upper body strength in men over women. Sex also explains about 70 percent of the variance in muscle mass and upper body strength in humans. Men have 50 percent greater muscle mass than women and their lower body strength is about 65 percent greater (see Lassek and Gaulin, 2009).

Let’s get back to development and puberty. If testosterone explains a lot about why men have more muscle mass than women, and muscle mass is conducive to success in sport (in this instance, running), then if an individual is exposed to higher levels of testosterone during development and at puberty—along with the conducive somatotype that is involved with success in the sport—then they will necessarily be better. Even a transgender athlete that has “transitioned” or “presents as” a girl/woman WILL necessarily be stronger than any girl/woman who did not, on average, since they were exposed to way more of the hormone testosterone then they were.

Here’s the most ridiculous part about this. Back in March, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi passed the Equality Act. Now, of course, individuals should not be discriminated against, that is wrong. The relevant part about this, though, is that this Act can make it so that transgender athletes can just “declare to be” female without any evidence of any changes to their bodies. (And, I have argued at length that, even if they did go through such “changes” that they would still have inherent, unfair, advantages over bio-women).

This will mark the end of women sports if ONLY one’s gender identity is the basis for who they will compete with—there will be men’s sports and unisex sports, and if that is to be the case, then I feel that most girls would just stop competing.

“It’s giving the transgender females the right to compete with biological females and eventually it’s going to get to the point where the biological females will be on the sidelines, watching their own sports.”

“It’s very frustrating and hearbreaking when us girls are at the start of the race, and we already know these athletes are going to come out and win no matter how hard we try.”

This is the biggest problem of all. With the creation of the Equality Act, we can imagine this scenario. Individual A (a male) competing in competition C does not do well. They then change their gender identity to compete in women’s sport. They will then blow away the competition. How is that fair? If you were a girl who competed in, say, track, and you saw someone who you knew would win even before the starting gun, what would that do to your will to compete? What would that do to your confidence?

Now, I can already here trans-activists say “Just try harder! Train harder!” Statements like that are jokes. No matter how hard they train, no matter if they give it their all to win, the transgender females will just decimate them.

“My freshman year in outdoor, I saw at the 200 start, this girl who looked kind of masculine. Her arms were much more defined than the average girl’s, and same with her legs, but she had long hair, long braider hair, and I didn’t think much of it. And then I watched the race, and I saw that this girl was blowing away the competitors, and I thought, “Hey, this isn’t right. This usually doesn’t happen.” And then later, in that same meet, I found out that athlete was a transgender female.”

How the hell is this in any way, shape, or form, fair? Quite clearly, just by looking at this person’s anatomy—arms that “were much more defined than the average girls, and same with her legs”—we can make a very solid educated guess on what will go down at this competition. I want to know what is going through the minds of these athletic directors who allow this sort of thing. What are they thinking by allowing it? Do they not realize that they are—with others—setting a precedent to change girl’s and women’s sport forever?

“And then in outdoor last year, there was another transgender that came out and she competed as a male for three seasons, and was mediocre as a male. And then ended up transitioning over to female, and, again, blew everyone out of the competition.”

And there we have it: Any male who is mediocre can then “declare his gender to be” female and then compete with the females and then have way better standing in the competition that he is now competing in. Can’t cut it in the male event? Just say you’re a woman! (Think the movie Juwanna Mann.) That’s like me being a mediocre lifter, and then declaring my gender to be female so I can compete with the women and then I blow away the competition. Is that fair? No, it’s not.

Soul’s mother brought up a very good point: Selena placed 8th in State final, and the first two spots were taken by two “boys who identify as girls”. If those two competitors did not compete, then Selena could have more than likely taken the 6th spot and went on to the New England Championships. When it comes to high-school sport, this is really ridiculous. They are screwing girls who could get good scholarships and looks from scouts from different Universities around the country.

“No one thinks it’s fair, but everyone is afraid of retaliation from the media, from kids around their school, from other athletes, coaches, school administrators. They dont want to attract attention to themselves, and they don’t want to be seen as a target for potential bullying and threats.”

Of course, if the girls who were anonymously interviewed by The Daily Signal identified themselves, they could be screwing up future chances and their current relationships. The fact that Selena is doing this out in the open shows her courage and her will to fight for what she—and rational people—believes is right. Here is what the anonymous girls said:

Girl 1: “Watching them run was just heartbreaking. I mean, you almost don’t even want to watch, but how can you not? You can clearly see these two biological guys just absolutely crushing it and it almost brings you to tears.”

Girl 2: “We’ve competed head to head with these people many times, and it hurts to see them win when you know that you probably should’ve won.”

Girl 3: “There’s really nothing else you can do except get super frustrated and roll your eyes because it’s really hard to even come out and talk in public just because of the way with the far left and how immediately you’ll just be shut down. We are totally accepting of who they are and who they want to be. We just have an issue when it comes to sports.”

Each girl brings up a great point: (1) It would make one not want to watch AND not want to compete because they know that their attempts at winning are futile. (2) Girl 2 said that they’ve competed against them many times, and, of course, they have won. What would it due to one’s confidence knowing that there are individuals there with such unfair advantages? Yes, I know that the other day I said that sport is all about watching people with inherent advantages—watching the best-of-the-best. However, there is a difference here: The best-of-the-best when it comes to men and women are two completely different things. For, if this is the case, why not just eradicated women’s sport all together? (3) Makes perhaps the best point of all. One cannot come out and air their grievances because “the far left” as so succinctly stated by girl 3 would shut you down without even hearing what they would have to say and their feelings on the matter.

“With the case in Connecticut, it can be difficult showcasing my talents to coaches from around the country, as they only look at the results online. They see the first and/or second place girl so far ahead of the rest of the girls. And they’re going to reach out to and try to recruit those two top giels versus everyone else, since they’re so far behind in time.”

This is the most ridiculous part of this whole fiasco. Selena makes a good point that since recruiters only look at results online, that they will see the disparity between the top two placers and the others and only go to speak to the top two. For example, Miller’s (one of the transgender athletes) time in the 55 m dash was 6.96 seconds; Yearwood’s time was 7.01 seconds (the other transgender athlete); and the third place winner’s—a biological female—time was 7.23 seconds. A coach looking at this time online will not even look at the third placer and will only look at the top two—biological males. I wonder if those who allow these types of things in high-school sport truly understand what they are doing. I wonder if they truly understand that they are possibly screwing the careers of some of these girls since they may get overlooked by scouts.

I think it’s gotten to the point where some girls are starting to stray away from those events, and are hoping to go to other events, so then they actually have a fair chance of winning. In my case, I have my field event, long jump. That was my safe haven, if you want to call it, where the results were fair no matter what because it was girls competing against girls. But now, unfortunately, one of those [transgender] athletes has started to compete in long jump, so now none of my events are safe. It’s frustrating when you know that you run your best, and no matter what, your best is never going to be enough.

So even Selena’s other event is getting taken over now. Where will it end? Will we see the de facto elimination of girl’s sport throughout the country one day? Will it be men’s sport and co-ed sport eventually (with of course bio-males taking the top spots)? Take the long jump. Men have a larger abundance of type II (fast twitch) muscle fibers than women who have an abundance of type I (slow twitch) fibers. If Selena is now competing against bio-males, and muscle fiber typing DOES NOT CHANGE, then, of course, there is another unfair advantage that these competitors have since they went through male development and puberty. The same point on muscle fiber typing can then be made in regard to the 100 and 200 m competitions as well. No matter how hard they try or train, what they do will never be enough. How is that fair?

For these girls and others to feel better about this fiasco, they should—in their minds—know that the true competition was between the 3rd place and lower, even though it will not fix the problem that they will be overlooked by scouts since their times are so disparate compared to that of the “winners.” When will this be put to an end? When women are on the sidelines watching what is supposed to be their sport while they watch a slew of men who identify as females take over their sports? Will we eventually have co-ed sports and male sports with the de facto elimination of women’s sport that the Equality Act will put into effect? These types of questions are best answered by sport ethicists and philosophers of sport (I will discuss them in the future), and I, personally, await what some of them have to say about matters like this and similar ones.

I can, of course, see trans-activists clamoring about how “bigoted” and “trans-misogynist” that Selena and her teammates are being. That is irrelevant. They are airing their grievances about how they feel about their sport being taken over by boys—no matter if they “identify as” girls or not. For if girls do not speak out about this now, then they will eventually lose their sport and women’s sport will become co-ed sport—effectively eliminating women’s sporting events. Is that what people would truly want in the name of “equality”? Wouldn’t true “equality” be having separate events for trans-athletes? What about Kerr and Obel’s (2017) argument that sport should be segregated by attributes conducive to success in that sport? I think that’s a route that can and should be tried—and girls like Selena would then still get to have fair competitions.

However, as of today, it is complete bullshit that these girls are competing with boys and people look at it as OK. It is bullshit that the three girls had to conceal their identities because they fear repercussions from their classmates, teammates, and administrators. Selena is brave for airing her grievances publicly and putting her name and face out there on issues she feels strongly about. I hope all goes well for her in the future and that scouts will eventually look at her, and not the two blowing away the competition. Is it any surprise when men have so many physiologic and anatomic advantages over women (see Lassek and Gaulin, 2009 for muscle and strength differences)?

If nothing is changed, girls will be watching their own events from the sidelines.