The research was funded by the International Olympic Committee.
The landmark study reported that physically active transgender women performed worse in certain cardiovascular tests and had less lower-body strength than their (sic) cisgender females. Researchers at the University of Brighton also found that, contrary to previous claims, transgender women’s bone density was equivalent to cisgender females. Bone density is linked to muscle strength.
Some transgender women have explained that feminizing HRT often results in testosterone levels that are lower than the average cisgender woman.
It is the first research relating to the issue that the IOC has funded and is the first scientific study of “athletes” (sic) who have undergone gender-affirming hormone therapy.
The authors, who included a member of the IOC’s medical and scientific commission, said their results showed that sporting federations should caution against banning transgender women from the female category without further research into their individual sports.
But what about banning cissexual women? They clearly have a biological advantage...
A 2009 study found that women with PCOS are over-represented in sports.
However, hyperandrogenism in women athletes is instead usually used as an excuse to ban black athletes from professional sports.
The assumption of advantage is mostly because of a lack of education in what trans people require to transition. The average person thinks a cis man puts on a dress and calls it a day.
They were whining about Eastern Bloc athletes with hyperandrogenism back in the day as well. It’s noted that the black athletes in question are all from Southern African countries like South Africa and Namibia. For whatever reason an unusual number of female athletes coming out of that region are hyperandrogenistic.
It’s a combination of androgynous black women dominating their events in ways that are very unusual compared to other women in their events. The Jamaican women’s track team has never really had the same threat of banning held against them as Caster and the Namibians despite being a dominant force in the sprints for decades. Again, most of the calls for banning them being entirely superficial and not really based on much more than vibes. A good example is FloJo and her record breaking performance that never resulted in her being banned despite the strong suspicion of steroids.
I think the professional level of track and field are taking the right steps and hopefully the same will happen at the high school and college level. People will hand wave high school sports while ignoring that they serve as a way for college scouts to determine the level of competition you’re ready for and that itself determines a lot of things such as scholarship money.