Testosterone?

David French argues against trans-inclusion by gender-alignment in sports.  The NYTimes readers seem overwhelmingly supportive of his position.  I commented on a fundamental problem in the piece.

While this is a complex issue, a glaring omission is the practical reality for most trans athletes - they are children participating in school or community sports. What is a 10 year old trans girl or boy supposed to do if they are forced to play on a team that doesn't align with their gender? Much science shows gender has real biological phenotypes in the brain, so while there are clear athletic performance characteristics in chromosomes, so too are there gender characteristics. In addition, while French states he harbors no ill intent towards trans people, but as an evangelical Christian, cards on the table require acknowledgment of his faith's ugly history of homophobia and misogyny. These are real precepts that continue to plague a majority of its thought leaders, who are at this moment making sweeping calls for legal persecution of trans people without doing what French also fails to do in this piece: take into consideration their real-life experience.

Further, French and the readers seem unaware of the substantial science on the this issue, in particular the consensus that testosterone is the principal factor in athletic performance.  

I found this court declaration from the ACLU by Joshua D. Safer, MD, FACP, FACE that lays out the intricacies quite well. There are many considerations in this debate, but one salient factor appears to be testosterone levels and nowhere more so than in youth sports.  In closing, the brief notes:

After a transgender woman lowers her level of testosterone, there is no inherent reason why her physiological characteristics related to performance should be treated differently from the physiological characteristics of a non- transgender woman.







After a transgender woman lowers her level of testosterone, there is no
inherent reason why her physiological characteristics related to athletic
Case 1:20-cv-00184-CWD Document 22-9 Filed 04/30/20 Page 18 of 48
After a transgender woman lowers her level of testosterone, there is no
inherent reason why her physiological characteristics related to athletic
Case 1:20-cv-00184-CWD Document 22-9 Filed 04/30/20 Page 18 of 48