Transgender individuals experience a disadvantage when denied to play sports in accordance with their gender identity.

Transgender people want to play sports without threats or harassment.

Most individuals want to fit in with their social groups. The argument that transgender youth should not play sports because it is unfair is not based on hard science any more than hard science can explain why some of us like sports and others don’t. What is the hype about trans females having an advantage over cis females? Do studies support this? 

At UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital in San Francisco, Dr. Stephen Rosenthal, during an interview in 2014, posited the ethical question, “How do you assign someone a gender?” In an interview with Joel Baum, senior director of Gender Spectrum, this same year stated, “We have plenty of rules but not enough roles.” We need to make room for roles.

Many trans youth are on hormone blockers, thus preventing changes with their bodies to avoid undesirable traits and these are reversible. With the onset of prepubertal development, blockers afford youth the time to adjust. These hardly would be considered performance enhancement treatments. As they get older, youth may opt to begin gender-affirming hormones. Anyone starting in hormone treatment must have lab draws to ensure that the hormones are within safe parameters. Hormones are potent agents, and therefore, lab monitoring is essential to avoid medical complications. These treatments would hardly be considered performance enhancement treatments. Performance enhancement treatments or doping are illegal in sports. In some cases, athletes have the option to qualify for therapeutic exemptions, according to American Family Physician in a July 15, 2021 editorial. These therapeutic exemptions range from treatments for asthma, endocrine deficiencies, and inflammatory diseases. https://www.aafp.org/afp/2021/0215/p203.html

In a 2020 July study, Bethany Alice Jones, Jon Arcelus, Walter Pierre Bouman, and Emma Haycraft concluded there isn’t any research to supporting the argument that trans females have an athletic advantage during any stage of undergoing gender-affirming treatment or surgery. The authors recommend that policies restricting transgender people in sports need revisions to include transgender individuals. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40279-016-0621-y

Where exactly or how does gender identity come about? Most of us grew up in a binary world with male and female representations dominating gender roles. However, throughout history, some individuals have reported they don’t fit either presentation, and we refer to this group of people as gender non-conforming (GNC). Some GNC people may seek some masculinizing or feminizing forms of treatment and not necessarily surgery. Some people are intersex, and they, in turn, may or may not identify as transgender individuals, seek gender-affirming treatment, or opt out of any form of treatment. Not all intersexual people identify as transgender, just as transgender people are not all intersex. Some transgender people are unable to take hormones for various reasons, and others may never seek surgery.

Endocrine studies are far more complex, and the average layperson does not know to understand these complexities. We need to turn to the medical professionals who research and work with the transgender population to provide us with guidelines. World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) is one of the largest international networks whose members range from the medical field to the mental health field and offer academic research, guidance, referral sources, evidence-based medicine, care, policy, and research, and education in transgender health. https://www.wpath.org/about/mission-and-vision