Welcome to Trans Tuesday! Let’s get to the bottom of this huge, discriminatory issue that is not actually a real issue at all: TRANS PEOPLE IN SPORTS 2: SCIENCE AND BIGOTRY!
Be sure you’ve read TRANS SPORTS 1: ORIGINS AND “ADVANTAGES” first!
Okay, so republicans would have you believe trans women are “taking over” women’s sports, but we’re barely even competing in sports as it is.
There are 510,000 NCAA athletes in the U.S., as NCAA president Charlie Baker explained to a Senate panel in December, and he’s aware of “less than 10” athletes who identify as transgender. But if you believe many right-wing voices, you’d think it was far more than 0.001961 percent of college athletes.
0.001961 FUCKING PERCENT OF ALL NCAA ATHLETES ARE TRANS. One hundredth of one percent. That’s what we need laws to ban???
It’s sexist patriarchal bullshit. Trans women have competed with women, and if we were dominating in any sport you’d know it already!
Until the recent bans, trans women were allowed to openly compete in the Olympics since 2004. How many of them have medaled?
Z E R O.
In fact, prior to banning trans people from competing with our gender, the Olympics commissioned a study.
A groundbreaking study that was sponsored by the International Olympic Committee …sought to compare a range of athletic abilities between trans athletes and their cisgender counterparts. The finding that trans women athletes are at a relative disadvantage in many key physical areas relating to athletic ability and perform worse on cardiovascular tests than their cisgender counterparts could be the first step in fighting back against the conventional wisdom conservatives have spread that trans women’s participation is inherently unfair.
It showed trans women are at a DISADVANTAGE compared to cis women. Then they ignored the findings and banned us anyway.
This policy targeted trans women, and there is currently no scientific consensus—rooted in systematic, independent research—that justifies the exclusion of trans athletes. It’s just a vibes thing.
And if that’s not enough for you, here’s another study that says the same thing.
Here’s a study of volleyball players that showed trans women performed worse than cis men and about equal with cis women.
Also, it’s important to note that the very idea that trans women have an advantage over cis women is because those who peddle that nonsense see us as men. And that’s important because it means they believe men are better than women by default.
Cis ladies, do you see what that’s saying about you, too?
Also also? That’s bullshit!
In baseball, a cis woman pitcher even struck out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig.
I’m personally not sure that sports should be segregated by gender, but there is value in having sports where people of marginalized genders (cis women and every trans and nonbinary person) can compete away from cis men who often harass us.
But allllllso there’s pretty compelling evidence that women’s sports were created because cis men were losing to cis women and they couldn’t handle how that hurt their feelings.
Women’s figure skating became an Olympic sport because in 1902 a cis woman got the silver medal when competing against cis men!
The very next Olympics women had their own separate event.
In Olympic skeet shooting, which is far less physical than other events, why can’t women and men compete together?
They did.
Until 1992 when a cis woman won the gold medal.
The next Olympics women were not allowed to compete! And in the Olympics after that, they had their own separate event.
You’ve probably seen the images of Kathrine Switzer, who was the first woman to run the Boston marathon in 1962.
The other runners, all cis men, assaulted her, and tried to rip her number off (and thus disqualify her from the event). After the race, women were banned from competing in marathons until they got their own separate event in 1972.
HMMMMMMMMM.
Take all of that in context within the “issue” of trans women competing with women, and where does that take you? It’s the same discriminatory nonsense repackaged for trans women. Everything old is new again.
But let’s see what an elite cis woman athlete has to say about all this. Megan Rapinoe, what are your thoughts?
Here’s the salient bits:
Show me the evidence that trans women are taking everyone’s scholarships, are dominating in every sport, are winning every title. I’m sorry, it’s just not happening.
So we need to start from inclusion, period. And as things arise, I have confidence that we can figure it out. But we can’t start at the opposite. That is cruel. And frankly, it’s just disgusting.
So, we need to really kind of take a step back and get a grip on what we’re really talking about here because people’s lives are at risk. Kids’ lives are at risk with the rates of suicide, the rates of depression and negative mental health and drug abuse.
We’re putting everything through ‘God forbid a trans person be successful in sports.’ Get a grip on reality and take a step back.
Okay so what’s the reason for all this? Well friends you know as well as I do that it’s transphobia, because it literally can’t be anything else! For every reason I’ve already laid out for you.
They’re not making it a secret who’s behind this, and the bigotry is pretty clear. The wildest part is them using the “our bodies, our sports” tagline, when some of the very organizations who sponsor this shit are the ones taking away cis women’s right to bodily autonomy.
If you’re somehow not familiar with the “Family Research Council” or The Heritage Foundation, do some reading, especially as the latter of which is largely responsible for Project 2025 and the state our country is presently in (see TRANS POLITICS for more).
This is like the nazis originating the idea of sex testing in sports. If you find yourself on the same side of an issue as a nazi, you need to reexamine where you stand.
If you are a woman’s group, if you support women’s sports, if you support women’s rights, and you find yourself on the same side of an issue as The Family Research Council and The Heritage Foundation, it’s time to reexamine where you effing stand. They do not support women as anything other than tradwife babymakers, and that really ought to make you question why you agree with them on trans women in sports. That should tell you something important, in fact!
And if you’d like an even clearer picture of where things stand, note that sexual predators were allowed to continue playing sports while trans people were not. Talk about having your priorities backward.
A convicted rapist played in the very Olympics that said trans women are a “threat.” They don’t really care about threats, do they? White cis men can do anything and still play, but we can’t let an innocent trans woman who is likely at a disadvantage compete with her fellow women!
This is just another in a long line of new rules and regulations and legislation trying to eliminate trans people from public life. Can’t play if you transitioned as an adult, state won’t allow you to transition as a kid, then you’re legally barred from public bathrooms and your healthcare.
And if, even fucking if, adult trans women who went through male puberty have an advantage (we don’t!), why would you ban pre-pubescent trans girls from competing with pre-pubescent cis girls?!
AAAAAAGGGGH do you see how transparent this all is? Please tell me you see it.
PLEASE TELL ME YOU SEE IT.
So why do these bigots only focus on trans women? Because trans men disprove their entire “theory” and all their talking points. Trans men on HRT are taking testosterone, which cis men use to cheat, and still do not dominate against cis men! See THE ERASURE OF TRANS MEN for more.
The ENTIRE “issue” of banning trans women from competing with cis women is simply to set a legal precedent that we are, in fact, “not women.” If trans women can’t compete with cis women, the bigots will say, it’s because we’re not “actually” women.
If we’re not actually women in the eyes of sports, I mean, how could we be considered women anywhere else? It’s a wedge issue they made to establish that we’re not really women, and use that to take all the rest of our fucking rights away.
And they’ve been successful because too many people fell for the propaganda.
‘The gender ideology movement is a house of cards,‘ Gaines told the Times this week, using a euphemism frequently deployed by the Trump administration. Gaines added that she believes sports participation ‘will be the card that makes all of it crumble,’ opening the door to convince the general public that trans women are not truly women and gender-affirming medical care for trans youth should be restricted.
And thus this two-part essay, for you who are confused, for you who want to know the truth, for you who want people in your lives who “have doubts” to understand.
We and our doctors know who we are better than you do. And none of us would choose to go through the unending bullshit the world continually throws at us just so we can beat you in a fucking sport.
Recognize this for the hatred it is, and understand that there’s literally nothing more to keeping trans people out of sports than unrepenting, unending bigotry for people who are different and throw the FALSE DICHOTOMY of the entire false cis binary status quo into question.
If you believe in equal rights, you have got to fight for trans people to be treated equally.
Everywhere.
Including in sports.
Anything else is just repackaged bigotry.
Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com
ADDENDUM 1/16/26
As further proof this entire issue is nothing but naked bigotry, Republicans are trying to ban trans girls… from a co-ed cheerleading team, already open to all cis girls and boys.
It was never about fairness. Quite the opposite, actually!
ADDENDUM 2/6/26
Yet another scientific study confirms that trans women possess no physical advantages over cis women.
Conclusion – While transgender women exhibited higher lean mass than cisgender women, their physical fitness was comparable. Current evidence is mostly low certainty and has heterogenous quality but does not support theories of inherent athletic advantages for transgender women over cisgender.