San Francisco Chronicle Says Experts Don't Know If Transgender Athletes Have An Advantage
Transgender athletes may not actually have an advantage when playing sports, according to "experts."
It's unclear if these are the same "experts" who got every single major COVID question completely wrong. But it's equally as absurd and patently ridiculous.
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, we can't possibly know if transgender women have physiological advantages over biological females.
"Experts say a paucity of research on transgender athletes makes it difficult to determine if trans women actually are faster or stronger. The science is even murkier for young athletes," they claimed.
The headline of the article is even more ridiculous.
"Attacks on trans athletes have little basis in science," it reads.
Even for far left media outlets like the San Francisco Chronicle, this might set a new record for reality denial.
As the Twitter community notes feature observed, there is no disagreement that men and women have a significant athletic performance gap.
But that's an inconvenient narrative for the institutional left, and so the Chronicle ran to progressive "experts" to deny it.
And this offensive reframing of reality is exactly why more female athletes are speaking out.
ATLANTA, GA - MARCH 18: University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas and Kentucky swimmer Riley Gaines react after finishing tied for 5th in the 200 Freestyle finals at the NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships on March 18th, 2022 at the McAuley Aquatic Center in Atlanta Georgia. (Photo by Rich von Biberstein/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Research Actually Shows Transgender Athletes Have A Significant Advantage
It's offensive that the Chronicle allowed activism to outweigh reality.
And it's not surprising that they found a group of experts willing to deny obvious biological facts.
But it's even worse that there is, in fact, significant research contradicting their claims.
A study posted in 2020 entitled "Transgender Women in the Female Category of Sport: Perspectives on Testosterone Suppression and Performance Advantage," addressed this exact question.
And they found that there's a significant gap in all sports, ranging higher in different ones.
"We report that the performance gap between males and females becomes significant at puberty and often amounts to 10–50% depending on sport. The performance gap is more pronounced in sporting activities relying on muscle mass and explosive strength, particularly in the upper body."
Well gee, who could have predicted that, except everyone?
There's no doubt whatsoever that transgender athletes enjoy significant biological advantages. Because males have significant biological strength and speed advantages over females.
If women were able to compete in sports at the same physical level as men, there would be women in every major professional sports league on earth.
Women's sports allow athletes to compete against others of similar physical capabilities. But the incursion of transgender athletes has fundamentally changed competitive fairness.
Even suppressing testosterone isn't particularly effective, as the researchers point out.
"Thus, the muscular advantage enjoyed by transgender women is only minimally reduced when testosterone is suppressed. Sports organizations should consider this evidence when reassessing current policies regarding participation of transgender women in the female category of sport," the study reads.
The San Francisco Chronicle is conveniently engaging in convenient reality denial to justify their political beliefs.
And of course, "experts" are happy to join in to lend credibility to absurdist conclusions.