But they don't compete on an equal basis. The assumption is that biological women lack the hormones to produce the kind of power and endurance that biological men can produce with their hormone levels. The fact of the matter is, women are not tested for their hormone levels to see if they're truly competing on a "level" playing field. A genetically female athlete could naturally produce more hormones that make her naturally more competitive than other females. With a transgender female athlete, they are often on hormone regimens that severely limit their genetically male hormones to such a degree that it is far lower than some cisgender female athletes who produce greater levels of the hormones that transgender athletes are having inhibited.
Trying to reduce the argument to strictly a question of testosterone levels (as McKinnon herself does) is simply ridiculous because it ignores the effect of male hormones and growth hormones during the developmental years. The average male grows to a size that only a small percentage of women reach.
Even women like Serena Willians and Maria Sharapova, who are absolute units compared to the typical woman, are barely average size by male standards. Willians is like 5'10 and 180, so she's somewhere around average size for a man. At 6'2 Sharapova is taller than the average man, but she's also only about 150-160 pounds.
And that's just size... then there's bone structure-- bigger, thicker, denser bones, broad chest, broad shoulders... the picture I posted earlier of McKinnon and her competitors illustrates the point.
Body composition-- men have lower body fat percentage. A body fat percentage that's considered very fit for a woman is still average or unhealthy for a man. Even at the same weight women carry far less muscle. This is one point I am willing to concede McKinnon: having her testosterone level cut back to typical female levels might prevent her from maintaining the same amount of lean skeletal muscle that a male athlete carries, but I also doubt her body fat percentage is any higher than a woman who has had typical female hormone levels since the onset of puberty.
Even an average male who transitions to female as an adult has already got a genetic advantage that's available to only a tiny percentage of women. And an above average male would have a physical advantage that would exceed almost all women.
What do you think of a 5'4" guy competing in men's hockey? Fair?
So this is a good point.
Life isn't fair. If you're a 5'4 guy, you can play hockey. You might even be good at it. You might have a great time in your rec league. And if you're really extraordinary, you might even make the pros. (Wasn't Theoren Fleury 5'4 of something like that?) But most likely, your size is going to be too much of a hurdle to overcome in reaching the highest reaches of the sport. Life isn't fair.
I had notions of being a competitive runner-- maybe getting a college scholarship, traveling the world, all that stuff. I was exceptional, especially at distance running. But as I got closer to adulthood I began to lose ground against the top girls who were just built better for running. I was heavier and shorter than them. As hard as I trained, I couldn't make my legs 2" longer. Genetics began to come into play. Having asthma didn't help either. As much as I wanted it, and as hard as I worked at it, it just wasn't going to happen for me. Life's not fair.
And I think maybe Rachel McKinnon and people like her should also accept that life's not fair. If it's a question of excluding some number of trans women or turning the whole of womens' athletics into a joke, I think you have to choose the greater good.
You guys have seen Jessie Graf absolutely crush guys' times in American Ninja Warrior, right? You're trying to boil this down to biological sex, when I'm saying that it's more complicated than that because it's about the benefits that biological sex offers. Size, strength, endurance, can all show more variability within the sexes than between. We're not talking about the factors that affect the disparities in ability, but instead you're focusing solely on the sex someone is assigned at birth.
But by all means, continue freaking out about dudes playing sports with women because it's "unnatural," as if women are fragile little dolls who can't possibly have strength, size, and endurance that exceeds that of many men.
Exceeds that of many men... but not many men who are athletes.
I don't follow the "Ninja Warrior" stuff, but I gather the remarkable thing about Jessie Graff is not that her times are top times (they aren't) but simply that she's been able to finish courses that no other women have completed. Her athletic ability is remarkable by comparison to other women, but not in comparison with the male competitors in her sport.
(Also, I saw a clip of her doing a standing backflip while wearing an evening gown and high heels at a red carpet event. That's pretty remarkable too. Also, she's somewhat attractive.)
(she seems nice.)
-k