Study finds no clear advantage for trans women over cisgender women in sports

https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/60/3/198

by startupfreak • 1 month ago

38 20 1 month ago

bjsm.bmj.com

Despite title, this study did not investigate the question of sports advantage, at least not directly. It looked at physical fitness, concluding:

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.

I don't find this study especially interesting or pertinent on the subject of sports advantage, as it only covers a small number of possible Whys, but doesn't touch Whats. It would be more useful for researchers to compare actual sports performance. For obvious reasons, these studies are probably not available for metaanalysis.

cogman10• 1 month ago

Yeah, it's just going to be pretty hard to really do any sort of good study here.

Like, for example, is the individual in question currently on HRT? When did they start HRT? What is their current testosterone levels? And when we dive into a specific sport, how do they actually perform?

The issue is that for any given sport there's like 1 or 2 transgender people participating in it.

angoragoats2• 29 days ago

Like, for example, is the individual in question currently on HRT? When did they start HRT?

If you had read the short abstract of the linked article, you'd know that they addressed at least these points.

icegreentea2• 1 month ago

Didn't find the full study, but what I'm pretty sure is a preprint is here: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.05.05.25326994v...

One thing to note and I guess might be a bit of the puzzle is that the data clearly indicates that trans-gendered men have lower upper and lower body strength compared to cis-men, while the opposite scenario (transwomen compared to cisgender women) appears much less conclusive.

The trans-women vs cis-gender strength effects are heavily influenced by a single study. There are only 7 studies for upper body strength, 5 of which lean towards showing greater trans-women strength, 1 that leans towards reduced, and 1 (Alvares 2025) which clearly indicates reduced strength. Similarly for lower body strength there are only 4 studies with a similar pattern (once again, the Alvares 2025 producing the clearest TW weaker than CW effect).

The Alvares 2025 study compares amateur volleyball players. There are 7 trans women in that study versus 8 cis-gender women. Average hours per week of activity (or volleyball? Unclear, I'm working off the meta-review's summary table) is 4 for TW and 14 for CW. Average age is 30 (28-33) for TW and 26 (22-29) for CW.

I don't think that makes the Alvares study useless, but I do feel that it's deeply limited. 4 hours vs 14 hours a week is a pretty big difference in activity level.

catheter• 1 month ago

Excited to hear some very normal and nuanced opinions on this.

leevilux3• 1 month ago

Given that there are so few trans athletes and assuming there is no advantage over women, it is very surprising that we have seen so many trans gold medalists.

angoragoats2• 30 days ago

Best I can tell there are currently zero trans Olympic gold medalists. Did I misunderstand your post, or if not, what am I missing?

Edit: I did find Canadian soccer player Quinn who is described interchangeably as non-binary and trans, despite those two things not being the same. The Canadian team did win Olympic gold in 2020. So maybe there’s one?

leevilux3• 24 days ago

The 2024 Olympic gold medalists in women's boxing, Imane Khelif (Algeria) and Lin Yu-ting (Taiwan).

pseudohadamard• 30 days ago

There's zero of those AFAIK. However every time a trans athlete sneezes it's a week's worth of ready-made outrage on Fox and similar far-right story peddlers, which is why there's so much awareness around them despite their vanishingly-small presence.

leevilux3• 24 days ago

Lol

mike_prixe• 30 days ago

what about MMA/Boxing?

conartist6• 30 days ago

Perhaps the time is right for a new wave of interest in ultimate frisbee?

I was a bar the other day and there was an actual ultimate frisbee tournament game on TV with a commentator and everything. There they were, men and women playing a team sport side by side on the same field, and there was me watching with a beer! It was good game too with some banger hucks and bids

timnetworks• 30 days ago

A study would presumably also find no clear advantage in a fistfight between a husband and wife? Protecting half the population is countably higher stakes.

sapphicsnail• 30 days ago

The amount of people who wade into this fight without knowing a single thing about HRT baffles me.

rotichi• 29 days ago

Here's a detailed critique of this paper and its many flaws:

https://www.voidifremoved.co.uk/p/beef-trifle

Study finds no clear advantage for trans women over cisgender women in sports

Related Stories