That’s not what the science says.

Trans women are, on average, taller, and tall athletes do better, on average, than shorter athletes, but there differences stop there, so long as HRT has had it’s chance to run.

And cis women can be tall too, that’s not a trans advantage, it’s a hight advantage.

But even HRT requirements is the compromise position. It’s an easy compromise to make because the effects are dramatic and bring us slightly below cis averages and nearly all trans women desire to undergo hormone replacement anyway.

Underneath that though, is an argument from principle: are trans women… Women?

If we are women, and we enter women’s competitions, and we win, then where is the problem?

A woman competed, and a woman won. Tall women are not banned from basketball or track despite the obvious physical advantages they have over their shorter competitors. Michael Phelps was not banned from swimming, he was celebrated, despite having physiological advantages over nearly all his competition.

Banning trans women from sports is an implicit threat to our identity. We are not women. We are something else. When a trans woman wins a sporting competition, it is somehow not fair to the… Real women, the cis women.

That is the point is this. Anything else is window dressing.