At least one international sports organization is poised to ban biological men from facing female competitors, which is welcome news for female athletes and those who value the integrity of women’s sports.
World Rugby’s transgender working group has produced a 38-page draft document detailing its findings on transgender athletes in rugby, finding that female players had a 20-30% increased risk of injury if tackled by a player who has gone through male puberty. Biological men, according to the document, “are stronger by 25%-50%, are 30% more powerful, 40% heavier, and about 15% faster” than their female counterparts.
World Rugby’s current rules allow biological men to play women’s rugby so long as one’s testosterone level is in line with the International Olympic Committee’s guidelines for 12 months. This draft report deems that its current rules are “not fit for the purpose,” detailing that there are “only small reductions in strength and no loss in bone mass or muscle volume or size after testosterone suppression.”
The science has always been there, and this should once again remind us that gender politics is unscientific and doesn’t belong in sports. That’s not enough to stop left-wing politicians and activist groups. The American Civil Liberties Union is suing Idaho over following the science and barring transgender athletes from female competition, and the state of Connecticut is fighting the Department of Education to allow biological men to break every female track record in the state.
While the speed difference in a sport such as track is inherently unfair, the speed and strength differences in contact sports such as rugby put female athletes in physical danger. The most blatant example of this was Fallon Fox, a biological man in women’s mixed martial arts, who broke seven orbital bones of opponent Tamikka Brents, who didn’t even know going into the fight that Fox was a biological man.
It’s embarrassing that it takes a 38-page report to spell this out, but it seems likely that World Rugby wanted to do what it could to stave off the gender politics extremists. For the sake of women’s sports, the IOC should reevaluate its guidelines and bring them in line with the scientific facts of the situation.
