Female Sports Isn't About Female Sports
Many conservatives misunderstand what is at issue with female sports. The fundamental issue is not merely one of degree, but of kind. The refusal to make this distinction implicitly accepts many of the premises of transgender ideology. The problem with 'transgender women' (i.e. men) in female sports is not simply that men have, in general, physical advantages compared to women, but that men and women have distinct and complementary natures.
This kind of physicalist and nominalist view of female sports is the paradigm in which the mainstream debate takes place. This is evident from the decision of the World Athletics Council, the governing body for international track and field, which has decided to bar 'transgender women' (i.e. men) from female competitions. As NPR reports, this decision was made solely on the physical advantages 'transgender women' (i.e. men) have over women:
At the center of the issue is whether transgender women athletes have a physical advantage over other female competitors, even after lowering their testosterone levels. But there is limited scientific research involving elite transgender athletes — which the council also acknowledged.
These physical differences are highly correlated with sex and exist within varying degrees both intrasex and intersex. For example, there exist a woman who is both taller and faster than at least one existing man. This, however, does not change the general truth that men are taller and faster than women. Nevertheless, to argue the point on solely the physical advantages of men is to miss the essential point that male and female are not merely different in degree, but different in kind. Therefore, per impossible, if drugs, technology and surgery were able to completely eliminate any and all physical advantages, men should not compete in womens sports. To argue otherwise is to deny our essential masculine and femine natures. This will be expanded on in a further post.