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

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11–20 of 38 posts

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

#11
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.

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

#19
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

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

#20

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.

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?

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