OP, this is for your benefit in case you are wondering why you feel so gaslit. Your friend is not going to listen, but it might help you in sorting out your thoughts if you have not come across the explanation before. If you have come across it, then apologies.
This is why the 'But they didn't win', 'they have been beaten', 'what does it matter,' type arguments really show a complete lack of understanding about competitive advantage.
The male athletes losing are losing because they when you considered their physical advantages, if they were elite level male athletes at the same level of peak performance as the female people that they were losing against, they would not have lost. They are not at any where near the level of exceptionality of the female athletes they are competing against.
In many instances, there performance rates as mediocre when compared to male athlete peak performance.
To be very clear, if the male athletes losing to those exceptional female athletes were as good and as fit and performing at their full potential as those elite athletes, they would have won.
In fact, several male athletes are competing in female events and setting records that female people may never break. Those male athletes are in almost comparable performance level as the exceptional female athletes, but their physical advantage is coming into play, so to speak.
Consider the physical advantage to constitute x% performance advantage over all. To achieve the same level of exceptionality of the female athletes, their performance will = peak female athlete performance + x%. Hence setting records that may not be broken.
If the female athletes are beating the male athletes and those athletes have male pubertal advantage, then they simply are not as good as the female athlete. In fact, if those male athletes with x% pubertal advantage tied with the exceptional female athlete, then by comparison, the female athlete is better.
So this point too is irrelevant for competition. But. Not for safety.
What you are supporting is, in effect, very dangerous for female athletes due to male people have on average 160+% more punch power than female people (that is not athletes, that is just the general population) and many other advantages. In fact, part of the punch power is derived from skeletal leverage that males have to give this power that female people do not have. And bone mass and density that is greater in male people than female people.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33289906/
This above is the review of 13 studies from Dr Emma Hilton and Tommy Lundberg and it shows these advantages, if anyone wishes to check for themselves.
This also shows that lowering testosterone simply does not remove the advantage gained by any degree of male puberty .
And this is an explanation of meaningful sports competition from philosopher Jon Pike who has a sports speciality.
Meaningful competition by Jon Pike
And referred to in this tweet:
”The argument that Khelif's advantage does not matter because it is 'small' and 'like Michael Phelps's advantages' is false.”
“I mean, 'false' as in 'refuted', 'demonstrated to be wrong’.”
”Here you go - see particularly pp. 8-15:”
https://x.com/runthinkwrite/status/1819323178973331569
Why ‘Meaningful Competition’ is not fair competition
6th Feb 2023
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00948705.2023.2167720
ABSTRACT
In this paper I discuss a new conception that has arrived relatively recently on the scene, in the context of the debate over the inclusion of transwomen (hereafter TW) in female sport. That conception is ‘Meaningful Competition’ (hereafter MC) – a term used by some of those who advocate for the inclusion of TW in female sport if and only if they reduce their testosterone levels. I will argue that MC is not fair. I understand MC as a substitute concept, as an attempt to substitute for the perfectly serviceable concept of fair competition. It is an attempt at conceptual engineering that should be resisted. This is important because some International Federations have accepted MC as good coin, and the underlying theory of MC, which I explicate for the first time, underpins the stance taken by the IOC (International Olympic Committee) in its Framework Document. To establish that the inclusion of TW in female sport meets the criteria of MC in the sense I explicate here, does not show that the inclusion of TW in female sport is fair. Such inclusion is not fair, and the proper currency of sport is fair competition. ‘Meaningful Competition’, on the other hand, is a snare and a delusion.
Getting back to that bone density. To be clear. This bone difference means stronger bones!
Female people have been proven to have bones that are more prone to breakage, particularly in the face. And they are more prone to concussion and brain damage due to their more delicate brain fibres. This has been studied and is now shaping Rugby guidelines for female participation, as an example.
Rugby concussion: Swansea University study into protecting women https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-51434749
To those who use the 'but they didn't win' what do you believe will happen to a female with those more delicate bones and brain fibres when hit with punches that are 160+% harder than other female boxers?