When you play football against girls/young women, Stefanodad, you are doing so 'informally' and probably make every effort not to use your strength in a dangerous way. There is no evidence that biological males playing formally in women's sports control their physical advantage in this way, in fact there have been cases of injuries caused by male players.
I agree with you that there is a bit of a slant in these reports - they were not little girls, they were 17 and 18, and one had 'suspected' autism and the other ADHD and unspecified learning difficulties. That may explain that they asked, in the first place directly to the player 'Are you a man?' and in the second case to the ref 'Is that a man?' , in a very direct way.
As you acknowledge Stefanodad, these are very valid questions, that should have been handled differently and not with those outrageous match bans for the questioners.
The whole mess is because men are allowed play in women's football, and legally there is no way to stop them. The match ref is not in a position to overrule this. Once the ref has confirmed that as far as they are able to/allowed to judge, all 22 players on the field are eligible to play, there's no point in continuing to ask questions about it, no amount of repeating the question will get a different response, and the objecting team have to either play the team in front of them, or refuse to play.
The only solution is to get men out of women's sports, full stop.
A photo reminder of what this can look like - different sport, same issue - the ref queried the eligibility of the player on the right and was assured that yes she is a woman, because she says so, and TWAW, bigots!