Study arguing transwomen are unlikely to have an advantage against biological women in sport : how to debunk?

[Carla786]

I was debating this online and someone cited this recent study. The whole thing looks dubious to me but I'd appreciate some help analysing.

https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/60/3/198

I think that there is a previous thread on this- not long ago- where you will find help

Well, I'd check into the authors' credentials and check the funding of the study.

However, since gender is a made-up societal construct, there's really nothing to debunk.

There is no such thing as gender because it doesn't exist.

Sex on the other hand...

Looks like all the authors hold PhDs in physiology - the study of how the body works which appears legitimate. And they all work for the University of Sao Paulo.

The study received funding from the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) and the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP).

The 2026 meta-analysis concludes that gender-affirming hormone therapy (GAHT) significantly shifts body composition toward the identified gender but maintains specific physiological differences rooted in biological sex.

There's a detailed dissection of the issues with this study in this podcast by two sports scientists:

https://shows.acast.com/realscienceofsport/episodes/no-advantage-in-trans-women-khelif-confirms-advantage-unfair

Snap!!

I was just about to post this too!

Here OP

Fond of Beetles might help too

https://x.com/fondofbeetles/status/2018976777176039808?s=46

What an insane bunch of cherry-picked metrics, cobbled together to try and argue that trans-identifying males should be in female sport.

There are little-to-no controls for physical fitness in the individual studies.

Yet they conclude: “transgender women do not exhibit significant differences in upper-body strength, lower-body strength or maximal oxygen consumption relative to cisgender women after 1–3 years of GAHT.”

You haven’t controlled for fitness!!!

Their "performance" data. Can you see one study that really sticks out as an outlier? (This has pics of charts)

Alvares 2025, a study of 7 self-selected, trans-identifying males, who were 5cm shorter than the female comparators. Which is weird. The authors note this.

Also, they played lower level volleyball for about 30% of the hours put in by the female cohort. The authors consider that training volume and competitive level is, indeed, a confounder.

It's interesting when assessing lower body strength, this recent paper uses only jump heights and seems to ignore explosive power measurements.

That is, while acknowledging low-to-no control for fitness, they use a "fitness"" output instead of raw data like muscular power.

Why might unfit people not jump very well? Hmmm.

A spectacular pair of sentences.

Manipulating stats by adjusting for a sex difference is dishonest.
The bit about "not accompanied by increased functionality" is just riffing. They haven't provided evidence that functionality is impaired because they haven't compared like-for-like in terms of fitness. (This tweet had pics)

I dispute "absence". Especially when you've ignored metrics like power (peak and relative).

They apparently ignore the second paper (Chiccarelli 2023) on an expanded USAF cohort, that showed advantages in push ups and sit-ups remain after two years.
Perhaps this tells us something about the cohort/type of data? Hmmm.

My friends, there is power data out there. Including in some of the papers you use

Response from Alun Williams:

www.sciencemediacentre.org/expert-reaction-to-study-looking-at-physical-fitness-of-transgender-and-cisgender-women/

Dr Hilton did another tweet thread on the paper

https://x.com/fondofbeetles/status/2019841850786632170?s=46

thread reader version

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/2018976777176039808.html

The other mn thread

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5486220-new-bmj-article-on-trans-athletes?reply=150329703

Nobody thinks that hormone treatment and/or surgery turns a male body into a female one. There are still too many differences eg q-angle, fertility cycles and menstruation, ability to see a wider range of colours and hear higher pitched sounds, differing physiological responses to stimuli ….. and sport always seems to favour those characteristics where males are advantaged

Thank you, I will listen!

Thank you!

I kind of hope all women leave sports at some point, so that there are only dudes on hormones (the term "transwoman" will be classified as gross hate-speech one day) are left. Let them fight amongst themselves. Let them fracture each others skulls.

The "identified gender" is the targeted gender.

I'd just point out that the fact that males have a wide range of physical advantages across sports is uncontested. What's being argued is that an under-specified set elective medical protocols, post-puberty, can erase those advantages. To prove that would require a vast quantity of evidence, from different sports, various age ranges, competition level with a very considerable longitudinal element. Those studies would need to a) agreed to what protocols are used and how adherence to them could be ascertained, and 2) consider factors such as bone density, stature, and mechanical arrangement and proposed a plausible theory about how the administration of those treatments could counteract those effects, most of which linger even after hormone therapy.

That is a high level of proof, which is probably not even, in theory, plausible, and certainly the above study doesn't even come close to addressing.

Thank you. I agree completely.

Dubious is putting it far too politely.
Jon Pike and Emma (FondOfBeetles) Hilton are both excellent on this subject.

i cannot get hold of the full article but from the abstract I think the authors are being set up a little.

I have some basic knowledge of sports and exercise science and the following would need to be addressed before I will begin to entertain the idea that TW have no advantage over females

1. The strength testing will fall within the well documented equivalent range for females of age and height. An easy test is grip strength, as a predictor for overall upper body strength
2. Functional testing.. and easy one is distance of throwing a tennis ball/or jumping from a static spot.
3. Cardiovascular fitness should start with V02 and be compared to already measured norms.
4. I want to hear about the advantages in sport regarding the lack of the Q angle and the Carrying angle. It’s never addressed. Also bone health because I suspect that the TW will be at risk when playing sport by having stronger muscles than females but less strong bones.

Note all of these should be tested in isolation away from females and discussion should be in the literature about how the TW don’t know the norms (which is why the grip strength test is so consistent because they can’t see the measure)

Finally, I don’t care about fat distribution it has much less to do with athletic ability so it’s suspicious they report on it.

All these studies rely on the trans participants trying their hardest, which they probably won't be doing if that would mean they don't achieve their wider aims. Crikey, some don't even in competition so the bleeding obvious is not so!

The author may have personal bias..

Is that the study where they measured elite female athletes against self selected transgender men who's experience of sport was being able to recognise a tennis racket 2 times out of 3?

(paraphrasing slightly...)

Aha...!

Thank you, that's very informative.