not to be captain obvious here but they literally just knowingly lied about this for a decade & ruined our lives. there was never any evidence to support trans women having an advantage over cis women it was always just made up to further transmisogyny & sexism.
also notice how the telegraph is really trying to avoid using the word trans women, even referring to a trans women as a women is a crime in the uk.
Researchers analyzed data from almost 3,000 trans women.
Objective To compare body composition and physical fitness between transgender and cisgender individuals. Design Systematic review with met
Objective
To compare body composition and physical fitness between transgender and cisgender individuals.
Design
Systematic review with meta-analysis.
Data sources
PubMed, Web of Science, Embase and SportDiscus.
Eligibility criteria
Inclusion criteria comprised studies of transgender individuals comparing body composition or physical fitness pre-to-post gender-affirming hormone therapy (GAHT) or versus cisgender controls.
Results
52 studies (n=6485) were included. Transgender women had similar relative fat mass (standardised mean difference (SMD) −0.33, 95% CI −0.72 to 0.05, Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE): very low), relative lean mass (SMD 0.19, 95% CI −0.14 to 0.53, GRADE: low), upper-body strength (SMD 0.54, 95% CI −0.95 to 2.02, GRADE: very low), lower-body strength (SMD 0.05, 95% CI −1.31 to 1.40, GRADE: very low) and maximal oxygen consumption (SMD −0.28, 95% CI −0.81 to 0.25, GRADE: very low) in comparison to cisgender women. Transgender men exhibited higher relative fat mass (SMD 0.96, 95% CI 0.28 to 1.64, GRADE: moderate), lower relative lean mass (SMD −6.42, 95% CI −12.26 to −0.58, GRADE: moderate) and lower upper-body strength (SMD −1.46, 95% CI −2.52 to −0.40, GRADE: moderate) than cisgender men. In transgender women, GAHT was associated with increased fat mass and reduced lean mass and upper-body strength over 1–3 years. Transgender men demonstrated reduced fat mass and increased lean mass and strength following GAHT.
Conclusion
While transgender women exhibited higher lean mass than cisgender women, their physical fitness was comparable. Current evidence is mostly low certainty and has heterogenous quality but does not support theories of inherent athletic advantages for transgender women over cisgender.
I think we should add this little addendum from the study:
"In fact, when height-normalised, transgender women and cisgender women appear to show comparable appendicular lean mass/height² or lean mass/height²."
Basically the difference in absolute lean mass (the study makes it clear that relative lean mass between cis and trans women is essentially the same) comes from trans women on average being taller than cis women.
From this study, showing that cis and trans women are pretty much entirely comparable. Yet according to this trans men are "somewhat in between" in terms of strength and body composition, makes me wonder if on a structural level transmascs aren't given enough testosterone to have actual similar levels to cis men. We see this with estradiol in transfems, so I don't think it's out of the question, especially given how testosterone is generally viewed in the public eye.
Of course it's nothing but a hunch, but probably worth looking into really
also
This is like the third or fourth time a big landmark study has been published that pretty definitively proves that trans women don't have physical advantages over cis women. Not even the first to go through and fact check other studies and confidently concluded that pretty much all of them hyper focused on specifics, like absolute lean mass here, without pointing out how height or hand size for an example accounts for it (and also is present in cis women, it's all based on averages after all)
Or straight up conducted studies without having the trans women be on estradiol or testosterone suppressants and just didn't disclose that.
Every single study showing trans women having advantages was like that. As OP said.
All of the bans and discourse has been based on lies and deceit from the very start.
Sadly this probably won't change anything, because governments and agencies do not care for facts, they care about excluding.
But at least if you come across people either willfully or ignorantly perpetuating lies, you can show them this to get them on the right track, or to shut them the fuck up
