By Rylen M.
Does 124 pounds of weight sound like a big difference to you? Well, that's the difference between the strongest female deadlift vs the 100th strongest men's deadlift! It's not fair for a transgender female to compete in powerlifting for the sex they have transferred to. Transgender people shouldn’t be able to compete since they have the upper hand when it comes to strength and endurance. Would you like it if you worked your way up to competitive sports just to lose to someone who is born stronger? Imagine you're an Olympic weightlifter and yet you still get crushed by someone who has more raw strength than you even if they didn't work as hard.
An example of a former
male competing in female powerlifting is Mary Gregory.
She signed up for a
local weightlifting competition and registered as female because that's what
she identified as. She made a post on social media saying how she went nine for
nine in the competition, winning all the events. Later she was stripped of her
medals because she joined the female tournament when she was biologically a
male, which goes against the rules that were pointed out by Paul Bossi, who is
the 100% Raw Powerlifting Federation President. Mary never said to the
officials that she was biologically a male.
There is a big difference
in male and female sports, not just powerlifting. Males are born stronger, and
there are many studies conducted that showed males outperform females in sports
that require strength and endurance. A study conducted by a scholar from
Princeton had men and women do three competitions of strength: deadlift, squat,
and bench press. Women could only lift around 60-80% of what men could. The
average strength of women is only 67% of their male counterparts.
An example of another
sport is swimming. Lia Thomas is a transgender swimmer who went from 554th in
mens’ swimming to first in womens’ swiming. She crushed other biological female
swimmers. She beat her teammate by 38 seconds in a 1,650 yd race, setting a
record for the 500 yd with a time of 4.34.06 compared to the old time of
4.51.79. That’s 17 seconds shaved off
the old record; she swam a 200 yd race and beat second place by seven seconds.
And the biggest thing she did was beat the old record for the 1,650 yd with a
time of 15.59.71 compared to the old time of 16.37.44.
It's just not fair to
have trans people compete in a competition against the opposite sex. The
fairest option is to create their own division so they are against people with
the same birth sex as them. Some say that's segregation, but it's fairer to
their fellow competitors who are at a disadvantage. We need to stop making
these unjust rules with emotion and transition to the facts at hand.
This is a great story Rylen! I could really understand how you felt that it’s unfair when transgender athletes compete in the sex they transferred to. I agree with you. It’s totally unfair! The line, “Women could only lift around 60-80% of what men could. The average strength of women is only 67% of their male counterparts,” helped me understand how I would feel if someone who is transgender had a better ability that they were born with and used it to win. It is unfair to other competitors!
ReplyDeleteRylen’s problem is that trans people are in sports. Like if a biological man identified as a woman and got into a sports competition. That would be unfair because men are stronger than women. I completely agree with Rylen when he says “The fairest option is to create their own division so they are against people with the same birth sex as them.” because then it would be fair to the other people if are biological men but identify as a woman, and fair to them if they are a woman but identify as a man.
ReplyDeleteI understand your opinion on the fact that people can’t just change their gender and make it unfair. And I do agree with your opinion because it gives that player an unfair advantage. While the other players don’t have that same advantage that they were born with. Like it says here,”Males are born stronger, and there are many studies conducted that showed males outperform females in sports that require strength and endurance”. Like it also says here,”Later she was stripped of her medals because she joined the female tournament when she was biologically a male, which goes against the rules that were pointed out by Paul Bossi, who is the 100% Raw Powerlifting Federation President”. That’s just taking all their hard earned gold medals away from them.
ReplyDeleteI agree that transgender athletes automatically have advantages against their counterparts. A biological male could destroy competition when playing against biological women. While some might say they are the opposite gender when the switch, they’re still biologically the same. It will be unjust for them to go against the opposite gender. A point I liked that you made is about Lia Thomas, who went from 554th in men’s swimming, to first in women’s. I couldn’t imagine being overtaken by someone who already had the advantage over you. For solutions, you could make their own class, but maybe a better option should be to just keep them where they are.
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ReplyDeleteIn this editorial the author talks about the unfairness of transgender athletes competing in a competition of the opposite sex they were born in. I do agree with the author's opinion for the most part. It can be very unfair in some sports to have an added biological boost compared to you opponents who do not. “A study conducted by a scholar from Princeton had men and women do three competitions of strength: deadlift, squat, and bench press. Women could only lift around 60-80% of what men could. The average strength of women is only 67% of their male counterparts.” While I do think that being transgender is alright I don't think that it is ok in some sports where they could have a unfair boost compared to there fellow competitors.
I agree with your opinion on transgender competers. I think it’s unfair to have people who are biologically stronger compete with people wo are weaker than they are biologically. Of course there is some difference between competitors strengths, but when one of them is the opposite gender the difference is much greater as Lia Thomas’s success shows. Lia excelled in her sport because she wasn’t the same as all of the other competitors which is why “she” won all 9 events, without much struggle.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with your statement rylen. I have an example of men being stronger than men. My cousin who's a year younger than me and my mom used to be stronger than me, but slowly over time without working out I became stronger than them. And my mom has been working out for about 4 years now and I'm still stronger than her, naturally and almost by a long shot. also a lot of the time dads tend to be way stronger than their wife.
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