Oppose Blanket Bans on Transgender Athletes — The Science Doesn't Support Them

Stop supporting blanket bans on transgender women in sports. A major systematic review published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine — pooling data from 52 studies and over 6,000 participants — found no significant differences in upper-body strength, lower-body strength, or cardiovascular capacity between transgender women and cisgender women after hormone therapy. Lead researcher Bruno Gualano of the University of São Paulo put it plainly: "This refutes the logic behind blanket bans on transgender women in sports. The data does not support this idea." The scale of this so-called crisis is worth noting. The NCAA oversees more than 500,000 athletes, and its own president acknowledged fewer than 10 are transgender. One transgender woman has ever competed at the Olympics — she didn't medal and has since retired. These policies are being built around a problem that, by the numbers, barely exists. Sport-specific eligibility rules grounded in actual performance evidence are a reasonable path forward. Categorical exclusion based on fear is not.