... people here in this community.

To start my argument, I am very critical if not opposed to the unconditional inclusion of transgender people in competional sports.

I have been active in sports while I transitioned. However I never did compete in any sport, because I never actually had the wish to. I did cycling and climbing at that time. Most of my team mates have been very accepting and accomodating and yes, we were watching for any changes. They eventually did occur albeit in the complete opposite to our expection, as I gained strength and stamina instead of actually loosing it.
This as background about me, as some people may actually call me out for not having done any sports.

My personal opinion is, that competitive sports need more regulation. We have weight classes for a reason the same as we have different bodies like the UCI for cyclists ot the FIFA for soccer who regulate for example maximum and minimum weights along with many many other things for safety of the competitors and also to keep results comparable. FINA prohibited the use of certain materials for swimsuits to prevent unwanted advantage of only very few competitors over teams who couldn't get access to those suits.
When we look further there is also the issue of Doping, meaning the use of drugs to enhance the performance of competitors. The use of hormons is exactly that and in my opinion their ban is absolutely correct. If we want to compare the actual humanly possible achievement, we can only allow for people competing under comparable conditions. This means we either allow the use of the same drugs for all, and measure the outcome, or we allow everything, but then we should credit the physician and scientists instead of the competitors.
Now I would like to explain why I believe that transgender athlets should only compete under specific conditions. We do know for fact through research, that physical characteristics such as musle mass and structure, bone structure and so on develop during early childhood and teenage years. Only little change can be observed during hormon replacement therapy. Unfortunately most of the studies have been done on male to female transgender athletes very little actually on female to male athletes yet there too, effects can be seen. https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/55/11/577 is one of the studies which focuses on both genders and compares results, although for female to male transgender athletes the results remain inconclusive. (In my opinion the use fitness baseline test does not test for areas in which females have advantages over their maie counterparts such as endurance)

If we want to keep sports a fair and level playing field in which results remain comparable, we need to make sure that there are no physical advantages for only a number of the competitors. We should only allow people to with comparable similar physical characteristics to compete with each other, potentially even only those with comparable similar mental makeup for example in sports with a significant mental component as for example golf or archery regardless of gender.

This would in the end lead to mixed gender competition of people with similar physical characteristics instead of unfounded hatred and unfair exclusion of people and in my opinion to a fairer sport. It is not about gender but about fairness and the prevention of unfair advantages.

I hope that helps to understand the actual debate about inclusion or exclusion of trans athletes from both side without falling into the trap of anti trans opinions.

Saphira