I don't think that it is possible to admit trans women to women's sports events for the reasons you give. That doesn't help trans women, though: perhaps the problem ought to be looked at another way.

'Trans' women who still have penises: definitely not allowed! They still have the testosterone that normal men have so the advantage will always be there.

However, there will be a group of trans women who have had the operation, and having that operation has important consequences. What they have had done to them would be, in various administrations and without their complete agreement, considered to be Grevious Bodily Harm or the local equivalent. It is in effect no different than losing an eye, an arm or a leg.

Now people who have lost body parts through war, accident or misadventure can often lead reasonable lives such that few people notice their disability at all. This is exactly the same situation as trans women living their lives as normal women (or vice versa). Those people also get to compete in sporting events.

The answer could be, therefore, to make 'trans' a category at para games instead of forcing them to compete with able-bodied people who have had no operations. That way, they would be able to compete like against like and there should be many fewer complaints.

Penny

All too often, in this sort of situation, there is an unpleasant suspicion that the accuser is making the accusation for personal benefit (i.e "I would have won XYZ but for that fake woman").

I wonder how many complaints there would be if both accuser and accusee were banned for identical periods? This is not a solution, but a thought experiment that might suggest possible directions to move.

People like to point out numbers here and numbers there that seem -- SEEM -- to back up men being better athletes in X sport or women in Y, but those numbers often ignore other important metrics, like time and funding of programs.

You look at what women are doing in professional leagues, they're outperforming male pros from 20 years ago in a lot of sports despite them having less funding and often far, far younger leagues in general, and when girls and women have been not only allowed but all-out supported in competing with men directly, they've generally proven themselves to be more than adequate challenge for their male contemporaries.

When you're looking at athletes -- male or female -- you're already looking at the top half or less percent of all people period. It's not your average man, woman, boy, girl, or nonbinary person who makes it to professional sports in the first place -- it's always people who have some kind of either innate advantage, or the drive to make it work.

You pick the right woman and give her the same level of training for the same amount of time with the same level of funding as you give the right man in a sport, and that woman will be able to compete with that man. Will their strengths and weaknesses be the same? Of course not... but then again, the same could be said for two men, or two women, or two sexless lumps of meat with no gender identity whatsoever.

If you're going to say that one thing or another is an unfair genetic advantage in some way... then you shouldn't be looking at sex as the deciding factor for sports teams, or at least not the only one. Insist on separating by morphology while you're at it, since endomorph versus ectomorph versus mesimorph makes more difference for most sports. Or height, since a lot of sports will favor taller or shorter athletes, or athletes with longer arms, or better muscle/weight ratios, or any other metric that actually directly correlates to innate athletic advantage.

You wanna use bone density? Measure the density of all athletes and insist that leagues are kept fair across the board. T levels? There are undoubtedly genetic women with higher T levels than a teenage transgirl. Hell, there will be genetic girls with higher T levels than a teenage transBOY more often than not. And what about measuring the T levels of all the male athletes to make sure they're all getting the same dose of vitamin male too?

This is honestly why I hate competitive sports. There are a lot of good things that can be taught via sports, and they can be entertaining, but the moment people decide that the point of them is about winning and not about the teamwork/cooperation/community building, is when you start seeing peoples' attitudes turn toxic.

Boy, girl, nonbinary, whatever... if they wanna play, let them play. If you're more concerned about making sure one person or another will be the winner than you are about whether the athletes themselves are all enjoying the game -- worse yet, if you're teaching or telling the players that what's important is winning rather than giving your all and constantly pushing to improve yourself -- then the problem isn't with the athletes' hormones.

Melanie E.