I am a firm believer when it comes to equality, but in our quest for quality have we crossed the line? Recent protests have begun popping up on every social media saying that transgender women should not be allowed to compete in Women’s sports. The hashtag #IStandWithSelina began to circulate because she is a female athlete who now must compete against biological males because of Connecticut’s law requiring that males who identify as females be admitted into female sports competitions of any level.  

When a biological male competes in a female sport, they win because males have a natural advantage over females, and it has been scientifically proven. The I.A.A.F (International Association of Athletics Federations) shows that in every track competition, the male has a faster time than the female. An example being the 400-meter dash: the male record-holder is Wayde VAN NIEKERK at 43.03 seconds and the female record holder is Marie-Jose PEREC at 48.25 seconds. 

Males have a lot more testosterone than females do. Most females, including elite female athletes, have between 0.12 to 1.79 nanomoles per liter. This is compared to the normal male range of testosterone being between 7.7 to 29.4 nanomoles per liter. This is a tremendous difference that can highly affect the end results of athletes competing.  

When I asked Emma Wood, a sophomore athlete, if it seems fair to have transgender women compete in woman sports she responded saying that, “No, it is not fair because it is scientifically proven that men are built stronger than women. It just is not fair to these woman athletes, like I would not want to have to compete against a biological man knowing that I will more than likely not have a chance.” 

So, in trying to have equality are we coming to inequality? The protests are not out of spite that biological males that now identify as females should not be in their sport because of their past gender, but because it is scientifically unfair to the biologically born female. Each gender works hard to get where they are, but when biologically born males begin to beat biologically born females, it sparks another tricky and sticky question.