Recently there has been a lot of efforts from Republicans and conservative groups to ban transgender girls from sports. The Republicans and conservative groups have put out a lot of bad information that plays off of people’s fears and tried to make their arguments sound reasonable. So I have tried to refute them as well as I can. I am sure that there are many more, and that their arguments will evolve, but hopefully this would give you all some knowledge and power to see the underlying hate that is in their messages.

Transgender girls do not have any advantages over cisgender girls in sports

It is very common for transgender girls face discrimination bullying and harassment for just being themselves. To say that transgender girls have an advantage over cisgender girls based off of their physical characteristics alone is ignoring so many other issues that come hand in hand with being transgender.
Even those physical characteristics do not necessarily give them any advantage either. Transgender girls vary in athletic ability like cisgender girls do. And in many cases transgender women lose all testosterone based strength advantages within the first year of being oh hormones. In fact it is natural for women to have small amounts of testosterone but transgender women often have none. Also often times transgender women would have larger frames due to puberty with testosterone and then lack muscle to support it as well which can is even be a disadvantage in many sports.

Transgender girls will not dominate in sports

Many sports leagues, athletic associations and even the Olympics have had long standing policies of allowing transgender girls to compete right along side their cisgender counterparts. During this time period there has been no transgender girls who have been able to preform at a level that would dominate a sport. In fact at the top levels of sports like the Olympics there has been 0 transgender women to get to go.

Letting transgender girls compete in sports is fair play

Because of training, hard work and some luck occasionally a transgender girl does well and wins in a sport. Those few times when a transgender girl does well is always spotlighted as cheating while the vast majority of the times when they don’t win are always ignored.
But what is the problem if a transgender girl does well in a sport? Are we going to say that transgender girls are only allowed to compete in if they are bad at it and they are never allowed to win?
Some sports leagues are starting to actively create rules against women who do well and they have started to police who gets to be a girl. Women like Caster Semenya who has natural talent (and no doubt trains very hard) will be forced to take body altering medications to be allowed to compete, while boys and mens sports natural talent is not seen as cheating.

Transgender girls are girls

Transgender girls are girls. Period. Republicans and conservative groups like to often switch back and forth attacking transgender girls vs boys who will “pretend” to be transgender. This will never happen. No man will go through all the hormone replacement therapy, change their entire life and risk all the bullying and hate that transgender girls go through just to do well in a sport. Republicans and conservative groups often conflate these two because they do not believe that transgender girls are girls. To them these are the same thing and no matter how many times they say that they are not against transgender girls but for fairness, we can see they truly do not believe that transgender girls are girls.

Not letting transgender girls compete is punishing them for actions of men and boys

Even if it is true that men and boys will try to take advantage of the system, why are we punishing transgender girls for the actions of men? If Republicans and conservative groups are for fairness and not running a campaign against transgender girls, they wouldn’t be actively attacking transgender girls.

These bills are just an evolution of the anti-transgender bathroom bills

All of these arguments are all rooted in the same fake concern for women and girls that the bathroom bills. These are all just more instances of Republicans and conservative groups using concern for women and girls to attack transgender people. There are next to no instances of transgender girls or women doing anything that these people accuse them of doing. There are clearly documented cases in fact of Republican and conservative groups encouraging men to do so just to prove a point because there are no real examples they can use.

Republican and conservative groups are purposely using language that attacks transgender girls

The language that Republican and conservative groups use is purposefully created to hurt transgender girls and to cast doubt on their identities. While GLAAD, The NewYork Times, the Associated Press, Reuters and various experts of LGBTQ people have put together guides of proper language and to use when referring to transgender people. These groups use words like “Biologically Male” to invalidate transgender girls. There are industry standard language such as “Transgender Girls” or “a person who was assigned male at birth”, that can be used without invalidating anyone, but they choose to use this language to sow doubt into people who do not know much about transgender people.

What about transgender boys?

Another victim of these bills are transgender boys. Transgender boys actually have higher levels of testosterone and stronger muscles that goes along with it but they are forced to compete with cisgender girls because of the rush of Republicans and conservative groups to attack transgender girls. Transgender boys want to compete against other boys but they are not allowed to often because of these transphobic policies, and when they do compete against cisgender girls they are called cheaters as well. Republicans and conservative groups do not actually care about women and girls and just want to attack transgender people.

Hypocrisy of Republicans and conservative groups

The Republicans and conservative groups that are behind these attacks against transgender girls are also the same groups that also are trying to prevent transgender kids from being able to live as their genuine selves. They are saying that transgender girls will have unfair advantages in sports but they also are the ones who are blocking their access to life saving treatments that transgender kids need, and then they push these laws to punish transgender kids for the situation that they put them into. Republican and conservative groups only care about attacking transgender people under any guise of concern that they can fake.

What are others saying?

The groups that back transgender girls in girls sports include, almost every major LGBTQ organization and Women’s organizations, most medical professionals, many sports associations and leagues.
The Republicans and conservative groups are backed by groups that have major ties to white supremacists, and other extremist groups.

I hope all of this help people uncover the transphobia that is lurking just below the surface of all the lies these Republicans and conservative groups say. And I hope that people will feel better educated and empowered to help refute these hateful attacks.