I am always amazed at people who make a huge scientific case on faulty premises, like all trans women athletes will wait until they are through a full male puberty, gain their full range of athletic skills before transitioning.

Obviously that matters, but a quick look at the 10 and Under world records for both track and swimming show that prepubescent boys are already faster than the prepubescent girls in all events, even though the girls tend to be physically taller and stronger at that age.

Oh, and the implication that only cisgender athletes should be allowed the sporting identity and sense of excellence that sports brings.

Nobody is saying that transwomen can't compete; just that is it unfair if they compete int the women's events.

All your arguments do is make a greater case for early identification of trans kids , and specifically trans girls, so that their bodies can be held at pre-puberty development until such time as they can make an informed decision as to whether their gender non-conformity should proceed with a full medical transition. And therefore develop the body that aligns with their gender identity, and render all arguments against their participation in youth or scholastic sports moot.

See above. You’re make the faulty assumption that all athletic advantages of males are due to hormonal effects during puberty. Not true. A male skeleton is a male skeleton from birth.

Hardly a group who should be seen as such a threat to women’s sports.

The “threat” is not so much to “women’s sports” — although that is indeed a risk at some level — but to individual girls and women who are denied the “next step” — whatever that step may be — — by a T girl or woman. It might be a 15–16 year old local championship race. It might be a chance at a college scholarship. It might be just getting knocked down one step in a tennis tournament bracket and having to face a higher quality opponent than otherwise. Wherever there is a trans competitor, there is going to be a victim of unfair competition. Neither you nor I have the moral authority to tell a girl athlete that what she trained for, and didn’t achieve because of this, isn’t important.

And yes, I am making that argument that excluding a small proportion of a population that you speculate will always be superior to another group is discriminatory since it aims specifically at that small group.

Understood. Your position is "being unfair to 50% of the population is OK as long as we're not discriminatory towards .001% of the population." Got it.

Especially since, when 0your peer reviewed studies do come out, they are very likely to show that the difference between trans women athletes and cis women athletes will be well within the span of differences between cis women athletes.

Possibly, but that's another flawed argument. Athletic capabilities of both sexes fall along a bell shaped curve, and it's quite obvious that those two curves have substantial overlap. Most men of her same age can't beat Alyson Felix in a quarter mile, no matter how hard they train.

That said, the selection of a random 30 year old male and a random 30 year old female, competing in a random track/field event, will have the male winning about 98%-99% of the time. That's the core reason why the male/female divisions exist in the first place, because the performance characteristics of the two sexes are so markedly different from one another.

Oh, but those few trans women athletes can still compete in boys or men’s events, and if they’re concerned about being discriminated against, then they should just present as the males they are, right? Or just suck it up and subject themselves to the ridicule of fans and competitors by being stuck in events that reinforce that society sees them as boys and men.

That's a lot of words to try to justify something which is inherently unfair to women. But in reality, life is full of obstacles, and I’m sure you’d agree with me that transgendered individuals have more than their share than others.

And exactly what does transgender girl and women athletes being allowed to compete as their gender identity dictates have to do with steroid enhanced cheaters? You’re not seriously asserting that estrogen is a performance enhancer, are you?

It’s difficult to grasp how the example given escapes you. In the 60’s through the early 90’s, women athletes were competing against women strengthened, relative to genetic women, by male hormones. Everyone considered this unfair. In the trans scenario, a transwomen has been strengthened, relative to genetic women, by male hormones. Same situation, but for some odd reason, many of the aforementioned “everyone” thinks that’s fair. Weird.

At the end of the day, though, I take solace in the fact that society will move forward against discriminatory legislation crafted on transphobic hysteria, trans kids will develop the bodies they should, and people will look back and wonder what all the fuss was about.

I'll take the other side of the trade. I think in 20 years or so, we'll look back at this entire dustup and say "Good Lord, what the hell were we thinking? And the drivers of a lot of the change in attitude will be transwomen athletes themselves (the lead author of one of the papers cited above is a transwoman distance runner) because from their own experience, they KNOW that HRT alone does not nearly bring their strength/speed advantages to the level of genetic women. The science simply does not support any other conclusion.