Harvard Professor: Do Trans Athletes Have a Scientific Advantage?

when I was born I came out female in

February of 2017 I got my first shot of

testosterone and that was

probably one of the best days and then

in April I actually got hired to be the

basketball coach at Lansing Community

College and by June I had started to get

a few whiskers and I figured that I

should probably tell the team you know I

wanted to control that narrative the

first time I actually saw myself in the

mirror when I had kind of changed and it

took my breath away because finally what

I was seeing on the outside matched who

I always was I do feel like my authentic

self

but we're discussing the controversial

topic of transgender athletes are laws

that ban them for participating in

women's sports Fair

now lgbtq plus activists call it

discriminatory

but science is showing us another way to

look at this situation I want to

introduce Harvard Professor Carol hooven

who has been researching sex differences

and testosterone in humans

for over 20 years so thank you so much

for being here thank you

you've been listening to everything that

we've been talking about so far I just

want to say seeing that video you saw me

tear up because I'm so happy for you

thank you and the hormone

testosterone is so powerful and you are

the perfect person to describe what it

has done for you emotionally

psychologically and physically and it

changed your body and your mind in ways

that helped you feel more comfortable in

the world which is wonderful that we can

do this for people now

the science in my view is clear that the

Sexes are separated in sports for a

reason

and it's because males have natural and

categorical advantages over females in

terms of strength speed and power and

everyone can see this it's obvious so

the question is then well are these

advantages so significantly diminished

after puberty in trans women who block

testosterone that you remove those

initial male advantages and of course

you don't at least the evidence we have

no evidence to show that that initial

natural male advantage on average in

highly trained athletes is removed so

the ethical issue is well wait a minute

and this gets me a little bit emotional

sorry

uh because there are people who are

suffering

um and you have to think about somebody

like Riley being your child and how

would you feel about her situation and

someone like I have a 13 year old boy

and it's heartbreaking to think that if

he felt like he were trans and and then

he would be a she I think as a mom I

would probably want him to be able to

play on the in the female category so

what do we do

um and that's a conversation that we

really need to have and people who

oppose uh trans women in the female

category need to be able to hear the

argument from the sort of more

compassionate ethical side in my view

just to listen and you're about to think

that's what you're doing of course we

should have this conversation of course

we shouldn't call each other bigots or

unfair or cheaters we're all here I

think trying to do the right thing and

so I'm thrilled that you're having the

conversation do you have a story or a

question for me click the link in the

description and tell me what in the

world is going on