When Lia Thomas won the women's 500-yard freestyle at the 2022 NCAA Division 1 swimming championships, the issue of trans women's participation in female sports ignited national headlines.
Ross Tucker, PhD
Medscape interviewed Ross Tucker, PhD, an exercise physiologist from South Africa, who was involved in the World Rugby Transgender Guidelines, which prohibit trans women's participation. (Last year, Medscape interviewed sports physicist Joanna Harper, who supports trans women's inclusion in female sports.)
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Let's start with the pro-inclusion argument that there are always advantages in sports.
That's true. The whole point of sports is to recognize people who have advantages and reward them for it. By the time this argument comes out, people have already accepted that males have advantages, right?
Some do, some don't.
If someone uses this argument to say that we should allow trans women, basically biological males, to compete in women's sports, they've implicitly accepted that there are advantages. Otherwise, what advantage are you talking about?
They would say it's like the advantage Michael Phelps has because of his wingspan.
To answer that, you have to start by asking why women's sports exist.
Women's sports exist because we recognize that male physiology has biological differences that create performance advantages.
