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Comment by austincheney | Hacker News Reader

My daughter was the fast kid from her school this year at 800m running at 2:27. The fast male from her school ran it at 1:57. That is an enormous difference. Female athletes cannot fairly compete against biological males in sprints.

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Now give that male puberty blockers for several years and test testosterone levels before allowing them to compete and see the times they get.

Why artificially damage a promising athlete? This doesn’t make any sense to me.

How many trans people realize early enough in life (and have the parental support) to actually use puberty blockers?

There are a lot of parents out there making that choice for their young children right now so we should have more data in the next 5-10yrs.

You do realise it's not just the hormones at the point of competition that affect your performance? Males have a totally different skeletal structure to females. Especially around the hips. The difference in bone configuration gives male runners a massive advantage.

It's probably worth mentioning that this extends to the arms as well, whereby female arms are more "twisted" meaning they do not straighten as much as males'. This affects throwing, swinging, punching, etc. You know, the types of things you do in sports :)

I believe this is an evolutionary trait to aid in carrying babies...but please someone correct me on this if this is wrong (much like the hips have evolved for child-birth)

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