During a grassroots women’s five-a-side football tournament recently, I was slammed into a metal wall by an opposing player. The same player later readily admitted that their team had been extra rough against our side, an all-trans squad, because she believed trans women were “stronger”. It was me who was in pain for the rest of the day, so I’d beg to differ.
The player approached us after the game, while we waited for our next match to begin. “I don’t know about trans,” she said, and proceeded to ask us a bunch of questions about whether we were allowed to play. One of our players explained the (invasive) FA rules which require trans women to submit their testosterone levels, which have to be below a certain point for us to be allowed to play at higher levels. She also explained that any advantage she had once had prior to taking gender-affirming hormones for several years has now been lost.
Anyone with an understanding of endocrinology (the branch of medicine relating to hormones) will know that people have diverse levels of different hormones. Sometimes a cis woman will have a higher testosterone level than a trans woman – but it’s only in rare cases (typically involving misogynoir) that cis women are expected to undergo invasive hormone checks such as these.
