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comment by coffeesp00ns
coffeesp00ns  ·  2584 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: 17-Year-Old Transgender Boy Wins Texas Girls' Wrestling Championship

    The set of a mans hips and a womans hips is different

It's also irrelevant from a competitive standpoint - muscle mass and weight have much more impact on competition, as bone structure differs even from person to person inside of an assigned gender. Bone density would be a big deal, but I already covered that it changes with HRT and is therefore irrelevant.

    FtM athletes do not compete against men in combat sports for a reason.

Actually, they do. In fact, it's their only category in IOC standards. This is also how the NCAA deals with trans athletes. Here is the NCAA's handbook for dealing with trans athletes. Considering NCAA also covers things like Wrestling teams (which I would think counts as a combat sport), it's reasonable to assume that they have trans men competing against cis men.

This doesn't even mention people who haven't had their phenotype tested and don't know that they are not biologically XY, but are one of any number of phenotypes outside of the XX/XY grade 5 understanding of genetics.

ALSO, i'm just going to comment on the fact that the way you phrased your question implies that trans men aren't men, which they are. Don't be an asshole.

As to why you may never have heard of a trans male athlete in sport competing against a man? Well, first of all it depends on how you define competition - there's Aydian Dowling in Bodybuilding, but I admit it's not really a "combat sport", and neither is Triathalon, which is where Chris Mosier.

However, trying to find trans athletes is difficult. They have a right to privacy, and also have a right to live in what the community calls "stealth" - basically, just living your live as your chosen gender and not being an advocate or being open about being trans. Living a life "out", means a life of stigma for a transgender athlete. Every win you have is questioned, every second gained an assertion of an advantage other people claim exist.

One thing I noticed in my research is that many trans men who compete in sport avoid transitioning until after their career is over because of that same stigma. They don't want to have to report to an anti-doping center every month to get blood tests taken to confirm that they're still within "normal" male T-levels, even though many male athletes have T naturally above that cap.

Alternatively, some of them just may not be very good - or good, but not good enough to win championships, just like 99% of all people who compete in sport.

So like, maybe don't step into this when you don't know the details, ok OB? I like you and I don't like writing these kinds of responses.