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It was “God’s will”: Cash Prize Awarded to Anti-Trans Fencer For Forfeiting
(www.erininthemorning.com)
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Trans women usually can't compete until having transitioned for a number of years, usually requiring hormone therapy for at least a year, and sometimes even requiring genital surgery before they can compete. They may or may not have any muscular advantage over cis women at that point, the theoretical advantages and disadvantages are due mostly to the skeletal system having been influenced by male puberty, resulting in longer and larger bones (which creates advantages in some competitions and disadvantages in others). However, there is significant variance in cis populations and more overlap between cis women and cis men in terms of height, limb length, hormone levels, etc. than most people realize, and there is no reason to think trans women have any kind of extreme or special advantage over the natural variation seen in cis women.
The idea that men have better hand-eye coordination and this gives trans women an advantage in fencing mistakes trans women for being men. The fact is that trans women are women not just for social reasons, trans women's brains are actually different than cis men's brains. Studies have found with respect to cognitive tasks like spatial reasoning relevant to hand-eye coordination, trans women are closer to cis women than cis men even before taking estrogen:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6235900/
We also know estrogen increases the extent to which the brain "feminizes", so trans women athletes who are required to be on estrogen especially have no cognitive advantage with regards to hand-eye coordination relative to cis women:
EDIT: the USA Fencing policy requires a minimum of 12 years of testosterone suppression and proof of compliant hormone therapy for trans women participating in domestic competitions.