Should transgender women with male chromosomes be allowed to compete in female athletic contests? Based on the experiences of the highest-level athletes, based on science, and as an athlete myself, I do not think transgender women should be allowed to compete against females at the collegiate or Olympic level. As seen through the stories of numerous individuals, female athletes’ collegiate careers have been altered as a result of competing against transgender athletes who hold unfair advantages that females simply cannot beat.

At the University of Kentucky, former collegiate athlete Riley Gaines [no relation to the author of this article] dedicated her life to swimming, quickly becoming one of the top women's swimmers at the collegiate level. Dedication is what’s required to be the best, and Riley did just that.

Waking up at 4:30 a.m. to go to the pool and returning again after school, Gaines worked hard day in and day out to reach the higher level where she holds records, qualified for the Olympic trials in 2021, was named the 2022 Southeastern Conference Female Scholar-Athlete of the year, and became a 12-time All American. These achievements are not easy to obtain, so it is important to recognize how competing against a transgender athlete impacted her career.

Lia Thomas is the transgender athlete who competed against and tied with Gaines in the NCAA championship for women’s swimming. Formerly a part of the men’s swim team at the University of Pennsylvania, “Lia swam three lackluster seasons,” ranking 554th. When she switched to the women’s team, she shattered records and became one of the top-ranked swimmers in women's competitions.

In the 500-yard freestyle race at the Ivy League Championship, she recorded the fastest time at Harvard University’s pool at 4:37.32. In the 200 freestyle, Thomas crushed a Harvard swimmer over the last 100, highlighted by a 25.04 split for the last 50 yards. The closing split of Thomas was faster than the finishing laps of Missy Franklin in her American-record performance, and the best closing effort of the likes of Katie Ledecky, Mallory Comerford, and Siobhan Haughey, among others.

During the NCAA Championships, Gaines and Thomas went head-to-head in the 200-meter freestyle, where they tied for fifth place. However, when it came time for the medal ceremony, the meet officials gave Thomas the trophy and asked Gaines to pose for the sixth-place award.

This is not the only incident where a transgender athlete was given a title or medal over a cisgender athlete. Rachel McKinnon, now known as Veronica Ivy, became the first transgender world track cycling champion after beating Carolien Van Herrikhuyzen in the gold medal round at the UCI Women’s masters Track World Championship. And in a highly publicized case involving high school athletes, Selina Soule, Alanna Smith, and Chelsea Mitchel lost after competing against transgender runners Terry Miller and Andraya Yearwood during a track and field competition.

These experiences, alongside Gaines’s own, have led her to fight for women's sports. Not only has women’s hard work been unaccounted for against these opponents, their rights have also been impacted.

With this being said, it is not Thomas’s fault for winning; it is the NCAA’s rules that allowed it to happen.

The UK’s highest court ruled that, for the purpose of anti-discrimination laws, a woman is defined as a biological female, excluding transgender women from female sports teams, among other female spaces. As a result, trans-rights groups condemned it, stating that it would have a broad and detrimental impact on their lives.

While this ruling does impact trans athletes’ lives, think about how their participation in female athletics is detrimental to the athletes who have to compete against them. Biologically, studies have proven that males have an advantage in strength and performance, not because they work harder than women, but because of the way they are born and develop as biological males.

Generally, biological males have greater muscle mass than biological females. Biological males typically have higher levels of testosterone that promote muscle growth and development, making women’s muscular volume much lower, and biological males also have denser bones—all things that make for a stronger performance versus women in many athletic contests. These muscular and skeletal advantages can be partially retained for at least some transgender women, even when hormone treatments lower testosterone to a level allowed for female athletic participation. This isn’t an opinion; this is a scientifically proven fact. With this knowledge, it is hard to understand how some think it’s fair for transgender women to participate in female athletics; however, many people—including former President Joe Biden—have supported it.

President Biden redefined civil rights laws to reform Title IX, ensuring that transgender female athletes can compete in women’s athletics and use female bathrooms and locker rooms. While for many this is seen as “progressive,” is it truly a step in the right direction when biological women are losing events that were created for women?

For some athletes who faced the results of President Biden’s decision, their athletic careers were changed forever. During a visit to the Olympic village, the Italian Prime Minister told reporters, “We have to pay attention, in an attempt to not discriminate, that we’re actually discriminating” against women. President Biden made sure to support the transgender students and protect them from discrimination, without regard to protecting biological females.

Now, with President Trump in office, Title IX protections have been reversed in the hopes of protecting biological females and keeping the legacy of some of the best female athletes in the world.

I want to make one thing clear: I am not anti-trans. Rather, as Riley Gaines says, I am “pro women, pro reality, pro truth, and pro fairness.” As an athlete myself who strives to be the best I can be, I know the hard work and dedication it takes to reach the highest level. People have stood up for women’s rights in all aspects, but in this case, choose to criticize the female athletes who have stood up for themselves in college athletics and at the Olympic level. When one has worked their entire lives for a sport, losing to someone so far out of their level is not only defeating, but heartbreaking.

Finding a solution to make athletics available for all genders is imperative, but it needs to be done in a way that protects biological female athletes.