I was inspired to write about this subject by the first transgender competitor at the Olympic weight lifting event. At the time of conception, the sex of an individual is determined. Every cell in his or her body contains the code for maleness or femaleness. The X chromosome and the Y chromosome determine that. The so-called sex hormones made by the testicles, adrenal glands, and ovaries, can be converted by the liver, with both sexes having the same hormones but in different proportions.
How the male hormone, testosterone, and the female hormone are made is a complex process that can be seen above. But if you follow the red line it explains it a little simpler. Basically, we eat cholesterol, such as eggs, or generate it, through a series of steps, testosterone is made, which is then converted to estrogen.
You have to look carefully to tell them apart.
Testosterone has one double bond oxygen at its left border, while estrogen has an extra Hydrogen with the Oxygen. There is the difference, one Hydrogen atom!
But as the French say, “Long live the difference”!
It is one gene on the Y chromosome, the SRY gene, that changes the default development of the female anatomy into the male anatomy. We all have 23 pairs of chromosomes. It is the XX configuration of one pair that makes the female and the XY configuration the male. The X has 2000 genes, while the Y has only 100 genes. What makes us male or female is not the amount of estrogen or testosterone we have (both male and female have both hormones but in different amounts). It is the XX or XY configuration in every one of our cells that make us who we are.
To think that we can make a female out of a male or vice versa is laughable. We cannot change genetics. Cutting off parts of the male and making a skin pouch in the perineum, suppressing testosterone, and feeding estrogen does not create a female. It creates a male that no longer has a penis and has a skin pocket in their bottom. Estrogen feeding will create larger breasts, just like smoking lots of Pot, but you still have a genetic male. The genetic male will always be male at the cellular level, with the differences muted but not eliminated by a long shot. That is why having transgender athletic competition is clearly unfair to the genetic female. Women who have trained all their lives, given up aspects of their existence to become a better runner, swimmer, javelin thrower etc., will never attain the muscular strength of a male or a transgender who now identifies as female and trains as an athlete. Genetic females cannot get a Y chromosome to save their soul, nor can males get that other X chromosome. We are not sophisticated enough to do that.
We have outwitted ourselves with the hubris of now believing our own incompetence. We cannot, at least not yet, be able to change our genetic sex. The Olympic committee will eventually have to come to their senses. The only fair way is to go by the genetic sex. A separate category for transgender would also be fair, but not the way it is now having, a direct competition between genetic males and genetic females even if the males grow breasts.
If Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner would train, he/she would still likely defeat a genetic woman in the decathlon despite the age. We shall see what he/she does against Gavin Newsom, or is that mixing apples and oranges?