https://www.theguardian.com/sport/artic ... t-olympics
Rules regarding who should compete in the female category have been hotly contested in recent years. But there has been less debate about combat sports, where the risk of serious injury and even death is far higher. Scientific research has also found that the average punching power is 162% greater in those who have gone through male puberty compared to females.
There is an embedded link here to this study: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2 ... %20purpose
Now, I will not contest that men are generally stronger. A LOT stronger. I will not dispute that cis women going up against cis men in combat sports, even in the same weight category, is a fucking terrible idea. I will not dispute that a 5' 100 lb man could beat my 5' 6'' 200 lb ass into puree without blinking. It's hard sometimes to gauge the difference between justifiable paranoia and Hollywood bullshit, but I as someone who has gotten a lot of physical abuse from men, I was cautious around them even when I was one, and I totally get why cis women would be suspicious of me for having been one. Men are fucking dangerous.
However, there are a few noteworthy things about this study:
1. It does not seem to include any trans people, so it's not "AMAB vs AFAB" results, right off the bat it only applies to cis men and cis women. This tells us nothing about what happens after 5+ years of respectively catabolic or anabolic hormone treatment. Likewise for intersex people, who are again can look different hormonally.
2. It is a tiny study. Only 39 people! I'm not sure the exact statistical requirements here, and yeah the value of 167% is probably well outside the margin of error, but it still seems very much on the small side to get an exact quotable number.
3. "Overall fitness" isn't a good metric because men and women tend to do different kinds of work, and optimize for different things if they work out. And this is probably just the beginning of the uncontrolled variables.
4. Also the evolutionary angle of punching ability being for fighting over a mate feels uh... dodgy? In an evo-psych way? Don't have the scientific background to put a finger on it, but yeah.
The impression I get is that Sean Ingle just searched for a study about sex-based differences in strength and picked the first one that came up. Which I guess is normal bad journalism to start with, but the study not having trans participants is especially egregious IMO given the context of the article.
