I’m sorry, but considering that I actually took hormones once when I questioned my gender and then realized I’m cis and stopped, I can’t agree. I literally tried it because I believed ideas like what you are saying and I liked the idea of keeping most of my strength. But that’s not the case.Not having testosterone makes you so incredibly weak. HRT basically forces your muscles to atrophy overnight if it works. Your ability to apply strong force with your hand just disappears. All the shit you grew in male puberty doesn’t matter because the medication will just change it. Anything leftover from masculinization will be cosmetic. Maybe they won’t be as weak of a woman as they would have been if they were born female, but they will still enter a range of strength that is typical for women, and often weaker than many. And all of this reverts if they stop. It did for me. And I was 23 so I’m pretty sure I was after puberty. I simply cannot believe the idea that trans women are always stronger than cis women after my experience. I get that most people just don’t have any actual experience with these things, but the misinformation is horrifically bad. I strongly feel like a lot of straight women in sports/people in general are just transphobic and would look for any reason to disclude them from sports and are willing to die on the hill they made because it’s not about being correct or fair to them. It never feels it’s really about how fair things are in reality.
I’m sorry, but considering that I actually took hormones once when I questioned my gender and then realized I’m cis and stopped, I can’t agree. I literally tried it because I believed ideas like what you are saying and I liked the idea of keeping most of my strength. But that’s not the case.Not having testosterone makes you so incredibly weak. HRT basically forces your muscles to atrophy overnight if it works. Your ability to apply strong force with your hand just disappears. All the shit you grew in male puberty doesn’t matter because the medication will just change it. Anything leftover from masculinization will be cosmetic. Maybe they won’t be as weak of a woman as they would have been if they were born female, but they will still enter a range of strength that is typical for women, and often weaker than many. And all of this reverts if they stop. It did for me. And I was 23 so I’m pretty sure I was after puberty. I simply cannot believe the idea that trans women are always stronger than cis women after my experience. I get that most people just don’t have any actual experience with these things, but the misinformation is horrifically bad. I strongly feel like a lot of straight women in sports/people in general are just transphobic and would look for any reason to disclude them from sports and are willing to die on the hill they made because it’s not about being correct or fair to them. It never feels it’s really about how fair things are in reality.