In the last 20 years there have been 50 peer reviewed scientific studies examining over 6099 trans athletes asking whether trans women have an advantage in sports over cisgender women. None of these studies have shown any advantage, yet ignorant people continue to claim that “common sense” insists this is true.

Body composition and physical fitness in transgender versus cisgender individuals: a systematic review with meta-analysis

New Study Once Again Shows Trans Women Have No Physical Advantage Over Cis Athletes

The critical error of most transphobes is in thinking that transgender women are just men making a choice.

But there are now 30+ years of biological research showing that trans women are biologically distinct from cisgender men. Neurologically, trans women have brain structures that closely match cisgender women. Frontal cortex thickness and neuron density matches that of cisgender women. Multiple structures in the hypothalamus match those of cisgender women.

A sex difference in the human brain and its relation to transsexuality

Male-to-female transsexuals have female neuron numbers in a limbic nucleus

A sex difference in the hypothalamic uncinate nucleus: relationship to gender identity

There are other signs as well. Well over 90% of cisgender men have ring fingers longer than their index fingers. Cisgender women have index fingers as long as their ring finger or longer. Most trans women have female index to ring finger ratios, not male ratios.

Digit ratio (2D:4D) and transgender identity: new original data and a meta-analysis

There are physical things that men generally cannot do but women can. Trans women can often do those actions but cisgender men almost never can. These “tricks” rely on women having a lower center of gravity than men, usually due to more combined muscle/fat mass in the lower body. After several years on HRT many trans women can do these tricks too, because they’ve acquired female proportions, not male proportions.

The US Air Force discovered that, even before starting HRT, trans women performed 18%-30% lower on average than cisgender men. They also showed that after 2-4 years of Gender Affirming Hormone Therapy (GAHT), that trans women showed no advantages over cisgender women in lower body strength, or in run speeds and only a tiny advantage in upper body strength.

The goal of the study was to determine when transgender Air Force service members, both MTF and FTM, should begin to be tested on the scale that matches their gender identity and not the scale that matches assigned sex at birth. It gave a definitive answer to that and showed that after 2 years of GAHT they should be tested on the same scale as their gender identity, and that after 4 years or GAHT, any remaining advantages they saw early on were gone or nearly gone.

Fit Transitioning: When Can Transgender Airmen Fitness Test in Their Affirmed Gender?

A British study showed that trans women, after 2+ years of GAHT, had decreases in VO2 Max (amount of oxygen reaching the muscles) that matched the VO2 Max levels of cisgender women.

Strength, power and aerobic capacity of transgender athletes: a cross-sectional study

Over and over again, science tells us that transgender women are biologically distinct from cisgender men. It tells us that, except for genitalia, they are biologically more like women than men.

I recently saw one discussion where a pro-trans advocate answered the question “What is a woman?” from a medical perspective. Her response was that a woman is any individual born with a neurological template that more closely matches the average female neurological template and that a man is any individual whose neurological template more closely matches the average male neurological template. And that’s a scientifically correct answer that is grounded in the research that has been accomplished over the last 31+ years. (Zhou et al. discovered the initial BSTc differences in the hypothalamus in 1995, which opened the floodgates for transgender neurological research.)

I’ll accept a call for more scientific research into this question but right now, today, in 2026, there is NO DATA that supports the claim that trans women have an unfair advantage over cisgender women in sports. I’ll even accept a call for each sport to study the issue, scientifically, as to whether trans women can play that sport. Would more research help? Yes. And perhaps sport by sport rules would alleviate concerns.

But if you claim otherwise, that trans women have some inherent “advantage”, you are a scientifically illiterate bigot and your opinion is garbage unworthy of serious consideration.

The Bulwark, a set of political blogs I sometimes read but don’t always agree with (too right wing sometimes) is sounding the alarm about the dollar. A collapsing dollar, becoming irrelevant to the global economy, is one of the preconditions I’ve mentioned in the past that can lead to the collapse of the United States as a single coherent nation. Below is the comment I left on their page about this article.

Years ago, I began pointing out that Putin’s then ongoing support for white nationalist and state secession movements was mirroring how US policy in the 1980s and 1990s helped bring about the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Putin had a front row seat to what we did to the USSR, and he took notes. The most important point for Putin was that once the USSR shattered, international pressure led to nuclear disarmament of several former Soviet states.

Apply this backwards – if Putin can cause the Balkanization of the United States, will the world simply allow Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota, Nebraska, and Colorado to retain those ICBM silos? No. In all probability, those new nation states would be pressured to disarm in order to receive international financial aid to rebuild and stabilize their economies.

So there’s a rational underlying goal behind Putin supporting white nationalist and secession movements. This explains Putin funding racist organizations and even Russia supporting Republicans who screamed bloody murder about idiocy like Jade Helm even before Trump was elected.

Then we arrive at Trump’s election. Putin now has a completely vain idiot leading the US, whom he can manipulate with ease by playing on Trump’s narcissistic ego. Before Trump’s election the first time, the dollar was close to parity with the euro. Under Trump, the dollar fell to 0.83 dollars per euro.

Under Biden, the dollar climbed back to 0.96-1.04 versus the euro.

In Trump’s second term, in the first 12 months, the dollar again dropped clear down to 0.83 dollars per euro.

At that point, add in the Iran war, add in the growing white nationalist anti-Israel sentiments, add in Trump trying to withhold funding to blue states, and the pressures at the state level to ask “why are we part of this union anymore?” start to feel obvious.

California alone has the 4th largest economy in the world. They don’t need Trump’s BS to live successfully. California could easily cut deals around the entire Pacific rim within a few months that would be better for California than the current mess. If Oregon and Washington joined California, it would be the 3rd largest economy in the world.

Likewise, New England, as a group of states together, would be a top ten economic powerhouse in the world if they broke away. If Pennsylvania and Maryland joined them, they’d be the 5th largest economy in the world.

So think about it. Trump and the GOP, slashing government services AND wrecking the dollar, are creating a situation that can lead to the collapse of the United States as a single coherent country. Slashing government services alone doesn’t create that situation, but if the dollar is also becoming irrelevant or even worthless, some of the larger blue regions of the country will be left asking themselves, “why stay in this union?”

And when we reach that point, coupled with white nationalism becoming a structural security threat to the rule of law in America, then the potential for the collapse of the United States, will reach a peak.

I think Trump is too stupid to do this himself but he is clearly vain enough to be manipulated to where the US dollar and the federal government both become irrelevant to the everyday lives of the American people. And when that happens, the US dies, and Putin gets to remove American nukes from the global chessboard without firing a single shot.

And THAT will be a moment that will go down in history showing the power of espionage and diplomacy.

https://open.substack.com/pub/thebulwark/p/kill-the-dollar-bill?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web