New study finds no clear physical advantage for transgender women over cisgender women in sports. A major review challenges the claim that transgender women hold a clear physical edge in women’s sports. After pooling results from 52 studies and thousands of participants, researchers in Brazil reported that transgender women had greater lean mass than cisgender women, but not greater physical capacity. Across the data they examined, they found no meaningful differences in upper-body strength, lower-body strength, or aerobic fitness between the two groups after hormone therapy. That does not settle the political fight. It does, however, narrow the scientific one. The paper, published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, reviewed research on body composition and physical fitness in transgender people receiving gender-affirming hormone therapy. In their analysis, they covered 6,099 individuals overall. This included 2,566 transgender women, 2,646 transgender men, 442 cisgender women and 445 cisgender men. Forty-two studies were included in the meta-analysis. Transgender women, the central result was striking in its contrast. Lean mass remained higher than in cisgender women, yet the performance measures most often cited in sports arguments did not show an advantage. “This refutes the logic behind blanket bans on transgender women in sports,” said Bruno Gualano, a physician and researcher at the University of São Paulo in Brazil who co-authored the study. “Most of these policies are based on the assumption that transgender women retain inherent physical advantages and would therefore dominate women’s competitions. The data does not support this idea.” The review found that transgender women had higher absolute lean mass than cisgender women, but similar relative lean mass. It found no significant differences in upper-body strength, lower-body strength, or maximum oxygen consumption, a standard measure of cardiorespiratory fitness. The authors also looked at how hormone therapy changed the body over time. In transgender women, one year of therapy was associated with increased fat mass, reduced lean mass, and lower upper-body strength. Over one to three years, the pattern pointed in the same direction, though not every measure could be tracked across every time span. The paper argues that this matters because sports rules often treat muscle mass as a stand-in for performance. The new review suggests that assumption may be too simple. thebrighterside.news/post/ne…