Men directly competing against women in strength sports is unfair

This post is partly my own but also uses research by biologist, Zach Elliott. 

There are still some sports organisations who don’t, or pretend not to, understand the inherent physical advantages post-puberty males have over post-puberty females.

I just don’t understand how that can be.

Now this may be because I am thinking about this from a simple basis of facts and the logical conclusions that follow, as opposed to emotionally or politically.

Do they genuinely not understand the science of the male performance advantage?
The strength difference between male and female bodies is vast.
[I’ve foot-noted the relevant research.]

On average, males have:

- 57% more grip strength [1]

- 65% more leg strength [2]

- 90% more total upper body strength [3]

- 162% more punch power [4]

To put these numbers in perspective, on average, males are only 7% taller than females, yet on the population level we easily see the considerable height differences between them.[5]

The percentage strength differences are immense not marginal.
How else would very mediocre male athletes who never won anything against the best men be able to compete on equal terms or even beat the best biological women in the world? 

Even at the elite athlete level, the difference in world records make it clear.
Whether short distances, 100m; medium, 400m; or really long, 10000m, the difference is around 10%.

In the 100m at the recent World Championships, not only would the winner of the Women's race not made the final in the Men's, she wouldn't even have made the semi-finals!

The musculoskeletal differences between equally trained males and females are so large that there is no way males can compete fairly with females.

And no, taking drugs to lower testosterone does NOT in any meaningful way negate the puberty-given strength advantage of males over females [6]

The answer to me is that, since we seem to have decided to affirm rather than treat this mental illness, we do away with the MEN category and replace it with an OPEN category. This way, anyone who is or identifies as whatever they like, can enter the OPEN category but only biological adult human females can enter the Women or Female category.

Guess how many women or trans women will be winnig in the OPEN category?
And of course we know why if we take the identity politics out of it.
Why some institutions can't, won't or are afraid do this is the real question.

For more detail see:

[1] Bohannon, R., et al. (2019). Handgrip Strength: A Comparison of Values Obtained from the NHANES and NIH Toolbox Studies. American Journal of Occupational Therapy, 73(2).

[2] Lassek, W. D. and Gaulin, S. J. (2009). Costs and benefits of fat-free muscle mass in men: relationship to mating success, dietary requirements, and native immunity. Evolution of Human Behavior, 30, 322-328.

[3] Morris, J., et al. (2020). Sexual dimorphism in human arm power and force: implications for sexual selection on fighting ability. Journal of Experimental Biology, 223(2).

[4] Ibid.

[5] Roser, M., et al. (2019). Human height. Our World in Data.

[6] Emma N Hilton and Tommy R Lundberg (2021) Transgender Women in the Female Category of Sport: Perspectives on Testosterone Suppression and Performance Advantage