A former Olympic swimmer sparred with a trans activist on a Friday's episode of Dr. Phil over whether biological males should be allowed to compete in women’s sports.
Lawyer and former Olympian Nancy Hogshead-Makar warned, "there’s no training, no coach, that’s gonna outrun biology." She added further that "throughout all levels of sports, trans women are taking spots away from females, and it’s just not fair."
She claimed during the episode that a biological man who has been through puberty has more than height on his side when competing with biological women.
"It’s not just height and lung capacity and bigger heart its also like a bigger throat, I mean that was the first time ever that I felt jealous of men," Hogshead-Makar said and adding that during swimming one needs to take quick breaths while above water to gather more oxygen. "To have a 40 percent bigger throat to me-it would have been amazing."
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She also discussed with Dr Phil how she had competed against women from East Germany, who infamously used performance boosting drugs to the point they had to shave. Hogshead-Makar warned women who were artificially aided by added testosterone "were never competitive against men."
Transgender advocate, Layne Ingram, pushed back against Hogshead-Makar's stance that men have a uniform advantage over women.
"We can’t come out and over-generalize and say ‘T affects everything’ and scientifically there is no evidence that says that, because of testosterone level, that trans women have an inherent competitive advantage," Ingram said.
Hogshead-Makar stood her ground.
"I do think that having gone through male puberty gives somebody an advantage that you just can't train for, get coached for, eat for, sleep-right? There’s nothing that somebody can do that can make up for Leah Thomas’ six-foot-four, bigger hands, longer limbs, bone density, that bigger throat," she said.
Dr. Phil also spoke to a female swimmer Riley Gains, who famously tied with transgender athlete Lia Thomas for fifth place at an NCAA swimming competition.
She told Dr. Phil that she felt the experience was "extremely unfair," adding that "we had someone who spent three years on the men’s side at UPenn, all of a sudden senior year flipped to the women’s side."
"Thomas was in the 400’s and 500’s ranked nationally, and one year later ranks number one, and so I think that right there shows you that there are advantages to be had and denying so it kind of defies science, it defies common sense, it defies logic, it defies reason," Gains continued.
She followed by noting that "listening to Thomas’ interview when asked about this you know, how you were able to rank so much higher as a female, Thomas said ‘well it’s because I was able to be happy and compete happy.’"
