What about trans women who transitioned before puberty? What about cis or intersex women with elevated levels of testosterone? What about sports where it has been shown that after a long enough period of medical transition trans people have no significant advantage over their cis counterparts?

You appeal to science yet fail to cite a single source, so let me do it for you:

An individual's sex does not determine their success or failure at any athletic event despite the high level of competition. This can be demonstrated when looking at not average outcomes, but the level of overlap among outcomes... While sex differences do develop following puberty, many of the sex differences are reduced, if not erased, over time by gender affirming hormone therapy.

Ah, yes, let’s make laws specifically banning 2-5 children from ever having fun.

Like… what the fuck is wrong with you that you think a law targeting under 10 people in the entirety of the US is justified and not literally just bullying those kids on a national level to hope they fucking commit suicide? A law to tell 5 kids, specifically, that fuck them and they’re not allowed to have fun is god damn crazy.

https://www.newsweek.com/how-many-transgender-athletes-play-womens-sports-1796006

Please tell me what these "issues" are, with peer reviewed scientific sources. There are no significant advantages to a "male puberty" that are not countered by HRT. Furthermore, the same people touting trans kids for their supposed "advantages" are the same people forcing them to develop those "advantages" by restricting their access to healthcare before puberty begins.

The cruelty is the point.

Athletes have always leveraged unfair advantages in sports. There’s a reason there’s super tall players in basketball and short ones in gymnastics. May be they should enforce that average height of teams must match global averages. Countries with fewer resources just can’t support athletes in many sports so why not make that more fair?

There’s research showing that some women athletes (i.e., born with female reproductive organs) have higher testosterone levels than many men, and even some male athletes. So why are they allowed to compete in women sports instead of men?

There’s a lot of ways to make sports more fair. Banning transgender people without fair science based facts is not one of them and is plain bigotry. It’s like saying an athlete on anti-depressants should be banned because they are happier and more motivated so have an unfair advantage.

They're finding issue with mtf athletes playing against a league of individuals who didn't go through puberty as a male. That's clearly an advantage, and to say otherwise is to ignore science altogether.

That would be an argument worth discussing if the Nazis weren't also trying to ban puberty blockers and frothing at the mouth claiming the trans agenda is coming for their kids. But no, right now, that's a garbage bad faith argument, because it already has an obvious answer. That's how they poison the discussion.

Let's check the science

There is zero biological argument because you cannot make two categories based on sex which encompass everyone.

Example 1:

A cis woman with a genetic mutation which incrases her testosterone levels into the range of cis men. Should she be banned from female competitive sports?

Example 2:

A cis woman with XY gonadal dysgenesis. She has XY chromosomes but the Y chromosome is mutated and doesn't function as it should which causes a "female" phenotype. Should she be banned from female competitive sports?

Example 3:

A trans woman in the 95th percentile of men with regards to physical strength. She is in the 10th percentile of women after transitioning. Should she be banned from female competitive sports?

Example 4:

A trans woman with Klinefelter syndrome and XXY genes. She has naturally very low levels of testosterone and she doesn't require testosterone blockers after transitioning and taking estrogen. Even before transitioning she had less muscle mass, weaker bones and wider hips than the average man as a result of her low testosterone. Should she be banned from female competitive sports?

Example 5:

An African woman who would be in the 1st percentile of man if she were one, both in terms of physical attributes (size, muscle mass, heart size) and competitive results. Some "scientists" argue her race makes her less of a woman and more of a man. Should she be banned from female competitive sports?

There is zero risk of these people "replacing" cis women by the way. Yes, their performance may be greater than that of comparable cis women without any genetical mutations beyond a certajn point.

Yet risk is calculated as [severity] * [likelihood]. And due to the low likelihood stemming from their very low prevalence in the general population, there is no reason to ban them.

Women's sports is about representation of women. Trans women are part of that group, cis women with genetic mutations are part of that group, racial minorities are part of that group. You cannot exclude some women and claim this group is "fair" and representative.

The left should focus on real problems that matter to people in material ways. The right wants to make major cultural battles over some tiny fraction of people. They don't "engage with these issues", they create them. If you feel the need yo constantly defend yourself from every manufactured right wing outrage, you have already lost. By engaging, you legitimize their narrative. Focus on improving peoples' lives in measurable ways.

It really doesn't seem that hard to just constantly disprove the lies they're telling, over and over, until eventually the people who are still sane in this country understand what a non-issue the conservatives are freaking out over. I feel the same way about their "migrant crime" myth, which Democrats also immediately capitulated to and started campaigning on fixing despite crime statistics clearly demonstrating migrants do not commit crimes at a higher rate than the general populace.

It's almost like standing up for their beliefs was never the goal, and they'll just say whatever makes their corporate donors happy.

Well I assume when talking from a government perspective, the conversation is going to inevitably become about highschool sports and whatnot. Where I still definitely don't want to touch this with a 10 foot pole!