The Benefits Of Estrogen Therapy

Transgender women athletes are required to have estrogen therapy for two years until they can compete in the Olympics Games. Estrogen therapy is a procedure that transgender athletes are given to increase estrogen, to average female levels (Ljungqvist). The IOC has request that the testosterone level would have to remain below 10 nmol\L for 12 months prior before competition (Ljungqvist). In earlier years, Olympic athletes would have to have surgery to be able to compete. However, a new rule states that transgender women aren’t required to undergo gender-reassignment surgery to compete alongside female athletes (Ljungqvist). Regardless of estrogen therapy, the body has been producing testosterone from puberty that can’t be removed; it can only be stopped once therapy starts. For example, an MMA fighter named Fallon Fox is one of the first transgender women athletes to competed against her new sex (Isaacs). She has caused a lot of debate about whether she should be allowed to fight in the men division. Fallon had surgery in her early thirties, along with the required estrogen therapy (Isaacs). Unfortunately, puberty has already built the twitch muscle fibers deep in her legs and her bones have a higher density than her opponent. In one match, she broke her opponent’s orbital bone, and also her opponent required seven staples to hold together her scalp. The fight only took three minutes, and Fox was the winner (Isaacs). After the fight the opponent describe being completely out of control of the fight that she hasn’t felt punches or kicks like that until she faced Fox …show more content…
With Fallon Fox’s success in MMA, Olympic athletes could soon follow Fallon tactic to gain an advantage through changes that have happened already like height, bone density, and muscular definition