Trans Rep Sarah McBride admits that concerns about men in women's sports are 'understandable'

In a podcast appearance on Monday, transgender House Rep Sarah McBride said that he could "acknowledge" that there were "very understandable concerns" about the participation of trans-identified males in women’s sports.

"I think on various issues, we can acknowledge that there’s room for nuance. We can acknowledge that people have, for instance, on the topic of sports, very understandable concerns about fairness and respect in school sports, on all sides of these issues," McBride told Raging Moderates co-hosts Scott Halloway and Jessica Tarlov.

McBride said that these concerns were best addressed at the local level, not in the halls of Congress. "And the place that those dynamics are best able to be handled is at the local level with individual athletic associations that understand the sport and the science the best, not 435 politicians who know very little about school sports and even less about trans people."

McBride’s comments came days ahead of the International Olympic Committee announcing that starting with the Los Angeles 2028 Summer Olympics, the women’s division in its competitions would be for biological women only.

The IOC said the policy was based on the findings of the Working Group on the Protection of the Female Category, which reached the "clear consensus" that "male sex provides a performance advantage in all sports and events that rely on strength, power and endurance. To ensure fairness, and to protect safety, particularly in contact sports, eligibility should therefore be based on biological sex. The group also agreed that the most accurate and least intrusive method currently available to verify biological sex is screening for the SRY gene, a segment of DNA typically found on the Y chromosome that initiates male sex development in utero and indicates the presence of testes/testicles."

IOC President Kirsty Coventry said, "As a former athlete, I passionately believe in the rights of all Olympians to take part in fair competition. The policy that we have announced is based on science and has been led by medical experts. At the Olympic Games, even the smallest margins can be the difference between victory and defeat. So, it is absolutely clear that it would not be fair for biological males to compete in the female category. In addition, in some sports it would simply not be safe. Every athlete must be treated with dignity and respect, and athletes will need to be screened only once in their lifetime. There must be clear education around the process and counselling available, alongside expert medical advice."