"and though sex differences in sports show advantages for men, researchers today still don’t know how much of this to attribute to biological difference versus the lack of support provided to women athletes to reach their highest potential."
You know, there's a lot of truth in this, but it's not an argument for getting rid of girls' sports - quite the opposite. First of all, biological advantages in sport for me are indisputable. Exactly how large the advantage is is immaterial; we all know it's significant. However, this doesn't necessarily mean sports need to be separated by gender for little kids. However, based on experience both as both a child female athlete and as a mother of three daughters in sports, I think it's tremendously important to separate sports by gender, particularly in team sports.
Personally, I played on a mixed soccer team in 2nd and 3rd grades. My coach typically played me half the game while the athletic boys played the whole game. The best kids on the team were all boys but one. Without my parents support, I'm sure I would have given it up. In fourth grade, they formed a girls' team, and all of a sudden, I wasn't the one of the worst 2 or 3 kids on the team anymore (all girls). Instead, I was kind of average. I started to have fun and my coach noticed and supported me. I ended up playing and enjoying soccer for years and becoming a decent player.
When my daughter started playing soccer in first grade, they did this giant soccer practice on the weekend with at least a hundred kids. They divided them in groups, mostly divided by gender, but not entirely. In my daughter's group it was maybe 10 girls and 2 boys. The 2 boys completely and entirely dominated the play to an astonishing extent - and this was FIRST grade! It was incredible and ridiculous. My daughter, not the greatest athlete, never got to touch the ball. The following year, they did divide by gender and it was night and day - such a better experience.
Some girls will thrive when playing with boys. My sister, for example, is an extraordinary athlete and did just fine playing with boys. But these girls are very much the exception to the rule.
I do think the dominancy of boys is cultural. Boys' parents treat them differently. I live in an urban area with lots of international parents who value soccer very highly. The kids grow up watching men play soccer on their TV screens and Dad wants their son to play for Arsenal or whatever. Maybe boys also have some kind of innate preference for ball sports? At the end of the day, it doesn't matter *why*. What matters is that girls get to play when boys and girls have their own space. And when girls get to play and excel, many will thrive in the sport.
Frankly, I saw this article and it pissed me off. No the solution to the transgender problem is not to just eliminate girls' sports.