There are a number of dimensions to your post. Power and weight are closely related. Using the FTP figures from a large sample of men and women cyclists shows that their FTP/kg ratio is broadly similar averaging between 3 and 4 W/kg. This would seem to indicate then that men will tend to have more power due to their tendency to be bigger built. That a larger trans woman was able to throw smaller people around should be of no surprise. No more a surprise than a larger woman might be able to throw a smaller woman around perhaps.
The other problems seem to have a more political dimension. One has to be careful what political points are made in this thread, but I think it well enough documented that certain political decisions concerning the management of prisons and the manner in which they are now funded has led to real concerns from prison staff about the safety of inmates and moreso regarding their own safety.
Undoubtedly Mo, you have experiences that I have not, having not even having visited a prison I wouldn't have much of a scooby, relying as I do on what is available to be read. On that basis, it seems to me that deficiencies in prison management are more due to political decisions that have been made. I suspect that prison services in the USA are rather different to the UK and many stories emanate from there. I have one cousin who is a newly retired GP, she had one patient, a trans woman, who spent time in a women's prison. She had been in the process of gender transition including hormone treatment for a couple of years. Once committed to prison she was denied access to hormone treatment for a period of several months. This denial caused her considerable mental anguish and her physical condition was reverting, alone with the previous male sexual drive.
My cousin intervened, found the politics of the situation very difficult to circumnavigate, but eventually succeeded in restarting the hormone regime. Eventually the patient / prisoner became much less troubled in herself and mush less troublesome to others around her. She was released and reached the stage in her journey where she wished to be, culminating with a gender recognition certificate.
There had been a tradition in certain professions that a certain size of person was needed to gain entry. Policemen had to be a certain size in order to be able to tackle criminals for example. In sport too, boxing perhaps being the best example, competitors are sorted by weight as well as gender. Unfortunately the trope is always seeing how an average female boxer would be able to compete against Tyson in the ring, which of course is an illogical argument since the rules would never have permitted this due to weight difference.
When I was a teenager, some fifty years ago, before formal gender transition was a thing, and coincidentally about the time when homosexuality was decriminalised, we had a neighbour who suddenly changed their gender presentation and expression. This person was a well-regarded biology teacher, was dismissed from their job with immediate effect. Naturally there was a fair amount of public interest and some kids were calling out some pretty nasty stuff as she went about her everyday business. My Dad who ordinarily was a very mild and reserved man uncharacteristically became quite her advocate. I guess that instilled my own views, that everyone is entitled to their own life, and entitled to live it in the way that it suits them.
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