So back in university I took a drug law course, and for our final project we had to write an essay on one of the current drug laws either on the books or being proposed. This was back when TRT was a thing and they were considering removing it so I did my project on that.
In the paper I outlined how true TRT, which is to bring a person's testosterone levels up to normal for their age group (and not testosterone abuse which is to go over that which is how everybody framed TRT) actually created a more level playing field by putting both fighters at normal levels of testosterone, whereas before one of them would be (presumably) at normal levels and the other low levels and the fighter with normal levels had an advantage. Of course the counter argument was that short of knowing the non-TRT fighters levels you'd have no idea if this actually was fair or not as they could be low too or naturally high, or even taking steroids themselves to go far over natural levels and they might not actually have similar levels. And of course there was the risk that the TRT fighter would just use his access to testosterone injections to go over his limits and get an advantage(a la Bigfoot), or even that the fighter having more testosterone in general, even if it was just to normal levels, could be an advantage as he was used to fighting without those levels.
My professor, who knew nothing about MMA or the sport in general, came back and said that an "advantages" argument against TRT can be countered considering that all athletes have different bodies, different minds, different coaches, different gyms, different nutrition, different lengths of experience, etc. Different testosterone levels are simply one of many differences between the athletes, and that there was never a level playing field in the first place, but at least TRT was attempting to actually put them categorically in one similar field by ensuring they would both be (presumably as you didn't know the non-TRT fighters levels) within normal levels. TRT, regulated by a TUE, actually created a more level playing field whereas you couldn't ensure that everybody had the same level of coaching or limb lengths or whatever.
But that was TRT, which was regulated by a TUE and not simply PEDs which are not. But those saying PEDs are unfair are coming from the mistaken belief that things were fair to begin with. There are a plethora of things that cause advantages and disadvantages to those fighting and different testosterone levels or EPO or whatever don't necessarily mean that fighter had the overall advantage.
