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Elgar Online: The online content platform for Edward Elgar Publishing

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Chapter 17: Gender inclusive sport: whats in it for (all) women?

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The inclusion of trans athletes and athletes with natural sex variations can be broadly beneficial for all sports stakeholders. In this chapter, we interrogate the claim that the inclusion of sex and gender minoritized groups in women’s sport constitutes an existential crisis for the category. As an alternative to this zero-sum framing, we ask: how can gender inclusive sport be beneficial for all women? We explore research demonstrating the clear benefits of inclusion, and further amplify the work of various women’s organizations who support inclusion. Finally, we discuss how the inclusion of trans athletes, gender diverse athletes, and athletes with sex variations could help to interrupt and reconfigure the gendered hierarchies, practices, and ideologies of masculinity and sex difference that continue to undermine the equal place of all women in sport and sport organizations.

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Transgender Athletes Face an Uncertain Future at the Olympics | The Tyee

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Reactionary policies are increasingly banning access to sports and gender-affirming care.

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If we knew precisely how to calibrate T, we could, in theory, control for any advantage that Thomas realizes from being born a biological male. For example, until quite recently, Olympic guidelines required that a transgender female have a total serum testosterone level below 10 nanomoles of cortisol per liter of blood (nmol/L) for at least 12 months prior to competition and maintain this standard for the duration of eligibility for competition as a female. This level of testosterone is at the lower limit of normal in men. The claim is that this constitutes an "intolerable unfairness" because "the normal healthy female testosterone range is 0-1.7nmol/L," according to a 2019 Journal of Medical Ethics article by Taryn Knox et al. But to make the competition truly fair, N + T would have to be the same for all competitors. This would ensure that the winner of the contest, the one with the highest P, is the competitor who exhibits the highest E.

In November 2021, the International Olympic Committee changed its guidelines and now leaves the determination of eligibility to each individual sport. Under the new guidelines, transgender women are no longer required to reduce their testosterone levels below specific bounds to compete.

This simple model reveals that the overarching issue in terms of fair competition is less about birth sex and more about controlling for N. It is noteworthy that medical science "highlights that there is still no clear line that is universally accepted as a fair standard for who is female for the purposes of equity in competition," according to a 2019 Current Sports Medicine Report article by James Ingram and Connie Lynn Thomas. Competition between a man and a woman with the same N would arguably be fairer than competition between two women with different values of N (assuming T = 0 in both cases). This suggests that what makes the competition between Thomas and her cisgender female competitors unfair is not that Thomas was born a biological male, but that she is competing with a value of N that is significantly higher than those of her cisgender female competitors and the hormonal-reducing therapy ( T < 0) she is receiving does not fully offset this advantage.

Policy Implications

Athletic organizations such as the National Football League, Major League Baseball, the International Olympic Committee, and the National Collegiate Athletic Association have the discretion to design their athletic contests free from governmental interference. On the other hand, Title IX prohibits colleges that receive federal financial assistance from discriminating on the basis of sex. Regardless, fair competition per se need not be a bedrock principle for the design of such contests. This observation notwithstanding, it is uncertain how much interest from athletes, sponsors, and supporters there would be in contests that do not pay sufficient respect to fair competition. In the case of the NFL, salary caps and the order in which teams are permitted to draft college players, which varies inversely with the team's record in the previous season, are designed to ensure sufficient rivalry in the league so that no team dominates year after year. In the end, the market can be expected to dictate the terms of the competitive engagement.

The more general question, and one that society will be forced to engage, is whether individuals should be allowed to strategically self-identify with respect to gender that allows them to secure an advantage they could not realize otherwise. This issue is compounded by the fact that actual cases of gender dysphoria are quite rare: approximately 1 in 12,000 men and 1 in 30,000 women according to a 2005 Lancet article by Arne Ljungqvist and Myron Genel.

What are the implications of allowing such self-identification in terms of the law and public policy? This brings us back to the original question that initiated this inquiry: is it possible to champion women (or at least not discriminate against them) if someone born biologically male can identify as a woman and be treated as such?

Conclusion

The debate over transgender women competing against cisgender women in athletic competition is both complex and polarizing. The overarching question concerns what constitutes fair competition in individual sports. This analysis reveals that the salient issue is less about transgender women competing against cisgender women than the competitive advantage that nature confers upon the former as a result of their birth sex that is not completely offset through hormonal therapies.

It is conceivable that the strong opposition to this type of competition would be tempered significantly if the advantage conferred by nature on transgender women were significantly reduced or eliminated. It may then be possible for transgender women to compete against cisgender women without violating society's sense of what constitutes fair competition. If this is not possible because of a combination of biological, institutional, and scientific constraints, fairness may demand a further partitioning of athletic competition in which transgender women compete only against one another rather than against cisgender women. Regardless of how this issue is ultimately resolved in the courts and legislatures, it would be wise to buckle up and hold on tight because it promises to be a very bumpy ride.

Readings

"Circulating Testosterone as the Hormonal Basis of Sex Differences in Athletic Performance," by David J. Handelsman, Angelica L. Hirschberg, and Stephane Bermon. Endocrine Reviews 39(5): 803-829 (2018).

"Effect of Gender Affirming Hormones on Athletic Performance in Transwomen and Transmen: Implications for Sporting Organisations and Legislators," by Timothy A. Roberts, Joshua Smalley, and Dale Ahrendt. British Journal of Sports Medicine 55(11): 577-583 (2021).

"IOC Framework on Fairness, Inclusion and Non-Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity and Sex Variations," International Olympic Committee, November 15, 2021.

"IOC Releases Framework on Fairness, Inclusion and Non-discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity and Sex Variations," press release. International Olympic Committee, November 16, 2021.

"The IOC Has a New Trans-Inclusion Framework, But Is the Damage Already Done?" by Frankie De La Cretaz. Sports Illustrated, March 23, 2022.

"Transexual Athletes: When Is Competition Fair?" by Arne Ljungqvist and Myron Genel. Lancet 366: S42-S43 (2005).

"Transgender Athletes: How Can They Be Accommodated?" by Myron Genel. Current Sports Medicine Reports 16(1): 12-13 (2017).

"Transgender Policy in Sport, A Review of Current Policy and Commentary of the Challenges of Policy Creation," by James Ingram and Connie Lynn Thomas. Current Sports Medicine Reports 18(6): 239-247 (2019).

"Transsexuals and Competitive Sports," by Louis Gooren and Mathijs Bunck. European Journal of Endocrinology 151(4): 425-429 (2004).

"Transwomen in Elite Sport: Scientific and Ethical Considerations," by Taryn Knox, Lynley C. Anderson, and Alison Heather. Journal of Medical Ethics 45(6): 395-403 (2019).

"We Need to be Able to Talk about Trans Athletes and Women's Sports," by Megan McCardle. Washington Post, January 13, 2022.

"Why You Shouldn't Judge Lance Armstrong (and Why You Should)," by Ashley Fetters. The Atlantic, November 8, 2013.

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Transgender Athletes, Fair Competition, and Public Policy

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Can policymakers support cisgender‐​transgender competition and still be champions of women?

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Trans Athlete Injures Multiple Girls, Forcing Team To Forfeit. Wither Thou, Feminism?

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Third-wave feminists have set women back 50 years. Just look what they’ve done to women’s sports. Their forebears in the movement would be appalled.

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Now that the Olympics are over, let’s talk about trans athletes

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Lindsey survived after months in the hospital, but that bout with a trans athlete marked the end of her boxing career

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Trans athletes having their own division is step in the right direction

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Kudos to the World Swimming Coaches Association for speaking the truth: “Trans females cannot compete fairly with biological females.”

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At the last Summer Olympics held in Tokyo, New Zealand weightlifter Laurel Hubbard made history as the first openly transgender athlete in Olympic history. American transgender and non-binary runner Nikki Hiltz recently qualified for the 2024 Paris Games, marking their Olympic debut.

But these two may be among the last transgender athletes to compete at the Olympics for some time due to a reactionary shift in sport policy stemming from conflicts over the participation of transgender women and girls in "female" sports.

While transgender people have gained some recognition and human rights in the past decade, a well-financed reactionary movement is rolling them back. A constellation of white supremacist, conservative and Christian fundamentalist groups and so-called "gender critical feminists" are resisting feminist and gender-inclusive challenges to traditional gender and sexual hierarchies.

These groups are targeting transgender women and girls specifically - more so than transmen and boys, and non-binary people - for surveillance and exclusion. Bills blocking transgender women and girls from participating in "female" sports have been passed in many U.S. states and proposed in the Canadian province of Alberta.

Sport is a human right

The human right of transgender people to participate in all aspects of society - although far from universally affirmed and experienced - is often limited by assumptions about innate biological differences between males and females that suppose men and boys have an athletic advantage.

The debate over the inclusion of transwomen in sports involves questioning whether hormone therapy effectively changes biological characteristics associated with male athletic advantage. These concerns presume transgender athletes have an unfair advantage in women's competitions because of the apparent lasting effects of testosterone exposure.

Current female eligibility policies for both transwomen and women with higher levels of testosterone than the so-called norm are based on unscientific claims about testosterone. These claims purport that higher average levels of testosterone among people assigned male at birth give them an unfair advantage.

Read more: Elite sport is becoming a platform to target the trans community

From 2011 to 2021, elite and amateur sporting organizations like the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the International Amateur Athletic Federation (IAAF) - now World Athletics (WA) - used testosterone levels to determine female eligibility, despite its flawed science.

The assumptions about binary sex difference and female inferiority that motivate and animate female eligibility policies have been put under the microscope by human rights and science-based challenges, with the overwhelming consensus that sex is not binary and sex testing is flawed.

Mandatory sex testing for women athletes was abandoned by the IAAF in 1992 and the IOC in 2000, but selective testing of "suspicious" athletes continued. Selective sex testing and medical interventions disproportionately affect racialized women from the Global South.

Olympic policies

In November 2021, the IOC announced a new policy for transgender participation that relies on sport-by-sport, evidence-based decision-making to determine if transwomen have an apparent unfair advantage.

The new IOC policy refreshingly rules out medically unnecessary treatment and acknowledges the harms past regulations have had on women athletes. However, it abandons its responsibility to support the human rights of transgender and cisgender women athletes. Instead, it leaves individual sport organizations to do the dirty work of drawing boundaries between "real" and "unreal" women and girls.

The harm such assessments will produce was foreshadowed by World Rugby's 2020 ban on transwomen participating in international women's rugby competitions. This ban was based on the scientifically unsupported claim that transwomen retain vestigial strength that makes their participation unsafe for their cisgender counterparts.

The NCAA followed suit in January 2022 by replacing their leading-edge transgender inclusive policy from 2011 with one that leaves the inclusion of transgender athletes in the hands of individual sport governing bodies.

The recent success of swimmer Lia Thomas, the first transgender woman to win an NCAA swimming championship, prompted the change. This led FINA, the international swimming body, to effectively ban transwomen from competing in the women's category. Only swimmers who transitioned before age 12 are permitted to compete in women's events.

Broader anti-trans campaigns

Efforts to ban transwomen who have gone through male puberty from women's sports are part of broader anti-trans campaigns that seek to deny transgender youth access to the gender-affirming health care - specifically hormone blockers - required to avoid an unwanted puberty.

Many U.S. states and Alberta have banned, or are planning to ban, access to affirming health care for youth under 16. Transgender women and girls impacted by these bans will never be able to compete in women's sport. These laws and policies signal to transgender women and girls they are not welcome in sport, and their privacy will be violated if they attempt to participate.

Read more: What is gender-affirming care? A social worker and therapist working with trans people explains

This will particularly impact transgender women and girls who do not or cannot pass as cisgender - either because they choose not to access gender-affirming health care, because they cannot afford it or because they live in areas where it is banned for minors.

As a result, many transgender girls and young women wishing to compete in high school or youth sport may avoid participating in sport altogether. This gender panic has also had consequences for cisgender girls who don't conform to gender norms, subjecting them to anti-trans surveillance and harassment.

Conservative, anti-trans groups claim to be protecting sport for women and girls by banning the participation of transgender women and girls. However, their actions reveal them as enemies of gender equity and reproductive freedom. What girls and women athletes need to thrive are well-funded and gender-equitable sporting spaces that include transgender women and girls.

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Transgender athletes face an uncertain future at the Olympics as reactionary policies gain ground

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While transgender people have gained some recognition and human rights in the past decade, a well-financed reactionary movement is rolling them back.

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Jenna Weiner started playing ultimate in 2011 as an undergraduate at Cal. She loved chasing down discs on long throws and the beauty and simplicity of seeing them in flight. So in '16, when she started a graduate program in communication studies at the University of Nevada, Reno, it made sense that the sport she loved would help her find community in a new city.

Weiner, 28, had started her gender transition shortly before beginning graduate school that fall, and USA Ultimate had put a new transgender-inclusion policy in place over the summer. She continued playing men's ultimate that fall, but decided to return for the spring semester and be completely out as Jenna. It was her first time trying to play collegiate women's club ultimate.

To find out whether she was eligible, Weiner contacted USAU. She had already been on hormone-replacement therapy (HRT) for six months. "I was like, 'Hey, what do I do? Can I play on this women's college team? Or do I have to go through this year of testosterone [suppression]? Can I practice with the team if I don't play tournaments?'"

Policies are designed to promote fairness in competition and (ideally) inclusion. But often, trans eligibility policies are created by people outside the trans community. They center the feelings of the cisgender competitors who may feel threatened by competing against a trans person rather than the feelings of the trans people like Weiner, who are often excluded or policed by them.

When Weiner was trying to figure out whether she was eligible to play ultimate in 2016, she felt like she was transitioning all alone. She didn't know of other transfeminine voices in the sport, and she felt like her experience was valuable in demonstrating why USAU's testosterone-based policy needed to change.

The policy of the USAU, and many other governing bodies at all levels of sports, is downstream of that of the International Olympic Committee. The IOC most recently updated its inclusion policies in 2015, and its focus on testosterone levels has trickled down to even youth sports in the United States. The IOC rolled out a new framework in March '22 to encourage moving away from testosterone-based restrictions, but its former policy has already been used as a model for so many other leagues-with devastating consequences for trans athletes.

The IOC's transgender-inclusion policy, until now, required all women to have testosterone levels under 10 nanomoles/liter and transfeminine people to be on testosterone-supressing medication for at least a year. It was more scrutinized during the Tokyo Games in 2021 than it had been at any point since it had been put in place six years before. That was due to the participation of the first openly trans woman, New Zealand weightlifter Laurel Hubbard, and two cisgender female Namibian runners' being deemed ineligible due to their testosterone levels.

Codifying testosterone-based science as the true indicator of who is eligible to be considered a girl sets a precedent in which womanhood is continuing to be policed.

The IOC's new trans-inclusion framework was three years in the making and officially rolled out following the Winter Olympics in Beijing. It was a complete reversal from the group's previous stance. It places the responsibility of establishing guidelines for trans inclusion on each individual sport. It also concludes that sporting bodies should not assume that transgender women have an inherent advantage over cisgender women, nor should transgender women have to reduce their testosterone levels to compete.

The new framework was informed by conversations with stakeholders from across the sports world, as well as legal and medical experts. Importantly, the IOC also acknowledged that its previous policy caused real harm to the well-being of trans athletes around the world.

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The IOC Has a New Trans-Inclusion Framework, but Is the Damage Already Done?

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Jenna Weiner started playing ultimate in 2011 as an undergraduate at Cal. She loved chasing down discs on long throws and the beauty and simplicity of seeing them in flight. So in '16, when she started a graduate program in communication studies at the University of Nevada, Reno, it made sense that the sport she loved would help her find community in a new city.