Transgender Controversy in Sports
by Melinda Burris Willms
The inclusion of transgenders into the world of sport has opened up widespread controversy on both sides of the issue regarding fairness: fairness in regards to inclusion and fairness in regards to competition. Raising questions such as, if individuals who were born as male compete as female, do they still hold a substantial physical advantage over the other competitors on the field even if their testosterone levels have been substantially decreased? On the other side of the issue, is it unfair to decry the participation of transgenders on the grounds that to exclude them or to force them to compete with a gender with which they do not identify is to belittle them or to chase them from the field? This argument has reached all levels of sport, from the Olympics to high school athletics, and as such, deserves a full examination.
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The transgender debate has been especially vocal in women’s sports. One recent high-profile example played out in the media—particularly social media, following Dr. Rachel McKinnon’s first place finish in the 2018 UCI Track Cycling World Masters Championships. McKinnon celebrated by posted a message to social media declaring herself, “First transgender woman world champion…ever*.”1 Jennifer Wagner, who placed third and won the bronze for the event, led the charge criticizing McKinnon, who was born male, tweeting, “I was the 3rd place rider. It’s definitely NOT fair.”1 The rest of social media, like much of the country it seems, appeared divided over whether McKinnon won or cheated or whether this should be a moment to celebrate both her achievement and inclusion in every facet of life.
A surprising opponent of transgender women participating in women’s sports emerged in the person of Martina Navratilova, well-known Wimbledon tennis champion and an outspoken advocate for LGBT rights. Given her public political stance on a variety of issues, an editorial Navratilova penned for the Sunday Times of London in February 2019 in which she decried allowing biological males to compete against women as trans women to be “cheating”2 caught many unaware.
Interestingly, in the same editorial, Navratilova pledged her support for an Olympic 800-champion named Caster Semenya, a biological female who has a rare medical condition that causes her body to naturally register high levels of testosterone. The International Association of Athletics Federation has issued a ruling mandating that Semenya be forced to take hormone therapy to lower her testosterone levels. She is currently appealing that ruling.2
It would seem that sports associations are grappling with medical issues and new social constructs of gender that have historically not been their purview. When the International Olympic Committee’s Executive Committee ruled on permitting transgenders to compete in the Olympic games in May 2004, it set forth only three conditions transgenders were required to meet: complete anatomical change to the other sex by means of surgery; official recognition of the new gender as demonstrated by legal documentation; and a proven and demonstrable history of hormone therapy (for the specific purpose of negating any “gender-related advantages in sport competitions.”)3 In its ruling, The International Olympic Committee did not weigh in on medical conditions like the one facing Semenya or the debate over the physical advantages some argue those born male have over their born female competitors—lowered testosterone levels or not.
However, to speak out against transgenders participating freely in sport is decidedly not politically correct. For Navratilova, the backlash was swift: she was thrown out of Athlete Ally, an LGBT-rights organization, that decried her comments in the Sunday Times as anti-gay. The organization further claimed that Navratilova’s comments showed she did not have a proper understanding of science and that by speaking out in such a way, she was “[perpetuating] dangerous myths.”2 A member of the ACLU went on record backing Athlete Ally’s decision to strip Navratilova of her membership. The ACLU member, Chase Strangio, who is also a trans activist, argued that were transgenders to “dominate” in all areas of women’s sports, wouldn’t that just provide a wonderful source of inspiration to transgender children?2 Others argue that seeing a contest in which the physical advantages of one competitor over the other are so glaringly obvious make the competition unsportsmanlike.
Madeleine Kearns, in her article for National Review, makes a well-reasoned argument that individuals born male have certain physical advantages such height, weight, an increased resistance to dehydration, increased upper-body strength, more rapid reaction times, increased capacity to sweat, and a larger muscle-to-fat ratio so as to make competition between those born female and those who are trans female unequal from the start.2 Scientists agree with Kearns’ summation as noted by the 2010 study, “Equality, Equity and Inclusion: Transgender Athletes’ Participation in Competitive Sports – a New Era” by Singh, Kanwaljeet, and Narinder. The authors conclude:
Men generally have an inherent performance advantage over women due to their greater average height, muscle mass and power, as the result of correspondingly different exposures to androgens. Therefore, it is considered fair that in sports men and women compete in separate categories. The question now emerging is whether reassigned transsexuals can compete in fairness with others of their new sex (p. 87).
Height and weight are certainly an advantage in hurdling. But then, some individuals are born with genetics that naturally favor them with a height and weight that makes playing sports come easily to them. But what about those other factors, such as superior upper-body strength or larger muscle-to-fat ratio? How are these things to be equalized on the field? The fact that these questions will continue to be debated for the foreseeable future resonate in the response of Rachel McKinnon, the transgender woman who won the gold in the 2018 UCI Track Cycling World Masters Championships: “If I win, they attribute it to me being trans and having an unfair advantage. If I lose, the same people think I must not be good anyway. People will never attribute my winning to hard work which is what I think I deserve.”1
References
- Yahoo Sports UK. (16 Oct. 2018). Not Fair: Runner-up Fumes Over Transgender World Champion.
- Kearns, M. (27 Feb. 2019). In Defense of Women’s Sports. National Review.
- Singh, B.B., Kanwaljeet, S., and Narinder, K.S. (2010).
Equality, Equity and Inclusion: Transgender Athletes’ Participation in Competitive Sports – a New Era. Physical Culture and Sports and Studies Research. DOI: 10.2478/v10141-010-0020-2
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