Trans Folks in Sports

Historical Segregation

It is a well-known fact that women's rights are a relatively recent concept, and that women have been (and continue to be) discriminated against for much of humanity's history. As pointed out by Four Waves of Feminism, the first recognisable form of feminism (first-wave feminism) formally began in 1848. In What is First-Wave Feminism?, MasterClass points out that the beginnings of this movement focused on a defined set of grievances, regarding suffrage, government representation, marriage and divorce laws, and employment.

As explained in Sex Segregation in Sports, as late as the 1970s, there were few roles considered "gender appropriate" for women and girls. Society expected them to focus on traditional (and low-wage if they were working) roles, such as cooking, cleaning, home-making and cosmetology. When organised sports appeared in the US in the 19th century, we discouraged or outright banned women and girls from participating, resulting in sports largely being characterised as male-dominated and even hypermasculine, something that persists today.

Sex Segregation in Sports also explains that Title IX, which prohibits sex-based discrimination in all government-funded forms of education, was heavily contested by opponents who wished to restrict the rights of women in athletics, lobbying to exclude it. For example, the NCAA's executive director stated that Title IX was the "possible doom of intercollegiate sports", and Senator John Tower (TX) proposed amendments to exclude women from revenue-generating sports.

As pointed out by Marion Müller in Constructing Gender Incommensurability in Competitive Sport, the idea of segregating sports by sex today relies on some assumption that women on average perform less well than men. They explain that early big sport organisations tried to exclude women whose performances were above expectations, by establishing "gender verifications" that accused those women of fraud. This happened even though there was (and is) no scientific proof such segregation makes logical sense on any material basis.

Müller's paper explores this topic in detail, and concludes that the thought process used to justify this segregation was, in fact, a tool used by segregationists to try to prove that material differences existed. It seems as if this form of segregation exists to prevent us from making direct comparisons between the performance of the sexes in sports and athletics, which would prove beyond a doubt that there's no material difference. In fact, the implementation of sex-based segregation in fencing, rifle shooting and skeet shooting only began after a woman won against male competitors, implying that it only exists to reinforce masculine stereotypes. This is further explored by Julia Konieczny, who relates her experience as a young wrestler in an otherwise all-male wrestling team, and how opponents would forfeit once they realised she was a girl.

Müller also points out that when decades of attempts to prove that women performed less well than men at sports failed, sports organisations tried to find new reasons to continue to segregate sports by sex. We can see examples of this in the media as recently as 2023, when Olympic medallist Caster Semenya won a court case that declared it was discriminatory for World Athletics to exclude her based on her natural testosterone levels.

While racism isn't the focus of this article, it is also worth noting that the regulations on testosterone levels are likely racist. This is partly because black women often have their femininity denied by racists, and many believe the regulations only used white women's testosterone levels as a guideline.

Trans Segregation

Müller concludes that sports organisations tend to see gender ambiguity (which may be challenging to categorise) as a threat. They further attempt to justify their segregation by measuring "hyperandrogenism", or heightened levels of testosterone, excluding women that produce more of it and don't go through medical treatments to lower it. However, this only proves Müller's point — that this doesn't represent a meaningful difference in performance. Instead, it is simply an extension of institutions' wish to continue to segregate sports by sex, apparently in an appeal to traditional values.

This train of thought also affects trans folks, sometimes in contradictory ways. Those who believe in biological essentialism may state that one's biology defines much of their sporting ability, stating that trans-feminine folks have an innate physical advantage due to being born male. As the big sports organisations use testosterone as a measure of "maleness," it is unsurprising those who support excluding trans-feminine folks from organised sports use the heightened testosterone levels of those assigned male at birth as a justification. They also usually ignore non-binary and trans-masculine folks, groups that tend to contradict many of their other arguments.

1. The assumption that testosterone has a measurable effect on the performance of an athlete has little scientific basis:

   • According to this report published by Nature, testosterone does not affect lean mass or hand grip strength in women.

   • This report commissioned by the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport, a comprehensive review of all relevant, English language scientific literature published between 2011 and 2021, states that there's no evidence that including trans-feminine folks in sport would be unfair.

   • A 2019 investigation into the testosterone regulations shows that the regulations were justified using significantly flawed data, and that the data, when corrected, contradicts the conclusion that the IAAF put forward.

     It also points out that the IAAF neglected to have their research peer-reviewed, and it contained a significant number of basic errors, such as duplicated athletes.

   • This report from 2021 mentions the above statistical issue.

     It also points out that the study used by the IAAF to justify its policies can only assert that raised testosterone levels had a positive impact on athletic ability for a couple of events. The data for 16 other events showed no impact, and for several other events, raised testosterone levels negatively impacted the athletes' abilities.

   • This report from 2019 points out that coming up with a definition of "normal" testosterone levels is hard, and that one's testosterone levels naturally fluctuate constantly.

     It also mentions that experts from different societies, countries, and even laboratories often don't agree on what a "normal" level of testosterone is.

2. While not all trans-feminine folks will, many of them do decide to undergo hormone replacement therapy, or HRT.

   HRT is a form of hormone therapy, which involves the administering of hormonal medications to help align trans folks' secondary sexual characteristics with their gender. This medication usually takes two forms, typically administered together:

   • Hormone blockers, which lower the production of a given hormone or inhibit the receptors for that hormone.
   • Medication providing supplemental hormones, matching the trans folk's gender and keeping their hormonal balance healthy.

   For pre-surgery trans-feminine folks, this medication will typically lower their testosterone levels and raise their oestrogen levels. This would imply that any potentially measurable benefits granted by their prior testosterone levels would become nullified through their medical treatment.

   Here's what the science has to say:

   • This report from 2021 shows that feminizing HRT does lower strength, haemoglobin levels, muscle area and lean body mass. It suggests that trans-feminine folks may have similar physical characteristics to cisgender women after three years, but also recommends further research.
   • This 2024 report shows that masculinising HRT in non-athletic trans-masculine folks results in a performance level no different to cisgender men after 1 to 3 years. It also shows that feminizing HRT results in bone density compromise, and after 4 years, their muscle and fat mass, and performance is no different to that of cisgender women. Like the previous study, it recommends further research.

   While studies opine that trans-feminine folks may generally retain some minor long-term advantages over cisgender women, competitive sports organisations already accept and account for similar deviations in abilities and advantages in cisgender women. The report from the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport also points this out.

3. While advocates for banning trans folks from sports often use children as a talking point, claims that banning trans children from sports is an issue of protecting other children seem nebulous at best:

   • According to the Associated Press, lawmakers have largely been unable to cite local examples of trans girls competing in sports. Where examples are available, there appears to be no evidence that including trans children results in competitive unfairness.
   • As Susanna Cassisa points out in this Washington Post article, the "protect the children" rhetoric has been used to demonise members of the LGBT+ community since the early 1900s, and potentially even earlier than that.

4. Advocates for banning trans folks from sports often include non-physical sports, coming up with the same conclusions. This suggests that this is more about transphobia and misogyny than any idea of fairness:

   • This report from 2022 talks about a trans-feminine snooker player, and the harassment she faced after her tournament win. This included calls from former world number one Maria Catalano, who called for trans players to be banned from women's tournaments.

   • This report from 2023 talks about how the International Chess Federation (FIDE) effectively declared that women are less intelligent than men. It effectively banned trans women from competing in women's competitions for up to two years, and decided to remove some titles won by both trans men and women in their respective categories.

   • This report from 2024 talks about how professional pool player Lynne Pinches turned down her first ever professional contract, when the World Eightball Pool Federation reversed its ban on trans players.

   • This report from 2024 talks about how several Dutch cisgendered women's darts veterans quit when they realised their team included a trans woman, complaining about fairness in the sport.

   • SheWon.org (Archived), which frames trans athletes as "males in women's sporting events" that stole cis women's achievements by beating them, lists several non-physical sports, including billiards, darts, esports, poker, pool, and snooker. It also lists numerous "non-athletic competitions", including Jeopardy game show wins, beauty competitions, scholarships, democratic elections, Forbes lists, and hot-dog-eating competitions.

     The site also contains a list of trans-feminine athletes, including many of their deadnames. Additionally, as is typical for those who would exclude trans folks from sports, the site pretends that trans-masculine folks don't exist.

Direct Impact

It goes without saying that this page wouldn't exist, had there been no reason to discuss this disinformation. Unfortunately, the disinformation discussed above has had many real-world consequences.

The following points are true as of April 2024:

• In 2023, World Athletics introduced new regulations regarding the eligibility of transgender athletes and female athletes with "differences of sex development".

  These regulations require female athletes with "differences of sexual development" to medicate for at least two years, with the aim of reducing their testosterone levels. This requirement applies to all events, including those that were previously unrestricted.

  They also ban all trans-feminine athletes who had a male puberty from participating in female World Rankings competitions. Due to the current state of trans healthcare legislation, this impacts most trans-feminine individuals, and this problem is likely to get worse due to the current political climate.

  In what we can only describe as cruel irony, these regulations came into effect on the 31st of March 2023, Transgender Day of Visibility.

  As pointed out by the Washington Blade, in a turn we find concerning, all cisgender athletes affected by these new regulations were women of colour.

• According to The ACLU, government officials attempted to pass at least 48 bills attempting to ban trans youth from participating in school sports or in teams that correspond with their gender. It also shows 33 bills restricting access to school facilities for trans youth.

  Four related bills have passed so far this year:

  • AL SB129
  • ID H0455
  • UT HB0172
  • WI AB377

• Excluding women based on their hormone levels does little to contribute to equal opportunities for them.

  For example, this report from 2024 points out that Maximila Imali, a top Kenyan runner disqualified due to her high testosterone levels, is struggling to support her partner and family, feed her son and pay the rent.

  Banning female athletes from their careers serves to make them poorer, and may prevent them from meeting an acceptable quality of life. We're unsure what mental gymnastics one needs to characterise this as "protecting women", but that's how World Athletics puts it: "This is why we introduced the eligibility regulation and why it must be defended: to ensure fair competition for all women."

  As mentioned above, this also seems to have a disproportionate effect on women of colour.

Conclusion

While further research is necessary to fully understand the effects of transitioning on one's body, the above context shows that there's no real reason to exclude trans folks from sports. Indeed, the scientific evidence seems to contradict every argument made in support of banning trans folks, and it also seems that many advocates for that aren't arguing based on any reasonable or factual basis.

While it is impossible for any article to be absolutely inclusive of all possible information, we believe that the context we've provided above shows that there's no reasonable basis for excluding trans folks from sport. If you come across further studies or information that you feel should be included here, please contact us or submit a Pull Request as explained in the Contributing section.

Sources

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