Women’s Sports, inclusion & fairness:

By: Karolyn

18 April 2023

Sexed bodies and sport

In Part One I focused on trans identified males (AKA transwomen) sometimes being restricted to male or open sports categories. However, the current reality internationally is that transwomen are competing at all levels from high school (1) and college sports competitions, all the way up to the Olympics (2). This is resulting in lack of fairness, inclusion, and safety for female participants.

Transwomen are competing in female sporting competitions most visibly at elite levels, in far greater numbers than transmen in male competitions. Since the 2016 Rio Olympics, when the IOC allowed transwomen with a much higher level of testosterone (3) than the average female competitor to participate in the women’s category, it’s uncertain how many males have competed against women. (4)

It is surprising that transwomen have been the main focus of transactivist lobbying for their inclusion in female sports, when it is fair treatment for trans identified females (transmen), and some people with Difference/Variations of Sex Development (DSDs) that really is the difficult issue. This is glaring evidence of yet another form of sex-based inequality.

A transman who takes exogenous testosterone (T) can be ineligible for competing in the female category because of the advantages this will give them over other females.  In male sports a female, even taking chemical T, will not have the natural advantages that male puberty provides long term Either a trans identified female needs to forego taking T, as do some transmen who participate in women’s sports at an elite level, or compete in male sports. This also applies to non-binary identified females if they want to take a significant amount of T to create a more androgynous look.

Individuals with DSDs (AKA ‘Intersex’ conditions), who have high levels of natural testosterone, have faced opposition when competing in women’s elite sports, as has been the situation with Caster Semenya. (6) In all but an extreme minority of people with DSDs, they have either a male or female (5) reproductive system that developed atypically. They may have some physical characteristics of the opposite sex, but they do not have both a male and female reproductive system in one body. On very, very rare occasions individuals are found whose sex cannot be objectively identified, but they are not a third sex.

People with DSDs such as Caster Semenya, are likely males with internal testes.  They may have a medical condition such as Partial Androgen Insensitivity, where the androgen receptors only partially respond to naturally produced testosterone. Some may have ambiguous looking genitalia at birth and be categorised as female.  However, they have a much higher level of naturally occurring testosterone than females. Caster was born and raised as a female in a poor, black community in South Africa, where her DSD condition was not picked up until tested at international competitions.  These days, in wealthier communities and countries, such conditions are usually diagnosed earlier in life.

The latest decision from World Athletics (7) has set the requirement that individuals with DSDs who naturally produce a higher level of testosterone than females, must chemically reduce their T level before competing in the female category, or participate in male sports.  This can be pretty tough for those with male DSDs who have been raised to believe they are female. However, they, along with transmen and transwomen, may have the option of competing in an open category in the future.

Photo by Nicolas Hoizey: Lno6-CxVXgo-Unsplash

Transactivists often claim that ‘Intersex’ people are the proof either that sex is not binary, or is a spectrum, and/or that there are more than 2 sexes.  They then take a giant leap, without the support of scientific evidence, to claim that humans must therefore be whatever gender/sex they feel themselves to be (hence sex self ID).  However, DSDs are objectively identifiable innate medical conditions, and not the result of subjective self ID or an inner feeling.

The sexed body, whether male or female, has a very significant impact on sporting performance with males being stronger and faster than females. It has a far greater impact than self IDed gender identity, regardless of the amount of opposite sex hormones taken or most DSD conditions. The biological sex basis of selection for women’s sports needs to be maintained.

REFERENCES:

1. Wayne Fowler, Daily Mail, Australia, “Parents upset at ‘unfair advantage’ of trans women in female soccer leagues will be offered training to better understand ‘lived experience’ of transgender players”3 April, 2023, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-11931443/Upset-parents-offered-training-LGBTIQ-backlash-trans-players-female-soccer-comps.html

2. Cyd Zeigler and Karleigh Webb, Out Sports, “These 35 trans athletes have competed openly in college”, 29 March 2023. https://www.outsports.com/trans/2022/1/7/22850789/trans-athletes-college-ncaa-lia-thomas

3. Associated Press, The Guardian, “IOC rules transgender athletes can take part in Olympics without surgery”, 25 Jan 2016. https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/jan/25/ioc-rules-transgender-athletes-can-take-part-in-olympics-without-surgery

4. The Associated Press, NBC News, “First openly transgender Olympians are competing in Tokyo”, 27 July, 2021. https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-news/first-openly-transgender-olympians-are-competing-tokyo-rcna1507

5. Zach Elliott, ‘Sex Development Charts: Developmental Biology”, The Paradox Institute, 25 December, 2021. https://www.theparadoxinstitute.com/read/sex-development-charts

6. Yuliah Alma, ““An Injustice”: Former Canadian Olympic Head Coach Speaks Out Against Results Of 2016 Olympics, Calls For Sex-Segregated Sport”Reduxx, 7 April 2023. https://reduxx.info/an-injustice-former-canadian-olympic-head-coach-speaks-out-against-results-of-2016-olympics-calls-for-sex-segregated-sport/

7. Katie Falkingham, BBC Sport, “World Athletics bans transgender women from competing in female world ranking events”, 23 March 2023. https://www.bbc.com/sport/athletics/65051900

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