I have a habit of picking controversial topics to cover in college assignments...whether it be abortion, pornography, or simply my Christian faith. Even in the liberal colleges I've taken classes through, I've never been one to hide what I believe - even when I risk a bad grade because a professor doesn't agree with my values and is unable (or unwilling) to grade objectively (which has happened.) This research paper was no different...I mean, transgender men in women's sports isn't controversial at all, is it? Well it is, but fortunately God blessed me with an objective professor who appreciated my willingness to take on a touchy subject and refused to be biased by her own opinions (I still have no idea whether she agreed or disagreed with my viewpoint). This was the first 'real' research paper I wrote, but I think sixteen-year-old me did okay writing about a contentious subject, LOL :)
Transgender Women in Sport?
Lia Thomas, a biological male, has currently won four Ivy League swim championships in the women’s division. Cece Telfer, a biological male, won the National Collegiate Athletic Association title after triumphing in the women’s 400-meter hurdle in 2019. Rachel McKinnon (better known as Veronica Ivy), a biological male, is now a world track cycling champion after having won the UCI Women’s Master Track World Championship.
Is it fair to America’s female athletes that men claiming to be women are allowed to compete against them? Some would say it is not unacceptable, yet, increasingly, more and more states and school districts are allowing transgender women to compete alongside biological women. Even the International Olympic Committee has taken the stance that transgender women must be allowed to compete in the female division of sport.
When talking about both recreational and elite sports, Ivy (2021) states: “Trans and intersex women’s right to compete in women’s (or “female”) sport is a right to compete as women, as female, in women’s (or “female”) sports categories…” (pg. 3) Later on, Ivy again claims that the right for transgender women to compete in the women’s divisions of sport is an “established fact.” Ivy agrees with the Olympics’ decision to allow transgender women to compete in the women’s categories. Ivy, however, is a transgender woman, so it would therefore make sense to assume that Ivy’s personal experience may lead to a biased view.
Perhaps though, it is also an “established fact” that transgender women hold natural advantages over their biologically female counterparts. Lundberg and Hilton (2020) have collected data from numerous studies, suggesting that:
"Superior anthropometric, muscle mass and strength parameters achieved by males at puberty, and underpinning a considerable portion of the male performance advantage over females, are not removed by the current regimen of testosterone suppression permitting participation of transgender women in female sports categories" (Pg. 209).
They go on to write that the slight reductions in muscle mass and strength as a result of testosterone suppression are not enough to protect equality in women’s sport, due to the significant difference in variables between the two genders which cause “major performance and safety implications” in competition. Hence, transgender women, who are biological males, should not compete in women’s sport due to an inequitable advantage consisting of larger body mass, differences in physical strength, and higher hormone levels.
The first advantage that transgender women hold is that of larger body mass. A biological male has, according to Janssen et al. (2000), approximately 36% more body mass than a biological woman. Simply walking through a local mall or attending any type of event that hosts a large number of people can easily demonstrate this difference visually. On average, the men you see are going to be bigger and more heavily built than the average woman. In addition, much of an average male’s body mass is made up of muscle mass, while an average female’s body mass is mostly body fat.
Those who support transgender women in sport claim that gender-affirming hormone therapy (GAHT) reduces and eliminates the advantages that a larger body mass gives the athlete. However, scientific studies show that, while GAHT does slightly reduce the advantages, it does not eliminate them completely. According to a paper by Harper et al. (2021), “The third cross-sectional study compared transwomen who had undergone at least 48 months of GAHT with cisgender men and reported 17% lower LBM [lean body mass] in transwomen than in cisgender men” (pg. 4). So, ultimately, according to this study, while the trans women who have undergone gender-affirming hormone therapy have 17% lower LBM than cis gender males, they still have 19% higher body mass than biological women; thus, they still retain an unfair advantage in sports such as weightlifting, powerlifting, rugby, football, etc... because these sports benefit from larger body masses. This difference in body mass can also cause safety issues for cis women athletes.
According to a 2020 article published in the Economist, the global governing body for rugby – World Rugby – decided that because hormone therapy has no effect on lessening body mass, the dangers of allowing transgender women to compete against biological women were “too great”. Because of this, they have decided to keep their women’s division exactly that – the women’s division. World Rugby realizes that if they allow transgender women into women’s rugby, it will no longer be a “women’s” division. They say: “without it [the women’s division], half the population would be left struggling against an insurmountable advantage granted by mere biological chance to the other half” (“A question of sport; Transgender rights”, 2020). The women’s division of every sport, not just rugby, must be protected or the women will have no opportunity to compete fairly.
Transgender women also have an advantage over biological women in the area of physical strength. This advantage is retained even after testosterone suppression. In the previously mentioned article by Lundberg and Hilton, the authors assess many studies and the data collected from those studies before applying it to the issue of transgender women in sport. They conclude “that testosterone suppression in transgender women does not reverse muscle size to female levels” (Lundberg & Hilton, pg. 205, 2020). This lack of muscle size reversal will lead to transgender women unfairly having a natural advantage in the majority of sports, particularly sports such as weightlifting, boxing, wrestling, and other physically taxing sports.
In 2017, transgender weightlifter Laurel Hubbard (formerly Gavin Hubbard, a mediocre male weightlifter) became the first transgender athlete to win an international weightlifting title, after competing in the women’s division. Laurel then went on to compete in the 2018 Commonwealth Games, where he was set to win by a considerable amount and set a Commonwealth record. Due to an injury he sustained in his third lift, Laurel did not finish the competition. Had he not been injured, Hubbard would have beaten all his female competitors by a large difference. This comes as no surprise as Laurel is a biological male competing against biological females. Even though he had undergone all the required treatments to participate in the women’s division of weightlifting, it still did not lead to equal competition. According to Lundberg and Hilton (2020), studies showed that biological women were still approximately 50% weaker than transgender women who had undergone a year of gender-affirming hormone therapy. Not only does this difference in strength lead to unfair competition, but it can also lead to serious safety issues in impact sports such as football and boxing.
In 2014, Fallon Fox, the first transgender Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) fighter entered the arena at Capital City Cage Wars to face off with Tamikka Brents. Within two minutes, Fox had completely destroyed Brents. With a severe concussion and a fractured orbital bone in her skull, Brents had to receive seven staples in her head. During an interview with Alan Murphy on WhoaTV, Brents stated:
"I’ve fought a lot of women and have never felt the strength that I felt in a fight as I did that night…I can only say I’ve never felt so overpowered ever in my life and I am an abnormally strong female in my own right. Her [Fox’s] grip was different. I could usually move around in the clinch against other females, but couldn’t move at all in Fox’s clinch" (“Exclusive: Fallon Fox’s latest opponent opens up to #WHOATV”, 2014).
This is because, as evidence has shown, Fallon Fox has an advantage in his physical strength due to being biologically male. Lundberg and Hilton (2020) stated that the inclusion of transgender women can only be accepted if we are willing to tolerate a “large imbalance in fairness,” as well as a lack of safety.
Transgender women athletes also have a hormonal advantage over their biologically female competitors due to their male levels of testosterone, meaning that they have higher muscle mass and longer physical endurance. Because of this, most sports regulations require transgender women to meet certain guidelines addressing their testosterone levels. However, despite hormone treatment, studies have shown that transgender women retain some of their advantages, which can then lead to unfair competition. In a study by Harper and colleagues, it was found that:
"…transwomen ran significantly faster during the 1.5 mile fitness test than ciswomen. These observations in trained transgender individuals are consistent with the findings of the current review in untrained transgender individuals, whereby 30 months of GAHT may be sufficient to attenuate some, but not all, influencing factors associated with muscular endurance and performance" (pg. 8, 2021).
The study then goes on to say that the strength loss resulting from a year of hormone treatment ranged from a 0-7% decrease in strength. A biological woman is 31-36% weaker than a biological male. That means that in best-case scenario, the average transgender woman athlete is still 24% stronger than the average biological female athlete. Yet, despite this, many people still believe that transgender women should be allowed to compete against biologically female athletes.
The main argument proposed by those who believe that transgender women should be allowed to compete in women’s sports is that culture must be “inclusive” and “welcoming” to everyone – including transgender women. According to Gleaves and Lehrbach (2016): “Making sport a more inclusive space for diverse gendered narratives will empower marginalized individuals…and may even mark progress toward a society where individuals exercise the freedom to write their meaningful story about themselves – and about all of us.” (pg. 323) To them, being inclusive means that we must allow transgender athletes to compete against whichever gender they are identifying with. They ignore the fact that transgender female athletes maintain much of their male advantages over female competitors.
If we allow transgender women - with all their unfair advantages - to compete against our biologically female athletes, the female category of sport will quickly be overrun and become just an extension of male sport that features biological men who think they are women. Our hardworking female athletes will easily be dominated by the transgender athletes among them and likely will lose all hope of excelling in their sport. Fewer and fewer will choose to compete, thus opening up more possibilities for the transgender women, until a biological female in women’s sport will become a rarity – not the norm. It is not inclusive or welcoming to our biologically female athletes to allow them to be dominated and overrun by athletes who are biologically male, despite years of training and effort. “It is… important to recognize that the biological factors underpinning athletic performance are unequivocally established” (Lundberg & Hilton, pg. 209, 2021). By banning transgender women from participating in the women’s category of sport, we ensure that we do not lose the ground we have won in creating and popularizing women’s sports over the past 100 years. (Ingram, 2019)
It is important that we protect the rights of biological women to compete fairly against other biologically female athletes rather than against transgender women who are biologically male and who retain the majority of their body mass and physical and hormonal advantages. Donald Trump Jr. voiced it well when he tweeted this to his followers after reading of the various honors and awards received by Cece Telfer’s upon his victory in NCAA’s Women’s Track.
“Yet another grave injustice to so many young women who trained their entire lives to achieve excellence. Identify however you want, to each his own, but this is too far and unfair to so many.”
Works Cited:
Murphy, A. (2014, September 17). Exclusive: Fallon Fox's latest opponent opens up
Ingram, B., & Thomas, C., (2019, June) Transgender policy in sport; A review of current policy and commentary of the challenges of policy creation. Current Sports Medicine Reports (18)6 239-247
Economist (October 17, 2020). A question of sport; Transgender rights. The Economist
Hilton, E., & Lundberg, T. (December 8, 2020). Transgender women in the female category of sport: perspective on testosterone suppression and performance advantage. Sports Medicine https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7846503/
Janssen, I., Heymsfield, S., Wang, Z., & Ross, R., (July 1, 2000) Skeletal muscle mass and distribution in 468 men and women aged 18-88 yr. Journal of Applied Physiology, 89(1), 81-88 https://doi.org/10.1152/jappl.2000.89.1.81
Harper, J., O'Donnell, E., Khorashad, B. S., McDermott, H., & Witcomb, G. L. (August 2021). How does hormone transition in transgender women change body composition, muscle strength and haemoglobin? Systematic review with a focus on the implications for sport participation. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 55(15), 865-872. http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bjsports-2020-103106
Gleaves, J., Lehrbach, T., (2016) Beyond fairness: The ethics of inclusion for transgender and intersex athletes. Journal of the Philosophy of Sport, 43(2) 311-326
Ivy, V., (2021) If “if” and “buts” were candy and nuts: The failure of arguments against trans and intersex women’s full and equal inclusion in women’s sports. Feminist Philosophy Quarterly (7)2
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