Great article. Thank you for writing it. I consider myself a trans ally who was admittedly uncomfortable with trans women competing in women’s sports. I hadn’t found anything that helped me understand why trans women wouldn’t have a competitive advantage until I came across your article. I had previously read David French’s article (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/25/opinion/womens-sports-under-fire.html) on this topic and couldn’t think of a good rebuttal. Now I see the slight of hand. He talks about how the top cis men are so much better at sports than the top cis women and then applies it to trans women as if there’s no difference in sporting ability between the two. He acts as if socially transitioning is enough to gain entrance into women’s competitive sports.
The truth is that the organizations governing women’s sports have a much higher interest in protecting women’s sports than these conservative men and these organizations have been allowing trans women to compete for much longer than I’ve realized (conservative media makes it sound like women’s sports have only just started allowing trans women to participate as a cave-in to a woke mob).
I found the description of your bodily changes very interesting and illustrative - especially the part about shooting a basketball - not only do you have less strength, but your muscle memory that you built up over years now betrays you.
I read the David French article just now (thanks for pointing it out). It's shocking to me that he doesn't even mention the effects of hormonal transition (which he believes should be banned for those under 18). Unless I missed it, he doesn't even mention whether or not the two trans athletes in Connecticut had undergone any medical transition at all. And most importantly, it's unclear what he believes a just solution would be. A hormonally transitioned trans woman has testosterone levels that are suppressed, sometimes to a level that would be medically concerning for a cis woman (yes, cis women have testosterone naturally). The biological difference between such a trans woman and cis men would be overwhelming.
And you're absolutely right - what's interesting about all of the conservative talking points on trans people, is that trans inclusion isn't new. What's new is efforts to stop it:
1. Bathroom use based on gender identity? It's never been outlawed in the US until recently.
3. Trans women in sports? The first in the NCAA that I could find was in 2013, and like I said, they've been allowed for much longer.
4. Etc. Etc. Etc.
I'm reminded of a point in The Witch Trials of JK Rowling (a recent podcast that centers around whether or not JK Rowling has been unfairly maligned/cancelled due to her views on trans people and their rights), where Rowling, talking about gender affirming care, says something like "why aren't we having a conversation about this?" And the answer, of course, is "we", are, but the "we" doesn't typically include fantasy authors, no matter how famous and beloved. It includes medical organizations, psychology organizations, and others who are experts in the field. And those organizations are unanimous after having studied and discussed this for decades. (https://transhealthproject.org/resources/medical-organization-statements/). She says something similar about bathroom access for trans women, saying "shouldn't women get a say in this?" neglecting that 0.6% of people are trans, thus we have near-zero power in any policy making in the UK or US (there are only 8 elected trans people at the state level in the US, and none at the federal level). Policies about trans people are made almost entirely by cis people. Even the DSM-V diagnostic criteria for Gender Dysphoria was made by a board that, as far as anyone knows, was entirely cisgender.
But to hear people like French talk, this is some sort of new and novel thing and no one is ready for it or considering any of these things. When the reality is that real conversations are happening, and have happened.
Anyways - that was longwinded - I just loved how you framed your comment, and got going on a couple related notes :-)
I am very near (but it quite at) your footnote 5 I think. I hold justice to be more important than fairness. I am not against requiring particular hormone levels as such but I do think that those requirements ought to apply to all women who compete.
I also think that these requirements do raise trick issues regarding intersex women specifically and would be loathe to tell am I teraex woman that she would have to effectively medically transition or be banned from participating in women's sport (which id I recall correctly is what was done to Caster Semenya).
I think at the end of the day the system I would most support would be one in which sport is divided not by gender per se but by particular biological makers (height, hormone level, or whatever bio markers were deemed critical to performance in the sport) much like how boxing is divided by weight class. Certainly in that scenario cis women would predominate in certain categories while men would predominate in others but the official dividong criteria being something other than gender per se would make a difference.
Yeah, there's all kinds of ways I think I'd redesign sports if I could (I hear Natalie Wynn: "Your Utopian Pipedream Is Valid!"), but for now, I'm mostly just focused on coming up with a rule set that results in fair competition and inclusion of as many people as possible within the existing structures (I know that might be frustrating)
I think I agree with pretty much all of your points (I also say if there are hormone levels, they should be universally applied, not only to trans women).
Semenya was required to suppress testosterone in order to compete, and I agree that an intersex woman is a *very* hard case. At the end of the day, every champion in sports is a genetic anomaly (no pejorative meaning at all - I mean they have very, very rare genetics). LeBron James has a once-in-a-generation combination of size and speed. There will never be another player like Shaq. Michael Jordan and Steph Curry both had otherworldy skills that literally no one else has ever had. Yes, some of that is training. But a lot of it is genetics. In swimming, you see someone like Michael Phelps who was what you'd get if you literally genetically engineered a swimmer. Same with Katie Ledecky. So if the "anomaly" is "higher than normal testosterone", that's got to be allowable to *some* degree, just like larger feet, being tall, etc. So I think I'd support a natural testosterone limit that's like, the 99.9999th percentile of cis women with no intersex conditions or something? But then you get into the absolute maddening question: can a cis woman supplement testosterone? Let's say a WNBA player is in the 98th percentile of testosterone for a cis woman. Can she bump that to the 99th? If not, why not? A woman who already had the 99th percentile already can compete. But bumping it up will not only give her a sports advantage, it will masculinize her body somewhat. Is that ok?
Which is why, at the end of the day, my primary goal is this: Governments can require certain people to be included, but they cannot require certain people to be excluded. That is, they can demand that there be a path for trans women to be included (as the courts did with Natalie Ryan a couple weeks ago), but they cannot demand that trans women be excluded. From there, each sport needs to figure out what makes sense based on its own dynamics. And like I said - this is likely to be an evolving situation for a few decades. I just want it to not be a political football, and have governments avoid outright bans when they're (so far) completely unnecessary.
I'm sorry this comment is so late! We are discussing this exact issue in my Women and Queer studies class. While doing various readings, listening to podcasts, and hearing from my classmates, I kept thinking that I wanted to hear from someone actually IN the trans community, not just someone's strong opinion one way or the other. I remembered that I saved this for my "To Read" list and there was never a more perfect time! Thank you for your input and I am happy to know your perspective.
Great article. Thank you for writing it. I consider myself a trans ally who was admittedly uncomfortable with trans women competing in women’s sports. I hadn’t found anything that helped me understand why trans women wouldn’t have a competitive advantage until I came across your article. I had previously read David French’s article (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/25/opinion/womens-sports-under-fire.html) on this topic and couldn’t think of a good rebuttal. Now I see the slight of hand. He talks about how the top cis men are so much better at sports than the top cis women and then applies it to trans women as if there’s no difference in sporting ability between the two. He acts as if socially transitioning is enough to gain entrance into women’s competitive sports.
The truth is that the organizations governing women’s sports have a much higher interest in protecting women’s sports than these conservative men and these organizations have been allowing trans women to compete for much longer than I’ve realized (conservative media makes it sound like women’s sports have only just started allowing trans women to participate as a cave-in to a woke mob).
I found the description of your bodily changes very interesting and illustrative - especially the part about shooting a basketball - not only do you have less strength, but your muscle memory that you built up over years now betrays you.
Thank you for your writing.
Thanks for your comment, James!
I read the David French article just now (thanks for pointing it out). It's shocking to me that he doesn't even mention the effects of hormonal transition (which he believes should be banned for those under 18). Unless I missed it, he doesn't even mention whether or not the two trans athletes in Connecticut had undergone any medical transition at all. And most importantly, it's unclear what he believes a just solution would be. A hormonally transitioned trans woman has testosterone levels that are suppressed, sometimes to a level that would be medically concerning for a cis woman (yes, cis women have testosterone naturally). The biological difference between such a trans woman and cis men would be overwhelming.
And you're absolutely right - what's interesting about all of the conservative talking points on trans people, is that trans inclusion isn't new. What's new is efforts to stop it:
1. Bathroom use based on gender identity? It's never been outlawed in the US until recently.
2. Gender affirming care for minors? It's never been illegal and has been practiced for decades (https://juliaserano.medium.com/gender-affirming-care-for-trans-youth-is-neither-new-nor-experimental-a-timeline-and-compilation-b4bb8375d797). And gender affirming care for adults goes back over a century, arguably many centuries depending on how you want to count it.
3. Trans women in sports? The first in the NCAA that I could find was in 2013, and like I said, they've been allowed for much longer.
4. Etc. Etc. Etc.
I'm reminded of a point in The Witch Trials of JK Rowling (a recent podcast that centers around whether or not JK Rowling has been unfairly maligned/cancelled due to her views on trans people and their rights), where Rowling, talking about gender affirming care, says something like "why aren't we having a conversation about this?" And the answer, of course, is "we", are, but the "we" doesn't typically include fantasy authors, no matter how famous and beloved. It includes medical organizations, psychology organizations, and others who are experts in the field. And those organizations are unanimous after having studied and discussed this for decades. (https://transhealthproject.org/resources/medical-organization-statements/). She says something similar about bathroom access for trans women, saying "shouldn't women get a say in this?" neglecting that 0.6% of people are trans, thus we have near-zero power in any policy making in the UK or US (there are only 8 elected trans people at the state level in the US, and none at the federal level). Policies about trans people are made almost entirely by cis people. Even the DSM-V diagnostic criteria for Gender Dysphoria was made by a board that, as far as anyone knows, was entirely cisgender.
Trans people have existed for a long time, and will continue to do so. The only difference is that certain political groups have discovered that we're an easy group to paint with a scary brush since only 11% of people even know a trans person. (https://www.prri.org/research/the-politics-of-gender-pronouns-and-public-education/).
But to hear people like French talk, this is some sort of new and novel thing and no one is ready for it or considering any of these things. When the reality is that real conversations are happening, and have happened.
Anyways - that was longwinded - I just loved how you framed your comment, and got going on a couple related notes :-)
I am very near (but it quite at) your footnote 5 I think. I hold justice to be more important than fairness. I am not against requiring particular hormone levels as such but I do think that those requirements ought to apply to all women who compete.
I also think that these requirements do raise trick issues regarding intersex women specifically and would be loathe to tell am I teraex woman that she would have to effectively medically transition or be banned from participating in women's sport (which id I recall correctly is what was done to Caster Semenya).
I think at the end of the day the system I would most support would be one in which sport is divided not by gender per se but by particular biological makers (height, hormone level, or whatever bio markers were deemed critical to performance in the sport) much like how boxing is divided by weight class. Certainly in that scenario cis women would predominate in certain categories while men would predominate in others but the official dividong criteria being something other than gender per se would make a difference.
Yeah, there's all kinds of ways I think I'd redesign sports if I could (I hear Natalie Wynn: "Your Utopian Pipedream Is Valid!"), but for now, I'm mostly just focused on coming up with a rule set that results in fair competition and inclusion of as many people as possible within the existing structures (I know that might be frustrating)
I think I agree with pretty much all of your points (I also say if there are hormone levels, they should be universally applied, not only to trans women).
Semenya was required to suppress testosterone in order to compete, and I agree that an intersex woman is a *very* hard case. At the end of the day, every champion in sports is a genetic anomaly (no pejorative meaning at all - I mean they have very, very rare genetics). LeBron James has a once-in-a-generation combination of size and speed. There will never be another player like Shaq. Michael Jordan and Steph Curry both had otherworldy skills that literally no one else has ever had. Yes, some of that is training. But a lot of it is genetics. In swimming, you see someone like Michael Phelps who was what you'd get if you literally genetically engineered a swimmer. Same with Katie Ledecky. So if the "anomaly" is "higher than normal testosterone", that's got to be allowable to *some* degree, just like larger feet, being tall, etc. So I think I'd support a natural testosterone limit that's like, the 99.9999th percentile of cis women with no intersex conditions or something? But then you get into the absolute maddening question: can a cis woman supplement testosterone? Let's say a WNBA player is in the 98th percentile of testosterone for a cis woman. Can she bump that to the 99th? If not, why not? A woman who already had the 99th percentile already can compete. But bumping it up will not only give her a sports advantage, it will masculinize her body somewhat. Is that ok?
Which is why, at the end of the day, my primary goal is this: Governments can require certain people to be included, but they cannot require certain people to be excluded. That is, they can demand that there be a path for trans women to be included (as the courts did with Natalie Ryan a couple weeks ago), but they cannot demand that trans women be excluded. From there, each sport needs to figure out what makes sense based on its own dynamics. And like I said - this is likely to be an evolving situation for a few decades. I just want it to not be a political football, and have governments avoid outright bans when they're (so far) completely unnecessary.
Wise and good thoughts. Thank you!
I'm sorry this comment is so late! We are discussing this exact issue in my Women and Queer studies class. While doing various readings, listening to podcasts, and hearing from my classmates, I kept thinking that I wanted to hear from someone actually IN the trans community, not just someone's strong opinion one way or the other. I remembered that I saved this for my "To Read" list and there was never a more perfect time! Thank you for your input and I am happy to know your perspective.