Some sports organizations introduced bans this week, citing the need to ensure fairness in women’s competition – although experts say science is far from decisive in whether male-to-female athletes have a competitive advantage over of their cisgender athletes. The International Swimming Federation (FINA) will now only allow trans women who started the transition before the age of 12 to compete in high-level international competitions such as swimming, diving and water polo. The FINA rule also affects athletes with a condition known as 46 XY DSD (also referred to as intersex), who have genitals that are not clearly male or female, but that identify with women. One day after the entry into force of the FINA rule, the International Rugby League went even further, excluding all trans women from international matches, while reviewing and updating the rules of participation. A spokesman told CBC News that there are no trans players internationally. World Athletics, which oversees athletics, walking and other athletics, has hinted that it may follow suit when it reconsiders its own rules later this year. “If there is a conflict between justice and inclusion in the women’s category, we will always choose justice,” a World Athletics spokeswoman told CBC News, adding that FINA’s decision was “in the best interest of the sport.” South African Olympic runner Caster Semenya is presented before the women’s 5,000m race in Regensburg, Germany, on Saturday. Semenya, who is a 46 XY DSD athlete, has faced years of public control over her gender and gender. World Athletics, which governs its sport, will decide later this year whether intersex athletes can continue to compete at the elite level. (Stefan Puchner / DPA / The Associated Press) The new policies come after the International Olympic Committee announced last year that it would not set a general rule for all sports – telling federations that they must develop their own policies. To date, most organizations, including FINA and World Athletics, have allowed trans and intersex women to compete as long as they meet the rules for suppressing testosterone levels.
The struggle for who is competing
The decision to ban many trans athletes has provoked mixed reactions in Canada and around the world. “FINA’s new gender mainstreaming policy perpetuates the harmful and marginalizing practice of gender policing in women’s sports. It hurts all women,” Canadian Women & Sport said in a statement on Monday. Some athletes have expressed concern that trans and intersex women have a normal competitive advantage and say that banning them from elite sports will level the playing field. Australian Olympic swimmer Kate Campbell told a FINA conference on Sunday that she believed her decision would “support the cornerstone of justice in the elite women’s competition”. Australian Olympic swimmer Kate Campbell, pictured at the Tokyo Summer Olympics in July 2021, is one of the few athletes to publicly support FINA’s new rules for trans athletes. (David Goldman / The Associated Press) Critics, however, believe that bans such as FINA are motivated more by ideology than by science, amid political pressure in the United States and the United Kingdom to prevent trans athletes from competing (18 US states have banned trans girls and women to participate in school sports). “Trans athletes do not dominate, nor have they ever dominated sports,” Chris Mosier, a triathlete and trans supporter of Team USA, told CBC News via email. US swimmer Lia Thomas is a rare exception. In March, she became the first known trans athlete to win a National Collective Athletic Association swimming championship – and faced an immediate reaction to her success. “It’s very obvious [FINA’s] “Politics is a reaction to public pressure because of a swimmer who worked hard, followed all the rules and had moderate success for a season,” Mosier said. American triathlete Chris Mosier, pictured in New York in May 2019, criticized the new FINA rule as a “very obvious” reaction to public pressure on Lia Thomas’s success in the NCAA. (Slaven Vlasic / Getty Images for the Tribeca Film Festival) FINA has confirmed that there are no trans athletes currently competing at the elite level. “We are talking about maybe a handful, less than five, trans athletes that have become the center of attention [in the U.S.] “And so what is happening politically, but also in the media, goes beyond the numerical assessment of what poses a threat to women’s sport,” said Carole Oglesby, a board member of the WomenSport International-based research organization.
Science so far
FINA’s decision to ban trans women who transition after the age of 12 is based on the changes that men’s bodies undergo during adolescence, when a testosterone surge causes a surge in growth and greater muscle mass. In its new policy, FINA said that its scientific advisers “reported that there are racial biological differences in aquatic life, especially among elite athletes, which is largely the result of significantly higher testosterone levels to which males are exposed from adolescence onwards.” ». FINA has not made public its scientific advice. New Zealand weightlifter Laurel Hubbard, who competed in the Tokyo Summer Olympics in August 2021, was among the first trans athletes to compete in the Olympics. (Edgard Garrido / Reuters) Experts who spoke to CBC News said there was limited research to show what, if any, advantage a trans athlete might have over a cisgender athlete – largely because studies to date have not used athletes as research subjects. “What is needed is the real science of how trans athletes perform, and that science is in its infancy,” said Joanna Harper, a medical physicist and trans sports performance specialist at Loughborough University in England. Harper leads a number of ongoing studies examining the performance of trans athletes at different stages of their transition, as well as comparing the performance of trans and cis-female athletes. “The benefits for trans women are greatly mitigated – they are not eliminated – but they are mitigated by hormone therapy, and this process also has disadvantages for trans athletes,” she told CBC News. “Their larger skeletons are now powered by reduced muscle mass, reduced aerobic capacity and this can lead to disadvantages in things like speed, recovery and endurance.” WomenSport International has a new working group that gathers scientific data that it hopes will help sports organizations as they reflect on the future of trans women participation. American skateboarder Alana Smith, who is trans, appears to be competing during the Tokyo Summer Olympics in July 2021. (Ezra Shaw / Getty Images) “I’m just raising my hand to the idea that science is clear,” said board member Oglesby, a former softball professional and retired professor of kinesiology at the University of California, Berkeley. “I do not know where this will end up – that’s why I say I’re at the fence. I’m not sure what the best solution is, but I’m not in a position to decide what should happen.” Critics of FINA policy also point out that all female athletes – not just those who are trans or intersex – can undergo invasive and degrading sex tests to prove that they are eligible to compete. “FINA has opened up another opportunity to abuse women athletes by imposing tests to determine who is a woman and who is not. This policy does not protect women’s sports nor does it protect women of the cisgender gender in sport,” Mosier said. .
Three sports, three approaches
Days before FINA announced its decision, the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) – which oversees international cycling events, including road, track, mountain and BMX – changed its policy on trans athletes. Instead of banning them from competing, the UCI halved the maximum testosterone level from 5 nmol / L – the current limit for many other sports, including sports – to 2.5 nmol / L, and doubled it. time athletes need to maintain low testosterone before they can compete, up to 24 months. The governing body of football, FIFA, is also reviewing the rules this year, but has said it will consider the suitability of any athlete on a case-by-case basis until the new rules take effect. FINA also proposes a new “open” category of competitions in which trans women could participate – which are excluded from the competitions of elite women. It is unclear what other sports would be like if other sports could follow or if it would appear in games such as the Olympics, said Sarah Tetsel, a professor of kinesiology at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, who is researching the obstacles trans athletes. for integration in sports. “They say a working group is looking at it right now, but will they really invest equal cash prizes, promotion, opportunities, access? It would be very strange if they did.” Angela Schneider, director of the International Center for Olympic Studies at Western University in London, suggests that sports federations work together to find a framework for trans women to participate in all sports. Angela Schneider, director of the International Center for Olympic Studies at Western University in London and a former Olympian for Canada, says an “open dialogue” is needed to find a framework for trans women to participate in sports.
