Trans Women in Women's Sports

Is it really a contest between inclusion and fairness?

Last week, Laurel Hubbard qualified for the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, thus becoming the first ever openly trans athlete to do so. Her qualification comes at a time when the participation of trans women in women's sports is anyway under increasing attack, especially with the large number of bills on this subject in US state legislatures.

The Alleged Spectre of Trans Women Dominating Women’s Sports

Seeing a 43 year old trans female weightlifter who transitioned at the age of 34, who is over 6 feet tall and weighs 130 kg, can make even allies who otherwise believe in trans rights and inclusion, question whether her qualification for the Olympics is really fair to the cis female athletes that she competes against. For example, here is an article which praises her for qualifying, which affirms her identity, but which raises doubts about whether she should really participate, based on 'scientific' arguments.

At the sub-elite level and among teenagers, trans female sprinters Andraya Yearwood and Terry Miller have been at the centre of a controversy for the last few years after winning a few races against cis girls of their age at some state-level meets, despite losing to those same girls at other times. And then there are trans athletes from a few decades ago who have expressed their own opposition to the participation of trans women in women's sports, most notably Renée Richards. There are also stories such as when the Williams sisters lost to a male tennis player ranked around 200, or the history of 'Battle of the Sexes' matches in tennis, which raise questions about how much is the difference really between men and women in various sports.

Given all of these arguments from different sides, it's not a surprise that most people wonder whether allowing trans women to compete in women's sports will be fair to the cis women who are forced to compete with them, and whether at a larger scale this could destroy women's sports altogether. So let's unpack all of these arguments one by one. To begin with, a good source on this subject is Schuyler Bailar, who is a trans man and a competitive swimmer himself, and uses a lot of examples and detailed arguments on this issue.

“The reality is that biological differences (and even potential advantages) are undeniably present in sports already. That’s what sports are often based upon! Of course, bodies are different. But when trans folks aren’t involved, nobody calls these differences “unfair.”

We don’t have sports competitions because everyone’s bodies are exactly the same. We have sports competitions because people’s bodies are different, and because people are able to use their abilities to be better (or worse) at a physical task!”

- Schuyler Bailar

In my own perspective below, I shall add to his points. The entire debate can be broadly divided into the following parts based on age and level of competition – elite and non-elite level sports for adults, sports for teenagers, and sports for children.

'Inclusion vs Fairness' in Elite Level Sports

At the elite level, the Olympics and World Athletics already have regulations on testosterone levels, which are also used by many national level regulatory bodies, professional leagues and even at the collegiate level e.g. the NCAA. However, there are two major objections that are raised despite these regulations.

First, what if some male athlete who is just below the elite level in men’s sports, decides to transition to female for a few years, abides by these testosterone regulations for those few years, wins everything while competing as a woman, and then goes back to living as a man after retiring from the sport? If many sports have been plagued by doping scandals at some point or the other, how can we be sure that people won’t take advantage of these testosterone regulations too? The simple answer to that is, that unlike performance-enhancing drugs, and unlike the experiences of trans women, artificially changing the balance of testosterone and estrogen in cis men can have disastrous effects on their mental health. If one wants an example, remember Alan Turing?

Second, one may ask whether simply reducing the testosterone level for 1-2 years is enough to mitigate the advantages of a testosterone-driven puberty. An obvious follow-up to this question is, what exactly are these advantages? Height, bone structure, muscle mass? Out of these, reduced muscle mass is already known to be a very common side effect of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) for trans women. There are some studies which claim that this reduction in muscle mass is not sufficient after just 12 months on HRT, and other studies which claim otherwise.

Are the Existing Regulations Enough?

If the debate is not about excluding trans women altogether but only about changes on the margins, e.g. changing the testosterone threshold from 5 nmol/L to some other number, or the minimum time period of HRT from 12 months to 24 months, especially if such changes are backed by robust data, it is not going to be opposed by most trans allies. In any case, these regulations have been changed a few times over the last couple of decades. The problem is, that we do not actually have enough reliable data on this question, and in some ways it is impossible to get because one can never do a truly experimental study on this topic. Therefore, all data will necessarily be from observational studies such as this one, which will always have their limitations.

Moreover, the way that the numbers from some of these studies are quoted and especially misused to argue for completely excluding trans women, is fundamentally flawed. For example, a common argument is that muscle mass reduction due to HRT is in the range of only 5-10%, which is not enough to offset the 10-40% difference in performance between comparable male and female sportspersons. Or that in almost every sport which relies on strength in some way, there are hundreds of male sportspersons in every generation who perform better than even the best-ever female sportsperson. As can be seen, this is like comparing apples to oranges.

To give an example which is easier to understand, the average male adult height is about 5-6 inches more than the average adult female height. This is a difference of about 7-8%, and most of this difference arises during puberty. So imagine a trans girl who is able to access puberty blockers, then HRT as early as possible, thus never goes through a testosterone-driven puberty, and is therefore similar to cis women in height.

If she wants to compete against cis women in sports, someone opposed to her may question that falling short by 7-8% in height is not enough to offset the 10-40% difference in performance between comparable male and female sportspersons, even if she never had anything to do with male sportspersons. So, the question is not what the difference is in some biophysical measure, but how that difference manifests in terms of performance in different sports.

How Do Men’s and Women’s Sports Differ, and Why?

In athletics, the difference in time and speed between the all-time 100 m records for men and women is only about 10%. That number may not seem so big, but at the elite level, that 10% makes a huge difference, which is why one finds hundreds of male athletes or hundreds of male tennis players at the elite level who have better performances than the best female counterparts.

In tennis where rankings get the most attention, this might seem like a very drastic difference. But in athletics, e.g. 100 m, the difference between Usain Bolt's 9.58 s set a few years ago and Florence Griffith Joyner's 10.49 s set in 1988 may not seem that much. Intuitively the numbers seem pretty close. But anyone who follows athletics even a bit can tell what that difference really means.

When it comes to trans women in elite sports, the question is not about a comparison between cis men and cis women, but a comparison between a trans woman who has been on HRT for a year or more, which has caused changes in muscle mass as mentioned above, vs the cis women she may compete with.

We shall come back to this point when discussing non-elite sports as well, but for now, it will be good to remind ourselves that sheer height or strength are not the only determinant of sporting performance. If that was the case, Sachin Tendulkar or Sunil Gavaskar would never have succeeded to the extent that they did. Even in pace bowling, the best bowlers do not rely only on strength, but on a combination of strength, skill and discipline.

Talking of pace bowling, while the maximum bowling speed for male bowlers is well documented, do you know what's the biggest roadblock in determining the maximum bowling speed for female bowlers? It is simply the lack of technology to measure their best performances in many cases, as mentioned here in the case of Sharon Tredrea. Despite that, when measured, one can see a difference of about 20% between the maximum documented bowling speed for male and female fast bowlers.

Is it possible for a trans woman on HRT to lose 10% of her running speed, or 20% of her bowling speed, due to the changes driven by HRT? Anyone who has actually ever been on HRT will say that this is entirely possible, even if sundry 'studies' try to argue otherwise.

One must also remember that all the sports where differences in performance are most pronounced, are precisely the ones where women have been allowed to compete at the highest level only since the 1990s or even later. Cricket has had a Women's World Cup since the 1970s, but it is only in the last few years that one can see a real push to give women's cricket much more attention. Women's weightlifting became an Olympic sport only in 2000. The WNBA was launched only in 1996. The first FIFA Women's World Cup was held in 1991.

Meanwhile, the top men's competitions in each of these sports have existed for almost a century, if not more. In such sports, one sees a larger difference in performance, compared to athletics and swimming where women have competed at the top level for almost a century. Even in sports like tennis where women have competed at the top level for a long time, they often face unreasonable stereotypes, e.g. the Williams sisters and some others like Amelie Mauresmo have been criticized for looking too masculine, even as cis women.

And we still have sports like American football which are still not able to overcome their very overt sexist biases against women. Or even gymnastics which may seem like it has enough competitions for both men and women, but honestly, why can't it have the balance beam for men as well, or rings and pommel horse for women which rely a little more on strength than the other events.

In all of these ways, we see how sexism is still deeply rooted even in elite sports. How much of the difference in performance is because of basic biological differences, vs the effects of this sexism, not having access, and not having role models to draw inspiration from? Are the smaller differences in performance in athletics and swimming because of the nature of those sports, or because of their different histories?

As transfeminists, our struggle is not just for trans inclusion in sports in accordance with one's gender identity, but also a struggle of all women in general to do away with all of these sexist norms which still plague women's sports.

Does Age Matter?

Let's go back to Laurel Hubbard. Besides the usual arguments about strength etc, some people also wonder whether her qualifying at 43, or Renée Richards playing top-level tennis well into her 40s, also show that trans women are able to compete even when they are much older than their peers.

We must remember though, that there have always been exceptions to these usual stereotypes about age and sports. For example, here are some of the oldest pro tennis players. And this does not even include our very own Leander Paes. Another important point is, that simply saying that Laurel transitioned at 34, and started competing at the top level in women's weightlifting at age 39, glosses over the fact that she quit men's weightlifting at age 23 because she couldn't reconcile it with her gender dysphoria any more. A lot of trans people spend similar extended periods in their lives, alienating themselves from their favourite activities, simply because they are not sure if they'll still be allowed to pursue them.

When Body Weight Matters

In weightlifting, another factor to consider is that the top weight category is anyway trickier than others because unlike all the other 9 categories below, there's no upper limit to body weight on this one. So Laurel Hubbard at a body weight of 130 kg was able to win easily at the national or continental level, and even won a silver at the 2017 World championships when Russian and Chinese and a few other countries' athletes were banned because of suspicions of doping, but she placed 6th in the 2019 World championships when all those countries were allowed again. All the others in her competition were cis women, both heavier and lighter than her. The winner was a 19 year old Chinese cis woman who weighs 150 kg, and you can bet that if she happened to be trans, her performance would be scrutinized far more.

If it is called the 87+ kg category, obviously it might seem unfair to have someone weighing 90-100 kg competing with those who are 1.5 times heavier than them. That's why at the borderline, many just decide to lose some weight and compete in a lesser category. These questions already exist even among cis women in sports which have weight categories and have to draw a line somewhere.

Sports for children and teenagers

As far as children up to the age of 9-10 are concerned, it is well documented that there are very few inherent physical differences based on gender. Any differences which exist in sports performance at this age are largely the result of socialization, and not biology. Therefore, for this age group, it's not even a debate at all. It is simply about allowing children to be themselves and play with their peers without fear of exclusion.

For teenagers, the same questions as adults are relevant due to the effects of testosterone. However, unlike elite sports where infrastructure exists to randomly test any sportspersons, at non-elite levels and for younger age groups, this infrastructure may be insufficient, so the result is simply accusations and speculation as Schuyler pointed out. Moreover, HRT for trans adults is much more widely accessible than puberty blockers for teenagers. And despite trans teenagers being allowed to compete as their self-identified gender for several years now in the US, we have seen very few cases of any notable performances by them, and those too are mixed records as mentioned above.

In the case of Andraya Yearwood and Terry Miller, it is notable that neither of them ended up winning a sports scholarship after high school, while one of the cis girls competing against them did. So, where exactly was fairness compromised by the inclusion of a few trans teenage girls in girls' sports? Trans girls and women have been competing alongside cis girls and women for many years now, and so far whatever success they have achieved is still very much the exception than the rule, contrary to the fears of them dominating women's sports.

Non-elite sports

One of the best examples I have found of a detailed discussion of this issue by a non-elite athlete is this. It is an article by a trans woman who runs regularly, participates in competitive races, but is nowhere close to any elite level. She's shared quite a bit of data from her own experiences, and a comparison with her wife as well, and discussed how the change in performance is not just about physical factors but also about having to adjust to your body and understand its limits all over again. She describes a 15-20% reduction in running speed, and performing worse after HRT in the women’s marathon than before HRT in the men’s marathon, despite training harder.

From this article and from my own experience too, I believe that the physical abilities of trans women after a year or more on HRT are largely similar to cis women. I am not a sportsperson at all and have always been relatively a weakling for my size, but for example, I find it much tougher to lift 20 liter water jars or move heavy luggage now compared to before transition.

I was asked whether this means that testosterone alone is so powerful that a cis woman with PCOD or hyperandrogenism is necessarily going to be better than her peers at sports. The answer to that is, that if everything else is equal, then testosterone can increase your ability to build muscle mass if you put in enough effort. But for those who are far away from such effort and from sports, it does not matter much. For example, my limited abilities in sports are not just a consequence of HRT, but were limited even when my testosterone level was 40x what it is now.

Skeletal and height differences continue to exist and can never be changed, but those are not really relevant in most sports and a bigger skeletal frame can even be a disadvantage in some. And in any case, skeletal and height differences can be seen as just another natural variation that is seen among cis women too, just as Schuyler mentioned.

As I write all this, I am reminded of what my partner, who follows MMA fighting, once said about Fallon Fox. She gave a very simple opinion on her being allowed to fight - 'if she wins, people will say it's because of her previous biology. If she loses, they'll shame her for losing despite her previous biology. Either way, it's a losing battle for her'.

My partner likes to play a lot of sports herself, though none at any elite level, and is much fitter than me. So despite being less than 70% of my weight, she can easily twist my arm or defeat me in arm wrestling. But in cases where the entire body weight can be used, e.g. pushing a door from opposite sides, I can still hold my ground. (Yes, we are childish enough that we do such things for fun)

In sports where weight differences are relevant, weight categories already exist. At the elite level, testosterone regulations already exist. Even after controlling for all these factors, dwelling on height or other unspecified effects of a testosterone-driven puberty does not make sense. Instead, it does make sense to have more robust data on the basis of which the existing regulations can be fine-tuned.

And even after all these regulations, even if a trans woman fulfils all these criteria, as all trans women competing at elite levels already do, there will still be cis women who may lose out every time that a trans woman qualifies for or wins something. That’s the very nature of sports. Instead of focusing on those who lost out on qualification or a medal, what matters is whether the performances were comparable in general.

Transphobia or Racism?

As Schuyler said, this debate is not just about transphobia but also about racism. Besides what he said about the policing of Black and brown women’s bodies, we should also remind ourselves that white people used to win in elite-level athletics much more easily up to a few decades ago, but now the overwhelming majority of winners in elite athletics events, both for men and women, are black, not just from the US or the Caribbean but even long-distance runners from African countries for example.

Do they have any inherent biological advantages? And whether or not such advantages exist, is it fair to exclude them from the sport altogether, or have different categories by race? Obviously not.

Or to take a different example, do we often see left-handers being over-represented in sports compared to their proportion of the general population? Do we see queer women more often in women’s sports than in the general population? Is it fair to exclude people from sports for these reasons? Obviously not.

Similarly, a large scale exclusion of trans athletes is not fair at all. Anyway, trans athletes are still vastly under-represented, so the objective should be to increase their participation, not reduce or ban it altogether. That is the fairness that we should be worrying about.

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