I’m not sure that the Olympic charter is the end all and be all of determining what’s a right or not a right. But it also doesn’t say competing on an elite level (or any guarantee level) is a right. Just throwing it out there, let all trans people compete with the men. That guarantees no unfair advantage. You might argue that would put the trans people and the disadvantage, but I argue, life is tough, if they were an elite male athlete that identifies as female and wanted to transition, and this would make them no longer able to compete on an elite level that just a life a decision that they would have to make. Can’t always have your cake and eat it too.
First, I’m impressed this remained a (mostly) civilized discussion - it says a lot about this community.
Second, “fair” competition in sports has always been a complex issue - hence weight categories in many sports, age groups in younger and older categories, and of course gender. Most of these are arbitrary (how many weight categories make boxing “fair”?), many of these get played around the borders (just look up the classical weight-in strategies in weight-category sports), and there will always be edge cases - Pistorius was an interesting case of the border between “handicapped” and “regular” sport categories, for example. So no, there is no clear solution to this new category border issue. What do you do with a Caster Semenya, who did nothing to change who she is and how she is, but is clearly outside the “norm” for the category? What do you do with someone who changes who he is, and as a result straddles the category border?
If this was rowing or fencing, nobody would care, there is so little money in those sports anyway…
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Hi. I’ve raced with Rachel along with other trans and non-binary folks on track. In person Rachel is really warm and welcoming, her wheel was a great one to follow. Rachel follows the UCI rules strictly, and should be allowed to race in her category.
When folks start talking about policing women’s biology in sport, a big red flag is raised. Not all women have menstrual cycles, cis or trans. Every person experiences menstruation differently and that should not be used as a topic of discussion on whether trans women are “women” enough.
Women deal with so many other attacks on their participation in sport that the inclusion of a few trans competitors is not “ruining” women’s sport. If you want to advocate for a robust women’s field, excluding racers isn’t a great place to start.
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You can be born with testosterone insensitivity: eg. they have raised testosterone, but it does very little.
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My personal opinion is that this mess originates a long time ago. The biological concepts of male & female originated well well before Charles Darwin proposed evolution in the 19th century. I don’t know how long after it took for the evolutionary explanation for different sexes to be understood, but it must have been a long time ago & is there any better biological way of defining them other than by their evolutionary purpose?
But as soon as you create categories based on something real you realise there are lots of people who don’t fit in your two neat categories. And that’s just the biology. Add an extra layer of complexity (gender) and it just gets even more complicated.
I don’t think there’s ever going to be a solution that makes everyone happy or even makes sense to everyone because we’re trying to enforce people into a neat binary that doesn’t exist. What we really need is a time machine so we can travel back in time & tell people to take their heads out of the sand cos’ all they’re doing is storing up problems for the future.
In essence: I give up & am glad I’m not the one having to deal with this mess.
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Maybe transgender athletes should come under the Paralympic rules and have events in their own category. That would give them the platform to perform without affecting regular male or female events.
My own view is that they should not be allowed to enter normal events if going from a male to a female due to having gained size and strength from growing up male.
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Why? Transgender people are not disabled or physically impaired in anyway? The argument is that they actually physically advantaged (like a 6’10 basketball player) not disadvantaged.
Paralympic because it is already an established tournament and organization with scope to get bigger.
Giving them their own events would struggle financially I imagine and allowing them into regular women’s ones seems unfair.
So what are the UCI rules for this kind of thing? I assume its not just based on your genetalia, but is there some hormone level or something else that has to be met? Or is it basically fair game for any man who identifies as a woman to compete along-side with women?
There are very specific time and hormone level criteria to be met. You can’t cross-dress or say you identify as another gender and compete. Apparently full transition with surgery is not a requirement (Section 1.E). The crux of the argument is whether the main hormone indicator of T-levels is enough and what, if any, advantage remains after the hormone therapy. Here’s the USA Cycling policy which is the same Policy VII. Transgender Athletes/UCI Transgender… | USA Cycling and the UCI policy is here https://s3.amazonaws.com/craft-prod-assets/documents/Rules-Policies/IOCPolicy_TransgenderAthletes20170609.pdf
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So do I, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have a natural advantage as a man.
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One thing I have noted with trans-gendered people in sport, is that a lot of the ‘media discussion’ is from ‘researchers’. If you look into who these researchers are. You’ll find that they are super right win nationalist groups. Their goal is to get their inflammatory stories to go viral.
I figured this out last year when a lady on my team was posting an article on Facebook about a trans-female winning something at the high school level. After digging into who the authors were, I pointed out she was spreading an article written by a hate group, passing themselves off as some foundation.
Regarding people who are disagreeing with trans-gendered people in sports, you can have your opinions but to those suggesting that being trans is a disability or should be related to the Paralympics, that is very disrespectful to trans people and disabled people alike.
Furthermore, I’d challenge anyone who has a negative opinion of trans people to go out and make a new friend. I know a person who is transitioning now and it’s not simple task for them. We need to be inclusive in our sports and give everyone the chance to participate. Plus, with all the crazy amount of cheating in this sport, I have a hard time believing that being trans can overcome the chemical and mechanical doping that is potentially going on in any area of the sport.
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1st, cool that you responded. 2nd, I appreciate your opinion and you totally have a right to it.
I don’t understand why you say a big red flag is raised when someone speaks about women’s biology in sport? This conversation is quite literally about the difference between women and men’s biology in sport and the unfair advantage of being born male. I have to think the women who are more impacted by their menstrual cycles would think that is fully relevant to this discussion. Feeling like total crap the morning of the biggest race of your career due to your menstrual cycle obviously has an impact on your potential performance that day.
One other thing I don’t get is saying that women deal with so many other attacks on their participation in sport… my next logical step would have been that transgender athletes taking places and medals away from them is not one they should have to deal with. Not just chalking it up as a small percentage of the population. It obviously is enough of an issue that it is hitting international news with World Championships being impacted by it.
I’m curious if you could share any thoughts from other competitors you’ve spoken to?
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“I figured this out last year when a lady on my team was posting an article on Facebook about a trans-female winning something at the high school level. After digging into who the authors were, I pointed out she was spreading an article written by a hate group, passing themselves off as some foundation.”
But if that’s a factual claim, why does it matter who made the claim? Just because you don’t agree with someones beliefs doesn’t make them wrong all the time.
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@Bikeguy0 Thanks for asking more questions!
As far as red flags for women’s biology in sport, it’s mostly an issue when it’s used in this context to exclude trans-women from participating. Menstruation is a huge factor for many women in sport and it’s a great topic to discuss coping strategies for racing and training. As far as excluding trans-women because they don’t have to cope, do we say, if you don’t menstruate, you’re not a woman and therefore can’t race with the women’s field? I’m a cis-woman and I haven’t had a period in 2 years, am I not a woman? What about women who have had hysterectomies, or gone through menopause? There is no universal experience of being a woman that should be the measure of what makes you “woman” enough to race.
The next topic relates to if you believe trans-women are women or if they’re just “men in disguise.” A trans-woman has never taken a place or medal away from me. They earned their spots on the podium through dedicated training and practice. Honestly, I’d be jazzed to share a podium with a trans-woman because that would mean a podium was offered in the first place. We have state championship races that don’t have a women’s field offered. We’re consistently given shorter races at worse times. These factors affect my race experience far more than a few trans folks racing alongside me.
As far as how other competitors felt about racing with Rachel this past summer, they were so excited. Rachel is an amazing advocate and takes a lot of heat, derogatory questions, and death threats, on top of an intense training schedule. My team and other teams locally explicitly welcome and support trans and non-binary racers. Last year, a cis-woman won both the sprint and endurance omniums at our track, that’s dominating. This year, Rachel only won the match sprint, she isn’t dominating our sport.
Cycling is already an exclusive sport, full of fake “rules” that don’t mean anything. I trust that the experts at the UCI and IOC will review quality studies and make the right decisions based on science.
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There should be a separate category for transgender athletes, whether they have had gender changing operations and/or hormone treatment.
Anything else is a farce and is political correctness and pandering gone mad.
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Most times when people use the term “political correctness”, it is pretty much code for “This does not conform to my sense of ‘normal’ and I don’t like it”. People have hid behind that BS term for way too long.
While I completely understand and sympathize with points being made re: advantages trans-athletes may have when competing in Women’s fields, at the end of the day, I prefer to err on the side of inclusion, rather than exclusion.
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Alternate theory, this just reads to you as political correctness gone mad and a farce because you do not understand all of the complications and issues associated with gender dysphoria. I would suggest having a little humility and allow for the possibility that people are not pandering, but actually attempting to wrestle with a truly difficult situation that may not have any great solutions.
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I try to stay out of these conversations for obvious reasons. I’m not sure if growing up male and transitioning to female is an advantage in sport but results seem to be leaning that way. I think more research needs to be done on the subject.
Hear, hear.
Instead of getting upset about it, we can focus on the technicalities of it. There are rules that had the apparently obvious, but actually arbitrary divisions of men and women’s athletics.
It turns out that line is not so easily drawn, if we want to continue to have categories of racing, the athletics bodies should devise new categories.
Perhaps something along the lines of testosterone production current, and historic. Above this level you’re in one category, below another level you’re in another category. You may well find that the occasional man or woman arrives in categories you didn’t expect.
I race in age groups, and by sex, totally arbitrary really, but relatively easy to manage most of the time. Do some people put themselves in the wrong group to cheat? Yes, but people cheat for all sorts of reasons. We need to include doping and cheating into our categorisation mindset to figure out what is the most effective and easiest to manage.