Trump says there are only 2 sexes: The transgender debate in sports

The transgender issue in sport

Transgender athletes in women sports are a controversial issue. Many sports have made it clear within their rules that biological males who have transitioned to females cannot undo the changes of puberty their bodies went through. These changes are due to the level of testosterone in adult males — seven to eight times higher than an adult female — that cause male bodies to form differently from female bodies.

Initially, most sports tried to be inclusive and include trans women by regulating their testosterone.

For example, USA Volleyball asked for 10 nanomoles per litre (nmol/L) 12 months prior to a competition. World Rowing today asks for 2.5 nmol/L, which is far more stringent. But the consensus most sports are reaching is that the gains made during a body maturing, due to excessive testosterone in males, mean that even a reduction in an adult transgender woman’s testosterone levels might not be enough.

What solutions did most sports find?

Bans. The world bodies for athletics, cricket, swimming, rugby and cycling have all banned trans people from their elite sports. Other sports like rowing chose to include transgender athletes by way of asking them for a set testosterone level over a period of time before entry into any competition. British Triathlon became the first sports body in 2022 to start an ‘open’ category, one where transgender athletes could perform.

What does science say?

There are contrasting studies as the issue of transgender athletes in sport is still in its nascency.

An International Olympic Committee-funded study in April 2024 found out that transgender women were at a disadvantage to cisgender women (female at birth and continues to identify as female) in sport.

The conclusions from the study stated, “Compared with cisgender women, transgender women have decreased lung function, increasing their work in breathing. Transgender women performed worse on the countermovement jump than cisgender women. Although transgender women have comparable absolute V̇O2max values to cisgender women, when normalised for body weight, transgender women’s cardiovascular fitness is lower than women.” V̇O2 max is basically the maximum rate of oxygen consumption one attains during physical exertion.

In 2021, a study by Loughborough University found out that while transgender females lost strength, body mass and muscle mass after 12 months of transitioning and hormone therapy, they still possessed higher metrics than cisgender females.

While there are a low number of elite transgender athletes operating at the Olympic level (New Zealand’s Laurel Hubbard came 14th out of 14 women in the Women’s 87 kg weightlifting category at the 2021 Tokyo Games), the studies to gain scientific knowledge on the issue are fewer.

Is the Paris Boxing case of Imane Khelif and Chinese Taipei boxers different?

At the 2024 Paris Olympics, two boxers, Imane Khelif of Algeria and Lin Yu-Ting of Chinese Taipei, were included in the competition after they failed International Boxing Association-conducted gender tests. The results of these tests were unspecified and conducted by an organisation that was once an IOC-recognised world body for boxing but lost that right recently.

They were allowed to compete at the 2024 Paris Olympics, as they had in the 2021 Tokyo Olympics. They are categorically not transgender athletes, but with further testing, may come out as athletes with Differences in Sexual Development (DSD).

While a completely different debate, DSD athletes are also regularly in the spotlight over whether their participation in women’s sport constitutes as unfair and have been subjected to testosterone-lowering solutions in the past, as has been the case of South African runner Castor Semenya.

In a contact sport like boxing, the general consensus was that their participation should have been scrutinised to further testing, as the safety of athletes in a physical sport should have been considered. But due to the Paris Boxing Unit conducting the Boxing programme at Paris, and no legitimate world body or its rules present, only conjecture and ridicule followed the two athletes, who played by the rules presented in front of them.

The trans rights debate in America

In a poll conducted by Gallup, voters in the US were asked to rank topics based on their importance. The economy, democracy and national securities were some of the topics voters labelled as extremely important. There were two topics of note that were labelled not important — climate change, and the topic that came in last place, transgender rights.

According to a different Gallup poll, only one per cent of Americans said that they identified themselves as trans.

The National Collegiate Athletic Association president Charlie Baker last month appeared in front of a Senate Judiciary Committee where he said that out of 5,10,000 athletes’ part of the NCAA system, he was aware of less than 10 athletes (under 0.02 percent), who were trans. The poll also found that 69% of Americans were against transgender athletes in sport, a seven per cent jump from three years prior.