Who belongs in women’s sport? The debate over trans athletes deepens

Recent controversy in the WNBA has reignited the debate about transgender participation in women's sports, with advocacy groups split over differing ideas of fairness.

Indiana Fever guard Sophie Cunningham has faced a ​wave of support and backlash for her comments in an ESPN interview ​last month, saying young girls in sport "shouldn't have to go against biological men".

Also Read: Transgender women athletes banned from Olympics by new IOC policy on female eligibility


That followed updated eligibility policies from the WTA and International Olympic Committee that require athletes to clear one-time SRY gene tests - which help in determining biological sex - to compete on the women's tennis tour and in female category events at the Olympics.

At the heart of the debate are conflicting views on fairness. Some advocacy groups say only biological women should compete in women's sports to maintain category boundaries and competitive fairness, while others believe barring transgender women from them is exclusionary and prevents access to sport.

"When you recognise that a ‌category needs to exist in ⁠order to ⁠include an entire population in sport, you have to define that boundary clearly and protect it," said Kim Jones, co-founder of the Independent Council on Women's Sport, an advocacy group for women athletes.

Andrea Florence, executive director of the Sport & Rights Alliance, said the ​debate drew attention away from other challenges in women's sports, such as harassment, and that sex-testing policies were harmful.

"We should be talking about removing barriers (for) women and girls to access sports and not adding to them," ​said Florence, adding that the debate "doesn't have relevance in terms of numbers, but it has a big relevance when it comes to narrative."

INSIDE THE DEBATE

American grand-slam winner Coco Gauff said at a press conference this month that she supported fairness in sports but did not like the animosity being created toward the trans community.

Also Read: US Supreme Court upholds state laws banning transgender girls and women from school athletic teams

"There is this narrative that transgender women and girls dominate women's sports but in ​reality (they) are wildly under-represented in athletics globally," said Lily Dong Li Rosengard, advocacy senior specialist at ILGA World, a federation of LGBTQ+ ⁠rights groups.

There ‌are no active openly transgender players on the WTA or in the WNBA, and the 2020 Tokyo Olympics marked the first time an openly transgender woman - New ​Zealand weightlifter Laurel Hubbard - competed ​at the Games.

"I don't think women's sports is about to collapse under the weight of carrying transgender women," said Emma Hilton, interim chair of the charity ⁠Sex Matters.

Her conception of fairness is rooted in the argument that all sports categories have boundaries that need ​to be enforced, from age and weight to sex.

"If you have male pattern development, you shouldn't be in women's sport because that ​category is exclusive - it discriminates against people with male patterns of development," said Hilton. "That's the only way it can exist as the category."

The IOC said in March that its working group had found that "male sex provides a performance advantage in all sports and events that rely on strength, power and endurance" and that the new policy "protects fairness, safety and integrity in the female category".

ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA

As more sports governing bodies adopt sex testing, some advocates are concerned about the impact on transgender women and their access to sport.

When creating eligibility policies, "you might have to define what a woman is," Hilton said. "And that's really uncomfortable for some people."

The previous WTA policy permitted transgender women to participate if they declared their gender as female and then maintained a lowered testosterone level for a period of two years before competing.

The IOC ‌said athletes with an SRY-positive screen were eligible to compete in all other classifications for which they qualified, including any male category.

"Trans women are not just going to compete in the men's category. They're just not going to compete at all," said Rosengard, who views the IOC's 2021 framework on fairness and inclusion as ​a positive.

It said eligibility criteria ​should be established and implemented fairly in a way ⁠that does not "systematically exclude athletes from competition based upon their gender identity, physical appearance and/or sex variations".

Florence noted that the new IOC policy also affected athletes with differences in sex development (DSD), who might be raised as female but had XY sex chromosomes and blood testosterone levels in the male range.

"It puts a lot of barriers. But the main issue is also that it does nothing ​to ensure that their participation at the grassroots level is not impacted," said Florence, whose group recently urged the WTA to abandon sex testing.

Earlier this month, world number one Aryna Sabalenka backed the WTA's policy while American Jessica Pegula said she had not heard any negative feedback from fellow players about the one-time testing, which is conducted via a cheek swab or blood test.

Double Olympic champion Caster Semenya, a DSD athlete, has said she intends to fight against the IOC's introduction of gene testing, saying it undermines women's rights and dignity.

Hilton does not support the practice of genital inspection in sports. For her, modern-day sex testing is the "least harmful way" to enforce eligibility in women's sports, with further screening done privately and without publicly identifying athletes.

"That's the rationale for sex screening, I think; it is the least invasive, most dignified, most private way to do this," Hilton said.