While transgender issues are challenging many societal norms, trans athletes have become a particular political flashpoint, with 21 Republican-held states barring their participation in school sports since 2020. At the professional level, it falls to governing bodies like the International Olympic Committee and the NCAA to develop policies that balance fair competition with social values like inclusion. Some argue that the latter hasn’t been their strong suit. Others worry that trans athletes — especially transgender women — bring unfair advantages to the field or court.
Undeniable advantages
The central argument against trans women competing against biological women is that male and female bodies develop differently, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, who gained national notoriety in 2022 for vetoing legislation that banned trans girls from school sports, summarized this argument in Time magazine last year: “I don’t believe that biological males should be competing against biological females,” he said. “I don’t think that that’s fair, and I believe that most of society agrees with that.”
Indeed, a 2022 poll by Pew Research Center found that 58 percent of Americans favor requiring trans athletes to compete against members of their birth sex. Even many who support the right of trans athletes to compete with others of their gender support transition requirements — such as hormone therapy or a preexisting gender declaration — for eligibility in elite sports, in an effort to maintain competitive fairness.
“To put the argument at its most basic: a man can decide to be female, take hormones if required by whatever sporting organization is concerned, win everything in sight and perhaps earn a small fortune, and then reverse his decision and go back to making babies,” tennis legend and gay rights activist Martina Navratilova argued in a 2019 op-ed for British newspaper The Times. “It’s insane and it’s cheating. I am happy to address a transgender woman in whatever form she prefers, but I would not be happy to compete against her. It would not be fair.”
Some athletes who’ve competed against trans women — and even some teammates — echo Navratilova’s concerns. Consider the case of Lia Thomas, a University of Pennsylvania swimmer who transitioned, meaning began taking hormones like estrogen and testosterone blockers, in college, then switched from the men’s to the women’s team and won a national championship. Later, according to a 2022 Sports Illustrated profile, 16 of her own teammates opposed her participation in the conference championship, while some of their parents questioned her success. “We support Lia as a trans woman and hope she leads a happy and productive life, because that’s what she deserves,” one anonymous team parent said. “What we can’t do is stand by while she rewrites records and eliminates biological women from this sport.”
An evolving understanding
Advocates for trans athletes point to flaws in the gender binary system itself, including challenging exceptions like South African runner Caster Semenya. Semenya was born and raised a woman and competed in women’s events her whole life — until she learned that she had naturally occurring intersex characteristics, including elevated levels of testosterone. Subsequently, the governing bodies of track and field introduced rules requiring that intersex athletes take testosterone-depleting medication in order to qualify for certain events — including every event Semenya focused on. She refused and has been unable to compete in those events ever since.
While most athletes do fit into the binary system, some critics contend that sex was always a poor way to organize sports. The roots of that system go back to a time when there was no question of gender. “The modern Olympics were by men, for men,” says Arizona State sports historian Victoria Jackson. “They did not want women participating, and they did not create an organization for women’s participation.”
Jackson argues that women’s sports, as a historical afterthought, should be reimagined, opened up to any athletes who don’t fit the traditional masculine mold. “Not all bodies fit into two categories of competition,” Jackson says. “And if this first one is the exclusive, elitist one, shouldn’t the second one be the inclusive one for all of the bodies that were forced out and pushed out and denied access to that original category?”
Some also contend that this issue should be examined through a lens driven less by competition than simple humanity. Competing against one’s gender, rather than their biological sex, can have affirming benefits for trans athletes at any level of competition. “That’s the number one reason that I want to see trans women in the female category,” says Cyd Zeigler, founder of LGBTQ+ and sports culture website OutSports.com. “Some of them say it feels like it saved their lives. And balancing that with ‘fairness,’ and who wins and who loses — it’s a complicated web.” Zeigler does, however, favor some level of transition requirements, depending on the event. “There are some sports,” he says, “like curling, where you just don’t need to have the transition requirements that you might need in powerlifting.”
This story appears in the June issue of Deseret Magazine. Learn more about how to subscribe.