Trans Women Athletes Gain No Unfair Advantage, Report Finds
A report on trans women athletes in elite sports has found that, if UCI [cycling's governing body] rules are adhered to, there is currently no substantial evidence of any biological advantages for trans women competing in elite women’s sport.
There was little evidence that biomedical factors related to male puberty, such as lung size, bone density, and hip-to-knee joint angle, predict an unfair advantage. There is some evidence that social factors like nutrition, training, and access to equipment do.
These are some of the key findings in the 86-page report Transgender Women Athletes and Elite Sport: A Scientific Review, which was published in late 2022 and commissioned by the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport (CCES), an ethical sport advocacy non-profit with a vision of fair, safe, accessible, and inclusive sport for everyone.
The inclusion of trans women in elite women's sport has been in the media recently, with high profile instances such as Emily Bridges' attempt to compete in the UK sparking concern and upset on all sides. While the inclusion of trans women has led to protests by those who worry that cis women are at a competitive disadvantage at some US races.
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The report concluded that "the fears that cis women need be protected from trans women in elite sport are unsubstantiated and misplaced.
“What threatens women’s elite sport, for cis and trans women, is not trans women, but is rather misogyny in the form of underfunding, non-parity in participation and leadership, inequitable sport space allocation/access, and a range of sporting opportunities not afforded to women (cis women and trans women) in equitable ways.”
The report is an in-depth review of all scientific literature published between 2011 and the end of 2021 in English, regarding trans women and their participation in elite sport.
As Cycling Weekly reports, relying only on peer-reviewed articles or syntheses of academic literature in reputable academic journals, the study explores both the biomedical and sociocultural perspectives when it comes to the question of trans inclusion in sports.
The biomedical perspective is the primary consideration of governing bodies and commonly the center of the fairness debate. Many trans athlete inclusion policies look to testosterone level boundaries and medicalized interventions to level the playing field.
After reviewing the scientific literature of the past decade, however, the report finds that not only are these boundaries arbitrary, the studies are flawed and inconclusive.
The review points to shortcomings such as using non-athletic trans women as subjects, inadequately adjusting data for factors such as height or weight, little understanding of the disadvantageous effects of hormone therapy, not differentiating between performance-enhancing doping and naturally occurring serum testosterone, or the little attention given to the fact that distribution of testosterone levels between elite cisgender men and elite cisgender women athletes overlaps.
“There is not one discrete biomarker that allows easy comparison of athletes’ bodies to each other in terms of performance,” the study concludes. “[Athletes] are a sum of all their advantages and disadvantages, which results in performance.”
In developing sporting policies, the social scientific studies have largely been ignored, the report states. Yet, it’s the social factors that have a far greater impact on athletic performance than testosterone.
“Only certain biomedical factors are policed under a mandate of ‘fairness’ in elite sport, despite strong evidence that financial material resources (such as access to infrastructure and equipment, nutrition, time to train, higher salaries) are associated with advantage in sport,” it reads.
The authors argue that when it comes to questions of 'fairness' in sport, the considerations of discrimination and access are important.
Non-inclusive sporting environments mean that trans women are significantly underrepresented in elite sports. From exclusion policies to changing room access and personal safety, trans-discrimination has a direct impact on a trans woman's access to sport, let alone her performance.
Additionally, there are everyday sociopolitical factors to contend with such as transphobia and marginalization in vital areas such as housing, health care, work and public spaces.
The report found ‘strong evidence’ that “elite sport policy is made within transmisogynist, misogynoir, racist, geopolitical cultural norms.”
Norms, which the report states, are the continuation of a long history of exclusion of women from competitive sport, especially those women whose bodies were deemed to not conform to normative standards of femininity.
Read related myGwork articles here:
International Olympic Committee Updates Guidelines For Trans Athletes
House GOP In The U.S.A. Embraces Attack On Trans Athletes In Women’s Sports
British Triathlon Bans Trans Athletes From Women’s Competitions And Announces "Open" Category
Majority Of Australian Female Athletes Support The Inclusion Of Trans Women
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