World Sailing to restrict trans women, setting back trans rights
May 24, 2024The World Sailing Council, the global governing authority for the sport of sailing, voted on Friday to implement a new set of restrictions for transgender women in women’s sailing competitions, set to take effect on January 1, 2025.
Under the new policy, transwomen will be permitted to compete in women’s events only if they have not experienced male puberty beyond Tanner Stage Two and can demonstrate serum testosterone levels below 2.5 nanomoles per liter for at least 12 months prior to competition, maintaining these levels continuously thereafter.
“The priority of World Sailing in formulating this policy has been to ensure fair competition at the elite level, where no participant has an unfair or disproportionate advantage over the rest,” stated World Sailing CEO David Graham on Friday to Scuttlebutt Sailing News. “In particular, we have to uphold fairness and integrity in the female and mixed categories of competition.”
According to ‘Out Sports’, the governing body highlighted that it received medical expertise and guidance from other global governing bodies, including World Athletics and Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI). The policy adopted by World Sailing mirrors that of the UCI, while World Athletics has implemented a more stringent ban on any trans women competing as women.
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A member of U.S.A. Sailing’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion committee, Stephanie Helms, expressed criticism of the forthcoming policy. Helms, a veteran competitive sailor, trans woman, and part of U.S.A. Sailing’s transgender task force, described the decision as “disappointing,” noting that it overlooks several aspects of the sport.
“I am deeply disappointed by this decision, which adopts a stance most unsuited to a sport like sailing that is deeply equipment-dependent and really not biased toward one sex/gender or another in terms of performance potential at any level,” Helms remarked.
“Most competition, from elite international to scholastic to fun, around-the-cans racing is mixed gender. Only in specialized categories in international and national governing body events that serve as qualifiers for them is gender-segregated competition even offered, and primarily so for historically social reasons.”
Helms also mentioned that the decision undermines the progress seen for cisgender women in the sport while further alienating transgender women. She cited examples of women sailors excelling at the highest levels against all competitors.
“At the collegiate and scholastic levels, in mixed competition, women have won more and more,” she said. “Stanford University’s 2022-2023 sailing team won both the 2023 women’s AND overall national championships. Of the 10 team members, there were two men. The team members who captured the national honors on the water were all women, even in mixed competition.”
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