CAN TRANSSEXUAL AND TRANSGENDER

WOMEN FAIRLY COMPETE AGAINST WOMEN

AND GIRLS IN SPORT?

 

Earlier this month celebrated tennis star Martina Navratilova took the brave step to publicly comment about the changes being made around the world that are effectively allowing transgender athletes, born men, to self-identify as women and compete against women and girls. This is often possible with minimal, or sometimes no, physical modifications to their bodies.

That may read like an early ‘April Fools’ joke to most rational people. Sports are segregated between male and female competitors for a very simple reason. Men have stronger bodies developed by evolution and genetics to hunt and fight and that convey many natural advantages over women.

Yes, there are outliers and extremes - tall women, short men and a range of skills that will allow the best women to compete with the weakest men. However, for fairness of challenge, and in most sports - not all, as men and women do compete against each other in a few events - there remain different categories.

That this is necessary is shown by the records and average scores in these sports. Those set by men are consistently better than those set by women.  Even the strongest women versus the weakest men are at a physiological disadvantage because of how their bodies have developed in the early and pubertal years of life.

So far, so obvious - you would think.

Yet, Martina, in making these points, has been accused of bigotry and hatred of trans people for expressing what are plain facts of biology.

As a prominent and well respected gay woman she has even been stripped of representative roles after an outcry by transgender people who seem to think their feelings matter more than reality.

Martina is not a bigot. Nor is she transphobic. Many years ago she supported one of the first transsexual sports stars - tennis player Renee Richards - in her quest to be allowed to play tennis as a woman after previously having a (modestly successful) career as a man. 

Renee won that fight with the authorities and had an equally unremarkable career on the women’s tour. Later she worked with Martina as a friend and coach - hardly making Martina an obvious transphobic bigot.

It is worth noting - though - that Renee herself now accepts that as she competed when an older woman she was never likely to be superior to many younger female players. But at an earlier age, she now agrees, she would have likely had an advantage simply as a result of how male biology, puberty and her body had developed before transition.

We agree with this argument.

It is important to stress, as Martina does, but few in the media ever do, that there is a difference between transsexual and transgender.

A transsexual (TS) - as with those of us writing this blog - has a medical problem in which we have the need to alter our body to match the psychology of our inner selves. We do so via all means available up to and including Gender Reassignment Surgery (GRS) which changes external physiology and permanently removes the key source of, in the case of TS women, testosterone. This powers much but not all of the bodily changes that bring advantage.

Whereas someone who is transgender (TG) simply wishes to express their gender identity differently and may, but often does not, make permanent medical changes to their physiology.

Over 80% of transgender women retain their penis and testes - the primary source of testosterone.  Transsexual women almost always remove it - only in a few cases are there medical grounds preventing this on advice from doctors.

So TS will usually have little natural source of testosterone and very low levels in their body a year or so post GRS. This will often be at the low end or even below the female range - as all women do have some T (testosterone) in their body.

Whereas TG can only use drugs to suppress their levels still naturally being produced and rarely can reduce them to the normal low levels of women.

Consequently even on the one measure presently used by some sporting bodies to determine whether trans people should compete the numbers are set at a high bar in order to accommodate TG people, not just TS. And that bar is many times the levels of T in the bodies of most women AND of TS women.

T levels on their own are only one measure and post puberty have limited consequence on the differences in the body that they have already conferred onto men.

There will also be differences depending on age of transition and at what stage T production is stopped by surgery or drugs.

Put simply - a man transitioning into a woman in their 40s - would not be able to eradicate many of the advantages conveyed by their male body to have such meaningful effect.  Whereas someone doing so in their teens or early 20s could do so to a greater extent. The time if or when they have surgery would also make a difference.

The bottom line - though - remains that natal bodily advantages exist for all those born male over all of those born women - other things just define how more or less that advantage can be modified. And that is not a simple one size fits all.

We have some thoughts on ways forward that we will post separately after this message. But you might first notice two key bottom lines here that are very telling.

 

1: T levels allowed in sport participation can be up to 20 times higher than normal female levels or the levels post op TS women achieve. This high range figure is to give access to those TG who do not intend to make permanent bodily changes. But if T levels matter as much as is being claimed in adapting the body - then they will have a clear edge over a TS women they may compete against - making it even on that basis unfair.

So how exactly can they possibly be in fair competition with women who undeniably have a disadvantage even against we post op TS women who acknowledge our body retains significant edges given prior to our transition?

 

2: We are talking here about transwomen and not mentioning TS or TG men.

Why?

Almost one third of all adult TS and two thirds of younger TG today are girls who live as boys.

We are not discussing them here because someone born and going through puberty as a girl will never have all the same strengths and physiology of a male body even if taking testosterone to build muscle mass.

The lack of concern over fair competition against men by trans men occurs because there is little evidence they will be a significant threat to born male athletes.

Does that not necessarily imply the opposite conclusion when the argument is posed from the direction of trans women?

If no male athletes are fearing the invasion of trans men in their midst, it should be more than clear why female athletes DO see a threat to both their safety - in contact sports -  and to their hopes and dreams of success and setting records given the disadvantage they will always start under.

   

 

POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS TO TRANS SPORTS PARTICIPATION.

Can we find a way that more fairly allows trans people to participate in sports?

The first question perhaps is - should we even want to do this?

All people should be encouraged to take part in sporting activity to maintain a healthy body.  And in none competitive situations we do see a different case to allow participation than those where livelihoods or careers are jeopardized by an unfair challenge from trans people.

Many who have a medical condition reluctantly accept the limitations on their body’s capabilities. It is a trade-off to live a happy balanced life which might restrict some possibilities whilst enhancing others.

We think most transsexuals would understand this life balance argument in sports. If it means that for reasons of safety and fairness that they cannot enter major sporting events or turn professional in this endeavor because their situation would impact the careers of other sports people, then we believe they would accept that consequence.

Unfortunately, we would not anticipate a similar level of understanding from transgender activists based on what we see from their reactions to the Martina Navratilova statement.

This may be because TG view transition as a lifestyle expression and regard validation in their identity as essential to ongoing mental health.  

Whereas TS are resolving a medical condition in order to live as normal a life as possible but are aware of the trade-off between acceptance by society over rights of access and the implications of that access for other people.

 

So, are there other options with regards to sport?

One often suggested is to create transgender teams and competitions.

Can that work?

An immediate problem is one of numbers.  There are currently under 5000 people out of the 65 million living in the UK who have legally changed their sex marker - about 3700 TS women and 1250 TS men. Currently you must be medically diagnosed as TS not self diagnosed as TG in order to do this.

There are believed perhaps two or three times as many TS who have not applied for legal status. But numbers even on this measure are tiny and creating meaningful sports competitions between them hard to see as possible. 1250 TS men would have a difficult time creating any serious sports competition at all.

On the other hand there are an estimated 500,000 TG men and women - more evenly split between genders. Possibly there would be a chance of some kind of competition here. But the question then is, how do you determine who goes where?

Remember that on T levels alone TG women have a big edge over TS women and that is without taking into account the fact that many TG do nothing to their bodies to alter them physically and so will have the natal advantage or disadvantage against all others who have.

How many categories will you need to define and who does all the testing to measure fairness? This could easily be as impossible to work with resulting low numbers in multiple categories as it was with transsexuals alone.

Separating men v women in sports seems fair and in none trans situations usually is, but it becomes less fair in terms of TS & TG and the vast differences between a ‘trans woman’ with a fully male body identifying as a woman and a fully transitioned person who took puberty blockers then had surgery and never gained most natal sex advantages.

Here it is quite clear we face an almost impossible problem of sub division.

 

So, is there a way to grant access more fairly to trans people into opposite natal sex categories of sport?

We would argue that priority number one has to be safety.  There are some sports where a male bodied person, even a post op TS such as the authors of this blog, could be a significant threat of accidental harm to a female competitor.

This must always be the first deciding factor and, if there is any doubt, the option must be to exclude.

Beyond that point, perhaps there is a way in which sports scientists could get together and properly define a series of measures that go well beyond the testosterone level tests presently used by some sports to grant access.

We do not believe T levels alone are anywhere near enough and that they are set too high to be balanced towards inclusivity and away from fairness to women.  The latter must be the primary aim not the former.

One sensible option where inclusion might be discussed as a possibility would be if individual trans people as a condition of entry into a competitive sport have their entire body scanned and measured so that things like muscle mass, bone density, arm and thigh strength and any other factors deemed an advantage by sports scientists are carefully assessed and regularly checked.

Then, perhaps, some kind of scale can be defined against the average of natal sex competitors they will face to factor in a handicap. This can then be applied against trans competitors that removes the edge that they will otherwise always have. 

Or, in the case of trans men competitors, where the balance may be more difficult to judge because testosterone is injected to boost natal levels, possibly sometimes a positive handicap to balance out fairness may be required if competing against natal men.

We are unsure whether such a solution is either practical or would be regarded as fair by other athletes, but to us it seems the minimum starting point for any discussion.

The aim should be to seek a balanced and fair competition that does not actively discriminate against women and girls.

 

That surely has to be the main consideration - second only to safety - when we open up any debate about how to resolve this difficult question.