NPR (“Transgender track and field athletes can’t compete in women’s international events“):
World Athletics Council, the governing body for international track and field, will bar transgender women athletes from elite competitions for women.
The council’s policy, which will be in effect starting March 31, largely targets athletes who transitioned from male to female after going through puberty as a male. It will also tighten rules for athletes with disorders of sexual development, cutting in half the level of testosterone athletes can have in order to compete in women’s events.
The council said they ultimately decided to prioritize “fairness and the integrity” of the female competition over inclusion. Though the council says there are no transgender athletes currently in international track and field competition, the ruling could hinder several people who’ve won Olympic medals in the past.
“Decisions are always difficult when they involve conflicting needs and rights between different groups, but we continue to take the view that we must maintain fairness for female athletes above all other considerations,” Sebastian Coe, the council’s president, wrote in a press statement on Thursday.
[…]
At the center of the issue is whether transgender women athletes have a physical advantage over other female competitors, even after lowering their testosterone levels. But there is limited scientific research involving elite transgender athletes — which the council also acknowledged.
World Athletics Council said that they have conducted their own research over the past decade and that they found there can be an impact in performance. Several international groups including the Human Rights Watch have called the council’s evidence flawed.
Even without strong evidence of an advantage, the council has scrutinized the performance of athletes such as South African runner Caster Semenya, the world’s fastest woman in the 800 meters. Semenya, who was raised female and is legally female, was born with XY chromosomes and has a naturally high testosterone level.
In 2018 World Athletics required athletes with differences in sex development to lower their testosterone levels with birth control pills, hormone shots or surgery. Semenya refused, saying such treatments had left her feeling like she would have a heart attack, and took her case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, which ultimately ruled against her in 2019. She is currently appealing the ruling in the European Court of Human Rights.
International track and field is not the only sport to be moving away from trans inclusion.
Last year the world governing body for swimming, FINA, prohibited transgender women from participating in female swimming competitions. In 2020, World Rugby also ruled that transgender women could not play rugby internationally out of “safety and fairness” concerns for non-transgender women.
Intuitively, this seems like the right move, if a rather cruel one. To exclude transwomen from competition sends the hurtful message that they’re not fully women. Additionally, the ruling goes beyond that, excluding intersex women like Semenya.
The entire premise of having gender-segregated sports is that, otherwise, women would not be able to compete and derive the benefits of athletic competition. Sports that prioritize muscle mass and speed would simply be dominated by men once puberty kicks in. That transwomen who transitioned after puberty retain substantial advantage is incontrovertible and has been demonstrated time and again, as mediocre male athletes suddenly become dominant female athletes. (Indeed, there has been no comparable reaction against transmen competing in men’s sports.)
Ultimately, this strikes me as a numbers game. Athletic associations are balancing the integrity and survival of women’s sports programs against the rights of a relative handful of elite trans and intersex athletes.
