Trans Women in Sports, Imane Khelif, and the Double Standards of Being a Woman Competitor - Olympics 2024
What does HRT do to competitors? Why does antagonism and hatred hurt cis women as well? Why is there so much controversy over who's actually a woman in the Olympics 2024?
So what’s up with the Fox News style backlash against the inclusion of trans women in competition? The idea that trans women have an unfair advantage in sports due to experiencing testosterone puberty even when androgens are suppressed and that woman has been on estrogen HRT for a period of months to years is not supported by the current data. However, this myth still perpetuates especially when folks want something to be mad about with regards to trans issues.
First, let me introduce you to the World Professional Association for Transgender Health. They are the best source for all things related to health and physical abilities of trans folks, and is known as the WPATH Standards of Care (8th edition). They have dozens of researchers who co-wrote the 250 page document on its 8th iteration, with hundreds of contributions from other journal articles, studies, researchers, and professors. They take a neutral approach to trans science and healthcare, and put together metanalyses (studies and data considered together) of their findings and recommendations. Their research is top-notch, and it has been illuminating for me when the document challenges something I thought or provides me with more resources to check out and draw from.
Overall, studies have found that trans women on estrogen HRT with anti-androgen medications experience a strong decline in muscle mass with an onset of 3-6 months to 1-2 years. Most trans women, regardless of being an athlete or not, experience a decrease in lean body mass, cross sectional area, and strength loss within 12 months of starting HRT. Compared to cis men, trans women on HRT have a decrease in red blood cell counts and hemoglobin concentrations, eliminating the "their blood carries more oxygen so they have an oxygen advantage" argument.
Trans women who have had orchiectomy (surgery to remove testicles) have testosterone levels lower than that of pre-menopausal cis women. While there is a slight advantage to height for some sports, many are not affected by height, and the average height of elite trans women athletes is still within the range expected for cis women elite athletes. Also noteworthy is that categories of "male" and "female" do not adequately represent the range of human expression, with a great deal of overlap between those categories, and entirely ignoring the existence of intersex folks.
Sports organizations who try to deny transgender athletes typically rely on biomedical markers (that are generally irrelevant to the sport) that are based on arbitrary guidelines and give them the guise of "seeking fairness". Organizations that ignore scientific data continue in a tradition of trying to deny women athletes from competing, with just a new focus on trans women. Trans women typically experience greater non-medical barriers to participating in sports than do cis women, due to backlash, harassment, arbitrary laws and policies, transmisogyny, and overlapping systems of oppression.
We are seeing this happen right now in the 2024 Olympics with Imane Khelif and Katie Ledecky. Both are cis women who’s genders are being questioned by large sections of the populace who have no idea what they’re talking about or have been led to believe. Katie Ledecky couldn’t possibly be the most decorated woman’s swimmer in the 1500m race with a dominance of the world record, because she’s definitely a man, right? (this is sarcasm just to be clear).
Imane Khelif is getting the most attention for heinous reasons, although boxer Lin Yu-ting is facing similar backlash. Imane has a naturally higher level of testosterone in her body than does the average cis woman. She MIGHT (this is unconfirmed) have a variation in sex traits (also known as DSD), but is a cis women, assigned female at birth, and does not identify as intersex. DSDs do not make one trans. She’s been barred from competing at other national and world level competitions held by the Intranational Boxing Association due to this, however, and the International Olympics Committee looked at that and went “nah” and used their own criteria to determine that she’s a cis woman who can compete (The ICC does not recognize the IBA and its standards and rulings on the determination of womanhood and they are almost at the point of cutting all ties with the IBA). She doesn’t have a perfect record, and just because her first boxing match ended with the other competitor withdrawing (for a nose injury and has initially said it wasn’t due to Imane herself, although she’s on the side of “she hits too hard”) does not mean she's unbeatable (she's lost 9 matches).
People are crying about her “unfair biological advantage” and how anyone with testosterone is a “man” (despite all bodies using a mix of testosterone and estrogen, and cis women have testosterone, too). Racism is also at play, although folks (for the most part), aren’t saying that quiet part out loud. POC women are attacked even more often when they don't fit white, cisnormative "beauty" standards.
People around the world celebrated Michael Phelps, and there have been documentations, shorts, and so many interviews about his natural biological advantage of not producing as much lactic acid in his muscles than other competitors (50% less than a typical cis man) as well as his hypermobility. I can’t recall a single instance of anyone reputable suggesting that he not compete due to these advantages; in fact, these differences have been celebrated and he has been held up as the ideal of an athlete. I’m sure you can see where this is heading – Phelps has the additional advantage of being a cis white man.
Transphobia and transmisogyny are undeniably things that trans women and transfeminine people face when competing in sports at a professional level, with a much higher barrier to entry than most cis women. However, women have been seen throughout the entirety of modern sports as less capable, less strong, and less worthy of competing, despite all of the evidence to the contrary. So much hatred is thrown at trans women and transfeminine people, so much so that these willfully ignorant people claim that any woman who doesn’t fit their ideal of what a woman should be or look like call them “men”. It’s a catch-22 where if you are the athlete, you can’t win against the tirade of willful ignorance.
It was never just about trans women. It’s about control of all women.
References
Publication: Executive Summary of "Transgender Women Athletes and Elite Sport: A Scientific Review" https://cces.ca/sites/default/files/content/docs/2024-01/transgender-women-athletes-and-elitesport-a-scientific-review-executive-summary-en.pdf
Publication: Appendix C of the WPATH Standards of Care for the Health of Transgender and Gender Diverse People https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/26895269.2022.2100644
Publication: Sport and Transgender People: A Systematic Review of the Literature Relating to Sport Participation and Competitive Sport Policies https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40279-016-0621-y
International Olympic Committee guidelines for transgender athletes https://stillmed.olympic.org/Documents/Commissions_PDFfiles/Medical_commission/2015-11_ioc_consensus_meeting_on_sex_reassignment_and_hyperandrogenism-en.pdf
Report: The real cost of beauty ideals https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/striped/wp-content/uploads/sites/1267/2022/10/Real-Cost-of-Beauty-Report-10-4-22.pdf
Article: Gender spectrum: A scientist explains why gender isn’t binary (also includes the false dichotomy of sex, as well). https://cadehildreth.com/gender-spectrum/
Article: “Who is Imane Khelif? Algerian boxer facing gender outcry had modest success before Olympics. https://apnews.com/article/olympics-2024-imane-khelif-boxing-paris-2eb07d442ffb29a61e09911884dcdaa9
Article: Alergian boxer Imane Khelif becomes target of Olympics gender row. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/8/2/algerian-boxer-imane-khelif-becomes-target-of-gender-row-at-olympics
Article: Fact Check: Participation and Eligibility of Paris 2024 Olympic Boxers Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-ting https://glaad.org/fact-check-participation-and-eligibility-of-paris-2024-olympic-boxers-imane-khelif-and-lin-yu-ting/
Article: The Science (or lack thereof) Behind Transgender Inclusion in Powerlifting https://www.muscleandfitness.com/athletes-celebrities/news/science-or-lack-thereof-behind-transgender-inclusion-powerlifting/
Article: Powerlifting bans against transgender women are at odds with global health standards https://www.axios.com/2019/06/29/powerlifting-bans-against-transgender-women-at-odds-global-health-standards
Article: Get the Facts about Transgender & Non-Binary Athletes https://www.hrc.org/resources/get-the-facts-about-transgender-non-binary-athletes
Thank you!