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The inclusion of transgender athletes is one of the latest equality challenges for sport governing organizations worldwide. No sport organization prior to 2003 had any policy at all governing the participation of transgender athletes. Historically, the International Olympic Committee's sex verification policy was focused on preventing male competitors from participating in female events.
As a reaction to this concern, sex verification tests for female (but not male) athletes began in 1968. Mandatory sex verification testing was discontinued in 1999 as sports authorities struggled unsuccessfully to develop reasonable and medically sound tests that were fairly administered and interpreted in the face of mounting social, medical and legal objections to the tests. Sex verification testing is still permitted on a case by case basis.
The International Olympic Committee became the first mainstream sport governing body to develop a policy governing the participation of transgender athletes in the Olympic Games. This policy, known as the Stockholm Consensus, became effective at the 2004 Games in Athens, Greece. Based on a report and recommendations from a committee of medical doctors, the IOC policy includes a list of three criteria for approval of transsexual athlete participation.
Since the IOC policy went into effect, the Ladies Golf Union (Great Britain), the Ladies European Golf Tour, Women's Golf Australia, the United States Golf Association, USA Track and Field, and the Gay and Lesbian International Sports Association have created policies governing transgender athlete participation in events sponsored by their organizations. In addition, the Women's Sports Foundation, United Kingdom and the United States-based Women's Sports Foundation issued policy statements supporting the inclusion of transgender athletes in sport.
Most of these organizations have used the IOC standards as a guide for the development of their policies. In contrast, the National Collegiate Athletic Association requires that athletes compete in the gender designated on their official government documents, for example, driver's license, birth certificate or passport (This policy is currently under review). To date, no high school governing bodies have announced policies addressing the participation of transgender athletes. However, it is clear that the issue of transgender athlete eligibility to participate in school-based sports will need to be addressed in the near future. Each of these early attempts at developing policy governing the participation of transgender athletes is problematic in different ways. As sports governing organizations continue to better understand and address issues of transgender discrimination and competitive equity for all competitors, we can expect better and more consistent policies to emerge.
The goals for all sport organizations developing policies governing transgender athlete participation should be to identify ways to ensure fair competition for all participants and avoid discrimination against transgender athletes without invading the privacy of athletes who transition to a new gender. To achieve this end, sport governing bodies need to examine legal and medical information related to transgender participation in sport. Separating this information from the confusion, prejudice and misinformation about transgender identity in general and athletic participation by transgender people in particular is essential in developing fair policy.
Education: An important step.
One of the most important first steps for a sport organization or school athletic department to take is to educate athletic staff and athletes about transgender issues in sport. This step is the most effective way to provide information and answer questions about transgender athletic participation and lays the groundwork for developing and following fair policy governing the participation of transgender athletes. The NCAA has established a committee to begin to develop educational materials for athletic administrators, coaches and others on this topic. It Takes A Team! Education Campaign for LGBT Issues in Sport is a participant on this committee and is developing educational materials and programs for athletic administrators, coaches, athletes, and parents on transgender issues in sport.
The purposes of this article are:
1. To provide some clarifying information about basic gender terminology
2. To summarize legal and medical information related to transgender athlete participation in sport
3. To make some recommendations for policy related to the inclusion of transgender athletes in school-based athletic programs
4. To identify resources on transgender athletic participation for sports administrators, coaches, and parents
Clairifaction of Gender Terminology
Before we can explore policy recommendations related to transgender athlete participation in sport, it is important to provide some clarifying information about gender terminology and to address some common misconception about transgender identity. To that end, we offer the following definitions:
Birth/Assigned Sex refers to sex assigned at birth based on the anatomical, physiological and chromosomal characteristics associated with males, females, or intersex people.
Intersex refers to people who are born with both male and female anatomical, physiological or chromosomal characteristics.
Gender Identity refers to a person's internal, deeply felt sense of being a man or a woman. A person's gender identity can be different from their gender assigned at birth.
Gender Expression refers to socially constructed sets of behaviors, appearance, mannerisms, speech patterns, and dress associated with men (masculine), women (feminine) or a mixture of masculine and feminine (often called androgynous), or any other less traditional expressions.
Transgender is an umbrella term that describes people whose gender identity or expression does not conform to prevailing social expectations and can be used to describe people whose gender identity or expression is different from their gender assigned at birth.
Transsexual is a term commonly used to refer to someone who transitions from one gender to another. It includes people who were identified as male at birth but whose gender identity is woman or girl (MTF) and people who were identified as female at birth, but whose gender identity is man or boy (FTM), and people whose gender identity is neither man nor woman. Transition often consists of a change in gender expression, name, and pronoun preference. Transition often also includes hormone therapy, counseling, and surgery.
Transitioned is a descriptor preferred by some people who have completed their gender transition and no longer want to be referred to as either transgender or transsexual. Instead they want to be referred as the new gender to which they have transitioned (woman or man, without the qualifiers, “transgender” or “transsexual”).
Gender Non-Conforming or Gender Variant refers to people who are perceived to have gender characteristics or gender expression that do not conform to traditional social expectations. Gender Variant or gender non-conforming people may or may not identify as transgender.
Sexual Orientation refers to a person's emotional and sexual attraction to other people based on the gender of the other person. A person may identify their sexual orientation as heterosexual, lesbian, gay, bisexual, or queer. Sexual orientation and gender identity are two different aspects of a person's identity. Not all lesbian, gay, bisexual people are gender non-conforming and not all transgender people identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual.
Assumptions about the relationship among a person's sex assigned at birth, gender identity and expression, and sexual orientation are often made. Misunderstanding the differences among these terms can lead to misconceptions about people. For example, transgender/transitioned people or people who display gender variant behavior or appearance are often assumed to be lesbian, gay or bisexual. Similarly, gay men are often stereotyped as having a feminine gender expression and lesbians are often stereotyped as having a masculine gender expression. However, a person's gender identity or expression is unrelated to their sexual orientation. We each have a sexual orientation and a gender identity. Knowing a person's gender identity provides little information about that person's sexual orientation and vice versa.
Summary of Legal Information
Though no federal legislation explicitly prohibits discrimination based on gender identity or expression, the United States Constitution's equal protection clause, Title VII, and Title IX may be interpreted to address discrimination against transgender people or gender non-conforming people. Moreover, the First Amendment and Due Process Clause of the U.S. Constitution may prohibit school officials from censoring student speech, dress, or expression without a compelling reason.
Legal protection from discrimination based on gender identity or expression is currently available in a limited number of states and localities and more states are adding gender identity and expression to their general non-discrimination laws and to laws and policies that apply specifically to students in schools. States that have non-discrimination laws prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation, but not gender identity include Connecticut, New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, Vermont and Wisconsin (National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, 2006).
States that prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity include California, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Minnesota, New Mexico, Rhode Island and Washington. The District of Columbia also provides legal protection against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity (National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, 2006).
Only eight states (Washington, California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin) and the District of Columbia currently have statewide legal protections for students based on sexual orientation. Only California, Minnesota and New Jersey include protections based on gender identity or expression (Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network, 2006).
Regardless of whether there are explicit legal protections for students based on gender identity in a particular state, discrimination against transgender and gender-variant athletes may still result in liability for coaches or schools under other federal or state laws that prohibit gender or sex discrimination.
The most prominent legal case to date involving a transsexual athlete in the United States was Renee Richards v. United States Tennis Association. Richards, a male to female transsexual, sued to participate in the U.S. Open's Women's Division in 1977 without submitting to a sex verification test. The New York court ruled that the USTA was in violation of the state Human Rights Law and was discriminating against Richards. She played in the U.S. Open that year where she lost her first round singles match, but reached the finals in doubles before losing. Athletes identifying as transsexual, transgender or transitioned currently compete in many women's sports including mountain biking, ice hockey, track and field and golf.
Addressing Competitive Athletic Performance Concerns
Ensuring that transgender/transitioned athletes are treated fairly in sport presents a unique challenge because, for the most part, competitive athletics is a sex-segregated activity. Most athletic teams are separated into those for boys and men and those for girls and women. Men and women compete against or with each other in far fewer sports (archery, equestrian, shooting, for example). Moreover, there are well documented physical and physiological differences between males and females that lead to the conventional wisdom that most sports are best conducted as sex segregated activities in order to ensure that women and men have equitable opportunities to compete against others of similar physical and physiological capabilities. The actual overlap in male and female athletic performance, however, is quite large, rather than clearly separated into two distinct groups. The range of physiological characteristics and athletic performance within each of the categories of female and male is also quite wide. Nonetheless, transgender athletes, particularly transsexual or transitioned athletes, challenge accepted boundaries of eligibility and raise concerns about fair competition in sex segregated sport.
A broad spectrum of identities is included under the umbrella of transgender identity. Transsexual or transitioned athletes may pose the greatest challenge to equity in sex segregated sport competition. Athletes who have completed a transition from male to female are most likely to be seen as having an unfair competitive advantage in contests against women who are female at birth. Athletes who have completed a transition from female to male also pose challenges if they are taking testosterone as part of their hormone therapy because of concerns about athletes' use of performance enhancing drugs.
Other transgender athletes; whose gender identity does not match their birth sex, but do not undergo surgery or take hormones; pose less of a competitive equity challenge. Instead, they present a challenge to traditional gender expectations and might be subjected to discrimination or harassment because of stereotypes or prejudice. Athletes whose gender expression is non-conforming, but whose birth sex and gender identity match (i.e. masculine women or feminine men) pose the least challenge to competitive equity. However, these athletes might be subjected to discrimination or harassment based on their gender expression.
Athletic Performance Parity and Transsexual Athletes
Many medical doctors who specialize in treating people who transition make the case that these athletes should be allowed to compete in their new gender. The International Olympic Committee policy on the participation of transsexual athletes in the Olympic Games reflects this perspective. In 2003 the Executive Committee of the IOC approved a set of criteria to determine the eligibility of transsexual/transitioned athletes recommended by the IOC Medical Commission. The IOC policy is as follows:
Sex reassignment before puberty: Individuals undergoing sex reassignment surgery of male to female before puberty should be regarded as girls and women (female). This also applies to individuals undergoing female to male reassignment, who should be regarded as boys and men (male).
Sex reassignment after puberty: Individuals undergoing sex reassignment from male to female after puberty (and vice versa) are eligible for participation in female or male competitions, respectively, under the following conditions:
* Surgical anatomical changes have been completed, including external genitalia changes and gonadectomy
* Legal recognition of their reassigned sex has been conferred by the appropriate official authorities
* Hormonal therapy appropriate for the assigned sex has been administered in a verifiable manner and for a sufficient length of time to minimize gender-related advantages in sports competition
* Eligibility should begin no sooner than two years after gonadectomy
* It is understood that a confidential case by case evaluation will occur. In the event that the gender of a competing athlete is questioned, the medical delegate (or equivalent) of the relevant sporting body shall have the authority to take all appropriate measures for the determination of the gender of the competitor.
This policy is based on the medical opinion that, under these conditions, any residual competitive advantage for an athlete who transitions from male to female will be neutralized and she can compete fairly with athletes who are female at birth. Many women athletes and coaches are skeptical of this opinion and believe that transitioned women continue to have a competitive advantage over other women. This assumption ignores the already existing wide range of size, height, skill, strength, ability, speed and other components of athletic ability among females at birth.
The IOC policy, although it expressly includes FTM people, does not address issues that FTMs would encounter, specifically steroid test problems. It is our position that FTM athletes should be allowed to compete as men if their testosterone levels are in the normal range for athletes who are male at birth.
Recommendations for Interactions: Pronouns, Name Changes and Name Calling
Many transgender people adopt new names as one aspect of expressing their gender identity. Not all transgender people choose to change their names, but when they do, it is important to respect these requests. For coaches and teammates who know an athlete while they are in the midst of this change, it can be a challenge to get used to using a new name or different pronouns. Slipping up and using the “old” name is probably inevitable as everyone adjusts to these changes.
Most transgender people also want to be referred to with the pronoun that best corresponds to their gender identity. Some transgender people prefer neutral pronouns such as “hir” (for her or his) or “ze” (for he or she). Regardless of whether an athlete is on a men's or women's team, it is important to abide by a transgender athlete's preferences because names and pronouns are an essential part of validating and respecting a transgender athlete's gender identity and expression.
Gender non-conforming people who do not identity as transgender are often teased or harassed about their non-conformity. For example, a male athlete named Patrick who enjoys dancing might be called “Patricia” as a means to disparage his masculinity. This kind of teasing or harassment makes athletes feel that they must conform to gender expectations or risk the friendship of their peers.
An unfortunate practice on some boy's and men's athletic teams is deriding an athlete's performance by calling him a “girl” or referring to him with a girl's name. The message is that not only is he not performing up to the standards expected of him as a male athlete, but also that the athletic performances of girls and women are inferior. This practice should never be tolerated because it creates an unsafe environment for all athletes and is a discriminatory strategy for motivating better athletic performance.
Similarly, when strong athletic girls or women are called “masculine,” referred to by men's names, or compared to boys and men, the message is that high performing female athletes are exhibiting athletic skills that only men have. Sometimes male and female athletes or coaches taunt opponents by using inappropriate pronouns or names as a way to distract them or taunt them during competition. This practice is also unacceptable and creates a hostile and unsafe climate for all athletes, especially those whose gender identity or expression is non-conforming.
