A guest column by Patsy Neal recently published in the Cap Times, (“Why I wouldn’t want to compete against transgender women”) makes yet another tired argument against the inclusion of transgender women and girls in sports. I’m pretty fed up with this completely wrongheaded and needlessly distracting line of attack.
Transgender people belong in sports that align with their gender identity, without having to undergo invasive medical examinations or questioning.
In this era in which it’s become fashionable to debate the very humanity and fundamental rights of transgender people, the sports discussion is just another harmful front in that war. Transgender people are not a threat to you or anyone you know, though. We don’t threaten sports, or fairness.
You know what does threaten women’s sports? Longstanding and systemic under-funding, discrimination, harassment/assault and general misogyny that has even standout athletes like Caitlin Clark fielding ridiculously inappropriate questions by reporters.
Where have these voices that are “just concerned about fairness for women and girls” been for those debates?
I’m a lifelong athlete. I’ve played softball, basketball, ultimate frisbee and, for the past 11 years, roller derby. Unlike Patsy, I’ve actually played alongside and against transgender women, non-binary people, and even cisgender men. Roller derby is a high-intensity, competitive, full-contact sport. I have never once had a problem with a transgender woman on the track.
In fact, the vast majority of roller derby athletes are welcoming and inclusive of transgender skaters. Trans people have made our sport better. They helped me see myself more clearly and to come out as non-binary just last year.
Like anyone else, a transgender woman who joins roller derby has to train, and train hard, in order to reach the highest levels of competition. There are transgender women who are smaller and/or slower and less hard-hitting than many, many cisgender women in the sport. I’ve also played (and won!) against cisgender men who are bigger than me.
Testosterone is not a magic bullet to enhance sporting performance. Your sex assigned at birth does not give you an innate competitive advantage for something that requires extensive practice and training, and it’s honestly pretty insulting (not to mention divorced from reality) to hear people claim that men are just inherently “better” at sports, full stop.
You clearly haven’t been paying attention to women’s sports for anything other than your desire to attack a certain subset of those women.
When we start talking about banning transgender women and girls from sport, we necessarily have to consider how these bans would and are being enforced. Who inspects the genitals of children and adults to make sure they conform with one very binary and non-representative mold? Who gets access to their medical records? Who decides (regardless of whether you’re cis or trans, because there is a wide natural variety) what level of which hormones are OK?
As for relegating trans people to our own “separate but equal” sports teams and leagues — well, that phrase right there should set off alarm bells for everyone. There are also very few of us. Transgender people make up approximately 1.03% of the adult population in the United States. About 5% of youth say their gender differs from what it was assigned at birth. And yet somehow this tiny minority threatens sports?
I can’t begin to say what positive impact it would have had on my younger self to have been able to play sports on teams where all gender identities were welcomed. I might have come out a lot sooner than my early 40s. Finding roller derby as an adult — a place where my full self was welcomed and I’ve found an incredible and supportive community — has been unquantifiably beneficial.
Instead of debating the humanity and lived experiences of a tiny minority (who are already under attack from so many other quarters) we should be working to make sports a more accepting and affirming place for everyone. This idea that we are somehow “protecting” women and girls by barring transgender participation is itself misogynistic thinking.
Women and girls don’t need protection from fellow women and girls who just want to play sports and experience the various benefits that come with it. Women and girls and non-binary people need equal access, equal funding, robust protections against sexual assault and harassment, and the dignity of being taken just as seriously as men in sports.
Let us play.
