Irish Examiner view: Rights of transgender athletes still a contentious issue

Floodgates have opened and it's difficult to see them closing any time soon

Megan Rapinoe at the Women's World Cup quarter final between France and the United States at the Parc des Princes, in Paris, in June 2019. Picture: AP Photo/Francisco Seco

The floodgates have been opened on one of the most contentious issues in sport and society — the rights of transgender athletes to compete in competitive women’s sport — by decisions taken by governing bodies in cycling and international swimming.

And it is very difficult to see them being closed again any time soon. In fact, the floodgates are likely to be replaced by the gates to the courts of law around the world.

The controversy has been long in the making but has reached a new level with a raft of policies issued in the past fortnight.

Swimming and cycling have been followed by administrators adopting new positions in Fifa, covering soccer, and International Rugby League which, while seeking the opinions of players before finalising an inclusion policy, says that trans athletes will not be able to compete in women’s events for now despite a World Cup taking place this autumn.

Elite track and field is poised to follow with World Athletics president Sebastian Coe supporting swimming’s decision and declaring that “fairness is non-negotiable” and that “biology trumps identity”.

Other sports are still attempting to permit trans women to enter competition in the female category through the application of testosterone limits which is an area of science open to regular challenge and review.

The pioneering trans sports people are still sufficiently few in number for their names to be well known. Lia Thomas, the swimmer; Emily Bridges, the cyclist; Laurel Hubbard, the Tokyo Olympics weightlifter. The inclusionists believe there is insufficient evidence of performance advantage to support an outright ban.

A principal advocate is the US footballer Megan Rapinoe who says the starting point should be inclusion. She said:

Show me the evidence that trans women are taking everyone’s scholarships, are dominating in every sport, are winning every title.

Opponents, including some major names such as Martina Navratilova, the great tennis champion, and medal-winning Olympians Sonia O’Sullivan, Daley Thompson, and Sharron Davies, point to scientific research which indicates that male puberty brings advantages particularly in power and combat sports.

Swimming plans to create an “open” category of competition in which transgender athletes could compete although proposals have not been tabled and there is an Olympics in Paris in two years.

Older readers may remember two all-conquering Soviet Union athletes, Tamara and Irina Press, who won gold medals and set world records between 1958 and 1964 and who were subjected to allegations of being secretly male or intersex, or receiving hormone treatment. They retired from international competition in 1966 just before mandatory testing was introduced for the European championships. That was the real start of this debate.

With a rapid acceleration of policies; with differential standards and criteria being applied; with political toxicity and major international events on the horizon this is a legal minefield. It could even be turned into a new Olympic sport, open to all.