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One of the most polarizing issues in sport in recent years has been the debate about transgender athletes: what are their rights and who can compete as a woman in women’s sport? With state bans on trans athletes competing in youth and high school sports, and with new policies being introduced by US and international government bodies, there’s a lot to talk about. And it can get very confusing very quickly. Here’s what you need to know about the ongoing conversation. (This story will be updated as new developments unfold.)

Thomas’ success this season has put the Penn swimmer at the forefront of the conversation about transgender athletes participating in sports.

Donald Miralle/Sports Illustrated

What’s the International Olympic Committee’s stance on transgender athletes in competition?

Following the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing, the IOC put in place a new non-binding framework, encouraging federations of all Olympic sports to include trans athletes in their own regulations. See the article : Title IX and the Rise and Fall of Women’s Sport. “No athlete shall be barred from competition or excluded from competition based solely on an unverified, alleged or perceived unfair advantage due to variations in sex, physical appearance and/or transgender status,” the framework read.

The news marked a significant departure from the IOC’s previous focus on measuring the testosterone levels of transfemale athletes, who had to record less than 10 nanomoles/liter (a number that some cisgender women exceed). Transfemale athletes also had to take testosterone-suppressing medication for at least a year before competing in the women’s category at the Games. Advocates applauded the IOC’s departure from these policies, with LGBTQ sports inclusion nonprofit Athlete Ally calling it “groundbreaking.”

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But we keep hearing about individual sports drafting their own policies, which sound far less inclusive. What happened?

Despite the latest comprehensive guidelines from the IOC aimed at inclusion, several sport regulatory bodies have imposed severe restrictions on the participation of trans athletes at the elite level, aimed at exclusion.

FINA, the international federation for swimming and other water sports, for example, released a policy in June that bans transgender girls and women from competing in the women’s category unless they have transitioned before age 12 and maintained their testosterone levels. below 2.5 nanomol/liter. “unrealistic” expectations for athletes, according to the Human Rights Campaign, especially given the severe restrictions on gender-affirming care for children in large areas of the US and other countries. FINA has also launched the possibility of establishing a specific competition category for transgender people outside the traditional divisions of men and women – but this is a proposal that labels trans athletes as “others” rather than including them in mainstream society, he argued. This may interest you : Heilferty drafted to the US U-23 women’s squad. the former Harvard student. Schuyler Bailar, the first openly trans athlete to compete on a Division One men’s swim team.

Also in June: The International Rugby League announced a total ban on the participation of transfemale athletes, and the Union Cycliste Internationale unveiled a set of severe restrictions for transfemale athletes, including the requirement of 2.5 nanomoles/liter.

FIFA, the world football federation, announced in June, in response to FINA’s new policy, that it would revise its own rules, according to Reuters, but such a policy has yet to be announced. (Why it’s worth it: The men’s and women’s World Cups will be held next year.)

Notably, no international federation has recently released a policy that explicitly includes trans athletes.

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Where do professional leagues in the U.S. stand on including trans athletes?

In recent years, pro-women’s leagues have rolled out policies on transgender inclusion. First, in 2016, came the Premier Hockey Federation (then known as the National Women’s Hockey League), after Harrison Browne, a transmale player, transitioned. Now, after an update of 21, PHF policy states that trans women can compete in the league if they have been “living in their transgender identity” for at least two years. To see also : Myths about abortion and women’s mental health are rife, experts say. Trans men can now also compete in the league – even if they are taking testosterone. Non-binary athletes are allowed, with similar guidelines based on sex assigned at birth.

Also in 2021, the NWSL released its first trans inclusion guidelines. Trans women can compete if their testosterone level is below 10 nanomol/liter for at least one year. Trans men can gamble if they are taking only a low dose or none at all. (Non-binary athletes are not mentioned.) Athletes Unlimited, a fairly new women’s professional league that holds competitions in various sports, including softball and volleyball, stated in its ’21 policy that trans women and non-binary people can compete as long as they are undergoing testosterone suppression treatment.

As for the top men’s professional leagues: technically, anyone is eligible to compete, although historically, as far as is known, only cisgender men have.

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… And the NCAA?

When Penn swimmer Lia Thomas, a trans woman, began competing for her school’s women’s team in 2021, the NCAA was criticized by anti-trans activists who considered her participation unfair, despite her complying with their policy. (Robert Sanchez profiled her for SI in the spring of 2022.) Around the time Thomas switched to the men’s team, the NCAA asked that a trans woman competing in any sport have a year of hormone therapy under her belt, which Thomas had after take a gap year from swimming.

But in January — midway through Thomas’ lone stint on the women’s team — the NCAA updated its policy. It now transfers the matter to national government bodies for each sport. In Thomas’ case, this change meant that US swimming, not the NCAA, would determine his eligibility for the March swimming championships. And in February, USA Swimming released a new policy (which was not influenced by Thomas’ eligibility) requiring trans women to be on testosterone suppressor treatment and have a level of less than 5 nanomoles/liter for 36 months.

Thomas, at the time of the championships, had only had 34 months of treatment. But the NCAA ultimately decided she could compete despite being two months ahead of the time period in the US swimming guidelines, with a subcommittee citing “unfair and potentially harmful impacts” of the policy. Far from dominating the competition, Thomas won one race and lost two others.

Thomas won one race and lost two more in the 2022 NCAA Swimming Championships.

Donald Miralle/Sports Illustrated

Furthermore, as the SI reported, the NCAA has not taken a stand on anti-trans policies affecting high schools, high schools, and publicly funded colleges across the country, despite pressure from trans athletes themselves and despite their action against North Carolina’s so-called bathroom law. , in 2016, when it removed championship events, including first- and second-round men’s basketball tournament games, from the state.

“My frustration is that [the NCAA] has had multiple opportunities to make a statement, take action, state their position,” Chris Mosier, a trans activist and biathlete, told SI in 2021. So much power in that. A lot of these states rely on NCAA events to attract money, tourism and sports betting to their states, to their cities.” In other words: the NCAA has influence.

So what’s been the fallout of all this?

The debate over whether trans athletes should be allowed to compete is not just limited to the Olympic and professional levels. In 2020, Idaho became the first state to pass a ban on transfemale athletes competing in women’s sports at the youth, high school, and college levels. (Lindsay Hecox, a trans woman who runs cross-country, is suing the state alongside the ACLU and cisgender athlete Jane Doe. Florida, Tennessee and West Virginia are also facing lawsuits from athletes and activist groups.)

Frankie de la Cretaz wrote to SI in March about how the effects of testosterone-based trans sports policies can impact even youth levels:

Coding testosterone-based science as the true indicator of who is eligible to be considered a girl sets a precedent in which femininity continues to be policed ​​– and risks creating a binary of “non-threatening” transgender girls who have transitioned. before the onset of testosterone-driven puberty and “threatening” trans girls who transitioned later in life.

As of July 2022, 18 states have banned trans girls and women from publicly funded sports. Some of these states also have – or vaguely allow – bans on trans boys and men. ESPN’s Katie Barnes has written a practical summary of how, as of June, each state handles the participation of trans athletes.

Intersex athletes are also affected by these laws, as, as an enforcement mechanism, the rules sometimes require testing of athletes whose gender is contested, which can be seen as an invasion of privacy (and not just for trans and intersex athletes. ). “Are you going to subject a six-year-old to genital exams or chromosomal tests?” asked Pidgeon Pagonis, an advocate for intersex people, in a 2021 SI story. “Or seven, eight or nine year olds or high school students? This is sexual abuse.”

How do trans athletes feel about these policies and the debate overall?

Many trans athletes have expressed disappointment and outrage at today’s anti-trans policies, from youth to international levels. As Mosier explained to SI: These policies are “about banning trans people and limiting our access to our day-to-day activities. It’s about erasing trans people from public view.”

In June, Mosier wrote an op-ed for The Guardian, criticizing FINA’s near-ban on trans girls and women competing in elite swimming:

I found friends, family and community through my participation in sports; my teammates and coaches have been some of my greatest allies both in my transition and in life, largely due to our bond through a shared interest in the sports we play. Every person deserves this opportunity to form similar bonds and learn about others and themselves through sport.

Zooey Zephyr, a trans woman and former state-level wrestler at her school in Montana, told SI, “I want trans girls to have a childhood. I want trans boys to have a childhood.” Part of it, she said, is playing sports if they want to.

And a 15-year-old transgender boy from North Dakota named William told SI last year that he’s not after any praise: “We’re not there to take scholarships from people. … We just want to compete. We don’t have a secret agenda.”

Generally speaking, the effects on trans athletes – and trans people in general – are harmful, as SI wrote in June:

The stakes in this fight for trans people, already a vulnerable population, are high. The debate itself has already proved harmful. A 2020 peer-reviewed study found that trans and non-binary youth who experienced discrimination based on their gender identity are twice as likely to attempt suicide as their peers. And more than half of trans and non-binary youth have considered suicide over the past year, according to a survey by the Trevor Project 21. In the same survey, 94% of LGBTQ youth reported that recent policies had negatively affected their mental health.

Who are the anti-trans proponents? And what are they saying?

Some of the loudest voices promoting trans exclusion are associated with the Women’s Sports Policy Working Group, led by activists such as tennis legend Martina Navratilova and Olympic swimmer Nancy Hogshead-Makar. The group aims to find a “middle way” to address the issue, although trans rights advocates have pointed out that the group’s rhetoric is trans-exclusionary.

“To put the argument in its most basic form: a man can decide to be a woman, take hormones if required by any sports organization involved, earn everything in sight and perhaps earn a small fortune, and then reverse his decision and go back to making babies if he will,” Navratilova wrote in a 2019 Sunday Times editorial (while referring to trans women with he/he pronouns). Subsequently, Athlete Ally left her as a supporter, due to her anti-trans views.

Hogshead-Makar praised FINA’s recent policy on trans women.

David Zalubowski/Associated Press

More recently, after FINA’s trans exclusion policy was struck down in June, Hogshead-Makar told a Florida news outlet: But when it comes to sport, you can’t deny biology and facts. And the facts say that men and women are so different, different enough that girls and women have equal opportunities to participate, they need their own team.”

Lawmakers, most of them Republicans, have adapted and supported bills across the country — many of them using the same language, apparently from the same model, as NBC News reported — arguing that trans athletes maintain an unfair advantage over their cisgender peers.

What does the science say about trans athletes and fair competition?

The fact is, there’s still not much relevant research to speak of. “What needs to happen in the next 10 to 12 years is we need to get some trans athletes into exercise labs,” Joanna Harper, Ph.D. from Loughborough University. student researching performance analysis in trans athletes, told SI in 2020. From this story: “[Harper] points out that regardless of whether they are transgender or cisgender, athletes have all sorts of advantages over one another: size, strength , skill, speed and stamina among them.”

Meanwhile, trans athletes have not been dominant in women’s sports. (The media, of course, pay attention to the few success stories, but athletes like Thomas alone are not necessarily indicative of a trend.) Very few even compete to begin with. In 2021, an Associated Press report found that most lawmakers could not cite local examples of trans girls even competing in sports, let alone dominating.

It seems like the focus here is on trans girls and women. Where do trans boys and men fit in?

Several states with laws that prohibit trans girls and women from competing in publicly funded sports that align with their gender identities also explicitly prohibit—or, in some states, potentially prohibit—trans boys and men from doing the same, though most lawmakers are against it. -trans admit that transmale athletes are not considered a threat to men’s sport in the same way that transfemale athletes are to women’s sport.

“The logic is not coherent,” said Heath Fogg Davis, director of Temple’s gender, sexuality and women’s studies program, which specializes in transgender civil rights. “There is no good political justification for that, unless you want to exclude a whole group of, in this case, children and the most vulnerable among us.”

In fact, trans boys and men are often left out of the sports conversation. As SI wrote:

It’s not that [transmale athletes] want to be the subject of political scrutiny, but they would like to be more noticed and respected in sport. “Being overlooked as transmale people, in my opinion, boils down to this sexist assumption that anyone who is designated female at birth will never be as good athletically as someone who is designated male at birth,” says [Emet Marwell, a trans athlete and Athlete Ally’s policy and program manager]. “Obviously, that’s not true.”

OL Reign midfiller Quinn is the first non-binary Olympic gold medalist.

What about nonbinary athletes?

Non-binary athletes – whom SI has written about in depth – have been left out of many conversations about transgender rights in sport. WNBA point guard Layshia Clarendon, OL midfielder Reign Quinn (the first non-binary Olympic gold medalist representing Team Canada) and cyclist Rach McBride are among the non-binary pros facing the limits of what it means competing in categories designed explicitly for women. None of the three were taking masculinizing hormones at the time the SI reported them in 2021, meaning they were all still eligible to compete in women’s leagues and categories.

The question of how to handle the participation of non-binary athletes is a thorny one. As de la Cretaz wrote to SI:

The existence of non-binary people complicates a seemingly clean and organized way of organizing athletics: men’s sports and women’s sports. Including non-binary people in the conversation requires a willingness to recognize that the way we currently categorize athletics needs an overhaul and that leagues need to make accommodations for the non-binary athletes that are already here.

What does Title IX have to do with all this?

Trans athletes represent one of the next frontiers of Title IX discussions. As SI wrote on the statute’s 50th anniversary in June 2022:

Politicians and activists routinely invoke the law as a reason to ban trans athletes (often girls and women in particular) from playing sports. … Those advocating trans inclusion in sports also claim the mantle of Title IX, arguing that banning trans athletes from competing in their gender category is discrimination on the basis of sex.

ACLU attorney Chase Strangio, who works on lawsuits against nationwide anti-trans sports bans, argued that lawmakers promoting anti-trans sports bans under the guise of Title IX are not really willing to protect girls and women. women under Title IX: “If the state’s interest is to protect women and girls in sports, then the state would rationally respond by investing more resources in [women’s] sports, which they are not doing,” he told SI. “Ending sexual assault and sexual violence at the hands of your coaches and others, which is essentially endemic to the sport now in truly catastrophic ways. Investing in female coaches and mentors and physical training protocols that support women and girls, none of this is happening.”

Title IX is not at the center of the lawsuits surrounding the participation of trans athletes, filed by athletes in conjunction with groups like the ACLU and Lambda Legal. However, through the litigation process, we could gain clarity on who exactly the statute protects. In June, the US Department of Education proposed rules for Title IX that would protect students from discrimination based on gender identity in most aspects of the law; however, the department said it will issue a separate regulation on trans students’ rights in sports.

What comes next? What changes or battles are looming?

Given the new structure of the IOC, which assigns international federations to define policies for trans athletes by sport, we will likely continue to see new or updated rules from various government bodies.

At the state level: While more legislatures could move to ban trans athletes from competition, there are a handful of lawsuits, such as the one in Idaho, that work their way through the court systems. Erin Buzuvis, a law professor at Western New England University who specializes in gender and discrimination in athletics, told SI in 2021 that we could be heading for a “confrontation” at the national level. A case like Hecox v. Little, in which the trans cross-country racer is suing Idaho, could be on his way to the Supreme Court. Congress may also choose to address the issue, in which case it would likely pass some sort of compromise between prohibition and full inclusion, allowing trans participation if athletes meet certain testosterone requirements.

• ‘I Am Lia’: The trans swimmer dividing America tells her story • Athletes are lobbying the NCAA to take action against anti-trans sports laws • Why Luc can’t play?: Looking at states that ban transgender boys and men

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