The crux of the complaint is that the the three cisgender girls (cisgender being those whose gender identity matches the sex they were assigned at birth) had to compete against two male-to-female (MTF) transgender athletes. Per the complaint, since the two MTF transgender athletes "have male hormone levels and musculature," they have an undue advantage that violates Title IX, which is a federal law that does not allow for discrimination that is based on sex in education programs. Those filing the complaint contend that the alleged violation of Title IX is tantamount to discrimination. Those who are opposed to this complaint contend that siding with the Alliance Defending Freedom would mean further discriminating against transgender athletes.
Before I continue, I want to preface with this. I have more than a feeling that the upcoming nuance in this piece is going to get lost in politics. I have spoken out against the transgender military ban and the transgender bathroom ban. Not only do I believe that transgender individuals should be treated with the same respect and dignity as everyone else because they are human beings, but I also have transgender friends. Anyone who thinks that I am exhibiting transphobia because I am sorting through the details and searching for the truth only lobs that argument because they don't have anything else to stand on. But let's get back to the question of the hour: should MTF transgender athletes be allowed to compete against cisgender female athletes or not?
Gender is more than mere societal construct. Granted, there might not as many differences as certain traditionalists would like to think, but there are still differences between men and women. As Doraine Coleman, a Duke Law Professor that specializes in gender issues and a former 800-meter champion, reminds us:
Compared to females, males have greater lean body mass (more skeletal muscle and less fat), larger hearts (both in absolute terms and scaled to lean body mass), higher cardiac outputs, larger hemoglobin mass, larger VO2 max (i.e., a person's ability to take in oxygen), greater glycogen utilization, and higher anaerobic capacity.
These differences in physical attributes come from testosterone levels. Women have a range of 0.3-2.4 nanomoles per liter (npl), whereas men have a range of 10-38 npl. If a doctor ignored differences between sexes in their diagnoses, they would have their license revoked. This is not to say that there are not exceptions to norms, but that the general differential between men and women creates a performance gap, typically of 10 to 12 percent. This performance gap is the primary justification for having a woman's category in most competitive sports because without it, there would be very few female victories in athletics.
The next question is whether MTF transgender individuals retain the physical advantages of having been born biologically male. With regards to the Olympics, the International Olympics Committee ruled in 2015 that for a MTF transgender athlete to compete, testosterone has to be below 10 npl vis-à-vis hormonal replacement therapy (HRT) for a year before competing. Disregarding that the Olympics has yet to have an openly transgender athlete compete, it does show an attempt to level the playing field.
Given that women typically range from 0.3 to 2.4 npl, one could argue that 10 npl is enough. As a matter of fact, a recent study from the peer-reviewed Journal of Medical Ethics (JME) came to that very conclusion (Knox et al., 2019). In spite of having testosterone levels below 10 npl, the MTF transgender subjects did not lose significant muscle mass because their muscles are rebuilt. Since MTF transgender athletes retained muscle mass and strength, the study ultimately concluded that it is an intolerable unfairness.
One option, as the JME offers, is to have everyone compete in the same sporting leagues. This would not only allow for transgender individuals to compete without issue, but it would also include those who do not identify as non-binary. While it would be more inclusive and gender-blind, my concern is that biological males still would have the advantage. To reiterate, the 10 to 12 percent performance gap that biological males have over biological females would all but wipe out any incentive for cisgender females to participate in athletics.
Yes, life is unfair, and it is unreasonable to expect that each athlete have the same exact skills and attributes. Some basketball players are taller than others. A swimmer could have a naturally wider wing span. Caster Semenya is an Olympic-winning runner who is an intersex woman with 46, XY DSD (formerly known as "pseudo-hermaphroditism"). These advantages can and do exist, but these advantages are much more subtle than the clear-cut advantage that higher levels of testosterone provide. On the other hand, there is a strong enough case for these advantages not mattering in certain sports. Wrestling divisions are based in weight categories. For a sport like baseball or softball, these biological advantages seem to have less bearing.
In many things in life, it does not matter what biological sex you were born with. But with something as physically rooted as athletics, it is difficult to deny the differences between being born biologically male versus female. The reality is that males have a biological advantage in most sporting events, which justifies the women's category in most sporting events. This is not bigotry; it is biology. If HRT meant that there was more or less parity between MTF transgender women and cisgender women, I would not care because transgender individuals have it hard enough in life. However, MTF transgender women still hold an undue advantage over cisgender women because they are still biologically male. Until science can catch up with the ethical debate, I conclude that it is not fair for MTF transgender women to compete with cisgender women in most sports.
No comments:
Post a Comment