Essay Sample on Changing Gender Identity and the Impact in Women’s Sports

Is it fair for a transwoman (change of gender identity from man to woman) to participate in biological women’s competitive sporting events? There are cases where men have changed their identity to a woman, and then they proceed to have many accolades in their desired sport. They get help from the advantage they have based on their strength, muscle mass and masculinity. There must be fairness in competitive sports for all who compete to make the competition as fair as possible for everyone.

A person who is transgender can identify in a variety of ways. Some of the most common ways to identify are medically and socially. If someone identifies medically, that means they had surgery and has taken medication to change gender. If someone identifies socially, that means they can say they want to be a different gender without having transgender surgery. As stated in the article by “Planned Parenthood” it goes in depth of how people identify: 

“Some people use their dress, behavior, and mannerisms to live as the gender that feels right for them. Some people take hormones and may have surgery to change their body, so it matches their gender identity. Some transgender people reject the traditional understanding of gender as divided between just “male” and “female,” so they identify just as transgender, or genderqueer, genderfluid or something else.” (Planned Parenthood, par. 3)

The physical makeup of men, generally speaking, is stronger than women. A transwoman would most likely have a strength advantage over a biological woman. As mentioned by Emma Hilton in her peer reviewed scholarly article about testosterone suppression and performance advantages. She goes into depth about the science and biology differences between males and females: 

“Sporting performance is strongly influenced by a range of physiological factors, including muscle force and power-producing capacity, anthropometric characteristics, cardiorespiratory capacity, and metabolic factors. Many of these physiological factors differ significantly between biological males and females as a result of genetic differences, and androgen-directed development of secondary sex characteristics.” (Hilton, par. 2)

Based off of Hilton’s article it seems that there is a gap between transgender people and birth genders in sports due to the fluctuating factors, such as testosterone levels that would be higher in transwomen then it would be in a woman from birth, even though there is use of supplements and suppressants. 

Why aren’t there many people talking about transmen in men’s sports? After extensive research to find articles about transmen in men’s sports, the only information found was that transmen were not allowed to compete in high level competition up until recently because testosterone boosters were viewed as a form of “doping,” which is illegal in sports. (Mumsnet, par. 13) The Olympics has a set of rules regarding transgender athletes that compete. The rules insist that transwomen’s testosterone levels must be within a certain range to be eligible to compete as stated in Labh’s article “According to their eligibility conditions, the testosterone level must be below 5 nanomoles per litre for a period of 12 months for an athlete to participate”, however this testing is only being done at the Olympic level and without other sports publicly testing there will be some physiological gaps between athletes.  A recent example of a transwomen competing in women’s sports would be Lia Thomas, who is a swimmer in NCAA for the University of Pennsylvania. Lia started competing in the men’s NCAA swimming where she was not collecting many accolades, so then decided to change gender and is now competing in the women’s NCAA swimming. She had broken many records and won titles. Lia was nominated for “Woman of the Year” by her university, and this has brought up criticism from professional athletes. “The 22-year-old’s record-smashing season this year has been mired in controversy with some critics claiming competing in the women’s division gave her an unfair advantage because she was biologically born a male.” (Fonrouge, par. 5)

For many years, many athletic men and women have competed in competitive sports. Multiple years of training and mental anguish have been endured. Trying to perform better with each year of competition and trying to break records. By allowing transwomen to participate in women’s sports, it does cause unfairness to the biological women due to the sheer masculinity and strength advantages that some transwomen may have. Some feel they have lost even before the race begins. A solution that may work in the future is to organize separate sporting events for all types of genders. Maybe divisions of transwomen and transmen. This way fairness and equality is equal amongst all competitors.