Explainer: There is no scientific evidence showing an athletic advantage for trans women.
Anti-rights groups insist on banning or limiting transgender women's participation in competitions. What the science says.
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MEXICO CITY, Mexico. In recent years, it has been argued, without conclusive scientific basis, that transgender women's participation in sports represents an alleged "unfair advantage" for cisgender women. This narrative has been used not only by elite sports federations but also by anti-rights groups in decision-making positions.
But what do human rights organizations and scientists say about this? How do these bans impact the human rights of women and girls?
Ban on trans athletes without scientific evidence
A report published biomedical advantage in elite sports . It clarifies that social factors such as nutrition and training quality are what affect their performance.
This report provides an in-depth review of the scientific literature published in English between 2011 and 2021 on transgender women in elite sports. It highlights that biomedical factors pose no threat to cisgender athletes. This is partly because there is little evidence identifying the pubertal advantage experienced by transgender women, and there are few studies on high-performance sports involving transgender individuals.
This report also concludes that trans women who have received gender-affirming medical care that suppresses their testosterone levels have no biological advantage.
"Elite sports policy is formulated within transmisogynistic, misogynistic, and racist geopolitical cultural norms," the document clarifies.
International Olympic Committee: "The role of testosterone in measuring unfair advantage is unclear."
The Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games (held in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic) marked the first time elite trans and non-binary athletes participated. However, the spotlight was on Laurel Hubbard, New Zealand weightlifter and the first trans woman to compete in the Olympic Games. Her tenure was brief, as she failed all three lift attempts in the women's heavyweight division.
Following Hubbard's participation, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) published a new “ framework on equity, inclusion and non-discrimination based on gender identity and sex variance ” in November 2021, with an emphasis on eligibility criteria for women.
In the document, they state that "there is no scientific consensus on how testosterone affects athletic performance. It is unclear what role it plays in measuring unfair advantage, because performance is measured differently in each sport."
Finally, the IOC determined that each sports federation must establish its own eligibility criteria. These must be "in line with human rights, supported by solid scientific evidence that considers the context and ensures the well-being of athletes."
Following this, athletics , cycling , swimming , and chess federations , and recently the US Boxing Federation, have created policies prohibiting trans women from participating in the women's categories of their disciplines. These policies range from being on hormones since age 12, maintaining a certain level of testosterone in the blood, or having undergone sex reassignment surgery.
In a statement , World Athletics (WA) asserts that the reason for banning transgender women from participating is "guided by the overarching principle of protecting the female category ." At the same time, they argue that "there are currently no transgender athletes competing internationally in athletics and, consequently, there is no specific athletic evidence of the impact these athletes would have on the fairness of women's competition in athletics."
Trans psychologist Dau García Dauder explains in his essay "Intersexuality in the Construction of Racial Difference " that in eligibility rules, "high testosterone is framed as an advantage and, suddenly, as a health problem for women; it makes them sick. It must be regulated to protect justice and health. Thus, sex verification tests surprisingly become medical regulations for 'the good of the athlete,' to protect her from testosterone."
And she adds, "The CAS (Court of Arbitration for Sport) speaks of discrimination as necessary, reasonable, and proportionate to the goal of preserving the integrity of athletes." Paradoxically, less privileged women (from "developing" countries) are seen as a threat and with an advantage; justice and integrity seem to apply only to women from the North. It is important to emphasize that the interventions required by the regulation are the same ones that intersex activists have been denouncing."
Anti-rights activists use the false argument of 'unfair advantage'
These unscientific narratives are also used to create laws that prohibit girls, young women, and trans women from competing at the student level in the United States.
So far, six states in the country have policies that exclude trans and non-binary students by requiring them to participate in sports based on their assigned sex at birth. Three other states prohibit trans and non-binary students from participating unless they have undergone surgery. And 16 states have discriminatory policies that create additional barriers to inclusion for trans and non-binary students, according to monitoring by the organization Trans Athlete .
This wave of anti-trans legislation is reaching Latin America. In Mexico, congresswomen like Teresa Castell and candidates for popular representation in Mexico like Eduardo Verástegui are seeking to legislate and boost their political careers through misinformation and moral panics.
Sexist, racist and human rights-violating regulations
The UN has described these exclusion mechanisms as "unnecessary, humiliating, and harmful." It explicitly recognizes that there is a particular form of discrimination in sport against Black women and girl athletes from the Global South.
Since 1940, the World Athletics Federation has violated the human rights of female athletes with “sex tests” and “femininity certificates” for “eligibility” purposes, according to the report “ They Are Driving Us Away from Sport: Human Rights Violations in Sex Testing of Elite Female Athletes ,” published by Human Rights Watch (HRW).
These measures are also racist in nature, as the athletes banned from competing so far are Black and from countries in the global south. They have also affected intersex women and those who naturally have high levels of testosterone.
For HRW, these practices cause physical, psychological, and economic harm to athletes. It also notes that "identifying athletes through observation and suspicion is a way of controlling women's bodies based on arbitrary definitions of femininity and racial stereotypes."
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