Trans Athletes: Breaking Boundaries or Records?

There is wide-spread assumption that male to female transsexual athletes have unfair competitive advantages. Both testosterone and height are commonly viewed as such.

To reason, people use the examples of sports in which height is viewed as an asset like basketball or volleyball. However, there is much evidence supporting that height does not actually predict or determine performance success. Athletic performance is dependent upon physiological and psychological factors.

Some athletes', like the late Flo Hyman, genetics and stature result in considerable talent. Known today as one of sport’s all-time greats, Hyman won a silver medal at the 1984 Los Angeles Summer Olympics as a member of the United States Women’s national volleyball team. Her untimely death lead to the discovery that she had Marfan’s syndrome. Arguably, the syndrome aided her career and ended it too.

Undoubtedly, Hyman's success as a volleyball player was contributed to by the traits characteristic of Marfan’s syndrome. It is important to note that despite the differences between Flo Hyman and the majority of her fellow athletes, she was not prohibited from competing.

Flo Hyman was allowed to continued competitive sports because she “passed” her gender test. Fueled by fear of big burly men masquerading as female athletes to gain an advantage over cis women in athletics, both the International Association of Athletics Federations (I.A.A.F) and International Olympic Committee (I.O.C) introduced the chromosome test for “gender verification” in 1968.

No governing body has so tenaciously tried to determine who counts as a woman for the purpose of sports as the I.A.A.F and the I.O.C. Please note, gender testing is not conducted in male athletes or those competing in the male category. We should question the idea of a sports governing body restricting the rights of transsexual and intersex athletes to play in the gender category in which society accepts them as human beings.

Not all athletes fit perfectly into one box or another—male or female. The sports world’s attempt to rigidly separate men and women will continually cause issues for those who are not distinctly gendered male or female.

There are many issues for the individual who “fails” their gender test. However, gender testing is detrimental to not only trans and intersex individuals, but all people.

The gender tests performed by the I.A.A.F and I.O.C create not only humiliation, exclusion, and isolation but psychological issues as well. Implications include no longer being considered a “real woman” or “normal woman.” This has occurred to various athletes despite being raised as female--or accepted by society as such.

The most long-lasting and devastating effect of "sex testing" is depression and suicide. While there are many issues surrounding the Trans community, Trans people are people.

Looking through one lens at performance, like testosterone levels, ignores far too many others. If athletic officials really want to address the significant factors affecting advantage, they should require all athletes to live in the same place, in the same level of wealth, with access to the same resources. These are the areas in which true advantage is conceived.