Biology doesn’t always matter. But sometimes it matters too much. The commotion that has formed around Lia Thomas is proof. This University of Pennsylvania student is an excellent swimmer, there’s no doubt about it. She often beats her rivals by tens of seconds, breaking records. But her success is based on three things. One is natural talent. Another is relentless training. And the third is biology. This transgender swimmer (biologically born male) has swept the 500-yard event at the championships organized by the NCAA in the United States. A fact that has not happened before and that has caused controversy in the country.
The problem. Thomas’s success has raised a huge stir, framed within the internal struggles of feminism over the trans issue and of those who do not accept Thomas’s triumph because they consider that he does not compete on equal terms. There is a great debate about in which category trans women should compete (whether as women due to their self-determined gender or as men due to their biological characteristics), and the solution of one part of feminism is to abolish the categories or create new ones. But the truth is that there are more and more voices claiming to end the categories in sport.
Are two sports categories inappropriate? Some researchers think that the future lies in creating more, while others propose changing the rules of competition so that everyone can play against each other. In a bid for a ceasefire, researchers around the world are proposing options to remove the binary.
The reason is basically that in many competitions, there is a large number of intersex competitors, who have lived their lives as women but were born with one of several differences in sexual development. These include partial androgen insensitivity syndrome and other genetic mutations, such as 5-alpha reductase deficiency, that give them some physical characteristics typically associated with men, and a perceived competitive advantage.
Justice? Some supporters of women’s sports say that if differences cannot be controlled with medication, intersex women should compete against men in the interests of justice for other women. But others argue that intersex women should not be ridiculed or ostracized for their natural characteristics, when elite sports are replete with examples of congenital injustice (wingspan in swimmers or height in basketball).
Studies. Scientists and academics argue that biological traits typically associated with the male sexsuch as higher testosterone levels, stronger bone structure, larger lungs, and more muscle mass will go on to explain why some athletes outperform others. But, they say, the science is likely to evolve to more accurately capture which sex-related traits are most important for performance.
Testosterone in the spotlight. Testosterone, and its perceived benefits for athletic performance, currently drives many of the current definitions for women’s sports, with an upper limit that excludes some intersex and transgender women from the category unless they take steps to lower their levels . World Athletics requires athletes’ blood testosterone levels to fall below twice the typical female range.
But not everyone believes that testosterone, or “T,” is that important, while other researchers say its effects on physiology during puberty are permanent no matter what happens next. The result is that hardly anyone is satisfied with the rules, which are under constant appeal. Alan Rogol of the University of Virginia and Myron Genel of Yale University, both pediatric endocrinologists, believe that the influence of the “T” is less important than the sum of hormones, genetics, training, equipment, personality and opportunity among other things . For example, it is not currently known how much of an advantage a person who went through puberty as a boy and then transitioned would have over a woman who has not.
Solutions. Ultimately, some researchers say, the long-term answer may lie in expanding the categories beyond men and women. “The problem is the gender binary in sport,” explained Lynley Anderson, a bioethicist at the University of Otago, in this report from The Wall Street Journal. And she proposes at least four divisions of competition based on physiology. It’s not unreasonable. There are already age categories in racing, weight categories in boxing and wrestling, and disability-based classifications in the Paralympics.
In favor of segregated categories. Media outlets such as The Economist have aggressively argued that it is unfair to allow transgender women to compete in women’s sports. They appeal to the advantages of male puberty, which they say are so great that no amount of training or talent can allow female athletes to overcome them. Florence Griffith Joyner’s 100m world sprint record has stood for three decades. In 2016, at an American event for high school students, four of the eight boys in the 100-meter final ran the fastest.
In this other article from The Guardian, the sports journalist Tanya Alder, expressed in an opinion article that by combining gender and sex we undermine sports competition. “Fairness is at the heart of sport and without separate categories for the sexes there would be no women in the Olympic finals.” And it’s not just athletics. While the smallest performance gap between the genders is in running, rowing and swimming events (11-13%), this rises to 16-22% in track cycling, and between 29-34% % when it comes to cricket or weightlifting.