The International Olympic Committee ruling this week that transgender athletes will be allowed to compete in the Olympics — starting at this year’s games in Athens, Greece — has garnered mixed reactions within the sporting community.
As it should. The decision, while not hasty on the part of the board, requires some analysis to root out the pros and cons of what may seem like a no-brainer.
First, some background: Traditionally, cases of gender change have been few and far between in the Olympics and considered on a case-by-case basis, IOC Medical Commission Chairman Arne Ljungqvist told CNN.
Now that the amount of people receiving gender reassignment has increased, however, Ljungqvist said it was necessary to make a universal set of rules on the subject.
But the hitch was the timing of gender reassignment. Critics of allowing athletes who have had a sex change before puberty — which was the recommendation of the International Association of Athletics Federations in 1990 — argued that testosterone levels before puberty would still affect performance after a male-to-female sex reassignment. This would thus give a physical advantage to a small segment of competitors, critics argued.
Indeed, it’s hard to disagree that clear discrepancies exist between male and female performance in certain sports. Take track for instance. A look at male and female track competitors at Oregon, courtesy of the Oregon media guide, shows distinct differences between male and female performance. The fastest time for the 100-meter dash at Hayward Field, for instance, is 9.9 seconds for men and 10.9 seconds for women. Moreover, the world record time for the 100 meters is 9.78 seconds for men and 10.4 for women. The world record for javelin? A whopping 323.1 feet for men and 234.8 feet for women. The list goes on.
So clearly the unfair advantage concerns are valid. And while it’s important in today’s society to promote equality, even in competitive sports, any factors that may give an unfair advantage in such an important event as the Olympics should be rejected.
But therein lies the can of worms. If a supposed male surgically receives female body parts, claiming he is a female trapped in a man’s body, would that make the person a female according to Olympics standards? Would that then count as an unfair advantage or just simple biology?
The board clarified a few of these problems with a strict set of guidelines for allowing athletes who had sex reassignment after puberty to compete. For instance, a man or woman couldn’t simply claim he or she was the other gender; instead, the athlete must have completed “surgical changes … including external genitalia changes and removal of gonads.”
Furthermore, the athlete’s gender must be legally recognized, and the athlete must have undergone hormone therapy “long enough to minimize any gender-related advantages in sports competitions, a period that must be at least two years after gonadectomy.”
Beyond the importance of equality and the perceived competitive disadvantages, the real test of the new policy will take place when it actually becomes an issue at the Olympics. As it stands now, the decision has received little media attention. We would just hope that any impending controversy doesn’t mar the spirit of the games.