• Fitness & Health
• Sport & Exercise Science
• Physical Education
• Strength & Conditioning
• Sports Medicine
• Sport Management
• Dance

Transgender athletes and the natural lottery

This is an excerpt from Ethics in Sport-4th Edition by William J. Morgan.

By Andria Bianchi

According to the fairness argument, transgender women should not be allowed to compete in female categories in sports since they possess unfair advantages due to high levels of testosterone. One explanation for this argument is the skill thesis, which says that sports are meant ‘to determine which opponent is more skillful’ (Simon 2007, 13). In order to test competitors’ skillfulness, the significance of unfair external influences needs to be mitigated. There are different types of external influences that exist, some of which need to be mitigated in order to create the kinds of environments that determine which competitor is most skillful.

One way to maintain the skill thesis is to mitigate influences that are physically external to the athlete, such as sporting equipment. The idea is that if every athlete uses the same equipment, then any subsequent acts will be based on an athlete’s skill, thereby maintaining the skill thesis.

Another way to maintain the skill thesis is to mitigate hormonal advantages, irrespective of how these advantages come about. Although there are different reasons that hormonal advantages might exist (some of which may be seen as immoral, such as steroid use), the reason to mitigate all hormonal advantages is to promote fairness in the competition, and specifically the skill thesis.⁸ According to the very nature of sport, ‘sportspersons deserve praise for their skills just to the extent they express expertise that is precisely a matter of personal development or the result of persistent hard work, practice, and effort’ (Carr 1999, 4). So, when people have unnatural competitive advantages and their competitors have no way to naturally compete within the parameters of these advantages, then it is seen as unfair.

One of the arguments against trans* women competing in female categories is that they have high levels of testosterone that will allow them to be unfairly advantaged in comparison to their cisgender counterparts. As it turns out, the presence of high testosterone does not guarantee an increased level of performance. Rather, the way that one’s body responds to testosterone is relevant (Schultz 2011). So, the argument against trans* women competing in female categories must actually be based on the assumption that they have a higher level of effective testosterone in comparison to their cisgender competitors. I am using the term ‘effective testosterone’ to refer to the testosterone that can be effectively used by one’s body in order to benefit or enhance one’s performance. Although this argument is currently unproven, if it is the case that trans* women naturally possess a higher level of effective testosterone than cisgender competitors, then it would be an unfair factor that needs to be mitigated since cisgender women cannot possess a similar amount of effective testosterone through hard work, effort, and practice. So, certain genetic factors may be fair, but the higher levels of effective testosterone that may be possessed by trans* women are unfair since cisgender women have no ability to naturally possess those same attributes.

The fairness argument suggests that trans* women are unfairly advantaged and should not be permitted to compete in female categories. However, we can only make sense of this claim about unfairness by accepting something like the skill thesis, which is a guiding principle for fairness in sports. If transgender women are advantaged because of high levels of effective testosterone, then the skill thesis is undermined, specifically because their athletic successes are not entirely based on skill in comparison to their cisgender counterparts.

There are numerous ways to debunk this argument. One way is to dismiss the importance of the skill thesis by showing that there are many genetic attributes that are potentially unfair in accordance with gender-segregated standards. According to this idea, the skill thesis is unrealistic. For instance, Michael Phelps is an incredible swimmer; however, it is plausible that his success in swimming is at least partially influenced by his ‘wingspan’, the fact that he is double jointed, and his size 14 feet (Hadhazy 2008). Each of these characteristics is a genetic attribute that many of his competitors probably lack. This example shows that certain attributes may be potentially unequal or unnatural in comparison to other competitors in gender-segregated categories in a similar kind of way as the (unproven) argument that trans* women have unnaturally high levels of effective testosterone.

If we apply the above argument to the case of a trans* woman with increased levels of effective testosterone, then this might mean that she should be allowed to compete in female categories since natural genetic endowments are already a part of sports. The argument in which genetic advantages are already a part of sports is based on the natural lottery argument, which says that ‘because of the luck of the initial draw of talents, skills, and abilities, overall outcomes in sports ultimately are more the result of luck than we might think’ (Simon 2007, 14). So, although transgender women might be genetically advantaged in seemingly unfair ways, there are numerous examples in which successful athletes have unique features that are based on genetics, as opposed to pure skill. This might lead one to argue that the skill thesis is incorrect since genetic advantages already contribute to successfulness in sports, from which trans* women should be allowed to compete in female categories.

One possible response to the natural lottery argument is that a distinction might exist between the kinds of genetic features that provide competitive advantages to certain athletes, and only some of these advantages are unfair. It might be suggested that the types of genetic endowments that presently exist in gender-segregated sports are different than the potential genetic advantages of some trans* women, specifically trans* women who do not undergo interventions to yield biological changes. The primary distinction here is that under a system of gender-segregated categories, certain genetic advantages are and should be acceptable in relation to the norm that exists in these categories. In fact, persons with genetic advantages are often encouraged to participate since they may influence certain results in a way that is exciting for spectators to witness (e.g. Phelps breaking another record). However, if trans* women who do not undergo biological interventions do possess high levels of effective testosterone that are only typical in cisgender men (which is the argument used to exclude them from competing in female categories), then perhaps it is not an appropriate kind of advantage when compared to the cisgender women that compete in the same gender-segregated category. The reason that this kind of advantage might be interpreted as unfair is because there is no possibility for other cisgender competitors to naturally possess those same advantages. Although it is unlikely that there will ever be a sporting event in which every participant starts from a completely equal playing field (e.g. many cisgender men have no ability to possess Phelps’s wingspan and size 14 feet), the genetic advantages that trans* women may have when they do not pursue hormonal interventions may be unfair. The reason that some genetic advantages (e.g. big feet) are not comparable to high levels of effective testosterone is based on certain prejudices regarding what it means to compete in gender-segregated categories. This seems to suggest that it might be appropriate for trans* women who undergo hormonal interventions to participate in female categories since any unfair genetic advantages will be mitigated, whereas trans* women who do not pursue interventions may be unfairly advantaged.

This distinction between certain types of genetic advantages is important to consider. However, I do not want to dismiss the possibility that all trans* women should be allowed to participate in female categories irrespective of whether they have high levels of effective testosterone (which is recognized as the primary ‘problem’) or pursue biological interventions given the broad range of persons that may identify as women (regardless of biological interventions) (Serano 2007; Dea 2016).⁹ This is especially the case since it is likely that effective testosterone levels vary among all individuals irrespective of their gender identity.

In concluding this section, it seems that we have a dilemma to consider regarding the skill thesis and transgender women. One possibility is that the skill thesis is unrealistic since genetic advantages already contribute to successfulness in sports, from which it follows that trans* women should be allowed to compete in female categories. Another possibility is that the skill thesis ought to be the guiding principle in sports, from which it follows that the high levels of effective testosterone that supposedly make it unfair for trans* women to compete in female categories ought to be mitigated. This latter option will be assessed below given the prevalence of the skill thesis (Carr 1999; Simon 2007).

More Excerpts From Ethics in Sport 4th Edition

---