Personal perspective on trans sports
For many sports are an intrinsic part of their lives, being part of a team, a community, keeping fit, or pushing themselves to achieve more. For me it has always been challenging myself and being part of something more than just me. At school, back in the 90’s, I played rugby and cricket, ran cross country, and swam for the school — never at a top level, but enough to get a certain buzz from that. At 15 I developed a chronic ear condition that knocked me sideways, and an operation later meant I couldn’t do anything aside from solo non-water-based sports. It took away a core part of me, and I had to find new ways of pushing my body.
When I hit university in 2000, I found field hockey, or more precisely, two inches of padding and a goal keeping outfit. I felt safe, pushed myself hard, and trained as much as I could and as much as my fraying mental health would allow. I was also one of the pioneering trans women to play UK varsity sport competitively for a university. At the time there was no institutional knowledge for trans sports players; indeed, aside from a GP note and tacit agreement by the university, I was accepted with a few tweaks to my personal changing room. Again, while not being the best, I enjoyed the two full years I played before dropping out of university in my third year.
Fast forward to 2016 when I returned to university at 34. I only picked up hockey in my third year in 2018 as I was more focused on my studies, and when I started I was incredibly rusty. In the 15 years since I last played the sport had moved on significantly, faster and more technical. It took me a good four months to get back to a passing level of fitness, and again, while I did not play at the top level, I was at least to a degree competitive, which is all I ever wanted. Having have gender confirmation surgery in 2008, changing rooms were not an issue, and aside from letting the coaches know there was no issues at all with my gender over the last two years. I am due to start a PhD in October 2020, and my hope is once Covid-19 passes I will play hockey for the four years I am at my new university.
So, why write about this now? Surely in 2020 a trans woman playing women’s sport is nothing special or newsworthy. Yet, the truth is more complicated and complex than it was even back in 2000. Back then trans issues in the UK were a grey area that no-one, myself included, was really aware of. Playing sports was not something discussed, there were no high-profile trans athletes, and medical science was mute on the biology. Now, the landscape has been entirely changed and surprisingly stood still. On the one hand World Rugby and the International Athletics Commission have introduced science driven mandates, yet on the other there are higher profile trans athletes competing at an international level in women’s and men’s sports. The conversation purportedly is science based, yet many European and American countries are primarily dominated by the societal issues surrounding transwomen involved in women’s sports.
It is a complex and emotive subject, especially as sport at its heart is about fairness and equality of opportunity to compete. While to a degree biology is mutable in terms of drugs, hormones, surgery, and training, some people are born as outliers to the physiology, such as elite swimmers and people born in extreme environments. When gender becomes defined by chromosomes and what is considered average these outliers are rarely acknowledged, as to do is to point out that not all athletes are created equal. There is always going to be extreme outliers within every sport who are simply biologically better than others through simply being born that way. This is not to say that trans people should be considered outliers, but rather to suggest that to define what is the average is for a given gender runs counter to the very idea of the global genetic lottery that drives elite and global sport.
As a mediocre stiver, I have to question my own biology — how can I be fitter, faster, better. Training, the gym, technique, and biology play a part, but so does the fact that I am 38 competing with and against 18–24 year old women. My age has slowed me down, and all the enthusiasm in the world cannot compensate for that. My physiology may be trans, but I have to push myself hard to compete at their level. Maybe I am raging against the dying of my own light, but being trans has certainly conferred no special ability to me. That is not to say that trans genetics, especially for trans women, should be ignored, but sport is far more than raw genetics. Talent, skill, training, diet, spark and many other factors go into making a sports person, and as such simply focusing on genetics and chromosomes, I think, misses the point.
However, within contact sports such as rugby, where concussions are a significant issue, this conversation beings vastly more complicated. The gender genetic lottery plays a significant role in cis-male rugby plays, as to get to an elite level requires one to be a significant outlier to the average person. Indeed, since rugby became a professional sport tall muscular players have become the norm. Women’s rugby trends more towards average cis-women partly due to its semi-professional nature, and partly because at an elite level it is more accessible. If an international cis male were to transition to play female rugby her impact on female opponents needs to be weighed up on the potential physiological damage she could cause. Yes, this is not fair, as why deny this hypothetical trans-women rugby player a chance to play the sport she loves and excels at? If rugby is to remain in equity the health needs of cis-female rugby players must be paramount. I am not a scientist, and being a trans-woman who played rugby in her teens this a difficult conversation for me to have with myself and sharing with you. Yet, if sport is to remain fair, in whatever shape you call it, this hard conversation must be had.
Equality does not mean equity, and while in an equal world trans-women would be able to transition into society’s ideal feminine form, the reality is that trans-women who transition post-puberty retain more muscle, bone density, and other physiological characteristics that give them an advantage over cis-women and trans-women who transition pre-puberty. Biology in this case is hard, and especially with contact sports it is a very hard conversation. Indeed, it is noticeable in the proposed world rugby guidelines that trans-men are allowed to play against cis men after signing a waiver, acknowledging that these guidelines are specifically targeting trans-women. Given what happened to Caster Semenya, I think this may go all the way to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) if an elite level trans-women rugby player emerges.
Quite how this leaves me on a personal level I am not sure. I don’t think my future playing hockey will be effected given the level I play at, but it does raise questions for my sport that will have to be addressed at some point. Male hockey players a nuts to play against, they are faster, hit a lot harder, and are down right scary to face when you are in goal. Genuinely, when I play intermural mixed hockey, I always have trepidation facing male strikers, as I struggle to handle their shot level. I personally think hockey as a sport will handle trans players at an elite level differently than rugby, as it is non-contact and technical skill plays a significant role in the sport. What I hope is that any guidelines that may come into force are equitable to all players, and respectful of the needs of everyone involved. Until then I will continue to play and enjoy. This is just my personal perspective having seen how sports and trans issues have evolved over the last twenty years both as a player and trans woman, so as ever, please read and engage with the conversation in an opened minded way.
