FINA votes to restrict transgender athletes from competing in elite ...

CNN —

The International Swimming Federation (FINA) has voted to approve a new policy that will restrict most transgender athletes from competing in elite women’s aquatics competitions.

Swimming’s world governing body approved the new “gender inclusion” policy on Sunday, after 71.5% of FINA’s member federations voted in support at the FINA Extraordinary General Congress 2022.

The new gender inclusion policy, which is set to go into effect on June 20, 2022, says that male-to-female transgender athletes will only be eligible to compete in the women’s categories in FINA competitions if they transition before the age of 12 or before they reach stage two on the puberty Tanner Scale.

The policy also says athletes who have previously used testosterone as part of female-to-male gender-affirming hormone treatment will only be eligible to compete in women’s competitions if the testosterone was used for less than a year in total, the treatment didn’t take place during puberty and testosterone levels in serum are back to pre-treatment levels.

As a result of the vote, FINA said it will establish a new working group in order to develop open category events for athletes that do not meet the governing body’s eligibility criteria for men’s or women’s categories.

FINA oversees aquatic competitions in swimming, water polo, diving, artistic swimming and open water swimming and high diving.

“We have to protect the rights of our athletes to compete, but we also have to protect competitive fairness at our events, especially the women’s category at FINA competitions,” FINA President Husain Al-Musallam said. “FINA will always welcome every athlete. The creation of an open category will mean that everybody has the opportunity to compete at an elite level. This has not been done before, so FINA will need to lead the way. I want all athletes to feel included in being able to develop ideas during this process.”

In November 2021, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) issued its Framework on Fairness, Inclusion and Non-Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity and Sex Variations, saying no athlete should be excluded from competition on the assumption of an advantage due to their gender and rejected the notion that a testosterone proxy was enough to be excluded from the women’s category.

Several months later, in January 2022, the International Federation of Sports Medicine and the European Federation of Sports Medicine Associations issued a joint position statement disputing parts of the IOC’s position.

FINA says it responded by forming a working group to “consider the best available statistical, scientific, and medical evidence concerning sex differences in sports performance, and any associated male sex-based advantage,” and use the information to establish eligibility criteria for transgender athletes.

The working group was comprised of an athlete group, which FINA says included transgender athletes and coaches, a science and medicine group as well as a legal and human rights group.

On Monday, the IOC issued a statement to CNN which said that “sports at the Olympic Games are governed by the International Federations (IFs).”

It continued: “With regard to eligibility criteria for sex-segregated competition, the Framework offers guidance to IFs without being mandatory. The previous Consensus Statement published by the IOC on the topic of eligibility for trans athletes and athletes with sex variations in 2015 was also non-binding for IFs.

“The IOC considers that sports bodies are well placed to define the factors that contribute to performance advantage in the context of their own sport.

“They are also well placed to determine the threshold at which an advantage may become disproportionate, devise relevant criteria, and develop the mechanisms needed to offset disproportionate advantage when it is determined to be present.”

The debate on transgender women in swimming came under a spotlight when University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas, who started on the school’s men’s swimming team in 2017, eventually joined the UPenn women’s team in 2020.

At the time of her transition in 2019, the NCAA required that transgender athletes have one year of hormone replacement therapy to be cleared to compete.

In February, 16 members of the University of Pennsylvania’s swim team sent a letter to the university and the Ivy League asking them to not challenge the NCAA’s new transgender athlete participation policies that would prevent Thomas and other transgender athletes to compete. In the letter, they argued Thomas had an “unfair advantage,” and said they supported her gender transition out of the pool but not necessarily in it.

Despite the backlash, Penn Athletics and the Ivy League maintained their support for the transgender swimmer, and over 300 current and former swimmers signed their names to an open letter defending her ability to compete.

As a swimmer on the women’s team, Thomas became the first transgender athlete to win an NCAA Division I title after winning the women’s 500-yard freestyle event in March.

Transgender women banned from playing in women's international ...

CNN —

The global governing body for rugby league has banned transgender women from playing in women’s international matches until further notice.

The International Rugby League (IRL) joins a growing list of governing bodies that have recently restricted male-to-female transgender athletes from competing in women’s divisions, including the International Swimming Federation (FINA) and the International Cycling Union (UCI).

In a statement, the IRL said it is “continuing work to review and update rules” and will “seek to use the upcoming World Cup to help develop a comprehensive inclusion policy.”

The ban will be in place for the Rugby League World Cup, which begins in England on October 15.

“Until further research is completed to enable the IRL to implement a formal transgender inclusion policy, male-to-female (transwomen) players are unable to play in sanctioned women’s international rugby league matches,” the statement read.

“In reaching this position, the IRL, which last reviewed transgender participation in international rugby league in January-February 2021, considered several relevant developments in world sport. Not the least of these was the IOC’s publication of its November 2021 Framework on Fairness, Non-Discrimination and Inclusion on the Basis of Gender Identity and Sex Variations.

“The IOC concluded that it is the remit of each sport and its governing body to determine how an athlete may be at a disproportionate advantage compared with their peers – taking into consideration the differing nature of each sport.”

Transgender woman Caroline Layt, who played elite women’s rugby league in Australia after transitioning, told Reuters: “It’s disappointing. We’re human beings the same as everyone else.

“It just tells trans kids and trans adults that you’re not worthy. Don’t even bother. Don’t even bother showing up. What’s the point?”

The IOC decision in question has led numerous governing bodies to implement new gender participation framework to their sports in recent months.

While the IRL’s new rules are a blanket ban on male-to-female transgender athletes competing in women’s divisions, FINA and the UCI have developed detailed policies that restrict participation.

On Sunday, FINA approved its new “gender inclusion” policy that says male-to-female transgender athletes will only be eligible to compete in the women’s categories in FINA competitions if they transition before the age of 12 or before they reach stage two on the puberty Tanner Scale.

The policy also says athletes who have previously used testosterone as part of female-to-male gender-affirming hormone treatment will only be eligible to compete in women’s competitions if the testosterone was used for less than a year in total, the treatment didn’t take place during puberty and testosterone levels in serum are back to pre-treatment levels.

In a response to the FINA decision, the IOC issued a statement on Monday to CNN which said that “sports at the Olympic Games are governed by the International Federations (IFs).”

It continued: “With regard to eligibility criteria for sex-segregated competition, the Framework offers guidance to IFs without being mandatory. The previous Consensus Statement published by the IOC on the topic of eligibility for trans athletes and athletes with sex variations in 2015 was also non-binding for IFs.

“The IOC considers that sports bodies are well placed to define the factors that contribute to performance advantage in the context of their own sport.

“They are also well placed to determine the threshold at which an advantage may become disproportionate, devise relevant criteria, and develop the mechanisms needed to offset disproportionate advantage when it is determined to be present.”

Speaking to the BBC, World Athletics President Lord Coe said the sport could look follow the same path FINA has taken for limiting participation.

Meanwhile, the UCI last week said that it has increased the transition period for lower testosterone from 12 months to two years and halved the maximum level of testosterone.

Rugby league differs to rugby union in its rules and also has a different governing body.

Last year World Rugby, rugby union’s governing body, said it did not recommend that transgender women play women’s contact rugby “on safety grounds at the international level of the game.” However, the governing body’s advice was not binding and allowed national federations to implement their own grassroots policy.

In its statement on Tuesday, the IRL said in the “interests of avoiding unnecessary welfare, legal and reputational risk to International Rugby League competitions, and those competing therein,” more research was needed before finalizing a more detailed policy.

“The IRL reaffirms its belief that rugby league is a game for all and that anyone and everyone can play our sport,” the statement said.

“It is the IRL’s responsibility to balance the individual’s right to participate – a long-standing principle of rugby league and at its heart from the day it was established – against perceived risk to other participants, and to ensure all are given a fair hearing.

“The IRL will continue to work towards developing a set of criteria, based on best possible evidence, which fairly balance the individual’s right to play with the safety of all participants.”

The IRL says it will look to work with the eight teams that compete at the Women’s Rugby League World Cup to obtain data that will help shape a transgender participation policy in 2023.

British Cycling bans transgender riders from competing | CNN

London CNN —

British Cycling has suspended its transgender and non-binary participation policy after the sport’s world governing body banned a trans rider from competing in a women’s event in the UK earlier this month.

The sport’s governing authority in the UK said Friday that it had voted in favor of an “immediate suspension” of its current policy, which it said was “unfair on all women riders.”

The decision came days after transgender cyclist Emily Bridges said she had been “harassed and demonised” after the UCI, world cycling’s governing body, ruled she couldn’t compete at the National Omnium Championships in the UK on April 2.

Bridges, who was set to race against British Olympic stars such as Laura Kenny in the event, said she found out through British Cycling that the UCI had ruled she was ineligible.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson waded into the row this week when he said: “I don’t think that biological males should be competing in female sporting events. And maybe that’s a controversial thing … but it just seems to me to be sensible.”

Posting the statement on its website, British Cycling said: “Due to the difference in the policies held by British Cycling and the UCI relating to the licensing process, it is currently possible for trans-female athletes to gain eligibility to race domestically while their cases remain pending with the UCI (or indeed in situations where they are deemed ineligible).

“This in turn allows those riders to accrue domestic ranking points which impact selection decisions for National Championship races, which is not only unprecedented in our sport, but is also unfair on all women riders and poses a challenge to the integrity of racing.”

A full review will be initiated in the coming weeks, the organization said, adding that it remained “committed to ensuring that transgender and non-binary people are welcomed.”

The previously agreed-upon policy required that any current or prospective transgender or non-binary member seeking to compete in the female race category must submit a signed declaration stating that their identity is female and that they wish to compete in the female category, while also submitting medical evidence that their “total testosterone level in serum has been less than 5 nmol/L continuously for a period of at least 12 months.”

‘We’ve just received this in our inbox’

A statement posted by British Cycling on its website on March 30 said Bridges had been due to participate in the event on Saturday, April 2 “under the British Cycling Transgender and Non-Binary Participation policy,” but added: “We have now been informed by the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) that under their current guidelines Emily is not eligible to participate in this event.”

As of March 1, 2020, UCI regulations state that transgender women must reduce their testosterone levels to below 5 nmol/L for at least 12 months in order to compete in women’s events.

However, according to the Guardian, the UCI prevented Bridges from competing because it said she was still registered as a male cyclist and therefore ineligible to compete as a woman until her male UCI identification expired.

Bridges has not yet commented on British Cycling’s suspension of its “transgender and non-binary participation policy,” but her mother, Sandy Sullivan, tweeted a copy of the statement, saying: “Dumped by email. We’ve just received this in our inbox. We will be making a statement at some point in the next 24 hours.”

CNN has reached out to Bridges’ representatives for comment.

Earlier this month, Bridges said in a statement she has been in contact with British Cycling and the UCI for the past six months, ahead of what was supposed to be her first race in a women’s event.

“In that time, I have provided both British Cycling and the UCI with medical evidence that I meet the eligibility criteria for transgender female cyclists, including that my testosterone limit has been far below the limit prescribed by the regulations for the last 12 months,” Bridges said in her statement, which was posted by LGBTQIA+ cycling group PRiDE OUT.

“I am an athlete, and I just want to race competitively again,” Bridges said. “No one should have to choose between being who they are, and participating in the sport that they love.”

Bridges initially posted the statement on her Instagram account, but she has since made the account private.

Swimming's governing body bans trans athletes from elite women's ...

Swimming’s world governing body Fina has voted to stop transgender women from competing in women’s elite races if they have gone through any part of male puberty.

The new policy was adopted when 71% of Fina’s 152 national federations voted in favour at an “extraordinary” general congress at the ongoing World Championships in Budapest, reported BBC Sport.

The new rules, set out in a 34-page policy document, mean that male-to-female transgender athletes will only be able to compete in women’s categories “provided they have not experienced any part of male puberty beyond Tanner Stage 2 [which marks the start of physical development], or before age 12, whichever is later”.

It follows a report from a Fina scientific panel “that found trans women retained a significant advantage over cisgender female swimmers even after reducing their testosterone levels through medication”, reported The Guardian. The swimming body has promised to create a working group to establish an “open” category for trans women in some events as part of its new policy.

‘Seismic decision’

The new policy is a “seismic decision” that sets swimming apart from “most Olympic sports”, said The Guardian. Other sports use testosterone limits as a basis for allowing trans women to compete in women’s events, said the paper, “a stance that has promoted inclusion but has been criticised on unfairness grounds”.

Swimming is now only the second Olympic governing body to introduce a ban on “scientific grounds” and follows a similar decision made by World Rugby in 2020. It comes after a period of “widespread unease” in the sport after Lia Thomas, a US college swimmer who had formerly competed in the men’s category to moderate success, won an NCAA national college title this year after swimming in the women’s competition.

‘Complex balance’

The “heart” of the debate over whether transgender women athletes should compete in women’s sports “involves the complex balance of inclusion, sporting fairness and safety” and is “essentially” over whether trans women can compete in women’s categories “without giving them an unfair advantage or presenting a threat of injury to competitors”, said BBC Sport.

Trans women already have to adhere to several rules to compete in specific sports “including in many cases lowering their testosterone levels to a certain amount, for a set period of time, before competing”, the broadcaster explained.

Will swimming's transgender ruling lead to wider change in sports?

Reuters —

World swimming’s governing body FINA on Sunday voted for new eligibility rules that restrict the participation of transgender athletes in elite women’s competitions.

The policy is the strictest from any Olympic sports body and effectively bars any transgender women who have gone through male puberty from competing in women’s events.

FINA also agreed to work towards establishing an “open” category for some events that would ensure all swimmers would have the chance to compete.

The decision means that swimmers such as American Lia Thomas will not be able to compete in world championships or the Olympics.

University of Pennsylvania swimmer Thomas became the first transgender NCAA champion in Division I history after winning the women’s 500-yard freestyle earlier this year.

The success of Thomas, who competed on Pennsylvania’s men’s team for three years before transitioning and setting multiple program records with the women’s team, provoked a wide-ranging debate about the issues of inclusivity and competitive fairness in swimming and sport in general.

Here is the background to FINA’s decision and why this ruling is important to the world of sport.

Why did FINA take this decision?

There have been growing calls from former swimmers and coaches for the governing body to restrict the participation of transgender women in the sport, which intensified after Thomas’s success at the US college championships.

Lia Thomas reacts after swimming the 100 Freestyle prelims at the NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships on March 19, 2022. Rich von Biberstein/Icon Sportswire/Getty Images

Those who campaigned for change argued that people who have gone through male puberty have physical advantages and therefore women’s competition needed to be protected.

Supporters of trans participation argue that not enough research has been done into the question of whether trans women have any advantage. Groups such as Athlete Ally have stated that FINA’s new policy is “discriminatory, harmful, unscientific.”

Is this a ban on all transgender swimmers in competition?

The ruling only applies to elite competitions run by FINA, such as their world championships, and competitions where FINA sets the eligibility criteria – primarily the Olympic Games. It also impacts on who is eligible to set a world record in women’s swimming.

It does not necessarily apply to national or regional competitions or lower-level meets. National federations could apply their own criteria for their competitions.

The ruling also only impacts on transgender athletes in women’s competitions. Female-to-male transgender athletes (transgender men) will continue to be eligible to compete in men’s races without any restriction.

The creation of an ‘open category,’ details of which have yet to be worked out, would also create a space for transgender women to compete.

What evidence did FINA produce before making this decision?

The new FINA policy came out of a working group that had three components – an Athlete Group, a science and medicine group and a legal and human rights group, which FINA says studied “the best available statistical, scientific, and medical evidence concerning sex differences in sports performance, and any associated male sex-based advantage.”

FINA said the Science Group was comprised of “independent experts in the fields of physiology, endocrinology, and human performance, including specialists in sex differences in human performance and in transgender medicine.”

Delegates to the FINA congress in Budapest were told by members of the group that the evidence showed that going through male puberty gave trans women swimmers a physical advantage that remained even after hormone treatment as part of their transition.

What is the position of other sports?

In November, the International Olympic Committee issued a ‘framework’ on the issue, leaving eligibility decisions up to individual sports bodies, but adding that “until evidence determines otherwise, athletes should not be deemed to have an unfair or disproportionate competitive advantage due to their sex variations, physical appearance and/or transgender status.”

Last year, New Zealand weightlifter Laurel Hubbard became the first transgender athlete to compete in the Olympics in a different gender category than assigned at birth.

READ: A transgender weightlifter’s Olympic dream has sparked an existential debate about what it means to be female

Many sports bodies have allowed transgender women to compete in women’s events if they have lowered their testosterone levels to a certain point.

Last week, the International Cycling Union (UCI) tightened its rules by increasing the transition period for lower testosterone from 12 months to two years and halving the maximum level to 2.5 nmol/L.

The FINA ruling could increase pressure for similar moves inside other sports.

Can the decision be challenged?

The normal route for challenging the rulings of international sports bodies is through the Court of Arbitration for Sport, based in Lausanne, Switzerland. Other sports will be watching any legal moves with keen interest.

FINA effectively bans transgender athletes in women's swimming ...

Associated Press

BUDAPEST, Hungary – World swimming’s governing body effectively banned transgender athletes from competing in women’s events on Sunday.

FINA members widely adopted a new "gender inclusion policy" on Sunday that only permits swimmers who transitioned before age 12 to compete in women’s events. The organization also proposed an "open competition category."

"This is not saying that people are encouraged to transition by the age of 12. It’s what the scientists are saying, that if you transition after the start of puberty, you have an advantage, which is unfair," James Pearce, who is the spokesperson for FINA president Husain Al-Musallam, told The Associated Press.

"They’re not saying everyone should transition by age 11, that’s ridiculous. You can’t transition by that age in most countries and hopefully you wouldn’t be encouraged to. Basically, what they’re saying is that it is not feasible for people who have transitioned to compete without having an advantage."

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Pearce confirmed there are currently no transgender women competing in elite levels of swimming.

The World Professional Association for Transgender Health just lowered its recommended minimum age for starting gender transition hormone treatment to 14 and some surgeries to 15 or 17.

FINA’s new 24-page policy also includes proposals for a new "open competition" category. FINA said it was setting up "a new working group that will spend the next six months looking at the most effective ways to set up this new category."

Pearce told the AP that the open competition would most likely mean more events but those details still need to be worked out.

“No one quite knows how this is going to work. And we need to include a lot of different people, including transgender athletes, to work out how it would work,” he said. “So there are no details of how that would work. The open category is something that will start being discussed tomorrow.”

The members voted 71.5% in favor at the organization’s extraordinary general congress after hearing presentations from three specialist groups – an athlete group, a science and medicine group and a legal and human rights group – that had been working together to form the policy following recommendations given by the International Olympic Committee last November.

The IOC urged shifting the focus from individual testosterone levels and calling for evidence to prove when a performance advantage existed.

FINA’s "deeply discriminatory, harmful, unscientific" new policy is "not in line with (the IOC’s) framework on fairness, inclusion and non-discrimination on the basis of gender identity and sex variations," Anne Lieberman of Athlete Ally, a nonprofit that advocates for LGBTQ athletes, said in a statement.

"The eligibility criteria for the women’s category as it is laid out in the policy (will) police the bodies of all women, and will not be enforceable without seriously violating the privacy and human rights of any athlete looking to compete in the women’s category," Lieberman said.

FINA said it recognizes "that some individuals and groups may be uncomfortable with the use of medical and scientific terminology related to sex and sex-linked traits (but) some use of sensitive terminology is needed to be precise about the sex characteristics that justify separate competition categories."

In March, Lia Thomas made history in the United States as the first transgender woman to win an NCAA swimming championship. She won the 500-yard freestyle.

Thomas said last month on ABC’s “Good Morning America” that she was aiming to become an Olympic swimmer. She also disputed those who say she has an unfair biological edge that ruins the integrity of women’s athletics, saying “trans women are not a threat to women’s sports.”

The University of Pennsylvania didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from Thomas.

Other sports have also been examining their rules.

On Thursday, cycling’s governing body updated its eligibility rules for transgender athletes with stricter limits that will force riders to wait longer before they can compete.

The International Cycling Union (UCI) increased the transition period on low testosterone to two years, and lowered the maximum accepted level of testosterone.

The previous transition period was 12 months but the UCI said recent scientific studies show that “the awaited adaptations in muscle mass and muscle strength/power” among athletes who have made a transition from male to female takes at least two years.

Transgender cyclist Emily Bridges says she was 'harassed and ...

CNN —

A transgender cyclist says she has been “harassed and demonised” by the media after the UCI, world cycling’s governing body, ruled she couldn’t compete at the National Omnium Championships in the United Kingdom over the weekend.

Emily Bridges, who was set to race against British Olympic stars such as Laura Kenny in the event, said she found out through British Cycling on Wednesday that the UCI had ruled she was ineligible.

The 21-year-old said in a statement she has been in contact with British Cycling and the UCI for the past six months ahead of what was supposed to be her first race in a women’s event.

“In that time, I have provided both British Cycling and the UCI with medical evidence that I meet the eligibility criteria for transgender female cyclists, including that my testosterone limit has been far below the limit prescribed by the regulations for the last 12 months,” Bridges said in her statement, which was posted by LGBTQIA+ cycling group PRiDE OUT.

As of March 1 2020, UCI regulations state that transgender women must reduce their testosterone levels to below 5 nmol/L for at least 12 months in order to compete in women’s events.

The UCI did not immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment. CNN has reached out to Bridges directly but is yet to hear back.

However, the Guardian reported the UCI prevented Bridges from competing because it said she was still registered as a male cyclist and therefore ineligible to compete as a female until her male UCI identification expired.

“I am an athlete, and I just want to race competitively again,” Bridges’ statement continued. “No one should have to choose between being who they are, and participating in the sport that they love….

“As is no surprise with most of the British media, I’ve been relentlessly harassed and demonised by those who have a specific agenda to push. They attack anything that isn’t the norm and print whatever is most likely to result in the highest engagement for their articles, and bring in advertising.

“This is without care for the wellbeing of individuals or marginalised groups, and others are left to pick up the pieces due to their actions.”

Bridges initially posted the statement on her Instagram account, but has since made the account private.

On Wednesday, British Cycling released a statement calling for a coalition to address transgender and non-binary participation in sport. While British Cycling said they “acknowledge” the UCI’s decision, they also “fully recognise” Bridges’ disappointment with the outcome.

“Transgender and non-binary inclusion is bigger than one race and one athlete – it is a challenge for all elite sports,” the statement read.

“We believe all participants within our sport deserve more clarity and understanding around participation in elite competitions and we will continue to work with the UCI on both Emily’s case and the wider situation with regards to this issue.

“We also understand that in elite sports the concept of fairness is essential. For this reason, British Cycling is today calling for a coalition to share, learn and understand more about how we can achieve fairness in a way that maintains the dignity and respect of all athletes.

“Across sports, far more needs to be done, collectively, before any long-term conclusions can be drawn.”

Among the female athletes to express opposition to Bridges’ inclusion in the event was British 800m runner Ellie Baker, who labeled the original decision as “ridiculous.”

“How this has been allowed to happen is just ridiculous,” she wrote on Twitter. “I would refuse to race and hope that the other women would stand with me on this too. This is totally unfair. The advantages a trans women has had from going through puberty as a boy to a man can never been undone.”

Fellow athletes Seren-Bundy Davies and Jessie Knight were among those to express support for Baker’s post, as well as former British swimmer Sharron Davies.

In the velodrome, 19-year-old Sophie Lewis won the title at the National Omnium Championships.

Two Ohio bills would ban transgender girls from female sports

The national debate over how transgender athletes compete in high school and college sports has arrived in Ohio.

Two bills working their way through the legislature would ban transgender girls from joining female teams in both high school and college. They would, instead, have to join the male teams or co-ed teams. And schools that knowingly violated these rules could find themselves facing civil lawsuits.

The Republican women backing these bills say transgender girls have biological advantages that make them faster, stronger and more likely to win against their cisgender peers.

Opponents, however, see it as discrimination against an incredibly small group of kids who face much higher rates of bullying, depression and suicide.

A level playing field

What motivates the women sponsoring House Bill 61 and Senate Bill 132 is a sense of fairness.

Both Rep. Jena Powell, R-Arcanum, and Sen. Kristina Roegner, R-Hudson, believe transgender girls have unfair advantages when it comes to sports.

"Biological males possess many physiological advantages over females, including greater lung capacity, larger hearts, higher red blood cell counts, stronger tendons and ligaments, greater muscle strength, and increased bone density," Powell said during her testimony on House Bill 61 Wednesday.

And the proof of those advantages is all around us, said Roegner, who was herself a college athlete.

Ohio's statewide record for the boy's 100-meter dash is 10.38 seconds. The world record for the women's 100-meter dash (set by U.S. Olympian Florence Griffith-Joyner) is 10.49 seconds.

"When it comes to those types of sports, it’s just an issue of absolute fairness," Roegner said.

The science of success and transgender athletes

What gives one student-athlete the advantage over another is a matter of both medical and social debate.

Many endocrinologists believe testosterone levels during puberty are responsible for a lot of the competitive advantages Republican lawmakers attribute to transgender girls.

"Before puberty, boys and girls have the same levels of circulating testosterone," endocrinologist Joshua Safer wrote in his expert testimony challenging Idaho's recent transgender athlete law.

Safer, who serves on a committee that drafts transgender medicine guidelines for the Olympics, said that starts to diverge around age 12 – the same time you start to see differences in athletic performance.

So, what happens when transgender women decrease their testosterone levels?

The short answer is their performance goes down. The longer, more complicated answer is that the science isn't settled on how long those medications should be taken before competition and whether that timeline is different for those who transition before puberty.

But what about the biology that remains after hormone therapy like larger hearts and bigger lung capacity?

Safer said they could put transgender girls at a disadvantage.

"Having larger bones without corresponding levels of testosterone and muscle mass would mean that a runner has a bigger body to propel with less power to propel it," he wrote.

'Bill will harm the mental health of some of Ohio's most vulnerable children'

Both the National Collegiate Athletic Association and the International Olympic Committee require hormone therapy and testing for their transgender athletes.

But groups like TransAthlete call hormone therapy requirements "invasive disclosures."

Not all transgender kids have the money, desire or support from family members that doctors require for hormone suppressing drugs, Transform Cincy co-founder Tristan Vaught said. And transgender students – especially trans kids of color – have all kinds of other disadvantages these bills don't take into account.

"You're never going to find a level playing field," Vaught said. "You’re going to have genetic advantages; you’re going to have work ethic advantages; you're going to have economic advantages."

Some kids pay for private coaches and exclusive summer camps. Others students depend on their school for breakfast. And Olympic athletes like Michael Phelps can simply be born with biological differences that contribute to their record-setting stats.

Phelps' wingspan is longer than it should be for a man his height, his ankles are double-jointed and his body produces 50% less lactic acid (the hormone that makes your muscles feel tired) than the average human.

"There is so much more wound up in this particular bill than just physiological advantage," Rep. Mary Lightbody, D-Westerville, said. "This bill will harm the mental health of some of Ohio's most vulnerable children."

The bill's sponsors insist that's not their intention.

"I want to be absolutely clear on this. This bill is not meant to hurt anybody," Roegner said. "It is simply meant to protect young women when they play sports."

Young women, Powell said, could be harmed by losing titles, championships and scholarships to people they believe got an unfair leg up.

"That opportunity is being ripped away from them by biological males," she said.

Transgender athletes in Ohio are a tiny percentage

The current rules for high school sports are set by the Ohio High School Athletic Association.

Member schools (both public and private) vote on changes to the bylaws annually – including whether to allow transgender athletes to play on teams that match their gender identity.

In 2014, OHSAA members voted to permit transgender girls to compete following a year of hormone therapy or test results that show "sound medical evidence that she does not possess physical (bone structure, muscle mass, testosterone, hormonal, etc.) or physiological advantages over genetic females of the same age group."

Three years later, the question came up again. The schools voted 435 to 177 in favor of the policy with seven schools abstaining.

About 400,000 kids play on middle and high school sports teams in Ohio each year and less than 0.003% are transgender girls. The association has approved a total of 35 transgender male athletes and 11 transgender female athletes over the six years its policy has been in place.

No transgender athlete holds a state record.

"We're not talking about elite athletes here," Lightbody said. "These are children who want to play on a team with their friends."

The federal perspective under Joe Biden

President Joe Biden issued an executive order in January directing the government to take a Supreme Court ruling extending workplace protections against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity and apply them to education.

"Children should be able to learn without worrying about whether they will be denied access to the restroom, the locker room, or school sports," according to the order.

The Conservative Political Action Conference highlighted the issue in February, and dozens of state legislatures introduced bills to set limits on the participation of transgender athletes in school sports.

But the issue has been percolating for years.

Parents in Connecticut started online petitions and eventually filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of their daughters, claiming the state's policy on transgender athletes violated Title IX.

The case is still being litigated, but the controversy centered around two transgender female sprinters who won a combined 15 championships starting in 2017.

Connecticut is one of 17 states that allow transgender athletes to compete without hormone therapy or other medical testings. The plaintiffs said that gave those sprinters a clear advantage.

The transgender sprinters, who are represented by the ACLU, disagree.

For one thing, a cisgender girl named in the lawsuit defeated the transgender sprinters in a state championship race just two days after the suit was filed. And neither of the transgender young women in question received athletic scholarships.

No openly transgender athlete has competed in the Olympics, and only one transgender female holds a collegiate title. But lawmakers in 30 states have introduced bills to limit how transgender athletes can compete. Mississippi, Arkansas and Tennesse's proposals have become law.

Supporters of the Ohio bills say it's not about the number of transgender athletes and where they rank across the country, it's about whether letting them play on female teams is fair.

"Every child will still have the ability to compete in our state. We want every child to compete," Powell said. "We're just protecting the integrity of women's sports."

Lia Thomas: How an Ivy League swimmer became the face of the ...

Boston CNN —

Lia Thomas stood tall and smiled wide atop the championship podium, her nearly 6-foot-4 frame pushing her head past the top of the Ivy League’s green photo backdrop.

With one hand she held a placard reading “Ivy 2022 Champion,” and with the other she stuck up two fingers in that classic sign of victory. Her hair nestled alongside the medal around her neck as a blue University of Pennsylvania jacket hung from her broad swimmer’s shoulders.

Inside Harvard University’s Blodgett Pool, not far from a large banner reading “8 Against Hate,” referring to the Ivy’s eight schools, her victories in the 500-yard freestyle on Thursday, the 200-yard freestyle on Friday and the 100-yard freestyle on Saturday showed a star athlete going about her business. The crowd of family and friends cheered politely, and Thomas posed for photos with Penn teammates and shook the hands of her closest competitors.

Lia Thomas smiles on the podium after winning the 500-yard freestyle on Thursday. Kathryn Riley/Getty Images

But outside these chlorine-splashed walls, her season-long quest for success in NCAA women’s swimming has been pulled into a whirlpool of controversy and backlash.

With each victory, Thomas, a transgender woman who previously swam for Penn’s men’s team, has brought renewed attention to the ongoing debate on trans women’s participation in sports and the balance between inclusion and fair play.

Her face has been prominently featured on Fox News and right-wing news sites critical of society’s changing views on sex and gender. In the past couple of years, Republican-led states across the country have passed laws to keep trans women and girls from participating in girls’ and women’s sports in the name of “fairness,” and Thomas quickly became the personification of those fears. Last week, a Republican Senate candidate in Missouri featured Thomas in a campaign ad and asserted that “Women’s sports are for women, not men pretending to be women,” a transphobic trope belittling trans women.

Thomas swims in a qualifying heat of the 100-yard freestyle at the Ivy League Women's Swimming and Diving Championships on Saturday. Mary Schwalm/AP

Yet Thomas’ success has vexed even those who say they support her transition, including some of her fellow swimmers. An anonymous letter purportedly written on behalf of 16 of her 40 Penn teammates earlier this month criticized what they saw as her “unfair advantage,” saying they supported her gender transition out of the pool but not necessarily in it.

Swimming star Michael Phelps, too, expressed his hesitations on the topic in an interview with CNN in January.

“I believe that we all should feel comfortable with who we are in our own skin, but I think sports should all be played on an even playing field,” he said when asked about Thomas. “I don’t know what that looks like in the future. But it’s – it’s – it’s – it’s hard. It’s a really … honestly … I don’t know what to say,” he said, stumbling over his words. “It’s very complicated.”

Phelps is one of many athletes and regulatory bodies struggling to figure out how to include and accommodate transgender athletes in an elite field where tenths of seconds can mean the difference between winning and losing. Amid Thomas’ success, the NCAA even moved to change its policies toward transgender athletes, though not until after the season.

Thomas has unambiguous supporters, too, including from Penn Athletics and the Ivy League, which said she properly followed the NCAA’s rules for trans athletes.

“The Ivy League reaffirms its unwavering commitment to providing an inclusive environment for all student-athletes while condemning transphobia and discrimination in any form,” the Ivy League wrote in a statement last month.

In addition, over 300 current and former swimmers, collegiate and elite, signed their names to an open letter defending her ability to compete. One of her most vocal supporters said there was no room for compromise.

“There isn’t a middle ground,” said Schuyler Bailar, who is a trans man. “You don’t get to slice me in half and be like, ‘Yes, you are a man here but not here,’ or, ‘Yes, Lia is a woman but not here.’ We don’t exist in parts. Our transness is not something we can just take off and put over here. We are whole people.”

Thomas has not spoken publicly since an interview with the SwimSwam podcast in December. In that interview, she nodded in the direction of the controversy but did not engage.

“We expected there would be some measure of pushback by some people. Quite to the extent that it has blown up, we weren’t fully expecting,” she said. “I just don’t engage with it. It’s not healthy for me to read it and engage with it at all, and so I don’t.”

Through an Ivy spokesperson, she and Penn coach Mike Schnur declined to be interviewed for this story, as did several of her closest competitors on other teams.

A swimmer since age 5

Thomas first launched into the public eye with a stunning performance at the Zippy Invitational in Ohio in December.

There, she dominated the women’s field in the 200-yard freestyle, 500-yard freestyle, and 1,650-yard freestyle races, beating the second place finisher by about 7 seconds, 15 seconds and 38 seconds, respectively. Her times in the 200 and the 500 in particular set pool and meet records, qualified her for the NCAA championships, and remain the best women’s time in the nation this season.

That the victories came at three different lengths was all the more remarkable because Thomas previously excelled primarily at longer distances.

The Austin, Texas, native began swimming at 5 years old and was a star athlete long before her gender transition. Thomas arrived to Penn in 2017 and quickly made a mark on the men’s team as a freestyle distance swimmer in the 500-yard, 1,000-yard and 1,650-yard races.

As a freshman, Thomas set a time of 8 minutes and 57.55 seconds in the 1,000-yard freestyle, the 6th-fastest men’s time in the country. Her times in the 500-yard freestyle and the 1,650-yard freestyle were among the top 100 in the country. The next year, Thomas took second place at the 2019 Ivy League championships in the men’s 500-yard, 1,000-yard and 1,650-yard freestyle, shaving seconds off her earlier times.

Yet the improvements in the pool belied internal turmoil. Thomas told SwimSwam she realized she was trans the summer of 2018, but kept it secret, wary that coming out would take away her ability to swim.

“I was struggling, my mental health was not very good. It was a lot of unease, about basically just feeling trapped in my body. It didn’t align,” she said.

Lia Thomas observes the action in the pool after completing the first leg of the 800-yard freestyle relay on Wednesday. Erica Denhoff/Icon Sportswire/Getty Images

She started on hormone replacement therapy in May 2019 and came out as trans that fall, yet she still had to compete on the men’s team. It was awkward and uncomfortable, she said, and her speed suffered as her muscles weakened from the hormone therapy.

At the time, the NCAA required that transgender athletes have one year of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) to be cleared to participate. So after a year of HRT, Thomas submitted medical documentation and was approved to compete for the women’s team for the 2020-21 season, she said.

She took the year off of school and competitive swimming due to the pandemic and returned for this season on the women’s team, after about 2 and a half years of HRT.

Despite her success this year, her raw times are significantly slower than they were before her transition. Still, she said she was in a better head space after coming out.

“I’m feeling confident and good in my swimming and in my personal relationships, and transitioning has allowed me to be more confident in all of those aspects in my life where I was struggling a lot before I came out,” she told SwimSwam.

A history of scrutiny in women’s sports

Former Olympian weighs in on NCAA decision for trans swimmers 07:28 - Source: CNN

Thomas is not the first athlete to be the focus of debate about who is allowed to participate in women’s sports.

Since at least the 1930s, the bodies of elite women athletes have been publicly scrutinized, leading athletic bodies like the International Olympic Committee to implement various forms of sex testing to determine if women were eligible to compete. In the 1990s, both the International Association of Athletics Federations and the IOC ended mandatory sex testing but continued to conduct medical evaluations on a case-by-case basis.

Some of these examples have become particularly high-profile. In the 70s there was Renée Richards, the trans ophthalmologist and tennis player who successfully sued to compete in the women’s category at the US Open. Competing in her 40s, she rose to become the 20th-best woman tennis player in 1979.

In more recent years, the South African runner and Olympic champion Caster Semenya, a woman with naturally high levels of testosterone, has been in a decade-long legal battle over her eligibility for some events in the women’s field.

Nancy Hogshead-Makar sees eligibility rules as vital to the continued success of women’s sports. The three-time gold medalist swimmer, civil rights lawyer and CEO of the non-profit advocacy group Champion Women has become a spokesperson of sorts for frustrated Penn swimmers and their parents.

Last month she wrote the letter, purportedly on behalf of 16 unnamed Penn swimmers, who said Thomas had an unfair advantage. The identities of the teammates were not revealed, and CNN has not been able to independently verify the number of teammates.

The letter also indicated they believe sex should be considered separately from gender identity during competition.

“We fully support Lia Thomas in her decision to affirm her gender identity and to transition from a man to a woman. Lia has every right to live her life authentically,” the letter says. “However, we also recognize that when it comes to sports competition, that the biology of sex is a separate issue from someone’s gender identity.”

In a phone call with CNN, Hogshead-Makar said it’s important to consider why we have women’s sports in the first place.

“The gap between men’s and women’s athletic performance was so big that if you didn’t give women a special team – their own team – that they would not have opportunities in sports,” she said.

“I want trans people to be loved and accepted and be productive in society and be their true selves,” she added. “I’m talking a small slice of competitive sports.”

‘We express our support for Lia Thomas’

Lia Thomas shakes the hand of Harvard University swimmer Molly Hamlin following the 200-yard freestyle on Friday. Kathryn Riley/Getty Images

The anonymous teammate letter did not go unanswered. Days later, over 300 current and former NCAA swimmers put their names on a supportive letter in response.

“With this letter, we express our support for Lia Thomas, and all transgender college athletes, who deserve to be able to participate in safe and welcoming athletic environments,” the letter said.

The letter was organized by the organization Athlete Ally and Schuyler Bailar, a former Harvard swimmer who became the first transgender man to compete on a NCAA Division I men’s team in 2015.

Bailar told CNN he organized the message of support because he felt the anonymous open letter was irresponsible and bullying.

“I read that and I cried,” he told CNN on Friday morning at a coffee shop in Somerville, Massachusetts.

When Thomas first decided to come out, she reached out to Bailar on Instagram for guidance about how to move forward with her swimming career, Bailar said. They have remained in contact, though he declined to go into detail on their conversations.

A trans rights activist, Bailar said the outrage against Thomas’ inclusion on the team was not really about questions of sporting fairness.

“It’s not about fairness. It’s about policing women’s bodies,” he said. “It’s about transphobia.”

He pointed out that trans people are actually underrepresented in sports. For all the fear of trans people excelling in women’s sports, there have been only a few Olympians who publicly identify as trans among the tens of thousands of athletes who compete every two years.

How the NCAA deals with transgender athletes

Because there are so few elite trans athletes, there is very little hard data comparing performance between transgender athletes and cisgender athletes.

Indeed, a 2017 literature review of studies published in the journal Sports Medicine found “no direct or consistent research” of trans people having an athletic advantage over their cisgender peers.

“In relation to sport-related physical activity, this review found the lack of inclusive and comfortable environments to be the primary barrier to participation for transgender people,” the authors wrote.

For over a decade, the NCAA has required transgender women to be on testosterone suppression treatment for a year before they are allowed to compete on the women’s team.

Yet in January, a month after Thomas’ record-setting pace at the Invitational, the NCAA said it would take a sport-by-sport approach to its rules on transgender athletes’ participation and defer to each sport’s national governing body.

USA Swimming then released a set of stricter guidelines that require elite trans woman athletes to have three years of hormone replacement therapy and to prove to a panel of medical experts that they do not have a competitive advantage over cisgender women.

The new rule threatened to make Thomas ineligible to compete at NCAA championships in March. However, the NCAA said those rules will be instituted in a phased approach over the coming seasons rather than in the middle of this season.

Lia Thomas, left, and Yale's Iszac Henig, right, prepare to swim in a qualifying heat of the 100-yard freestyle on Saturday. Mary Schwalm/AP

Despite the out of pool controversy, Thomas showed no outward signs of stress or frustration at the Ivy League’s women’s swimming championships this week. With a calm and cool demeanor, she did precisely what was expected of her. She cheered on and high-fived teammates, chatted with coaches and fellow swimmers and sped past the competition on her way to three individual titles.

She is not even the lone trans athlete to win a race in the same pool at Harvard. Yale’s Iszac Henig, a transgender man, won the 50-yard freestyle in a pool-record 21.93 seconds on Thursday and came in a close second to Thomas in the 100-yard freestyle. The NCAA allows trans men to compete on the women’s team so long as they have not had hormone therapy.

On the far side of the pool, Thomas closely watched the end of the 50-yard freestyle race and clapped in excitement upon Henig’s win, a rare display of enthusiasm from Thomas at the meet. A day later, Henig and Thomas struck up a conversation at the far end of the pool, chatting and laughing as they leaned against the pool ropes.

They spoke for a few minutes until Thomas took off to get back to her work. She had more laps to swim.

These transgender cyclists have Olympian disagreement on how to ...

Jillian Bearden and Rachel McKinnon have much in common as cyclists, Olympic hopefuls and transgender women — and much in conflict as opposite poles of an intractable argument over how to balance what’s fair with what’s right.

Bearden agrees with the International Olympic Committee that naturally occurring testosterone gives transgender women an unfair advantage in competition against cisgender women, meaning women who were born female, while McKinnon believes subjecting trans women to testosterone blocking violates their human rights.

Bearden sees trans women who compete with unlimited levels of natural testosterone as dopers and cheaters while McKinnon says looking at the issue that way only furthers the oppression of transgender people.

And never the twain shall meet.

USA TODAY Sports spoke with the antagonists, both of whom say they are fighting for fairness. Bearden sees it as fairness for all competitors while McKinnon frames it as fairness for transgender athletes. All of this comes in the wake of updated IOC guidelines in 2015 that require women who transition from men to block certain amounts of natural testosterone.

The issue is important now because governing bodies such as USA Cycling, USA Track and Field, USA Fencing and US Lacrosse are crafting, or have recently crafted, policies that more or less mirror these IOC guidelines. And it all comes at a time that Ashland Johnson, director of education and research for the Human Rights Campaign, calls the dawn of a trans movement in sports.

The dispute between Bearden and McKinnon is personal as well as intellectual. They’ve never competed against one another — Bearden is at the highest pro level — but Bearden says she asked McKinnon to leave her cycling team last spring because of their visceral disagreements. McKinnon then formed her own team and members of each cycling club mostly share the orthodoxies of their respective leaders.

“I’ve proven how powerful testosterone is from when I competed” as a male, Bearden says. “That doesn’t mean specifically that the more testosterone you have the stronger you are, but the hormone provides a certain stamina that continues to charge you. It gives you that edge of pushing power.”

McKinnon says whether other competitors believe transgender women have an unfair advantage is irrelevant because she says there is no way to measure if such advantages even exist.

“This is bigger than sports and it’s about human rights,” McKinnon says. “By catering to cisgender people’s views, that furthers transgender people’s oppression. When it comes to extending rights to a minority population, why would we ask the majority? I bet a lot of white people were pissed off when we desegregated sports racially and allowed black people. But they had to deal with it.”

The IOC has long struggled with issues of gender. It instituted gender testing decades ago when men, in rare cases, were suspected of competing as women. At first the testing was of the crude, pull-down-your-pants variety. Later that morphed into chromosomal testing with a cheek swab. And in 1999, the IOC ended compulsory gender testing.

But guidelines adopted in 2004 effectively said trans women had to undergo sex reassignment surgery. New guidelines in 2015 threw out the surgery requirement but said trans women needed to test below a specified level of testosterone for more than one year before they could compete, down from two years.

Bearden thinks the new guidelines make sense. McKinnon thinks they are manifestly discriminatory.

All this comes at a time when President Trump wants to ban transgender troops from serving in the military, a move condemned by generals and many in Congress. The Department of Defense is tasked to develop an implementation plan by March. That will come just weeks after the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics.

No transgender athlete has competed publicly in the Olympics, but advocates believe that will change in coming years. Caitlyn Jenner — who won the decathlon gold medal as Bruce Jenner at the 1976 Montreal Summer Games — told USA TODAY Sports last summer that she believes a transgender Olympian will “undoubtedly” step into the worldwide spotlight by the 2020 Tokyo Summer Games.

Bearden and McKinnon plan to try to qualify for those Games. Bearden is a pro-level cyclist and founder of the Trans National Women’s Cycling Team; she has a reasonable chance to make the U.S. Olympic cycling team for 2020. McKinnon, an assistant professor of philosophy at the College of Charleston, is a category-1 elite-level road cyclist and founder of Foxy Moxy Racing. She is a less likely Olympic qualifier who hopes to make the Canadian Olympic cycling team for her native country.

Tia Thompson hopes to make the U.S. Olympic volleyball team in 2020. She is a transgender woman who waited three years to get approval from USA Volleyball to compete as a woman earlier this year.

The Human Rights Campaign’s Johnson, who recently conducted awareness training for U.S. Olympic Committee coaches and administrators, says governing bodies are “moving away from old stereotypes and moving toward gender decisions based on science, inclusion and fairness.”

There’s the rub: How to reconcile science (blocking testosterone) with human rights (competing as you are).

Bearden transitioned in 2015 and she has been a scientific test subject for the IOC by providing before-and-after performance data that she says proves the power of testosterone. She understands that pressing for human rights always sounds like the right thing to do, but she believes in this instance it would actually hinder a transgender sports movement that’s only just begun.

“Two years ago, no transgender woman (cyclist) was out (publicly) racing,” Bearden says. “No one would dare come out of the shadows. Now, because we’ve laid the appropriate groundwork, we have our foot in the door (with the IOC) to where we can compete as our true selves.

“Quite frankly, it makes me feel good racing with 50 other women who know that I’ve passed a USA Cycling policy because I’ve submitted my (testosterone) levels. It stops the questioning, the bullying. I can stand on the podium and feel comfortable. Without a policy, for a lot of women who don’t know me, they’d be, like, what the (expletive)? And I get that.”

Under IOC and USOC guidelines, Olympic-caliber transgender women are required to keep their testosterone below a certain level — 10 nanomoles per liter — before competing, and must present a doctor’s note showing testosterone levels are below that required threshold. Natural testosterone in transgender women is tested with the same methodology as unnatural testosterone created by doping is measured in cisgender men and women.

McKinnon, who teaches a class on ethics and inclusion at Charleston, cites the Olympic charter in saying that sport is a human right.

“We cannot have a woman legally recognized as a trans woman in society,” McKinnon says, “and not be recognized that way in sports. … Focusing on performance advantage is largely irrelevant because this is a rights issue. We shouldn’t be worried about trans people taking over the Olympics. We should be worried about their fairness and human rights instead.”

Bearden makes a distinction between discriminatory bathroom bills and what she sees as rule-makers doing their best to promote equality and inclusion.

“Having your rights violated is very different than a sport you sign yourself up for,” she says. “You have to comply with certain rules. I don’t feel that’s discriminatory. I don’t think (guidelines) infringe on anyone’s rights. I feel like (testosterone blocking) is necessary to achieve fairness. There are so many rules in sports, and complying with these rules allows us to ride with cisgender women because it’s fairest to them.”

Bearden lives in Colorado Springs, home of the USOC. She believes compromise can lead to good solutions. McKinnon, originally from Victoria, British Columbia, believes she has an uncompromising call to justice.

Both women want transgender people to thrive — in athletics and in society — and both have received death threats for their trouble. Last August, when Bearden became the first trans woman to race with a pro peloton in the U.S., the Daily Wire (a self-styled commentary site for conservatives) ran a story under the headline: “Man Who Thinks He’s a Woman Crushing Women’s Cycling.”

McKinnon says testosterone testing is insensitive to transgender athletes who are uncomfortable outing themselves. She points out some athletes are at an in-between place in terms of their gender. Scottie Pendleton, who rides for McKinnon’s Foxy Moxy team, identifies as gender nonconforming and goes by the pronouns of they and them.

“I race in the men’s field, but I identify as more of a woman than a man,” Pendleton says. “There are a lot of misconceptions out there about gender and it’s unknown how diverse the transgender community is. We’ve culturally defined gender as these two very specific things and that you have to be one or the other. Transgender breaks that barrier.”

Pendleton says there is limited research to show that natural testosterone “can enhance sports performance metrics. It comes down to: What does fairness in sports actually mean? I think any time you exclude anybody because they are different — regardless of how or why they are different — you’re discriminating.”

Johnson, of the Human Rights Campaign, says: “All athletes, regardless of gender, should be subject to the same testing standards, and a policy shouldn’t single out a trans competitor. But at the same time, I don’t necessarily see (the IOC’s guidelines) as an anti-trans policy because there have been unfair advantages linked to testosterone.”

Chris Mosier became the first transgender man to compete in the Duathlon World Championships in 2016 and is now sponsored by Nike. His success was key in prompting the IOC to come up with its adjusted guidelines two years ago.

“I was not perceived to be a threat to anybody,” Mosier says. “No one expected me to be competitive. But there is an assumption that trans women will dominate in sports.”

The adjusted guidelines said that athletes who transition from female to male, such as Mosier, are eligible to compete without restriction. Those guidelines also said that athletes who transition from male to female can compete with one year of hormone therapy to block testosterone and keep it at the specified threshold.

McKinnon says the IOC’s testosterone cutoff of 10 nanomales per liter is “arbitrary” and there’s no right way to measure it. She says some cisgender women have testosterone levels over the threshold and some cisgender men have levels below it.

“So you can be a really tall cyclist and that’s fine?” McKinnon says. “There are so many natural advantages someone could have physically that there is not a good argument for why singling out testosterone solves the problem.”

The Court of Arbitration for Sport is considering a case on the fairness of testosterone levels for intersex athletes — individuals who are female but develop some male characteristics, including high levels of testosterone. In 2014, the court suspended a testosterone rule of the IAAF, world governing body for track and field, citing a lack of scientific evidence “about the degree of the advantage” that women with high levels of testosterone have over their counterparts with normal levels.

“There were no regulations in place at the 2016 Olympic Rio Games and the same situation will apply to the upcoming 2018 Pyeongchang Olympic Winter Games,” IOC spokesperson Emmanuelle Moreau told USA TODAY Sports by email. The court case “is still ongoing and we have no timeline as to when it will be completed.”

Author Roger Pielke, in his book The Edge: The War against Cheating and Corruption in the Cutthroat World of Elite Sports Performance, wrote: “The role of naturally occurring testosterone in athletic performance is scientifically interesting, but it is inherently no more relevant to athletics policy than any other naturally occurring characteristic of the human athlete, man or woman.”

Joanna Harper, chief medical physicist of radiation oncology at Providence Portland (Ore.) Medical Center, has been an adviser to the IOC. She spoke before the Court of Arbitration in the intersex case and later put together a study in the Journal of Sporting Cultures and Identities in which she collected data from herself and seven other transgender runners who had transitioned and undergone hormone therapy. It found all of them were significantly slower in performance as females.

Bearden also saw her times and performances decline drastically as a result of her hormone replacement therapy in 2015. A decade’s worth of elite-level bike racing as a man faded once she transitioned to female and began the therapy.

“People toss the word ‘fair’ around all the time,” Harper says. “The fact of the matter is every athlete has advantages and disadvantages. But sporting bodies need to craft divisions that are equitable and meaningful. We let left-handed baseball players pitch when they might have some form of an advantage. On the other hand, we do not allow 200-pound boxers to fight 130-pound boxers.

“We allow advantages, but we do not and should not allow overwhelming advantages. There’s a way to do that without stepping on anyone’s human rights.”


The many wives of Rupert Murdoch | The Week UK

Billionaire media mogul Rupert Murdoch is to marry again at the age of 92 after announcing his engagement to wealthy radio host Ann Lesley Smith.

Seven months after meeting Smith at his Bel Air vineyard, Murdoch, the “unlikely romantic”, proposed to the widow of country music singer Chester Smith, said the Evening Standard.

Ann Lesley Smith, 66, is used to the limelight having worked in a number of high-profile jobs, including as a Christian minister for the Manteca Police Department in California and as host of Ann Lesley Live on the state’s radio station KFIV.

News of the nuptials comes just eight months after Murdoch’s divorce from Jerry Hall, to whom he was married for six years. The News Corp and Fox Corporation owner revealed his wedding plans in an interview with one of his own papers, the New York Post. He said: “We’re both looking forward to spending the second half of our lives together.”

It might have been a “rather optimistic statement” that “anticipates a longevity which would be more extraordinary than anything else in his already extraordinary life story”, said columnist Alison Boshoff in the Daily Mail. But the new romance has “clearly left him feeling younger than springtime”, she added.

The Week takes a look at the previous four marriages of the businessman who, in the words of the Evening Standard, “falls in and out of love at a rate rivalled only by King Henry VIII”.

Patricia Booker (1956-1967)

Murdoch met his first wife, Patricia Booker, when he was 25. Not much is known of Booker, who was a “beautiful blonde” from Melbourne, according to Vanity Fair, and worked as a flight attendant and department-store model.

In their 11 years of marriage they had one daughter, Prudence, who until last year was a board member of Times Newspapers, a subsidary of News Corp.

Anna Torv (1967-1998)

The Glasgow-born former reporter met Murdoch while working at his Sydney-based newspaper, the Daily Mirror.

She had requested an interview with the media mogul. “He was like a whirlwind coming into the room. It was very seductive,” she recalled during a 2001 interview for Australian Woman’s Weekly. Murdoch has “also spoken of his instant attraction to her”, said the Evening Standard, suggesting that – according to the paper – “her skill as a reporter was not on his mind”.